I crashed into the back line of skeletons, Rachel right next to me. Cal took shots where he could from the carriages. We would need to work to make room for Caleb.

My stupid starter sword wasn’t much, but most of them didn’t have weapons that were deadly enough. I kept my shield high, and I swung with everything I had.

The sparks were confusing at first but I learned to ignore them quick enough. Sadly, I don’t think the skeletons were affected by them much. Still I fought with everything I had.

Crash! Push! Swing! And then faster. Crash-push-swing! Crashpushswing! I fought my way toward Caleb. Bernie leapt out of invisible, and sliced the head from the shoulders of one going for Braelyn.

“Ocultarse!” I shouted.

She winked away, just as two skeletons went for her.

Then I was back in the fray. A skeleton with a sword went for me. I angled my shield, sending his sword wide, and hacked at his neck. I hit! But he was still going.

Unlike a living man, these guys didn’t feel pain. They didn’t flinch. But they also sucked at fighting. And if you hacked at them enough they eventually lost whatever magic kept them together.

Then Rachel came in swinging a skeleton by its legs. Both her ‘weapon,’ and the guy she hit exploded into bones and pulp.

I couldn’t watch the rest because I had to hold the line to keep pressure off of Caleb’s backline. He just trusted that his knight and his magical secretary had his back. But more skeletons poured in by the second.

I went for the guy I had just hit, stepping on his boot and crashing into him hard with my shield. He fell back. When he hit the ground he scattered into a hundred pieces with a sound like crashing Lincoln Logs.

I wanted to save my Inspiring Words for when we really needed them. We were okay for now.

I looked back at Caleb. The minotaur swung its massive axe.

He ducked the first swing, and then sidestepped the overhand chop. The axe buried about half a foot into the cobblestone. Caleb used that moment to kick the axe from its hands. It clattered and slid across the ground.

I was forced back into the fight in front of me as a baddie grabbed my shield.

Oh no. That was not happening again.

The skeletons in front of me all glowed red.

I shoved my sword point into its face, and it exploded into purple fire and fell.

That worked well.

The next couple were pink but I kept going, hit first one and then a second, crushing their faces and setting them alight in their own purple fire. Who had made these guys?

The world returned to its usual pace, and I yelled loud enough for the others to hopefully hear above the scrum.

“Go for the eyes! If you rupture the skull, they explode!”

“Good to know!” Rachel said. She picked two up and crushed their heads together, sending spark and flame into the air.

I glanced back again.

Caleb had just skewered his sword though the massive hand of the minotaur. It instinctively tried to grab him with the other. He twisted the point of his sword through the other hand, shish-kabobbing both at once. He then let go of the hilt with one hand and grabbed the blade on the other side of the skewer and pulled the creature down to its knees.

Bernadette chose that time to strike, leaping off a pillar she had spiderclimbed, and plunging her sword into its neck. The minotaur roared in pain. It thrashed.

Man, I was hoping that would end it. I couldn’t watch. I had three skeletons coming for me.

Rachel kicked the one to my left and he was just gone, tumbling off somewhere else. So I lashed out at the one to my right, making sure to keep my shield up for the one in the middle. In no time, Rachel worked her way around, and finished off one in the middle. and I took care of the last one.

I said the last one, because the skeletons had stopped advancing from the cemetery. They were still there, waiting. I turned to the minotaur.

Bernadette held fast to the sword in its neck, and with the other hand stabbed it over and over. The creature stood. Caleb let go of his sword and the creature stumbled back. His knight was beside him, handing him another.

Caleb pierced the minotaur right through the chest, and the creature fell. Bernie leapt and rolled, then stood to her feet. The creature lay dead.

We all waited — struggled to catch our breath — as we watched the horde at the cemetery gates.

Then, shimmering into view, a woman twirled in the air. She wore a beautiful black and silver dress, and her red hair fluttered behind her, unbound in the wind. Small wrist length, black gloves covered her hands. A look of superiority and triumph twisted her lips.

