We left the walls of the intersection and made our way up the road. Our next location was not as hospitable and well-defended as our prior one. It was, in fact, being overrun.

We had three people who could do a little more than jack all with their bows, two people who could defend themselves if they lay down, the one who couldn’t protect themselves, and me and Anna.

I could hear ahead of us the sound of combat, and I got myself ready to fight, taking back out my shovel and griping the grain of the wood haft, finding the proper point to hold it. I focused on my ears, and could hear a shift as people looked at me, unknowing of what had happened, and what we were walking towards.

“Look alive,” I told them, “Because the dead are up ahead, and they’re fighting.”

“More fighting?” The whining guard asked.

“Shush,” the old man responded.

I could just hear Anna make a noise of some sort, but it was so low I wasn’t sure she meant to.

We picked up speed, our feet tapping the stone with increasing frequency until the humans could hear it, too, and started speeding up more and more.

The feeling of waiting as we moved made me want to speed off, but I wasn’t going to separate from Anna. I would stick near her while she was unsafe; as much as I doubted I could stop something that could flatten Anna, I could buy her the time to fight back.

A pothole in front of a cart that could slow the advance of almost anything we were likely to fight… Probably.

I didn’t know if it was the just the Gremlins, or if the big bad [Necromancer] mistress their leader had spoken on was kicking around. I didn’t think that would be the case, but it was a possibility that once thought of, I couldn’t stop thinking about.

But I waited and walked and waited some more, the noises coming clearer, until as we came around a bend in the road, it came into view.

It was the exact kind of carnage I had thought up when I imagined what the gremlins were doing. Pressed on all sides, the guards fought in a ring of flashing weapons and shouted breath, and within a group of what looked like stranded and grubby people, caught fleeing the fire and smoke by the undead.

Around them, pressing into pikes and blades and clubs were the broken, old and fresh, bone and sinew. Walls of moving corpses, piloted by the stagnant and compressed magic pitch, invisibly writhing within them for escape. And tucked here or there, amongst the freshly dead, a dozen gremlins, half their number cultists.

I could hear the [Archers] get ready, and after a moment of observation, I did too.

I got ready, set, and rushed forward.

Our little group was a short distance from the sight, but we were close enough that I could get there quickly. Behind me, I could hear the clack of the crossbow as the old man fired, the bolt tearing through the air a foot beside me as I ran forward.

My long, lanky legs ate the ground as the bolt passed me by and hurtled into the neck of one of the gremlins, its body tensing at the impact before its legs gave way beneath its form.

It wasn’t one of the cultists, just a guard, and I shouted back, “The ones with the hoods, get the ones with the hoods!” before I focused on the horde and ran spade first into the cleared area and a second later, the body of an undead.

The shovel passed through it like it was an illusion; the blade simply passed through, but there was a moment of resistance as it caught bone, and the magic in the blade hewed through the tough and the marrow and out the other side.

It did so several times as I brought the blade down, top to bottom, right to left and an extra moment as its body began to bleed dark into the air like smoke.

None of them reacted.

It was a little unsatisfying, the puppet not reacting, but I moved on fast enough. I had a limited window before the undead would be ordered by the cultists to turn upon me, and I needed to make it so that I could.

I moved forward, and two more fell, their bodies still moving as they attempted to push into the crowd. Then another, and another.

In a matter of a moment that lasted forever and a second, I ended up hewing my way through the undead like a scythe through the grain, the act comparably effortless.

And then three of them pivoted mid-movement and the mob began to turn toward me. I could hear ahead of me, through the body, the shouts of guards as the undead pressed on them unevenly. No doubt a ploy to get them to break ranks, the undead would be wheeled into the hole, and the civilians and guards alike would be stabbed in the back.

And then I had no time to pay attention to the guards, or the civilians or the gremlins because I was fighting for my life.

They pressed up and around me, quick as a river, and started to claw, slap, and bite toward me.

Luckily, I knew to avoid bites, assuming the blank-eyed undead were anything to worry about, but the scratches cut through, and the slaps and slams of meat and bone, while devoid of weapons, still hurt like a bitch.

They were also close now, which was less than fun and forced me to hold closer to the head of my shovel, choking up the neck until I basically held the base of the metal clutched in one hand while the but of it slapped out, as a blind man with a distinct hatred of knees might with a cane.

I wasn’t sure if it helped me fend them off, but it was honestly the least of my worries.

