Bloodlines of the Ancient Pantheons

Chapter 288: CCLXXXVIII. The Row Of Ants

"I've never seen anything like it, Captain... besides, notice his fingers... those of the hands are stretched in a strange way and that of the feet are bent on themselves, as if this poor man tried intensely to resist something, just before he died. He must have suffered a lot" Reidar sobbed, who bowed his head downwards, out of respect for the deceased.

Dag pulled out the hammer, holding it backward, with the handle facing forward and touched the head of the corpse slightly, which bent drastically on one side, hanging on his neck only through a flap of skin and emitting noise of brittle bones.

"Fuck! Oh..." Reidar exclaimed, who looked away for a moment, disgusted.

After the corpse's head fell to one side by the force of gravity, it slowly dragged the rest of his body with it, which ended up with its stomach on the ground.

"Reidar, look at this... at the bottom of the nape... this man's flesh has been completely torn at that point, which is why his head has come off at the slightest stress!" Dag acknowledged, pointing to a huge rotting wound right under his broken neck with the hammer handle.

"What... what does that mean? Captain, I can't reason with this unbearable stink!" the archer replied, stepping back, covering his mouth and nose with his arm.

"I don't know... but it looks like a wound intentionally done at this point. On the rest of the body, there are no other cuts or signs of blades or blunt instruments... this is the only wound on this elderly man's corpse" Dag continued, trying to reason aloud when his gaze fell on a row of ants moving in groups on the sand, near the corpse.

He continued to follow the insects with his eyes, noting that part of them was stationary next to the body, slowly devouring the carcass, while in a neat row, another group moved towards the rubble, passing between the wooden beams and the muddy straw of the roofs.

He stood up and left Aslan's bridles to Reidar, without saying a word.

He put the hammer back on the magnet and climbed over the corpse and obstacles behind it, going into the rubble, trying to follow the path of the ants.

"Captain, if I was you, I wouldn't go in there... you're going to get some kind of sickness!" Reidar stuttered in an unconvincing tone, knowing he couldn't divert the attention of Dag, who had a head as hard as marble.

He continued to walk on tiptoe, being careful not to stumble and noticed that as he moved in the direction of the insects, the stench of corpse increased by joining that of the soaking wet wood full of mud and algae and become unsustainable.

At one point, his foot trampled on yet another pile of straw and mud, but a strange noise followed.

*crunch*

Immediately Dag lifted his foot off the ground, trying to figure out what he had crushed.

Helping himself with the tip of his boot, he moved the mud and dirt, discovering in the wet sand a human hand, of which he had just broken the bones with the pressure of his foot.

"Holy bitch!" he exclaimed, unable to hold back his disgust, seeing those fingers dangling on the putrefying hand.

He stopped and looked around, realizing that the hand was connected to another corpse, hidden from the rubble and was not the only one: a few meters ahead, a huge pile of dead bodies emitted the strongest stink he had ever smelled in his life.

It was a real dune formed exclusively of corpses similar to the one encountered at the entrance of the village.

Among those dead bodies, Dag was able to distinguish even that of some women, whose long hair was still recognizable, as well as some corpses of children, which further darkened that macabre scene. 

"Captain! It's all right?! What's going on in there?!" Reidar asked, after hearing Dag say something in a frightened tone.

"Yes, Reidar... I'm fine! Wait for me out there!" he replied, his mouth covered by his arm.

Those bodies seemed to have suffered the same death as the other, but to be sure, he had to verify the wounds on their napes were the same.

He tried to take a deep breath so he could hold his breath longer and taking courage, then took a few steps forward, squinting and closing his mouth.

A huge swarm of flies and flying insects of all kinds roamed ravenously on the pile of rotting bodies, creating an incredibly rarefied and smelly air layer.

Shaking his other hand forward to make his way through the insects, whose buzz soon became unbearable to his ears, he managed to look at one of those corpses more closely.

It was that of a woman, who was still wearing her dress, completely filthy and dirty with her own blood.

Her head was tucked between other bodies beneath her and the back of her dress was torn up, leaving room for a huge wound, completely identical to that of the other corpse, if not larger.

After a few seconds of standing motionless, Dag started retching and without thinking twice, turned around and walked back, rushing out of that infernal place.

"Captain!" Reidar called as he saw Dag rush out and throw himself on the sand, starting to breathe again anxiously after holding his breath for a long time.

"Fuck, Reidar... there are many more..." he whispered, trying to restrain the vomit. 

"What are you surprised by? They're all the other villagers... we knew they were dead. No one removed the corpses for fear of coming across with other enemies" Reidar said, not yet understanding why Dag was so upset.

"No, I didn't expect such a thing instead... they're not just dead... there's a huge pile of corpses, stacked on each other, and everyone has the same wound as this one... behind the back of the head..." Dag continued, closing his eyes and rubbing his nose, trying to eliminate that unbearable stench.

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