Stathis squeezed her knees, tightening her grip on Mavrosa, spurring the steed ahead, glad to be out on more open terrain than the endless-seeming forests, silent and dark, that they had been travelling through. Out here, the darkness seemed less oppressive – Hakara seemed to think that being further from the epicentre lessened the effect. Here, she could see further, although it was still dark enough that her vision cut off after a few hundred paces, everything fading into murkiness beyond that.

Mavrosa whickered, head pulling on the reins, as Stathis gave her a scritch between the ears. She looked to her side, where a patch of tall grass moved, hopefully hiding Parth or Semari.

Something moved, swiftly resolving itself into a running figure, more close behind, all armed. Stathis kicked her heels, spurring Mavrosa into movement and drawing her sword. The scene was turning into a messy scrum, dust getting kicked up and further obscuring her vision as she rode forward, trying to see who was fighting. As she rode forward, she made sunlight flash from her blade, using it to see further into the darkness.

Half the figures were moving with pitiless and steady movements, seemingly unaffected by the blows of those fighting them. No-one was wearing any livery or uniform that Stathis could see, although what faces were on display looked drawn and tired. When she got closer, she could see that those moving slowly and steadily were undead, their skin cracked and leathery, limbs bound about with metal bands.

One of the people attacked one, stabbing it repeatedly with a sword, the blade bouncing off hard bone, a rune flaring into life to deflect the attack. Several arrows shot past Stathis, one shattering the skull of a skeleton, another embedding itself into a ribcage, and then Stathis was amongst them. From her height atop Mavrosa, she hammered blows down, letting the sunlight blaze from her sword with every attack, empowering her attacks as she sliced through enchanted bone, feeling it fail to resist the attack and splintering and breaking.

She attacked again, this time slicing an arm off, Semari catapulting herself into the middle of the combat, grabbing an arm and tearing it off a skeleton. While Semari kept them busy, Stathis reached to her hip and grabbed a horn, raising it to her lips and blowing.

The sound blasted out, as one of the skeletons turned towards Stathis. Red light burned inside its eye sockets, jaw chattering before Stathis shattered it with another attack, trying to get her feet untangled from the reins as the things clustered around, trying to drag Mavrosa down. She blew into the horn again, hearing an answering sound come back. She wasn’t even that far from the main force, but having sightlines limited to a few hundred paces made any sort of communications all-but impossible!

Metal chimed as she blocked a blow, grunting with effort to keep her balance, the thing a lot stronger than it looked.

‘Everyone! Get back, support is close!’

Those fighting the undead moved to obey – they were all armed, although with a motley array of weapons, ranging from well-maintained swords and maces to simple clubs and sharpened metal spikes. They were all over the place in terms of age and gender as well – an old woman ran past Stathis, her movements slow with weariness, Stathis stepping in the way to take a hit, feeling it impact onto her armour, but taking the change to attack backwards. The creatures were powerful but slow, not adapting well to being attacked back, and her sword could cleave through their bones. She sliced through the ribcage of one, her blade sticking on some tangle of metal. She pulled it back, metal screeching against metal, before Semari grabbed a skeletal arm and flipped them around, tossing them through the air.

The thing inside of them glowed with a sudden red flash, before exploding, sending out an explosion of bony shrapnel. Stathis turned, Semari jumping behind her so that the fragments pinged off her armour. Where was the main force? Working through this many would take ages!

‘Get clear! Keep going that way, there’s people that can help you! Just get away from here!’

She heard the bellow of a horn, close now. She needed to get some cavalry, something that could respond faster, but the logistics were a nightmare, even if they could find enough horses and those able to ride them. Mavrosa kicked out at a skeleton before starting to withdraw, her flank bleeding shadow-substance from an attack. Most of the skeletons ignored her, focusing on Stathis and Semari.

Their attacks were too slow to hit Semari, as she ducked and wove around their strikes, before hammering away with her own attacks, ripping away limbs. That wasn’t enough to stop them though, the damn things continually advancing. Another attack hit Stathis, the force rattling through her armour, probably bruising her beneath. Her answering strike smashed through bones, but this time she avoided the ribcage directly, instead cutting through the top of the spine, sending a skull flying backwards through the air. She brought her sword around in a wide sweep, cutting through an arm, the bone and the weapon it had been holding hitting the ground. The rest of the body started to collapse, bones tumbling into a rough heap.

And then she felt the ground start to shake, and heard shouting.

‘This way! Form up on me!’

More and more of the people ran past, but soldiers started to run in from the other direction, shields in hand. They formed up into a line, heavy swords rising up to swing down at bone. The high, tough wood was enough to resist attacks, and a number of them were enchanted, while the blades were heavy enough to shattered even enchanted bones, at the cost of being impractical for regular combat.

