“It feels so damn good to be out of that cold,” Tyron huffed as he shrugged his shoulders and wiggled his toes. His extremities tingled as the blood flow returned.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re complaining about,” Dove replied. “I feel… nothing. I’m numb and dead on the inside.”

“And the outside,” the Necromancer grunted. “I didn’t remember the other side of that rift being that freezing the last time I went through. Did Yor do something to keep me warm?”

He waited for a few seconds, but Dove remained silent. Tyron turned to stare at him with wide eyes.

“You’re going to let that go?” he asked, incredulous. “No sex joke, no mention of tits, nothing?”

Dove lifted his skeletal head and gazed off to the horizon as he scratched at his jaw.

“You know, Tyron,” he said wistfully, “people can change. It’s wonderful, and terrifying. The human condition, I suppose some call it. We can grow closer together, or further apart with the passage of time. What you knew to be true about me in the past may not be true for me now. I’ve undergone a metamorphosis, a fundamental alteration on a deep, spiritual level.”

“She threatened you, or offered to free you. I refuse to believe anything else.”

“Both, actually,” the former Summoner replied, chattering his teeth together for comic effect. It was a new habit he’d picked up, Tyron hated it. “She said if I watched my words for a while, she’d let my spirit go when I decide to shuffle off, and said she would stuff my spirit into a urinal if I didn’t.”

“I’m a little surprised she didn’t go for that in the first place.”

“So was I, after she’d mentioned it. I had to ask, of course. She said it would’ve irritated you too much.”

“Huh.”

The skeletal army, with its four slayer captives, continued its march down the slope toward the burgeoning town of Cragwhistle. Thankfully, no kin had emerged from the rift and overtaken them as of yet, but it was only a matter of time, so the Necromancer was sure to keep himself surrounded with a protective wall of minions.

“Almost a shame my new armour hasn’t been tested yet,” he said, poking at the greaves wrapped around one forearm. “I put a lot of work into this.”

“You want to get hit? That’s an interesting position to take.”

“I don’t actually want to, I’d just like to see how effective the armour is in combat. Testing it myself isn’t the same as fighting in it.”

“My advice? Put it on someone else and let them take the hits. Not me.”

The last was added when Dove noticed the young mage glancing at him askance.

“I could make you your own set of armour,” Tyron offered. “All you’d have to do is test it out for me.”

“No thanks,” Dove rebuffed. “I’ve actually got something to live for at the moment, which is a feeling I’d almost forgotten, so fuck off.”

Tyron grimaced. If Dove was feeling even a little more positive about his situation, that was probably a good thing. However, he couldn’t shake the sense that the man had changed. The heroic slayer who’d died protecting him was long gone, twisted by the torment he’d been put through since the end of his natural life. Of course, that was largely Tyron’s fault, but his former friend and mentor also bore some of that blame.

“I’ll make you a set anyway. I can probably stash more enchantments for gathering magick on the bone, increase the pool you have to work with.”

“That’s generous of you,” Dove replied, trying not to sound surprised. “I’d appreciate that.”

The two continued to walk in silence. Two dozen metres ahead of them, the four slayers staggered forward, hands tied behind their backs, fifty undead positioned around them. With time and resources to work with, the Necromancer Class was starting to show its true worth, and he’d overcome the group with relative ease. Granted, he was above level forty and they were all low twenties, but it was four against one after all.

He’d been lucky there was only this one team on the mountain. Such a small rift didn’t demand a full time presence of slayers like the others, and there was the rather unique position it was situated in, which necessitated the kin take the only available path down the mountain. The monsters could, of course, travel across country and hazard the cliffs, rock falls and avalanches in the barrier mountains, but ninety five out of a hundred were sure to take the obvious trail that led to Cragwhistle.

To the rookie slayers posted here, it must have been the easiest assignment they could imagine. Weak rift-kin that funnelled themselves down a narrow path? It was like they were being fed a buffet of experience. The only dangerous part of the assignment was having to climb up and check the rift itself every few days.

“Apparently, there’s only five teams stationed in Cragwhistle,” Tyron told Dove, “and all of them are bronze, barely graduated.”

The onyx-skeleton shook his bony head.

“The slayers are always stretched pretty thin, mainly because the strongest are ‘encouraged’ to live in that birdcage. If things get any worse, the magisters might be forced to relinquish their grip and let more golds go out to play. In the absence of a move like that, a remote location like this is always going to be a low priority.”

“I’d always heard that the slayer keeps closest to Kenmor were better staffed than places like Woodsedge. Undermist, Blackrift and Reynold, for the most part.”

“I spent a summer in Undermist, not long after I was out of the academy. I thought every keep was like that. How naive.”

When Cragwhistle came into view, Tyron had to stop for a second and take it in. Viewed from above, the town was barely recognizable from what it had been before. A stout wall of stone stood barring the mountain path, but it wasn’t large enough to conceal the new buildings behind. The small village had grown to perhaps five times the size it had occupied before, dozens and dozens, perhaps over a hundred chimneys peeking out of houses with lazy trails of smoke rising where there had been perhaps two in the past. It beggared belief that this could happen in just a few years.

Elsbeth had tried to tell him, but he hadn’t really believed her.

“Holy shit,” he muttered under his breath.

After he took in the sight, he undid the binding that held his armour to his frame and had his skeletons collect the components before he stepped down the mountain to the four slayers. Clearly, Trenan was the leader, so it was to him Tyron addressed himself.

“I’m going to hold you here, away from the village… town… until I’ve spoken to a few people. Don’t try anything stupid; just because I’m not here doesn’t mean I’m not watching.”

Freed from his control, the swordswoman and battlemage looked up at him sullenly, but they were the least likely to act out. Having one’s mind dominated was not a pleasant feeling, and had he wished, Tyron could have implanted all sorts of suggestions. They did not want to experience that again.