I hacked down with the blade of my shovel, the curved edge, magically reinforced and clear, cut like it was sharp despite the constant cleavage of bone that aught to chip it, [Durable Tools], made the edge ever sharp, and for a brief moment, as I caught my breath, the undead but moments from me, I pondered the idea of sharpening the blade.

If I could cleave through them like a hot razor through butter, imagine what a sharpened blade could do. What could I do if I really gave it a razor's edge? How would it cut?

I pressed them, and they pressed back, and so we went, me cleaving through one of the undead, and they, in their numbers, clawed back into me with the furry of the dark magic inside of them, fueling every movement.

They clawed into my clothes whenever I let them get close, and I ignored them as best as I could, hacking them back before trying to move back out of the wall toward my group, but they wouldn’t let me pass. They had, in part, flowed around me and contained me in a crowd of bodies.

I had gotten myself trapped inside the small horde. I couldn’t avoid getting attacked if I turned to get out, and I didn’t think I could get out in one piece if I tried to force my way out of the horde.

All I could do was try and make sure to draw as many of the enemies to me as I could, so that’s exactly what I did. I put my back into cutting down the undead as they pressed in closer and closer pushing them back, only to loose ground as they came in closer.

The reek of the undead as I cut them down grew bad enough to water my eyes as their bodies fell and began to stack up around me, and I was forced to move to not be buried by their corpses, only to nearly trip.

I pressed my skills with mana and quickly righted myself, using the but of my shovel to help right me, and stop my fall and find my footing.

I felt one of the undead get a good slice in, cutting through cloth and drawing a line of fire across my skin that was deep enough to make me shout, unlike the finer cuts and scrapes they had previously gotten.

I brought my shovel back up the second my feet found the ground proper, and the hand came off, falling from my back, and I got back to culling.

Swing after swing after swing, I could feel my arms begin to tire, the burn of muscles doing work slowing my blade. I began to sweat like a hog as I grew warm, blade and haft just heavy enough for exertion. I could feel the sweat sting my eye as I continued to cut and hew and cleave through the undead.

It wouldn’t be enough, I wouldn’t be enough, not to clear them all. It took far too long to turn and cut and turn and cleave, and I was probably going to get mobbed.

I was surrounded by them, getting progressively coated in rot and gore, bleeding and sweating my ass off and getting intermittently clobbered.

It should have been horrible… so why did I feel a smile on my face? Why did I feel like shouting like Selly was on my shoulder? Bellowing a war cry?

Why did I like it when I should be horrified?

“Bring me closer; I want to hit them with my sword,” Selly cried.

“How about you use your skills to help me instead,” I shouted back.

Selly made a terribly gleeful sound and shouted, “[Hold the Line] and [Bring em’ down]! [Stand your Ground]! [Awareness Abounds]!”

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I could feel the skills echo out into the night like a war horn, reinvigorating me, both numbing my aches and refreshing me. I could feel the wound on my back stop bleeding, and the will to fight returned to me; the idea that I would lose chased from the corners of my mind while the feeling of single-minded focus widened from just keeping them back.

I could feel far off, Anna casting something, and the flagging [guards] in the middle of it all give a cheer. The clarity was so great I could feel my body sucking ambient mana in through my lungs and the heat rolling off of my skin as it escaped me.

I turned with more vigour and began to push them back, my blade finding the best places to strike. [True Strike] found little purchase on the chaff, but even so, [Bring em’ down] seemed to aid me in a similar manner, only in the best way to fight them, instead of their weak points.

Anna spoke, “[Barrage of Stone],” and as her spell went off and tore into the crowd next to me, a barrage of paving stones blew through a crowd near me into shattered rot, a way out if I could make my way there quickly.

I took it, moving as I turned to fend the undead off to bring me toward the gap.

I could hear the two guards fighting near me, the voice of the complaining guard, complaining unmistakable in the din for anyone else.

I let out a shout of thanks to Selly that sounded more like a war cry than a thank you and made my way through the undead, blade-hitting meat; I carved my way clear of the fresh slice of hell I had gotten caught in.

I stepped, foot by foot, out of the surrounding horde until I was clear, and then I moved, reuniting with the guards, circling around the horde until I was a few feet away and turned to be in line with them.

I saw a bolt wiz by in the corner of my vision and could see the moment a [Cultist] died as the undead suddenly began to seem confused. Their movements, undirected and counterintuitive.

I worked to catch my breath and calm my beating heart as the undead stumbled toward us, and we cut them down.

Compared to my more vigorous and less effective fighting on my own, the two guards and I made light work of the undead; their unfocused movements, along with Anna's attack, had thinned more out than I had destroyed in a matter of moments, and it showed. They spread instead of pressing, and there were fewer of them by the second.

