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One of the men-at-arms carrying his large shield fell when a curse caromed off the step in front of him. His flesh blackened and he writhed in agony. Lowe bent beside him and picked up the soldiers shield before stabbing him in the chest with a one-handed thrust. The pain brought on by a death curse of this variety was agonizing, and sometimes lasted for days. There was no cure.

Killing them is a mercy.

Holding the shield steadfast in his left arm, Lowe lead the company up the last few steps where nearly two-dozen necromancers and some hast zombies were waiting. “Prepare to charge!”

An excited roar of soldiers intoxicated with the adrenaline of battle went up from their lines, which visibly agitated the necromancers.

Lowe held up his shield beside the men-at-arms, incessant babblings of invocations, warding’s, and curses filling the chamber like a drowning torrent of an inescapable, unstoppable whirlwind.

“Ready!”

Another battle cry went up, but instead of sounding the charge, Lowe paused involuntarily as his eyes flicked to the center of the chamber to the far west of the last contingent of necromancers defending their leader.

The Lord Summoner was in the center of the overlook, and in his hands he was fashioning an orb of pure black magic as a dozen acolytes bowed in observance to some filthy pagan rite of sacrifice, each one of them with their live sacrifice bound and helpless in front of them, their necks exposed.

Lowe flinched as the unmistakable heavy, breathy groans of hast zombies neared. How he heard them through the tumult, he couldn’t say, but they jumped past the front line, avoiding blades and maces. Shafts of arrows pierced their thin, muscular builds as they fell through the air, snarling with excess saliva and disease on their fetid teeth.

The hast zombies crashed into the men somewhere behind Lowe. There was no time to deal with them, and he raised his sword. “Ready to charge!”

“CHARGE!”

Lowe pushed forward, ignoring the carnage the hast zombies wrought behind the immediate front line and barreled directly into the necromancers.

They stumbled, looked at Lowe with a mixture of confusion, fear, and utter loathing and cursed. Lowe raised his shield and the magic caromed off the sigil-laden metal.

Lowe kicked the filthy impurity out the window behind him, where he dropped like a stone tossed into a river. But Lowe didn’t watch him fall—as much as he’d have liked to—and turned around and lunged at another necromancer hurling curses at his Order fellows.

He thrust his sword through the man’s back and the necromancer cried out in pain and sheer shock as he looked down at the blade protruding through his body.

Then the Knight Captain kicked the necromancer in the back with a thrust of his boot, sending the heathen face-first in front of a stampede of boots coming up the front steps and into the overlook.

Lowe and the rest of the company formed up under the whirling curses coming from the Lord Summoner’s dozen acolytes, their sacrificial offerings lying dead and bloody at their feet. “Archers!”

Shafts flitted past, but were ineffectual at passing through the shimmering barrier enshrouding the black-clad acolytes and their master.

Lowe pushed forward, curses jolting his shield as he neared the barrier. He thrust with his sword, but the blade stopped as if he’d tried to thrust the weapon through a block of solid hardwood.

How in the hells are we going to get through this barrier? As a veteran Knight Captain with experience facing all manner of dark magic, he’d never seen a protective warding this powerful before.

“Shield wall!”

Lowe looked past his shoulder as the men-at-arms pushed past him to form a protective semi-circle around the rest of the company. “Cuwin,” he said, stressing the man’s name. “Tell me you have a plan.”

“Nothing better than the usual,” his friend said, and started invoking an aggressive intonation of scripture.

Lowe’s sword heated as the other Banishers joined in, their intonations adding to the catechism as one solid voice. Their chorus swelled, and dipped, and swelled again, and then deepened before raising to a crescendo.

Lowe covered his eyes with the crook of his arm, his sword too bright to look at for more than a few seconds. He could have lit an entire meadow with the light emanating from his blade.

This will work!

“I’m ready!”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go!”

Lowe turned around, shield held aloft for protection as two of the other shield bearers stepped aside to make a gap for him.

He thrust his sword at the shimmering barrier with an overhead strike. When his blade made contact an explosion of light and thunder cracked through the overlook.

Lowe opened his eyes amidst the babbling of the Banishers as they invoked a barrier against attack coming from the remaining acolytes, and what was obviously a Necrolord. The tall man with the black beard hurled curses so fast he could have kept up with ten necromancers.

Dozens of death curses hurled toward them.

And then a deep, throaty curse that filled the whole chamber echoed through the overlook. Everything went dark except for the scattering plumes of curses dispelling against the protective barrier.

As Lowe righted himself, he gritted his teeth and made an effort to skirt to the side of the company where he might flank the Lord Summoner through the inky miasma filling the room.

But then another curse echoed through the chamber and staggering discharges of black energy that pulsed with a purple brilliance danced about the room.

Men began to howl and babel incoherently.

Boots stomped about in all directions and Lowe pushed past two men, both of them terrified at—

A discharge struck Lowe.

