Rusk was tired. The necromancer's corpses coming through the portal had him on edge even with this great weapon at his disposal. No, not weapon. That was disrespectful. This great cosmic force, this fire of life to be showered upon his enemies, this... Rusk was tired. His breath came in shaky gasps, and he realized just how long he'd gone without eating. He thought Felix had it bad, and it was true Felix had it worse than him, but Rusk himself was so fatigued he felt as if he might topple over and just let the corpses overtake him.

"Get up," said the Dragons Knock. "Get up. Rise. Rise and I will aid you."

"I'm so exausted," whined Rusk. Even to his own ears he sounded childish.

"Rise."

Rusk rose.

He knocked the Dragons Knock and then switched it out for a normal arrow when he remembered that the Dragons Knock brought things back to life. No use using that against a necromancer's folly.

The corpses crowded around the blooming tree. They seeped it for its nourishment, and in the back of Rusk's mind he reveled in the idea of tossing himself on the horde to do the same. It seemed a relief, a release. He wanted to die in that moment, to let everything end. But Dragons Knock sprung to life in his mind, appearing as a great silver dragon, and it told him to get up. Rise. Rise.

Rusk scrambled backward away from the blossoming tree, mourning the loss of that delicious fruit as he did. And the necromancer taunted him as he retreated.

"A coward! A coward runs!"

"A coward dies," said the Dragons Knock. "When he has no need to. Run. I cannot aid you here when you are so spent. You must run."

Rusk fired the arrow he'd knocked. It was ordinary, and it did nothing to stop the advancing corpses.

One of those corpses caught him by the leg as he fled, and he flailed to the ground, losing grip on his bow as he landed hard on his belly. The arrow through the corpse's stomach did nothing to stop it as it descended upon him all teeth and monstrous ire. It was hungry.

Rusk was hungry. He was starving.

He couldn't remember the last thing he ate, and his muscles protested their function even as he fought to make them work correctly. He writhed and flailed and did his best to kick the corpse off of him, but it smiled this terrible smile and let out a noise of childlike glee as it climbed further up him.

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Its mouth stank of decay.

With one final shock to his system Rusk clobbered the corpse over the head with the arrow he'd pulled from its stomach, and it went still at his side.

But only for a moment.

And in that moment, Rusk felt only dread. He spun onto his side and tried to rouse himself enough to get to his feet, but his limbs wouldn't work and they dropped like noodles under him. He cursed in the older language as Dragons Knock scolded him for moving too slowly.

"Rise I said! I told you to rise! Will you let him win here? Will you lie down and die for this necromancer after I have provided you with nourishment? What a foolish archer I've become allied with."

"Shut up," said Rusk.

"I will not cease my speech until you get up and run."

Rusk breathed as another corpse grabbed him from behind. He didn't have the energy. As much as he wanted to, as much as Felix and the others were counting on him, as much as he was supposed to be the Heroic One, he simply couldn't.

The necromancer cackled inside his head. The sound was all around him, as was the death, and the corpses, and the dread, and the only speckle of hope was in the tree that bloomed with all its fluorescence right in the center of the chaos of battle, inside the horde with its blossoms and fruits and smell of life. The leaves in Rusk's vision blurred. The branches snapped back into their nasty gnarly forms, and he wondered if maybe his mind were playing tricks on him.

It seemed to be doing that a lot lately. He didn't trust his senses anymore. So when the Dragons Knock stopped edging him on, stopped trying to get him to get up and continue the struggle, get away from the necromancer, for a moment Rusk thought he may have made the whole thing up. Come up with something to latch onto in harsh times. A specter of his own imaginings.

Under the cackle of the necromancer Rusk surrendered. He couldn't move. He couldn't fire an arrow. All the life seeped out of him, yet he wasn't dead. He knew he wasn't dead. But this fate was worse, to waste away here under the threat he'd promised to demolish. Under the one he'd promised to kill for Flow during those late nights camping out by the sea on Sanctuary Island constructing that boat.

God that boat was beautiful. It was the first thing Rusk ever made with his own hands. He wondered if Mandy was ever going to hear tales of him, wondered if maybe she'd see that he was killed in action on some Heroic roster. Then he remembered there weren't official Heroes anymore.

He had to get up.

He had to get up!

At the very last moment, when all seemed bleakest, he rose.

And then promptly fell down.

Then, a distant scuffling. The snap of twigs so brittle under distant feet. The cry of a hawk made of bones from above. And there was Loretta, crouching over him, and there was the crusader with his spear and his leather glove, and the necromancer was making this terrible shriek at the betrayal of that man, the betrayal of that King's Servant, that's what the necromancer called him, and Rusk found himself being hoisted.

Flow had his arms. Flow was his anchor.

Rusk's eyes rolled back but he blinked furiously in an attempt to regain control of himself. He couldn't. He had to rely on the others. There was no fight left in him.

And he wondered how they were all going to get out of this alive with him in this condition. With Felix absent from the scene.

Where was Felix? Had he survived?

Rusk didn't know if he wanted to know.