Story Sample: Risen

This is a completed novel available exclusively to library tier patrons that was originally written as the first book in a trilogy. Those other two books... are not written yet.

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Charlotte has wielded the power of necromancy to destroy countless zombies and ghouls, send raging spirits to their final rests, and put her fellow necromancers to the knife when they’ve fallen to the madness that comes with their power, all while walking that fine line herself.

When she stumbles across a powerful talisman, she attracts the attention of both a necromancer-hunting warden named Gallard and the champions of humanity, an order of holy knights called the Sun Chasers. They make no distinctions for necromancers with good intentions, and she finds herself hunted by both her fellow humans and power-hungry undead.

The talisman, a single black feather, could be the key to unraveling the curse of undeath that’s plagued the world for millennia, but before she can decipher its mysteries, she’s betrayed by a supposed ally. Charlotte bands together with Gallard in a race to recover the talisman before it ends up becoming the catalyst that finally snuffs out the living once and for all.

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Chapter 1

The village stank of death and ash. Half of it was charred ruins from where a fire had spread out of control when the necromancer had attacked. Charlotte stood in the center, her nose crinkled, and looked down at the corpse sprawled out in the mud.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Fresh enough to have come from here, or one of the zombies left behind in the attack?”

A minute earlier, it had been an undead thing, shambling around aimlessly until she’d walked in through the village’s east side. It had latched onto her immediately, and once she’d made sure it wasn’t still attached to the necromancer, she’d used her own magic to rip the animating energy out of it.

“Bernard?”

I’m thinking. Give me a minute.

The voice was comprised of subtle vibrations of necrotic energy coming from the amulet she wore. Made of gold with a blood red ruby in the center, it contained a spirit she’d trapped, one that had formerly been a powerful vampire. Only a skilled necromancer could sense the vibrations and translate them into words.

“Think faster. Dusk isn’t that far off and I don’t want to be walking all night again.”

Try leaving earlier in the morning next time then. I’d say it’s about three weeks old, probably from the town before this one, and got left behind after the attack. If the burned flesh on the legs is any indication, it was trapped in one of the houses that collapsed in the fire.

“And worked its way free after the necromancer left,” Charlotte finished. She looked around again. “Apparently with another entire village of new minions.”

That’s a lot of zombies for one necromancer.

She nodded. “We’ll have to be very careful with this one.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go up against a necromancer who’s stronger than you.

“A few times,” she said. “Before I met you.”

Good. You’ve got experience in being outmatched then. I’d hate for you to die in this foolish crusade of yours.

Charlotte snorted. “Your concern is touching.”

The only reason Bernard cared to keep her alive and breathing was because she’d trapped his spirit in the amulet. Without her permission, he was stuck inside it, and if she died without releasing him from his prison, he’d remain trapped forever or until someone broke the ruby’s magic, which would consign his spirit to oblivion.

As she walked away from the body, it gave a feeble twitch in her general direction. There wasn’t enough necrotic energy left in it to do more. That would change as ambient energy in the air settled into the body, but for the next day or two, it was nothing but a moldering corpse.

You’re just going to leave it here?

“Is that a problem?”

Not even going to burn it?

Charlotte glanced across the village towards the crematorium, which had held against the fire, but was partially buried by wreckage from the attack. “Lot of work just to get one body in there,” she said.

Reanimate it under your control and make it clear the door.

She shook her head. “Just one zombie would take hours to get rid of that mess. I don’t want to be here that long.”

Take it with you then?

“Absolutely not,” she said. Traveling with an undead following behind her was the worst possible way to remain inconspicuous, not even counting how terrible it smelled. The only reason he was pushing her over it was that he thought she might let him possess it to help her if things went wrong.

She cast a basic animation spell into the corpse and directed it into a partially collapsed house. At her mental command, it ripped down the beam that supported what was left of the roof. The whole house rumbled for a second before tipping over and burying the zombie underneath the rubble.

“There,” she said. “I doubt it will ever dig its way out of that. Problem solved. Now, if you don’t have any more concerns, I’d like to be on my way.”

You’re always in such a hurry. Just can’t wait to stick that knife of yours in the next necromancer, can you?

Charlotte stiffened at the verbal slap. Her lips curled down into a sour frown and she stomped down the road, Bernard’s laughter echoing in her mind.

* * *

Drifting globes of spell light cut through the darkness. Charlotte heaved a tired sigh when they came into view. “About time,” she said. “I wanted to be here two hours ago.”

She’d pushed well into the night until it was so dark she’d been forced to conjure up her own spell light to see the path. Her eyes strained to pick out any details about the village she was approaching. It was intact, at least. That was a solid improvement from the last two towns she’d been through.

“There’s a lot of light in there,” she said. “Too much. Something’s going on.”

It could be a coincidence.

Charlotte shook her head. “No, we know the necromancer was going this way. Look at this place. It doesn’t even have a wall to protect it. They must be expecting an attack.”

As she came closer, the blur of light resolved into individual globes, and she saw that they’d been supplemented by waist high braziers of burning wood. The moorlands wasn’t known for its great stretches of forest, and she couldn’t imagine burning wood for light was a regular occurrence.

Look over at the far end of the village. Their crematorium is burning right now, in the middle of the night.

Once Bernard pointed it out, Charlotte could just barely see smoke billowing out of the stone building’s chimney. That itself wasn’t necessarily unusual. When someone died, it was best to get the body into the incinerator before it got back to its feet. But taken all together, it was too much to be just a coincidence.

She took a second to focus and let her awareness unfold around her, that ability all necromancers had to sense the presence of necrotic energy and its concentrations. Undead appeared as cold, hard knots amidst a backdrop of ambience in her mind. Somewhere out in the darkness, they were moving around. They would most likely be zombies, easy to animate and control in large numbers, but she would have to get closer to be sure.

