“We’re gonna die,” Zaria said.

  The ground continued to rumble. For the past few minutes, it had not stopped. The sandwyrm was agitated. Closing in. Isaac imagined a circular maelstrom of teeth erupting through the ground, a jagged maw large enough to swallow ten men whole. He remembered the roars. He remembered the scales that shrugged off all but his most powerful scrolls. Most of all, he remembered the quickening—the sudden increase in vibration that served as the only warning before the killing strike.

  Ahead, at the palace walls, the pirates had severed the heads of the sorcerer’s thralls and erected them on their ramparts, capping off their hanging black standard of skulls and crossbones. There were armed patrols walking the makeshift scaffolding. They had rigged blackpowder bombs at all the gates. If they went off, the sandwyrm would certainly attack. He wasn’t sure if they were unaware of this, or deliberately threatening to do it.

  Beyond the walls, a shouting voice echoed down the dead city streets. Captain Black Eye Soren.

  “We got the element of surprise,” Zaria said, “and fuck all else. If she decides not to accept the parley, we’re dead. If she decides not to accept the duel, we’re dead. If she thinks its exceptionally insulting that I’d appoint a human as my champion, then we’ll be wishing we’re dead in short order.”

  Isaac began counting on his fingers. “She wants to take you alive. She wants to make an example of you. She wanted to fight a duel with you earlier. She won’t know I’m a mage. And she’ll take any chance to raise the morale of her crew, scared of this place as they are.”

  She pulled him back from their vantage point across the street, her mohawk faintly golden in the cartilage light. “Don’t get cocky. If she closes the distance, you’re dead, and it won’t be a pleasant departure, neither.”

  “It’s risky,” Isaac admitted, “but I think you’ve spent too long seeing me tied and helpless. She’s the one who needs to be afraid.”

  “It needs to be fast,” Zaria said. “Loud and horrible, especially. Break their spirits so quick they got no hope of stopping a rout. We want them running, Isaac. Don’t kill them if you don’t have to.”

  The rumbling intensified for a few moments, as if the sandwyrm had closed in for a pass just below the surface. Beyond the palace walls, the few shouts of laughter and merriment ceased immediately. The patrols on the ramparts clutched their crossbows a little tighter. They were scared. They had good reason to be. If the sandwyrm didn’t kill them, the sorceress would, and she would not make it as quick as the dragon.

  “Let me do the talking.” She squeezed his shoulder, ears bent flat. “No matter what, follow my lead. Beck and call at all times. Got it?”

  He bowed. “As you say, madam knight.”

  “Well, now. Those are words I could get used to.”

  “It’s only a special treat this time, I swear.”

  A grin almost emerged, but it died when she looked at the palace again. Her hackles were raised needle straight, and she was constantly wringing her hands, adjusting what remained of her leather armor. She took a deep breath and held it in, eyes closed, slowly breathing out.

  “Hey,” Isaac said. “I’ve got your back.”

  She nodded as if she hadn’t really heard him. At the palace, Soren’s shouted orders echoed out through the dead city.

  “We don’t have to do this. It’s your call.”

  “No.” Her exhale came out as a growl. “No. Fuck it. Before I lose my nerve.”

  Zaria emerged from their vantage point with a straight back and clenched fists, marching towards the palace. Isaac followed right behind her.

  The guards on the ramparts didn’t notice them immediately. The dim glow of the hanging cartilage held the city streets in a soft twilight, and the sandwyrm’s rumblings seemed to be traveling in a circle around the palace, growing tighter and tighter. Both the guards were following it with their ears. They were scared. They would rout easily.

  “Parley!” Zaria shouted. “Parley!”

  The two male hyenas nearly dropped their crossbows. They took up firing positions, one of them almost tumbling off the shoddily built rampart.

  “Soren! Soren! I’ve come to parley, you fuzzy cunt!”

  On the other side of the fortifications, all sound stopped. For a moment, only the dead silence of the necropolis remained. Then there was a rush of stomping feet on pavement, as if everyone was hastily running to position.

  “H-hold right there!” one of the male hyenas yelled. “Zaria, s-s-stop, don’t come any—”

  “That you up there, Emmit?” She barked out a laugh. “What bleeding moron trusted you with a weapon?”

  “I mean it! Stop! D-don’t come any—”

  Emmit flinched as his crossbow fired. The bolt shot straight into the ground, and the shock of the recoil made him fumble the weapon, dropping it down the wrong side of the wall.

  Zaria scooped the broken bolt up off the pavement. “Did you just fire at me, you sniveling cuntsucker? You open that gate right now, or I’m making this bolt your new cock!”

  Emmit yipped loud enough to echo. “Open—o-open the—”

  “Open the gates!” Soren yelled. “Let her through!”

  A mass of pirates had swarmed around the rib-shaped grills of the palace gates. Lions and foxes, all of them scarred and armed, all of them snarling like they did so for a living. Like Zaria, most of them had nearly a head of height on Isaac, and all of them seemed able to wrench him limb from limb if given the chance. As they worked to disarm the hefty blackpowder satchels currently rigged to the wall, he began to doubt the wisdom of their plan.

  Below, the sandwyrm’s rumbling faded down to a faint hum. Distant. Listening.

