“You stupid bronze pieces of shit! Kneel before me!”

“We are kneeling, you fucking donkey!”

“Silence!” Dove roared. “I will not tolerate this disrespect. I am your new Master, and you will obey my commands!”

The onyx skeleton pointed a bony finger at the four captives, glaring down at their kneeling figures with contempt burning in his burning, purple eyes.

“I was almost a gold ranked slayer,” he boasted, slapping himself on the ribs with both hands. “You four are just puppies compared to me. If you behave yourselves, I’ll tell my servant to treat you nicely when I’m not around. You’ll get muffins. Maybe.”

He tapped his jaw lightly.

“What’s the name of your team, anyway?”

Trenan scowled.

“The Hooligans,” he muttered, a little reluctantly.

Dove stared at him.

“That’s terrible. I love it.”

“Dove,” a cold voice broke into the conversation, followed a moment later by the cloaked figure of the Necromancer.

The four young slayers tensed as he appeared, and Dove threw his hands up with disgust.

“This is ridiculous! They’re terrified of you, but look at me like I’m mildly irritating! As if I were indigestion, or old ham, or sour beer… overripe cheese. Damn, I want food all of a sudden.”

“You could shove some in your face, I suppose,” Tyron said, voice wry. “Not that you would taste it.” He stepped closer and glanced at the captives. “Why are they kneeling?” he asked.

“So that they know their place!” the skeleton declared, performing a rude gesture at the team.

Tyron rubbed his temples and sighed. He’d hoped having a body and some basic magick would help stop Dove’s slide into… disturbing avenues of thought. At best, it had slowed him down… slightly. He had a bad feeling that whatever was going on with his mentor would not end well. For anyone.

“I’m sorry about him,” Tyron said to the four, who clearly did not expect an apology from their captor.

Tyron briefly considered how to explain Dove’s behaviour, then gave up and moved on to other things.

“All of you, stand up, please.”

Brigette, Arthur and Choll all looked to Trenan, who nodded, and the three of them followed his lead in rising to their feet, all eyeing the Necromancer warily. For his part, Tyron was unafraid. Without their weapons and surrounded by skeletons, these four slayers were no threat to him.

He’d considered for a while what he should say to these slayers to help them understand what was happening here, what he was doing. Perhaps he should make some attempt to bring them into the rebellion, turn them against the magisters? According to Elsbeth, this was where the Three wanted to make their stand, the hub around which the slayer uprising would be founded.

To this point, he didn’t see it. The villagers were hard people, and no friends of the empire. In fact, in the wake of the break four years ago, the common folk this far from Kenmor were openly hostile to the authorities. For the slayers, it was different. Magnin and Beory, specifically, the way they had been used and killed by the magisters, had been the final straw. After decades, centuries, of being suppressed and controlled, seeing their best and brightest being treated so poorly had exhausted their tolerance.

But these four? They were fresh out of the academy, barely twenty years old. His parents had died before they had even Awakened. Did they care?

Unable to come up with answers on what to do, he had simply decided to ignore them.

“I will be here for a few weeks. In that time, I will monopolise the rift. When I’m done, I’ll leave, and you can return to doing what you did before.”

They watched him silently.

“Obviously, I’m an illegal,” he spread his hands, being open with them, “a Necromancer. You can attempt to report me, if you wish, but you might find it more difficult to achieve than you expect.”

Most likely, they didn’t believe him. It didn’t matter; trying to speak to magister Poranus wasn’t likely to go well for them. Not anymore.

“Whether you choose to believe me or not, I intend no harm to any of you, or the village. So long as you stay out of my way and keep quiet about my presence, you’ll be fine.”

Trenan glared at him.

“What assurance do we have that any of this is true?” he queried, despite the blonde swordswoman by his side digging a solid elbow into his ribs.

Tyron shrugged.

“You’re alive. If I wanted to kill you and raise you as my minions, I would have done so already. In fact...”

He stepped back, into the waiting pack of shield-bearing skeletons. Once he was safely behind a wall of his minions, he had the slayers’ weapons returned to them.

“You’re free to go,” he said. “Remember what I told you. Whether or not you end up like them,” he gestured towards the revenant of Rufus standing to one side, “depends entirely on you.”

Somewhat bewildered, the four accepted their gear, then stared as the skeletons stepped aside to allow them through. Hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, Trenan led his team out of the wolf’s mouth, walking down the slope and back towards town. Behind them, the Necromancer seemed to pay the slayers no more mind, speaking softly to the weird skeleton as the rest of the undead walked toward the rift.

