Careful though they had chosen to be, the trio had made a mistake. The true guards of the tomb were not the highly visible undead soldiers, but the haunting specters that even now rose up from the floor and floated out of nearby coffins or urns.

The enchantments on Blackthorne’s weapons quickly ran out. He did manage to get enough space to place a hastily crafted enchantment on a greatsword the he snatched up, but after he tossed it to Sonja it only lasted for a few swings. They had slain seven of the warrior ghosts, but there were many more of them in line blocking the way out. Even more rose up from behind them.

“Sonja, attack the zombies as best you can. We’ll finish up here,” ordered Blackthorne.

He dropped his blades then ran toward the dozen or so unquiet undead wailing before him. A gout of flame washed by him on the left, blasting through five of the ghosts. Unfortunately, though it was dragon flame, it was not pure magical power. It did singe the ghosts, but it did not defeat them in one go.

Sonja had also turned and acted on his instruction without question. She no longer had enchanted weapons, but she was a valkyrie. Her body itself was a weapon against the undead given the divine blood that coursed through her veins.

The Valkyrie ran forward and swerved expertly around a stab leveled by the nearest zombie. Her arm shot out and she clotheslined the rotting critter without stopping. A soft white light flashed where she struck the beast, evidence that she had traded an insignificant amount of her life force to injure the creature. They were stronger, faster, smarter than the zombies on the surface. Still, they were not capable of being her enemy in a one on one fight.

She did not even bother to see if she had truly felled the beast. Instead, she immediately spun to her left to deflect the blade of a zombie that had come within striking distance with its sword. The monster was knocked back easily. Briefly stunned, it was unable to block the warrior-maiden when she swept its legs from beneath it, then punched it in the skull right after it hit the ground. Two flashes of light occurred in rapid succession when first her foot then her fist connect. Its skull pressed inward due to the holy power in her blow, and the crated left in its forehead began to smoke.

The unquiet dead, as that was there official name from as far as Blackthorne could tell, fell quickly before the onslaught of his imperious magic flames. They had no real power to attack unless they touched him. Against a normal opponent they would have indiscriminately drained his vitality while that poor bastard had futilely swung a physical blade.

He shifted into shadow form, but quickly shifted back the moment one of the spectral creatures touched his beautiful darkness. The very life was sucked out of him! It was even worse than when they touched him in human form. His life force dropped rapidly as he had to keep his magical flames going almost non-stop.

Branwen fared little better. Her only useful attacks involved her flames, and they were not entirely magical. She acquitted herself well, but against opponents whom she could barely injure despite her level advantage it was more of a game of cat and mouse than an open battle.

The ghosts floated slowly toward Blackthorne after he ceased his barrage of flames. However, they were just as slow as their zombie compatriots. It gave him time to think. There had to be a better way to deal with this situation. Drawing their life force was out of the question. The one time that he tried that, he had nearly fainted after the zombie drained him instead.

An icy sensation ran along his back for a moment and weakness crept into his body. Instinctively, he spun around in a whirling circle, then unleashed Imperious Jolt!

The ghosts had no solid substance. His magic lit it up like a fireworks display. Strangely, the look of surprise on its spectral face reminded him of Dallen.

His eyes lit-up. There was a perfect way for him to face off against weak incorporeal undead. All he needed to do was get enough distance to chance. Though, he would only be able to do it once given how badly it stressed his body and drained his spirit.

Blackthorne blasted the ghost with lightning once more to finish it off, then trotted toward the center of the room. “One shot at this…”

The power he sought came to him, but it was sluggish. It was as though he were trying to grasp water with his fingers. Clearly, he was not truly ready to use it more than once per day, but this was an emergency!

Sonja dodged a hard slash from a zombie then kicked its blade aside and span in an arc of her own. She completely turned around and swung her fist like a hammer. Brilliant white light flared as her fist blasted through the zombie’s neck and easily tore its head from its decayed body.

She stepped back sluggishly. Sweat poured down her face to mix with a trickle of blood that flowed form her nose. The nature of her blood was something innate to her people, but it was rarely used due to the price that needed to be paid. More than life force, the energy produced slowly damaged the body. Mortal flesh was not entirely capable of handling the power of a god, even if that flesh had a fraction of that divinity as part of its nature.

Exhausted, she was forced to retreat as several more of the undead warriors stepped out of their coffins. Most were open now, their occupants having entered the battlefield. Despite the power disparity, their numbers had proven to be quite problematic just as they had feared. It was no wonder that people rarely hunted in the tomb. The loot would be scarcely better than the surface of the graveyard, but the danger was far greater.

Branwen leapt back and unleashed a gout of flame that finished off several of her ghostly opponents, but more rose to take their place. She was driven back little by little. Soon, she joined Blackthorne and Sonja as she was back to the center of the room.

“Master?” asked Sonja.

He did not respond, so she repeated herself, “Master?”

Suddenly, his blazing red eyes snapped open. His voice deepened considerably as he intoned a familiar chant.

~ Death’s embrace need not falter. Abominations of the wasteland; return to thy eternal reward. ~

Everyone undead creature in the room immediately stopped moving forward upon hearing those words. He did not care that something odd had happened. He wanted to end this, and so he stretched forth his hand. “Dark Judgment!”

He had chosen a central spot to target that would be able to include many of the ghosts. At the very least, if they could clear enough of them out of the way they would be able to make a run for it.

Just as before, lightning skittered along his flesh and the red light blazing in his eyes intensified. Unlike before, something else entirely happened. When he called upon this ability to send Dallen to the abyss as subtle pulse of energy had washed through the area, one that allowed people to easily realize that he had used a magical ability, but it produced no other effect.

This time, however, that gentle pulse caused a sudden and fierce cacophony of terrified screeches. Ghost and zombie alike screamed. Their formerly impassive faces were now filled with terror. Zombies stumbled back and fell to the ground. Ghosts turned in place and tried to float away even as they wailed and screamed in fear.

It was too late. The fires of judgment had already risen. A circle of flame roared to life and once again burned a hole in the world. Hapless ghosts caught within the circle of flames screamed desperately and even threw themselves against the flames.

A familiar symbol appeared and from that symbol rose jet black chains. Those chains tore into the ghosts, but unlike the incident with Dallen the ghosts were immediately dragged screaming down into the dark.

Over twenty of the spectral beasts were sent wailing into the abyss. Once the lightshow ended and the world returned to normal, Blackthorne slumped forward. Exhaustion was not the right word for what he felt in that moment. He was empty, forlorn. There was a part of him missing that he could not quite comprehend.

The shrieks and cries of the dead filled his senses. He barely noticed it when Sonja called out to him, but he saw how the zombies clawed at the walls as though they desperately wished to escape. He also saw that the ghosts banished to the abyss had left behind several little crystalline spheres that seemed strangely familiar.