After tending to the woman, the wizard insisted the bodies be buried now. Nameless did not have a problem with this, but the intense fervor in his white eyes was unsettling as they piled the bodies onto a surviving cart. The wearing of gloves, changing into different clothes, and wearing a cloth over their faces as they did this made sense. The horse watching unblinking was unnerving, but it did distract from the back breaking task of heaving bodies onto the cart. Once full, the two pulled the cart into a nearby field. Concentration showed on the wizard Caecus’ face as a deep stone lined pit formed. The two trudged up and down the stone steps on the side of the pit, laying the bodies out in a row. It took multiple trips of filling up the cart to get all the bodies down there, the mutilated remains making Nameless nauseous. If he had not already emptied his stomach, he would have during this morbid work.
Eventually, this ordeal passed, and Caecus pushed the cart into an empty section of the pit. He then took the time to move through it to place coins over each of the deceased eyes. Walking out of the pit, the wizard said, “Remove those clothes and throw them down in with the cart.” “Why wouldn’t burning them be a better option?” Nameless asked. “For an incursion of this size fire would not be enough to destroy the contamination left by the Enemy. It would only make it harder to contain with the ash and smoke. The corruption would be free to float and gather in unpredictable places.”
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The two of them tossed the last of their dirtied clothes into the pit. The wizard then emptied a water skin over the two of them, muttering as the water turned to steam that cleaned down to the pores. Feeling his strangely raw skin, Nameless watched as the steam sealed itself tightly within the waterskin before it too was thrown bellow. He absently started putting his own cloths on as he watched the wizard’s robes as they flited around dressing him themselves. The wizard seemed to not care as the outfit straightened itself just so, only lifting each foot to let his socks and greyed leather boots slide onto his feet. Similar to his horse before, he now stood unblinking with an unnatural stillness. Staff returning to his hand, the wizard’s stillness spread into a terrible calm over the field, somehow growing louder in a gathering tension of a preparing strike. Nameless trembled feeling an inaudible hum, unfelt by his physical senses but still perceived somehow. Goosebumps erupted as he had the instinctual urge to run but felt frozen to the spot.
The moment passed, the tension slowly released, and a tomb was now sealed. “What was that?” his hushed voiced said as Caecus began walking away. He shivered as those white eyes met his own, “The Enemy’s pawns do not always attack immediately, their corruption festering quietly before ambushing the unwary. It is best to be ready for an attack, especially as everything is being sealed within stone.” “?????A??????r?????e???? ???????y??????o?????u????? ??????s????a?????y??????i????n????g???? ????t???h?????a??????t????? ?????s??????o???m???e????t???????h?????i?????n????g???? ?????c?????o?????u???????l????d??? ??????h?????a?????v???e????? ??????b?????e????e??????n?????? ???h?????i??????d??????i???n????g??? ??????i??????n???? ??????t???????h????e??????? ??????d???????e?????a????d?????? ???b???????o?????d??????i????e?????s????? ???w?????a??????i????t??????i???????n??????g???? ?????t????o????? ????a??????t????t?????a????c??????k???? ????u???????s?????????”????? His head pulsed sickeningly, and he blanched at the wizard’s response, “No, it is the dead themselves that may have attacked.”
