As he finally reached the forest, he slowly got up as he stood against a tree, trying to use his cloak to camouflage himself. As he stood there, things seemed to be quiet as nothing really moved. While skeletons could feel pain and cold, they didn’t need to eat so the forest did seem to be brimming with life. There were insects everywhere with a big diversity as well, more buzzing than even the Forest Gruge.

  Outside the forest wasn’t a lot. It all seemed barren, even the grass that grew out there didn’t really seem to have any life inside of it. Even though he wanted to find out why, he had other things to do.

  He had left his bag in the cave with the others so he first of all needed food. He needed time to grab food which he didn’t really have. Instead he tried to find water, going deeper and deeper in this forest. If he were to find proof of animals, he would also find proof of a source of water nearby that he could drink from.

  It took him a while but eventually, he found some tracks having been left behind by wolves. Wolves weren’t the smartest to follow and if they smelled him, he would probably be killed rather soon. Instead of going for water, he instead grabbed a stick, starting to use his dagger to make a spear out of it.

  That took a while to do so when he was finally done with it, he had already wasted a lot of time. Now he would go back to the tracks, slowly following them as he tried to look out for any sign that wolves were hunting him.

  It took him around half an hour before he could hear water rushing. Instead of trying to follow the tracks, he went straight to the water, hiding behind a bush as he peaked through it. He not only had to be careful for animals, he also had to be careful for skeletons roaming around. Deciding to stay hidden until he was sure that nobody was there.

  When he finally came out of hiding, he went to the water, kneeling down to drink, his knees getting wet with how close he had to come. He knew that just drinking from a river wasn’t smart but he didn’t really had any other option, starting to drink from it. The water tasted bad but not as if something had died in it which already was a good sign.

  Next he didn’t really hunt for any creature, instead leaving the river bed and trying to find anything in terms of mushrooms, berries or even a corpse left by other animals. Eventually he seemed to the first, starting to grab some mushrooms that he knew that he could eat. It wasn’t much but it was something.

  Lastly he started to collect green leaves from the trees. Using that together with long patches of grass, he made a small container that he then used to fill with water, taking it with him. Sadly enough as he went back to the edge of the forest, he could see that the next patch of possible cover was far away. If there was anyone standing guard or even just walking, he would be seen.

  Not seeing another option, he started on his track, thinking he would be spotted any moment of his travel and stopped. With the time passing and Lehtern walking, he started to see houses as well, being distant and sometimes hidden in forests he passed. Every house was empty though, not a single woman left behind to wait on their man to come back from war.

  “Off course… They have no need for the woman to stay back at home. Skeletons don’t have children like use. They don’t need someone at home for some kind of farm. Woman and men are treated alike here. But if they took literally everyone to fight, then that’s a huge army.”

  With the dwarves and the Magic Gruge both not able to join the war, things already looked dire. “Even with the humans on our side… Fuck… The artifact Gruge won’t come as well.”

  With the sun setting and with a little bit new information gathered, he continued to walk, figuring that traveling during the night would make it less likely to be spotted. Once more living on no sleep as he went for the entire night.

  When reaching the last forest that he saw that was between him and the castle, he decided to go in, trying to fuel his body with the rest over mushrooms and his last bit of water. The water tasted bad as the leaves seemed to be getting weaker and useless. He knew that this wasn’t a long term solution and dropped it, going to the edge before lying down and looking in the distance.

  Lying on the ground immediately meant that he felt his eyes getting heavy, but he knew that had to go on. In the distance next to the castle, he could see many wooden structures. Mostly palisades with guard towers all around it. In the towers were the first skeletons he had seen since entering their land. The longer he looked, the more of these big village like palisades he could see around the castle.

  This was it. He started to crawl though the grass as the moon stood high, giving a decent light for every creature that needed it. Using the brown cloak, he’d go in a slow but rather straight line to the castle walls. The castle walls were made of stone, being much bigger and much more intimidating than the wooden fortresses next to it.

  As no alarm had been sounded, it was quite safe to assume that nobody had seem him yet. Now came a second choice that he had to make. Either he tried to climb the stone wall without any tools or he tried to get past the palisades. The wall was made of big stones and there was a lot of wear and tear. Climbing the stone wall wouldn’t be too difficult but what was he going to find in the castle? Maybe the king who had betrayed the dwarves and was now relaxing in his newly given castle. If that was the case then there was nothing he could do.

  No, the palisades was the best option. He slowly snuck away from the wall, going back low to the ground as he slid over the ground. He stopped three times during the thirty ish meters that he traveled between the castle and the first palisade structure. Once he got there, he could hear many voice although they were soft, mumbling things.

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  Through the wood, he couldn’t really hear what they were saying. There seemed to be many guards here as there were many guard towers as well. He slowly went along the wall, trying to find a way inside. With every guard tower he passed, he started to realize a pattern between the guards. These guards weren’t really interested in what was going on outside but were looking in as if they were trying to keep something inside.

  Finally there seemed to be a hole in the palisades. It wasn’t big enough for him to crawl through though, only able to get his hand through and to observe what was happening. Inside was what could be considered as a horrible scene.

