We stand on ground littered with the chiselled bits of bone that the vampire spread among us, and no matter how much I fight it, it spreads a terrible fear in my chest. Fear that’s not mine, and easy to refuse, but it’s still enough to make him more powerful.

Is he here?

Is he still watching us?

Locked in step with the other mercenaries, Lothar and Theo are ahead of me, with Adeleya and Nadia behind, taking care of Namor and keeping watch for the vampire. The arrows in Nadia’s bow are enchanted with fire, and Adeleya is constantly chanting, building and reshaping new forms of her fire to be ready the moment there’s a shot.

“Help us!” A woman screams, one of the few that I helped with my healing. “Help us! They’re insane, they’re… something’s taken their minds!”

As she screams, her flesh bloats around her belly, rising to her throat. In moments her open-mouthed scream is silenced by the blood seeping out of her face. A massive congealed lump squeezes out of her mouth, twisting around until a small eyeball appears between her jaws.

It blinks once before her minced brains pour out of her eye sockets.

“Blood-dolls!” Theo shouts, severing the woman in two with his longsword, before kicking her upper body away and retreating with his guard up high.

“Frost mages to the front!” The commander cries, in response to the dozens of mercenaries calling out the name of our new foe. “Heavies, smash them once frozen!”

“Syr,” Theo calls without glancing back at me.

“Ready,” I reply, lifting my longsword high.

None of us are capable of using ice or frost magic, but it’s not just us here. A mercenary mage moves along the line behind me, casting a wave of shimmering air over the front lines to crash into the villagers that are gathering in front of us. The air all around shimmers with sparkling lights that drift over us, a beautiful, harmless thing, or so it looks.

The front line of villagers pause in place, some even collapsing as the shimmering frost takes them. Their joints crack and bleed as they push their bodies through the overwhelming frost. I glance back at the mage, seeing thick veins of icy blue spreading over his face.

The powerful man moves on, spreading the frost out over the front lines.

“Syr!” Theo calls and I charge.

Slipping between Theo and Lothar, I swing my longsword wide, smashing the frozen shapes of the men and women that came to us screaming for help. The ones that were still human died to the frost. All that’s left are the monsters.

Flesh shatters like ice, splinters of frozen flesh flying in every direction as I destroy the bodies that line the front row. A follow-up swing deals with the ones that survived the first attack. Before I have a chance to finish smashing the bigger bits on the ground.

A wave of new monsters, the people still screaming as the blood-dolls take them over, rush in and I retreat at Theo’s call.

To our left and right, the rest of the line is holding out the same. A man with a hammer smaller than my sword managed to do even more damage, leaving only traces of his targets. A mercenary on the other side of me uses only two building hammers but managed to smash the frozen figures just the same. His side sword probably wouldn’t do it, so he improvised and still kept up with me.

Breathing the thick air, the illusion of fear pressing on me decays away. Theo and Lothar hold back the next wave of monsters while I step in to smash back the few that look ready to break past them. A smile crawls up my lips as the mage walks by again, freezing the enemy, before I’m given orders to charge in and destroy them.

In all my fights before, I’ve never quite felt this in tune with everyone else. With just our small team, I know that I pull my weight, and I do help, but right now it’s more than that.

I rush forward, stepping in to smash the frozen monsters. My sword glides through the corpses, scattering the bits and pieces which I try to destroy as I step back, under pressure from the next wave washing over us.

A cold wet slap hits my ankle as I step back, dragging a weight after me. Lothar slashes down after me, separating the chunks of corpse that are now tied to my leg. He’s screaming something, but I can’t make sense of it, stabbing at the liquid thing on my leg.

I drop my longsword and slash down at it with my shortsword splattering half the liquid body on the ground at my feet, but that doesn’t stop the creature.

It’s like a small squishy black ball floating on moving limbs of red blood. A little eye beside the ball blinks up at me as it cuts open my calf, trying to stuff its body inside of my leg. The liquid body easily tears the wound wider, as the black ball squeezes in.

I stab at it, but the main body simply squeezes out from under the blade.

“Mine!” Namor shouts, suddenly at my feet, gripping the ball with her bare hands and tearing it in two. An oily black liquid sprays from the body, as she tears it into smaller and smaller bits, rushing back to her shield the moment she’s satisfied that it’s dead.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Thanks,” I call back to her, facing the front. It’s nearly time for my next assault.

“Rip the black core apart if they get you!” I call out to the others nearby. “Stabbing and smashing won’t work.”

The message spreads as the ice mage moves through again, and I charge in to take care of them. I think I get what we’re doing now, tearing them apart isn’t easy to do in this sort of a fight, when they’re hiding in bodies, but freezing and smashing them destroys them just as effectively.

If we were fighting them without a frost mage on our side, we’d have to tear open the bodies and physically grab the core before tearing it apart.

If I was alone, I’d probably have to run away, even fighting just two of them at once would be dangerous.

Together, it’s almost too easy to win against an army.

The population of the village throws itself at us until there is no one left to fight. A few of the Blood-dolls are still around, more skittish than the ones that threw themselves at us.

“Egg hosts,” Theo gestures at them with his sword. “In a few days, they’ll pop, dozens more spreading out and taking new bodies.”

“Gather up,” the commander calls, bringing us together into a tight formation. The place is still brighter than day with the number of lights we have shining over us, even though I’m not part of the commanders, I can still overhear their conversations.

