A winter wind blew in chill, but not quite enough to mist my breath as I walked toward the cemetery gates. The mausoleum I was looking for y some five or six blocks past the gate, and the bulk of the horde fidgeted and paced between me and it.

  Still corpses, dozens of them, y amongst the boots of the creatures, their footwork strangely delicate, pig around them where they could. This told me that the Witch Juher cked the power to raise them like Sofia did, or that she had to see them to do it.

  Wanting to make as much progress as possible without fighting the bulk of them, I picked my way around the gates. I got about two blocks or so before I met a building that abutted the metal, face-high cemetery fence which halted my progress. This put me in the middle of the horde, who either didn’t see me or didn’t see me as a threat.

  Let’s see how well this sword works.

  I gripped Edge of Nothing, and swiped the sword down oal fenbsp; I only cut through three tines of the metal fence, I figured, because my edge alig wasn’t perfebsp; This thing cut through steel as easily as if it were styrofoam. It als against the steel, produg a loud g.

  Not good.

  Skeletons turoward me. They didn’t run, but shuffled closer.

  Had to make this work quickly.

  I swiped a sed time, then a third, then a fourth. Each swipe a loud g. I kicked the fend it tumbled apart. I leapt through the hole.

  Twenty skeletons, an offshoot of the horde, raised their shields and advanced. I swished my swords, testing them. I didn’t really know how to fight with them like this, but these guys didn’t really know how to fight either, and couldn’t act with better tactics than ‘stab the guy in front of you.’ So, I had an advantage. Not sure it amouo equal to a thousand of these monsters, but I only had to get past them, not defeat them. That was my win dition.

  I ran forward.

  Now, there are two general philosophies for how to fight with two swords. The Historical European Martial Arts perspective was to attack with the main hand, and defend with the other. A sound strategy, ohat Bere had shown to be quite effective. The other was a more eastern philosophy, to use them as twin swords that mirror each other’s movements, or follow each other as needed. I’d only ever seen that done in old wuxia movies or in cartoons, so, not in any way that ractical.

  As someohat had literally never used two swords at oside of the occasional cardboard ing paper tube, I did her strategy and filed away indiscriminately. It was surprisingly effective.

  Redeemer ged off their shields or armor, but I put such force behind it I was able to beat them babsp; Edge sliced right through them — stopping for nothing — not armor, not shields, not bone. My feet drove me through each opening as I got to it.

  Sword and spear points got through my guard, but I took them on my chestpte or bracers with little problem, a swinging away. Soon I got into something of a rhythm, leading with Edge, parrying with Redeemer, because that was what the ons were leadio do. It felt good to swipe edge down through a skeleton, and seeing them tumble into a pile of metal and bone.

  I turned my body sideways, leading with my main hand like I’d seen Bernie do. When a spear came in from the right, I dipped Edge down and cut up, lopping it off. When a skeleton got their skull too close to my left I pierced it with Redeemer. I could attad defend with either, but one was clearly better at both.

  In moments, ten of them had crumpled before me. But they kept ing, and I was still maybe three blocks away. I saw the mausoleum I was looking for fnked by two angels. I was closer.

  I had a long way to go.

  “Turn aside,” I muttered to myself, casting bubble. Blows that weren’t angled precisely, bounced off the pale blue field that surrounded me.

  I dove in, sshing with abandon.

  Edge of Nothing screamed against the metal it tore like so much paper. Twenty fell ihan a minute.

  Seeing that they had to switch things up, the skeletons stopped advang just long enough to form into a line. That wouldn’t do. If I met them like that, they could colpse it around me, and I’d be cooked.

  I leapt into the air and cast levitate from Redeemer, sailing up and over them. I was moving quicker than a walk, but that wasly flying. Several dropped their swords or axes and pulled bows.

  That was no good.

  I shunted Edge into its dimensional pocket, sheathed Redeemer, and pulled my little goose bow, Provoker. The name of the game was ter-sniping, and I was bad at it. They weren’t quick with their shots, but half of theirs hit. Most slid off my breast pte. A lucky few bouny helm. They only needed oo get through the eye holes for me to have a really bad day.

  I just aimed for the body til I could get a hit, then Provoker took care of the rest. I would nail a shoulder, or toe, and the shot went right through the eye socket.

  An enemy arrow scraped across the glove on my hand, opening the leather and digging into my skin. I felt my whole arm go numb. That wasn’t right. That felt different than any injury I’d ever had, like I hit my funny bone, but it wasn’t my bone, but my skin that tingled unfortably.

  Poison. She’d given them poison. I quickly grabbed the bow with my right hand as it went numb. I’d almost dropped it. The numbraveled up my arm.

  This was bad. I was still floating too slowly, and I had at least a blod a half til I got to the mausoleum.

  I hooked Provoker around my ned summoned Edge of Nothing.

  Let’s see what this thing really do.

  “Shatter and burn — bee dust in the wind!” I said with grave intonation, the spell phrase for starshatter.

  Look, I’m not great at ing up with things to say for spell phrases. If I had thought even two seds about it, maybe I’d find something cooler, but it was just the best I could think to type on the way here.

