The darkness presses in against us, seeking to consume the light, and though Merry and his band of robbed warriors raise their hands high and sing to hold back the terror, they will not be enough. There are too many enemies, and there is no one here to beat back the knight as he cuts through two of my puppets while catching my swords with his armoured vambrace.

I’m barely holding on. I can’t last.

I slide back from him, using the recoil from my useless attack to push just outside of his sword’s reach. The undead hunter that charges at me from behind is slowed by my remaining puppets, just enough that I might reach out a hand and press my necromancy on one who is too eager to reach me.

He resists, but he’s weaker still than the other one, and soon I have him under my command. It is strange. Why should such a creature be so easy to control?

I press a simple order into his flesh.

‘hunt my enemies’.

It is enough guidance, and the conscious mind while still struggling against me, understands and moves to achieve my will. It is much smoother and easier than ordering around those whose will has been lost. From what I can pull from his mind, I do see that he is weaker than the others, newer and starved for blood.

Where all living creatures have some defence against my magics, these creatures have only their own wills. For this one, it is not nearly enough. He runs back into the darkness, and soon he gives in to me, his will bowing to mine as he stalks the darkness at my command.

If I could catch more like him… but how many out there are too strong and too fast? What chance would I have against an army of them, when they figure out what I can do, and try to take me down from a distance?

My necromancy is an invaluable tool, a weapon I could use to escape this nightmare. I just don’t have a plan together that could make it work.

The knight charges me again, his sword moving in complex flows so fast that I can’t keep pace with it. I press my swords up against his, barely deflecting his thrust. I don’t know what my blades are made of, but they survive the assault and I know that anything I’ve used other than these and my adamant blade would’ve broken.

I have to send puppets in on top of him to create a small opportunity to retreat. I throw them all in at once, piling the bodies up around him, trying desperately to bury him under a mountain of flesh, but I fail at that too.

He cuts through them faster than they can sprint at him, and they fall as a small pile of scattered flesh by his feet. Now I’m alone, my only other puppet, hiding in the dark alongside others of its kind.

I don’t know what else I can do. I have no weapons or magics left unused.

“At your side!” Anna shouts, a tall dirt figure standing beside me in place of the puppets that I spent in my first assault. There are only four of them, and I’m not sure that they’re any more powerful than the corpses that I’ve already used.

“Anna, make a big one!” I shout. “Big as you can!”

These four won’t make any difference, but if she can make a walking pile muck big enough to drop on the knight’s head that might do something. We could bury him under a thick layer of earth, and escape while he’s still digging his way out.

He moves fast. He’s slashing fast and from odd angles, even with all my strength and both blades, I can’t keep this up for more than a few seconds. He scores a long gash from my side to my chest, but I don’t have time to care. My arms still work and my swords still block.

Two of Anna’s puppets charge at him while he should be focused on me, but with a flourish, he splatters the figures without ever looking away from me. His mudded blade bites into the side of my shoulder not even a second later. It’s taken the shine from his boots, and it should be nothing more, but he trips.

Threads, muddy brown with the muck that had hidden them, snap as they weave around his legs. It is only a small stumble, but I don’t even need to think before taking the chance.

Holding both swords wide, I dive low and strike at his knee from either side as if a pair of scissors.

His sword is already moving to catch my attack, but he’s a moment slow.

Metal rings out like a bell in the evening, the vibrations move up my blades and into my arms but I don’t have the time to worry about the spreading numbness. I dive back, his blade slicing through my cheek and nearly getting my eye.

It burns, but I flood myself with healing æther and set all thoughts of it aside. The blood washing over my face and the pain from my split nose is nothing to be distracted by.

I nearly slip over my own feet, telling myself these lies.

The knight steps closer, pausing as he leans on the knee that I struck. The metal is just barely dented inwards.

He growls as he glares at me through his visor. I order my hunter to go in for the strike.

“Be careful,” a misty figure approaches our battle dressed in lies that dissipate at the edge of the light, though the knight seems not to notice. “Do not trust those at your back.”

Her words are aimed at the knight and not me.

The knight spins around slashing out at the corpse of the man that I strung together. He tries to doge and block but fails at both. With his body split in two, then four, there is no hope for him.

The illusion that warned the knight of me quickly steps the moment his back is turned, thrusting a dagger up into his armpit. The man howls in real pain.