  The gates opened. The crowd of pirates barely parted enough for them to pass, forcing them to walk through a tight tunnel of bodies. Isaac followed behind Zaria’s downturned tail as they entered the palace courtyard, never more than spitting distance from at least five different sabers and maces, all of the pirates growling and breathing heavily in his face.

  “Kaiser!” Zaria shouted. “Still pissing blood, are we?”

  A male lion snarled at her.

  “Told you not to shag that wench, ya daft cunt.”

  Isaac was very careful to avoid eye contact.

  Captain Black Eye Soren stood in the center of the courtyard. Human blood was still shining on her leather armor, glistening on nearly a dozen sheathes of throwing knives. This close, Isaac could see how the pirate captain had earned her name—the left side of her face had been scarred by some kind of fire, leaving the flesh mottled and furless. Her left eye was now made of glass, and there had been no attempt to make it look natural. It was completely black, reflecting everything it saw, like moonlight on dark water.

  Behind her, the palace of the dead city was a spilling pile of giant skulls, eyeless faces gazing in wonder towards the rib cage sky. It was hard to imagine that such a heap of bone had ever been used as a building.

  Soren pressed the flat of her cutlass against her leather pauldron, wiping the blood off in one long stroke. “You truly are desperate, aren’t you?”

  “Nah,” Zaria said, marching forward. “Tell the truth, I’ve never been better.”

  Isaac could feel the pirates walking behind him, fanning themselves out. Flanking.

  “That so?” Soren sheathed her sword. “You killed all your worldly friends. You’re hunted like a dog. Now, your only shelter is a tomb full of madness and evil. Only good thing I can say in your favor is you won’t beg my mercy.”

  Zaria stopped two body lengths in front of the bunny. “We’ll just see who’s begging who, by the end.”

  Isaac came out by her side, keeping his body language as calm and neutral as possible. He was ready to cast a spell at a moment’s notice.

  Soren looked at him like he was a fish walking on land. “Who the bloody cunt is this? He the one that left them second set of tracks? You find some human wandering the wasteland up above?”

  “Sure did.” Zaria slapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him to her side. “Rather felt sorry for him, matter of fact. Now he’s my squire.”

  The pirates around them snorted and laughed. Isaac’s composure began to crack.

  “Oi, human,” Soren said. “What’s your name, then? Who the fuck are ya?”

  “You don’t need to know,” Isaac replied.

  The bunny snorted. “Good eye. Couldn’t care less.” Her one remaining eye roamed over him. “I’ll make sure you’re just called my cabin boy, and nothing more. Unless you wish to die with your shining knight.”

  Zaria still had her arm on his shoulder. She gave it a tiny squeeze.

  Soren grinned like an opening wound. “Whatcha say, handsome? I’d keep you nice and pampered.”

  Isaac scoffed. “I wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s cock.”

  Soren and her crew burst into laughter. Even Zaria gave him a sideways glance. He wasn’t sure if they thought what he said was funny, or if they were laughing at the fact that someone like him had said it. Either way, he was satisfied, because, as a child, he had once read that line in a book, and he had waited half his life for the chance to use it.

  Below, the ground continued to gently rumble. The palace of skulls seemed to moan wordlessly up into the cartilage light.

  “Just playing, love,” Soren said, still chuckling. “I can smell her on you from here. Could probably count her teeth on your neck.” Her pink nose wrinkled. “You enjoying your life as a fugitive, Zaria?”

  She tightened her grip on him. “You know how it is. Have to claim what’s yours.”

  “Not so,” Soren replied. “The rule is—if you’re dead on the ground, then he’s mine, and whatever ransom you’re hoping to collect will be mine as well.” Her black eye reflected the rows of pirates behind them. “Got that ‘nobleman’s son’ look to him. Think he’ll be called Coin Purse, instead.”

  Zaria let him go, stepping forward. “Them floppy ears gone deaf, Soren? I’m offering parley, not tribute.”

  The bunny drew her cutlass so fast that it audibly sliced the air. “Only thing you got to offer is your life, traitor. I’d drag you back to Crookspur so I could break you proper on the wheel, but last time I tried that you sundered a whole fucking ship. You’re dyin’ down in this bony city, and I’m damn sure gonna bleed you like you bled ten of my crew.”

  Zaria took another step forward, the point of her captain’s sword inches from her chest. “You’re gonna lose the rest of them if you stay down here. This place is evil, Soren. Them stories of soul-sucking sorcerers are true. I’ve seen it myself, and it’s only thanks to this human behind me that I’m living to tell the tale.”

  Soren growled out a laugh. “You concerned for us, now? Where was that concern a week ago? Did you blow a bloody hole through my ship ‘cause you just loved us so much?”

  “How many men have you lost already?” Zaria turned to face the crowd of pirates. “How many of your mates won’t ever be leaving this place?”

  The pirates glanced between each other. Behind them, they had laid out the bodies of their crewmates in one long row, shoulder to shoulder.

  “Go on,” Zaria said. “Tell me so. You think some treasure and vengeance is worth your lives?”

  Soren’s whiskers curled back. “There ain’t no crewman on the Saber that didn’t lose someone to your rampage. Don’t even have a proper roster for all the souls you left burned to cinders, neither. Someone has to end your carnage. Whatever pirate blood you think is on my hands ain’t nothing compared to what’s on yours.”

  More than a few voices rose up in agreement.