She considered sending Bernard out to look, but he was harder to control when his spirit was free from the amulet, and she didn’t doubt the undead were heading for the village. She’d know how many there were soon enough.

Charlotte passed by the first house and saw a silhouette shift behind a dirty glass window. As she walked, she spotted a dozen other people watching her from their homes, but no one opened a door or tried to speak to her. She reached the village’s center, a fieldstone well about waist height and three feet wide. With a weary sigh, she dropped her traveler’s pack to the ground and sat down next to it.

She rested her back against the well for a minute and used her magical awareness to keep track of the undead. They’d be in the village in a matter of minutes, with more coming in at the edge of her range each passing second. “How many do you think there are?” she asked quietly.

Hard to say. I can go look, but as a rough guess, at least thirty. Probably not more than forty.

“Stay with me. I might need you here.”

Every undead had its own unique aura of necrotic energy. Technically, that was true of zombies as well, but in practice, they were all so similar as to be indistinguishable. It was hard to get an accurate count, especially as more and more of them kept coming into her range, but she thought Bernard’s estimate was about right.

The first zombie came around the corner of a house on the west side of the village. Its skin showed pallid and waxy in the spell light where it wasn’t covered in muck from the moorlands. It was followed within moments by a second and then a third zombie. Once they were that close, Charlotte was finally able to get a good look at the necrotic energy held inside the corpses.

“Looks like a command loop,” she muttered. “Simple instructions, no reactive triggers.”

Threaded through each zombie’s necrotic aura was the other necromancer’s will, giving it purpose and direction. She couldn’t risk snapping that thread without revealing herself to the necromancer, and that wasn’t something she was willing to do.

“Keep track of how many more come in. This is going to be difficult.”

What are you doing?

“I can’t use my necromancy here. It’s too risky. I’m going to have to take them out the hard way.”

She focused her will into a simple magic, one that was designed to disrupt ongoing magic in objects or, in her case, undead. If the necromancer was paying any sort of attention, he’d easily be able to poor more energy into his minions and raise them back up, but distance was always a factor, and Charlotte didn’t think he intended to come anywhere near the village.

The first zombie faltered under her magical attack and its aura broke apart. The body tumbled to the ground and was trampled by the ones behind it. Its fellows joined it as Charlotte repeated the spell.

There are too many for this to work. You’ll kill yourself before you disrupt all of them, and that’s assuming the other necromancer doesn’t interfere.

“Why do you think I wanted you with me? If things go bad, I’ll need your help.”

More zombies filtered in between the houses in packs of two or three. They ignored her even as she dropped them one after another. Soon enough, they were coming in too fast for her to get them all and they started to gather in front of a house on the south side of the square.

Without any sort of hesitation, the zombies hurled themselves bodily at the house’s door. They bounced off, sometimes tumbling over their fellows, and climbed right back to their feet to try again. More of them appeared, and the new ones didn’t simply ignore Charlotte. She was forced to divert her attention from the house to deal with them.

I’m revising my initial estimate. My new guess is just over fifty zombies.

“So many? How is he keeping control of all of them?”

You’re the necromancer here. You tell me.

She thought about it for a second. “A battery of invested energy, maybe? He could have combined it with preset instructions and built his numbers up a few at a time.”

That would be remarkably poor planning on his part. Each individual zombie would need active guidance to react to new situations.

“That kind of looks like exactly what’s happening here,” Charlotte said. She disrupted a zombie that had come too close to her and pointed at the house. “Look at them. They’re ignoring an obvious threat to accomplish a predetermined objective.”

Even if you’re right, there are still too many to beat this way.

She didn’t like to admit it, but Bernard was right. For all her efforts, less than half of the zombies were down, and there were still more coming in. Short-term, she could use her necromancy and end the battle in moments. That would make her real goal of finding the other necromancer much more difficult though.

The only other alternative was to abandon the village. Doubtless they’d all be slaughtered and their bodies added to the necromancer’s zombie army. On both a practical and a moral level, the idea left a bad taste in her mouth.

“They could come out and help,” she muttered as she threw a glare at a silhouette watching her from the closest house.

Why would they when you’re willing to fight their battles for them?

Before she could respond, one of the knots of necrotic energy at the outside of the village unraveled and broke apart. Her head snapped around to look that way. Hidden in the flickering shadows cast by the spell light, she could barely make out the form of a tall man with wide shoulders holding a sword that looked far too long to wield without magic.

He swung it like it weighed nothing more than a willow switch, and the zombie in front of him was chopped to pieces. The man pushed right past it to attack the next one while Charlotte watched. As he moved into the light, he shot her an unmistakably hostile glare.

The man worked his way through the zombies to reach the crowd attacking the house. While he went to work on the ones at the back, she targeted the ones near the door. Her magic broke their auras down and left their bodies to impede the ones behind them. That didn’t do much to slow them down, but it gave the man enough time to finish cutting apart the rest.

When the last zombie had fallen, he turned and stomped across the village square to her. “I thought I made it clear that I wanted everyone to stay inside... wait... you’re not from this village, are you?” he asked.

“Just a traveler passing through.”

“Yeah?” He grunted and looked around. “Bad time for that.”

“Lucky for this village though. Whatever you were planning, you were a bit late to the party.”

The man scowled at her, but before he could retort, people started poking their heads out of their homes. An older, stoop-backed man walked up to them with the help of a thick cane. “Excellent work, Warden Gallard. I didn’t expect there to be so many though.”

“You’re a warden?” Charlotte asked, surprised.

