Deadtired

"Oh course, always," Alex said with a curtsy.

"Fantastic! Now, let's go see what's up with Opalhorn."

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Chapter Forty-One — Open Opalhorn

Chapter Forty-One — Open Opalhorn

The gates of Opalhorn were defended by an older gentleman with a tight metal cap on his head and a long halberd by his side, the blunt end firmly planted in the ground so that he could use the weapon as a leaning post.

I suspected that he was very nearly asleep. It was mid-day, and the sun was quite warm overhead. A few farmers we had passed closer to the city were taking the opportunity to grab a quick nap in the shade of some trees or on hammocks strung across their porches.

This old guard did start, however, when Alex and I came closer. He stood taller, then adjusted his cap over wispy grey hair. "Ah, hello there," he said as he took us in.

I was disguised, of course. Just a simple older gentleman accompanied by a young maid. Nothing interesting to see. "Hello, sir," Alex replied. "We're travellers to Opalhorn, my master and I. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for us?"

"Oh? Of course, of course," he said before scratching at his chin. "What can I help ya with?"

"We're wondering where the best accommodations in the city might be," Alex said. "And perhaps some additional information, if you don't mind."

"The best place to stay, huh? That ought to depend on how much you're willing to spend. There's a nice inn along the main road, cheap, but the food's filling and they have bunk rooms to spare."

"We are perhaps looking for a more... discerning place," Alex said.

"Ah, in that case, there's a nice place by the centre of the city, just up against the sect's compound. It's called the Seven Levels. It's a large pagoda. You really can't miss it."

"Thank you," Alex said with a small bow. "And who should we ask about the city's history?"

"The city's history?" He shifted. "Well, I don't rightly know about that. Maybe the city council building. They've been running the place since before the sect, even."

"And where might we find that?" Alex asked.

"Far northern end of the city, in one of the arms of the wall. Just look for the graveyard. The council is beneath that."

"The council is under the graveyard?" Alex asked.

"It's not much of a graveyard, that's just what we call it," he said with a shrug. "Just the way it is."

Well well, if that wasn't a hint that something bizarre was going on, then nothing was. I gave the guard a genial smile, and Alex gave him a proper goodbye. We weren't asked to present any papers or anything before being let into the city.

"So, shall we secure our rooms for the night first, or explore this mysterious city council who somehow inhabit the graveyard of all things?" I asked.

Alex hummed with a tap to the chin. "I think the city council would be better. There might be some secrets to uncover that would change how we approach staying in Opalhorn."

"Secrets to uncover... in a graveyard. You could say that the secrets are... buried! Oh hoh!" Alex smiled and nodded along.

It took asking for directions once before we made our way across the city. The locals were all rather kind, and Opalhorn seemed... if not rich, then well-maintained. The roads were clean of any detritus, and the cobbles were well-laid and cared for. A few homes were in need of some minor renovations, but they seemed like the exception rather than the rule.

Even the poorest, smallest home seemed well-made. Either the city prized cheap but quality labour, or something else was at play here. No one seemed especially rich either. The common folk wore cottons and tough woollen clothes, but I noticed no silks or fanciful embroidery.

We slid by a market, and it seemed to be in full swing. A few small stalls sold fruit, but most of the food seemed like an even split between vegetables and fish. Again, nothing luxurious, just simple staple foods. The kinds of things that would keep a population going indefinitely without any major issues.

I noticed a lack of alcohol as well, something that jumped out to me only because I was looking for luxury goods and finding none.

Were the people of Opalhorn puritans, or was something else at play?

Forbidding mind-altering substances was typical in any military encampment I ran, and the more I looked, the more Opanhorn looked like an upjumped fortress turned city. There were proper homes where tents full of undead ought to be, and the centre of the city had clearly morphed into something new over time, but otherwise the bones-heh-were all there.

Eventually, we reached the far northern end of the city, and as the guard had indicated, there was a graveyard tucked into the arms of the walls. This was an area where the protruding walls met at a sharp angle, making for a spot that was likely difficult to split into building lots.

