There was a possibility their informant the shopkeeper had lied. Plenty of reasons to betray Felix if King Ehrryn was throwing around threats. So why didn’t Rusk feel like that was what happened? It wasn’t the Elva telling him this. It was something else, something deeper. When one of the crusaders came around a hut yanking someone by the hair, he knew. The one the crusader was yanking was Loretta.

Instantly on guard, Rusk blew he and Flow’s cover before he realized he was doing it. He pulled an arrow right out of the Elva and knocked it and fired without registering that’s what he was doing.

The arrow caught the crusader in the arm, and when he dropped Loretta she stomped on his foot and raced toward Rusk. He was glad she still had that fight in her. He knocked another arrow. Pointed its tip at the crusaders, which were gathered in a clump around the hut.

Then a man appeared around the corner from where Loretta had been dragged. He was half human and half monster the Elva told Rusk, and Flow gasped seeing him, pointing with shallow breath.

“It’s him,” said Flow. “The Necromancer. He killed my father.”

The necromancer smiled and it was the same smile Greil’s corpse had given Rusk when it came through the dead portal. A vague recollection made him wonder where Elena had been taken, if she’d gone with her grandfather willingly. He and Flow had rushed out of Porttegat for their own safety. They hadn’t had time to look for Elena or Captain Arrolg. Then again maybe it was a hopeless search on that front. He and Flow had spent who knows how long on Sanctuary Island trying to deal with the sea serpent. Rusk’s attention returned to the necromancer and that smug toothy smile.

The necromancer had long brown hair, smelled like burnt flies, and wore purple robes, the most expensive color.

“Why did you kill Greil?” asked Rusk out of nowhere. Apparently even after all this time he still wasn’t over it.

“Oh that wasn’t me,” said the necromancer. “That was King Ehrryn himself. I just used the corpse. Those dead by betrayal work the best in reanimation.”

Betrayal? “He was a betrayer all right.”

“Oh you misunderstand. He may have betrayed you, but King Ehrryn betrayed him.”

“What?”

Flow had Loretta by the arm and both backed away from Rusk and the necromancer. The crusaders were letting this conversation happen unperturbed. It was then Rusk realized a necromancer might employ only the dead. Likely the crusaders had no will of their own despite wearing the king’s uniform, which mainly consisted of chainmail.

“King Ehrryn didn’t like that Greil took on a protégé, so he killed the hostage to twist Greil’s arm. But the old coot was still defiant in the end, so the story goes. I care not one way or the other. A free corpse is a free corpse no matter the source of its deadly demise.”

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That got Rusk’s emotions all mixed up, but it didn’t change his current objective.

He was going to kill this necromancer here and now. Permanently.

When he took aim the whole herd of crusaders moved to block his shot. He fired anyway. Flow hissed behind him but Rusk didn’t care. He wanted this over with. He wanted to find Felix and get with the resistance and not have to worry about some dead jerk returning from the grave to torment everybody. So he shot and his arrow plunged into the heart of the crusader at the front of the herd.

“Be careful,” shouted Loretta. “They’re dead and can’t be felled!”

That answered that question. Rusk knocked another arrow. He still had that beautiful Dragons Knock in his quiver, but this worm wasn’t worth using that on. Or he hoped the necromancer could be killed by a normal Elva arrow anyway. If not he’d have no choice but to waste the ammo he intended to use for King Ehrryn himself.

The crusaders marched toward Rusk. The one with the arrow in his chest snapped it at the wood and lumbered forward. Not only had Rusk not actually killed him, he also hadn’t even gotten through the chainmail. Rusk would have to be a lot more careful of where he aimed.

He put himself between the crusaders and Loretta and Flow. But Flow stepped up to be next to him instead of behind. She may not have had her volcanic power anymore, but she certainly had that noble pride.

“I can’t protect you if you’re beside me,” said Rusk.

“Then I shall protect myself,” said Flow. And then, as if it were a good idea, she raised her fists up as if she was going to take on this whole crusade with only her bare arms.

Rusk grumbled something and jammed a knife handle into her grip. “Go for the breaks in the armor.”

Many had slits for their eyes. Flow looked upon their helmets and grinned. Bloodthirsty islander. But she was so attractive when she was looking at someone like they were her prey.

“Wipe that grin off your face and give me a spare weapon too,” said Loretta.

Rusk shrugged. He only had one knife.

Loretta made to pluck the Dragons Knock out of his quiver but he jumped out of her way and handed her an ordinary one instead. “Don’t throw it. Use it like a spear. Hold nearer the end so it doesn’t snap.”

“Obviously,” snapped Loretta.

The crusaders were upon them. And the necromancer guffawed from the back of the herd, clearly pleased with himself for not having to lift a finger toward one of King Ehrryn’s mortal enemies.

With such close ranged attackers you’d think Rusk wouldn’t have the skill to fell any with a projectile. But he was a quick draw as any mythological figure, and he could knock and draw and shoot in the span of a nanosecond, especially with the Elva to guide him. Back in his homeland near his forested territory, the Elva bridged the gap between his reflexes and intention, and he shot perfectly into the horde. When an Elva Arrow struck any chainmail armor, it melted under the force of the magic.

And soon he and Flow, who had slashed many eyeballs from their sockets through the slits in the crusaders’ armors, were gaining on the necromancer.

Who for once had the grace to look fearful.

The necromancer ran, and a portal opened up in front of him that sounded like buzzing flies as dead portals always did, but Rusk shot him in the back perfectly.

Too bad he was a necromancer, because he rose up and jumped through the portal all the same, and his crusaders all fell permanently dead once he’d vacated the premises.

Rusk swore in the older language, and Flow in hers, and Loretta looked at both of them with wide eyes. Wide, but impressed. And maybe a little mischievous.

“So,” said Loretta. “Thanks for saving me. I’ll take you to Felix now that I’m not necromancer meat.”

“Loretta,” said Rusk. “Meet Flow.”

Flow bowed like nobility still brandishing her bloodied knife out to the side with a wide swept arm.