  “I forced no man down into the black,” Soren said. “All hands came of their own free will. Equal risk, equal shares. Aye, lads?”

  Even more voices shouted back.

  “Oh, truly, then?” Zaria said. “Does this brotherhood shite extend off to the transport of slaves? Children? You all singing merry ‘round the rigging while some babes cry for their parents below deck? You all gonna spend your blood money on drink and wenches without a second thought?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Soren said. “Job specified no tampering with the cargo. I followed that directive. My disgust is the same as yours, and I’m planning on carving that disgust into the cunts that offered the contract.” The bunny twirled her cutlass. “The difference being that I’m honorable enough to keep my word, and not nearly so low that I’d slaughter my mates for righteousness.”

  “There’s honor in aiding evil now, is there? You still completed that contract, didn’t you?”

  “Much as I could,” Soren said. “Accountin’ for the cargo you tossed.”

  “Cargo? That’s your word for innocent lives?”

  “Them’s the terms of contract. Not my place to debate.” Her sword glinted as it spun. “My word’s gotta mean something. Have to show I’m principled. No ship would ever surrender her hold if I were known for breaking promises. My reputation protects my crew, and I have to protect it in kind. Whether that be honoring evil contracts, or hunting down a traitor.”

  Zaria turned to the gathered crowd of pirates. “I want to hear you all say it. Say you’re fine dipping toes in the slaving business. Say you’re fine earning wages off the blood of children. Just admit, right now, that you’re no better than some bandits slitting throats on a highway.” She looked around, receiving only stares in reply. “Tell me you’re still feeling brave. Tell me that you aren’t having second thoughts confronting all these curses and magic.”

  Most of the pirates were silent. Some of them were looking around the dead city, staring with wide eyes at the palace of skulls or the giant glowing rib cage above their heads. Some were glancing at the floor, the sandwyrm rumbling and circling beneath, close enough to rattle their barricades and ration crates. Others were looking at the bodies of their friends.

  “Leave,” Zaria said. “Call it a withdrawal, if you want some dignity about it. Everyone of you that stays down here for my sake is gonna die.”

  Captain Soren looked over the uneasy gathering of her crew, their faces reflected in her black eye. Her half-burned muzzle twisted into a snarl. “I was fair to you, Zaria, wasn’t I?”

  “Aside from torturing me for several days, you mean?”

  “Fair punishment for a gutless crime.”

  “Well, then. Right you are, capt. No complaints from me. Good shares, good grog.”

  “Damn good hand you were,” Soren said. “Worked harder than half these sods combined. Absolutely fearsome with an axe.”

  “Oh, none compare to the Black Eye. No one else could’ve scared me into running down here.”

  “Matter of fact—Vossler’s stepping down as third mate. Planned on promotin’ you to it.”

  “Truly? Never thought I’d hack it as an officer. Leading men, the whole bit.”

  “You would have. Might’ve made it to captain faster than I did, even.”

  “Appreciate you saying so.”

  “Call it a parting gift.”

  Zaria made a noise in her throat. “Funny how that works.”

  “No,” the Black Eye replied. “It ain’t.”

  “Had to stick to my principles, Soren.”

  “As do I, Zaria.”

  “No chance I’m talking you out of this, then?”

  The burned flesh around Soren’s eye tightened. “You know better.”

  “Aye. Suppose I do.”

  Hyena and bunny stared at each other for a long moment. Below, the sandwyrm’s angry patrols continued to rumble through the earth, and the palace of skulls glowed in the cartilage light, like a bulbous pile of gold.

  “That’s enough,” Soren said. “We’re dueling, here and now. Toss your polearm and grab a short blade.”

  “Got a better idea, capt.” Zaria stepped back to Isaac’s side. “He’s gonna be my champion.”

  The palace courtyard was silent for a moment. Even the sandwyrm seemed to pause. Then a few chuckles and snorts built themselves into a chorus of hoots and shouts. The air of the dead city filled with taunts. He could feel the pirates at their back jeering at him, rattling their weapons and barking out laughter.

  Only Soren stayed quiet. She watched Isaac with a silent fury. He met her one-eyed gaze, his arms ready to cast.

  “Shut up!” Soren yelled. “Shut up!”

  The laughter died. The bunny stared him down. He could see his face reflected in her black eye. His dirty blond hair had grown long and wild—he was filthy, unshaven, still sunburned, and just as gaunt and thin as a starving prisoner.

  “It’s your right to request a champion, unconventional they may be.” Slowly, she lifted her cutlass until the tip was pointed square at Isaac. “You want to fight me, love? Is that bravery or ignorance?”

  “Neither,” Isaac replied. “You’re barely even worth my time.”

  “Tough words.”

  “I’ve earned them.”

  Soren’s black eye gleamed in the twilight. “I see it now. I see that fire in your eyes. You got some venom in your blood, don’t you, human?”

  Isaac didn’t answer.

  She scraped the tip of her cutlass across the knuckled courtyard pavement. “Knew there was something off about you. The way you look—either you’re horribly lost, or you’re the deadliest cunt standing here.”

  He still didn’t answer.

  “What is it then, Zaria? Is he some monk from a monastery, cracking stone with his bare hands? Got some magic tucked up his arse, does he?” She turned her gaze to the hyena. “You willing to trust your life in his hands?”

  “Wouldn’t be standing here if I wasn’t,” Zaria said.