Uh-oh.

Once she knew to look for it, she could just barely make out the swirling knot emblem of the wardens stamped onto the man’s leather chest plate and etched into clasp of his cloak. If Gallard discovered what she was, he probably wouldn’t even slow down long enough to draw his sword before attacking her. He already looked suspicious of her. She needed to get away from him, find the necromancer, and leave the moorlands as soon as possible.

The older man blinked and looked back and forth between Charlotte and Gallard. “Is she not a friend of yours?”

“Just met,” Gallard said. “Apparently she has the worst luck ever to walk into the middle of this mess.”

“That’s very unfortunate for you,” the man said. “I’m Owen Dell, the mayor of Cobble’s Well.”

“My name is Charlotte,” she said.

Gallard gave her a sharp, searching stare. “Just Charlotte?”

“Just Charlotte,” she said firmly.

His mouth compressed into a thin line, but he didn’t get a chance to challenge her over the introduction before the mayor turned back to him.

“What should we do with all these bodies?”

Gallard looked around at the corpses strewn across the village. “Burn them, of course. What else would you do with them?”

“I’m afraid our crematorium would take weeks to burn this many bodies. They’ll all have reanimated long before we get anywhere near done.”

“Gather them up and burn them in the field then. You’ve got someone capable of the appropriate fire magic in this village, right?”

Mayor Dell sighed. “None of us our close to strong enough to do that. Maybe if we piled them onto a bonfire and used the wood as fuel, that might do it. It would use what precious little we have left though.”

“Do that then, unless you think having all of these zombies pop back up tomorrow is a better idea.”

“No, no, of course not.” The mayor sighed again. “I’ll see to getting a wagon around to start picking up the bodies.”

He hobbled off while Charlotte and Gallard watched. Soon enough, Cobble’s Well had organized itself into hauling and loading crews that piled the bodies in a muddy field just outside of town, and a group of six people were working together to generate the fire needed to light the wood pile. The first bodies were thrown on it, and within minutes the stink of seared meat filled the village.

Eventually, Gallard left to help the villagers when the wagon got stuck in the mud. His own magical strength dwarfed that of the men trying to pull it out, and Charlotte watched him set himself against the sucking mud to lift the back of the wagon up while two others tried to slide it out of the mud patch.

This might be a good time to get going.

“Agreed,” Charlotte said. “But where to?”

Did you see how much mud was caked onto those zombies?

“This is the moorlands. There’s mud everywhere. It does make sense that the necromancer is hiding out there somewhere on the mud flats, but that’s a lot of ground to cover.”

Zombies aren’t subtle creatures. If you hurry, you might be able to trace their trail back to their master.

Charlotte grinned. “Perfect.”

* * *

Gallard grunted as his foot slid through the mud and the wagon settled back down. The two men working with him cursed and slipped down to their knees. They’d already unloaded the bodies, but even empty, the wagon was too heavy to lift unaided. Unfortunately, there were only thirty or so adults in the village and surrounding homes, and of them, only half had any real magical talent. The two men he was helping were the only ones with any ability to enhance their strength.

As the three of them climbed back to their feet, Gallard looked over to see Charlotte walking down the road out the west side of Cobble’s Well. Something about that woman just didn’t sit right with him. If nothing else, it was odd that she was willing to leave the relative safety of the village in the middle of the night. He’d seen fully trained wardens more hesitant to walk into zombie-infested darkness.

He scooped his cloak and sword up from where he’d left them on the driver’s seat and started after her. One of the men called out to him as he walked away, but Gallard ignored him.

* * *

Charlotte stood at the edge of the road and studied the mud scrapings made by dozens of shambling footsteps. She sent her conjured globe of spell light out another twenty feet into the moors before pulling it back. The tracks showed no signs of disappearing farther out.

“It’s almost too obvious,” she said.

The tracks or that warden that’s following you?

“Both?”

Gallard trudged down the road toward her, no effort made to remain hidden. She suppressed a frustrated growl as he came to a stop next to her and studied the tracks her spell light had revealed.

“Dangerous to be out alone, especially on a night like this,” he said.

“I thought I might find out where all the zombies came from.”

He nodded. “Good idea, but you still shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get yourself killed playing around with this.”

“These might not still be here tomorrow.” She gestured into the moors. “The mud will swallow this back up in no time.”

Gallard glowered at her, but there was no refuting her point. After a moment of stone-faced silence, he nodded. “Fine, let’s check it out then.”

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and brought her globe of spell light around to brighten the patch of mud just off the road. She carefully slid down the slope leading away from the hard packed dirt into the swampy morass of the moorlands, Gallard just behind her.

They worked together to keep upright as they walked. The hardest part of following the tracks was simply moving forward against the sucking pull of the mud and keeping their balance when they splashed through the rivulets of water that had formed in the zombie tracks.

They didn’t stop until they came to a point where the trail merged with another one and continued deeper into the moors. Gallard paced it off carefully and compared it to the one they’d been following. “How many zombies are out here?” he asked. “There were dozens in the village, but this could mean another hundred.”

“That would take an exceptionally powerful necromancer to control that many undead at once, even simple zombies, not to mention the distance he’d be working at to attack the village from this far out.”

Gallard gave her a side-long glance. “Or she.”

“Or she,” Charlotte agreed. She didn’t look back at the warden.

“Or maybe...” he trailed off.

“Maybe what?”

“More than one necromancer,” he said.

Charlotte frowned as she turned the idea over. “That would explain how they’ve got so many zombies.”

“You know a lot about necrology,” Gallard said. “Why is that?”

She shrugged and smiled. “I travel a lot. You pick things up here and there.”

“That so?”

