Malachar woke up to a bright spear of sunlight lancing through his window directly into his eyes. The typical haze covering the Ashlands had dissipated. The dark clouds of the blood rain left the sky clear and bright. It was still the color of an old bruise, but it was clear of storm clouds. This pleased the dark lord. He didn't relish working in the rain, blood or not.

  He stretched and let out a yawn, mentally preparing for the day ahead. He stood, wincing at how cold his stone floor was. The blood rain must have cooled the land significantly for it to be so chilly in his outpost. Perhaps he should think about getting a rug for his home.

  A rug? He sneered at himself. How very domestic of him. He forced himself to endure the cold stone floor before tying on his boots and opening the door.

  At least, he tried to open the door. It seemed stuck, like something was holding it shut from the other side. Malachar growled, gave the door a tug and felt something snap outside. The door was free from whatever was holding it, but it wasn't swinging easily. He pulled even harder and ripped the door completely open, bringing with it dozens of dark, leafy tendrils torn from some central body.

  The dark lord looked outside and saw his field, once barren and broken, was now covered in hundreds of vines that had exploded from the ground. Following them were swollen, misshapen lumps that had begun to pull themselves from the dirt. The six skeletons stood in their formation, silently enduring the slow invasion.

  He trudged his way through the overgrowth. For some reason, only part of his field had reacted to the blood rain with violent growth. The rest of it remained as before, growing steadily and quietly.

  So many questions. He reached the nearest lump sitting among the vines. It was about the size of a human heart and it throbbed gently to some unseen rhythm. Malachar brushed the damp soil away and saw that it was covered in a veiny, charred skin. Suddenly, the growth opened an eye and looked directly at him.

  Instead of dropping it, he squeezed the obscene plant as if he were going to strangle it to death. He felt something on the other side of the lump sink tiny teeth into his finger. To his surprise, the lumpy mass had three toothy mouths on it. And noses. Why did it have noses? Was this a full-grown terro plant?

  He pulled out a dagger and prepared to give it a poke but before the blade could pierce its burnt flesh, it let out a high-pitched scream. Yes, this was definitely a terro. Before his resurrection, he would have smiled. He would have come up with a way to use the rampant growth of the terro in the next battle. But now, he just sighed and dropped the unsettlingly warm spud to the ground and made his way to the skeletons.

  Malachar ripped away handfuls of potato vines that held the ossified drones in place and ended up with a thick pile of vegetation on the ground. The work lent a sharp, peppery scent to the air that was not entirely unpleasant. Soon enough, he had torn away enough vines to free one skeleton.

  “We've had quite a growth spurt,” he said to the bony warrior. “Remove the vines from the others. We've got a big day ahead of us.”

  Together, Malachar and the freed skeleton made short work of liberating the others. The vine pile grew quickly and the dark lord wondered what to do with it after they were done working. Should he burn it? He couldn't just leave it on the field. But that was a problem for another day. He had a harvest to oversee.

  Before he addressed his troops, he summoned a giant sarcophagus from his necrotic shadow realm. He had no idea why he had it or what species it was intended for, but it looked like it could hold a few hundred spuds. And that was good enough for him.

  “Gentlemen,” he said to the skeletons standing in formation. “Some of the terro plants grew incredibly well due to last night's blood rain, leaving us with the task of harvesting. They have eyes. They have mouths. They even have little noses for some reason. But, aside from that, they scream if you try to pierce their skins. Or for no good reason at all. Ignore their cries for mercy, but do not crush them. Do not cut them. Do not destroy them in any way. What you will do is remove them from the soil and pile them in this bin. You will do this until the entire field is harvested. Now, get to work.”

  With the tireless energy that only the undead could have, the skeletons began their task. Or rather, with the tireless, mindless, energy that only the undead could have, they began ripping entire handfuls of the vines and tearing the spuds from the plants. Tiny screams began to ripple across the entire acre until Malachar called for a stop.

  “No!” he snapped. “Gently! Look here! Do it like this!”

  Making sure that everyone was watching with their empty eye sockets, Malachar demonstrated how to loosen the soil, how to pull the terro from the ground, and how to twist off the vines that grew from the vegetable to free the ugly spud.

  “There! Are there any questions?” he asked in his booming voice.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  There weren't any questions. Of course there weren't. He had always used his necromancy for war, for conquest, and for battle. Agriculture wasn't part of their magical construction. He had never had to explain care to something he summoned.

  With a sigh, the dark lord had them line up for a slight tweak in their operative functions. It didn't really take him long at all. Instead of their prime directive being to tear apart every living creature they saw, they were now supposed to identify what was a terro, what was a weed, and what to do with each.

