Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights

Chapter 217: Caef

The road to Gonnb was quiet.

That was the first thing Caef noticed.

The path that had once been worn smooth by people was now overgrown with weeds, the tracks of wagons barely visible beneath the creeping green.

The silence was very different too. No birds called from the trees. No insects buzzed in the underbrush.

Caef had been away for months, trading goods with a settlement to the north. He had left his brother in charge, as he always did.

The village had been standing when he left. His brother had been alive when he left. The livestock had been in their pens, the children had been playing in the dirt, and the women had been tending to the fires.

Now, as he crested the final hill, he saw what remained.

Nothing.

The village was gone. Not damaged or burned in part. But completely gone. The huts that had lined the main path were reduced to blackened lumps of ash and charred timber.

The storage buildings were collapsed, their contents scattered and ruined. The pens where the livestock had been kept were empty and broken, the fencing kicked apart, the gates hanging loose. The well, which had been the heart of the village, was choked with debris and soot.

Caef stood at the edge of the settlement and stared. His mouth was open, but no sound came out. He had seen destruction before: raids, fires, disputes between villages, but never anything like this.

This was not the work of a rival tribe or a desperate raid for supplies. This was annihilation.

He walked forward slowly, his legs carrying him through the wreckage. The ground crunched beneath his feet, blackened and brittle.

He recognized the remains of the hut where he had grown up. He recognized the outline of his brother’s house, larger than the others, now nothing but a pile of ash and twisted wood.

He recognized the spot where the village elders had gathered to discuss matters of trade and defense.

All of it. Gone.

The smell hit him next. Old smoke, layered with something else, something organic and rotting that made his stomach turn.

It was the smell of death that had been left to bake in the sun for weeks. The village had been dead for a long time. He could tell by the way the ash had settled, by the way the grass had begun to reclaim the edges of the ruined buildings.

Weeks. Maybe a month.

Caef’s legs gave out beneath him. He fell to his knees in the ash, his hands pressed against the scorched earth.

He tried to breathe, but the air was thick with the memory of fire. He tried to think, but his mind was blank with shock. His brother. His home. His people. All of it... no more.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there. Minutes. Hours. Time had stopped meaning anything. Eventually, he heard footsteps approaching from behind him. He turned slowly, his eyes red, his face streaked with ash and tears.

A man stood at the edge of the village, his body thin, his clothes tattered. He looked like he had been living in the forest for weeks, his face gaunt, his eyes hollow. Caef recognized him. One of the village’s hunters, a man named Orin.

"Caef," Orin said, his voice cracked and dry. "You came back."

Caef tried to stand, his legs shaking beneath him. "What happened?" he asked. His voice was barely a whisper. "Who did this?"

Orin looked at the ruins of the village, his face twisting with old grief. "We don’t know exactly," he said. "Most of us were scattered. Those who survived are hiding in the woods, too afraid to come back. But we’ve pieced together what we can."

He sat down on a fallen log, his body slumping with exhaustion. Caef sat across from him, waiting.

"About a month ago," Orin began, "Some of our warriors stripped three Percvale knights of their horses and goods on the road and beat them. Because it was from Percvale, the supposed weakest Barony in Valvanos, they thought they could get away with it."

Caef nodded slowly.

"After that," Orin continued, "Percvale sent a messenger demanding compensation or justice. Your brother refused. He thought he was being clever. Thought the Barony couldn’t do anything to us."

Caef closed his eyes. He knew his brother well enough to know what happened next.

"The messenger was killed," Orin said. "His head sent back to Percvale as Gonb’s response. Then, a few nights later, something came."

"Something," Caef repeated. "What kind of something?"

Orin shook his head slowly. "I wasn’t there for the worst of it. I was at the edge of the village when the attack started. I heard screaming. I saw flashes of light in the dark. Men died without visible wounds, just fell over, clutching their chests, their necks, their heads. Then something attacked in the dark. They moved like dead things. They didn’t bleed when you struck them. They didn’t fall when you cut them. They just kept coming."

Caef listened, his face pale. "Undead," he whispered.

"That’s what the survivors call them," Orin said. "They came with a wolf that wasn’t alive, and then the fire came after. It spread fast, faster than any fire I’ve ever seen. The accelerant, some of the men said. They saw it burning in the night. By morning, nothing was left."

Caef’s hands trembled. "My brother," he said. "Where is my brother?"

Orin looked away. "We found his headless body."

Caef felt the words hit him like a physical blow.

His headless brother...

The image burned itself into his mind, refusing to fade. He had lost his brother in a raid, a fight, a swift end. That he could understand. But this? This was something else.

Orin continued, his voice hollow. "The livestock were stolen. All of them. The children and the old ones were gone. Those of us who survived hid in the forest. And a young woman who had been held prisoner was taken away with them. A soil singer we intended to use."

Caef thought about that. A prisoner. A soil singer. Then the animals they had taken. That could only mean one thing. The attackers had taken something valuable with them.

"Do we know who led this?" he asked.

Orin nodded slowly. "The Baron of Percvale. A man named Darion. He directed it all."

Caef stood slowly, his legs steadier now. The grief was still there, sharp and raw, but it was being pushed aside by something else. Something colder. He looked at the ruins of Gonnb, at the ash that had been his home, and felt the anger settle into his chest like a stone.

He was not a fighter. He had always been the brother who traveled, who traded, who kept relations with neighboring settlements while his brother handled the village. But he was also the only surviving member of leadership now. The decision about what happened next fell to him.

He looked at Orin. "How many survivors are left?"

"A dozen. Maybe more, scattered in the woods."

Caef nodded. "Gather them. Anyone who can travel, anyone who can fight. Tell them to prepare."

Orin looked at him, his eyes wary. "Prepare for what?"

Caef looked out at the ruins, his voice flat. "We’re going to Vrethka. The nearest tribal settlement with real fighting capacity. I had trading relationships with them for years. We’re good friends. They owe us in a way. I’m going to tell them what happened and ask for their help."