Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

'Mmh, there are indeed marks of passage…' the lady knight had gotten off of her horse, crouching close to the dusty ground, ignoring the intense heat radiating from above, which should be cooking the woman inside of this armour, running one finger down, although the soil was not prone to this sort of tracking, she could undeniably see that a horse had passed by here, and which direction it and its rider were heading.

The patrols of the knights were not done randomly, they followed a particular circuit, each of them, and this path was where she would have passed, only, coming from the opposite way this rider had gone.

That alone was not enough to be intensely suspicious, but a knight should have no reason to pass through here in the dead of night, unless they were meaning to visit a relative or go about some shifty business, the highest order under the king was not immune to rascals and other unsavoury individuals managing to weasel their way in after all, it was just that the price to pay for transgressions could get expensive incredibly quick, going without prior notice to visit family or a lover would be typically just be a light slap in the back of the hand. Enjoy new stories from My Virtual Library Empire

If anything criminal or prohibited was involved however, you could lose those hands or your head straight up, Alisart Cleavster was not one to spend funds on prisons, punishments were expeditive and violent to make sure that anyone thinking to do the same thing thought again.

This was especially true for his knights, there were plenty of advantages and privileges awarded to members and their families, a knight could pretty much designate someone in celibacy and marry them as they wished for example, an advantage that attracted those unlucky in love, making themselves desirable by their status and strength instead.

As such, going against the law of the land would result in even more severe consequences for them, as it was seen as spitting on the king's generosity, only, the female knight was actually from around here and would actually come by often to see her family when out of duty, she knew very well that no other knights had any reason to be here, such affairs would be known.

The farmers all knew each other, they talked, the farmer from earlier, she actually knew him personally, but he just did not connect the dots since she was not usually working here, and people were typically overly formal with the knights anyways, apart from the trainee, who had not received the suit of armour just yet, no one else had any good reason.

Climbing back up onto her saddle, following the route taken by this mysterious knight in white, whose description was similar, but not quite an exact match for that of the knight order, they all wore the same armour, and so did their horses, their proud mounts were all bred directly at the castle, it was a very important matter to the southern king, he alone had access to those animals, which were not exactly horses, as they grew wool that needed to be cut off often.

'The woods… How predictable' the female knight looked up at the sky, confirming that the sun was nowhere near close to setting, moving into the woods, which were not exactly dense, in fact, lined up neatly as the forest that once stood there had been grazed, trees planted with practicability in mind, in was barely any darker than the plains, trunks rather thin, a swing of her blade could fell one cleanly.

These woods however, had been outmatched by another exploitation of wood, and thus, was without any lumberjacks beside the local farmers that felt confident enough to cut, treat and carved these trees for whatever purpose they had in mind, it was slightly overgrown with bushes and the likes.@@novelbin@@

This road really only taken by knights on their patrols.

"Stay here" stroking the horse's neck, it huffed in displeasure but stood still as ordered, something not to its taste.

'It's getting stronger' following something, taking in air through her nose even as this action evidently brought discomfort to the sanctity of both nostrils, even irritating the eyes a bit as she got close.

Air was displaced, parted before exploding outward as wood struck against itself, the ringing of metal sounding out softly.

"Oh, it's you" spoke the woman.

"Don't be so casual! You gave me a freaking heart attack for our lord's sake! This situation is already sinister enough, alright?" heaving a sigh of relief, another knight, a man, was already standing right next to the source that had led the both of them here, the corpse of an ogre that was just beginning to rot, the nearby wildlife having already taken their fair share of the monster's remains.

"I got here after a farmer told me that he had seen a knight on horseback in the middle of the night, what about you?" the female knight kneeled down next to the corpse circled by flies.

"I didn't hear anything about this on my end, no, one of the farmers told me that one of his ogres had wandered off without him noticing, so I went to try and fetch it back, but well… I won't be bringing it back" he coughed awkwardly, that was a shame, losing workforce like this was never pleasant.

"Ogres don't normally just wander off, farmers give strict commands to them to avoid such problems normally"

"That's what the farmer told me too, he did not understand why that one just decided to go away, I checked, and its branding mark is not weird, I found it quickly enough to confirm this"

"And yet it did, ogres need a very strong incentive to break commands, to prevent problems, they are supposed to react appropriately to threats and act accordingly if something is wrong" the woman said, walking around the carcass.

"Mmh, so something managed to scare an ogre to start running? What in damnation can make an ogre so fearful here?

The farms are secure and something that these monsters consider scary would not have gone unnoticed, and that does not explain how no one noticed a stray ogre running for its life either" the male knight rose a good point, the farmer had claimed that his ogre had been missing when it was time for them to go to their stable, meaning that it had quietly vanished in broad daylight, it was summer, kids were playing everywhere, their parents watched over them, some people even had hounds.

"Well, but I don't think we need to really think too deeply about it, there is a clear proof of fool play" both agreed on this, turning their gaze to the ogre's head, or at least, where it should have been.

A most precise slash had severed the monster's neck, ogres were tough, and tall, landing such a blow, with such finesse either required intense speed and precision, or the strength to utterly force it down and bring down the blade without resistance.

Ogres were not exactly smart either, the untamed ones wouldn't recognise how outmatched they were even before a dozen knights, yet, this one had been frightened enough to start running, been caught up to anyways, and completely dominated.

And since it had been tamed, the fear had been potent enough to overwrite the orders given.

"Do you think you could make a tamed ogre run with its tail in between its legs?" asked the female knight.

"Never, those idiots don't understand that they can be weaker than anything they are facing"

"Same for me, this is highly suspicious, I hear of an odd knight, an ogre disappear, and its head was taken, let's bring this to the higher ups, and please, don't tell all the sordid details to the farmers, say to be particularly careful, but don't let them imagine that a devil rose from the depths of hell…"