“We need to deal with the eggs,” Theo tells the commander. “We can’t let them develop a local hive here, from the reports I’ve read, the older ones can disguise themselves as human and we do not want to deal with that.”

“It’s not that easy,” the commander shakes his head. “The vampire that seeded them here has likely already created a hive for them if that’s its plan. We’ll need to spread out to be sure we catch all the egg carriers, and that would make us easy targets for the bastard.”

“We should at least destroy the ones that we can without putting ourselves at risk,” Theo encourages.

There’s quiet contemplation for a few moments before they agree to the idea.

“Guarded march formation,” The commander calls and we carefully stick together, moving through the woods as an advance vanguard team rushes in at the egg hosts that we sight. With nothing attacking us, and the vampire leaving us alone, all I can do is stay ready and watch out for everyone around me.

“Namor, are you okay?” I ask, glancing back at her while she follows me, having trouble dragging her shield and spear along while we’re moving. “Do you need help?”

“It’s… heavy…” she groans, as I take the spear from her.

“Can you manage just the shield?” I ask, and she forces herself to nod. She’s a strong young girl, and if she keeps fighting just like this, she’ll be strong enough to survive whatever comes at her.

As we slowly walk circles around the town and camp, killing anything that we come across, I have to move Grey around so that they won’t find him. I’m worried that the vampire will recognise him as a controlled undead, but it’s just as important that no one else sees him, so I have to take the chance.

Seeing the world through him, I feel so much more vulnerable. He stalks the monster-filled forest all alone, with no one to watch his back and no one to help him if he needs it. I have him avoid everything, trying to keep from leaving behind tracks as he slowly circles counter to us, pushing out further and further away until it hurts my head to stay connected with him.

Hollow, painful memories burn in the back of my mind. So long spent alone, unable to rely on anyone when I’m sick.

It takes a few hours to clear the area and then set up our scattered camp. We sleep in shifts, keeping the lights up and bright the whole night long. Biting my nails I lie on my bedroll considering the pros and cons of pushing myself to the limit.

Namor is beside me, huddled in her bed and sleeping deeply. Anna is beside her, her little Titan at the side of the tent’s entrance.

We can sleep safely because there are people looking out for us right now, but I need to be ready to fight if things do go bad.

No, I still need to be stronger before I can even be useful.

Letting out a long breath, I begin.

Pressing my hand against the hard ground, I flood my æther into the earth without quite letting it form magic. The channels that I create are small and quickly collapse, hundreds of them forming and crashing into one another every second.

It takes a little while to hit my limit and when I do a wave of exhaustion threatens to knock me out. I fight it down and keep my burning veins flowing with power, the longer I can last right now, the more powerful I’ll be in the morning when I wake up.

Letting myself be taken by the fires and the darkness. I can’t tell when I’ve completely passed out this time, the darkness slowly consuming my vision as the flames spread from my veins to everything else. I try to keep my magic flowing, even now that I’ve lost the world entirely, but flickering green flames distract me for a moment and I lose my grip on the power flowing through me.

A deep voice whispers to me from the green flames, comforting me through the night as I press my lips closed and hold down my screams. If I make a fuss, then people will notice what I’m doing. I don’t want to bother them.

“Syr, Syr,” my body shakes and my eyes slowly force open as I try to see the real world through the terrible pains taking me. Clenching my jaw, I blink away the pain and push my arms and legs to move through the pins and needles that are consuming my every nerve.

“Namor?” I ask, reaching out for her and feeling her fur.

“Are you awake?” She asks, pulling at my arm. Only a few hours have passed, but it’ll be my turn on watch soon enough.

“Yeah,” I nod turning to her and blinking away the last of my nightmare.

“Is Papa okay?”

“He is,” I nod, brushing at her head. “He’s okay.”

“Can we really kill that bad man?” She asks, her eyes glimmering.

“We can,” I nod quickly. “We just have to keep surviving and training until we’re strong enough to beat him.”

“Can’t our friends help?” She asks, looking around. “They’re really strong. If we fight together…”

“The mercenaries?” I ask, sitting up and massaging my legs. “Sure, they can help if they want to.”

“If they want to?” She asks. “They’re our friends. We can trust them, can’t we?”

“No, we can’t,” I cut her short, and stare at her firmly. “There are things that… there are secrets, like you Papa, that they can’t know about. It would make everyone hurt if they knew. They’d think that they have to kill your Papa if they knew he was still alive. They might even think that they have to kill me.

“Everyone would get hurt. So, I have to be ready to run away when they find out so that we don’t have to hurt each other,” I explain. “We can’t be friends forever.”

“I had friends fight, but Mama had them talk it out. Can’t you…?”

“No,” I shake my head. “As soon as anyone learns about your Papa, they won’t let me talk anymore. They’ll… I’ll look just like that bad man to them. They’ll look at me like I’m the evil man that hurt you and your Papa. They won’t want to talk anymore.”

I stand and get ready for my turn on watch, and the march that comes after. Even if they don’t find out, I’ll have to go out alone to train my necromancy. I like being a part of a big team, a big family, but I’m not going to change myself to fit in here. I can’t be a part of this company forever, but one day I’ll build my own.

A place where I can be myself, and still have a big family and team willing to stand with me.

My veins have all increased by at least one, my necromancy going up by three.

“We have five minutes for training,” I sit up with Namor, chanting with her.