They left on foot. No horses.

For normal hunting, taking a horse was actually good because after you were done, it would be easier to carry whatever animal you killed and save you the strength of walking back to Percvale after exhausting yourself.

But the forest was unpredictable, and Darion had learned that lesson the hard way. A horse could get spooked. A horse could make noise. A horse could step into a hole and break a leg, leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere with an injured animal to deal with.

And the forest might be too dense sometimes that carrying a horse with you was more of a liability than a good thing.

The deeper sections were thick with underbrush and low-hanging branches, the kind of terrain that forced you to dismount and lead the animal anyway.

If you wanted to cover your tracks, to hide from some animal, or maybe sneak up on something, a horse could ruin that for you. It would snort, or stamp its feet, or shift its weight at exactly the wrong moment. A perfectly good ambush could be ruined because a horse got nervous.

The animals that Darion had hunted before, while dangerous, were actually casual in the sense that people already knew what to expect from a wolf or a Bogart.

They were dangerous, yes, but they were predictable. You knew their behavior, their patterns, their weaknesses. But with wild creatures he had not encountered before, he didn’t know what to expect.

The deeper parts of the forest were filled with things that didn’t have names, creatures that hunters described but probably didn’t know their names.

He had to be cautious as ....! One wrong move could mean the difference between bringing back something useful and not coming back at all.

They entered the forest at a point where the trees thickened and the light dimmed. The path that had been clear near the edge quickly narrowed into something less defined, the underbrush reclaiming the ground where travelers had once walked.

Darion stopped at the treeline and reached into his inventory. He summoned his original undead wolf first. The massive creature materialized beside him, its body black and patchy, its green eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. It stood still, waiting for orders.

Then he summoned a Rop. The creature appeared beside the wolf, its four eyes blinking independently, its wide mouth hanging open slightly. Rops were good for hunting too, fast, low to the ground, and capable of moving through dense brush without making noise. Between the two of them, Darion had everything he needed.

There was no need summoning his undead knights for this. He had revived a lot of really strong ones on his last visit to the graveyard — Edric Vorne the commander, Ghet Ulg the giant, and dozens of others with stats that would make any enemy think twice.

But this was more of an animal thing, so he would not summon them. The knights were for battles, for wars, for situations where he needed disciplined soldiers who could hold a line or break an enemy formation. This was different. This was hunting, not fighting. The animals he was looking for would be scattered across the forest, hiding in caves or underbrush, not standing in formation waiting for him.

Ghet Ulg and Edric Vorne’s corpses were definitely strong and might just smash an animal with some punches if he brought them along. The giant alone could probably kill a Bogart with one swing of his massive arm. Edric could probably cut down anything that got close. But that wasn’t the point. The knights would probably be too noticeable. loud.

An army of undead knights marching through the forest would scare away every animal for miles.

The wolf and the Rop were better for this: smaller and quieter.

He would reserve the knights for later, when they were actually needed.

Seren watched them appear. Even after everything she had seen; the battles, the graveyard, the countless (well, not countless, they were few but something like that) undead Darion had summoned in front of her, the sight still unsettled her. A dead wolf standing beside them, its eyes glowing green. A creature that should be rotting, but moved like it was alive. She had seen worse, but there was something about the wolf that always made her pause.

Maybe it was the eyes. Maybe it was the way it moved without any of the small twitches or shifts that living animals made. She couldn’t say for sure.

And what worse thing could she have seen that was worse than these undead? Especially the Rops, those were very hideous. Their four eyes stared in different directions at once, their wide mouths hung open with teeth that seemed too many for their heads. They were unsettling to look at, the kind of thing that made your skin crawl even when you knew it was on your side.

Seren had encountered these summons before, seen them happen actually. When she and Darion had gone to see her mother, Vera. She had watched the killing and reviving process.

As normal creatures, they were already hideous, but as undead, they were somehow worse. The decay, the patchy skin, the green glow in their eyes, it all combined to create something that looked like it had crawled out of a nightmare.

"How do you get used to seeing things like this?" she asked.

Darion shrugged. "It’s what I do. Why would I not get used to seeing it?"

Seren nodded. It was a fair point. A Necromancer wouldn’t be repulsed or scared of his own work. That would be like a farmer being afraid of his own fields, or a blacksmith flinching at the sight of hot metal. The work was the work, and the tools were the tools. She understood that, even if it still made her uncomfortable.

Darion looked at the wolf and the Rop. "We’re going in deep," he told Seren. "Stay close. If something happens, don’t wait for me to give an order. Just shoot."

Seren nodded. She already had an arrow nocked. She was ready.

They moved forward. The wolf led the way, its nose low to the ground, its movements silent. The Rop flanked to the right, its four eyes scanning the trees. Darion walked between them, his hand resting on his weapon, a sharp sword. Seren followed a few steps behind, her bow half-raised.

The forest grew darker around them. The trees were older here, their branches interlocking overhead to form a canopy that blocked out most of the light. The ground was soft underfoot, covered in layers of dead leaves and moss. The silence was broken only by the occasional rustle of something moving in the brush.

Darion didn’t know what they would find. He didn’t know if there was anything worth finding.

Darion led the way through the dense underbrush, his boots finding the gaps between roots and rocks. Seren followed close behind, her bow still half-raised, her eyes scanning the trees around them. The undead moved around them like a protective formation, the wolf at the front, the Rop to the right, both of them silent and watchful.

Now they started to find tracks.

Seren noticed them first. She stopped walking and crouched down, her hand hovering over the ground. Tracks. Wolf tracks. The impressions were clear in the soft soil, the pads and claws pressed deep enough to show they weren’t old.

Darion looked impressed. Her hunter instincts were good, better than his, probably.

She pointed at the tracks. "They’re fresh. Maybe a few hours old at most."

Darion crouched beside her and studied them. A pack. Not one wolf, but several. The tracks overlapped in a way that suggested they had been moving together, probably hunting. He counted at least five distinct sets of prints, maybe more.

Darion knew they would encounter the known creatures that roamed the forest before they reached the deeper part where he would find the newer, wilder ones, creatures he probably didn’t know before. The wolves, the deer, the occasional Bogart, those were all familiar. They stayed near the edges of the forest, close to where the trees thinned and the sunlight reached the ground. But the deeper sections were different. Those were where the unknown things lived.

From what Seren had told him, even they had to go deeper before they saw the Cteedles. The herd had been grazing in a clearing far from the main paths, hidden by layers of trees and brush. That was where the real hunting began.

They kept moving.

Soon the Pack appeared.

The wolves emerged from the trees ahead of them, silent and seemingly deliberate. Maybe six of them, their bodies lean and hungry, their eyes fixed on the intruders. They spread out in a loose semicircle, cutting off any easy escape routes. Standard pack behavior. Surround the prey, test its reactions, then close in.

They circled Darion and Seren, their movements slow and calculated. Seren looked at them unfazed.

Her bow was already raised, an arrow nocked and ready.

Darion didn’t hesitate. He reached into his inventory and summoned two more Rops and two wolves. The creatures materialized around them, green light flickering briefly before fading. Suddenly, the numbers had shifted. The living wolves hesitated, confused by the sudden appearance of the undeads.