The void demon seemed part fire and smoke, part leather and bone. Its posture jutted awkwardly like a me faun; it stumbled and limped. Despite all that, the power it held sent a chill down my spine. Its cws tore through the marble floor like paper. An errant swipe toppled a pir.

  Caleb didn’t flinbsp; So her did we. Each swing of his sword was an arc of brilliant light that filled me with ce.

  But it wasn’t sustainable. Each time we put a man in front of a hole in the ice wall, another hole appeared. The cemeteries of Swordfall had plenty of moo give. As good as we were, we were losing.

  I had already cast most of my spells. I held onto less than four spell slots.

  I put my baark and worked to keep him from being swarmed. He mostly stuck to his at-will spells, sending bolts of fire this way and that.

  “Does she ever run out of spell slots?” I asked him.

  Mark sent a wave of fire into the ranks of the mob in front of us.

  “No!”

  “What do you mean ‘no?’” I asked with incredulity.

  “I mean, she has some kind of ability to draw spell slots from the minions she makes. She doesn’t run out.”

  “We’re fucked!” I said.

  “Yeah, no shit!” he replied. “You got to vince him to run.”

  I looked to Caleb. He cut the demon in half. I ran to him.

  “We have to fall back!” I said.

  “Never,” he replied. “We will never yield.”

  “I’m running out of spells! And there is o them!” I lopped the head from a skeleton, then tinued, “she’s just going to make more!”

  Caleb roared in frustration, a a beam of light from his sword that burned a line of undead, some twenty or thirty of them, to ders. More filed into their pce, walking through the ashes of their peers like drifting snow.

  “How many more of those do you have?” I asked.

  “Like that? Two.”

  “That’s not enough!”

  The roof of the ballroom cumbled as massive cws the size of longswords peeled through the brid crete. The bck scaled face of a dragon, purple fire p from its eye sockets, its jaws rge enough to crush a sedan, poked through the wreckage.

  “That’s a dragon!” I yelled at Caleb.

  He just nodded.

  “Fall back!” he yelled. “To the exit!”

  We’d done a good job keeping the enemy in front of us, so the retreat was immediate. ell mell for the exit.

  Dashing through the hall, I found that it was just me and the Kill Crew. The side halls wound this way and that, and so we lost each other. More skeletons appeared. We cut them down, and soon we were out oreet.

  The city was in chaos. Everywhere buildings burned. Guards rushed this way and that without any seeming order. At the end of the street a mob fought more undead.

  I g the brand new Opera House. The body of the dragon curled around the domed roof, its face buried in the rubble like a dog eating at a birthday cake. It belched purple fire inside. The windows and stained gss glowed. Then they exploded.

  I ducked my head as gss rained down. When I finally looked up, I saw that Caleb and his people had found us. Most of them. One of the knights hadn’t made it out. That brought Caleb’s crew to five, including his son.

  “Those men need us!” he said, pointing to the mob.

  We ran to them. Without much effort, we put down the skeletons, thehe mob back several blocks, away from the Opera House, and away from Sofia and her dragon. Caleb set them to build a barricade, while the rest of us caught our breath.

  “Who are you guys?” I asked a woman in a flour stained apron, wielding a finely made axe.

  “Ah, well, a couple weeks back we started calling ourselves the Dead pany,” she let out a small chuckle then tinued. “It was supposed to be ironibsp; We’d scooped up some of the o over after that big fight youse lot had with the skeletons.”

  “That was smart,” I said.

  “Yeah, well,” she waved at the destru around us. A gout of fire shot into the air to punctuate her point. “Fat lot of good that did us.”

  “We o stop them at the source,” Bere said. She had a sheen of sweat on her brow, but otherwise looked unharmed. Two more belts of daggers crossed her chest. Behind her I could see Braelyn handing out mear from the bag. Cal got a re-up on arrows.

  “How do we do that?” I asked.

  “We track the witch down and kill her. All these skeletons are hers, yeah?”

  “It won’t stop them instantly,” Mark said. “But they would ck dire, and would disanimate for sure a hour or so ter.”

  “Then we have to go,” Bernie said.

  “Not necessarily,” Mark said. “Caleb is needed here. And if we split the party, one or both could fall.”

  Bere marched to Caleb.

  “We have to go to the catabs, and stop this at the source.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” he said, gesturing around. “You see this? By the time we get to her, everything I’d built will be destroyed. All of these people’s homes. Everything they have. We could get lost iabs for hours.”

  Bere waved her ste in his face.

  “We know where she is! We end this all at once!”

  “While a dragon ys waste to my city? You are mad.”

  Bere cursed. She whirled on me.

  “I’m going,” she said.

  “Wait, what?”

  “If I go alone, I get to her faster. Caleb and Rachel need your heals.”

  “I don’t have ma,” I said.

  “Thehem wisely.”

  She kissed me, passionately. I closed my eyes and kissed babsp; And before I could eveer that she’d stopped, she was gone, disappeared into the shadows.

  I cursed, and turo Rachel.

  “Where did she go?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Just down an alley.”

  I cursed again. I thought about it for exactly one sed. I had one sed of indecision, as I thought about staying here with Caleb.

  But, and I’m not proud of this thought, I didn’t want to bone Caleb. And two. If I let her die alone iabs, that was on me. If Caleb died up here fighting a dragon, that was on him. I was brave enough, brave enough to fight when called for it. But I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t care about these people the way Caleb did.