This person was obviously the source of our skeleton problem. I also had to recognize that her whole deal was cool as hell.

“By the order of Her Majesty Queen Tena—” she stopped herself and snapped her fingers. “Shit. No. I got this.” She started over. “By the order of Queen Tenenbria, you are to hand over the traitor Breznik to me at once! Failure to—”

Cal let loose an arrow. It crashed against an unseen barrier around the woman, raining purple sparks.

“Stop that!” She said, brushing a stray hair from her face.

Cal let go another arrow. It was also harmlessly redirected by whatever force protected her.

“Warden’s hairy balls!” she cursed. “Let me say my thing!”

She tossed a fist sized ball of dark fire Cal’s way. He dodged it, and it sent a spray of purple sparks across the cobblestone.

Caleb just gave Cal a look, who lowered his bow. Caleb then retrieved his enchanted sword from the corpse of the minotaur, keeping his eyes on the woman as he did.

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“As I attempted to say,” the mysterious woman continued. “Failure to hand over the traitor Breznik, will result in a full scale invasion of my undead warriors, and many dead.”

“I do not brook threats,” Caleb said, gripping his sword, and causing it to glow menacingly. “Not here. Not in my city.”

“You want Zachary?” Rachel said with incredulity.

“Zachary?” The woman said. “No, I mean the traitor Breznik.”

Caleb stood next to me and said, “this man is under my protection.”

“That’s one of the Promised Heroes?” the woman said. “A little skinny, yeah? You sure you even want him?”

Bernie slunk from the shadows to stand next to me and Caleb.

“He stays with us.”

The woman tossed her voluminous hair back, then huffed at a misplaced strand of hair in her vision.

“You lot don’t want to talk about it first?” she offered, waving her hand at us from her position floating above a horde of skeletons.

I looked to Caleb, then Rachel, then Bernadette. They each just nodded to me in turn. Braelyn even stood next to me, hands crackling with tiny arcs of blue lightning. Couldn’t see the knight though. He must have run for help.

“Death it is then,” the woman sighed. Purplish dark fire swirled around her fingertips.

“Wait!” I shouted.

The woman looked surprised.

“What?” she asked.

“You never introduced yourself.”

“Shit!” she cursed. “I knew I forgot something.” She took a deep breath, and folded her arms over her chest. “I am the Arch-apprentice Sorceress Junavera. My enemies call me the Witch June.”

I looked to Caleb.

“She’s known,” he said. “She doesn’t tend to leave many living enemies though, so I’m not sure anyone calls her ‘the Witch June.’”

“Alright the Witch June,” I said as politely as I could, and raising my shield. “Let's do this.”

“Have at you!” she yelled, launching a ball of dark fire at Caleb. It missed.

The skeletons marched forward.

The fire at Caleb’s feet bloomed into — well — I was finally able to witness a classic spell from the Game — a ball of fire. Purple-dark flames spread into a massive, undulating ball of ever expanding flame in milliseconds. Caleb held up his hand, a shimmering blue orb of energy encompassing him and Cal. The fire parted around the blue orb and continued right at me.

I grabbed Rachel and presented my shield, pulling us both down to crouch behind it. Bernie leapt off my back and planted her feet on a carriage, feet pumping to outrun the flame.

And then I saw nothing but the searing purple light and heat. I tucked my chin, and closed my eyes. Fire licked at my shoulders and back as it passed me. I hit myself with a first level Cure Light Wounds.

Then it was done.

I stood. I grabbed Rachel’s arm and hit her with a healing spell too. The clatter of skeletal feet from the approaching horde grew louder and louder.

Rachel and I fought back to back. Now that I knew how to beat them, I had a pretty good rhythm of blocking, then lunging, piercing their skulls, and sending them to the floor. Arrows kept pinging off June’s mystical shield. Braelyn sent arcs of lightning where she could. I couldn’t see the king, but I saw skeletons fly into the air, and could guess.

