We were surrounded. There was nothing else I could do but hope that Miranda would burn through all of her magicka before we were dead. She had to be running low by now. How much raw power did it take to reanimate and control an entire undead army?
"If I had my axe, this wouldn't be a problem," Nora growled behind me.
I'm not sure how accurate her statement was but I appreciated the venom dripping from her lips. If I could bottle that it would be one hell of a poison.
"What about my sword?" I asked, holding it out to her.
She only shook her head. "All my skills are two-handed weapon based. You're stronger with it than I would be."
"Well, we're fucked."
Stella growled and lunged, gnashing her teeth at the leg of a skeleton. The monster flinched, dropping its hands to protect the spot. Its glowing pink eyes looked horrified. It made me wonder briefly if Stella saw the beast as a threat or as a tasty walking snack.
The corpse of a towering Combustion Croc pushed through the line, letting out a foul-smelling bellow as it spread its arms and flashed its pointed teeth.
Sparks crackled around its clawed hands for a moment before they vanished with a tiny puff of smoke. The croc froze in place, tilting its enormous head to the side as it tried to figure out what had just happened.
My eyes flickered to Miranda standing by the pillar. The pink fire was still streaming from her scepter but now she was holding the jeweled stick with both hands. It was cool in the room and yet beads of sweat dotted the necromancer's forehead.
I didn't take the time to think about it more. Instead, I darted between the Combustion Croc and a skeleton. Feeling the muscles in my back strain, I whipped around to jab the Croc from behind.
Critical hit!
The Croc's roar was cut off by a golden glowing Stella who was suddenly teeth deep in the beast's throat.
No matter how we fought or how many critical attacks we landed the monsters just kept coming in what seemed like endless waves. Even the few without legs continued to drag themselves across the floor. It did slow them down though which I could appreciate even if it wasn't much of a silver lining.
A saber sword wielded by one of the skeleton men slashed my chest, leaving a sizable gash behind. It would have been much worse if I wasn't wearing hard leather armor.
Nora reached into the crowd yanking me back to her side. I almost did the splits in my attempt to not trample the snoozing Gunslinger at our feet. I can tell you right now, my family jewels did not welcome that.
"It's no use," Nora cried past the noise of the horde. "We need a new plan."
“If you have any bright ideas hurry up and tell me,” I snapped.
"Frank shut the hell up!"
Frank's cry had my head swiveling like it was sitting on a lazy Susan. The big Raven was sitting on the brink of a rough stone tunnel. By the look of it, it hadn't been there for long. More of a result of the roof caving in than decorative interior architecture.
I parried the swing of a pair of skeletons with dueler skill I didn't know I possessed. There was no time to marvel at my own awesomeness though. I grabbed Nora by the arm and yelled for Stella. She came bounding back from crippling an Elemental Jill with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. I unceremoniously shoved her onto Jacob's prone body and twirled my blade before slamming it into the ground.
The wave of power that exploded from the strike caused the monsters to fall like dominos; each row of monsters tumbling into the one behind until they were tangled on the ground in a horrible mess of claws, limbs, and bones.
I heard Miranda cry out but didn't stop to see why. Nora seemed to know what I was thinking before I had a chance to say anything. She bent, picking up Jacob as though he weighed nothing, and bolted for the raven. Stella and I followed, striking any monster who was trying to regain their feet with vicious strikes.
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Frank screeched and hopped deeper into the dark tunnel. Nora climbed inside, dragging a still happily snoozing Jacob behind her. The scrape of the boy's boot spurs over the stone grated at my ears as I picked up Stella and shoved her inside.
I spun around, my sword lifted to block the attack of a knife-feathered emu. It was the only undead creature threatening us. The others were coming, the speed of the horde much slower than it had been before. Miranda was losing strength.
I glanced her way, prepared to wait out her magicka and bring her with us, even if I had to chain her to do it. There was no opportunity for that though. She stuck her fingers in the pretty satchel hanging around her waist and pulled out a small bottle filled with sparkling blue liquid. I watched as she swallowed the whole thing in one impressive gulp. The sickly grey hue that had been discoloring her face vanished, replaced with Miranda's usual bright glow. The stream of pink fire emanating from the scepter intensified, turning from little more than a string back into a solid rope.
