Jay walked casually towards the wooden palisade wall, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
The palisade wall was about six meters high (19ft), and had a platform on the other side so men could walk along the top behind it.
(Don’t attack unless I tell you.) Jay told the skeletons as they approached.
As he came closer, he noticed there was a single man on the top of the wall, keeping a lookout.
He had already spotted the band of skeletons and Jay walking amongst them, but paused in shock as he probably thought he was going mad.
The undead were here? No scouts had reported anything?
Surely this was either an illusion or a lapse in sanity.
Finally he turned to the side, trying not to seem panicked as he called another man to look too, his voice full of urgency.
“Hey, look. Look at the path!”
He ended up yelling to another man who was sitting down on the platform, who was leaning against the wall with his legs hanging over the side.
“Huh?” he gave a confused look back as he got up and peeked over.
As the second man saw Jay, his eyes bulged. He immediately began yelling.
“Close the gates! Enemy spotted!” he bellowed somewhere behind the wall.
The large wooden gates slammed shut, a thick wooden pole now bracing the back of it.
In a few moments, more men appeared atop the wall, each with their own bows and arrows.
Jay could already tell this village was more advanced than the others, but still primitive by his own standards.
Not only did they have palisade walls, but their men were not as malnourished and skinny-looking, while some of their bows were wrapped with leather and strung with animal sinew.
It seemed that living further from the knights' territory meant there were less of the innocuous roots around allowing them to grow food, and if Jay’s guess was correct, to keep animals - the wolf-boar meat that Grundel mentioned.
Jay smiled as the gate slammed shut, seeing the fear he instilled in others.
He had the skeletons stop marching and he folded his arms as he stood there, waiting.
More men soon appeared; on top of the palisade wall were rushing past each other to get into position and pointed their arrows at Jay and his skeletons.
All of them prepared their bows and arrows - yet the order to fire never came. A heavy silence filled the air.
Some of the archers looked around nervously, glancing at Landen, their commander.
Landen was standing there, watching silently, hiding his fear in front of his men.
He had not given the order to fire as the skeletons had stopped. It seemed they were not mindless, but what was more peculiar was that it seemed there were two humans amongst them.
Lamp was too far away for anyone to see that its skin was folded in some areas since it was hollow on the inside, and was now wearing its spectral armour; the T-visor helmet covering its empty eye sockets and non-existant lips.
“Why didn’t the scouts notify us…” Landen wondered before speaking to Jay.
“What do you want with us?” Landen spoke, hoping this visitation of the dead would just go away.
Jay still had his arms folded, seeming like he was waiting patiently though he had a bored look on his face.
“I want it back. My black cube.”
“So that was his…” Landen was surprised that the cannibals stole it from him without actually eating him too - shouldn’t he be inside some skinny cannibal’s belly by now?
“We traded the black cube with The Kindred for meat.”
The Kindred were the name given to the cannibal tribe, as they were like vassals of the knights.
“That’s not my problem.” Jay shrugged, “You have stolen property, my property, and I want it back.”
Jay had to stop himself from smiling, because technically it was property he had inadvertently stolen from Viladore, but that didn’t matter right now.
“Wait here.” Landen said, disappearing from the wall.
The black cube was something the villagers had never seen before, and the master of the leaf-skin, Liny, had taken it as his own possession.
Landen urged Liny to part with it, telling him about someone who came to look for it, but Liny would not give it up.
In fact, he scoffed at the request and told Landen to ‘fuck off’, surprised that he had the gall to ask.
The village master, Liny, thought it was an unusual request however, and decided to follow Landen back to the palisade wall and see for himself who would dare to make a demand of him and his village.
During his time as village master no one had done such a thing, and anyone who tried would have been captured or killed before he even heard about it.
During his time as the village master, Liny had grown comfortable, taking a larger share of wolf-boar meat for himself; both his belly and his arrogance grew alongside each other.
Most of the villagers didn’t respect him, and knew it was Landen who kept them safe. Landen was actually meant to be the village elder according to tradition, but Liny’s father had used subtle tricks and persuasion, insisting that the elder election tradition was archaic, then used empty promises to get people to vote for him as ‘master’ instead of ‘elder’; he also eventually came to control the wolf-boar dens, and now no one but Liny knew how to breed the wolf-boar puplets, which was the village’s only source of meat.
“Are your men in position?” Liny asked, ascending the palisade wall.
“They should be, yes.” Landen said, pulling him up.
Jay was getting impatient now, and was tempted to even pull out his chair and sit down - yet he didn’t want to spend more time than was necessary in this dungeon. He would get his black cube, find some information about the knights and then leave to slaughter them.
Finally, Landen appeared on top of the wall, coming back with another man.
Liny laid his eyes on the undead and Jay, a sneer appearing soon after.
“Pf, it’s just some trick.” Liny scoffed, not believing such a thing could even exist.
“So, you want the black cube? Well too bad.” he chuckled, “now leave or we’ll have to deal with you.”
“No. You’re wasting my time, and you will pay me for this time, as well as giving me my black cube back. Every second you make me wait, I will demand more compensation.” Jay said tiredly, and it hardly even came off as a threat. More like a business proposal.
Combined with the comment Liny made about his skeletons being a trick, now no one took Jay seriously. Some of the archers on the wall even had sneers on their faces too.
Perhaps they were angry at themselves that they fell for this illusion.
Skeletons? Such a stupid trick. They were probably held together by some silk and wood, controlled by the two men (Jay and Lamp) somehow.
Now it made sense why Jay was waiting a distance away from the wall - it was so that they wouldn’t see the details. Or so they thought.
Liny shook his head with a proud smile, “You deal with this. It’s below me… and capture him alive. I want to know what the black cube does.” he said to Landen as he left the wall.
Landen inwardly sighed, despite his scouts not reporting, something didn’t feel right and he wasn’t sure what it was.
Still, he put on a brave face for his men.
“We won’t give the cube back.” Landen said, before clapping his hands.
Jay pulled out his shield, assuming this was the signal for the archers to attack - yet no arrow flew.
“Huh?” Jay wondered, then peeked over his shield.
Looking up to the wall, Landen was not looking at Jay or the archers at his side, but the forest around Jay, as if he was expecting something.
A sly smile suddenly appeared on Jay’s face.
“Oh, were you expecting something?” Jay grinned, after looking around at the empty forest.
Suddenly, Landen showed a hint of fear.
(Sweeper, bring the captives here.)
