53. Skeletons

The alley narrowed as the group moved deeper into it an uneven path of moss-coated cobblestones and dripping brick walls. Overhead, dead vines clung to rusted gutters, sagging like old skin. The air was thick, damp, and carried a metallic tang that sat uneasily on the tongue.

Carla held the lamp higher. The flame jittered in the cold draft, barely illuminating the way forward. "This path leads straight to the northeastern graveyard," she said, voice hushed. "Keep your eyes open. These walls… they breathe sometimes."

Nelson walked beside her, hands in his coat pockets, jaw clenched. His eyes swept left and right with silent caution.

Behind them, the Band of Sumir kept pace, Khloe, silent and steady as ever, followed with ghostlike calm. Randy cracked his knuckles every few steps, a subtle twitch betraying nerves. Jack muttered something under his breath, casting glances over his shoulder like something might reach through the bricks. Andy, analysing the environment with silence.

And Jeff… Jeff was licking a spicy toast stick like they were heading to a picnic instead of a cursed graveyard.

"You know," Jeff started, voice echoing in the tight alley, "if we die tonight, at least I'll have flavor on my lips. Can you all say the same?"

No one answered. The silence from the group only made Jeff louder.

"I mean, imagine your ghost haunting this alley forever with bland breath. That's tragic. That's real horror."

Randy rolled his eyes. "Jeff, do us all a favor and shut your mouth before it attracts something."

Jeff gave a dramatic gasp. "How dare you. My toast and I have a sacred bond. We laugh in the face of terror."

"Yeah," Jack muttered, "and cry in the face of actual consequences."

They reached the end of the alley. The fog curled low now, slinking between gravestones that rose like crooked teeth from the earth. Beyond the alley's mouth, the graveyard stretched in uneven rows, hunched and ancient.

A rusted gate stood ajar, screeching faintly as the wind brushed against it. Or perhaps it was something else.

Carla took a breath. "No going back. Whatever's causing the spatial shifts, it's buried somewhere in here."

Jeff peered into the graveyard with a mock salute. "Here lies our sanity. May it rest in whatever pieces remain."

Nelson grunted, stepping past the gate. "Save your jokes. Just stay close."

The graveyard didn't welcome them. It swallowed them. The fog thickened, and the air grew still. From deep within, something moved. Something small… or something far too large.

And yet, even as the dread settled in, Jeff took another bite and said, "Well, at least it's not raining."

No one laughed.

The graveyard was blanketed in a veil of thick fog, cold and unmoving. Cracked gravestones leaned in crooked silence, their inscriptions faded by time. The soil was damp, soft beneath their boots. Wind didn't blow. Crows didn't caw. Just silence. A silence that made even the brave slow their steps.

Andy raised his hand, signaling a halt. His voice was low. "Eyes up. Something's wrong."

Khloe stepped beside him, her daggers already drawn. "I don't like this place. Even the dead feel... offended."

Jack cracked his knuckles, fists humming with energy. "Just say when."

Randy moved to the edge of the path, eyes scanning the tombs. "I see movement."

The ground shifted. Bones scraped. Then came a terrible sound—the creak of armor against bone and rusted weapons dragging over stone.

From the earth, they came.

Skeletons in fractured mail burst from their graves, some carrying rusted swords, others spears with shattered tips. Behind them, taller figures rose in ancient robes, holding staves that pulsed with arcane rot. Their sockets glowed faint blue.

"Skeleton mages!" Andy barked.

The Band of Sumir exploded into motion.

Andy met the charge head-on, blade slicing through ribs and necks in a controlled fury. Khloe vanished into mist, reappearing behind enemies, her strikes swift and surgical. Randy spun through them, sabers flashing, twin arcs of steel cutting down every skeleton in his path. Jack roared and drove his fist into the ground, sending a shockwave that shattered bone and broke the charge.

A bolt of necrotic magic flew toward Andy. He lifted his blade, deflecting it with a clang of steel. "Take the mages down first! They're reinforcing the others!"

That was when the Vanguards arrived.

Jeff leapt into the chaos, sword in one hand, dagger in the other. "Back to bone town, you rattling freaks!" he shouted, slicing a skeleton across the face.

