I wasn’t happy about what was going on. I just wanted to get to Cloudia, and now, thanks to Kasidy walking into the lair, we had a lich sending his armies after us. Undead weren’t the worst things for us to face, but they would prove to be a problem. The last time I had a fight with them, they were mostly uncontrolled. I also only had Blink, which let me not have to worry about people knowing what I could and couldn’t do.

I glanced over at Kasidy. If it were just her, I would try to take control of the zombies and fight my way out. If Renfry weren’t here, I would use Lay-to-Rest and drop them. I didn’t know what that spell would do to him. Which also meant that I didn’t know how my thickets would affect him. So he might never be able to go to the waterfall.

I reached my mind out to Blink. “Sweetie, they appear to be leveled zombies, and there should be a lich close by. From my understanding, the guy has been around for a long time, so he is likely high-level. Be careful.”

Blink thought back to me, showing her head away from the tower. “Hunt lich. Chaos guides.”

I shook my head and looked over at Kasidy. “Kas, Blink is heading for the lich. Are we good?”

Kasidy tightened her mouth a little and then coldly said. “Yes, my lord.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t have time for these reactions. The merchants and guards, I didn’t mind a lower reaction. They didn’t have any other context for things to come from, but Kasidy had been growing closer and then got hit with the negatives. So the newbies were treating me with fear, and she was treating me with hurt.

I looked across everyone in the room. “So we will deal with the close ones, and then you can head out. I am pretty sure that the lich is coming for me. So once you are clear, you should be good. At least…”

I felt my connection to my mounted zombie snap. It wasn’t like when I released them, or they died. No, this was a slight painful yanking away. Kind of like pulling one hair out; not really painful but noticeable.

I closed my eyes and reached back out but couldn’t find him. I nodded slowly and muttered, “Well, that changes things.”

I looked and pointed at Travis. “Are you in charge of the guards?”

He shook his head and pointed to the only dwarf in the room. “No sire, I mean sir, Dalonmut is.”

There was no denying that he was a dwarf. If earth hadn’t taught me anything right about this place, it got him right. The dude was all of four feet tall with a three-foot braided beard. His arms were the same thickness as his legs, and both made me look like a twig. He was built like a mini fridge and had the gruffness of sandpaper.

Dalonmut didn’t wave or anything at me when he was pointed out. I just got a glare that told me everything he needed to say. I messed up his game, and he wasn’t happy. I got it. They were after some extra loot, but the glare he gave me was hard.

I took a deep breath and tried to settle everything in my mind. We had some fighters here, but there were more of the orc zombies than we had fighters. Also, our enemies were being controlled by someone way more powerful than us. He had defended his lands several times over a long period of time, which meant that he had a better grasp on things than me.

My forces weren’t really mine at all. I had Blink, and I hoped Renfry as damage dealers and Kasidy could aid some from the background. Then I had the eight guards, who, if things went right, would be heading out away from us.

I asked. “Evie, how much time would you need to get your people out of here and down a safe distance?”

She rubbed her hands together and then said. “It will take about three minutes to hook up the wagons. That is if everything goes right. Then to get away from here another ten if no one is chasing, and then we should have a good chance of staying away from them. That is if the lich is after you and not just looking for more bodies.”

I looked across the room at the angry dwarf. “Dalonmut, do you have any ideas on how to get out of this mess?”

He turned towards me and slowly made his way over. Even though I was a good two feet taller than him, I felt he was looking down on me. Then when he got close enough to just talk, I knew how weak I was. He just oozed confidence, power, and disdain towards me.

When Dalonmut stopped walking, he gave a heavy sigh. “My vote is we throw you out the door and see if the lich leaves us be.”

I laughed a moment until I realized that Dalonmut wasn’t. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You want to try to throw me out there after I saved you?”

He didn’t smile or anything; he just nodded his head. “You got us in this mess. Either by clearing the lair or whatever you did to make the lich want you.”

I shook my head. “I’m not the one that picked a fight with the lich and ran to a lair!”

The intimidation factor of the dwarf went up when his hand fell to the knife on his belt. He gave a little growl and took a step toward me. Evie stepped between us and shot him a look equal to what he had been giving me. He turned his back and stormed away to the other side of the room.

Evie sighed. “Your lordship, please forgive him. He is great with my guards but a little gruff around nobles. You know how the dwarves are about the rulers above the ground.”

I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. However, that didn’t keep me from nodding my head like I knew. She said it like everyone knew that the dwarves reacted poorly to human nobles.

As I nodded my head to Evie, I started to pace. “Renfry, we need to talk for a few moments alone. Kasidy, please keep an eye on our guests. We need to figure out how to get out of this mess. Then we need to talk.”

I could tell she was still mad, but she nodded to me and sat down on the steps. Renfry and I walked past her and upstairs. I needed to find out safely how undead he was. Revenants in fiction were undead but also alive somehow. So I needed to make sure that he wasn’t someone who could be turned on me by the lich. I also needed to test lay-to-rest on him.

We headed right to his room, not saying anything until we were in and the door was closed. “Renfry, I know that you are a revenant and that you were a Haunting. We are fighting a lich out there. Do you know if you can be claimed by a necromancer?”

He shook his head. “I only know what my status tells me.”

“Does it give you more detail?”

He nodded. “Yes, my lord, but it is confusing. Here let me share it with you.”

Revenant

You are not living and not dead. You are the living undead. Related to lichs but not self-reanimation and able to level, you are a second chance formed by chance and desire.

