She hadn’t seen me, but I could clearly see her. The opportunity was too good to pass up.

Show information and weaknesses for Necromancer, I thought, as I pulled my bow off my shoulders and drew an arrow.

Name Unknown

Class

Necromancer

Race

Half-Elf

Level

14

Age

35

Armor Class

16

Primary

Secondary

Skills

Health

56

NF/IN

NF/IN

Weaknesses:

None found or insufficient knowledge.

Dammit with the whole ‘none found or insufficient knowledge’ crap. All the skills I had, and I couldn’t even be sure she knew how to ride a horse? It was bullshit.

Maybe it was a level thing. She was four levels higher than me. Maybe that was what prevented me from seeing her details.

Half-elf was interesting, though. It was the first time I’d seen someone who wasn’t human – save for the goblins. Did she have pointy ears? It also meant there were elves around somewhere, and damn, but I wanted to see an elf.

I nocked my arrow. I’d have to reveal myself to fire, but she’d have barely an instant to respond, even if she saw it coming.

At some level, it bothered me the necromancer had turned out to be a woman. Too much cultural indoctrination was making it difficult to stand up, aim, and fire at the woman who had slaughtered this entire village, then sent one of my only friends after me to kill me.

But it wasn’t murder, it was an execution. Punishment for crimes committed. That was the way to think about it.

With this new mindset, I stood even as I drew back the string, my movement drawing the eye of at least one guard. But my arrow was already in the air, my precision perfect. Thanks, Agility.

Just as it arrived, she raised her arm. My arrow should’ve sailed past her wrist and struck her, but instead it hit a circle of blue energy that manifested from nowhere and disappeared just as fast. Fuck.

Well, that explained the stupidly high armor class when she was basically only wearing a ball gown.

Another arrow was on my string, and I hadn’t even been conscious of drawing it. Of course: my Arrow Rain rapid-fire perk. It seemed a shame not to use it, so I fired at the guard closest, and reached for a third.

This time, my arrow found its mark. The guard looked down at where it protruded from his chest, staggered back a half step, and my next arrow thudded in beside it. He was dead when he hit the ground.

“Shields!” yelled one of the two remaining guards. I held my fire as they covered themselves and their mistress with the large black shields they carried. There was no point wasting arrows on those.

“That wasn’t very nice, Kaelan,” the necromancer called.

Nice? Like Rolf-the-zombie-assassin levels of nice?

There was a swirl of black energy, like tendrils of darkest mist, and the guard I’d shot twice slowly regained his feet. My arrows were still embedded in his chest, and they’d definitely penetrated his armor. Had she zombified one of her own guards?

“Get him!” she screamed.

I supposed it wasn’t the brightest idea to hang around gaping.

All three guards — or two guards and Zombie Guard — ran at me. I released the arrow I had nocked, but didn’t hang around to see it splinter on their shields. Instead, I ducked around the back of Rolf’s forge, looping my bow across as I ran.

I had choices. Before me, the fields led to the woods, but the ones closest had been harvested. Only the corn field behind Bjorn’s house would offer cover, and I’d be exposed long before I reached it. I could go for the woods and escape, but I was warming up fast to the notion of killing that necromancer, woman or not.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Besides, I had no points in Chivalry, and so long as Drakos insisted on using women to do his dirty work, I wasn’t sure I wanted any, either.

I ran behind Rolf’s forge, coming out the far end. Another glance past the end of the building showed that the necromancer hadn’t moved. It was tempting to go for her, while her guards were distracted chasing through where I’d just been.

Too tempting. I ran straight toward her, pulling my rapier and dagger as I did. Her magical shield might stop my arrows, but I fancied my chances blade against blade when all she had was her dagger.

She drew it anyway, waiting for me with a rather bored look on her face. Did this woman ever smile?

Behind me came a cry from the guards, letting me know they’d seen the danger. With any luck, she’d be dead before they arrived.

“I’m going to enjoy having you as my personal zombie,” she said, as I closed at speed. I was ten paces away, and she still hadn’t moved. Maybe it was possible she could resurrect me as a zombie, and that was a concerning thought. Would I still respawn if she zombified me?

It was too late to worry about that now. Anyway, if I killed her, the point was moot.

Yet there was something amiss – she seemed too indifferent to her impending death. My blade slashed down, my weight carefully balanced to not overextend, like I’d told Senna when we’d sparred with sticks. Caution at first, until I knew what the trap was.

Her dagger stabbed into my back.

I grunted in pain, blinking as I tried to work out what had happened. She’d been there, right before me, and now she was behind me.

Her other slid around my throat, pulling me against her as she twisted the knife.

“Such a pretty zombie you’ll make,” she said, as my vision faded.

And for the second time that day, the world went dark.

*

I awoke in my bed, no choice of respawns this time. I suppose because my bed was both the most recent and the closest.

My hand rested comfortingly on the shaft of Senna’s hickory-handled axe.

But how much help would it be against a necromancer that could disappear and reappear whenever she wanted?

Fuck, I wanted that ability. I could kill Drakos easily with a power like that.

