Aren's POV
I blinked. My brain did a slow boot at how casually Ren mentioned the some evil wind spririt who also seems to weild a sword.. "Wait. How do you even know that?"
Ren tapped the long nodachi on his back. "I killed an undead on the march road. When it died, it dropped this Remembrance. The item text said the dead man once served the Wind Commander. It also said the commander used Chet's wind."
Leo and I stared at him with the same face. The face that means: maybe mention this earlier.
Ren lifted a shoulder. "You two meet things I do not need to know about."
"Fair," I said. "We are even."
The elder cleared his throat. He looked careful, like a man carrying a bowl filled to the rim. "Sirs. Can you help today?"
"Yes," I said. "We start simple."
Leo nodded. "Reinforce the low edge of the wards. Map the tunnels."
Ren added, "Set watches. No one walks alone."
"Good," I said. "Do it before noon. Afternoon likes drama."
We split the work.
The south fence ran under thin birch shade. Talismans fluttered at eye level, crisp and bright. The ground below them was not. I knelt at the first post and scraped with a flat stick. Soil fell away in a soft slide. A burrow curved under the fence, narrow as my arm. A rude smile.
Leo crouched beside me, brush in one hand, a small bottle in the other. Pale blue glow pooled in the bristles.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Condensed essence," he said. "Temple grade would be better, but this will do." He painted a clean sigil near the base. "If a hex touches this, I will feel it like a tap on the skull."
"Fun," I said. "Love brain taps."
Ren stood with the nodachi resting on his shoulder, eyes on the tree line. Wind tugged his hair. He looked like a statue that could sprint.
I tugged one of my research rats off its rope. The rat gave me the tiny glare of a petty criminal.
"Sorry, buddy," I said. "Science."
I pressed my palm to its back. Wrong-aura crawled under my skin. Quick sting. I pulled the pattern free.
"Defilement. Echoprint."
The [Rot] circuit clicked into place behind my eyes. Headache tax, small. Essence bill, medium. I leaned down and touched the burrow mouth.
"Rot."
Black decay ripped through the loose earth like ink through water. The creeping pale hands spasmed as the ground itself soured. A rasping hiss came from beneath the fence where the hands had emerged. A second later, something shrieked—a hollow, wind-rattled sound that made my skin crawl.
Ren moved in a blur. His nodachi left its sheath with a metallic whisper. Shhhhrip. The blade arced down and severed one clawed hand at the wrist before it could retreat. The severed thing twitched on the ground, fingers scrabbling at empty air. Ren kicked it away from the fence line with a look of mild disgust.
"Careful," Leo warned. He stood at my shoulder, brush in hand, aura glowing faintly around the bristles. His ward tag shimmered on the fence post next to me. "It might still be—"
The second hand lunged suddenly, attached to an arm that was half bone, half sinew and wholly unpleasant. It grabbed the bottom slat of the fence with uncanny strength. The fence post groaned.
"Still alive. Yup," I muttered. My pulse was galloping.
Ren didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and brought the nodachi down again, two-handed this time. The blade bit deep into pale forearm. With a brittle crack, the arm snapped and withdrew under the fence, leaving only shards of dirty bone on our side.
A reek of old decay wafted up from the collapsed tunnel. I covered my nose with my sleeve. "Ugh. That's one way to perfume a morning."
Leo's nose wrinkled. "Essence decay," he said quietly. "It's been dead a long time."
We waited, tense, for a few breaths. Nothing else emerged from the half-collapsed burrow I had rotted shut. Ren crouched and peered into the darkness under the fence. Only wisps of frost and blackened earth remained.
I swallowed and forced a grin. "Low-ward plan: one. Surprise zombie: zero."
Leo exhaled, not quite a laugh but not despair, either. "Let's not declare victory yet."
Right. No high-fives before lunch. I stood, wiping sandy grime off my hands. The bite of wrong-aura still prickled in my fingers. Little aftershocks. I flexed them to shake it off.
Villagers had started gathering at a wary distance. A few of the braver ones crept closer now, trying to see what happened. One guard prodded the severed undead hand with the butt of his spear. The fingers had finally stilled.
Ren lifted the gruesome thing on his blade tip and tossed it back over the fence. It landed in the weeds outside the ward line. "No more tunnels here," he said, voice calm as if commenting on the weather.
