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Then I move, becoming a blur. The undead might be brutally strong, but they’re also much slower than I am. I catch one mid-stride, lopping its head in a swift arc. A crossbow bolt whizzes toward me, but I snap my head to the side, allowing it to narrowly miss my eye socket.
I move again, felling several more, creating a storm of foul ichor and rotten flesh. As they fall, the sentient undead rage and curse at me, mouths snapping even though their heads have been separated from their bodies.
But eventually, the unholy green light in their eyes goes out, and they return to Hecoa’s embrace.
I draw my dagger, using my other hand to impale as I cut a swathe through the sea of bodies. It’s a grotesque crush; a pulsating, unholy mass, seething with the magic of corruption.
Before I left Lukiria, I spent some time in father’s secret library. I consulted the old tomes and gleaned valuable knowledge.
I discovered what I’d always suspected—that necromancy is a truly vile art. It channels the power of the Life God, Eresus, into the dead, animating them unnaturally, drawing the essence of life away from the creatures it’s supposed to sustain.
It prevents the dead from crossing into the afterlife, denying them peace in the arms of the Goddess.
It desecrates their bodies and makes a mockery of their lives.
It turns once good people—like Kinnivar—into malevolent caricatures of their past selves, opening their arrested thoughts to the necromancer, leaving them prone to manipulation. They, in turn, become extensions of the necromancer’s will.
And the immense life-force needed to generate necromantic magic…
It can be generated from sacrificing the living.
When it comes to these wretched undead, my mission is simple.
Send them to Hecoa’s domain, where they belong.
A big, armored figure rushes toward me, taking a swipe with its massive war-axe. The weapon comes down with impossible force, narrowly missing me. I swerve to the side and meet the blade of a staggering undead. The tip penetrates my leather armor, piercing my side.
Pain lances through me, but it’s only momentary. I grab the blade with my gloved hand, cutting myself in the process, and yank it out.
My blood spurts, then stops.
I’m already healing.
Funny how the Death Goddess’s magic can heal, as well as take away.
I spin. My broadsword flies around in an arc, separating the attacker’s head from its body. The axe-wielding one falls too as my blade crunches through the chain-mail covering its neck.
Bodies fall with a sickeningthud.
I need to move faster.
So I do. And I say a silent prayer of thanks to my betrothed for giving me the strength I need.
My blade is sharp.
My resolve even sharper.
I may get stabbed here and cut there. A crossbow bolt might penetrate the thick hide of my armor, piercing my shoulderblade. But none of that matters, because I pull everything out, and my body heals, and even though each attack weakens me slightly, I have plenty of reserve to go on.
I could do this all night and day.
Thrust. Slash. Spin. Impale.
It feels endless until it isn’t, and at last I’m down to the final dozen or so, and it’s obvious they’re being controlled, for ordinary mortal men with the fear of death in their hearts would have dropped their weapons and run by now, but these poor creatures don’t.
And all I can do is cut them down, again and again. My hands and armor are soaked in blood and filth.
The last of the undead falls. I throw a silent prayer to the Goddess, whose blood runs through my veins, imploring her to ease these poor bastards into the afterlife.
