Chapter 5: Skele-bunch

Henrik awoke with a jolt, hacking on his breath as his eyelids gaped open. He spewed out his lungs' contents in hopes of expelling the smoke that formerly engulfed him, desperate to relieve his bronchi of those fumes; instead, what left him was mostly air with traces of sputum, devoid of anything undesirable. All he could recall was that skeleton turning on him, spitting out his noxious gas akin to a dragon's belch of flames. Yes, that traitor's name now chanced his thoughts, repeated with an increasingly vehement tone by his mental voice: *Spinefeld*. Damn him and whatever trick he used - after all, such a punch would not have kept Henrik on the floor that easily. Imbibed in that charcoal cloud of fumes was something potent, perhaps a quick-acting sedative that paralysed him before knocking him out.

Attempting to stretch his limbs, he found himself bound by fibrous ropes to a long pole, swaying from side to side. What he thought was a monotonous drone in his head turned out to be the marching chant of his captors; four skeletons, each at the same height and dressed in similarly torn rags, held up the long bone that Henrik was tied to as they progressed. Observing his captors through squinted eyes, he noted countless blemishes solely on the skulls of the two near his legs. They were too geometric to be generic birthmarks or whatever equivalent magical skeletons had - no, they tattled to him of the skeletons' abuse. As objective as he was, risking the possibility of further torment for these four was immoral and impractical; with their frailty, they would readily defect if it meant being safer, he thought. Bereft of common sense, he jeopardised his situation with three words: "Where am I?"

The four skeletons shrieked in disharmonious unison, as Henrik could make out "He's alive!" and "What do we do, Lim?" amidst the dissonance. He dropped the pretence of being unconscious and fully opened his eyelids, staring back at two skeletons. They reciprocated with bewildered stares from empty eyesockets, still squabbling over what to do with the awakened human. The skeleton named Lim, speaking out of eyeshot of Henrik, hushed the other three as he proposed his solution. He arrogantly suggested, "The answer lies before us, brothers of mine... we must do nothing! After all, even if he is awake, the prisoner is bound — what can he do to escape our vice-like clutches?". His proposition received a general murmur of agreement from the remaining trio, deciding Henrik's fate: he continued to swing like a pendulum, his hands and feet tied to a marble-white bone held by the four skeletons. With faking unconsciousness no longer a requirement, he attempted to engage the latter two in conversation.

"So, you guys are taking me somewhere?" asked Henrik. Disconcerted at first, one of the skeletons eventually replied. "Of course! We must present you to our master!"

"I surmised as much. As a captive, I would like to know the names of my captors."

"Oh, sure! I'm Tim. The one on my right is Bim. In front of you are Pim and the leader of our squadron, Lim."

"Shut up! Don't tell the human about us, the great 105th Skeletal Squadron—"

"I'm going to hit all of you!"

Wishing he had not asked, Henrik watched as the chain reiterated: Tim and Bim were happy to speak, soon reprimanded by Bim only to reveal more, with Lim ultimately silencing the lot. Said sequence occurred thrice, initiated by Tim or Bim and escalating for the next few minutes. Lim's bones clattered in irritation akin to how a person's clenched hand would shudder, eventually snapping at the three.

"One more word from you boneheads, and I'm through!"

Blinded by irritation, Lim readjusted the bone pole a bit too jerkily as a thud confirmed his suspicion: the ropes had loosened enough to yield to gravity, with Henrik falling flat on the floor. On cue, he found himself accompanied by the bone they tied him to, one end clattering as Tim and Bim dropped it in shock. His gun holster and rucksack slid to the fallen end — could they not have carried them separately? — near his feet. Requiring no reminders, he scrambled to his feet and wielded the long bone, brandishing it at the quartet of skeletons — and callously ignoring the slap from the gun satchel as it spun across the bone. Tim, Bim and Pim cowered behind Lim, who shakily pointed his sword at Henrik. The latter only drew his gun from the holster, keeping the iron sights fixed on Lim's skull as he insouciantly slung his rucksack. He kicked the long bone to them, now capable of holding his own should a fight ensue.

"Damn... no matter, human! Yield or face the 105th Skeletal Squadron's might!" bellowed Lim as the four unsheathed their iron swords. They fanned out, intent on cornering Henrik to the wall behind him to recapture their prisoner.