He spins around, the æther channels in his armour glowing for the first time, when his arm hits her, she flies up and away. I quickly lose sight of her among the stars. She’ll be dead the moment she returns to the earth.

I can’t mourn her for long. The enraged Knight charges at me, wielding his sword entirely one-handed as his other hand falls limp by his side. He growls like a wounded bear, determined to bring down his prey.

Still, he’s holding back. The armour has returned to its reflective silver colour showing no hint of the æther channels that are carved into it. I don’t know why he’s holding back, or what other weapons he still has hidden away, but he walks with such perfect confidence as if this is all a child’s game.

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I need to finish this and escape before he kills me.

“I’m Belle, I’m here to help,” A girl with a shortsword in one hand and a small, pointed stick in the other, steps up beside me. “What happened to Tina?”

“Tina?” I ask.

“The girl who came over to help?”

“He threw her into the sky. The undead probably have her by now, I can’t see her anymore.”

Not even with Crow’s eyes.

“No, she wouldn’t die that easily,” Belle shakes her head, glaring at the knight before us. He’s walking slower, but I doubt we’ll have much of a chance to act before he comes for us.

“Be careful of the vampires. Dispell the darkness and they’re weak enough to fire that you can kill them.”

“The vampires?” I ask, watching the knight pause to roll around his limp arm. It’s working again but still seems rather stiff. “You mean the undead?”

“Yeah, them.” The armoured knight levels his sword at us, ready to continue the fight.

“Give me a chance to hit him,” she says. “I can only do this once, but I can hurt him.”

“Okay,” I nod, lifting my swords to deflect the next attack. “Go for his other leg, then we can run away while he’s limping.

I still haven’t sent myself over the edge, but if I do that, then I’ll only have a minute to act before I collapse. If I do collapse, then one of the stray undead will find me and kill me.

She nods, as I circle the knight who is moving slower now. I must’ve done some damage to his knee.

He still thrusts out at me, but I manage to throw off the attacks, looking to create an opening.

The undead, the vampires, are still watching us, waiting for a moment to strike. Their attentions have tripled since I ordered their ally to assault the knight. With how I have controlled the lesser undead, and now one of their own, they hesitate to draw too close.

I could try to invest my necromancy into them from a range, but it would take too much æther.

They whisper passionate, hungry thoughts as they linger in the shadows nearby. I don’t know what they want from me, but I’m sure that I won’t survive it.

Behind us, a massive pile of dirt is slowly rising from the gardens. Olive and Anna are leading the creation of the giant golem, but others are rushing in to help them or donate clothes to Olive’s strange thread magics.

It is not ready and it will not be ready for another few minutes.

The knight growls, lowering himself on his good leg a moment before he charges at me. He forces his wounded knee to bend but it still slows him. It is his weakness.

As I move around to strike from his wounded side, his sword glows with æther channels forged into the steel. A golden shroud envelops the blade, growing longer and larger as he swings for me from a distance that should be too far.

I dive in closer to him, thrusting my swords into the ground and digging in my feet. I do not deflect his strike as much as I catch it with my swords. He pushes me to the side, dirt churning under me as my feet and swords turn up the garden’s soil better than any farmer’s hoe.

It’s difficult to keep balance while sliding, but balance is half of my fighting style. I press his sword down into the earth, while Belle rushes in with her shortsword.

She’s not very fast, and not very skilled. I kick off the ground to charge in and save her from his next strike, but I won’t be fast enough.

As she thrusts at his other knee, he is already backslapping her away, but as she flies back he’s the one screaming in pain. Though she tumbles along the ground unconscious, her sword is left behind, buried up to the hilt in the knight’s knee.

She cut through enchanted armour, which was further enhanced with a knight’s magic. How?

I freeze up at the unbelievable sight, moving just barely fast enough to deflect his sword as he slashes down at the strange girl’s prone form. His sword, wrapped in gold, is now three metres long. It tears through the ground at my side, barely scrapping by the girl at my feet.

Kneeling on the ground, the knight tears out the shortsword in his knee, uttering only a small grunt. His heated glare proves that she hurt him, but not enough.

She should’ve gone for his neck.