As we pressed into the undead, cleaving and clobbering them, one zombie came up to us and made to move in against the guard furthest from me, and while he worked efficiently, clobbering it with his cudgel, it was about the time he hit it, only for it to not work that I caught the light in its eyes.

It clawed at him, the mana in its body extending out to make contact, to force its way from the undead, and I, as best as I could, quickly reached over with my shovel and pushed it back. Its body staggered awkwardly, not as a human would, but as a human body was forced to as if it were a human doll.

I failed to stop the clawing but mitigated it fast enough to stop him from getting an overwhelming amount; both guards let out a shout, one from pain as the dark mana started to burn his extended arm and the other from how I had reached across them.

Quickly, I pulled the shovel back, letting myself spin around before rotating behind the guards and to the ensouled undead.

As the undead regained its footing, shifting unnaturally to move against the shouting guard, I planted my feet and swung down with all the force I could muster.

Once again, I ripped into magically enhanced flesh and felt resistance on bone, but managed to hook the flange after passing barely through the collar bone.

“Leave these ones for me. Keep fighting if you can,” I shouted before forcing the zombie to the ground, shoving it sideways so its feet came out from under it. I planted a foot on it and pulled the shovel out.

I checked for where the thickest mana was, seeking the jade soul binder and placed it just below the heart. I struck two hands, thrusting the blade down as It grabbed at my leg, piercing flesh.

I could see the flesh at the collarbone twine and saw as it slowly began to regenerate. I felt a wave of sudden need flash through me, a desperation to see this thing dead as fast as possible. I did not want to be stuck killing this thing over and over again.

Viciously, I slammed it as many times as I could, breaking the bone over the spot before it gave way. My leg burning, I slammed the spade down. [True Strike] activated as I did, and I could hear the jade shatter.

Scooping the soul within up, I reached out, nearly touching the blood in the scoop and pulling the soul that sat on my blade in and over to the afterlife.

Then, I brought the blade down on it and broke the body, the arms and legs, and left it broken.

Anna let off another shot, and it tore through the enemy, even though another ensouled undead. I looked at what she had done, and down at myself, I felt subpar. Anna must have destroyed more undead in this fight than all the guards and me combined, and she had done it with two spells.

“I really have to get to figuring out those answers so Anna will teach me new spells,” I muttered.

“A little jealous, perhaps?” Selly asked tauntingly.

“No, perhaps about it. I wish I could do that,” I told her.

“Well, perhaps until then, you should pay attention. We’re almost done here besides,”

I let the moment of jealousy pass and got back to cleaning up the undead. I could see a few of the gremlins skitter away as we pushed in, many of the cultists dead, with bolts clear into vitals. One of them had a twiggy-looking arrow sticking out of its eye, and I fought off the urge to give the bowman I knew it belonged to a look.

As the undead numbers cleared, they became easier to deal with. I was able to leave the guards to clean up while I ran and cleared the more important targets, namely the two remaining ensouled undead and one [Cultist] who was trying to animate a dead body while playing dead.

I broke the ensouled fast enough, keeping my distance; they flailed at me but failed to wound, and with few to aid them and no urgency, they were nowhere near enough. After that, I offed a few normal zombies and the one skeleton that guarded the [Cultist]. The guards overcame the remaining undead quickly.

I made my way back to Anna, who caught sight of me and seemed to worry for a moment before she decided that I was probably fine. She gaged a little as I came closer, and I avoided touching her to not ruin her nice clothes, but she said little as we moved into the square.

In the middle of the clearing, stacked bodies ringed the checkpoint’s haggard defenders, who had kicked their way free and began to take positions at the entrances or clear the stragglers.

In the middle of them, shouting orders at the guards and periodically talking to a normal person, was a butcher who looked like he had just slaughtered a dozen animals, cleaver in hand, and Strause, his characteristic grin strained, sword in hand, the edge wet with use.

I gave him a nod as his eyes scanned over me, aware of my presence, which he no doubt was before they moved to Anna.

He waved casually at her like he had not just survived being nearly enshrined in the broken bodies of the dead and moved to talk with her while the [Butcher] remained and commanded the guards.

“Hello, Sister dearest, aren’t I glad to see you. You and yours have helped me a great deal here,” he said, a note of pain in his voice.

“I need to speak to you, Strause… Assuming you’re the one in command here.”

He gave a little ‘Ah’ and nodded.

