Page 20 of The Necromancer's Prisoner

“Now what?” Iggie asked, breaking the silence.

Adjusting his scabbard around his waist, Alistair strode toward the stairs. “Now, I fight.”

He made it down the stairs and halfway across the sitting room before he heard Iggie’s feet running after him. He glanced back to see Iggie’s lips pressed into a determined line beneath his mop of unruly red hair. His two favored undead trailed behind him.

Alistair suppressed a wince when he realized he’d forgotten about them entirely. Merciful Light, when had he grown so used to their constant presence? And what did it say about a paladin of the Light that he could feel that comfortable around vile undead?

“Wait!” Iggie called. “I’m going with you.”

Alistair halted so suddenly that Iggie smashed into his armored back. Alistair whirled and caught Iggie before he could fall.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded. “You said yourself that your undead aren’t fit for battle, and you yourself bear neither armor nor a weapon!”

“I’ll stay far back,” Iggie said, his voice defensive. His icy eyes narrowed. “And whilemostof my undead are ill-suited for combat, I have a couple that can fight. If nothing else, they can serve as a distraction. As for myself, I’ll have Marlon and Cynthia to watch over me.”

He gestured to his pair of undead shadows. Alistair eyed them. By the look of their decrepit bones, one good hit would shatter them to dust. But he didn’t miss the steely glint of determination in Iggie’s eyes nor the stubborn set of his jaw. He wouldn’t back down easily, and another tremor reminded Alistair how little time they had to waste arguing.

“Fine,” Alistair growled.

He stalked the rest of the way to the stairs and took them down to the main hall, navigating past books and other decorations that had been knocked askew. Iggie followed. In the hall below, they found undead gathering before the main doors. A few had rusted weapons drawn while others carried large crates.

Alistair raised his brows at Iggie, who shrugged. “As I said, even a noncombatant can serve as a distraction. And I figured we should have some supplies ready to go. Just in case.”

Just in case the tower collapses, Alistair thought grimly. A prudent precaution, even if he prayed it would prove unnecessary. The last thing they needed was to be stranded in the remnants of the winter storm without shelter.

“I’ll take the lead.” Alistair strode to the front of the assembled undead, doing his best to pretend they were regular troops instead of rotting skeletons. “Send your fighters in after me to harass the enemy from other directions. You stay back with the rest. If the beast goes for you, make sure it gets your undead instead.”

Iggie nodded, his throat working as he swallowed convulsively.

Concern tensed Alistair’s back. “You don’t need to do this. I can face whatever’s out there alone—it’s what I’ve trained for my entire life.”

“No.” Iggie shook his head, squaring his shoulders and firming his jaw despite the obvious trepidation on his face. “I’m coming with you.”

A fuzzy warmth curled through Alistair’s chest. He couldn’t decide whether to applaud Iggie’s courage or bemoan his stupidity.Perhaps a little of both.

With one last look to Iggie, he said softly, “Stay safe.” Then, he conjured his dawnflame, drew his sword, and wrenched the front doors open, stepping out into the storm.

The wind had calmed somewhat since that first night he’d tried to flee, but the snow still came down heavily enough to obscure the night beyond a few paces. Alistair allowed dawnflame to course through his body, fending off the pervasive cold and bolstering his strength and endurance. A few days’ rest had left his reserve in far better shape than before. He infused more dawnflame into his armor and sent magic flaring along the length of his sword until it brightened the night like a torch when held aloft.

Something massive shifted in the dark. Flurries of snow left him half-blind, but he could make out that otherworldly azure light, along with the barest suggestion of writhing limbs clutching at the tower. Merciful Light, the beast had to be at least thrice the height of an average man. Fear clawed at his insides.

Father wouldn’t have hesitated.

Steeling himself, Alistair loosed a battlecry and charged through the snow clumped on the ground. The beast didn’t react, continuing its assault on the tower. Alistair glimpsed hard, jagged skin glowing a dark blue with hints of what might have been silver as he approached. Then, he was upon the creature, driving his flaming sword into its side.

Dawnflame erupted around the strike…only to dissipate harmlessly. His sword bounced off the creature’s hide, leaving behind nary a scratch. He cursed and raised his sword for another strike, but the beast roared and spun on him. Clawed arms and writhing tentacles he could barely see lashed at him from the snow-choked darkness.

Alistair slashed blindly with his sword to fend off the assault, infusing it with more dawnflame, and though he avoided suffering anything worse than a glancing blow, his enemy appeared unfazed by his magic. If anything, the dawnflame only seemed to enrage it.

What manner of foul abomination can shrug off both blade and holy Light so easily?

A whip-like tentacle knocked his sword from his grasp. The blade sunk into a nearby snowdrift. He scrambled back, infusing his fists with dawnflame even though he knew it wouldn’t be enough. If dawnflame-infused steel couldn’t pierce this fiend’s hide, what hope did he have with his bare hands? Fear whispered in his ears along with the howling wind, and once again, he smothered it.I have to do this. For my sake…and for Iggie’s.

Raising one hand, he conjured a burst of blinding radiance like he had against Iggie’s undead in the cellar. As the light momentarily sliced through the storm, he glimpsed his foe’s lumbering form along with a flash of something reflective on its skin.Scales, perhaps?Then, he had to squeeze his eyes shut before he blinded himself with his own magic.

He didn’t keep the spell sustained for long, not wanting to render himself vulnerable to counterattack. He blinked his eyes open right in time to duck beneath a tentacle swipe aimed at his face.So much for disabling it.The beast seemed even less affected by the blinding light than it had a frontal assault. It loomed ahead of him through the haze of the storm, and Alistair braced himself to meet its approach.

Suddenly, shapes emerged from the darkness around the creature, hurling themselves at it from all sides.Iggie’s skeletons!Their attacks were unlikely to do any more than Alistair’s had, but the distraction gave him enough time to scramble to the nearby snowbank and extricate his sunken sword. Reinfusing it with dawnflame, he held it aloft in time to see a lashing tentacle shatter an undead apart even as jagged claws impaled another to the snow.