Carla wasn't far behind, halberd spinning, cutting down two warriors in one sweep. "You're yelling too much."

"It's called intimidation!" Jeff grinned, blocking an axe with his dagger.

Nelson waded in like a bulldozer, shotgun booming in one hand while the other delivered crushing punches. Bones cracked. Jaws flew.

A skeleton lunged toward Jeff from behind, blade raised.

Carla spun, slamming her halberd into the attacker before it could strike. "Watch it!"

Jeff blinked, startled. "Wow. You do like me."

Carla growled. "I like not scraping your guts off the floor."

"See? You care." Jeff ducked as another sword whizzed past his head. "It's fine to admit it."

Nelson punched a skeleton so hard its head went flying. "I swear, Jeff, I'll throw you into a coffin myself."

He slammed his fist into Jeff's shoulder on his way past, not even pausing as he fired at another mage.

"Abuse," Jeff muttered, grinning as he parried another swing.

A mage skeleton raised its staff. Khloe reappeared behind it and jammed both daggers into its spine, twisting. It screeched as it collapsed in a heap.

"Three down," she whispered.

"Not enough," Andy said, swinging his blade in a wide arc that took two skeletons at once. "They just keep coming."

Jack charged forward and uppercut a mage, shattering its skull. "They're being summoned. I can feel the energy moving under the ground."

Randy spun between foes, slicing through tendons and spine. "Then we end the ones doing the summoning."

Carla swept her halberd low, knocking over a group before finishing them with a downward slash. "We hold the line."

Jeff grunted as he blocked another strike. "That's easy for you to say. You're not the one getting flirted on by skeletons."

"Because they still have taste," Carla snapped, catching another attacker mid-swing.

Nelson tackled two skeletons at once, crushing them against a tree. "Focus, both of you."

The fog danced around them, thickening, shifting. More shapes moved within it. More bones rising. More magic gathering.

The battle was far from over.

Nelson fired his revolver, the crack of the shot splitting the fog. The bullet struck a skeleton mage square in the chest—but instead of shattering bone, it was halted mid-air by a flickering translucent shield.

"Thaumaturgic barrier!" Carla shouted, eyes narrowing.

Jeff cursed and emptied another two rounds at a different mage, only to see the bullets dissolve in sparks against the same shimmering forcefield.

"They're blocking ranged!" he snapped. "How the hell do you fight that?"

Nelson reloaded in one fluid motion. "You don't. You move in close and break their damn bones by hand."

"But we're Vanguards," Jeff muttered, then stopped. Ahead of them, the Band of Sumir charged the mages without hesitation.

Khloe ducked under a bolt of necrotic energy, vaulted off a tombstone, and drove her dagger straight into the chest of a mage. The shield shimmered—then shattered like glass as her blade tore through. The mage screamed before collapsing into a pile of blackened bones.

Andy sliced forward in a spinning motion, his greatsword colliding with a mage's barrier and cracking it on impact. A second swing broke it entirely. He stepped through the barrier's remnants and drove the blade down the mage's skull, cleaving it clean in two.

"Did… did they just break the spell?" Carla asked in disbelief.

Jack hurled a skeleton back, then leapt, his gauntlets pulsing with blue light. He punched straight through the mage's barrier like it was paper, grabbed the skeleton's skull, and crushed it in one hand.

Randy danced through spellfire, slashing in rapid arcs, blades flashing with momentum. A mage attempted to trap him in a binding rune, but Randy twisted mid-air, avoided it, and landed with a double slash that tore through the mage's barrier and spine in one fluid strike.

"They're not even hesitating," Nelson muttered.

"They're not just mercenaries," Carla said. "That's something else."

The mages began to fall, one by one. The Band of Sumir cut through them with furious teamwork and brutal grace. Every move was measured. Every strike had weight. When Andy gave an order, the others shifted without a word, covering each other, striking in perfect sync.

Even the skeleton mages began to retreat, their shields weakening under constant pressure.

Jeff grinned. "Well, if they can do it…"

He rushed forward and used a gravestone for momentum, leaping into the air and bringing his dagger down through a weakened mage's skull. The barrier cracked but didn't break.