  What the hell was I going to do against a dragon, against Captain Wen?

  The wise thing to do would be to run.

  But I couldn’t. Again, Bernie had put me into a situation where I had to do something drastiake sure she survived. But she was right. This was all over if we could stop the flood of undead at its sourbsp; It was the right py.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “The me get you some arrows,” she said.

  I sheathed my sword, strapped the quiver around my waist, and took my bow into my hands. The little carved geese at the top of the limbs were ically cute given the dire circumstances.

  “Look,” she tinued, “I got Caleb. Mark is here too. We’ll make sure whatever heroic bullshit he pulls, works out. Go get her. And hey, maybe you tut a stop to all this.”

  “Don’t die,” I said.

  “Hey,” she smiled, “that’s the pn.”

  She hugged me. I waved at Mark, who nodded. Caleb gnced back at me, then turo talk strategy with the head of the Dead pany. Pes waved goodbye.

  I headed down the alley, toward the cemetery. I checked my ste for the heading, then put it in my belt pocket. Only Bere had the real time position of the Witch June, but we’d put a pin on the map where we thought her home base was.

  Her moving during all this didn’t make sense. Stig to the catabs, where she could make more skeletons, and away from the eyes of those that sought her, was the smart py. She had no way of knowing Bernie could track her.

  I ran.

  The fighting ireets revealed itself itently. Here, some guards fought skeletons, there civilians tussled with a walking corpse. I didn’t have the arrows to waste on them, but I hauled a piece of debris when I could. Even crushed the skull of a skeleton, once.

  Several blocks from the cemetery, I met my first real resistanbsp; Three skeletons with melr armor and hand axes, stumbled towards me. I nocked an arrow, a one loose at the lead one’s leg, hoping to topple the whole lot.

  I missed. Shit.

  Another arrow, a its leg. The arrow shattered its fibu but it kept walking.

  I cursed. I had to kill the damn thing now, and I wasn’t sure I had the aim for it.

  My hands went to the feathers of the arrow, and I instinctively, the loose at its head. I was going to miss. It was headed straight for the empty space between its shoulder and nebsp; Then the arrow moved. It jumped up, and buried itself in the creature’s eye socket, exploding the back of its skull and sending debris and purple fme into the air.

  Hell yeah! Little goose bow’s entment actually worked!

  I started firing arrows oer the other, and mao take them all down with the six.

  That was tiring, but not as tiring as the melee fighting three on one would have been.

  I’d made it. I was now several blocks from the cemetery, the City of the Dead they called it. I drank some water and chewed on a piece of jerky. Getting past whatever mohat waited there would take all my strength. And if I got hurt because I was tired, I’d be wasting a healing spell on myself, and not Bernie who I knew .

  Three guards approached.

  “Hail,” one of them said. “You e from the fighti? How fares it?”

  “It’s bad,” I said. “King Caleb is rallying a militia, but they have great need of skilled fighters. A dragon is there, and so is a sorceress. How fares the West?”

  “Bad. The undead are restless and many. But at least non or sorceress,” he said. He looked terrified. And tired. But the mention of the king’s some steel in his spine, he stood taller, breathed easier.

  A pn was starting to form. It was a dumb pn, but it was something.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “But the king needs you. Here,” I handed him the shield. “This is a magic shield. It will help you get to where you o go. This is a time where heroes are fed. You,” I looked to the other two, “you all will remember this day for as long as you live, and think fondly on the deeds done.”

  The serious old-timey nguage felt strange ing from my mouth, but I khese people o hear it.

  “Surely,” he grumbled. He tested the weight of the shield, and its surprising lightness.

  “What is your name sir?”

  “I’m no sir. But I am called Brant.”

  “Brazen Brant,” I said. “Today you need only walk East, join your king, and bee a hero.”

  He ernly. Then his face brightened. He removed his helm and ha to me.

  “Here,” he said, “at least take my helm. It isn’t ented, but it is well made by my father. It’ll protect your head.”

  I took the helm. It was a little sweaty, but it fit well. And I was grateful to worry less that I’d be killed by a single solid blow to the back of the head.

  The piece of armor seemed well crafted. Made of bronze, with leather and wood, it was surprisingly light, and had a stylized lion on the cheek guard, and a nose guard that covered the top half of my nose. The eyeholes were rge and sweeping, which gave me plenty of room for my peripheral vision. I liked it.

  “I thank you,” I said. “You must keep your shield high.”

  “I will,” Brant said. I shook his hand, and they left.

  Hopefully I wasn’t being a dunbsp;

  I pulled out my ste, and double checked the stats. Some of the features oem I was about to use would be useless. Bloodfeast only worked on the living, and starshatter had a huge area of effect, so was useless iight ers of the catabs. But the darkvision would likely prove to be clutch.

  I slung my bow ay chest, uhed my sword, then transferred it to my left hand. I walked toward the gates.

  “Five me for what I must do,” I said.

  The Edge of Nothing shimmered into pce above my right hand.

  I grabbed it, aed its feel. The sword left a faint purplish glow in its wake. It was a terrifyingly powerful on that sent a cold chill up my arm.

  I felt like I could take on the world. Lucky for me, I only had to take on a thousand skeletons just to reach the catabs. So, easy enough, yeah?