Revenants. They stood on the battlements. The light of the setting sun glinted off steel helmets and chainmail. They carried hammers, maces, and big fucking axes. Lochaber axes, I think? Maybe halberds. I didn't know enough about medieval weaponry to be sure. I did know they were all weapons designed to deal with heavy armor.

These used to be the men responsible for defending Avalon. Soldiers who trained their entire lives for days like this one. Sure, none of them had seen real combat before Roderick and his Knights cut them down, but that didn't mean they hadn't taken their work seriously. Now they were dead, and all the knowledge and training they'd worked so hard to acquire would be used to aid the blasphemy they'd died trying to prevent.

The Revenants did not move. Still and silent, they manned the battlements above the keep's gate. They watched the four of us make our way up the road, no longer capable of fearing the battle our arrival would set in motion. Nor did they care about the hundred or so lightly armed villagers marching behind us. They just watched, waiting to unleash violence with all the force their undead bodies could provide.

William's guess had been a good one. Roderick's Knights had another Necromancer with them. Or Sorcerer. Or something. The abilities of magic users were a little murkier than I'd expected. Magic people could do a lot of crazy shit, and those abilities were nowhere near as restricted in real life as they were in D&D. Those who had died trying to protect the village had been brought back as monstrous undead slaves. Assuming the NecroSorcerer or whatever raised every body that had been taken, there were over a hundred of the things waiting for us.

Undead or not, a hundred guys with melee weapons weren't that big a threat to four magic Knights. Our armor was a lot stronger than steel, and their armor meant nothing in the face of our weapons and powers. The Revenants would be a lot stronger than a normal human, but so were we. We could take them.

We could not, however, take the four enemy Knights that would blitz us while we were tangling with the evil dead. I wasn't sure we could take Roderick and his boys in a straight fight, considering how they'd killed my predecessors. Even if we could, there was no fucking way we could do it with a hundred superzombies crawling all over us. It was suicide. Fortunately, we didn't have to play it that way.

While our decoys and their illusionary army marched towards the gate. The real Knights and I snuck around to the side. The keep might be an imposing fortress built out of solid rock, but that didn't mean we had to go through the gate. We just had to run our invisible asses somewhere we could make a handy door.

Staying together was the hardest part. We were all invisible and silent. With a little experimentation, I managed to create an illusion inside all of our helmets that would show the location and outline of all of us. I didn't think it would work, since I couldn't see us either, but Patrick had reminded me that magic is bullshit. The armor did most of the work crafting illusions, anyway.

We reached the center of the side of the keep. I drew Solais, and got to work. My sword sliced through the stone the same way it had sliced through everything else. I didn't feel an ounce of resistance. A quick application of my magic mute button powers and a few swings were all it took to make our own silently toppling door where a stone wall used to be. So far, so good.

The stone fell inwards, crashing silently to the floor. I shared a look with my invisible accomplices, then gingerly stepped into the hole. I was halfway in when a hammer and a big fucking axe both slammed into my chest, knocking me back out again.

I stared up from the ground in confusion. Revenants poured out of the hole I had made. A lot of Revenants. Worse, they could see me. Two axes and a hammer slammed down. I got my shield up in a half assed block, but I only stopped one of the axes. The other axed slammed into my crotch hard enough to bounce my body off the ground to meet the descending hammer. The hammer slammed into my solar plexus. The armor lessened the impact, but not enough. My balls screamed at me while the air was smashed out of my lungs. I writhed on the ground, incapable of defending myself.

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Then the others were there. Two Revenants were frozen mid-swing by the Blue Knight's rapier. Another fell lifeless in a flash of light from the Green Knight's sword. Mike barreled in past the others, shield leading the way. He smashed into the dead men, trying to block the hole I'd made and filling the corridor with fire.

