Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 16: Eyes in the Canopy

As Darion rode into the forest, slight fear crept into him.

He hadn’t thought to look back until two minutes in, and by then Garren was already gone, swallowed by distance and tree cover.

He remembered the advice:

’Always know what’s ahead of you. Or behind you.’

Vague as it was, it was actually helpful.

Don’t trust what you can see at first glance. Don’t assume the threat is where you’re looking. The Bogoarts didn’t charge openly, they hid, they waited and they let their prey walk past them before moving. Getting caught off guard out here wasn’t just a mistake. It was a certainly death.

He rode slowly and wearily, his eyes moving constantly: left, right, ahead, then behind, then left again.

The forest was dense and the light was already thin, filtered through packed canopy into something grey and directionless. Sounds were different in here. Muffled in some directions, sharp in others. Every snapped twig underfoot seemed louder than it should have been.

He thought about summoning his undead now, in these early stretches near the tree line, but decided against it. The Bogoarts likely didn’t range this close to Percvale and if they did, the knights would have encountered them without needing to venture deep. This part of the forest was probably safe enough for the moment.

Besides, he had a more pressing problem to work through first.

He didn’t actually have a plan. Not a complete one. He had the undead, and he had the theory that Bogoarts couldn’t detect them. But beyond that, how would he position them? What formation made sense in a forest? Which routes should they take and which should they avoid? He had spoken boldly back at the barracks and meant every word of it, but boldness and tactics were two different things, and right now he only had one of them.

So he used the ride to think.

The undead couldn’t be smelled. That was the core advantage. If he sent them ahead of him, they became scouts, eyes in places he couldn’t see, moving through terrain that would betray a living man’s presence immediately. He could position them in the trees for elevated sightlines. He could send one forward along the path before he committed to it. Use them as a buffer between himself and whatever was out there.

The forest continued to press in around him as he worked through it, dark and quiet and indifferent.

Then, after long minutes of careful riding: always looking sideways and always trying to account for what might be ahead or creeping up behind, Darion slowed the horse and stopped.

He could feel he would soon encounter something so it was time to stop guessing and start being tactical.

He dismounted quietly, looping the reins loosely around a low branch. Then he reached into his undead inventory and summoned two knights.

They appeared in front of him without sound, green light fading as they solidified into bone and stillness, waiting.

Darion kept his voice low.

"You," he said to the first, pointing to a tall tree roughly thirty feet ahead and to the right. "Move to that tree. Tiptoe slow and quiet. Climb it. When you’re at the top, watch for any sign of creatures. If you see something, wave at me. Don’t stop waving until I’ve seen you."

The undead nodded once and began moving just as it was instructed each footfall placed with surprising care. Darion watched it go, then turned to the second.

"Same thing," he said quietly, pointing to a tree behind him and slightly to the left. "Cover my back. Climb, watch and wave if anything moves. Don’t stop until I acknowledge you."

The second moved off without hesitation.

Darion summoned the remaining three.

To the third he pointed further ahead along the path, a tall oak with thick branches and good elevation. Same instructions: "Move to that tree. Tiptoe slow and quiet. Climb it. When you’re at the top, watch for any sign of creatures. If you see something, wave at me. Don’t stop waving until I’ve seen you."

"You’re my eyes forward."

To the fourth, he gestured to a tree on his far left, deeper into the forest, angled to cover the blind spot between his front scout and his rear. "There. Watch the approach from that side."

The fifth he kept at ground level beside him.

"You stay with me," he told it. "You move when I move. You go where I point. You are going ahead of me on foot before I commit to any path, if something is waiting there, I want it to find you first."

He mounted the horse again, settled the spear across his lap, and checked that the sword was secure at his hip. Then he clicked the horse forward and slowly, his eyes moving constantly between the trees where his undead were climbing and the path ahead.

He tracked each of them as best he could, brief glances and regular intervals, making sure he didn’t miss a signal. The tree ahead. The one behind. Left flank. Right flank. Ground-level scout moving quietly in front.

Minutes passed. The forest was still.

Then the skeleton on his left, the fourth, positioned deep and wide, began waving. Fast and urgent, arm moving sharply and repeatedly , not stopping.

Darion caught it on his third check of that position and immediately pulled the horse to a halt.

Left side. Something on the left.

Without his undead up in those trees, he would never have known. He would have kept riding forward, eyes ahead, and whatever was hiding to his left would have had all the time it needed. Garren’s advice came back to him in that moment with considerably more weight than it had carried when it was spoken.

’Always know what’s behind you. Or ahead of you.’

’Or beside you.’

He leaned down slightly toward the fifth undead at his side and kept his voice barely above a breath.

"That direction," he said, nodding toward the left. "Move in. Take the sword."

He drew the blade and held it down for the skeleton to take, which it did without pause.

"Go," Darion whispered. "Fast." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The undead turned and ran, its bone feet striking the ground, crashing through undergrowth with total indifference.

Darion watched, spear raised, every muscle in his body still.

For a moment there was nothing but the sound of the skeleton moving through brush.

Then something erupted from behind a tree.

It was enormous, that was the first thing that registered. Larger than he had imagined even accounting for the descriptions. It came out fast, body low and momentum total, and it hit the undead knight like a wall meeting a candle. The skeleton flew apart on impact, bones scattering in every direction, the sword spinning away into the undergrowth.

Darion stared at the creature now standing where his undead had been half a second ago.

The Bogoart.