The downward swing missed Eli and me by inches. It landed between my legs, sending rubble and dust into my eye. My heart jumped, adrenaline spiked at this sudden escape from death. I rolled backward and got to my feet. Eli struggled to his feet and got behind one of the long tables. Two more undead bodyguards joined the party, clad in steel armor plates and holding large swords, too big to be allowed. They stood by the door, barring our way out.

‘What’s the plan here?’ Eva asked.

‘Swords won’t be effective against them,’ I said. ‘They won’t die unless I break the link they have to Lemien.’

‘You can always slow them down,’ she said as another swing from the huge cleaver came my way. I dodged to the side, and saw a cauldron split in half.

‘What do you suggest we do about this one?’ I asked. ‘Lemien’s got a good grip on him, yet he seems out of control.’

Eli jumped out of the way as a swing from the cleaver targeted him. The table split. Splinters flew in the air and the chandelier above us swayed dangerously.

‘I got an idea,’ I said.

I ran at the giant undead and swung at his tendons. My sword his the hulk’s foot and a loud clang was heard. His feet were harder than steel. That was bound to create problems.

I felt a giant knuckle at my ribs. My feet left the floor, and I felt my body travel from one end of the kitchen to the other. I crashed against the open door then rolled into the empty dining room. I had at least two cracked ribs, one nasty gash at my right thigh, and my head pounded. The room turned, my legs swayed as I tried to get up.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked no one in particular.

‘Didn’t you see his fangs?’ Eva asked.

‘Shit!’

‘Indeed.’

My head had stopped pounding then. I ran toward the lone candle by the end of the dining room, it was our only hope, to end this fight and block further undead from swarming us.

‘Do you think it’s wise you trap yourself here?’ Eva asked.

‘This is a dining room,’ I said. ‘There must be another door to let prisoners, or guests, in here. No one’d come through the kitchen.’

I took the candle and walked back to the kitchen. I didn’t know if Eli had managed to survive the fight, but I couldn’t run. I would risk extinguishing the candle. I heard another crash in the kitchen as I got closer. I squinted. Eli was still dancing around, miraculously avoiding the undead Sebyan’s swings.

“Eli!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Get in here, quick!”

Eli looked at me. He saw the candle in my hand and jumped forward to avoid another cleaver attack. He reached the dining room just as I reached the door. I threw the candle at the splinters that resulted from the Sebyan’s rampage. Fire started spreading. It wasn’t enough to start a big fire though.

The giant Sebyan caught sight of us and pounded his heavy legs on the ground.

“I need a distraction,” I told Eli.

“Are you out of your mind? I’ll get trapped inside too.”

“Just stay near the door. Avoid two hits. That’s all I ask.”

“That’s already asking too much,” he mumbled.

“Can you hit the chandelier?”

“I’ll lose my sword in the process,” Eli complained.

“Then do as I say,” I retorted. “Stay near the door. The moment I bring it down, run like your life depended on it.”

“Fuck you Stalwart!” Eli complained but obeyed.

He went inside and the undead Sebyan focused his efforts on him. The other undead guards stayed near the door. They were probably ordered by Lemien to stay away from the cleaver’s range. I took the golden chain from the bag. I didn’t want to show it to Lemien, but that was our only choice.

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I looked at the hanging chandelier. It was a risky endeavor. I was a lousy shot. Throwing a flailing chain at the chandelier, hoping it would coil itself around its rusty supports, was farfetched. But that was the only way to get rid of the undead.

I threw the chain at the chandelier. My first attempt was met with failure. Eli was also having a hard time against the Sebyan. I threw the chain once more and missed. The chain had only hit one of the candles and extinguished it.

‘Focus, Myles, Focus!’ I repeated internally.

Eli had just avoided another attack. This time it was a surprise thrust. He had jumped to avoid the upcoming cleaver then landed on its blunt end. He was lucky, despite the childish squeal he made as his balls hit the steely, thick surface of the cleaver.

I threw the chain one more time. Third time’s a charm, right?

It connected, and even coiled around the rusty support. It was firm enough for me to jerk it toward me, hard. The chandelier swung as the undead Sebyan retracted his cleaver. His weapon hit my chain and I was hurled forward, into the room.

The chandelier fell down with a loud crash. Candles rolled down the ground and met the scattered splinters. Eli retreated back to the dining room and yelled for me to follow. I tried to yank the chain off the chandelier. The damn thing got stuck. I hadn’t thought of that when I tried to bring the thing down…

“Come on Myles,” Eli yelled. “Leave that damn chain behind.”