“Why?” Charlotte asked.

He turned around to face her square. “You know what I think? It’s an awfully big coincidence you showing up here. You’ve got a lot of magical muscle to do what you did back in the village. And you spent practically no time catching your breath before you came out here. You know something. You’re involved in all of this.”

Subtlety isn’t his strong point, is it?

“This might be a conversation for another time,” Charlotte said. She sent her spell light racing out into the darkness ahead of them to reveal a handful of shambling forms heading straight at them. “They’re here.”

Chapter 2

A wet scraping sound announced the zombies’ arrival. The first of them came into the light, completely covered in mud. It reached out for the globe of spell light and tipped forward, overbalanced, when its hand passed through it. Its fellows ignored it as they trudged over its body, pressing it even deeper into the mud.

“Can we get more light?” Gallard asked as he unsheathed his sword and stepped in front of Charlotte.

The globe ballooned out to twice its previous size and moved over to his position while she conjured a second one for herself. She swept it out in a wide arc, revealing another group of zombies coming in from the other side. The light didn’t show them yet, but she could feel a third cluster out in the dark as well.

Most of them were struggling to claw their way through the moors and making slow progress of it, but the third group had happened upon a solid chunk of land and was overtaking the other two. Gallard had met the first group already.

“Two more groups coming in over here,” Charlotte called out.

“So do something about them!”

Gallard was fighting defensively as he tried to keep his balance in the mud. He gave ground and only struck out at zombies that were actively reaching for him. Without more solid footing, he’d be functionally useless.

“Trade me sides,” she said. “There’s a small solid hill over here you can use.”

“Can’t break away,” he grunted as he twisted back and swatted a reaching arm aside.

Three zombies had closed in a semi circle in front of him. His foot was stuck down in the mud, forcing him to pivot awkwardly on one leg as he dodged grasping hands. Charlotte dropped two of them with her magic while Gallard cut the third apart.

He used the reprieve to wrench his leg free and shuffle backward. Once he was clear of the zombies, he darted away. The globe of spell light she’d set to him bobbed through the air as it led him to the third group that had taken the hill. She focused on breaking down the rest of the group he’d been fighting.

“Let me know if you feel the necromancer’s magic reanimating any of these zombies,” Charlotte muttered.

Maybe you should do it first.

“No, not with the warden right here, and I still don’t want the necromancer to know about me.”

This is just like the village. He doesn’t seem to care about what happens to them. You could reanimate them, use them to take out the warden, and be on your way.

“Just do what I told you,” Charlotte said.

Up on the hill, Gallard was making short work of the third group. As he hacked the zombies apart, he kicked the loose parts down the hill where the other group was still struggling through the mud. They altered course toward him, the leading ones leaving the stragglers behind as they crawled up onto solid ground.

Charlotte backed away slowly, each step carefully placed in the muck, as she worked on the group Gallard had abandoned. There were only seven left, but her earlier exertions in Cobble’s Well had left her fatigued. She gave ground to gain time as she broke apart the threads tying them back to the necromancer controlling them.

This is pointless. You’re going to run yourself dry long before you finish all of these zombies off. You need to use your necromancy if you want to win this.

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Charlotte said as she shot a dark glance at Gallard. “Maybe if there wasn’t a warden twenty feet away.”

So kill him.

The leading zombies had reached Gallard. He was breathing heavy, but showed no signs of slowing down as he met the wave of undead and dismembered them one after another. “He’s useful,” she said.

Not so much that he’s worth the handicap you’re taking in keeping him alive.

“It doesn’t matter. Even if he were gone, I can’t risk revealing myself to the necromancer we’re after. For now, he’s cooperating, and that means I want him breathing.”

Well, you should probably warn him about the ghoul sneaking up in that group then.

“Damn it, Bernard!” she snarled. “You could have said something sooner.”

You’ve got plenty of time, and I still think you’d be better off with him gone.

“It’s not your call to make.”

She pushed her awareness toward the hill and scoured it to find the ghoul hidden among the other undead. Unlike zombies, ghouls had a kind of feral intelligence to them. They were clever, strong, fast, utterly relentless, and always hungry for living flesh.

She picked it out of the pack and slammed it with a disruption spell. It staggered, but its own natural resilience combined with a stronger thread of necrotic control kept it in one piece. The second spell cut deeper, but not enough to stop it. She poured everything she had left into the third spell to break it down completely.

Charlotte allowed herself a minute to breathe as Gallard finished off the rest of the zombies. The only solace she could see was that not a single one of them had gotten back up to fight after she’d dropped it.

If you keep tapping yourself out like this, you’re going to end up dead. Are you really willing to risk everything to save a warden who’s probably going to end up trying to kill you soon enough anyway?

“Enough, Bernard! I’m sick of having this conversation with you.”

His voice subsided into sullen silence. She took a moment to collect herself before trudging through the mud up to the hill. Her orb of spell light flickered and faded beside her. “I’m about drained,” she said when she reached him.

He didn’t look much better. His clothes and sword were stained with ichor, his breathing harsh and ragged. With a snort of disgust, he kicked away an arm that was dragging itself through the dirt after him. She didn’t tell him about the dozens of other zombies drifting through the darkness around them. For the moment at least, they were passing by, uninterested in the two humans in their midst.

“Maybe we should go back,” she said, her voice subdued.

“This was your idea!”

“We’ve killed better than a hundred zombies tonight, and there’s no guarantee there aren’t a hundred more waiting for us. Even if we avoid every one of them, we’re in no shape to go up against a necromancer capable of controlling this many undead at once.”

Gallard turned his head to spit into the mud. “We should at least torch these ones so they don’t get back up later.”

