I wasn’t prepared for the epicenter.

I was two blocks away from where the concentration of Zombies was the largest, but I wasn’t brave enough to walk into that.

A two block wide purple cloud was slowly moving to the east. The cloud looked like it was a concentrated misty field of the plague and eight feet high was enough to envelop anyone who it crawled over.

Theoretically, the plague wouldn’t hurt me. I already had it running through my veins and things like Zombie blood or getting bitten wouldn’t be more than an irritant. But I’d never seen anything like what was in front of me.

I was a block away from the edge of it and while I was trying to figure out how to deal with it, a group of five Zombies ran out towards me.

Zombies wouldn’t target an unthreatening Touched unless they were being driven, which told me that there was a Touched inside or around the cloud.

One Zombie wasn’t a threat. Two or three Zombies couldn’t hurt me. But after that, my odds of winning got worse.

They rushed me as one, forcing me to retreat. I held my sword in my right hand as I blasted the lead Zombie with fire. It took two blasts, but my flames chewed a hole through the Zombie’s chest and started burning it up.

The other four could chase me faster than I could run backwards and they were on me before I could switch targets. I pivoted to my right, since that would move me more away from the cloud if I had to keep retreating.

A diagonal slash cut into the lead one, but that wasn’t deep enough to do any lasting damage. Unless you cut off their head, the magic inside the Zombies would eventually heal any wound. They could even regrow lost limbs, which was kind of creepy.

My followup swing got my sword impaled through the Zombie on its right. The second Zombie slid down the blade toward me with its arms out and mouth open. I called fire into my left hand and punched it in the face. I was rewarded with the satisfying crunch of breaking nose. My flames ignited the blood that spewed out of the wound, engulfing the Zombie’s face in fire.

Before I could celebrate, I was bowled over as the first Zombie recovered from being driven back and lunged. My sword was ripped out of my hand as it stayed inside the second Zombie while the Zombie on its left fell on top of me and both Zombies started trying to pin me.

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My left leg felt like ice had been injected into my blood. I looked down while still struggling against the Zombies on top of me. The fourth Zombie was trying to bite through the leather pants that I was wearing. It hadn’t yet, but I really didn’t want to feel what it would be like to have those teeth directly on my skin.

As if to answer my desire, the fifth Zombie appeared behind the Zombie on top of me and bit into my hand. The needles that pierced my skin chased gooseflesh around my body.

While it was a very unpleasant feeling, it provided me with a unique position.

I poured fire down the Zombie’s throat.

Eventually I would be able to summon flames that didn’t start from my hands, but I was a lot of practice away from achieving that. Still, it was serving me well at the moment.

The sound of metal being dragged against glass assaulted my ears as the Zombie tried to scream, releasing my hand and spewing liquid flames all over the pile. As the last one to jump on, it was covering all of us in fire. As an apprentice, I had gotten used to flames washing over me, so this brought back memories of when I’d had to trust Master Bran to not let me get incinerated. I wasn’t the weak apprentice anymore. I was the one creating the fire.

The flames were licking at all four of the Zombies, so I called more fire into both hands and used that to spread the flames even more as I pushed the Zombies off of me.

Regular Zombies would have given up once they were lit on fire, but these seemed determined to try to kill me until they were ash. I managed to buck enough with my hips that I was able to tip the Zombie on top of me off. I raised my right leg high enough to kick the Zombie latched on to my left thigh in the face. It took a few kicks, but I got it off. That left only the one on my right that I had by the throat. The fire that I was creating in my palm had almost burned away enough of its neck that there was a good chance if I left it alone, its head would fall off on its own before the magic in it could heal it.

I let go of the Zombie and rolled to my left, yanking my sword out of the Zombie pawing at it. I twisted around behind it, decapitating it as I stood up straight.

The other four Zombies were a mess.The only one that was really a threat anymore was the one that had been on my left thigh. My leg ached as I thought about the injury that my body was trying to ignore. It might not have broken the leather, but I’d have a bite mark there when I checked after this was over.

The Zombie tried to scramble to its feet, but I poured magic into my sword. The blade shone purple as I cut off its right arm at the elbow. The Zombie sprawled on the ground, giving me a perfect angle to cut through the back of its neck. With the only ‘whole’ Zombie gone, dispatching the other three was as simple as walking up to them and cutting off their heads.

I was breathing hard and my head was starting to buzz. I’d used too much magic. I needed to build up the amount that I could use, but now wasn’t the time to try to focus on that exercise. Right now I needed to find the next group of Zombies.