  The guards on the towers all had clothes, rather thick clothes to be exact in order to keep themselves warm from the constant wind. There weren’t enough forest patches to keep the wind down so to not get depressed by the constant biting cold, they kept themselves warm.

  That was the exact reason why it was horrible to him when he saw a huge group of skeletons being chained together. Each and every single one of them was naked and shivering. Skeletons couldn’t die of the cold so this was purely to make them weak and miserable. Unlike humans huddling together for body warmth, they instead all hugged the wooden walls, hoping that the wood would protect them from the wind.

  This is when he knew what happened to the rebellion. They had been capture and suppressed, stuck in wooden structure to be kept like useless lifestock. If they tried to fight back, it’ll be difficult due to the chains and them being cold while many would die.

  He closed his eyes, looking away and leaning with his back against the wall, using his cloak to protect himself against the wind, suddenly being aware on how cold it was tonight. He now knew why the dwarves lost contact with their skeleton royalty.

  Now he needed to find out where he was. All this uncovering and the threat of being caught caused him to be wide awake, adrenaline managing to keep him going. He couldn’t try to whisper through the hole because the guards would see something was wrong, so instead he tried something else.

  He started to softly knock on the wood, hiding his entire body with his cloak for when a guard would look down at what could possible cause knocking if they heard it. It took a while but eventually through the hole, he could hear confused voices. Skeletons softly asking where that was coming from. They weren’t trying to be quiet to not be detected. They were quite as they were physically exhausted.

  His anger started to get to him, continuing to use Morse code as he hoped to get someone that knew it. After five more minutes of trying and getting nothing useful out of this, he would stop, looking to the other structures just like this one. Now that he was closer, he could see that there were many more of these. There must be tens of thousands of people here.

  If he had to try and find someone who knew Morse code and with how long this just took, he was going to be here the whole night. Lehtern continued to go through the grass, continuing to knock on the wood of this palisade before going on to the next one.

  After going to two more palisades, he finally got an answer. He didn’t know who it was but at least he got some knocks back. He first started with saying that he was an ally and trying to gather information before continuing with asking who he was talking to.

  The person he talked too happened to be a female elf, having taken the same classes as he had just years and years before. That’s when he asked for the king. It took a while to explain but he managed to tell her it. That’s when it stopped. Thinking she might be in trouble, he would wait, not daring to move in case someone was looking at him.

  After a full on five minutes, he finally got an answer. The king wasn’t in this group but apparently a lot of the other prisoners knew who he was as he had been one of the leaders trying to rebel. It was said that the leader had been thrown in jail in the castle.

  Hearing this, Lehtern wouldn’t answer for a while as he was thinking. He could try to break into the castle but on the other side, that would be dangerous and he might be seen which would end up causing more problems. His task was to find out where the king was and he now knew it. He send one last message to the elf. “I have to go. Rest assured, help will come.”

  He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to keep his promises but he was going to try his best for them. Having said his goodbye, he would slowly leave this place of torture.

  As he went back to the nearest forest, he started to think about it all. These people were in need of help but he couldn’t take these guards out on his own. In comparison to the captured, the guards were extremely outnumbered but the chains were something he couldn’t get rid of.

  Once he finally reached it, he slowly went back into the forest and hiding underneath a bush. As he lie there, he felt sleep creep over him. He tried to fight it for just a short bit before giving up. He knew that sleep was something strong and traitorous. Once he gave up, it wasn’t long before he lost consciousness, sinking away in a deep sleep.

  That morning, he woke up due to the sun shining through the bushes right on his eyes. At first he didn’t know where he was, yawning and looking through the leaves. The sun was standing high, showing that he had slept for a while. Groaning softly, he tried to crawl out from underneath the bush.

  When he got out, he tried to look for anyone watching him. When that wasn’t the case, he slowly made his way back to the mountain. It was late in the evening, basically having slept throughout the day. This also meant that if he wanted to eat, he didn’t have a lot of time to find something to eat as when it would be too dark, he wouldn’t be able to find anything.

  The only thing that he could think of was the tasteless mushrooms that he knew where to find but it was still a while away. For now he felt fine, but his mouth was already starting to feel a bit dry. Not only that, he started to smell horrible, sweating in this warm but camouflaging cloak. If this was going to continue, things could be getting worse. Luckily enough, skeletons couldn’t smell so at least he wouldn’t be discovered that way.

  The longer he traveled though, the weaker he started to get. At one point he got a cramp in his leg. Finding a hidden spot to stand up and stretch, he felt his strength leave his upper body, leaning against a tree as things went black in front of his eyes. He groaned, staying like this for a bit until he could finally see again.

  Continuing this routine of crawling over the ground, getting up in these forest patches and nearly passing out, he went all the way to the forest where he knew where to find food. He hadn’t slept during the night like before as he had gotten his nap from sleeping during the day.

  He knew that he wasn’t going to find the food during the night so instead he tried to find the water. Everything seemed so different in the dark though, causing him to not find his way. Not only that, he started to get weaker with every step he took. Eventually he just sat down against a tree, groaning and closing his eyes.