Necromancer

3. Flesh and bones

Having turned around, Dedraime saw what has startled his companion.
A warg. Or at least something that could pass as a warg in a dim light.
It was way bigger than casual wargs one could see roaming Ascalon and way prettier in sylvari's opinion. Bone-like features were sticking from the top of it's four limbs, connecting with small bits near what looked like an uncovered spine while it's muzzle was finished with long bony horn. It bared its teeth, growling in a low tone. Must have followed them by the scent of blood.
Warrior glanced towards his unstringed bow laying on the ground and cursed himself for not acquiring new shield yet. He didn't have real armor on himself right now and getting killed by a random beast wasn't the peak of his expectations at this exact moment.
"Kill one prey and another comes themself. Almost like humans", Dedraime noticed out loud with a chuckle, playing with the knife in his hands. Warg was slowly closing in on them until now but it suddenly rushed into crazed charge.
"Don't scratch it too much, I have plans for it", added sylvari, covering himself in shroud and shaping a scythe in his hands.
It wouldn't be too much of a fight if Dedraime didn't want the beast to stay in one piece but now that he had some plans concerning its corpse, it would be a shame to make himself more work. So he played with the warg for a while, swinging his scythe around and keeping the beast at a safe distance but then... his shroud disappeared just when he was having so much fun! He should have realized earlier that Anari hasn't accumulated much life force while Dedraime was gone.
Cursing under his breath, sylvari jumped to the side, two of claws cutting bark on his arm. He still had the knife but he wasn't one to catch up to warg's speed or at least not for long. Beast turned around to attack him again but then two arrows, one after another, hit it in its hind paw, causing it to roar in anger and pain and turn around towards that direction. Dedraime used this moment of distraction well.
"Chill to the bones!", he shouted, aiming with magic at both hind paws of the beast and necrotic ice shot out of the ground, freezing them in place. Warg roared, struggling to free itself and even stood up to aim at sylvari again but then another arrow pierced its chest and heart. And another.
Few seconds of pre-agonal struggling and the beast's huge body hit the ground, stirring up lots of sand. Necromancer waved his free hand in front of his face to shoo away some dust and when it has settled down a bit, he looked towards the archer.
"Nice shot", he said and kneeled down to check the corpse, content with it barely getting scratched and feeling the nice tingling of siphoned life force.
Since the danger has passed, they decided on finishing preparing their meal. While Charon was taking care of roasting the meat above the fire he set, Dedraime went back to the beast to skin it exactly the same way he did with the gazelle before.
Warrior eyed him from the other side of the campfire and, seeing how sylvari stretches the skin on one of the rocks, finally asked:
"What do you plan on doing with it?"
Dedraime only smirked in response, not even bothered to look in his direction. If Charon didn't even try to give him well-developed answer before, why would he do that now?
"Watch", he simply commanded, stepping closer to the pile of meat and bone that was left of the warg and started creating. With moves of his fingers the body moved as well, deforming itself with cracks of cartilage and tearing of flesh. Sylvari moved closer in to cut its abdomen with the knife and reached towards the cut. His fingers slipped in and he started pulling out insides of the beast outside with confident moves, giving away the fact it was not his first time doing that.
Charon looked at al that as commanded, half-disgusted, half... fascinated. He wasn't sure if he was hungry anymore though when he looked back at the roasting meat. When it was finally looking edible, Dedraime was done with his work as well.
In front of him stood now hound worthy of belonging to Joko's skeletal army, giving of a creepy vibe with its complete stillness and gruesome looks.
"Ain't it beautiful", necromancer more stated than asked, having commanded the beast to do few steps around.
"Impressive... creation", admitted human with some hesitation. "But.. what for?"
Dedraime turned towards him, snorting.
"You can't possibly think I am willing to cross the desert on foot with no water supply on us?"
The response was only silence.
"I thought so. Let's eat and look for some oasis or something of a kind. I am sure there's something here with all these animals around."
As they were eating rather tasteless meat, especially for Charon who was a big fan of throat-burning spices, they decided there's not much point in taking it with them as it would rot quickly in desert heat. With remains of gazelle Dedraime created a construction on warg's back and only after necromancer covered it with the sun-dried fur, Charon realized it was it was a weird saddle with a high-back.
Sylvari commanded the minion to lay down and climbed on it's back. Having seated himself quite comfortably, he looked towards not moving human.
"Do you plan on staying here or perhaps you want to run?", Dedraime smirked, rolling his eyes.
He saw warrior hesitate for a few seconds, probably not knowing if to take it as an invitation or no, but then he shook his head lightly and also mounted the minion, sitting behind sylvari. He shivered lightly and uncontrollably, as the bones started moving around him, shaping into a more comfortable seat so that he didn't neat to sit with his face buried in Dedraime's thick ponytail. Though warrior must've admitted they didn't smell bad.