Some of the skeletons tried to scrabble and strike at the shield-wall, but blades chopped down, cutting them down before they could complete their attacks. Those that weren’t destroyed could only scrabble on their ground, unable to move themselves enough to launch another attack. ‘Hold the line, light infantry, advance with me!’

There were still more people streaming past – was it an entire village that had been forced to move? Stathis yelled encouragement at them, although they probably weren’t able to hear her.

More lightly-armoured soldiers emerged from behind the shield-line, a mixture of elves, Sethans and a lot of what Stathis suspected had once been bandits. But they moved fast, forming into small groups, each focusing on a single enemy and trying to bring them down, using ropes and nets to entangle them. Even if they couldn’t defeat their foes, at least they could stop them from being as much of a problem!

Stathis ran forward, swinging at a few more of the skeletons as she passed, lopping off limbs and trying to make them easier for others to defeat. As she jumped over a large rock, she saw a group of people in front of her – two adults, armed only with rusty-looking swords, trying to fend off a trio of skeletons.

‘Get done!’

Fortunately, they heard her, both throwing themselves to the ground as she drew her arm back and threw her sword, the blade flying through the air, catching one of the skeletons in the shoulder. That knocked it off balance, giving Stathis long enough to reach, grabbing the hilt and then slicing it back out. Holy energy flared, lending her the strength to easily slice through enchanted bone. The first one tumbled to the floor, body sliced in half, and then she turned to the other two. She ignored their attacks, trusting in her own armour to take the blow, needing the time to hit them. The impacts stung, but she healed herself, then cut back – they didn’t even try to defend themselves, making them easy to hurt, at least given that she had a weapon capable of hurting them.

Another attack, a wide swinging sweep, put both of them down, and she spared a glance at those she had protected – two adults, three children, their eyes wide as they looked at them.

‘It’s not safe here, you need to get to the others! We have food and water, and you can rest.’

‘But, but… the Skyreaper!’

Stathis heard leathery creaking, a wind from above kicking up miniature duststorms all around her, a necrotic reek filling the air. Something flapped above her, and she caught a glimpse of something, flying over her.

‘Get to safety, I’ll deal with that!’

She jumped, her own wings bursting into light. Semari was already running towards her, launching into a jump, her arm outstretched, Stathis grabbing her.

‘Any idea what that thing is?’ She spun around, twisting her way onto Stathis’ back and holding tight.

‘Nope, but it’s going to be an arse to deal with. Let’s try and lure it down, maybe Parth can deal with it?’

She felt an eddy in their air, turning around as it flew above her – a long, serpentine body, ivory bones visible beneath rotted and flaked scales, held aloft by great flapping wings. Several large metal spikes had been driven into it, along the spine, the scales looking cracked and corroded around them, a rusty corruption sinking into the scales.

Stathis twisted her wings, dropping into a spiral, curling around it as the wings flapped, disrupting her own flight. Semari jumped off her, landing on the dragon, immediately running towards one of the spikes and punching it. It shook in place, but from how she shook her fist afterwards, it was tough and hard to shift.

She flew alongside it, hacking and slicing with her sword – the scales were as hard as metal, but many were only weakly attached, her strike cutting them off the body and making them tumble out of sight. When she could attack the body, she sliced through putrefying flesh, decaying blood splashing out, green and tainted.

The tail lashed at her, bony spines smacking against her armour and making her tumble in an uncontrolled spiral, before she recovered herself, stopping herself as she started to hurtle downwards. She saw Parth beneath her. ‘Try and bring it down!’

Parth looked upwards, then suddenly vanished from sight. Stathis flapped her wings, boosting herself upwards, twisting to avoid another tail-lash. As she flew upwards, she could see that Parth had reappeared on the back of the dragon, slicing into the spine with one of her swords, as Semari continued to try and wrestle the spike out, the thing coming up to her knees.

A huge head twisted around to snap at her, oversized fangs trying to bite her in half. She had to flutter awkwardly to thrust herself backwards, striking back to cut away a chunk of flesh, revealing bone beneath. A milky-white eye stared at her, before flicking away, suddenly out of reach.

For all it’s size, the thing moved damn fast, head and tail flicking around and forcing Stathis to evade them, unable to properly attack back. As she tumbled and twisted out of the way of another attack, she saw Parth and Semari, both hanging on, with Semari having dug her bare fingers through the scales and into the reeking flesh to secure her grip, while Parth was holding onto the hilt of her sword, stuck deep into the serpentine body.

