“The story is practically written there, in the corpses of the fallen,” Simon told Kell, gesturing widely to the beheaded bodies of the fallen.

  “I mean, yeah, I see that,” the younger warrior said, pretending like he had some clue about what it was Simon was talking about. “But it’s not like it's enough to tell us what’s really going on, is it?”

  “I disagree,” Simon answered with a shake of his head. “You see these trappers here are freshest, and then these farmers and traders are at least a couple weeks older. That tells me that it spread to the vilges along the main road before cirg bato the wilderness, which was a stroke of luck. If they’d kept going south—”

  “But what does that have to do with the warriors?” Kell asked in frustration. “They’re practically skeletonized. Are you saying those came first?”

  “Logically, yes,” Simon nodded.

  “But how do ye’ know they weren’t like.. Dug up and reanimated by evil magics?” Garth asked, joining their little versation while everyone else got busy stag bodies or stag firewood.

  “I kind of think they were… in a sense,” Simon said, trying not to give away too much about his own magical insights. “I mean, I have no idea how this stuff works. I’ve heard the same stories you have, but I know armor, and this stuff is a. Look at it. It’s not just rusted through. The designs are all wrong. It’s something that yrandfather’s grandfather might have worn.”

  Both men that, and finally, Kell said, “So it started with them and then spread to the northern vilges befoing bato the forests? Are you saying this came from the north of the pass, or…”

  “Nah, not that far north,” Garth said with a shake of his head. “The style is all wrong. I’d wager someone dug this up from the old barrow mounds. Maybe it’s not even a warlock. Maybe it’s just treasure hunters who woke up some a curse or somesuch.”

  “I was thinking something like that too,” Simon nodded, gd he hadn’t been forced to lead the horse all the way to water before they’d put the pieces together. The less he seemed to know, the better. He could already feel the eople were looking at him after he ‘predicted’ zombies instead of beastmen, and they appeared almost like magibsp;

  Kell quickly took the ball and ran with it. A few minutes after Kell started telling Simon and Garth what to do, he expihe whole situation to everyone else as if he were the one who had figured it out, which ractically ideal.

  “Be sure to keep a careful t!” he admohe men as they started stag pyres. I’m going to make sure we get paid for every bloated corpse we dispose of when all this is done.”

  They spent the rest of the twilight hours until m dawned, arguing about where they were goi and how far this might have spread. Garth argued, quite logically, that if this had started at the Barrow Mounds, that should have been their stop, but there was no way of knowing if going to their source would get them all. Simon retty sure that getting all of them wasn’t required as far as the Goddess was ed, but he said nothing.

  After all, the st time he’d cleared this level, he’d only saved Schwarzenbruck. He’d never even gone north. Hedes didn’t seem too ed with saving everyone. She just wao save a few very specific people, so history went the way it should. Simon was a bit pickier in that regard, but even he aowledged that there were going to have to be sacrifices.

  “If trade stopped, then this has spread to at least Bahamed Pass, right?” Hodge asked, interrupting his brooding after the final pyre was lit and dawn was shining through the oily bck smoke the greenwood was giving off.

  Simon merely shrugged. That was somewhere he’d never beeher, but maybe he’d fix that this run and add it to the minimap that he was slowly building in his head.

  The group watched the fires burn from upwind, but they didn’t start traveling again until they’d had a little ceremony fs, and Kell had talked to everyone as a group about what was going on. After that, they tinued north.

  That first night, they camped at a farmstead after they cleared out three more zombies. Two days ter they found a hunting camp devoid of life, but ter that night, the vilge that they stumbled upon at the edge of the moors made up for it by swarming with zombies.

  Simo half the night trying to keep everyone in their motley little crew alive. At times, the fighting was desperate, but even so, he was fairly successful until Garth was bitten by a corpse that hadn’t been pletely dismembered. It was then Simon was faced with an ugly choibsp;

  He could go down the road of the old wives tale and ‘heal’ the man with salt and wood ash, but that would get someone killed one day wheried it, and he wasn’t around to use magiake a fake cure real. The other option was just to let the mahough, because his friends were certain to kill him when they learhe truth, as they should.