  It was nearly noon before he finished altering his workers. And as he saw them redeploy into the field, he allowed himself a glimmer of pride. He was starting to get the hang of things. But the feeling soon vanished when he realized what he could do to aid the harvesting process. Each skeleton could only hold five or six terro before they became unable to pick any more. Then they had to trudge all the way to the sarcophagus, deposit them, and start again. This was inefficient. This was unacceptable.

  He didn't hope to find baskets. But searching again through his necrotic shadow realm, Malachar found enough round buckler shields that would work just as well for each skeleton. Why did he have so many bucklers? He stacked them in a pile but they soon fell. Kite shields were better, but that wasn't important right now. He looked deeper, hoping to find something better, something more practical.

  But when he looked up from the hole in space, he saw the skeletons had done something peculiar. One of them had woven bags from the discarded potato vines and was handing them out for everyone to use for the terro spuds. Malachar didn't think skeletons knew how to weave. Or could even comprehend what a bag was, for that matter.

  He looked away, pretending not to notice. Instead, he saw that, as the terro was being harvested, each potato's eyes would leak a small amount of tar black sap. And when the sap would hit the ground, tiny fungi would sprout, their pale little caps deploying immediately. The air began to smell like iron and baked earth. It smelled wonderful, restorative. Malachar shook his head, not believing what he was seeing.

  This shouldn't happen. The land shouldn't be responding to order. He kicked aside a clod of dirt like it was the fallen corpse of an enemy.

  “Don't get used to this,” he muttered.

  But, of course, the land didn't respond. It just continued to be.

  ****

  While the skeletons worked, Malachar had finished the stone well. All he was waiting for was the demon to return with news of a portal to the water source. His water source. The sun set and he retired to his outpost, feeling hunger begin to gnaw at him. He grimaced. If Malachar had to eat another tasteless field ration, he would scream. He would scream and probably tear something apart.

  Stews, soups, bake 'em, roast 'em. Use 'em to keep wolves away. But mostly, they're good eatin! The words of the weird old man who had tried to poach his terro echoed through his mind. Terro were food. He had been so focused on growing the damn things that he had forgotten they were good to eat. He could hardly be blamed for the oversight. It was difficult to see the terro as food, with their twisted facial features displayed haphazardly across their surface.

  He shrugged and speared it with a skewer. Ignoring the shriek, he held it over his fire and waited. He fully expected to smell the worst stench he could possibly smell, but soon the room began to fill with a sweet, earthy fragrance.

  His stomach rumbled at the promise of food, of real food. And when he couldn't bear it any longer, he withdrew the skewer and wrapped the terro in a thick towel. Cautiously, he pierced it with a dagger, but the spud didn't scream. It was fully cooked. He sliced off a portion of the surprisingly soft vegetable and took a careful bite.

  Flavor exploded in his mouth. As sweet as wine, as rich as a well-marbled cut of beef, and as earthy as...well, as regular potatoes, but somehow even richer. He tried to make himself wait for the terro to cool down more but didn't have much luck. Soon enough, the demonic potato was devoured and he set up another on the skewer. And then another after that.

  Feeling full and satisfied for the first time since he was resurrected, Malachar let out a sigh of contentment. He looked at the moon from his window. It glowed yellow, like an overripe squash, but it was still comforting. His gaze fell on his skeletal workers. They were still toiling in the night. Judging from how full the sarcophagus was becoming, the harvest would be finished by tomorrow.

  The harvest the skeletons had made possible.

  Malachar was overcome with a strange sentiment. He roasted six more terro, diced them up, and brought them outside on a flat stone. Laying the stone across a larger, flatter rock, he called across the field. “Gentlemen! That is enough for the day. It is time for dinner.”

  The skeletons immediately stopped what they were doing and approached the dark lord. They clustered around him and seemed unsure of what to do next. He nudged the platter with the still-steaming potatoes closer to them and nodded. The skeletons leaned closer to the offering but did not partake. Not in the way Malachar had been feasting in the outpost. They couldn't.

  But still, they seemed appreciative. Or perhaps that was just his imagination. He made sure to leave the stone when he turned around, rolling his eyes at how sentimental he had become. He would have to be wary of such behavior. Sentimentality made one weak. Soft. Vulnerable.

  And then he saw the sigil. Worked expertly into the ground right outside the door and thrumming with hideous potency, the symbol looped and whorled with insidious portent. It was an ancient sign, one that had been used to praise him long, long ago. And, though old, the dark lord knew exactly what it said:

  BLACK HAND, BLEEDING SKY

  MALACHAR, RECEIVE US.

  Weary beyond measure, the dark lord looked around his field and searched every side of the outpost. But no matter how much he investigated, he saw no signs of the one who had written the sigil. And though the sigil praised him in the highest, Malachar couldn't help but feel unsettled. Someone had found him. Someone who knew who he was.

  He kicked dirt over the sigil before going back inside.