Anna spoke to the rest of us, “Take a few minutes of rest and catch your breath,” she said, somewhat pointedly to me, “Help move the bodies if you feel up to it, and the two of you, fetch the wounded, move him over to the wounded over there.”

The guards left, and I stayed, waiting for Anna to shoo me away.

“You too, Saphine, Go on. I know you feel like you need to stand with me, but there are things in need of doing; I’ll be fine with Strause.”

I looked at her carefully and then Strause, but neither gave anything away. Anna shooed again, and I backed up, turned, and promptly forgot what I was doing.

I was… I was going to…

I was going to help. Right. There were souls loose on the ground and a few wounded who felt like they had been bitten. There were things to get done before we moved on.

I felt a twinge of something I felt I was forgetting, but I couldn’t figure out what it was I was forgetting. While annoying, I kept it in mind, like a word on the tip of my tongue. I had the feeling it would come to me soon enough.

I walked away from where I had been standing, probably staring off into space again, and collected the souls of the fallen, scooping them up and pulling them through me. The Gremlins hissed but had no power to stop me, and those freed, while pained, relished the idea of getting the hell out of there. Each I could understand was spooked by what they had been through, not asking anything of me, and I thanked my lucky stars. I didn’t have to reassure them of something I didn’t think I could do.

More troubling were the wounded. Three were bitten and had been tied up, and I could tell just from looking that one was beyond saving. His body was failing. Too much death magic in him to do anything but end his suffering, and I didn’t think I could bring myself to do that. I didn’t want to know if I would feel something over killing him or not.

Coward I was, I focused on the other two. One was easily savable, and the other I felt would deplete me.

I thought about it and didn’t know what to do.

If I saved one, I damned the other, and if I stayed my hand, I damned the both of them.

What can I do? Can they recover if I only push out most of it? Considering how it would keep tainting the rest of his mana, I doubt it. I only wish I could do both of them. I bet a real mage could do both, they could cast a spell to do it, instead of wasting a load of mana manipulating it manually…

I wish I had a spell like that.

Wait…

An idea caught in my mind.

There was a spell to light candles, and using it to do so cost almost nothing. I had spent hundreds of points worth of mana to cast the spell manually, but a dozen or so normally.

If my futzing around and figuring out how to do it had cost something like a thousand mana, a spell for doing it would have cost several hundred of it.

If I had a spell to do it, I could save both.

All I needed was a spell.

And while I didn’t know one, I had learned how to cast a spell before.

If I wanted to save both, I would need that spell.

All I needed to do was shape it, right?

I took the gag out of the guard's mouth, and he whimpered, struggling to free his hands. I cut him free, and he curled as best as he could, reaching up to clutch at his head.

The guard looked like he had seen a ghost, as poor a description as that was becoming. He might not have seen a ghost, but there were enough undead around that there didn’t need to be a fucking spectre floating in front of them to be haunted.

And yet he wasn’t reacting to them, the dead around us; he was clutching his head, palms cupping his ears as he tried to press his knees into his chest.

I was going to ask him for permission to cast a spell on him, but before I could, he let out a sobbing cry that almost overshadowed the whisper that came out after it.

“Screamers.”

It was a strange turn of phrase, one that meant nothing to me and that the man said in a way that spoke of genuine fear so palpable it came across in his words.

No one else seemed to hear him, and I certainly couldn’t hear any form of screaming; it was the din of setting up to hold the intersection and a few guards finishing off a corpse here or there, punctuated by the use of skills, shouted out in the bright of the night.

Nothing had changed.

I focused, ears swivelling, and I couldn’t hear a thing out of place.

Then I focused on my other senses, and then, and only then, I could hear them too, though the sound wasn’t in my ears, but in my chest, so minute that I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t called it out loud. It was so distant from us, it was like picking out the scuff of a boot in the market, slowly getting louder as whatever it was came closer.

The sensation was like pins and needles, like an arm that had fallen asleep, only inside of me, deep down.

And then I understood what he meant by screamers because I had fought them before in the dark of a crypt.

They weren’t all that scary, though. I couldn’t imagine why he was so afraid of the ensouled skeletons I had fought. They were undead, but they were weak, they’re only ability the same effect that they were currently doing. I understood as, one by one, a handful of people began to clutch at themselves, confused, holding heads and chests.

It was no big deal for me, but it was for them.

It hadn't occurred to me what the attack had been that made my insides tingle so deep it could not be a physical part of my body. It was a soul-deep pain, and my soul was made of tougher stuff.

The humans were not, however, and so they began to fall as the tingling increased and the screamers approached.

We had let a few gremlins getaway, and they were bringing reinforcements.