  “How about I just sic my crew on you both and save us all the trouble?”

  “We’ll take half your crew with us if you try.” Zaria turned back to the pirates. “I’m a fair sort. If my champion loses, then I’ll submit. But the first lad who violates my dueling rights is gettin’ his teeth carved out through his cock. That’s a promise.”

  None of the pirates answered. Some were angry. Many were glancing nervously between each other. A few of them had already taken some tentative steps back.

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  “Enough,” Soren said. “Human. Do you pledge yourself in service of your knight here?”

  “I do,” Isaac said.

  “Do you understand that if you lose this duel, either by yield or death, then her life is forfeit?”

  Next to him, Zaria shifted slightly.

  “I do,” Isaac said.

  “Fine, then. You lot—scatter.”

  The pirates stepped back, creating a circle around them. Zaria did so as well, pausing to give him one final squeeze of the shoulder. Soren never took her gaze off him.

  “Jarrett,” she called. “Search him. Make sure he’s got nothing extra tucked away.”

  A male fox stepped forward. He approached Isaac like one might approach a bomb. He patted him down, running over his legs and arms, pulling off his pack and dumping the contents on the ground. All his alchemical equipment rolled across the knuckled pavement. Soren eyed the vials and ciphers, her black eye churning with reflections.

  “He’s clean, capt,” the fox said. “Nothing on ‘em.”

  The bunny’s ears flicked. “Give him your saber.”

  “I don’t need it,” Isaac said.

  “You sure about that?”

  He flexed his fingers. “Very.”

  Jarrett looked to his captain. She flicked her head. He scampered away.

  They stood around two body lengths from each other. Soren was only barely tall enough to come up to Isaac’s shoulder, much like he came up to Zaria’s. The blade of her cutlass caught the fool’s gold light as she twirled it in her hand. The burnt scarring around her eye seemed to extend down to the muscle—the mottled skin could only twitch and pull.

  He had seen how fast she was. She could close the distance between them in a blink—even now, her bare feet were shifting on the knuckled pavement, tensing and rolling. He brought his arms out in front of him. He chose to use wind. It had the fastest casting time, and, at the beginning of the first mnemonic position, it didn’t look too dissimilar from a martial arts stance. A strong enough gust would shred Soren’s lungs from sheer air pressure, and the sight of their captain drowning in her own blood would scare the pirates quite well.

  “Oi, floppy!” Zaria called. “Toss your knives! We’re fighting fair, aren’t we?”

  Soren ran a hand over the sheaths of throwing knives on her chest. “I’m starting to doubt that’s the case.”

  Suddenly, the sandwyrm made a close pass below, the ground almost bulging, and the melodic warning call reverberated out through the earth. It sounded angry. Territorial. Behind Soren, the palace seemed to shake exceptionally hard, like the skulls were shifting in place.

  The pirate captain hardly moved as the earth trembled beneath her. “Claxton, Heywood. Notch your crossbows. Flank the human. Both shoulders.”

  “Capt?” a lioness asked.

  “Do it.” She pointed her cutlass at Isaac. “If this sodding ape tries to cheat, kill him. Better yet, tag him in the belly. Make it slow. Gut him in front of his knight.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lioness hesitate, look back to her fellows. None of the pirates moved.

  “Do it!” Soren yelled. “Have to ensure our honor, don’t we? Have to make sure there’s no craven intentions among us, aye?” Her pink nose wrinkled at him. “I’m still smelling the stench of a traitor on you, human. Best we set that straight, right now.”

  Slowly, Isaac shifted his arms to the second mnemonic position. Below them, the sandwyrm roared through tons of earth and rock, a colossal howl that seemed to shake the very foundations of the city.

  He heard the notching of two crossbows at his back. In the surrounding circle of pirates, many hands went to their scabbards, clutching the hafts of weapons.

  Soren twirled her cutlass. “You’re looking real out of place there, love. Tattered robes. Thin as a bilge rat. Carrying naught but parchment and vials. Now you’re refusin’ a weapon. And how’d you get past all these bones and magic, anyway? Don’t tell me Zaria’s taking on the blackest of evils all by her lonesome. That was your doing.” Her burned flesh twisted. “Who the fuck are you?”

  All at once, the palace of skulls began to move. The heads shook, flexing their jaws, rolling over and under each other like distended marbles, coalescing into some new ordered shape. As they slid into position, the skulls tilted their eyeless faces towards the rib cage sky. They began to sing.

  “You’re a mage, aren’t you?” Soren fingered a throwing knife. “You’re the one that sundered the ship. Now you’re gonna spit hellfire at me. That’s your trick, you craven cunt. I’ll fucking skewer you—”

  “Captain!” one of the pirates yelled.

  Soren turned around, looking at the palace. The skulls had arranged themselves in a flat-topped pyramid, each one of them larger than a house, and they were all bellowing towards the blackened sky, their skinless faces wrapped in horror and worship, like the summoning of an eldritch god. Together, their chorus of voices built into the melodic pitch of a sandwyrm’s battle cry.

  The earth shuddered. The body cavity ceiling began to crumble. Around the city, entire streets and buildings fell through the earth as the ground collapsed beneath them, the recently carved tunnels below finally giving way as the sandwyrm lurched through rock and dirt, quickening for a strike. It thundered back a furious response to the skulls, shaking Isaac to the core.