  Instead, Simon chose the third option and healed the man with a word cure and of lesser healing, making it so that it never even happened. Garth looked at him with shock, but Simon merely shook his head and insisted it wasn’t as bad as the other man had thought. “I’m telling you, your armor stopped it,” he said, ag fused. “Lucky thing, too, or you’d be one of these poor bastards here in an hour or two.”

  As it turned out, Simon was a lot more fortable with the personal risk of being murdered for dealing with evil spirits rather than the idea that the things he did might get someone else killed down the line. After all, for him, death was just a not-so-temporary invenience, and even the weight gain and the weakness it inflicted on him were easier to deal with than the weight of another death on his sbsp;

  It was a good thing, too, because the way that Garth spent half his watch staring at a wound he no longer had and half of it staring at Simon, he was fairly sure that he was going to be murdered before dawn. Simon still found it easier to ighe man’s acg gaze than the way that Freya and Kell sat extra cozily o each other, not so far from the campfire.

  Frey, not Freya, he reminded himself. She’s not my Freya.

  It didn’t help, though, and by the time he could finally go to bed, part of him raying farth to strike him down in his sleep. That didn’t happen, though. Instead, in the m, the Butcher’s Bill tinued on to the Barrows.

  This part of their adventure didn’t look any different tha time he’d been here. Most of the mounds were still sealed, and it was only the rgest ohat had been opened. Now that Simon knew what he was looking for, he saw the obvious signs of earth magic there. The stohat had once sealed the door into the depths were partially melted as someone had effortlessly pulled them aside with a greater word. That was enough to make him extra cautious.

  “Be careful,” he cautioned everyone as the first men started to desd into the darkness. “A pce like this is likely full of traps. Don’t touything!”

  Kell looked at him strangely for a moment but then echoed his ents. “The new guy is right. Treasure hunting wait until after we make sure everything loht, and there’s nothing trying to eat us down there.”

  Only half the band desded. The rest set up a cordon outside, just in case. It was unnecessary. Eve people were overkill as far as Simon was ed.

  There was nothing down there but a sarcophagus that he was going to ck the privacy to truly explore. He didn’t know how yet, but he khis was the epiter of the whole level; even if it wasn’t the part that Hedes cared about, it was the thing that he most wao uand.

  So, he let the various members wander off into the dank side rooms as he proceeded directly toward the heart of the mound. It was there he fouly what he expected. There was the sarcophagus, and the mog paper on the only wriggling zombie in the pce, along with the evidence of what might have been a ritual circle of some kind. Before he could tease out any more details, though, Kell, Freya, and a couple uys ehe room behind him.

  “This pce gives me the creeps,” Freya said as Kell walked past him into the room.

  “Yeah, we should probably just burn it or colpse the entrand be doh it,” Simon agreed. “Something dark and terrible happened here.”

  Truthfully, he was hoping they went for burying this pce. Then, he could circle ba a few weeks, dig back through it whehing else was done, and finish his research. Simon was fairly sure no one wao take the time to dump loads of firewood this deep into the tiny dungeon.

  All of that was ignored by Kell, though, who seemed hell-bent on looking for treasure of some kind to make the whole trip worthwhile. There was certainly enough gold left behind on the corpse in the ter to justify the effort, after the thing was killed permaly.

  For a moment, though, Kell ighat as he got closer and said, “Why is this oill moving when none of the rest are… and what’s this note here…”

  “I don’t know. Someone was obviously here before us but…” Simon started to say. When the man reached for the folded piece of paper on the zombie’s head he shouted, “Don’t touch that!”

  “What? Why?” Kell said, looking at Simon in annoyance.

  “There’s magic all over this room; ’t you feel it?” Simon said, groping for some ahat might satisfy the man. “I say we cut this thing’s head off and the out of here before we—”

  “And that’s why you aren’t the boss of a merary pany,” Kell sneered. “Don’t worry. I get paid extra to make the hard calls.”

  As Kell’s hand reached for the paper, Simoed without thinking. “Aufvarum Oo,” he whispered, pushing the man back with lesser force before he could do something to break the spell in pd bring down the ceiling on all of them. He k was a mistake as he did it, but he simply didn’t have any other options.

  “What in the name of…” Kell blurted out as he was flung against the far wall.

  “Witchcraft,” Freya hissed, drawing her dagger, as Simon slowly backed away toward the door.