I kick a foot back against the miraculous girl, then stomp on her body as I catch the next sword. She still doesn’t wake up, so I flood her with æther in an attempt to heal her, but she only barely starts to stir as the hunters close in around us refusing us any escape away from the knight.

His golden blade falls on me again, and again I toss it aside.

I can’t even feel my arms, but I’ve fought in worse conditions than this.

I have to win.

The intelligent undead have almost completely forgotten about the thousands of people that are gathered behind us, focused only on me and the girl beneath me.

Shuddering, I step back a little further.

If I leave Belle to die to the knight’s sword, I can escape his range, and fight off the vampires. There’s nothing else I can do.

I take another step back.

I don’t want to leave someone else to die.

I want to be a hero.

I want to save people.

“Damnit!” I shout, crouching down and grabbing the girl by her shirt. I toss her towards the light, investing everything into my strength to try and make the distance.

Her body arcs through the sky as the golden light of the knight’s sword cuts clean through my hand.

My arm falls to lie by my dropped swords, but the girl should be safe in the light. As she topples down just about over the fires that mark the edges of the robbed warriors’ resistance, a shadow leaps up from the earth.

One of the undead snatches her up like a hawk stealing a mouse. I send in Crow after her, but it’s already too late.

The undead feast on her blood. Some are more desperate for a taste, using their knives to separate an arm or a leg to claim their share. She is dead before she fully awakens.

I failed.

I shiver, holding my stump as I stumble back from the knight, leaving my swords behind with my fallen arm.

The knight isn’t moving his legs, but he’s fast enough to catch me, and I’m not strong enough to stop his next strike. I hold up my one good arm, strengthening it to try and survive the attack, but the undead behind me pull me away before the blade can touch me.

I spark my flames as bright as I can, struggling against them with my hands and spreading my necromancy into them, but they are more powerful than the other one and I’m weaker than I was. I nearly press myself into burnout just to try and overpower them, but even with a minute of unlimited casting, I wouldn’t have the power needed.

“Calm down, young one,” the undead man at my back whispers into my ear. “We don’t want to kill you. We want to help you.”

I gasp, trying to find some words as they pull me away from the knight, who glances at me one last time before turning his gaze back to the survivors. They’re not ready to face him yet.

“Here, see?” One of the intelligent undead hands my missing arm, pressing it onto my stump. I press healing into the limb, only enough to reattach the limb, but not enough to use it.

“We want to help you, and we want your help,” the dead man whispers into my ears. “You can command beings like us, you are… are you the bastard daughter of Aldramodore? It doesn’t matter.”

The knight is still where he was a second ago and the fighting is still raging on just a dozen meters away but shielded by the shadows it feels like a world away.

“What do you want?” I ask, glancing back at the swords that I’ve left behind.

“We want you to command us,” the leader whispers. “Command us to kill ‘Pharisa’, and to escape this city and Aldramodore.”

“What?”

“Just do it,” the vampire whispers. “That is all we want from you, but we need you alive for it to work.”

“Do we?” another whispers.

“I think so, yes,” the leader nods. “Hurry, Pharisa is watching and she will not be happy. We must end her now.”

“I can’t,” I say, shivering. “You’re too strong. I can’t control you…”

“You can’t?” he asks, leaning down close to me. “Try again. Just make sure to give us the orders that we want to hear.”

Others are still feasting on the corpse of the girl who fought by my side or battling against the light of the fires. The war still rages, and I can’t find any way to escape.

I nod, feeding my necromancy into the undead.

‘Kill Pharisa, escape this city and Aldramodore, and leave me and my friends alone’ I give the order, and it soaks through them even more effectively than it would through any other undead that I’ve commanded. They want these orders.

“I can feel it!” the leader cries, practically weeping. “Pharisa’s influence wanes, we must act fast and kill her before she can take back control. Follow me and we will be free this night!”

The vampire rushes out into the night, abandoning me here without any care. Others of their kind are still fighting against the light and the robbed warriors, while the knight is stumbling to his feet getting closer.

Anna’s giant of a golem is nearly ready, but its creation has slowed and I don’t think it’ll be in time.

I stumble to my feet, walking back into the fight.

Maybe if I just grab Olive and Anna, we can run away through the darkness. Maybe the knight will be too slow to stop us.

I’ll find them and we’ll escape this terrible city.