They all stared at me with that familiar odd look, indicating my amulet's second ability was turned off again. A quick press and I repeated myself.
"Why didn't you tell me they were zombies?"
"Zombies?" Tempest raised an eyebrow. "As in creatures reduced to a virtually mindless state, with only enough cognitive function to handle a simple set of tasks given to them by their handlers because they can't do anything else to take care of themselves? Did your amulet get broken?"
My mental gears ground to a halt as I processed what she said. I gave myself a shake of the head and let some of the panic get burned up in a frustrated reset, coming down to a simple adrenaline filled alert.
"Right, right. That's the original meaning of zombie. I mean an undead. As in the living dead? A reanimated corpse that has only a facsimile to being alive again? Able to move around but their bodies are still dead?"
Fluttershy perked up. "Oh! You mean draugar!"
The rest of the party looked at Fluttershy as she said this, who shied back as the focus shifted to her.
"Oh... Discord tells me a lot of his adventures from guys night with Spike and Big Mac."
"Corpses?" Tempest raised the same eyebrow slightly higher as she turned back to me. "I know they look sick and smell vile, but you honestly expect me to believe we were fighting corpses just now? I think I'd have heard from the front lines if they were fighting any corpses."
"Hey! It fits, alright?" I retorted.
I looked over to Speaks with Talons as he was putting weight on his injured limb to test it. "You said your poisons were working but then they stopped, right? Well what if they stopped because they stopped having a metabolism for them to work on?"
While I was trying to convey my thoughts, Scraps moved towards the remains nearest to him and started prodding and probing them with a small bit of stiff wire he had in his baubles bag.
After a few seconds, he brought his head up and called out, "Boss Tempest!"
"What?" She turned towards him with a slight glare. "This had better be important."
Scraps didn't wince like before. Instead he just gave a somber nod in response.
"These creatures dead for many days at least. Creatures possibly even dead for weeks."
Tempest's jaw went slack for but a moment before snapping right back to position.
She went up to the corpse herself and asked, "Are you sure? How do you know?"
Scraps went about pointing his metal wire at different spots. "Muscles too stiff for fresh kill, kind of mold on inside not grow unless long time pass and never while alive, and maggots in face. Take full day to hatch when seasoning meat back home."
Everyone else in the group had their stomachs churn a little at that last comment, even myself and Speaks with Talons, the other meat eaters.
"Too much information, Scraps." I called out. "Please don't mention eating habits pertaining to rot unless we have to know."
"Please don't mention any more details on how to use rot in eating habits if you can avoid it," Tempest repeated while looking back at me with a familiar expression. "You're running low again. Come here and I'll recharge you. Then you can tell us what you know about these... things."
After a quick recharge, I spent the next few minutes describing what I knew about zombies while everyone double checked their equipment.
"Well there are different interpretations, and all of them were fictional, at least they were believed to be before I came here. The biggest thing is if I look like I'm about to turn into one, take me out. Some versions have them infectious..."
* * *
Tempest and Speaks with Talons were listening in closely.
"So stabbing and slashing will likely have diminished effect, but crushing seems to work fine." Tempest gave her horseshoes a once over while mulling over the tactical data she extracted from my explanation. "Taking out the brain is a good spot to aim to stop them, but the heart or internal organs are pointless, limbs may or may not still be animate when severed and there is a chance that they may be infectious."
I gave a nod. "That's my best guess anyway. There are multiple interpretations. We'll just have to keep our guard up and learn as we go."
Speaks with Talons came forward. "They sound like something unnatural enough that some of my brethren among the servants may be able to detect them. Let me check something." He went up on his hind legs, closed his eyes and threw his talons out to both sides.
Almost immediately, he gave a shiver. "Yes. That is something I can detect." He came down back to all fours and pulled some well made cloth wrappings from his pack. "It is far different from what monstrosities feel like, but there is definitely something there. Something that wasn't there when they first arrived."
"Alright, lead the way," Tempest called to him with impatience.
Speaks with Talons looked back at her in irritation, wrapping the cloth around his wrists and talons like sports tape. "Can't you just whip up a piece of fancy-smancy unicorn wizardry and track them?" he jested, "It's not that simple. I can only tell that they are within a range of a few miles. I can't discern their location or number."
"But we can," The Speaker called from above.
I looked up and saw him with his ear to the tree. He pulled his ear from the tree and dropped down the branches to the ground.
"We have another group this size misled that you should be able to tackle coming to an area close to here, if you've the strength. But we must hurry or the window to catch them will close. If they get too close to another group again, we won't be able to disguise the noise of the battle and you will have a much larger group upon you."
The group looked at each other before Fluttershy spoke up, "Well, should we go or do we need to take a rest? I know you can only transform so many times before resting, Moss."
Scraps and Speaks with Talons simply gave nods while I shook my head. "I have one more in me before I have to rest, and I have my reserve of that lets me heal as a beast if it gets bad." I gestured to the corpses. "I'm good for one more this size if you all are."
Tempest raised an eyebrow again. "I still have enough in me to go another round, maybe two, but you seem calm about this. I thought you said you hated killing."
I looked back down at the corpses. "Don't get me wrong. I'm sure I'll have a breakdown when we get back, but I think discovering ponies can talk and all the other little things I've seen in this world has numbed me enough to handle myself after the initial shock. As for killing, it is bad, but this isn't killing in the normal sense. Once dead, the dead should stay dead. This is a twisted mockery of what makes life sacred. Its inability to be restored once lost. I'm just helping them get back to being properly dead."
We traveled to the next spot fairly quickly. While my amulet was still on a strong charge, Fluttershy came up and asked, "Are you alright? You're looking at the path like you're trying to dig into it with your eyes. It must have been traumatizing seeing your kind..." She paused and changed her words. "-Seeing something like that."
I shook my head and gave her as forward an answer I could, "The three big ones definitely weren't my kind. We don't get that big and the teeth were too sharp. As for the small one." I bit my lip. "Well, maybe. It seemed the right size at a glance but the body was too far gone to tell for sure."
Fluttershy nudged me. "You told me you weren't much for blood relations, and I'm taking you at your word. But if that's true, something else is bothering you about it."
I gave a huff in defeat and nodded. "They were tool users. They weren't clawing and biting at me but rather still knew how to properly wield weapons-"
I briefly turned to her with a short burst of positive flex to my voice. "-which is good in the sense they likely weren't the infectious kind, I hope."
I rubbed my shoulder where I had gotten slashed as a bear. "But, it also meant they weren't just apes or some other mere beast that looked like my kind. They were people once. I don't know what it's like being brought back like that but it can't be pleasant. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
I saw that at the end Fluttershy gave me the look to tell me that my amulet was turned off again. I could tell she got the point but I had more. Something that Tempest—who I knew was eavesdropping from the start by how she hadn't moved her head to look around like she normally did and had one ear flipped back our way—needed to hear too. In turn, I grimaced as I decided to use one more charge on my amulet even though most of it was going to be wasted.
"But what bothers me more so is that something did that to them. If it isn't just some infectious disease, then it was some'one' bringing them back. Someone that was able to do it here in the forest as they died off from Speaks with Talons poisons. Someone that might be still here. Someone dangerous."