A winter wind blew in chill, but not quite enough to mist my breath as I walked toward the cemetery gates. The mausoleum I was looking for lay some five or six blocks past the gate, and the bulk of the horde fidgeted and paced between me and it.

Still corpses, dozens of them, lay amongst the boots of the creatures, their footwork strangely delicate, picking around them where they could. This told me that the Witch June either lacked the power to raise them like Sofia did, or that she had to see them to do it.

Wanting to make as much progress as possible without fighting the bulk of them, I picked my way around the gates. I got about two blocks or so before I met a building that abutted the metal, face-high cemetery fence which halted my progress. This put me in the middle of the horde, who either didn’t see me or didn’t see me as a threat.

Let’s see how well this sword works.

I gripped Edge of Nothing, and swiped the sword down on the metal fence. I only cut through three tines of the metal fence, I figured, because my edge alignment wasn’t perfect. This thing cut through steel as easily as if it were styrofoam. It also rang against the steel, producing a loud clang.

Not good.

Skeletons turned toward me. They didn’t run. They shuffled closer.

Had to make this work quickly.

I swiped a second time, then a third, then a fourth. Each swipe a loud clang. I kicked the fence and it tumbled apart. I leapt through the hole.

Twenty skeletons, an offshoot of the horde, raised their shields and advanced. I swished my swords, testing them. I didn’t really know how to fight with them like this, but these guys didn’t really know how to fight either, and couldn’t act with better tactics than ‘stab the guy in front of you.’ So, I had an advantage. Not sure it amounted to equal to a thousand of these monsters, but I only had to get past them, not defeat them. That was my win condition.

I ran forward.

Now, there are two general philosophies for how to fight with two swords. The Historical European Martial Arts perspective was to attack with the main hand, and defend with the other. A sound strategy, one that Bernedette had shown to be quite effective. The other was a more eastern philosophy, to use them as twin swords that mirror each other’s movements, or follow each other as needed. I’d only ever seen that done in old wuxia movies or in cartoons, so, not in any way that was practical.

As someone that had literally never used two swords at once outside of the occasional cardboard wrapping paper tube, I did neither strategy and flailed away indiscriminately. It was surprisingly effective.

Redeemer clanged off their shields or armor, but I put such force behind it I was able to beat them back. Edge sliced right through them — stopping for nothing — not armor, not shields, not bone. My feet drove me through each opening as I got to it.

Sword and spear points got through my guard, but I took them on my chestplate or bracers with little problem, and kept swinging away. Soon I got into something of a rhythm, leading with Edge, parrying with Redeemer, because that was what the weapons were leading me to do. It felt good to swipe edge down through a skeleton, and seeing them tumble into a pile of metal and bone.

I turned my body sideways, leading with my main hand like I’d seen Bernie do. When a spear came in from the right, I dipped Edge down and cut up, lopping it off. When a skeleton got their skull too close to my left I pierced it with Redeemer. I could attack and defend with either, but one was clearly better at both.

In moments, ten of them had crumpled before me. But they kept coming, and I was still maybe three blocks away. I saw the mausoleum I was looking for flanked by two angels. I was closer.

I had a long way to go.

“Turn aside,” I muttered to myself, casting bubble. Blows that weren’t angled precisely, bounced off the pale blue field that surrounded me.

I dove in, slashing with abandon.

Edge of Nothing screamed against the metal it tore like so much paper. Twenty fell in less than a minute.

Seeing that they had to switch things up, the skeletons stopped advancing just long enough to form into a line. That wouldn’t do. If I met them like that, they could collapse it around me, and I’d be cooked.

I leapt into the air and cast levitate, from Redeemer, sailing up and over them. I was moving quicker than a walk, but that wasn’t exactly flying. Several dropped their swords or axes and pulled bows.

That was no good.

I shunted Edge into its dimensional pocket, sheathed Redeemer, and pulled my little goose bow, Provoker. The name of the game was counter-sniping, and I was bad at it. They weren’t quick with their shots, but half of theirs hit. Most slid off my breast plate. A lucky few bounced off my helm. They only needed one to get through the eye holes for me to have a really bad day.

I just aimed for the body til I could get a hit, then Provoker took care of the rest. I would nail a shoulder, or toe, and the next shot went right through the eye socket.

An enemy arrow scraped across the glove on my hand, opening the leather and digging into my skin. I felt my whole arm go numb. That wasn’t right. That felt different than any injury I’d ever had, like I hit my funny bone, but it wasn’t my bone, but my skin that tingled uncomfortably.

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Poison. She’d given them poison. I quickly grabbed the bow with my right hand as it went numb. I’d almost dropped it. The numbness traveled up my arm.

This was bad. I was still floating too slowly, and I had at least a block and a half til I got to the mausoleum.

I hooked Provoker around my neck and summoned Edge of Nothing.

Let’s see what this thing can really do.

“Shatter and burn — become dust in the wind!” I said with grave intonation, the spell phrase for starshatter.

Look, I’m not great at coming up with things to say for spell phrases. If I had thought even two seconds about it, maybe I’d find something cooler, but it was just the best I could think to type on the way here.