  He realized, all at once, that the sorceress had not stayed her forces against Soren because she wanted him to kill the pirate for her. She had just been waiting to kill both of them at the same time. And she was willing to destroy her entire city to do so.

  The pyramid of skulls stretched their jaws open in an ecstasy of worship, their lungless voices singing so loud that it almost drowned out the coming strike.

  “Run!” Isaac shouted. “Run!”

  The skulls erupted into the air. A colossal form spewed from the earth, rows of sandy scales rushing and glittering in the cartilage light. The giant skulls continued to sing as they spun through the open space of the body cavity, reverent faces failing like meteors, crashing to the ground in showers of splintered bone. Soren sprinted out of the way of one falling skull, and Isaac just barely managed to stumble backwards in time, air pressure from the close impact slapping him off his feet.

  Just ahead, the sandwyrm extended half its body out through the earth, coiling in the hanging space beneath the glowing rib cage. Its bulging segments bristled with the starry glint of sand-woven scales, its vestigial wings wriggling outwards as if it meant to take flight like its ancestors. At the head of the dragon lay a circular mouth wrapped in a twitching line of mandibles, sensing and tasting the air. Its maw was wider than a castle moat, and its multiple sets of teeth could shred entire regiments of soldiers.

  Isaac got back to his feet, steeling himself. He knew what he had to do.

  “Hey!” he shouted, sprinting around a shattered skull. “Over here!”

  The dragon twisted, jerking its head towards him. They did not have eyes—only the remnants of orbital depressions. Instead, they saw with sound. Their vestigial wings acted as sensing devices, capable of picking up the slightest vibrations in the earth, and the fine hairs that grew between their scales functioned as a shell of transmitters across its carapace. To the sandwyrm, his shouting was like a blaze of light in the darkness, something it felt across its entire body. Isaac’s voice almost drowned out the screams of the pirates as they ran and fled from the courtyard.

  “Come on! I’ve faced bigger than you!”

  The wyrm bent itself down, its ring of mandibles writhing and grasping, its bed of teeth undulating around its mouth. Noxious breath hit him like a burning hurricane. He stopped running, faced down the mouth of the giant creature, and performed his mnemonics as the beast tensed its body to strike.

  He pointed his finger at its open mouth and fired raw sound down its throat. A shower of blood and flesh erupted from the circular maw. The sandwyrm reeled back, spraying an arc of green viscera across the rib cage above. A perfect shot. It was staggered, deafened and blind. The ground trembled and broke as the dragon flailed, and the buildings of the necropolis quaked as it screamed.

  But it caught itself, more of the segmented body slithering from beneath the earth. It reared its mouth towards him again, its angry snarl dripping with blood and rows of bristling teeth. The sandwyrm tensed itself, unleashed a colossal roar, and shot its massive body forward.

  Every other time Isaac had fought a sandwyrm, he had managed to scare them away. All predators were naturally risk-averse. They wouldn’t chance an injury if they didn’t have to. But that had been different—those other sandwyrms had only seen him as a potential meal. This one thought it was defending its territory from a rival. It would not retreat so easily.

  The gigantic creature struck with incredible speed. He casted wind, shooting it out with both hands in a concentrated tunnel. The gusts caught the wyrm in its outstretched mouth, splitting the wounded flesh open even wider, but the beast was barely slowed—in fact, it struck even harder, the pain only driving it further into rage. Its body slammed into the ground, its writhing mouth rushing towards him. He put all his energy into the wind, splitting the dragon’s maw wide, the sharp screams of the gales almost louder than the furious bellowing. It kept coming, sundering all the pavement in its path, tongue and teeth closing in.

  As the sandwyrm reached him, Zaria leaped forward from behind, spearing the dragon’s tongue with her poleaxe like a sailor hunting a whale. It flinched, jerked its head in pain, and Isaac was struck with a speeding wall of mandibles and scales, sending him tumbling head over heels across the pavement. He crashed into a stack of ration crates, gasping and reeling, struggling back to his feet as fresh blood leaked into his eyes.

  The sandwyrm had flattened its body across the remnants of the palace courtyard. Its mandibles flexed and jerked, its closed mouth snapping from side to side. Finally, its head shot back, its maw opened, and Zaria was flung into the air. She was coated in green blood and saliva, her poleaxe still speared onto a severed chunk of dragon tongue, turning the weapon into a giant, fleshy warhammer. The sandwyrm snarled, rising to catch her in its mouth. She completed her arc into the air, catching her balance just enough that, when the creature struck, it found her screaming and twisting and striking her poleaxe down with all her strength.

  When the sandwyrm swallowed her, it flinched again, snapping back and forth in pain. But its maw closed, its ring of mandibles tightened down, and the ends of its body began to slither back into its giant burrow in the earth. It was retreating, leaving nothing but a destroyed palace in its wake.

  “Hey!”

  Isaac ran forward. The sandwyrm continued to snake its way into the shattered ground. Without slowing down, he shot multiple salvos of raw sound at the giant creature. Each impact on its body cracked its glittering scales, and the beast spasmed in agony, overwhelmed with noise and sensation. The assault only made it struggle faster, its segmented body squirming and disappearing into the earth. Isaac kept firing, kept running forward, but the wyrm’s scaly hide was too tough—its head vanished back into the tunnels, leaving nothing but a scarred hole in the earth, the vibrations from its passage slowly fading from beneath his feet. The last thing he heard was a falling bellow of pain.

