Flight
23 September 1998
by O'donna Dean

For something that was supposed to be an easy task, this journey had turned out to be just the opposite. Far too many people had just died, and it seemed such a unworthy reason Marako thought. Is it arrogance to think that we brought this upon those people? Was our being in that village the reason the Necromancer had decided to bring to life the undead? Or was there a bigger reason? She wasn't sure of the answers but Jadoma would know. He was the one that sent us on this "mapping of mounds" in the first place. Marako had an uneasy feeling about all of this.

Marako clung to Motoko as he ran with all of his might. She had been hurt badly while helping Ishi after he had fallen off the top of a house into a group of skeletons. Marako knew that she would need to slow him down soon, so he wouldn't hurt himself, but she needed to get back to the waterfall as soon as possible.

Her thoughts returned to the village that they had just fled from. The people there had been friendly to Marako and her companions. It saddened her to think of the motherly woman that had taken them in to her home. The feast that Widow Koichiko had prepared for them was wonderful, and it reminded her of the cook in the palace at home. Too many peasants had died but that was the way war was. War against evil. Their next life would bring them more, for they had died bravely.

Someone would pay dearly for this. But how do you make a necromancer pay? Or is there someone else behind this?