He grunted, staggered to one knee as men continued to scream and pant and run in all directions. Lowe felt a sudden onset of rampant fear. He looked about wildly, scrambled as he was knocked over. Somebody stepped on him.

He scrabbled on all fours screamed and scurried to the edge of the room where he thought he would crawl out the window and escape!

Men fell, their faces blackened and their eyes milky white as they screamed and clutched at everything while writhing like maggots in pulsing agony.

Lowe didn’t care.

I have to get out of here!

But when he reached the window, he knew something was wrong. He shook his head and snarled. Lowe was no coward, and though fear made one irrational and sometimes thoughtless, he knew—knew—that he was no coward, would not scurry and scamper like a child.

The Knight Captain screamed with the fear and pain and frustration. He stood, turned, felt his face flush—like boiling water seething beneath his skin. And then he bellowed an invocation of protection.

His fear instantly left him like a shadow running from the dawn.

Clear of the confusing terror he had just been feeling, he continued his invocations, uttering them as fast as he could. He couldn’t say the words nearly as fast as a Banisher and moved forward, touching his men on the shoulder, on the head, on the back, freeing them one at a time from their induced dread.

As he moved through the thick miasma, a curse cut through the room, missed his face by inches and struck a crazed Banisher in the back and exploded into a cloud of black ash.

Lowe couldn’t help himself, and screamed as he lunged at the acolyte. He swiped his sharp blade through the man’s chest, leaving a long, gushing wound.

The necromancer cried out, and he moved to the next one, deflected a curse and then stabbed him through the stomach.

Men from the company where recovering swiftly, as each of the Banishers freed began to free others. But they were still taking heavy loses as curses flew through the room from unseen necromancers.

There was no protective barrier. Not now.

Lowe pushed through the miasma, rage filling him. “Not! Another! Man!” He found another necromancer, sliced his fingers off, and then kicked him to the ground. Lowe flung himself to his knees and bashed the necromancer across the face with his shield, and turning the heathen’s face into a pulpy mass unrecognizable as a man.

“Lowe!”

Grunting and heaving, Lowe came back to his feet and turned to find Cuwin, hands clasped in a serendipitous manner that bespoke a Banisher performing the art of invocation. And indeed the Banisher was muttering invocations of warding and health, which continued to clear the room of the foul miasma.

Lowe stood to Cuwin’s side, coalescing their company as the room cleared, curses ricocheting off of shields or dispelling against individual barriers. Once the room was fully clear, only thee acolytes, the Necrolord, and the Lord Summoner were left.

The acolytes immediately began to hurl more curses as zombies poured out of the mirror-like ovoid space in the center of the room. The portal’s borders shimmered and smoked with black vapor as small discharges of blue power emanated in little bifurcating trajectories.

Lowe’s eyes connected with the Lord Summoners. The Necromancer king smiled. Then he cursed something foul—something Lowe had never heard before.

He grunted and dashed to the stone floor to avoid the curse.

The Lord Summoner laughed, and Lowe looked up and found Cuwin diligently invoking his ward of protection.

“No!” Lowe yelled, as the Lord Summoner backed away into the portal, calling his Necrolord by the name of Arkhus as he went.

Arkhus danced behind the zombies to avoid Nivin lunging at him. The zombie fell, but before Lowe or Nivin, or any of the archers could fell the Necrolord, he too disappeared through the portal.

Lowe snarled, got to his feet and sprinted for the portal.

These men didn’t die for nothing! I’m not letting you escape!

The portal closed before the Knight Captain could reach it. He screamed, frustrated, and kicked the unmoving body of a fallen zombie as the last two were dispatched by Nivin and another Knight.

“Godsdammit!”

* * *

As men checked their wounds and for the dead and the dying, Lowe milled about, watching the clear blue sky through the north window from the overlook. He could still see the Hurg ship on the water.

He crossed his arms, angry, disappointed.

It was all a waste.

A hand gently clasped his shoulder. It was Cuwin. “Perhaps capturing the Lord Summoner was not the will of the gods today, my friend.”

“That’s not what I want to hear, Cuwin.”

“I know. I am sorry.”

He heard the man turn around, and then after a moment he said, loud enough for the whole chamber to hear. “We will now pray for the dead, that the gods might receive their ghosts.”

Lowe didn’t feel like praying. Not right now. The only thing on his mind was how many men—how many of his men, his friends—he had lost, and his need to find the Lord Summoner and make him pay for this.

He turned, his eyes taking in the impact of the battle, the blood and the severed limps. Men still moaned as they received ministrations. Some howled in agronomy.

All this death, and it hadn’t paid. Lowe could see the disappointment on their faces, the same dejections he felt.

Maybe it was time to return home so the dead could be buried within the sacred gardens of the Evermore Groves. The Knight Captain felt tired as he mulled that over for a moment.

Yes, it is time. Time to go home.

He turned and sat with the others to pray and commune with the gods for the brave soldiers who died fighting evil in their names.