"Thanks to Aren's rot," Leo added. He gave me a nod.
I flashed a thumbs-up, though inside I felt a mix of triumph and nausea. The rot had done its job, but it always left me feeling like I'd swallowed broken glass.
"Check if it had friends?" I suggested, nodding to the fence. Leo and Ren exchanged glances, then Leo knelt and carefully brushed aside more sand under the fence with his gloved hand. He muttered a quick incantation. Pale blue light radiated from his palm, illuminating the underside.
A collective sigh of relief: the tunnel beyond was caved-in dirt and dead roots. No movement. No second pair of creepy hands.
I realized I'd been holding my breath. I let it out and turned to the gathered villagers. "All clear here," I called, keeping my tone upbeat. "Stay behind the wards and you'll be fine."
Some of them managed weak smiles or nods. Fear still hung on their faces, but seeing the 'holy men'—or in our case, unholy weirdos—handle the threat gave them a bit of hope, I think.
Ren wiped his blade clean on a rag and sheathed it. "We should burn the remains," he said. "Even scraps like that can carry plague."
"Agreed," Leo said. He retrieved a vial from his pocket—some alchemical concoction. With careful aim, he poured a few drops onto the severed bone shards and bits of undead flesh near the fence. A gentle white flame hissed to life, consuming the foul remnants with surprisingly little smoke.
One of the guards made a quick sun-gesture of thanks or prayer. I just gave Leo an impressed look. He shrugged as if to say, "Basic temple kit." Nerd.
A gust of wind rattled the birch leaves overhead, drawing all our gazes. The breeze was chilly, more suited to an autumn dusk than late morning in summer. It carried the faint smell of iron and rain. My skin prickled.
Ren's hand drifted toward his sword hilt instinctively. "The Wind Commander," he said under his breath.
I squinted towards the treeline beyond the river bend, where the three armoured shapes had been lurking earlier. For a heartbeat, I thought I saw a flicker of movement there—a tall figure, standing apart from the trees. The sunlight seemed to bend oddly around that silhouette, as if seen through warped glass. Wind tossed the grasses at the village's edge, and I heard a distant echo like the clatter of wooden wind chimes.
Then the presence was gone. The breeze died down to a normal summer whisper. The treeline stood empty. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks. Or maybe not.
Leo touched the new ward tag on the fence, reactivating its faint blue glow. "If that was a scout or fragment, it knows we sealed this tunnel."
"Good," I said, louder than I felt. "Let them know we're patching all their sneak-holes. They'll have to face us head on." I gave the watching villagers a confident grin, hoping to infect them with it. Internally, my heart was still doing a weird tango, but nobody needed to know that.
The elder approached, leaning on his cane, the temple girl who's mentor recently gone missing took a step behind him, from what I heard her name was Mira. "Bless you, sirs," the old man said, voice trembling with relief. "Truly. We all—"
I held up a hand, gently stopping the gush of gratitude. "Just doing our part. How many more fence posts haven't been checked yet?"
"Only this stretch on the east side remains," Mira answered, her quick voice a touch breathless from either running here or anxiety. "You've done the rest."
Ren nodded. "Then we finish here now. Stay vigilant—just in case our friend with the cold hands brought more."
Leo was already moving to the next post, brush in one hand and that bottle of essence in the other. I followed, scooping up the basket of ward talismans we'd brought.
Mira fell into step beside me. She looked between the three of us with something like wonder. "I've never seen a human have an ability like that," she said softly. "What you did to the ground… "
"We're a traveling circus," I joked. "One day only. Tell your friends." I hoped the levity hid the exhaustion creeping in. Using rot on so many tunnels was nibbling at my sanity's edges—not enough to break, but enough to notice.
Mira actually smiled at that. She clutched her hands nervously. "Will it be enough? To keep them out?"
Her eyes held the worry of someone who had neighbors vanish in the night. I couldn't lie to that.
"It'll help a lot," I said honestly. "We plugged their easiest tunnels. If anything tries again, we'll know." I tapped the fence post Leo had tagged. "And Leo's alarms will snitch on any funny business."
Leo raised that little bottle in acknowledgment, not looking up from the sigil he painted. "Snitches get stitches," he murmured, probably more to himself than us. I snorted. The elder looked perplexed by the phrase; I waved it off.