“Fine, you do it. I’ll wait here.”

He gave her a dirty look and pulled a small, fire-blackened coin out of his pocket. He licked his lips and stared at it. Charlotte watched curiously as his brow furrowed.

“Is that a focus?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “Be quiet. I’m trying to concentrate.”

The coin was a type of magic token imbued with channels that people could fill with their magic. The focus itself did all the work holding the spell’s shape, meaning all the caster had to do was have enough strength to power it, even if he lacked the necessary skill to produce a similar effect on his own.

A thin curl of smoke rose from the nearest body. When nothing else happened, Gallard shook his head and pocketed the coin again. “Too wet,” he admitted. “I might be able to do one or two, but not all of them.”

He’s not much for thinking his plans through, is he?

“I don’t want to leave this many bodies out here either, but we don’t have a lot of choice,” she told the warden.

Gallard gave a frustrated groan. “I know.”

“Look at it this way,” Charlotte said. “With as many as we’ve seen already, whoever’s behind this might not think it’s worth the effort to string all the zombies you chopped up back together.”

“How is that supposed to be comforting?”

He’s not wrong.

Charlotte pressed her lips into a frown and didn’t speak for the rest of the trip back.

* * *

Gallard rolled onto his side and pulled the blanket over his shoulder. He was lying on a thin, flat pallet in the corner of the house he’d helped save from the undead. Charlotte sat opposite to him, her back against the wall underneath a window, one hand resting on the amulet she wore.

The grateful family had tried to give up their beds, but neither Gallard nor Charlotte had taken them up on the offer. From where he was, he could see the dark hair of the family’s little girl fanned out on her pillow. Her parents had staggered in less than an hour before, exhausted from cleaning up Cobble’s Well, and promptly collapsed into their own bed.

Across the room, Charlotte stirred and looked up. “Still awake?” she asked softly.

Gallard sighed and sat up. “I’m just trying to piece it all together. What’s so special about this house, this family? Why are there so many undead here?”

“I’m almost positive whoever is controlling them wasn’t anywhere nearby. None of the ones I disrupted got back up, and it wouldn’t have been hard for a skilled necromancer to keep at least a few of them going. I don’t understand how anyone can control a single zombie from miles away, let alone fifty of them.”

“It’ll be worse tomorrow. There’s no way he won’t notice those fifty zombies are gone.”

“And one ghoul,” Charlotte added.

“What?”

“There was one ghoul in that last group you fought.”

Gallard kept his face blank and his voice neutral. “You took care of it?”

Charlotte waved a hand dismissively. “I didn’t want it ambushing you while you were fighting the zombies.”

“Oh.” His tone didn’t change. “With a disruption spell?”

Charlotte shrugged and closed her eyes. Gallard laid back down, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.

* * *

Jakob Kelst leaned back in the chair and stroked his pet’s hair. She obediently nuzzled her face into his leg and ran a hand up the inside of his thigh. When he smiled down at her, he couldn’t even see the hole in her neck where he’d bled her out.

Around him, zombies hauled in crates from the wagon they’d carried on their shoulders through the moorlands. The mud was far too thick for its wheels to turn, but he hadn’t minded leaving a string of broken down corpses behind as they collapsed under the weight, not to keep the amenities the wagon offered him.

He’d sent out zombies to acquire a new pet from the last village he’d passed and to patrol the moors around him to make sure he wasn’t disturbed. The village group hadn’t returned though. Likely the villagers had fought back, and set fire to zombie and fallen defender alike. He’d have to attend to Cobble’s Well personally, collect his new pet, and replenish his numbers with the rest of the villagers.

He smirked down at his current pet, a small blond girl about ten years old. Thanks to his magic, she was perfectly obedient to his very whim. Spells of preservation had kept her fresh over the weeks she’d been with him, but even his necromancy could preserve a body for only so long, and she was starting to show wear.

It didn’t matter. He’d have a new pet soon enough, a dark haired one next time. He’d just have to do his best to pass the time with the one he had while he waited. He relaxed into the chair and issued a mental command to her. Her hand slid up his thigh to the waistline of his trousers and dipped under the fabric. Jakob grinned and shifted to give her better access.

* * *

In the dark hours of predawn, Charlotte rose from her rest in the small house. Gallard snored gently on the pallet, a dark lump wrapped in a green cloak with the blanket bunched up around him. She paused, hand on the door, and studied him suspiciously. When he didn’t stir, she smiled to herself and slipped out of the house.

She held her breath as she passed by the bonfire being tended by several villagers. The bodies had all been piled onto it, and the stink rolling away from it was enough to make her gag. Several villagers stood around it, their shirts pulled up over their mouths and noses. They watched in silence as she passed by.

She followed the road out of Cobble’s Well until she found the zombie tracks leading into the moors. They were still distinct, but even overnight, the edges had started to collapse back in as the mud smoothed itself over.

Her trek through the slime and muck was slow. Every treacherous step made her appreciate how much easier it had been to walk with someone to help keep her upright. The sun was already poking over the sparse tree line by the time she reached the small hill they’d made their stand on the night before.

She made it another half a mile in before she had to stop for a long, ragged line of zombies passing by from east to west. She waited for several minutes as they slowly moved past her, well over a hundred in number. “That’s a lot of bodies,” she said aloud.

What are you going to do about them?

“It shouldn’t be hard to keep track of where they are and avoid them.”

You could have done that six hours ago. We’d have been done and gone.

“Not without letting the warden die.”

That seems like an acceptable loss to me.

Charlotte sighed. “Have I ever told you how much more annoying you are than my last assistant?”

About two or three times a week since you stuffed me into this stupid rock.

“It bears repeating, Bernard.”