Was he really going to hold off the rift-kin all by himself? Judging from how many skeletons there were, it was possible.

“What the hell was that about?” Bridgette whispered, “I thought we were dead for sure.”

“Shut up,” Trenan said, more harshly than he intended. “We can talk once we get back into town. That Mage is possibly gold, or high silver. We aren’t safe to talk here.”

The others nodded and the group moved with purpose, tension thick in the air until they arrived back outside the wall.

“Hooligans, returning from the rift,” he said stiffly to the men and women above the gate.

“Welcome back, slayers. Got someone inside who wants a word with you.”

They exchanged glances, but there was a palpable sense of relief when they saw Ortan Larigold waiting on the other side as the thick wooden gate swung open.

“We need to speak, urgently,” Trenan said as he strode up to the enormous villager.

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“Not here,” Ortan replied, “let’s move to your barracks.”

“Good idea,” Trenan nodded, “the other teams should hear this as well.”

The man nodded slowly.

“That too.”

When they’d arrived in Cragwhistle, the slayers had been put up in a house, all that was available at the time. Since then, something had been built, far from a proper slayer keep, but it was spacious enough to house the three teams in what comfort a remote place such as this could afford. It was to this building, long and low-roofed, formed of grey stone, that the five of them walked.

Thankfully, the barracks was close to the gate, otherwise Bridgette may have exploded from the strain of holding in her words long before she arrived.

“There’s a fucking Necromancer up the mountain, Ortan! There’s hundreds of skeletons, way too many for us to kill!”

The big villager blinked.

“That many? Damn.”

His reaction was extremely off-putting for Trenan.

“You know about this guy? What the fuck is going on here, Mr Larigold?”

“Can you keep it down, please?” someone called in a piteous voice. “I’ve been drinking and would much rather be asleep than listening to you quarrel in the corridor.”

Trenan turned and thumped on his door.

“Well you’re shit out of luck, Gramble. Get your pudgy ass out of bed and get your team together. Some real shit is going down.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No, you dumb fuck! Hurry up!”

Trenan glanced around.

“Where’s team Starfire?”

“We’ll get them,” Chol offered, dragging Arthur with her. “If they aren’t in their rooms, I know their favourite place to be.”

“Make sure you get everyone,” Trenan told her. “We need to work out what we’re going to do.”

Ortan simply sighed. Slayers often had their blood up, wanting to act decisively and be in control, he’d come to notice. It was probably a result of them fighting day in, day out for so long. Being indecisive was how you got killed.

In short order, the slayers of Cragwhistle had assembled. The four members of the Hooligans held court in the small common room inside the barracks, while the other teams found places to sit. Gramble had, with Trenan’s assistance, dragged the other two members of his group, the Blue Dogs, out of bed, complaining loudly the entire time. The five women of team Starfire had returned at Chol’s urging, though unhappy that they’d been forced to abandon their meal. Their leader, Samantha, wore a perpetual scowl at the best of times. Right now, she appeared even more fierce.

“Did you call us all here, Mr Larigold?” she demanded when she saw Ortan standing in one corner. “I have all due respect to your position in the village, but wasting my team’s time is something I won’t tolerate.”

The big man held up his hands, palms out.

“Slow down there, please. It’s true I wanted to speak to you all, but I’m not the one who dragged you all here.”

He stared pointedly at Trenan, who folded his arms across his chest and glared back at him.

“We have an urgent situation that needs to be remedied, so all of you can shut the fuck up with your petty grievances. There’s a Necromancer on the mountain, right now, as we speak.”

He spat out the sentence and paused a beat to allow it to sink in.

“A powerful one, too. He captured my team, disarmed us and held us captive before he let us go, told us to keep our mouths shut.”

“Is this some sort of joke?” Gramble wondered, pushing his glasses up his nose. “A Necromancer? Here?”

“Do I look like I’m joking to you, Gramble?”

“If I’m being honest, you look like you’ve never told a joke in your entire life.”

“Good.”

Samantha shared a worried glance with her team.

“And he just let you go? I don’t know much about Necromancers except that they’re illegal, but I understand that turning powerful fighters into undead slaves is basically their go-to move.”

Trenan grunted.

“Said he would leave us alone, leave the village alone too, as long as we didn't bother him. He wants the rift to himself for a few weeks. I’m not sure I believe it.”