We went back to work. Ren kept watch a few yards ahead, scanning the quiet trees for any sign of moving rust or frosty grass. Leo and I moved from post to post. At each one, he would paint his delicate blue sigil, and I would kneel and press my palm to the earth, whispering "Rot" to collapse any nascent burrow or soft spot. Sometimes nothing was there; sometimes a small sinkhole would crumple inward as my aura chewed through rotting roots or old, half-dug tunnels. Each successful collapse made me a mix of glad and queasy. Glad because it meant one less path for the bad guys; queasy because using [Defilement] aura is like dipping your hand in a pit of centipedes—tingly, unsettling, and you pray nothing latches on.
By the time we finished the last fence post on the east side, the sun was directly overhead. Heat and humidity had crept in again, making my robes stick to my back. My head throbbed lightly—an overdue bill for all the aura I'd spent this morning.
"Last one," Leo confirmed, tucking his brush away. He swayed slightly when he stood, and wiped sweat from his brow. Even the nerd was feeling the burn.
"Let's get some shade," I said.
We regrouped near a cluster of birch trees just inside the ward line. A few villagers brought us water skins and more rice balls (bless their generous souls and excellent rice). We took a much-needed break. As I drained half a water skin in one go, I noticed Ren standing a little apart, eyes closed, face turned slightly toward the sky. The faint breeze stirred a few stray locks of his dark hair.
He opened his eyes after a moment and caught me watching. "Something's coming," he said quietly.
I tensed, nearly choking on the last gulp of water. "What, now?"
Leo looked up from where he was inspecting one of the birch talismans. "More undead?"
Ren shook his head once. "Not immediate. But soon. I can… smell it on the wind."
Sometimes I forgot how literally Ren's [Hunter] senses worked. Guy could probably track a fart through a hurricane.
I wiped my mouth and recapped the waterskin. "Then we should prep now. Leo, you wanted to hit the books, right?"
He nodded. "The temple records, yes. There might be mention of past attacks or strategies against a Wind Wraith."
"Alright. Leo goes to the library." I turned to Ren. "You?"
"I'll patrol the perimeter again," Ren said. "Maybe I'll catch another scout." He patted the hilt of his nodachi meaningfully.
I gave him a thumbs-up. "Happy hunting."
Ren almost smiled. Or maybe his face just twitched; hard to tell with him.
Leo was already half-way to the elder's hall where the temple ledgers were kept, practically vibrating with scholarly anticipation. Nerd.
I bent down to tighten the bindings on my boots, preparing to head out myself. My muscles protested—gods, I was looking forward to sleeping for a week after this. As I straightened, my belt-bell gave a sudden tiny jingle, the bone bits in it rattling against each other. It was an almost dainty sound, but it sent a chill down my spine.
The witch's bell. I glared down at the partial bell hanging from my belt. It swung innocently, as if it hadn't just tried to get my attention.
"Not now," I hissed under my breath. "I'm busy. Take a number."
The bell was still again. Good. Whatever distant owner still had its missing piece would have to wait. One horror at a time, please and thank you.
Mira hovered nearby, curious. I didn't explain; just gave her a quick grin. "I'll be around if you need anything."
She nodded. "Thank you. We'll prepare as you suggested—for tonight."
"Great. And remember, group cooking only. No solo chef adventures," I reminded her, wagging a finger in mock sternness.
That got a real smile out of her, if a small one. "Yes, sir Aren."
I chuckled and waved off the honorific. Then I hefted my pack and headed toward the center of the village. There were still a few things I wanted to check out—loose threads tugging at my brain.
The Wind Commander's wraith was out there, waiting. The Necromancer behind this siege—if that's what it was—might show himself soon too. Ren sensed something coming. And Leo was about to dive into dusty records for intel.
Me? I figured I'd talk to some folks, sniff around (metaphorically—I leave the real sniffing to Ren) and see if anything in the village itself felt off. My gut told me that undead hands don't just spontaneously decide to joyride through tunnels on a whim. There was likely a guiding hand. Maybe even one inside the village.
As I walked off, the sun blazed overhead and the village bell gave a slow, steady ring to signal noon. Daylight and friendly faces around—on the surface it was a picture of peace. But I could feel the undercurrents. Storm's coming, I thought. And we're racing it to sundown.
I picked up my pace. Time to find some answers before the next wave hits.