Six armored knights crashed in from the alley across the street. I think we could do this.

“I spent months!” screamed the witch June, each additional phrase punctuated by a bolt of purple fire. “In the catacombs. MAKING. SKELETONS!”

“She’s been here for months?” I asked Braelyn.

“Apparently!”

The skeletons kept coming. My arms were starting to tire. I was suddenly convinced we needed to end this.

Where was Bernie?

I spied June waving her arms in the air, winding up for a big spell.

“Can’t you counterspell that?” I asked Braelyn.

“I am!” she replied, activating a glowing rune in the air. “She keeps counterspelling me!”

I took Rachel’s hand, and we ran around an upturned carriage just in time for a wall of fire to rush past us. I held up my shield and most of it passed by harmlessly.

“Thanks,” she said.

I just nodded.

There, with her back against the top of the upturned carriage, stood Bernadette.

Her eyes were wide and staring off at something distant. I had never seen it on her before, but I knew panic when I saw it. I rushed to her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She just shook her head ‘no,’ with a quick jerky movement.

I had no idea what this was about at first. Last I saw her she was running up the carriage to avoid the fireball. The burn marks on her back — maybe it was to do with that?

“Is it the fire?” I asked.

Bernadette just nodded her head.

Okay. My little brother got panic attacks. I’d seen this happen before. It was early, I think, so maybe if I grounded her quickly, she could work her way out of it. Either we got this cleared up quickly, or it lasted hours.

We didn’t have that kind of time. We needed our killer.

A skeleton ran around the side of the carriage and Rachel punched it. It flew off into parts unknown.

“Rachel! I believe in you!”

She crushed three more skeletons in rapid succession.

I had to be quick with this.

I folded her in my arms.

“Hey, I got you,” I said. “Just focus on me for a second. Just for a second feel me.”

She hugged me back in a crushing hug. I heard her breathe deep. She was fighting it.

Okay. It’s the fire. We can deal with that. We just have to stop the fire.

“Bernie,” I said, pushing her back at a distance, hands on her shoulders so I could see her face. “You can stop the fire.”

“No I can’t.”

“Yes you can. You just have to stab the fire.”

She looked at me. It was with confusion, but I’ll take that over panic.

“Can’t stab a fire,” she said.

“Yes you can. You just have to stab June.”

“She’s so high up. I don’t— maybe.”

I kept holding Bernadette at arms length, but turned to Rachel, who at the moment wasn’t fighting skeletons.

“What’s up?” she asked. “You got a plan?”

“You read X-men comics?”

“Watched the show.”

“You know what a fastball special is?”

Rachel smiled.

“Hell yeah.”

I turned to Bernadette.

“Rachel is going to throw you.”

Bernadette just nodded. I had her back. Now that I had given her something to do about it, she was back.

This really could have gone another way had she not fought out of the panic. She should have told us about the fire.

I hoped this worked.

I ran to the other carriage and climbed onto the roof. I pulled out my hunting bow and started launching arrows. They didn’t seem to be able to pierce that shield of hers, but I wanted her attention. I got it. She started moving her arms, winding up for another spell.

Rachel and Bernie were on the other carriage. Rachel had Bernie’s feet in one hand, and steadied her with the other. Bernie had her magic dagger out, and her other hand open. Then, Rachel shot-put her — she threw her. Bernie soared through the air, silently.

June looked at her, because she was a full grown woman soaring through the air at her, and widened her eyes in shock. She stopped casting her spell.

Bernie crashed into her. She looped one arm around her waist, and stabbed over and over with the other. June pulled her own dagger out of a sheath at her back and stabbed Bernie in the neck.

Bernie held on tight and kept stabbing.

June waved her arms and vanished.

Bernie seemed to hang in the air for a moment. Then she fell.

Braelyn pointed at her, cast a spell, and she floated down harmlessly.

We continued to fight for several more moments. But it wasn’t long until the skeletons beat a full retreat.

We’d won the day.