  And, suddenly, he was alone. The palace grounds were destroyed. The pirates had fled. Soren was gone. Only the silence of the dead city remained.

  He stood at the edge of the giant crater, staring down into an empty tunnel. “Zaria!”

  The earth was silent. Only his voice echoed back.

  Then, all at once, he heard new sounds. Coming from behind. Coming from every direction. The same dry scraping he’d heard in the catacombs. A flood rushing across the ground, chittering and crackling.

  He turned, and an overwhelming ocean of bone surged towards him. The sea of sliding body parts was taller than him, easily thousands of corpses all mangled and blended together, gushing in streams and currents and waves. It closed in from all sides with the monstrous weight of a tsunami, smashing through what remained of the palace walls, leaping forward in raging showers of bodies.

  He’d failed. He’d walked right into the sorceress’ trap. All along, she’d just been waiting for the right time to strike, and now it was here. He was alone. He had no chance.

  He had failed his father.

  He turned his body towards the flood of bone. He kept his stance firm on the ground, just as he was taught. He performed the mnemonics for his anti-necrotic light, building it into a solid dome of whiteness around him.

  Isaac put all his energy into the spell and braced for death.

  But something odd happened. As the tide of bones rushed forward, it split around him, parting as neatly as a fork in a river. He found himself perfectly encased by two walls of surging body parts, streaming by with such weight and force that he was battered by the overwhelming sound of scrapes and clatters. Only a few bones grazed the edge of his light—the bulk of the flood rushed into the tunnel the sandwyrm had left behind, creating swirls of limbs and skulls and spines that drained down into the earth. The ocean of bodies disappeared through the ground as if sucked into it by some malevolent force, and then they were gone, too. Not a single bone had touched him.

  He blinked, once again alone in the shattered palace grounds. He should’ve died there. That flood could’ve easily pierced his light. Instead, it had deliberately moved around him—in fact, it had gone very far out of its way to avoid hurting him. A great deal of focus and fine control would’ve been required to accomplish such a thing. It was not something that had occurred by accident.

  The sorceress had just spared his life.

  He had little time to ponder this. Soon, the ground began to shake again. The buildings of the dead city crumbled and sunk as more chunks of earth gave way. Isaac wobbled on his feet, the vibrations turned into shuddering earthquakes, building rapidly into a flood of motion.

  In a distant part of the city, the sandwyrm erupted from the ground, impaling itself through an entire school district in the process. Instead of reaching high into the body cavity, it beached itself across the ancient streets, smashing through houses with an unstoppable momentum, squirming and writhing violently as it slid towards the palace. Isaac ran to the side, suddenly faced with an incoming creature that thrashed with the size and weight of a castle wall. He dove over a giant shattered skull, narrowly avoiding the impact of the sandwyrm’s mouth as the body came to rest back inside the palace grounds.

  The dragon was completely covered in bone. They wriggled into its skin like maggots in a corpse, burrowing through the open cracks Isaac had carved into its scales. Green blood oozed from the beast in viscous waves. The wyrm flailed along the courtyard, rolling itself over and over on the shattered pavement in an effort to rub the bones off, but its mad efforts only stabbed the corpses deeper into itself. Its vestigial wings spasmed, its glittering scales flew off in showers, and it roared in a primal cry of pain and fear.

  Something flew from its mouth as it screamed—a glob of blood and saliva that rolled across the pavement. Once it rested, the pile of fluids began to move, and it was only then that Isaac recognized the shape.

  “Zaria!”

  He ran over to her, past fields of shattered skulls and falling showers of bone. It was hard to tell where the fluids ended, and the hyena began—she was wrapped in a shell of green, viscous liquid, something close to the smell and texture of a rotted egg yolk. But she was struggling back up, stabbing her poleaxe through the broken pavement and gripping the haft for support. He nearly ran straight into her, freely covering himself in the sandwyrm’s bodily fluids as he helped her back to her feet.

  “Are you alright?” Isaac said, trying to check her for wounds. “Do you need aid?”

  Zaria wiped a thick sheet of dragon blood off her face. She bared her teeth, black snout curling into hard lines. With a vicious growl, she yanked her polearm from the ground, pointed it at the flailing wyrm, and shouted: “You’re fucking mine!”

  Then she charged at the massive beast, axe blade held high, completely covered in blood, screaming a war cry at the top of her lungs.

  “Oh,” Isaac said.

  By now, the sandwyrm was thrashing its body as hard as it could, shaking off rainstorms of body parts with every thrust of its segments. The air was so thick with flying bones that it could’ve been mistaken for a cloudy night sky. With these bones came globs of thick green blood, glittering shards of sandy scales, and Isaac could see the broken corpses digging through the hide and muscle, burrowing themselves in like tens of thousands of stinging insects.

  The dragon’s mouth was wrenched open as it bellowed, and Zaria sprinted towards it again, holding her weapon down to her chest in a spearing thrust. She slammed into the roof of the maw with all her weight, the spear and axe disappearing into the flesh so deeply that half her polearm became buried inside. The beast gurgled, its tongue now just a jagged hunk of flesh, and it tried to crush her with its undulating rows of teeth.

