Aleric paused his speech and looked at the people of Broomwood gathered in front of him: dull-witted men, weak-willed women, and unwashed children. Although they were humans like him, he felt no connection to their kind. They have long stopped considering Aleric one of them. As for the value of life, it became meaningless to him a long time ago.
Still, Aleric had some mercy in him. He might've spent it on these people.
However…
"Spine Staff, did you count them?" Aleric whispered.
"Yes, master," the artifact replied just as quietly. "Three women, eight children, and two men aren't here anymore. The men seem to have left last night, the rest—this one, hiding somewhere like vermin."
"I see."
Aleric suspected this would happen. The women and children must've simply hid, but the men… He was sure that they were riding their work horses toward the nearest chapter house of Light templars to plead for help.
Not that it mattered. Aleric wasn't trying to hide, not really.
He looked at the people in front of him. They didn't dare to raise their eyes at him, but there was hatred in them. Hatred and fear.
As soon as Aleric left, these people would turn against him, too.
Yesterday, Aleric thought he might rule them with fear, but today he realized it was foolish. His power wasn't enough to keep a place like this—templars would come and kick him out. These people didn't have the loyalty to serve him without threats.
And Aleric needed more corpses if he were to stand his ground against the Church.
He raised his free hand, and dozens of his undead slaves stepped up to surround the scared people.
"People of Broomwood, you had your chance. Since you went against me, I revoke it. Clearly, only the dead can be trusted. Undead slaves, kill them!"
His zombies and skeletons attacked before Aleric even finished his speech. Some of them wielded weapons, but even their bony fingers were enough against unprepared farmers.
People screamed with pain and fear as Aleric's undead tore their necks and slashed at their chests. Some even tried to resist, but without weapons, they couldn't harm even Aleric's skeletons.
"Nooo! P-please, sp-spare!" the old village's head screamed when two skeletons grabbed him. Even now, he couldn't stop stuttering. "M-master, we ob-obeyed!"
Aleric winced.
"Stop screaming. Everything dies eventually—you will just get there sooner."
This simple wisdom didn't diminish the screaming, but Aleric's zombies did. Soon, blessed, dead quiet filled the place. Only fearful bleats of goats in someone's barn interrupted it.
The air was thick with the smells of blood and Dark emanations. The latter felt like a balm to Aleric's senses.
Now these people, moderately useful in life, will become much more useful in death. Aleric's undead slaves obeyed his orders and didn't tear off any limbs.
"Tanssikaa kuoomat nukkelemattni…"
He will carry these bodies with him as puppets for now, but as soon as possible, he will upgrade them to undead slaves.
But right now, Aleric didn't want to waste more time in this wretched village.
He had another goal in mind.
***
Templar Captain Rihard Rawing knew that something was seriously wrong long before his squad of twenty-five templars entered Broomwood. The fields, where farmers should have been gathering the crops this time of the year, were empty. No animals were grazing the fields nearby.
Closer to the village, the smells of death and Dark magic filled the templars' senses.
"Keep your weapons ready. Brother Karn, do you sense anything active here?"
Karn, the first rank cleric attached to their squad, shook his head.
"Only traces, Captain. It looks like we are already too late…"
The sight of the village confirmed Karn's words. The massacre already happened. The ground was red with blood, but not a single body was here. Instead, there were countless tracks, so many that they muddled together and became indistinguishable.
"Search for any survivors!" Rihard ordered. "Pray to the Light that we find any…"
The templars spread around the village, holding their axes and falchions at the ready. Soon, Rihard got his first good news today.
"There are people hiding in the cellar, Captain!"
The people were a bunch of terrified toddlers with a couple of women, one with two babies in hands. At the sight of people in the Church's colors, they sobbed with relief. One woman even hugged a stupefied Karn to sob on his shoulder.
"Calm down, calm down! The danger is gone, you are in safe hands now. What happened here?" Rihard asked.
It took a while to extract information from the crying women, but eventually one of them calmed down enough.
"The… The necromancer p-promised that he won't kill us if we obey… B-but we didn't believe him. Most of us, at… at least. So we took the children and hid h-here. But we still heard the screams. Oh, the screams!" the woman sobbed again, but no tears were coming from her eyes anymore. "I can't stop hearing them."
Rihard sighed and called over one of his templars.
"These people need healing for their souls… And safety. Take another man and a cart with you and escort them to Oakdale's Temple of Light. The one where the two men who sent a message from Broomwood are staying. There should be enough space to take them in."
"Yes, sir. The familiar faces will be good for them, too, right?"
"Exactly. And we will avenge their families."
As soon as the grieving women and their children were put on a cart pulled by two templars' horses, Rihard gathered his remaining men to follow the necromancer's trail.
The track left by dozens of undead was impossible to miss, and knowing how slow they were, Rihard knew his team would catch up with him quickly.
"It goes north-east… With the Light's guidance, we will reach him before he can slaughter any more villages," Rihard said. "But it's strange—there are no settlements nearby to the north-east. There are villages much closer to the south or west."
"Maybe the necromancer knows that he can't control more undead?" Karn suggested. "If he's an ordinary self-taught witch, then he should be at his limit already with both the Broomwood villagers and the bodies from the graveyard… Oh, I will pray for the souls of all whose bodies the necromancer has stolen."
"Aleric Fenn…" Rihard repeated the name given to him by Broomwood's messengers. "The Light will guide our hands to smite you. Move out, men, and be ready for a tough fight!"