Antebellum

Antebellum Chapter 3 River Cave

I sucked in a quiet and uneasy breath, part of me hated Zack for telling me this, but part of me wanted to know more.

I adjusted the strap of the backpack on my shoulder as I waited. My uncle, along with Pan, was up ahead at the cottage- Zack had said they were negotiating something with the boatman that lived there. Probably about how much gold exactly he demanded to actually sail for us.

All three of them had stepped out the small house now, and with them, a medium sized black dog charged towards me.

I laughed when the canine leaped at me, and licked me as a greeting. However, it was only a moment later when the smile on my face twisted into one of disgust.

"Jeez, why the hell does it smell so bad?" I muttered and wiped my face when I stood up. Now the creature leaped towards Zen.

The sleeping male kept his posture- head leaned backwards against a rock while his arms were crossed before him. When the animal scrambled up to him, his red eyes opened a slit, and oddly enough, the dog scrambled away with a whimper just as fast as it arrived.

Both Oliver and Pan had padded next to me while I stared on in confusion. Apparently no one saw that.

When I looked back towards the group, my uncle was squatting down to give the dog a sniff.

"What are you even doing..."

There was a long pause, which was interrupted by the loud call of 'egg!' That the boatman barked out from the dock, and the dog jogged away cheerfully.

"Ha, Egg." Zack muttered from behind me. "What sort of name is that?"

"The dog isn't normal." I heard Oliver whisper to Pan as he stood, and the former soldier nodded hesitantly.

"As in..?" I pitched in now, a frown on my face.

"That smell isn't just some bad scent animals are supposed to have. That's the smell of rotting flesh, or corpses. I've smelt this back then during the Mud Border Dispute. There was an entire camp filled with dead soldiers.. I don't think I can forget it even if I wanted to." Oliver explained. Pan nodded with agreement.

"The dog is eating corpses." Pan carried on the explanation. "Though we can't assume, but we should watch out for whatever the hell's in the cave."

"And watch out if that boatman tries anything funny." Oliver added, and I nodded slowly- did I really sign up for this? I thought grave robbing.. well, it was just some heavy digging above a grave and maybe a tiger or predator that we might bump into.

I looked over to Zack, who was shuffling through his bags, and a moment later his belt had been decorated with a small knife and a slightly longer machete.

I looked over to Zen as if waiting for him to express the same uneasy mood that everyone else was in. But the man was calmly batting off sand he had on his clothing after he stood up. Those piercing red eyes suddenly looked up as my gaze landed on him, which caused me to look away apologetically a second later.

The bastard wasn't worried. He didn't even look nervous. Which somehow made me feel at ease.

Unloading our tools and resources came next. Many things we didn't need anymore were left behind on the dragon backs. The lightweight bags being the only things we would be bringing onto the small boats.

The boatman looked awfully pale from what I could see. Maybe I was just imagining things because of the weird ass story Oliver had.

The man tried convincing us to leave our bags in another boat that'd be right behind us. All five of us generously denied the offer. Except for the things we really /couldn't/ carry on our backs.