Large birds circled in the sky in numbers seemingly too many to count. They glided on updrafts, conserving their energy for the gluttonous feast below them. The scavengers were a sign that they were approaching their grim destination, and that the news they’d heard earlier had been accurate.

  Darren and Sylvia were up front taking turns driving the wagon. Danica was behind them, sitting on a large trunk, a somewhat nervous look upon her face. She’d seen death many times before, and been the cause of it on occasion. What had her nerves set on end was the fact that they were approaching an unknown. Whatever had killed so many people could have killed them as well.

  Zane had begun sorting through a collection of books and notes that his former companion had left sitting in the back of the wagon. He seemed sure that there was something important there and had lost focus on nearly everything else going on.

  Danica turned around to him. “How many people lived there? Zane!”

  He snapped back to reality and stumbled over his words for a moment. “Oh, uhm, It wasn’t many. About twenty, I think. It was practically already a ghost town.”

  Darren looked back at them. “Do you think they’ll be actual ghosts there?”

  “Why? Are ya scared?” Sylvia teased him.

  Danica looked back at them and shook her head. “I doubt it. Just a bunch of dead bodies and they can’t hurt you.”

  “I’m not scared,” he said rather meekly. “I just don’t want to be around it. Especially at night.”

  Sylvia started to say something but then decided against it. Neither of the kids seemed eager to see the corpses, but Zane wanted to take a quick look around. He wanted to know if any of them might have been Kalda and maybe get some clues as to what happened.

  “Come nightfall, we’ll be a fair distance away from there,” Danica said, trying to reassure them. Deep down, she wondered if she was trying to reassure herself as well.

  They pulled up to the edge of the town and could already smell the stench carried in the warm air. Unmoving mounds, dozens of them, dotted the streets throughout. Here and there a young child could be seen chasing a vulture off from a corpse, but they had plenty more elsewhere to choose from. It was a losing battle, but they were trying their best.

  Some women were coming out from a building with a bundle of white sheets in their arms. It wasn’t hard to tell by their clothing that they were simple folk, likely from the area or simply passing through. They turned to the newcomers with a quiet curiosity.

  Danica cursed softly under her breath and quickly donned her hood and mask, ducking low out of sight, though she was sure they’d seen her. They hadn’t expected to find anyone living there.

  The wagon came to a stop near the ladies and Zane jumped out. “We were told everyone was dead.”

  “You were told right,” came a harsh voice. “You here to loot or mourn?”

  “Neither,” Zane said. “I’m looking for someone that may have passed by.”

  “If they were here,” the old woman said, “then they’re among the dead. No one survived.”

  “You did,” Sylvia added timidly.

  “We live outside town, at our farm.” The young woman spoke with a crackle in her voice, probably from so much crying. “Father was coming to pick up some supplies that’d come in, but…” her words trailed off at the obvious situation.

  The old woman grunted. “We Don’t have time to talk all day. Men are up in the graveyard. You’re welcome to help, but I’ll be damned if I let my sister and her family become a meal for those damned birds.

  “I’ll help,” Darren said, pulling the hand brake and jumping off. His sister followed him over to the children, assisting the youngsters in chasing off the carrion eaters.

  Zane leaned against the rail as the women walked away. “What do you think?”

  She sighed and scooted off the wagon, grabbing a walking stick as she did so. She’d been practicing making herself look like an elderly woman to try and explain the hood and mask. The walking staff certainly helped and her gait was convincing enough, but the moment she tried to speak the disguise failed. Her voice was just too young and she couldn’t seem to change it enough.

  “Let’s go have a quick look around, then you can talk to the others if you like.” She looked at him, her cold blue eyes deadly serious. “Something is wrong here. I got a strange feeling about it and it’s bothering me.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I do too, though I’m just not sure yet exactly what.”

  They walked to the first body, scaring away an angry crow who was contentedly digging into the stomach cavity. The damage to the body was severe enough to not be able to determine the cause of death other than massive trauma.

  “Not old or frail,” Danica noted. “What’s left of his face looks terrified though. Zane?”

  She looked over at her companion standing a few feet away, not moving a muscle. He seemed completely paralyzed and his face had a completely blank expression. She walked over to him and started to ask what was going on but then stopped and looked at the ground with some confusion.

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  “You see it?” he said solemnly.

  She stared at the body on the ground, its blackened skin covered in patches of yellow and green mold. The clothing it wore was drenched in dried mud. She’d seen bodies in the crypt but it didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before. She only knew that this desecrated husk did not belong above ground.

  “Zane, what am I looking at exactly?”

  He shook his head and finally looked at her. “That body has been in the ground, and someone brought it back. I can sense the necromancy emanating from it now, but barely. The power is waning fast.”

  She realized now that the teeth and hands of the corpse were covered in dried blood. She could only assume that this had been what had killed the man nearby.

  “It’s not coming back is it?” she asked, reaching for a knife.

  He shook his head. “Magic’s faded too far for it to reanimate.”