The space should have been, in a proper undead field fortress, a space dedicated to the rising of new undead, a place to cord bodies for temporary storage before a necromancer could see to them, and usually where a laboratory would be placed.

Mostly, the idea for this placement had to do with prevailing winds and the way that this section of walls jutted out. It would mean that the worst of the stench would be carried out and away from the centre of the camp where, on occasion, my armies had been host to living allies who usually had a distinct dislike for the smell of the recently deceased.

The graveyard was... a graveyard. A large open space with several large stone mausoleums. These had the names of families carved above their narrow doorways, each one separated from the next by a small space where wildflowers bloomed.

There were some two hundred mausoleums here, including a few larger ones by the rear. Enough for every family in the city to have one, I imagined. The space was filled.

The city council building, then, couldn't exist in a space that was so thoroughly occupied. Unless it was below, that was.

"Ah," I said as I discovered the entrance.

There was a large circular staircase made of well-tailored stones leading to a stately archway buried into the ground. A sturdy door blocked the entrance, and above it, carved into the stone of the arch, was the name of this place. Opalhorn City Council.

This, too, was familiar.

In times of war, especially against foes with powerful magic backing them, strong beasts, or just plain good siege engineering, it only made sense that the most important locations in a fort be well secured. Often, the easiest way to do that would be to bury them.

A few simple spells to keep the water out, and more to make the earth below and around impervious to simple spells, and you'd have a strong, well-fortified location within a well-fortified fort.

I adjusted my bow-tie. "Well then, Alex, I think it's time we dive into this one."

"Dive?" Alex asked. "Wouldn't a more... ground-based word work better?"

"I considered it, my dear maid, but there's a time for puns and a time for wordplay. And that time is always... you dig?"

Alex's face contorted, only for a moment, into something approaching consternation. Victory!

"Oho! Let's go, Alex," I said, now far more cheerful after springing such a successful trap.

We knocked at the door, but since this seemed like something of a place of commerce, we invited ourselves in. The interior was a spacious but low-ceilinged lobby space, plenty of seating to the side, all unoccupied, a single board with a few announcements pinned to it, and a flat wall at the far end whose only break was a single solid door to one side, and a desk behind an opening made of iron bars.

A bespectacled man sat behind said window, currently with his attention fixed on a small pile of paperwork he was carefully working his way through with the slow patience of the caught-up bureaucrat in no hurry to finish what work they had.

We were also, I immediately sensed, under a thick layer of illusory spells.

In fact, the room was awash with them. Notice-Me-Nots and Not Your Problem spells hung in the air, enough to convince anyone to move along and not make a bother about anything strange they might see or wonder about.

I grinned. "Hello, sir," I said.

"Pick a number," he replied without looking up.

I eyed the man, then tilted my head down to inspect his tie. A fashionable bow-tie, with a few small bones embroidered upon it in almost the same colour as the tie itself. Enough that they were quite difficult to pick out.

"Forgive me, young necromancer, but might I inquire as to who leads the local chapter?"

His head snapped up with a crack like bones clicking in place.

Ah, now I was getting somewhere.

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Chapter Forty-Two — Ornery Oldies

Chapter Forty-Two — Ornery Oldies

The man behind the desk stared at me with narrowing eyes. He spent a long, quiet time scanning my features, though that wasn't all he did. I could sense seeking, curious tendrils of magic coming from the young lad. Not a spell, exactly, but a sense for the arcane refined into something almost physical.

There was a spark of recognition in his eyes, followed by the unmistakable stiffness of someone suddenly alert. His fingers twitched as if ready to reach for something under the desk, but he paused.

"Ah, I see," he replied finally. He rose and bowed slightly, his voice gaining a respectful undertone. "If you'd be so kind as to follow me, sir."

He pushed his chair back with deliberate care, the legs scraping against the stone floor before they settled. It was hard not to notice how he was squaring his shoulders. Alex noticed as well. The maid shifted slightly closer to me, cat ears twitching.