  But Isaac had followed behind, and he casted a sharp gust of wind that physically pushed the circular mouth back open. He intensified the gale, flaying flesh and severing mandibles, catching the beast in a stalemate of force as it struggled to close its mouth. Meanwhile, Zaria had yanked her poleaxe back from the bleeding maw, bathing herself in a shower of blood, and she thrusted again with all her strength, stabbing over and over like the world’s most horrible attempt at dental surgery.

  The sandwyrm rolled onto its back, its struggles weakening. The roof of its mouth was now pointing up towards the rib cage, and Zaria wasted no time in using the new leverage. She climbed up, standing straight and tall on the dragon’s mouth, and impaled her polearm deep into its head, almost completely losing it inside the rolling flesh.

  The wyrm’s roars ceased immediately. All the segments flexed for one long moment, then relaxed. Its jagged tongue flopped onto its teeth, and its breath came out in one final gust of steaming air. The only part of it that still moved was the rivers of green blood flowing from its body.

  Zaria ripped her poleaxe from the sandwyrm’s mouth, chunks of its skull and brain still speared onto it. Then her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the pavement.

  Isaac ran over and tried to help her stand. It was difficult—she weighed more than him, and he was winded from casting all his spells. The noxious shell of dragon blood and saliva coating her body was like digging through a swamp. Still, he leaned her weight against him, draping her arm over his shoulder, smearing all the horrible fluids across himself in the process, and, together, they struggled back to their feet.

  “I don’t know whether to thank you or smack you,” Isaac said.

  Zaria lifted her head, streams of green blood sloughing off. “Isaac.”

  “You charged at a sandwyrm. I was trying to distract it! What did you think—”

  “Isaac!”

  He turned and looked.

  The sea of bones was coalescing again. A flood of corpses tumbled over the shattered pavement, sockets and joints connecting together as the pieces slid and rolled and hopped. They grew in a semicircle around them, encasing the two against the sandwyrm’s maw. The bones built themselves into nests and masses, mashing together into swarms and streams, layers upon layers compacting and growing taller, churning higher and higher until there was a solid, writhing wall of corpses encircling them, completely cutting off the view of the necropolis. There was only bone, like a thick blizzard of death and decay.

  With Zaria’s arm still draped over him, Isaac casted his anti-necrotic light, burning it into a thick shell around them. The circling tide of bones flinched back as they singed themselves on the edges, the entire ocean shifting like an uncoiling snake. The bones retreated when they should’ve attacked. With that kind of necrotic mass, the sorceress could easily overwhelm his spell and crush them both.

  They were at her mercy. But she was staying her hand again.

  In front of them, the swirling bones shifted. Something bulbous popped out of the stream, held at the top of an elongated pole of vertebrae and fingers that uncannily resembled the stem and thorns of a rose. Instead of petals on the rose, there was a skull. A human skull. It reached towards them, like the head of a lighthouse growing horizontally from a stormy sea, and stopped just at the edge of the white light. The dark, eyeless sockets on its face seemed to gaze at them, and its lower jaw rattled back and forth, like it didn’t quite fit properly.

  “Isaac,” the skull said.

  The voice was thin and hissing, struggling with the word. It sounded as if it had never attempted language before.

  “Isssssaaaaaaaccc.”

  “Squire,” Zaria said, gripping her weapon. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Real good time to remember your fucking books now, love.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Isa—Ic—aaaaa—Isaaaaac.”

  The skull attempted to come closer, the squirming rose stem growing taller, but Isaac intensified his light, extending the dome outwards until it slapped against the skinless face. The entire stalk of bones flinched upwards out of the ocean, curling like a dandelion in the breeze. When it came back down, the skull face had melted, liquified bone oozing off like candle wax.

  “What do you want, necromancer?” Isaac said. “Why are you sparing us?”

  Around them, the bone wall slithered back, the streams inside boiling faster.

  “Have you been listening to our conversations? Is that how you know my name?”

  A chorus of sighs bled out from the swirling wall.

  “I offer no quarter!” Isaac yelled. “You imprisoned my father! You have sustained your unnatural life upon thousands of bodies! The Diet of Nine commands your death!”

  Zaria gripped his shoulder, leaning more weight against him. “Prudence, Isaac, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I—I—Issssaa—aaaaaacccc—”

  More stalks grew from the bones, budding outwards like fungi sprouts. All of them were capped with skulls. The faces chattered around them, growling and snarling, fighting their own anatomy. There were words coming from the hissing voices, somewhere just beyond the point of understanding. The sorceress was attempting to speak, but the language seemed fleshless and ancient.

  “What game are you playing?” he asked. “Just kill us already, if you’re going to.”

  Zaria gripped him very tightly.

  The skull stalks bent back, like they had been taken by surprise.

  “I will not be intimidated,” Isaac said. “You’ll have to do better than a sandwyrm if you wish to scare me. I’ve fought many to get here. And I’ll fight whatever you throw at me, too.”

  As if in response, the bone wall slithered away, like the eye of a tornado drifting apart.

  Isaac stepped forward into the gap, dragging Zaria with him. “What do you want? There must be some reason you’re sparing us.”

  “Isaac,” the skull stalks replied, swaying like a meadow of flowers.

  “Do you want my aid?” Isaac asked. “Is that why you’re not killing us? Did you summon the sandwyrm just so we could help you slay the beast?”