Stathis let herself drop beneath another bite, before slashing at the belly of the thing, jinking aside as putrescent guts started to fall out – was this thing freshly-killed and then resurrected as an undead monster? Another slice sent more fragments of meat tumbling downwards, before she dropped out of the way of a wing, the air-currents making her tumble and turn, trying to get her own flightpath under control. She circled back around, getting above it, before dropping down, doing nothing to check her fall. A leathery wing was just beneath her, and she braked her fall just as she dropped past by it, giving her the chance to make several swift attack, her sword easily cutting through the thin membrane. She cut the largest hole she could before it swung, the stiff spines supporting it buffeting her and forcing her away.

It was spiralling now, having difficulty supporting itself in the air, Stathis fluttering in close and attacking the wing again. Beneath her, she could see the shield-line breaking apart, not wanting to get crushed, everyone trying to get a safe distance away.

‘Get clear! It’s coming down!’ Hopefully everyone could hear her – a few seconds later it slammed into the ground, sending up a torrent of dirt, Semari grabbing Parth and jumping off just before it hit, tumbling out of sight.

A thick bubble of darkness suddenly enclosed it’s head, as Janaxia’s platform moved forward, darts of lightning flickering from her hands. Small motes of darkness surrounded her head, and she flicked her wrist, sending two of them hurtling into the darkness. The thing was writhing and twisting, the edge of the head emerging from the darkness for a moment, now mostly flensed of flesh, bare bone showing.

Stathis plummeted into the darkness, bringing her sword in front of her. As she crossed the boundary, the bitter, burning cold assaulted her, but a moment later there was the shock of impact, her blade embedding itself deep into bone. She thrust again, then twisted the blade, feeling bone break and shattered, a segment beneath her exploding into dust. She placed her feet securely against the head, tensing her knees and using their power to propel herself upwards, yanking the sword back out, propelling herself back out of the darkness.

As she flapped her wings to hold herself in place, the sphere of darkness faded away, the draconic form collapsing downwards, no longer moving. Janaxia suddenly blinked out of sight, her disk vanishing, and then she reappeared next to the creature’s head, reaching out and touching it. The last of her motes shot forward, puncturing through the skull, making it collapse in on itself.

Stathis landed next to her, watching as she shielded her face from the rush of air, using magic to clean dust and grit from her clothing.

‘Hmm, this is rather larger than anything we’ve seen, isn’t it? And don’t worry, the survivors are being seen to already. They certainly seem thankful for a meal.’ She raised a hand, methodically using her blasts to continue obliterating the body, blasting away a chunk from the flank, unleashing a thick flow of vile blood and decaying organs, which fortunately flowed downhill. ‘Ah, as I suspected. That is rather worrying, is it not?’

Where the spikes had been driven into the spine, they had continued through into the body – countless smaller spikes had grown outwards, piercing more of the body from the inside, penetrating through internal organs. A wind blew, cold and bitter, and they started to melt away, fading into black dust, traces of it moving against the wind and flowing towards Janaxia. Her hair shone with a bright glow, her tattoo a stark black, but eerily motionless.

‘Still, we managed to defeat it, which is certainly an impressive achievement. Now we just have to hope that our foes don’t have too many of them.’

‘That’s true. Uh, you feeling OK?’

‘As well as might be expected, given the circumstances. I am certainly hoping that we get someone with plumbing sooner rather than later. There is only so much of this I can take, although I suppose I have it better than many others.’

Stathis looked at Janaxia’s tattoo – a deep, stark black, like a slice of night cut into her skin, but it didn’t move or respond to her look.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to.’ She blinked out of sight again, vanishing in a flare of shadows.

‘Well, that was… like, not as weird as I expected. And we managed to take the big thing out, so that’s a win, right? And Hakara’s probably going to have her team pull out all the teeth and claws for stuff. More, like, special weapons and things?’

‘Yeah, seems likely. Parth, you OK?’

‘I endure. Another foe destroyed.’ She wiped her sword carefully clean before sheathing it. ‘The corruption cleansed. To a degree.’

‘Yeah, I don’t want to know if there’s more like this around!’

Without the spikes supporting it, the whole body was starting to wither and fade, no longer able to support itself, bones falling apart, skin falling into sad and saggy piles.

‘Well, I need to go see if those refugees have anything useful to say.’ Before the energy of her wings faded, Stathis launched herself into the air, heading back towards the main force – it stretched out beneath her, several columns of troops, supporting personnel and people that had nowhere else to go, wagons dragging behind, pulled by horses. At the front were the professional soldiers, walking in combat formation, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Looser groups of skirmishers and irregular troops were behind and to the sides of the soldiers, still managing to make a good pace. And in the centre of it all, the central command, a large blue-roofed wagon, drawn by indefatigable horses of enchanted stone that Hakara had found amongst the hoard, easily able to pull the large platform.

Stathis sighed, enjoying the momentary freedom of flying, before dropping back down, aiming for the hole at the top of the tent, hoping this wouldn’t take too long.