The young necromancer led us to a solid door on the far side of the room which opened with an echoing creak. A bit of dust dislodged itself from the top of it, and Alex sniffed reproachfully. Clearly, the door leading into the business part of this building hadn't been open in some time, which either meant that the necromancers within had another way in and out of the city council, or that they merely never left.

Knowing what I did about necromancers and their... less than extroverted natures, I could well imagine it being the latter.

He gestured to a narrow corridor that stretched out behind the reception space he had occupied. It was lined on one side by drawers and the other wall held a few small torches, all unlit. "Mind the step, sir," he advised as he gestured to a small dip in the floor ahead.

"Thank you, good man," I replied as I took an exaggerated step over the gap. This too, was a good old-fashioned trap I used to employ quite frequently.

With the floor being made of stone tiles, the step was difficult to make out unless one was looking for it. More than one intrepid knight, searching for traps, had lost their footing and subsequently their lives after crashing to the floor.

"I'd hate to take a tumble here," I said. "It would be quite the... grave mistake. Ohoho!"

The necromancer's lips twitched, but he made no comment. Alex, however, stifled a small smile, a hand briefly covering their mouth as they followed me. The corridor twisted and turned, leading us deeper beneath the city. The further we went, the thicker the air became with the unmistakable scent of old earth and lingering magic, a combination I found oddly comforting.

At last, we entered a chamber through a large wrought iron door. It was a circular chamber, not so unlike a council chamber in and of itself.

Rather than many seats, however, this room held standing sarcophagi. There were thirty or so of them, set in a large ring around the centre of the room. One slot was missing, allowing for someone to cross to the centre. A second ring was set behind the first, and a third behind that.

Each sarcophagus was currently occupied. Skeletal figures clad in ancient steel armour. Their empty sockets seemed to follow us as we carefully navigated to the very middle of the room where there was a small step onto a raised dais.

"Hello, everyone," I said before tipping my head down in the semblance of a bow.

"Lord Harold," one of the ancient corpses said. It twitched forwards, detaching itself from the sarcophagus with a shift of dust and a clatter of metal on metal. The man-for I'd long, long since grown used to noticing the slight differences in jaws and hips and such that would indicate a corpse's biological sex-clunked forwards, then fell to one knee.

The next followed, then the next.

"Well well, it seems like you lot have been... dying to see me," I said with a chuckle.

What an interesting find. I recognized these undead. Perhaps not the person, but certainly their type. Death knights.

The swords in their arms and the shields resting at the base of their resting place (hah!) were signs enough to tell that these were no mere skeletal warriors. Moreover, they were not all entirely skeletal. Some had missing limbs replaced by ghostly matter, others still had necrotic flesh clinging to them with tenacity.

To the lay-person, there might not be much difference between these undead and the fodder I used so frequently in my armies.

To an experienced necromancer, the difference was like the sun and moon.

A Death Knight was more than a mere reanimated corpse. They were imbued with enough magic to drown a small town in fireballs. Each knight had as much magic potency as a platoon of ordinary undead.

Better yet, or perhaps worse if they weren't on one's side, Death Knights were lesser spell casters themselves.

In a way, these were my answers to one of the greatest types of ordinary foe I'd had to face in my day. Paladins.

These didn't have the holy, or unholy, abilities of the average paladin, but they had combative magics of their own, the ability to heal themselves, the ability to imbue fear unto their enemies and stand up from nearly nothing.

The figure who'd first moved raised his head and his jaw parted in what might have been a smile. "Your humour remains as sharp as ever."

"I always thought it was a little blunt," I admitted with a chuckle. "Ah, but I don't know if this is a good time to jest. We have much to discuss. I believe introductions are in order?"

The Death Knights exchanged glances in a silent conversation that I wasn't quite part of. He cleared his lack of throat. "My lord, I am Sir Cophagus, leader of this council of Opalhorn. Previously I was the lord knight of the seven hundred and seventy-sixth patrol division of your undead army. Tasked with exploring and guarding this area for future expansion and development."

"Jolly good," I said. "And what have you been doing here? I imagine those orders are quite dated."