"Help!" he called mid-air.

A gunshot rang out—Nelson had timed his shot precisely, hitting the barrier at the same moment. It shattered under the dual strike, and Jeff landed hard, blade driving into the mage's head.

"Teamwork!" Jeff whooped.

Carla rolled her eyes, but followed, spinning her halberd and cutting down two more skeletal warriors as she advanced.

With the mages gone, the battlefield shifted. The armed skeletons, once organized and relentless, began to falter. Without spell support, they were slower. Easier.

The Vanguards pressed in with renewed fire. Carla's halberd flashed like a comet, Nelson's revolver barked with every pull, and Jeff flowed between enemies like a shadow with steel teeth.

Andy raised his hand. "Finish them."

Jack slammed both fists into the ground, causing a quake that sent the last wave of skeletons sprawling. Khloe and Randy danced through the chaos, finishing what remained with merciless precision.

Bones scattered. Silence returned to the graveyard.

Jeff dusted off his coat and stretched his arms like he'd just finished a long jog, not a fight against undead mages. "Well, that wasn't too bad," he said, tossing a broken femur over his shoulder. "Still think the toast was spicier."

Carla gave him a flat look. "You almost got skewered."

"And you saved me. Admit it, you still like me."

"I like killing skeletons more," she said, smirking as she adjusted her halberd.

Andy sheathed his sword, glancing around the fog-laced graveyard. The mist was thinning, but a strange stillness lingered, like the ground itself had been holding its breath during the battle.

"Strange," he muttered. "There's no trace of spatial rifts here."

Jack rubbed the back of his glove across his chin. "Yeah. All this felt… natural. Well, cursed-natural. Like the place itself is sick."

Khloe crouched beside a scattered rune-stone, still humming faintly with greenish energy. "These wards are old. Not from today, not even this decade. Might be hundreds of years. Defensive magic, probably. My guess? Someone used to live near here who really didn't like grave robbers."

"Or skeletons," Randy added, flipping a dagger into its sheath. "Think all those 'spatial tears' people reported were just hallucinations from the curse?"

Carla nodded slowly. "Fear can twist what people see. Throw in residual death magic, and you've got full-blown illusions. That'd explain the villagers' panic."

Andy exhaled. "Still, we can't confirm distortion. No rippling, no elemental warping, not even dimensional echoes."

"We'll report it as an environmental anomaly," Nelson said. "Possibly a lingering hex. Recommend barrier runes and leave it sealed."

The others agreed. With the threat neutralized and no dimensional danger confirmed, they began walking down the cracked path leading out of the graveyard. Fog clung to their boots like a forgotten thought.

Jeff threw a lazy arm around Jack's shoulder as they walked. "Next time, can we not get jumped by skeleton wizards? Give me a boring warehouse to inspect, please."

Jack chuckled. "You're welcome to take my paperwork week anytime."

Laughter rippled through the group, warm and easy. Even Carla allowed herself a small smile, though she stayed a few steps ahead, pretending not to listen.

But at the rear, Nelson paused.

He felt it, a shift in the air. A breeze that didn't come from nature. He turned his head slowly, eyes narrowing.

Behind a rotted tree just beyond the crumbled wall… a silhouette.

Not human, tall or watching.

He reached for his revolver out of instinct, but blinked—hard.

It was just a twisted branch, broken at the top and hanging like a crooked arm.

He stared for a moment longer, breath caught in his chest. Then he sighed and let his weapon fall back into its holster.

"Probably just my nerves," he muttered.

He turned back toward the others.

"Everything okay?" Andy called out.

"Yeah," Nelson said, catching up. "Just thought I saw something."

Jeff wiggled his eyebrows. "Let me guess. Tall, dark, and branchy?"

Carla snorted.

"Exactly."

As the group walked away, their footsteps grew lighter. Laughter returned. Jeff joked about zombie fashion. Randy offered to sell cursed bones as souvenirs. The Band of Sumir bantered like old friends. Fog melted behind them.

But just beyond the edge of the tree line…

The branch shifted. Ever so slightly.

And the shadow behind it remained still.