How could I? It was the only thing I could use against the banshee. I tried to yank the chain once more. The Sebyan had noticed me then. He swung his giant weapon at me and I jumped back. I had to let go of the chain to avoid his deadly attack. I ducked under another swing. Fire started devouring the place.

I yanked the chain once more and I felt it loosening on the other end. That damned Sebyan wouldn’t let me pull it off in peace though. He rushed toward me. I felt his big, gnarled hands close around my throat.

My body slammed against the wall. I could see the Sebyan’s blue eyes scan me. His fangs were yellow, black in some spots too. He grunted at me and I head Lemien’s voice echo in the tower stairs.

“You just can’t get enough of me, do you?” he asked. “How about you stay with my Sebyan slave here, burn to death as you should have when you entered the city?”

The undead’s grip around my throat was getting tighter. If he applied just a little more pressure, my neck would snap. I felt blood rush to my head. Air had become harder to breathe. My legs flailed in the air while I tried to get out of this pickle.

My eye started stinging too. Fire had become even fiercer. The smell of burning, moldy wood was suffocating. I had to get out of there, but how could I, with the Sebyan’s tight grip around my throat?

Eva was screaming something at me but I couldn’t hear her. Everything became foggy before me. I could barely keep my eye open.

‘Use your goddamn Essence!’ Eva’s screams finally reached me.

In one last effort to get myself out, I focused on the Sebyan’s energy. I saw Lemien’s links to his body. There was a higher concentration of energy in the undead’s arms, possibly to control the amount of pressure he applied around my throat.

With every last ounce of willpower I had, I concentrated my Essence around my arms. I brought them down on the Sebyan’s elbows and heard them crack. A large amount of Lemien’s energy got out of the pore through which the undead’s bones protruded. I fell to my knees, wheezing. Eli came running toward me, and started pulling me away.

“No,” I said in between coughs and wheezes. “Grab that chain, I can crawl away.”

Eli’s frustrated look didn’t convince me to accept his help though. “Grab the fucking thing and let’s go!” I shouted.

I crawled away, on all fours, as Eli obeyed. By the time I reached the dining room, fire had engulfed the kitchen. Eli pulled me away from the burning room and the toxic smoke. We were both coughing by then, but we got rid of that giant monster.

“You had to go and complicate things for us!” Eli reprimanded. He was smiling though.

“I didn’t think my punch would send that undead bitch flying,” I said. “Lucky we could burn that giant motherfucker.”

“What now?” Eli asked. “We’re trapped here.”

“Not necessarily,” I replied. “There has to be a door here that leads outside.”

“YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!” Lemien’s voice boomed in the tower. “I’LL FIND YOU! MARK MY WORDS, I WILL FIND YOU!”

“Good luck with that,” I mumbled. “Let’s go,” I told Eli. “There’s no guarantee this tower will hold once the fire spreads.”

The fire in the kitchen provided us with enough light to spot the other door. Eli handed me the hot golden chain and I put it back in my bag. We ran for the door and out into a crumbling corridor. There was a metallic gate at the other side.

As I suspected, the room we were in was meant for prisoners. Rats scuttled away from us, between the rusty bars that miraculously survived the years of decay. The walls around it were all old, crumbling. Some bricks were missing here and there.

“Come on,” I told Eli. “We can’t stay here. Lemien will send his goonies after us.”

We ran for the metallic gate and squeezed past a fissure at one of the walls. By the time we crossed to the other side, we heard the scuttling of feet, getting louder as we advanced. There were numerous cells around us. Most of them were in no condition to be used to hold prisoners. They held corpses though, smelly, rotten, buzzing with flies and swarmed by rats.

“They’ll be here any second,” Eli said. “We won’t have time to escape.”

“Then we blend in,” I said.

Eli looked at me, horrified. “Oh hell no!” he said. “I’ve done it once with you Stalwart, that’s more than enough.”

“What other choice do we have?” I retorted. “We don’t know how many there are. Let’s just hide and assess our chances of success.”

“Why does it always have to be this way?” Eli moaned.

One more person was complaining about the misfortune they meet in my company. They were probably right, but I didn’t have the time or the energy to think about it. I urged my skinny friend to hide in a cell, behind a pile or rotten corpses. He complied reluctantly.

We hid behind the pile as the sound of footsteps got louder. More than two dozen undead reached our position. They looked around for us. They didn’t have the ability to sense Essence in others, I considered that a small win. I was perhaps lucky, after all.

“OFELIA!” I heard the necromancer roar. “FIND THEM FOR ME!”

I spoke too soon…