There was a scream of rage from outside, words too distant and unintelligible to make out. But the necromancer seemed pissed. Good.

It was also confirmation of something I’d been wondering: I was respawning faster than I had when I first arrived in this world. Initially, Lira had had enough time to gather my armor between each fight with Drakos, and that could only mean minutes had passed. But now it was barely seconds. Whether that was a factor of familiarity or level didn’t much matter; it was an improvement, and I’d take it.

I dressed again in more of Senna’s late husband’s clothes, rapidly running out of tasteful choices, then took the window exit onto the roof. I stayed low, the late evening light hopefully giving me some cover. It was tempting to peek up the road from my elevated perspective, but the last thing I wanted was for Stabby to figure out which house was mine. I hadn’t worked out how to kill her yet, and a necromancer in my bedroom didn’t sound like a good time.

Shame, really. She was kind of hot, but only in a psychopathic dominatrix way, and that wasn’t really my kink.

I crept behind the white houses, dark timber frames looking darker still as the daylight slowly turned to dusk, the same route I’d taken before, keeping my eyes peeled for zombies. Had all of them burned to death in Bjorn’s house? If so, my plan had worked better than I’d ever dreamed. Make a large noise, zombies come running, zombies don’t fear fire, zombies hang around and get barbecued. No wonder the necro was pissed; it couldn’t be an instant process to kill a whole village then raise them as zombies, and I’d wiped them out in the space of an hour.

All except for the new one she’d made, and I could see him shuffling next to her. I gripped my trusty wood ax. I had to take his head off, kill her two other guards, and then it would just be me and Stabby.

My plan ended there. I still had no idea how to kill her when she had that magical shield and could move so damn fast.

The guards were smashing in doors and searching houses. I could hear them working their way down the street, looking for me.

“Find him!” she screamed, right on cue, her voice echoing through the quiet village. “Find him, you useless bastards! He can’t have teleported far. The temple was right next to the courtyard!”

That was interesting. It made a certain sense, too, from their perspective. Especially when she could actually teleport – it certainly explained how she’d been before me and then behind me without seeming to take the usual steps required in between. Drakos had claimed Lira was a necromancer when I’d kept re-emerging, and now he’d sent his necromancer after me. Maybe he thought she’d be able to kill me permanently. If so, the joke was on them.

But fun though this insight into my enemies’ thinking was, I had guards to kill. I slipped back down behind the row of houses, listening for the guard that was searching this street. With the amount of noise he was making as he smashed doors in and clomped through houses, he was easy to pinpoint. They were making a house-to-house search, very gestapo, and all I needed to do was hide in the next house and wait for him. With any luck, they figured me to be unarmed – as far as they knew, my rapier, bow, and everything I owned that was sharp was lying in the street at Stabby’s feet.

I entered through the rear door of the next house down from where I could hear the guard. It was a smaller house than mine, just the one room downstairs. It didn’t offer a decent hiding place, but maybe there was an option on the floor above. I padded up the stairs, counting the steps. There was a small washroom and a bedroom; I closed the door of the bedroom, then hid in the bathroom opposite with my ax, and waited.

Ax man hidden in the bathroom. We were back to horror films, but this time I was the scary one.

The guard smashed in the front door a few minutes later. I was quite sure he could’ve just opened it if he’d wanted to, but Stabby’s guards seemed to like smashing things. It didn’t take him long to ascertain the room below was empty, and I heard the heavy tread of his boots on the stairs.

I gripped my ax, loosened my shoulders, and readied myself.

With any luck, he’d see the closed bedroom door, assume I was behind it, and be looking that way and not toward me. But that was just an added distraction. I counted each step as he climbed the staircase, and he only had three more to go.

Thump. Two. Thump. One. Thump.

I jumped out from my hiding place, the ax already swinging. “Here’s Johnny!”

He didn’t have a second to respond, and the blade caught him high in the side of the neck, exactly where I’d intended. It cut deeply, the force of my blow throwing him against the wall of the house. He slumped, his neck half-severed, blood everywhere.

You have gained a new skill: Weapon (Ax). Weapon (Ax) is now level 1.

Weapon (Ax) has gained 1 rank.

Great, but axes weren’t my style. Too slow, too unwieldy, and far too damn messy.

Gritting my teeth, I chopped down again. This was the bit I’d had to prepare myself for, but it was either take his head off now, or when I fought him as a zombie. He was already dead, it didn’t matter to him. Blood sprayed everywhere, and I was covered in it by the time his head bounced back down the stairs. Fucking disgusting.

But that was one less guard. I relieved him of his sword belt, tying it around my waist instead. It came with a long sword and dagger. His boots I eyed wistfully, but they looked too large, and I was quieter barefoot. Besides, I didn’t want to remain any longer than I had to in this blood-coated hallway.

The dagger had given me an idea. It wasn’t a good idea, but it might just be enough.

First, I had to deal with the other guard. And Stabby’s new zombie minion, come to that.

Then I was going to see if I couldn’t beat her at her own game.