  The skull stalks twisted and bent around each other, tangling their vertebrae stems like a knot of hair.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You wanted our help.” He burned his light a little brighter. “The sandwyrm was already going to attack. You just centered it on where we were. And, well, if it didn’t kill us, then you’d have our help killing it. Isn’t that right?”

  The ocean of bones flexed around them, like the pull and expansion of a diaphragm.

  “And, now, you’re not killing us because you still want our help.” He glared at the skulls. “Let me guess. It’s the other sorcerer. The puppeteer.”

  The skulls gasped. Hissing breaths, rattling moans.

  “You’re scared of this sorcerer. Scared enough to ask us for aid. That must mean you’re desperate. You are, aren’t you?”

  All around him, the skulls began to nod, wobbling on their vertebrae stems.

  “Who is this sorcerer, then? What do they want? How many thralls do they have under their command?”

  The melted skull gurgled, fighting to speak. All the other faces clattered around it, and he could see dozens of others inside the ocean, briefly visible as they spun and tumbled.

  “Yes or no questions,” Zaria said, spitting dragon blood from her mouth. “Don’t think she can talk too well.”

  “Are you going to kill us?” Isaac asked.

  The stalks of heads shook from side to side.

  “If we find the other sorcerer, will they try to kill us?”

  The stalks nodded, their vertebrae almost splitting apart.

  “Is this your way of asking for an alliance?”

  The stalks hesitated for a moment. Then they nodded again.

  Isaac clenched his jaw, staring into the rows of skulls. “Is my father still alive? Have you tortured him all these years?”

  The head stalks flexed upwards towards the rib cage sky, as if begging it for strength.

  “Answer me!”

  The skulls looked down, shifting their stalks along the ocean of bones until they were held in a tight circle above him. He received the distinct impression of a singular intelligence staring back with many faces.

  “Fine!” Isaac ended the light from his hand, using the free arm to continue supporting Zaria. “You’ll have a truce! But it only lasts until the other sorcerer is dead! Once that happens, you’re next! Do we understand each other?”

  For a moment, the stalks did not move. Then, slowly, almost barely enough to notice, they nodded.

  “Good! Now get out of my way!”

  The sea of bones began to part, cleaving a path down into itself as all the tiny pieces scuttled away. By the end, there was a hallway extending through the corpses. Isaac reaffirmed his grip on Zaria and walked through the parted sea of bodies. He felt the stalks of skulls watch him intently as he passed, hearing them slither and crack as they melted back into the central mass.

  They held onto each other as they walked, breathing heavily. Beyond the shattered courtyard, vast swathes of the dead city laid in ruin from the sandwyrm’s thrashing. He headed through the rubble, towards the lower end of the rib cage. Somewhere down past the edges of the city, the glowing rib cage ended, and the abdomen began. Somewhere by the feet of the giant creature, the necromancer waited for them. Somewhere closer, the rival sorcerer marshalled their thralls to strike.

  He could almost feel the presence of his father now, closer than ever. Behind him, he heard the sea of bones scattering into swarms and slugs, tumbling their way through the debris. In short order, they were gone. Only the silence of the city remained.

  “Are you okay?” Isaac asked.

  Zaria hacked a fat wad of spit onto the ground. “Nothing worse than what I had before.”

  “The pirates?”

  “Ran clear off. Even Soren. Could track ‘em by their piss trails.”

  Isaac had to catch his breath for a moment, both out of exhaustion and surprise. “The plan worked?”

  “Are you having some doubts about being alive at the moment?”

  He looked behind them. The pirates were gone, their fortifications smashed. Nothing remained in the palace grounds but shattered skulls and a dead sandwyrm.

  “We got lucky,” Isaac said. “Very lucky.”

  She blew a raspberry. “Not luck at all. Had my squire by my side.”

  “I can’t always save you from running into a dragon’s mouth, you know.”

  “Saved your life, didn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s an odd way of saying thank you.”

  “It was incredibly stupid of you, and I will happily let you die if you try it again.” He paused. “And thank you.”

  “You know what lesson I’ve taken from this?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You’re cute when you yell.”

  He laughed, despite himself. “Is that really what you’re going to focus on?”

  “Not just that. I rather think I’ve killed more dragons than you.”

  “We’re not doing this right now.”

  “No, no, no. Tell me so. What’s the tallies say? Looking like a fat one and nothing, is it not?”

  “If you’re so great, why don’t you try walking through a nest of them? I’ll watch.”

  “Am I hurting your dignity, Isaac?”

  “We did it together. As a team.”

  “Squire, henceforth, you shall refer to me as Wyrmslayer.”

  He swiped a thick stream of dragon blood off his shirt. “You know, Zaria, I’m starting to think you smell better now.”

  She scooped an oozing ball of blood from her chest and swiped it at his face. He attempted to dodge, but a strand of it struck his mouth like an octopus tentacle, and he nearly gagged from the taste. Zaria gave a snickering laugh, and, despite the circumstances, despite all the dangers he’d just faced, and all the ones he knew were still to come, Isaac found himself laughing, too. He laughed because she was laughing. He laughed like he’d never had the experience before, laughed until he was choking for breath and struggling to carry her weight. He had never felt more happy to be alive in his entire life.

  Their laughter echoed down the ruins. Isaac almost didn’t notice the single skull perched on the last of the courtyard walls, watching them as they passed.