  I poihe Edge of Nothing at the bulk of the horde, but made sure that it was quite a bit of a ways from me. Just in case. I had no idea how big a sixty foot diameter was, but that seemed like a lot.

  In the midst of the horde, a dark orb, smaller than a pinprick, but then swelling in size, grew until it became something like the width of a truck, h four feet above the ground. The half a dozen or so skeletons that walked into it had their skulls sucked in, their necks sizzling from the burn. Then, it began to crack, faint lines of pierg white light jutting from the cracks, ng through the skeletons, spinning ever faster.

  It exploded into a ball of white hot light. I had to cover my eyes. I could feel my boots singe. When I looked — mili-seds ter — I saw the horde was thrown into chaos, hundreds eradicated in an instahers ft on their backs, struggling to stand, many more running this way and that, bumping into each other.

  I dropped levitate, and hit the ground running.

  It took them a while tnize I was still alive, and by that point there were only a dozen or so in front of me and my goal. I hacked them down with little trouble.

  Around the gates of the mausoleum was ed a and padlobsp; I cut the with a siroke, and shouldered it open.

  My new darkvisio me see the world in shades of gray, and the enviro had a strange, lightless shio it, like a video game from the time before lighting. The world seemed to buzz and glow in the gray. I’d seen night vision cameras before. This was better than that. There, behind a life sized statue of a woman, I saw the passage leading down.

  I didn’t stop to catch my breath, and took the steps two at a time.

  When I pulled my ste from my pocket, the light of the s pushed back my darkvision and I could see cain on my hands. The map told me that it was just two more turns, and it was a straight shot to June’s ir. I ran faster.

  Onpleting those two turns, I saw light in the distance, and heard the strained growling of the undead. The csh of spear points on brick echoed through the hall. I heard the strangled yelp of a woman in pain.

  No time to feel the exhaustion. I had to get there.

  The hall opened into some kind of underground, domed atrium. Blue are nterns fnked each of the four entrances, and lit the beautiful, twisting oak tree in the middle. A gang of two dozeons seemed very i oing to something on the ceiling.

  Three shot arrows. One had a very long pike it thrust into the brick ceiling with a plonk. The rest attempted to get up this twisting tree. Bere fought them furiously, running this way and that on the ceiling.

  “Bernie!” I yelled.

  “I see you! Get the ones with the arrows!” she said.

  Sword in each hand, I aimed to do just that.

  I shed out with Edge, over and over, and cut down the first three or four before they even had a ce tnize I was there. Their response was slow, as they struggled to realize that I was the bigger threat.

  Before they could mount a ter attack I yelled, “into the dark of night!”

  The erium went dark with my spell, but for the very top of the tree.

  I could still see.

  They turo each other as if w where I had gone. It took them too long to realize that I was still there. I had just enough time to line up my attacks, and I lopped their heads off oer the other.

  By the time the spell was through, every single skeleton had beeuro their eternal rest. Bere dropped down beside me.

  “Good job,” she said. “We have less than a minute before she sends more.”

  “How many does she have?”

  “She has some kind of special amulet that lets her get her spell slots back fast, like minutes instead of hours. I almost had her,” she tinued, her eyes showing deep exhaustion, “but the shot me in the arm.”

  I noticed the blood p from her arm, mixed in with the bck of her steelsilk. I hit her with a Heal Light Wounds. She nodded her thanks.

  “Why did you run off without me?” I asked.

  “You’d just slow me down.”

  “I just saved your ass,” I tered.

  “My ass was fine,” she said, and poio the ceiling, “they were never getting up there.”

  “Would you ever have e down?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You need me.”

  “I do well enough on my own.”

  I growled with frustration and sat down on a roext to the twisting oak. I sipped my water and ate the st of my jerky. Bernie walked the perimeter of the room, sug air, trying to wind down. She must have been burning adrenaline for hours.

  I handed her my water, and she drank silently.

  Eventually, she sat on the rock opposite me.

  “You have to start trusting me,” I said.

  “It’s always worked out.”

  “Fug hell, Bernie, no it hasn’t. You would have died that first time. You could have died here.”

  “You should have stayed with Caleb.”

  “What is your problem?”

  Berared at me silently. The blue light cast a ghastly glow on her.

  “You don't get it. You saw what this pce did to Rachel. It damn near broke her. Caleb’s goive. And Sofia’s a monster.” She stood. “We ’t stay here. We have to leave — now.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why won’t you let me help you?”

  Bernie began to cry. I ed her in a hug.

  “You’re scared,” I said, finally getting it. Or at least some of it.

  “Of course I’m fug scared! I want to go home!”

  “Then I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll get you home. I’ll get us all home.”

  She broke from me and looked at me, as if trying to find something in my fabsp; I gazed back with what I hoped looked like determination. Then her eyes fell on something behind me.

  I turned. Yep. There were the skeletons. Their feet sounded like so much cttering wood against stone. Then came the sound from the hall to our left. Then ht.

  “There’s more than st time,” she said.

  “There’s more of us now too,” I said.