  He started away towards a nearby building and she followed him without saying a word. It was taking some time to process in her mind what was actually happening. She’d been around the dead before, but until now she’d always believed that they were gone and couldn’t hurt you anymore. The evidence to the contrary was only a few feet away now.

  He stopped outside the structure and studied it for a moment. “Doors smashed inwards. They tried hiding, but it didn’t matter.”

  Some distance away the men were coming back off the hill in a rickety wagon pulled by a couple of mules. The women busied themselves with wrapping and securing a few dead bodies for them to take off.

  Danica pointed towards them. “While they’re down here, I’m going to have a look at that graveyard. Let's finish what we came here to do and get out of here.”

  Danica turned away from him before he could acknowledge her. He seemed too calm about things anyway, like this was a common occurrence. She was sure that all this somehow involved magic beyond anything she could ever really understand. Perhaps he simply knew too much about it and that was somehow bothering her.

  On the other side of the tree line, sitting on a small hill above the town, a quaint little cemetery sat in a small clearing. In several spots throughout, large mounds of dirt sat beside deep holes in the earth. She could smell the freshly turned soil when the wind picked up and the stale scent of old decay.

  In the center of the graveyard, a large hole had been started. Danica assumed it to be the newest grave being added. Nothing much to see there, so she proceeded to one of the others. Human bones lay scattered around in the thick grass here and there as she walked. She had no idea how they got there and wasn’t really sure she even wanted to know at this point.

  Looking down in the hole, she could now clearly smell the stagnant air of decay even through the mask. An emptied coffin lay at the bottom of the hole, its previous occupant no longer present. It was exactly like he said and exactly what she had feared. That the dead had come back to life and brought a hunger for human flesh wasn’t something she had ever expected to see, and yet the evidence was all too convincing.

  Danica turned to leave, feeling an anger and resentment welling up inside of her. She started to head back down the hill when Zane appeared at the edge of the clearing, his brown and green traveling clothes blending in well with the environment.

  “We’re leaving,” she said sharply, pulling off her mask. “Now.”

  He looked around confused as she went by him. “What did you see?”

  She turned, unleashing some of the pent up anger. “What did I see? Exactly what I didn’t want to Zane. I didn’t trust magic before and now I know that it can,” she flung her hand out to elaborate, indicating the empty graves. “It can raise the dead into something out of a nightmare.”

  He backed up a step, surprised at her anger. “Alright, yes, it can raise the dead. That’s necromancy, and it’s completely forbidden in the school. It’s outright banned almost everywhere.”

  “Well someone knows how to do it.” She poked an accusatory finger into his chest. “And you also seem to know alot about it.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair and stepped back again, nearly tripping over a small gravestone. “Everyone with the spark can feel it lingering in the air. It’s like smelling rotting meat, but we don’t sense it with our nose. Instead we sort of feel the evil taint in our souls. We’re taught what it feels like early on so we can try and stamp it out.”

  Danica turned away from him and sighed. “I know it isn’t your fault, but look around us. Those people were slaughtered without mercy.”

  “They were,” he said quietly. “And if we do nothing, I believe there’ll be more.”

  She turned to face him. “Another out of the way town you both stopped at?”

  He simply nodded.

  She sighed and looked towards the sky. It was getting late in the day and she wanted to be nowhere near this place when the sun set. She didn’t want to see any other place like this either, but it seemed that fate had other plans in store for her.

  She shook her head “How far?”

  “About three days from here,” he said.

  She started waking back towards their wagon. “Let’s get going then.”

  The men and women, along with their children were coming back up the hill, leading a cart covered in wrapped bodies. It was probably their close friends and family, as there were still several corpses out there they hadn’t attended to. Darren and Sylvia walked along with them slowly. Danica, her mind occupied by the recent events along with what was to come, hadn’t given anything else much thought until they were nearly upon each other.

  “By the damned gods,” the younger man said with a shock, reaching for a shovel behind him.

  Danica realized then that she was supposed to be hiding her face.

  She looked at them, her eyes deadly serious. “Don’t. Bury your dead and mourn their loss. We’re leaving, and I suggest you do so as well.”

  The younger woman, possibly his wife, put a hand on the man's shoulder and he visibly slumped. The older man with them stepped forward and took off his hat, a tired look in his eyes.

  “I know you don’t know us, and we’ve no right to ask, but if you could help us with the work we could all be out of this accursed town sooner. We’ll set you up with a hot meal and a place for the night, away from here, if you’d like.”

  Danica looked at them for a moment somewhat taken back. They were all already exhausted from finding friends and family dead, and then trying to handle burying so many. With four fresh workers, they could be done much sooner and all of them would be on their way. She knew it was the right thing to do.

  “Can we please help them Danica?” Sylvia said softly.

  Darren nodded softly, agreeing with his sister. Danica could tell he had shed some tears recently, judging by the red eyes and runny nose.

  Reaching forward, she grabbed the shovel against the wagon that the young man had started for. “There may be some more tools down there in the town. If you get those we’ll get it done soon enough.”