Looking at her now made my chest tighten uncomfortably. My notebook was in my hand before I’d even thought about it. The note I scrawled was smudgy and filled with grammatical errors but it was enough to get my point across. I stabbed the note onto the bolt loaded into my crossbow. I aimed it close to Miranda but not near enough to poke out anybody's eye.
Miranda jumped when it struck the column beside her.
“This can all end right now Joe, you just have to come with me. I won't kill you, I promise,” she yelled.
“Just give me a chance, alright?” I screamed back, leaning out of the dark hole I was crammed into. “Read the note. Think about it.”
Miranda didn’t seem inclined to listen. She stuck out her scepter and shot a cord of fire into some sort of creature I had never seen before. It was a thick rope of muscle with four short clawed feet poking out from its sides and what looked like a heavily armored plate on its back. Whatever it was, it screamed danger and it moved ridiculously fast. Huge chunks of its flesh had been torn from its body right down to the bone. One of its eyes was milky white and the other wasn’t there at all.
I yelped and hauled ass as I dove after the others into the darkness of the tunnels. I could hear the lizard monster following me. The plate on its back was grinding against the stone like nails on a chalkboard only way, way worse.
"You can't escape me, Joe. You can't escape Melumek's rising!" Miranda screamed after me.
I kicked at the lizard reaching for me and followed the sound of my friends around a darkened bend. The tunnel opened up just a little. It also dropped down about three feet which I didn’t realize until I fell out of it onto my head.
The forked tongue of the lizard followed me out of the tunnel. Twin clawed hands reached around the rim as it squeezed its long thin head out toward me.
Not sure what else to do, I focused on my most powerful skill and planted a sloppy kiss on its scaly lips. The lizard writhed and struggled as a purple glow washed over it, completely swamping the pink. Within moments its body went slack.
I wiped a hand across my mouth before chasing after the others. It was good to know that Grim Kiss was potent enough to knock out a Necromancer's spell.
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I don't know how long it took us to get back to Sob or why Miranda stopped pursuing us. All I knew is that we'd somehow made it.
Sob had quickly healed anything that needed healing on everyone but Jacob.
The flaming stallion had bent his head, snuffling the boy clasped tight in Nora's arms only to snort and turn away.
Whatever Miranda had fed to the boy was too strong for Sob's healing magic.
As so we started the long journey back to Phlegm's tavern.
Every once in a while I caught Nora staring longingly back the way we'd come. I knew by the way she rubbed her upper arms or flexed her empty fingers that she was feeling vulnerable without her killer axe. She'd had the thing for as long as I had known her and without it, she looked incomplete.
"Are you alright?" I asked the third time she turned back.
"Yes," she lied sinking down onto a rock and dropping her head into her hands. “She paralyzed me, Joe, right before I had to watch my entire platoon die. People I cared about were murdered by someone I thought I could trust with my life.
How did it turn into this?”
I stood there awkwardly for a little too long before I decided a hug was probably the correct way to handle this. She stiffened under my arms but didn’t shove me away.
“I’m sorry Nora. I know what it’s like to see people you care about die.”
She turned her head away from me and said, “Where did you go?”
“What do you care?” I asked with a half-hearted smile. “What was it you said, ‘he got what he deserved’ and, um, ‘the fool should have known better.’”
“What the hell?” she screamed, leaping to her feet. “You weren’t there.”
I lifted a brow, placing my hands on my hips. “Yeah, actually I was. Gotta say, was a little hard hearing what you really thought of me.”
She marched over and punched my arm. I bit my inner cheek to keep from crying out but there was no keeping the strange liquid from filling my eyes.
“I only said those things because I thought you had gone off and gotten yourself killed you bloody moron.”
“Nothing silly like that, I just met a stupidly powerful and gorgeous woman in a big ass sun hat. Couldn’t turn down a chance at that now could I?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Start talking. Now.”