Then you should have kept the ghost.

“I would have if you hadn’t destroyed her soul tether.”

A mistake I’ll no doubt regret for the rest of eternity.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m regretting it with you.”

She skirted the back end of the zombie procession and pressed deeper into the moors. After about an hour of careful travel, she stopped and looked around. “This is the place, I think.”

What makes you say that?

“We’re coming up into the foothills. Drier ground, probably some caves to be used as shelter. And this place is thick with necrotic energy.”

There is that. The largest concentration is coming from beyond that tree line over there.

“Of course it is,” Charlotte muttered to herself as she looked at the trees. “There’s practically a lake between us and there.”

She gingerly stepped off solid ground into what could best be described as a quarter mile long mud puddle deep enough that she sank up to her calves. As long as she kept her steps smooth, the water didn’t quite lap over the top of her boots. With a grimace, she walked farther away from dry land. She made it half way before the first zombie appeared.

You have all the luck, don’t you?

“What are the odds that it hasn’t noticed me?”

It hasn’t reacted to you yet. The ghouls behind it might be a different story.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s past time to be hiding. Any necromancer this powerful has to have realized we’re here.”

* * *

Jakob let out a satisfied sigh and relaxed onto the mattress as his pet finished licking him clean. A smile found its way onto his face as he considered the fun he might have if he could acquire his new pet before the old one was beyond use. That dark haired village girl would be perfect for the role.

He mentally ordered his pet off the mattress after she’d finished. She retreated and stood, naked, in the corner of the cave. He gave an involuntary shiver against the early morning chill and reached over for the fur blanket that lay piled on the ground. He pulled it over his body, rolled over, and drifted off to sleep.

* **

I still haven’t sensed any sort of overriding presence in them. It’s like they’re all set to loop their last instructions over and over again.

“That’s an amateur mistake. The sheer number of zombies argues against that.”

Those ghouls have definitely noticed you, either way. If I’m right though, you should have no problem binding them.

“Let’s find out.”

She walked forward as the ghouls waded out to meet her. Both of them had dropped to all fours and were crawling through the water. They ignored the mud splashed up and stuck to their limbs and bellies. As they got closer, their jaws unhinged to hang wider than any human could have managed.

Charlotte planted her feet firmly into the muck. “Time to see how good your boss is at his job.”

Chapter 3

Performing a binding was the first thing Charlotte had been taught when she’d begun learning necromancy. It opened a channel between living and undead, allowed her to pit her magic against theirs, and if she was strong enough, turn them into extensions of her will.

She didn’t have much use for that kind of magic. It was too conspicuous to travel with a troop of moldering corpses, not even considering the stink they gave off if she didn’t invest a considerable amount of energy in preserving them. Even if she did, there was no stopping the inevitable decay, only delaying it. She’d long since grown inured to the stench of death, but that didn’t mean she wanted to sit in a cloud of it day after day.

But for the two ghouls crawling toward her through the water, a binding was exactly what she needed. Her magic bore down on them, stopped them both in their tracks. Against what necromancers referred to as wild undead, it was a simple, swift, brutal battle for control. The two ghouls in front of her weren’t wild though. The magic already controlling them had to be broken before her own could exert her will.

She expected an easy battle. Unless the other necromancer was actively observing the pair of ghouls with his magic when she attacked them, she would have surprise on her side, and could take control before he could react. Even if she failed to outright break his magic, she’d still have a solid foothold to work from.

Instead of absolute control, she found only the faintest web of compulsion laid on them, commands like kill any living and don’t eat anything. A small knot of magic kept those orders cycling through the ghouls. Beyond that, no opposing will fought her magic. She broke that web easily, battered their wills into submission, and bound them to her purpose.

“Why does this feel like a trap?”

Either this necromancer is truly brilliant, or he’s incredibly stupid.

“Where is he? Why is he just letting me take his assets?”

A better question would be if he’s not willing to invest his energy into holding onto these undead, then what exactly is he hoarding it for?

Charlotte stopped to consider that. “Well that’s an ugly thought.”

She could sense several zombies in the trees. Up to that point, she’d gone out of her way to avoid them. If the other necromancer wasn’t interested in keeping control of them though, there was no reason to bother. She walked straight toward the undead, the ghouls trailing behind, and bound every one she saw.

They passed the tree line and came to a place where the ground sloped sharply upward. It was the first truly solid stretch of land she’d found since she’d left the road. Once, soft green moss had covered the dirt, but it had been torn up and destroyed by a hundred zombies trudging back and forth over it.

She could feel another thirty or forty zombies scattered through the hills and trees, all stationary. Every time she came across one, she added it to the growing pack following her. The necromancer who’d gathered them originally made no move to fight back.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” she said finally. “There’s no warning trigger in his binding to let him know I’m breaking it. The only way he’s going to realize he’s lost them is if he actively checks and finds them gone.”

Maybe that’s how he’s taken so many at once.

She shook her head. “That trigger is only a small fraction of the energy he’d need. It wouldn’t make any real difference to how many he could control at once.”

Then why wouldn’t he add it?

“I don’t know why he’s doing anything the way he is.”

Charlotte, we need to figure this out before you confront the other necromancer. You’re going to get yourself killed when he springs his trap on you.

“Your concern is touching,” she said dryly.

I’m highly motivated to keep you alive.

She stopped walking and smiled. Two parallel lines ran through the moss straight north toward the mountains. “Well look at this. Those look like wagon tracks to me. Kind of a strange place to see them.”

She pushed her death sense as far north as she could. Faintly, at the very edge, she sensed a concentration of immobile zombies. “Found you.”