I pointed the Edge of Nothing at the bulk of the horde, but made sure that it was quite a bit of a ways from me. Just in case. I had no idea how big a sixty foot diameter was, but that seemed like a lot.

In the midst of the horde, a dark orb, smaller than a pinprick, but then swelling in size, grew until it became something like the width of a truck, hovering four feet above the ground. The half a dozen or so skeletons that walked into it had their skulls sucked in, their necks sizzling from the burn. Then, it began to crack, faint lines of piercing white light jutting from the cracks, lancing through the skeletons, spinning ever faster.

It exploded into a ball of white hot light. I had to cover my eyes. I could feel my boots singe. When I looked — mili-seconds later — I saw the horde was thrown into chaos, hundreds eradicated in an instance, others flat on their backs, struggling to stand, many more running this way and that, bumping into each other.

I dropped levitate, and hit the ground running.

It took them a while to recognize I was still alive, and by that point there were only a dozen or so in front of me and my goal. I hacked them down with little trouble.

Around the gates of the mausoleum was wrapped a chain and padlock. I cut the chain with a single stroke, and shouldered it open.

My new darkvision let me see the world in shades of gray, and the environment had a strange, lightless shine to it, like a video game from the time before lighting. The world seemed to buzz and glow in the gray. I’d seen night vision cameras before. This was better than that. There, behind a life sized statue of a woman, I saw the passage leading down.

I didn’t stop to catch my breath, and took the steps two at a time.

When I pulled my slate from my pocket, the light of the screen pushed back my darkvision and I could see color again on my hands. The map told me that it was just two more turns, and it was a straight shot to June’s lair. I ran faster.

Once completing those two turns, I saw light in the distance, and heard the strained growling of the undead. The clash of spear points on brick echoed through the hall. I heard the strangled yelp of a woman in pain.

No time to feel the exhaustion. I had to get there.

The hall opened into some kind of underground, domed atrium. Blue arcane lanterns flanked each of the four entrances, and lit the beautiful, twisting oak tree in the middle. A gang of two dozen skeletons seemed very intent on getting to something on the ceiling.

Three shot arrows. One had a very long pike it thrust into the brick ceiling with a plonk. The rest attempted to get up this twisting tree. Bernadette fought them furiously, running this way and that on the ceiling.

“Bernie!” I yelled.

“I see you! Get the ones with the arrows!” she said.

Sword in each hand, I aimed to do just that.

I lashed out with Edge, over and over, and cut down the first three or four before they even had a chance to recognize I was there. Their response was slow, as they struggled to realize that I was the bigger threat.

Before they could mount a counter attack I yelled, “into the dark of night!”

The entire atrium went dark with my spell, but for the very top of the tree.

I could still see.

They turned to each other as if wondering where I had gone. It took them too long to realize that I was still there. I had just enough time to line up my attacks, and I lopped their heads off one after the other.

By the time the spell was through, every single skeleton had been returned to their eternal rest. Bernadette dropped down beside me.

“Good job,” she said. “We have less than a minute before she sends more.”

“How many does she have?”

“She has some kind of special amulet that lets her get her spell slots back fast, like minutes instead of hours. I almost had her,” she continued, her eyes showing deep exhaustion, “but then Benoit shot me in the arm.”

I noticed the blood pouring from her arm, mixed in with the black of her steelsilk. I hit her with a Heal Light Wounds. She nodded her thanks.

“Why did you run off without me?” I asked.

“You’d just slow me down.”

“I just saved your ass,” I countered.

“My ass was fine,” she said, and pointed to the ceiling, “they were never getting up there.”

“Would you ever have come down?”

“Maybe.”

“You need me.”

“I do well enough on my own.”

I growled with frustration and sat down on a rock next to the twisting oak. I sipped my water and ate the last of my jerky. Bernie walked the perimeter of the room, sucking air, trying to wind down. She must have been burning adrenaline for hours.

I handed her my water, and she drank silently.

Eventually, she sat on the rock opposite me.

“You have to start trusting me,” I said.

“It’s always worked out.”

“Fucking hell, Bernie, no it hasn’t. You would have died that first time. You could have died here.”

“You should have stayed with Caleb.”

“What is your problem?”

Bernie stared at me silently. The blue light cast a ghastly glow on her.

“You don't get it. You saw what this place did to Rachel. It damn near broke her. Caleb’s gone native. And Sofia’s a monster.” She stood. “We can’t stay here. We have to leave — now.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why won’t you let me help you?”

Bernie began to cry. I wrapped her in a hug.

“You’re scared,” I said, finally getting it. Or at least some of it.

“Of course I’m fucking scared! I want to go home!”

“Then I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll get you home. I’ll get us all home.”

She broke from me and looked at me, as if trying to find something in my face. I gazed back with determination. Then her eyes fell on something behind me.

I turned. Yep. There were the skeletons. Their feet sounded like so much wood against stone. Then came the sound from the hall to our left. Then our right.

“There’s more than last time,” she said.

“There’s more of us now too,” I said.