46 Meeting Old Acquaintances

Farsian and the rest of the travelers slowly walked up north, conveniently where Farsian also wanted to go. Along the way Farsian had proven himself many times. He was an excellent scout, an ability that came with being a vampire that was capable of invisibility. The rest of the party didn't seem to notice when Farsian vanished, attributing it to the strong snowstorm or their bad vision. Farsian was an valuable asset to them, many times he had warned them of traps. Most of the traps were laid out by their ex team member… Though they didn't know why he was doing it, they knew they had to stop him somehow. And it just so happened that he was going up north. Farsian had many suspicions on this guy that laid traps along the way, the biggest being that his scent felt familiar to Farsian. Almost like they knew each other from somewhere, but Farsian just couldn't figure out where he had smelled it before.

"Hey Farsian, how is the road?" One of the travelers asked. At this point they didn't even care that Farsian was a bandit or something else. Even if they still had their suspicions they didn't dare raise them. The mercenary's had stated that they would side with Farsian should a conflict break out. A statement that wasn't very liked by the travelers and should they make it to the next town they would propably switch their guards out. But the mercenary group knew that they needed Farsian, without him they would probably have died ten times already.

"It's alright, the weather also seems to be getting better." Farsian replied. He liked the traveling group. They told him that they were a group of merchants, ones that specialized in all sorts of magic equipment. They even gave Farsian a discount of 5% when he would buy something from them. Unfortunately the items were still ridiculously expensive. A ring of holding that was like a small pouch would cost as much as 75 Gold. An amount that Farsian wasn't willing to pay right now. He also couldn't mind control them without anyone noticing so he had to suck it up for now. Perhaps they would learn to like him some more along the way, giving him an even greater discount.

"Then let's head out there and see how far we can come today." The merchant was slightly dispirited.

They didn't make any profit or business in what felt like forever. Farsian had been with them for the better part of a month now, and they still didn't see any city in sight. They slowly suspected that something was wrong and that they were lead in the wrong direction on purpose. They knew that the group of mercenary's was hunting one of their own, but they have been told that they would not deviate from the route by too much. They should see the city walls by now.

The mercenary's also didn't know why they had strayed so far from their objective. In their minds they should have catched up to their ex member and torn him to pieces by now. But somehow he had managed to evade them so far, it was like he suddenly got faster by a lot. Although they were slightly startled they couldn't leave it at that and decided to continue with their hunt for him.

This was also something that made Farsian suspicious. They were also slowly running out of food, if they didn't replenish their recources they would either starve or thirst to death.

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Many days later they finally saw the gates of a city, but it was not the city that they tought they would see. On the city walls were large balistas and other strong siege weapons, many soldiers ran up and down the walls.

'Were they preparing for battle?' Farsian thought to himself.

This was not good, if they were to battle now the gates would be locked for a while.

"We need to hurry." The leader of the mercenarys seemed to come to the same conclusion.

As they increased their pace they finally saw what was happening. A horde of skeletons was approaching the walls of the city. Some of them were equipped with ladders and some wore armor and weapons. Their movements weren't too slow but it somehow felt mechanic, like a puppet on strings that could only move when the comand was issued.

"Shit what is that!?" The leader shouted as they saw the undead army descend on the city.

At the far back of the army there was a undead steed on top of which sat a lich, or was it something else? Farsian couldn't tell. It looked like death itself was standing there, with an army on top of it.

Next to this undead rider there was a person standing, if one looked closer at it that person seemed to be alive. Many of the mercenarys were stunned when they saw this, the merchants even more so.

"Is that a person up the hill?" One of the merchants asked in stupifaction.

"Who knows." Farsian answered calmly. He got the feeling that he knew this person, with his vampire vision he could see much clearer and recognized her only seconds later.

'Is that Michelle?' Farsian thought. She was wearing deep red armor and wore a cape that was equally red. On her waist there was a long sword that almost reached down to the ground.

"She must be of lower status, perhaps something like a slave? Why else would she be standing on the ground instead on a horse?" The leader of the mercenary's had good vision and could tell that it was a woman that was standing next to the undead horse.

'Lower status? Slave?! In what world would a slave receive a full set of armor and a sword like that?' Farsian knew that no vampire would lower their head like that. Michelle was a vampire, a vampire that was much faster than a horse. A horse would only slow her down, perhaps it would grant her more power but it would lower her flexibility.

'Yes a vampire that didn't receive any training in mounted combat would be better on foot.'

Farsian calmly looked at what was happening, the army of undead stormed at the city walls and every ladder that was placed on the walls was broken down with a boulder only seconds later.

"It doesn't seem like this city will fall anytime soon." The leader of the mercenary's said.

'Are you happy or not? I cant tell when you are talking like that' Farsian thought. Somehow the mercenary seemed to be hoping for a faster ending to this.

"Should we help them out?" One of the other mercenary's said, they were all on horseback. Even Farsian had received a horse. Although he didn't know what to do with it since he used daggers and claws to fight, he probably couldn't even reach the enemy's if they ducked down.

"Sure why not?" They all agreed on it, leaving Farsian hopeless.

As they all slowly rode towards the city the undead retreated, it didn't look like they were fleeing they just slowly walked away. The other mercenarys even took the oportunity to slay some of them right in front of the city gates. But the skeletons didn't care if the got killed or not they ignored the mercenarys and just calmly retreated among the slaughter.

When they all retreatet behind the hill.

"Hey you down there, what are you doing here? Isn't this a bit far north for simple traveler?" A shout came down from the walls, it seemed to be a knight in full armor.

"See I told you that we went to far!" One of the merchants shouted at one of the mercenarys.