She found the wagon just outside a cave with a canvas tarp thrown over its half full bed of wooden boxes. Charlotte flipped the tarp back and opened one at random to find clothes. Another one had cloth sacks full of apples that had started going soft.

There were twenty undead inside the cave itself and, presumably, the necromancer who controlled them. She hesitated to try binding them. It didn’t seem like she’d been noticed yet, but if there were any undead that would alert him when she took them, it would be the ones right next to him.

She conjured up a dim ball of spell light to lead her into the surprisingly dry cave. There was no movement or noise inside. Charlotte stopped just inside and looked around. “Maybe he’s not here.”

That’s probably a bad thing.

“This is starting to feel more and more- oh,” she paused, shocked, as her spell light fell on the back of the cave. A young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, was visible between the unmoving zombies sleeping on a straw stuffed mattress. He was short and scrawny, with lanky black hair and skin that had taken on the gray pallor that came from massive overexposure to necrotic energy.

He’s just a kid. They’re all amateur mistakes, just replicated on a massive scale. He’s not some clever genius. He’s letting you take his pawns because he doesn’t know enough to realize you’re doing it. But how could he possibly perform hundreds of bindings? Where did he get the power? It makes no sense.

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed.

Charlotte moved to step toward the bed, but the zombies around it blocked her with their bodies. Their jaws unhinged to let out loud, echoing moans that caused the boy’s eyes to flare open. He jerked upright out of his blanket. Underneath it, he was completely naked except for a black feather tied to a thin leather strap that hung from his neck. His head snapped toward Charlotte, and he let out a gasp of surprise and anger.

“Who the hell are you!” he demanded. He kicked the blanket away and jumped to his feet. “How did you get in here?”

She didn’t waste time responding. Her own zombies, led by the two ghouls, rushed forward to push the undead blocking her to the side. There wasn’t enough space though, and she ended up accomplishing nothing more than thickening the wall of bodies between her and the boy.

Without a way to get near him, she had to turn to her magic. Against a real necromancer, she would have never tried it, but the boy who was so obviously an amateur might not be able to defend himself. She cast out an orb of solid necrotic energy, a ball so black it made the cave darker just by its mere presence.

Any halfway competent necromancer would be unharmed by it. It was deadly to almost anyone, but to her, and to the boy if he was smart enough, it was just another blob of the magic they dealt with every day. Learning how to insulate themselves from it was crucial to their survival.

She felt a moment’s satisfaction at the panic apparent in his eyes. The boy was in no way prepared to handle a sudden surge of necrotic energy, and it would dissolve him from the inside out before he could control it. Charlotte’s satisfaction gave way to surprise when the entire orb broke apart and was pulled down into the black feather hanging from his neck.

Wait, that’s not a standard defense, is it?

“No. What is that thing?”

The zombies still formed a solid wall of flesh as they ground against each other. She needed to get them out of the way, but that wouldn’t happen unless she forced some outside. Getting rid of hers seemed like a losing tactic, so she tried to grab his instead. It was like running headfirst into brick wall. The other boy’s hold was far beyond her power to break. Worse, he realized exactly what he was doing, and sudden rage twisted his face.

He pushed back, and she found herself abruptly scrambling to keep control of her own undead. In desperation, she abandoned all of the zombies and focused her magic on the pair of ghouls. He took everything she gave him in an instant and pushed against her claim on the last two undead. Her will cracked under the pressure of his magic, and the two ghouls leaped in to grab her.

“You stupid bitch!” the boy raved. “You come in here, think you can steal what’s mine? I’m going to kill you. I’m going to violate you in every way I can think of and make your corpse march naked at the front of my army with my name painted on your tits in your own blood.”

He was so caught up in his ranting that he didn’t notice when the first zombie’s necrotic aura was snuffed out. Charlotte craned her head over her shoulder just in time to see Gallard flow into the cave, his sword already wet with blood. He cut three more apart before the boy finally noticed him and directed the zombies to fight back.

Well, it’s kind of impressive that we didn’t notice him following us this time.

The ghouls pulled her through the wall of zombies with half rotted fingers clamped tight enough to bruise her arms. She waited until they’d cleared the press of bodies and blasted one of them with a disruption spell. It didn’t work, not with the necromancer right there to reinforce its animating magic, but it gave her a precious second to break its hold, pull her knife, and sweep it down through the second ghoul’s wrist.

Suddenly free, Charlotte lunged for the boy. She made it half way before the ghouls grabbed her again and hauled her backward so hard her feet left the ground. They gripped her with bone crushing force so painful that black spots danced across her vision. Another zombie went down behind her, but one wasn’t enough. Even if Gallard could get through that wall of flesh, he’d never do it in time to help her.

She attacked the boy’s hold on the undead with every slippery trick she knew. Nothing worked. She changed tactics to disrupting the animating energy keeping them upright. The first few faltered, but as soon as the necromancer realized what she was doing, he started pumping energy into them faster than she could break it down.

Her eyes darted back and forth frantically. They flickered from the necromancer to the bed, the blanket piled on the floor, the ghouls holding her, back to the necromancer, and behind him to a zombie child. Charlotte blinked, not certain what she was seeing.

The zombie was a little blond girl with a neat hole in her throat where she’d had a vein nicked and bled out. She was just as naked as the necromancer himself and, unlike the other undead, clean of any mud or muck. Charlotte’s eyes widened as they went back and forth between the zombie girl and the necromancer.

Her face scrunched up in revulsion as the pieces tumbled into place. “You sick twist,” she spat. “I have met a lot of bad people, but you’ve got to be the most fucked up one I’ve ever seen.”