“Of course you don’t believe it!” Gramble laughed incredulously. “He’s probably trying to get stronger by taking on the rift before he wipes out the village entirely! Killing all of us in the process! I, for one, am not going to sit around while this mage polishes a knife for my throat. Let’s rally together and kill the prick!”

Most of the slayers in the room nodded at this, but Ortan spoke up, cutting through the rising aggression.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said clearly, causing all the slayers to turn and stare at him.

“Why not?” Gramble demanded. “We would be doing the people of Cragwhistle a great service, removing a clear and imminent danger! Besides, I’m not sure what say you have in our decision, with respect.”

Ortan dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated, trying to work out how to phrase this diplomatically. Slayers had such sensitive egos at the best of times.

“For one, I think you would fail and die. There are hundreds of skeletons up on that mountain, so I’m told, and in total, there are twelve of you.”

“I like those odds!” Bridgette announced.

“You didn’t seem quite so confident on the mountain,” Arthur muttered.

“For two,” Ortan pressed on, “the villagers here would likely turn on you if you did. Which you would not survive.”

The big man grimaced as the faces staring at him grew decidedly more heated.

“Are you threatening us?” Samantha asked coldly.

“No. And I don’t want to speak on this much.Suffice to say that the Necromancer is known to the people here, and they will not take kindly to him being hurt. The main reason I wanted to keep this conversation quiet was because I don’t know how they’ll react once they find out he’s here. But if you try to go up the mountain and fight him, I will tell them.”

“We can prevent that,” Samantha growled.

Something close to pity flickered across Ortan’s face.

“No, you can’t,” he said quietly.

Upon graduating the academy, each and every one of them had been given the brand. In that moment, Trenan could feel it, searing like the day the cursed thing had been carved into his flesh.

“There’s nothing stopping us telling the magister,” Trenan said. “He can send a message by ro’klaw, have a team of silver slayers here to rip the bastard’s head off before the week is out.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Ortan said, “but I warn you, it won’t work.”

“Are we really going to sit here and listen to this villager tell us what we can and can’t do?” Gramble said, staring around the room. “Fine. If that’s what you all want, then fine. Me and my team will not remain while some madman we are permitted to kill sits on the mountain. We’ll pack our things and be on our way in an hour.”

He made to stand up, but again, Ortan spoke before he could.

“I’m afraid you can’t do that either,” he said, reluctantly.

Gramble turned to glare at him directly.

“Why not?” he said slowly.

“Because the magister would write you up for dereliction of duty, ruining your career. Your three teams have been posted here directly, you aren’t free to leave.”

Trenan didn’t like what he was hearing.

“Why would Magister Poranus do that, Mr Larigold?” he asked. “You seem awfully confident he’ll do whatever is convenient to that Necromancer.”

“Suffice to say, those two have had a confrontation, which the magister lost,” Ortan said, shifting uncomfortably. “Any attempt to turn Poranus against the Necromancer will… not work out.”

“Mind magick?” Gramble gasped, horrified. “That’s monstrous!”

“And what they did to us isn’t?” a voice grated out harshly.

Shocked, many of the slayers, including members of her own team, turned to stare at Samantha, who scowled back at them, fire in her eyes.

“Anyone who doesn’t resent the brand, put your hand up,” she spat.

Seconds ticked past in total silence. Nobody raised a hand.

“That’s what I thought. I’m not happy about this situation, but I’ll jump through a rift naked before I feel sorry for one of those bastards.”

A hush descended over the group as they each considered what they should do, until Gramble, the pudgy mage, had had enough.

“This is ridiculous,” he declared, pushing himself to his feet. “I refuse to believe the people of Cragwhistle are behind you on this, Mr Larigold. It’s absurd, and I’m going to prove it.”

He began to march toward the exit as Ortan stretched out a hand.

“Don’t do that. Please!” He called after him, but without physically restraining him, there was nothing he could do.

The others looked at each other before they too rose from their seats and began to file out of the barracks, wondering what Gramble was going to do.

Full of ire, the mage boldly stepped out into the middle of the street, threw up his hands as if he were a circus performer and loudly declared.

“Good people of Cragwhistle. I must inform you of a real and present danger!”

This obviously garnered attention, people turning from what they were doing, poking their noses out of shops.

“There is a vile Necromancer on the mountain!” Gramble shouted.

The slayers watched in shock as the people heard what he said, then turned to the mountain.

A great cheer rose in the chill air.