XI

The time it takes for a zombie to crawl out of a sarcophagus made the monsters inconsequential on a singular level. But when twenty of them awoke to come forth, that time it took seemed like a mere moment before extreme danger became clear and present.

And now the chamber was filled with snarling zombies. The mage turned and hurled a fireball at Yoreno. He jumped, rolled and found his footing again, sand kicking up everywhere as the heat from the flash touched him but otherwise didn’t wound Yoreno.

As soon as he was on his feet he was slashing the heads off of zombies to keep them at bay. Dantera screamed, ran past Yoreno, but he was too preoccupied to see what she was doing as he arced his blade through the implacable onslaught of oncoming bodies.

A single zombie was rarely dangerous. Twenty of them was another matter. Yoreno arched his blade around as he pirouetted on his heel, slashing the legs out from under half a dozen zombies. Their ancient skeletons were more brittle than dried sticks.

Dantera let out a battle cry, grunting and screamed something in Amalfi that Yoreno didn’t understand. He tried to get a glimpse of her as she fought the fell mage, but there were too many zombies. If he allowed his attention to wander, these undead monsters would be clawing over him in a matter of one or two heartbeats.

Instead he continued carving out a path forward, his blade arcing back and forth, around and finally down as he sliced one zombie from shoulder to groin.

Then he burst through the mass on the other side of the room where there was more space to maneuver. Glancing toward Dantera he saw that his mentor deflected a magic spell of zigzagging lightning with her sword. The lightning cracked and sizzled as it deflected harmlessly away from her. She lunged in for the kill, but the mage parried her sword strike with a magically-conjured blade of red magic.

Yoreno lost sight of her as he clove a zombie in his path in two, the sounds of their splitting corpses like rotted wood. He continued thinning out the herd where there weren’t too many—where he had room to swing his blade.

Zombies were slow, and though they would target a living adventurer and amble toward him, if that adventurer continued moving, the zombie would never catch him, and so it was with this many as well. Every time Yoreno changed his course, the zombies had to readjust their heading and pursue while he cut down every one of them that came within sword reach of him.

There weren’t many zombies near the center of the room, where Dantera and the mage dueled each other for victory in this conflict. Yoreno sprinted for the stone slab table and jabbed his blade at the mage.

He turned just in time to deflect Yoreno’s deadly thurst with his magically-conjured sword. Due to his distraction, the mage was struck and cried out as Dantera nicked him in the shoulder with Ito Farralia. He jumped back, his black robes billowing with his efforts. He conjured something verbally and Dantara screamed.

“Yoreno! Look out!”

But it was too late. Something diaphanous and shimmering purple came into contact with him. He went flying, grunted as he landed on his back. Yoreno struggled against his bonds, his magic runes snapping as they conflicted with the magic that had incapacitated him.

He glanced left then right as zombies ambled toward him. “Dantera!”

She was occupied in a duel of blades as well as magic. One mistake, and either of them would fall. Despite Dantera’s lack of magical ability, she didn’t seem at a far disadvantage.

“Yoreno!” she called, flurrying her blade in half a dozen deadly strikes that forced the mage back. With the quick respite she tossed something, a bright light cracking though the room that momentarily blinded Yoreno.

Blinking, he recovered his visual fortitude as Dantera vaulted over the table toward him, the mage behind her shaking his head with his arm covering his eyes.

Yoreno’s eyes widened when she struck him several times, but her blade didn’t pierce his flesh. She had done something he didn’t understand. The magic holding him down shuttered and dissipated into nothingness.

As Yoreno got up, Dantera swiped at two zombies before turning around to deflect another magical attack by the mage. He howled incantations, his hands moving about as he slung cursed at her.

Yoreno broke left, cut a zombie in half and arced around toward the mage, his boots stamping heavily through the sand. The mage turned suddenly, hurling something new at Yoreno that looked like a pulsing red orb, but he jumped, slid in the sand and regained his running trajectory.

By now the mage was practically running backward as Dantera struck at him with her rapier dozens of times. He blocked most of them as he tried desperately to counter attack.

Yoreno could see the mage’s sudden panick as he turned to face Yoreno and screamed, his hands outstretched for a deadly hurl of magic when suddenly Ito Farralia came out the front of his neck.

The mage shuttered as blood spurted from his wound, his eyes moving about wildly. Dantera pulled Ito Faralia back toward herself and in an artful flurry of moves ended their duel. “You are finished, fell mage.”

The mage sunk to his knees, his hands around his neck before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell dead to the sand-strewn tiles.

The zombies surrounding them lost their forced will to rise and fell to the floor like puppets that lost their strings, their bodies nothing more than desiccated husks without life once more.

Yoreno breathed in deeply. His heart was pounding inside his chest so hard he felt he might retch.

“Are you all right?” Dantera asked.

He couldn’t find the words to answer her and so he nodded instead.

“There aren’t many of them left,” she said. “We should be able to capture a prisoner or two if we try.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you are all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said as he glanced about.

Dantera bent toward the mage’s corpse and unslung his leather satchel. Then she went to the apparatus atop the table and grasped the stone. It was no longer projecting a beam of magic down into the crack. Or had that been magic drawn into the crystal?

“Is that safe?”

“The stone,” she said as she put it in the satchel, “is full of dark energy. But it is safe to hold. For now.”

Yoreno nodded.

“Come,” she said. “We will capture prisoners and then go back to the ship.”

Just like that?

They had just gotten out of a serious scrape. Yoreno was covered in blood and bone dust, and Dantera was pressing onward.

It served to reveal that Yoreno was in fact a novice at combat against foes other than monsters. Dantera’s impressive abilities impressed Yoreno. He watched her, how her movements and her gait were, though hurried, utterly at ease.

“What are you looking at? Yoreno, we have to go.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just recovering from… from it all.”

“I know. But we must push on.”

He nodded. “I’m right behind you, Dantera.”