William grabbed me. The pain disappeared as he lifted me to my feet. I took in a breath, dropping the invisibility. It wasn't doing us any good, anyway. Patrick had finished freezing the bastards who'd rushed out of the hole, and Mike was keeping the others back with shield bashes and wild stabs of his flaming sword. The Revenants couldn't swing at him very well through the hole, but it wouldn't take them long to force him back. The fire that flooded over them boiled their flesh, but did nothing to slow them down.

"How the fuck did they see me?" I wondered aloud.

"Fuck if I know," William answered. Between the fire and the clang of metal on metal, he had to shout to be heard. "How the fuck did they know we'd come in here?"

"Who gives a fuck?" Mike yelled. "Stop standing around!" While the Red Knight was yelling and swinging, the Revenants came up with a plan. A group of them surged into the Red Knight all at once, shoving him away from the hole and slamming him into the ground. Patrick ran in to help.

I pulled myself together and dove into the fray. I didn't bother with the dead men piled on top of Mike. Patrick and William could handle it, and I didn't dare swing Solais near any of them. Instead, I hit the Revenants like a thresher combine. My sword went through steel, wood, and bone like a hot knife through silly string. There was no shock of impact, no slowing of the blade. Everything Solais touched fell into separate pieces. It was like wielding a goddamned lightsaber.

Mike's flames were still roaring in the corridors of the keep. They weren't doing much good. The Revenants kept coming. If one of the bad Knights was in there controlling the things, the heat wasn't bothering them, either.

That thought sent a shock down my spine. The whole reason we'd tried for distraction and infiltration instead of assaulting the gate was to avoid getting sideswiped. We were fucked if Roderick's heavy hitters jumped us while we were tangled up with an undead army. Now here we were, tangled all to hell. I'd thought the Revenants were a minor threat, and I'd been wrong, but that didn't change the fact that the other Knights were the real danger.

"Guys," I yelled. "We gotta disengage!"

"We can't!" Patrick yelled back. He and William had come up on either side, well out of my sword's reach. They were dispatching any Revenants that dodged Solais. "The motherfuckers are as fast as we are, and they don't get tired!"

"We don't have time, anyway!" the Green Knight shouted. "The sun's almost down!"

I wanted to shout something back, but I was running out of breath. Solais wasn't particularly heavy. The sword only weighed three or four pounds, and the armor gave me the strength of seven men. That didn't change the fact that I was a couch potato who'd just spent four or five hours running and hiking. My lungs were burning. My arms were on fire. My swings were getting wilder, and coming more slowly. A Revenant saw the weakness and capitalized. It danced back, letting the sword pass it by. Then it darted forward, bringing the mace down in a vicious arc that I was too slow to block or dodge.

The next thing I remember I was on the ground staring up at Mike's ass. The Red Knight's flaming sword whipped to and fro, crunching into dead men as he stood over me. He was heaving like a bellows, batting away axes and hammers with his sword and shield. On the other side of him Patrick danced. A field of frozen corpses stood around him and the hole in the keep, but he'd pushed several over and darted in to flash-freeze more. The Green Knight was surrounded by unmoving enemies as well, his sword severing the magic that animated any Revenant it touched.

I didn't know how long I'd been out, but my breathing had steadied. My head pounded, and it hurt more when I tried to sit up a little. The world spun, and I fell back down. I knew I needed to move. Mike was tiring, and I doubted the other knights were in better shape. If I could crawl out from under him and get to William, the Green Knight could heal me and I could help. Besides, I didn't like the idea of hanging out under Mike's butt.

It took me a few more seconds to muster the will to move again. I turned my head, looking for Solais. I wasn't stupid enough to grope blindly for a sword that could cut through anything. It was only a few feet away. I got a grip on the hilt, and straightened my gaze in anticipation of wiggling backwards. A glint of light caught my eye, pulling my gaze past Mike's stupid red plated ass and up to the ramparts of the Keep.

Three men in armor stood staring down at us. A jolt of adrenaline shot through me, making my head pound harder. Roderick's Knights had arrived.