“You’ll get home safe and sound,” he promised them, “so long as you aren’t stupid. If you are…”

With a thought, he summoned a revenant, his first, to stand watch over the four.

“You wouldn’t be the first slayer who was made to serve after death. Do you understand me?”

“We get it,” Trenan said.

Most of the bluster had gone out of him now. This was a young man doing his best to lead his team, only nineteen or twenty years old. It almost made Tyron feel old.

When he turned to stride down the mountain, he found a skeleton jauntily walking beside him, bouncing on his bony heels.

“Dove…”

“Oh fuck off! You’re going to keep me out of town?”

“Of course I am. You’re a skeleton. Hell, you aren’t even a skeleton, you’re a ghost clinging to a facsimile of a skeleton!”

“And?”

“And people will not respond well if I approach the wall with you traipsing along by my side. Sit tight and wait. Perhaps I’ll be able to get you inside the walls at some point, but by my bones and blood, it isn’t now!”

The skeleton threw up his hands and petulantly kicked a stone.

“Fine! But I’m going to go annoy the shit out of the captives.”

Good. They’ll hate you more than they hate me.

“Whatever makes you happy.”

So saying, he began his descent down the final few hundred metres. The wall was much better built than he’d initially supposed. Solid blocks of stone, each well-carved and evenly laid, with good, solid mortar in between. Whoever’d done the work clearly had levels and expertise in this sort of thing. Perhaps they were also the individual responsible, or at least one of them, for all the new construction.

It didn't take long before Tyron was spotted by people atop the wall. Not slayers, at least, he didn’t think so. Villagers keeping watch, armed with simple bows called out to him when he was still a hundred metres away. Unperturbed, he held his hands above his head and kept walking until he stood before the solid gate, four faces peering down at him.

“Greetings,” he called up to them.

“How in the name of fuck did you get up the mountain?” a bewildered-looking older man called down to him. “I’ve been ‘ere all day and I aven’t seen hide nor hair of ya.”

“I need to talk to Ortan. He’s expecting me. Can you send him out?”

“Ortan?”

The four consulted each other in hushed tones before the old man stuck his head over the edge of the wall again.

“What do you need to talk to Ortan for?”

“I’m a friend of Elsbeth Renner. She sent me with a message for him.”

“The priestess? You know her?”

“For a long time.”

The man squinted.

“‘Old tight. We’ll send a runner for ‘im.”

“Much appreciated.”

“Stay where I can see ya.”

“I’ll just take a seat on this rock if you don’t mind.”

“‘Aight.”

It took twenty minutes before there was movement atop the wall and Tyron saw a familiar face poke over the edge.

“Fuck!” Ortan half-shouted.

“Nice to see you too.”

Not long after, Tyron found himself seated in a well-appointed tavern, though not to his uncle’s standards, sipping on a mug of ale as his old acquaintance stared at him from across the table.

“I told her you were alive, you know,” Ortan said at last, the big man looking slightly ridiculous hunched over the table, trying to speak quietly. “I’m not sure she ever really believed me.”

“Elsbeth? She probably knew from the start, given who her sources are.”

The townsman scowled and took a deep pull on the mug, casting a wary glance at the people on the tables around them. Compared to when he was last in Cragwhistle, the mood was almost positive, with cheerful faces and laughter echoing around the room. There was even a bard, or musician, more likely, plucking jaunty tunes on a lyre and singing. It was such a baffling difference it almost felt surreal.

“I’m not as positive about those ‘sources’ as a lot of the people in town,” Ortan said. “Seems to me almost everyone who’s come in over the last few years is a member of a group I didn’t know existed not that long ago.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much point in fighting it,” Tyron said, “considering who you’re up against. What you’re up against. If they want people to come here, then people will come. And they have; I can’t believe what’s happened here since I left.”

“Since you ‘died’, you mean,” the man said sarcastically before he brushed his hair back from his forehead and leaned back in his chair. “It’s been a shitload of work, I can tell you that much. Feels like we’ve been balanced on a wire the whole time, but somehow things have had a way of working out when we needed them to. Enough food to make do, enough materials to get the next house built, enough wood to get us through the winter, the right tradespeople wandering into town at the right moment.”

“Sounds like you have friends in high places,” Tyron smirked.

Ortan slumped forward.

“That’s what Elsbeth implied, but she would never come out and say it quite so directly.”

The Necromancer shrugged.

“I don’t have her manners.”

“You aren’t going to be able to hide your presence here, you know.”

The huge man leaned forward to whisper again.

“All these people, they’ve been waiting for a Ne—for someone like you to come. They’ve been expecting it, said that their friends upstairs told them you would keep them safe.”

It was Tyron’s turn to scowl.

“It’s not like I can stay here and protect them from the rift forever. Besides, they have slayers for that already.”

“I don’t think that’s the kind of protection they’re talking about.”

He glanced around and Tyron almost rolled his eyes at how obviously conspiratorial the man was being. Someone this large shouldn’t try and act so circumspect. He may as well have hung a side over the table saying ‘These men have secrets’.

“There’s a magister in town,” Ortan breathed. “Came two months back, after Elsbeth left.”

Hot, burning anger ignited in Tyron’s chest, scorching his throat. He clenched his teeth and found his fists had tightened into knots. Slowly, slowly, he eased the tension, tamped the fire down. It wasn’t yet time. He had to be cautious.

“Just the one?” he confirmed, and Ortan nodded.

“He’s been communicating by ro’klaw?” he asked, and again, the big man nodded.

Tyron sat back, his chin on his chest, pondering. After a minute, he looked up again, smouldering rage in his eyes.

“I’ll need to meet this magister,” he growled.