I ran my hand over my beard. “Yeah, your right. It is kind of confusing the living undead. I have an area effect spell that might hurt you or not affect you at all. I also have a few necromancy spells. One of them is claim undead… I want to try that one on you first. If it doesn’t work, then I want to hit you with Lay-to-rest. Assuming neither one hurts you, then I have ways of fighting them.”

Renfry tried to look calm, but I could tell he was worried a bit. Then he said. “Please try to claim me. I need to know if I am my own person or not.”

I nodded and reached out with Claim Undead. I smiled as I felt the spell wash over him, not finding anything to hook into. As the spell ended, I saw the tension that he had been holding flow out.

“Well, that’s one spell. I am going to cast Lay-to-Rest as an area effect and see what it does to you.”

Renfry nodded and got tense again. I understood. I basically said I am going to see if I am attacking you. It might kill you, but we need to find out. I spun the spell up, and as it landed on the bed, Renfry winced. The light from the spell washed over him, and he grabbed his side.

Through his gritted teeth, he said. “It seems to be causing damage over time to me and increased pain. It is only 1 point of damage per second. However, it feels like someone is trying to pull me out of my body.”

We stepped to the other side of the room where the small casting didn’t reach. As soon as he was out of the affected area, he stood back up. Renfry pulled on his equipment a bit and then shuttered.

He bowed his head slightly. “That was disturbing, my lord, to say the least.”

“Yeah, it seems that you have some protections from being an undead in that I can’t claim you. However, you have some of the weaknesses as well. So I will need to keep you away from some of my holdings. But that doesn’t matter right now.”

As we headed to the door, I asked. “Have you fought zombie’s before?”

He shook his head. “Yes, in the dungeons. I know the basics of removing limbs so that they slow down, and then you either completely destroy them, or you must lay them to rest.”

“Yeah, let's head back down and see what we can do to get out of here. I am not liking the odds we have right now. But at least they aren’t attacking the front door.”

“I agree it is nice they aren’t, but I also don’t like the odds. Lichs tend not to form until they are higher leveled. That doesn’t mean they won’t sometimes; it just means, for the most part, they have plenty of power on their own.”

We came down to an argument. Kasidy was standing on the steps, and Evie and Dalonmut were whisper yelling. We couldn’t make out what was being said until we were almost at the bottom.

Dalonmut said. “A bard! What good are you in a fight like this? We are all going to die if we don’t give the boy what he wants!”

I cleared my throat and asked. “Which boy and what does he want?”

Dalonmut stared up at me and spat. “The Boy Lich! He wants this lair always has but has never been able to get in until now. We should give it to him along with you, as I am sure he wants your head as well!”

Evie hit Dalonmut on the back of his head. “Stop it! We aren’t even going to talk about giving up his lordship to the lich.”

I finished coming down the stairs and looked at the group. “How many of you are fighters?”

The guards raised their hands, and then two of the drivers did as well. “Not just the class! How many of you have the skills to fight the zombies out there?”

Two more raised their hands. One was a wagon driver, and the other looked like a young man of about twenty. Those around him looked at him like they didn’t understand him. Then he stepped forward and gave a clumsy bow.

He came up and said. “My lord, if I may call you that. I might be of some assistance, my father was a war mage, and I got a little bit of his power.”

Dalonmut spat again. “Go sit down, child. We don’t need your party tricks out there. We need steel and men. Not your broken magic!”

The young man’s shoulders sagged a little as he took the tongue-lashing from the dwarf. I rolled my eyes and asked. “What’s your name?”

The young man gulped. “Irwin, your lordship.”

“Okay Irwin, what did you mean your magic, and why doe Dalonmut say it’s broken?”

Irwin smiled. “My father was a war mage.”

Dalonmut grumped, “And a drunk.”

Irwin’s face turned red. “And a drunk… I only have wide spells that can’t tell if you are on my side or not. I have no other magic, but with the number of targets out there, you need me.”

Evie patted Irwin on the back. “He also has to channel the spells, and the boy has no control over how much mana he uses. So he gets one shot, and then he is done. That’s more the reason he is broken.”

I smiled at Irwin. “What type of range do you have with your spells?”

“Umm, well, Ring of Fire will turn everything around me out 50 feet into a blaze. Ice storm will create a storm that is around 200 feet across, with me at the center. Chain lightning can hit out the first jump at 75 feet. I don’t know how far it will go because it jumps from one target to the next, and by the time it is done, I am normally on the ground.”

“So we can just open the door and let you fire off your lighting out the front door and then slam it shut.”

Dalonmut laughed. “No, he’s broken. We will get hit before it gets to them as it will go to his closest target that he can see.”

“Upstairs it is. We will go to the roof, let him fire it off, and then we can get out there and go to work, getting you to break out.”

Evie rubbed her face. “That could work, but then he will be passed out up there while we are down here trying to get out.”

I looked over at Irwin and asked. “How many of those zombies do you think you could take out in one go?”

He looked down at his feet for a moment and then looked up at me. He stood up as straight as he could and said. “I could drop them all, but I wouldn’t be able to move for a few days.”

Dalonmut shook his head and turned away, and muttered. “I’ll be no part in him burning his health. His magic might be broken and his dad worthless, but there’s no reason for him to do this.”

Renfry pointed to the map. “We might need to make a plan soon. It appears that the reason they were waiting was for the door breaker.”

* * *