With the necromancers retreating, Lowe and the company increased their rate of ascent and were now beginning to exert themselves. Fortunately Order soldiers were trained for these kinds of circumstances. The sprint up the steps wouldn’t wind them so badly as to make them useless in the coming fight at the top of the Spire Keep.

But the organized retreat of their enemy could mean only one thing. They’re pulling back for a concentrated defense to stall for time!

“Faster!” he called. “Faster! We have to catch the Lord Summoner before he escapes!”

“Be careful!” Cuwin called from behind. It only took one good curse to kill a Knight of the Purging Flame, and Cuwin’s invocations of warding were not perfect—no Banisher’s were.

Several levels higher, they were near the top of the Spire Keep. Lowe could tell because he could see through what used to be windows, but now were only crumbling breaches within the outer wall. Having no need for them, the protective mists were no longer with them and the Knight Captain could see the ground from the level they were at and was able to make an accurate prediction. That, and the fact that necromancers began hurling curses again.

Lowe deflected a curse, dodged another. A third was dispelled by the protective warding behind him provided by Cuwin, who was babbling supplications so fast Lowe couldn’t understand any of the words despite that Knights were versed in rudimentary scriptures that could be called upon for various purposes.

“Shield wall!” Lowe called.

The men-at-arms formed up, creating a neat line of shields along the steps, protecting the company from flanking attacks. Nivin pointed forward with his long arm, his sword thrust forward. “Lord Lowe! Zombies!”

Lowe turned as a packed wall of corpses ambled down the steps. Some of them tripped and were trampled by the others as they moved toward them in an inexorable descent. “Knights, to the front!”

Lowe pushed forward, shoulder to shoulder with twenty other Knights, their Banishers behind while the archers loosed shafts at the necromancers across the hollow.

Lowe struck outward with his sword in overhead strikes, felling zombies.

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One zombie down! Two zombies down!

Thee!

Four!

Five!

He pulled his sword back, stabbed outward to get at a zombie not quite close enough for an overhead strike, and his blade pierced its head, but the corpse fell into the blade which carried the zombie like a log toward him, its arms and hands thrashing.

Then a blade came in over Lowe’s shoulder, splitting the zombie’s head in half and allowing him to bring his sword back. He pushed the corpse away from him, but by now there were three or four other dead bodies behind it, pressing it forward.

Cuwin’s babbling abruptly stopped and took on a different intonation—a more aggressive intonation and Lowe’s sword subsequently began to glow red, and then white at its center, though his hilt remained unphased by the favoring magic.

The troublesome zombies pressed forward. Lowe struck them with his sword, and they burst into flames and fell motionless as a chain reaction began to spread among them, the evils that kept their trapped spirits within and in a state of agitated unrest and obeisance destroyed.

Lowe moved to the front of the group, his sword maintained by Cuwin’s invocations, and carved through the zombies by the dozen as they burst into flames around him and among him.

The Knight Captain massacred his way through the pack and was instantly forced to concentrate on a dozen necromancers who began to fling curses at him with their aggressive, choppy vocalizations of pagan rites.

He lurched back, deflected a curse as another hit a zombie still writhing toward the company behind him. His sword’s glow dimmed, and then was gone as Cuwin began his hasty invocations of warding just as three other curses came hurtling at him and were dispelled with explosions of yellow light and misted scatterings of left over magic that had lost its zeal.

Five men-at-arms were brought to the front of the company to take the brunt of the attack as Lowe and the other Knights coalesced behind them with their Banishers. The attack was going well, but still too slowly.

A shaft whistled past Lowe’s ear and he felt the disturbance of air ruffle his hair. He didn’t care. Didn’t so much as flinch.

The Lord Summoner is going to escape!

He couldn’t let that happen. They needed to charge their enemy with overwhelming force—shock them into submission before it was too late!

He turned to Nivin. “We need to press the attack!” The young man nodded. “Inform the archers that half of them are to continue providing ranged support, while the other half are to put away their bows and come to the front with their melee weapons!”

As Nivin turned to do as ordered, Lowe grabbed the broad man by the shoulder. “And you, stay behind the archers to protect their flank. Take your Banisher.”

Nivin flinched. “But I want to be on the front, with you!”

Not going to happen. “No!”

“But lord Lowe—“

“I said no, son!” Lowe bared his teeth. “Those are my orders! Now carry them out!”

Grudgingly, the tall blonde youth turned, a visible air of frustration in his movements as he marched away to carry out Lowe’s order.

This attack is going to cost a lot of lives, and I don’t want to see you dead, boy.