The necromancer took a step forward and drove his fist into her gut. “Shut up!” he howled as he struck her again and again and spit flew from his mouth into her face. “What do you know about anything, you dumb bitch? What do you know about me? Nothing, that’s what! Don’t come in here like you’re some high born lady when you’re just some old cunt trying to steal what’s mine.”

“Bernard,” she gasped out through the pain, “take her.”

The boy looked from her to Gallard, who’d been pinned down under a pile of zombies, his sword on the ground beyond his reach. He was covered in blood, though how much of it was his Charlotte could only guess at.

The necromancer laughed. “Your boyfriend can’t help you. No one is going to save you.”

Charlotte gave him a tight lipped smile and tipped her head towards the warden. “Him? His name is Francis.”

The little girl crashed into the boy and sank her teeth into his side. Her neck muscles stood out as she flexed and ripped out a bloody chunk of meat. The boy squealed in pain and tried to pull away, but she grabbed at him and dragged her nails across his skin. He frantically beat at her with his bare fists as he screamed.

Charlotte unleashed all her magic on the ghouls. They faltered and, with their source of power distracted, released her. She raised the knife and hurled her whole body forward. The boy saw her coming at the last moment and raised his hands to push her away, but she bulled past them.

They hit the floor together, Charlotte on top. The knife flashed down and drove into his throat just above his collarbone. She gave it a savage jerk to rip it up across his neck and turned her face away as blood splattered across it.

The screaming stopped when he started to choke and gag on the blood flowing up into his mouth. He clawed frantically at her hands, but she kept the pressure on the knife. “Die, you sick fuck,” she snarled. “Fucking die.”

He gasped weakly, and she leaned forward to put her face in front of his. “I want you to know that when you go, the first thing I’m going to do is make sure you burn. Don’t think you’re going to have any remains to attach your spirit to. You’re not coming back as a ghost or a lich. You’re going to be a pile of ashes, nothing more.”

Whatever final words he might have wanted to say, he ended his short and depraved existence with nothing more than a gurgle of blood.

* * *

The zombie on top of the pile rolled off Gallard, easing the pressure in his chest enough to let him take a full breath. One at a time, the rest of them released him. He scooped up his sword and scrambled to his feet.

“So you were a necromancer after all,” he said. “That’s why you were out alone last night. You were holding back around me so I wouldn’t suspect you.”

She stood with her back to him, covered in blood and frowning at a zombie at the back of the cave. “Enough, Bernard. Return to me now,” she commanded.

The zombie crouched low and hissed at her, and Charlotte made a violent chopping motion with her hand. “I said enough!”

She pulled the amulet over her head and held it out. The ruby in the center pulsed with a sullen red light that spilled over the zombie. It tried to dart away, but she moved the amulet to keep the light shining on it.

The zombie started glowing in response, and the glow solidified into the shape of a tall, lean man with stringy hair and sharp features. His face and arms were covered with scars. He glowered at Charlotte as the light from the amulet washed over him and he faded away. Abruptly, the light winked out, and she replaced the chain around her neck.

“Now,” she said calmly, turning, “you were making your accusations towards me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You got rid of your rival, took what you wanted from his corpse, and I’m next on your list to dispose of.”

She absently twirled the black feather the boy had been wearing on his chest between two fingers and looked him over. “Why would I want to do that?”

Gallard blinked. “I’ve seen your face. I know you’re a necromancer. You know what that means. Isn’t that why you set it up to kill us both here?”

“As a point of fact, I didn’t. I had no idea you’d followed me again.” She grimaced. “I probably should have guessed you would though.”

“So what are you going to do then?” he asked. He kept his sword up in front of him and worked to subtly position himself to make a break out of the cave. He didn’t think he had a realistic chance of escape, but if she made a mistake, he wanted to be ready to react.

“Take out that focus in your pocket and burn the necromancer’s corpse,” she ordered, steel in her voice. “I don’t want him coming back and causing more problems later.”

Gallard fished the coin out and squinted at it. “It’d be easier to light the mattress and let him burn on it.”

One of the zombies grabbed the dead necromancer by the hair and dragged him over to the straw stuffed bed. A few seconds passed in silence before the first curls of smoke rolled out from under the body. She stood, grim faced, and waited for the fire to catch before she turned away from it.

Charlotte gestured, and the naked zombie child walked up next to her. Her face softened to sadness. “I want you to make sure she’s given a proper cremation. She’s suffered enough already.”

“What about the rest of the zombies?”

“I’m sending them to Cobble’s Well. Every single one I can find. Their orders are to march up to the bonfire and wait to be thrown in. There are too many for me to keep firm control on, so they’re getting only that single order and enough energy to hold them to it for a day. If anyone comes through and interferes, I won’t be able to fix it.”

Gallard shot the zombies an uneasy glance. “This is all awfully out of character for a necromancer.”

“We’re not all evil.”

“No, just insane. All of you, eventually.”

Charlotte’s lips thinned in displeasure. “Yes,” she admitted with a glance at the still burning body. “But I’m not there yet.”

“How can I trust you?” Gallard asked. “You’re exactly what I swore oaths to stop.”

“Then you decide. I’m going one way, and I’m sending the zombies the other. You can chase after me, or you can make sure Cobble’s Well is prepared. Either way, it’s time for me to go.”

The zombies shuffled around to form a wall between the two of them as she walked past. She stopped outside just long enough to take a long shirt from the wagon and put it on the girl before heading north into the mountains, and every zombie in sight turned south to trudge toward the village. Gallard stood there for several long minutes, torn between following Charlotte and beating the zombies out of the moors.

It was the numbers that decided it for him in the end. Even with everything they’d already done, he could still see a hundred undead shambling through the moors, and he couldn’t trust her word. He turned south and started running.