"RUNNN!"

"Let him go," December said as the stench of rotting flesh thickened in the air. 'Mayor' Roff scrambled to his feet but... contrary to his prior pronouncement... did not run. It was too late for running. They were already here.

The alley from which Roff had emerged was now an open wound that at first oozed, then wept, and finally sprayed the black blood of the city's past out onto the empty streets. The animated corpses of Bephal's monsters ran, walked, lurched, galloped, dragged, and pulled themselves toward December and the others with ominous speed and overtly sinister intent. Fresh blood rained from their teeth and clawed fingertips, and some of the slower, dragging creatures left long trails of red in the dirt behind them as they yanked themselves out of the alley. Some of them still clung to bits of their last encounter... gnawed bones and bits of chewed flesh hung from their snarling mouths... at least until the newer, fresher meat had been spotted.

The chaotic mob of undead had no clear leader... but several of the larger, more intact corpses pointed at the small group of living humans that stood gaping on the other side of the street.

"RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

December couldn't see which of the creatures let out the first cry, because the high-pitched gurgling screech was taken up by the entire mob so quickly that it was as if they were sharing the same thoughts.

Which was, of course, not only possible... but very likely.

"Hmmm...." December frowned slightly and stroked his chin. Quickened by the sound of their own rotting throats, the small mob surged forward.

December turned slightly to speak over his shoulder to his companions.

"Mr. Blackshear, I believe melee combat is your forte. These creatures are swift enough to catch us if we run. Keep them occupied while I secure our safety."

"Do WHAT!?!"

"There IS no safety!" Roff screamed. "Find a building to hide in and they'll TEAR IT APART! If you've got weapons or magic with you, December... and I KNOW you do... then I suggest you USE THEM! KILL as many of those damned things as you CAN!"

"Interesting..." December eyed the approaching mob with renewed interest.

"Looks like we're saving the town again, lads," said Hars. "PROTECTIVE FORMATION!" Hars drew his sword and took position directly in front of December. Hemingway Shaw flanked him on the left, and Emerson stood slightly behind him on the right. "Take out the quick ones first! Keep that hammer in your hands, Hemingway... I don't think anybody's gonna go running after it if you toss it away this time!"

"I need a weapon!" Roff shouted. "GIVE ME A WEAPON!" Hemingway tossed him a hunting knife. The weapon looked woefully small in Emerson's grasp, but Roff held it like a man who had used one before... to clean fish or cut twine.

December folded his hands across his chest, took a step back, and watched. Directly behind him, the chained figure of J'Hasp hovered near December's thighs, basking in the increasingly cold air that was rolling off of his master's motionless form.

Hemingway Shaw took the bulk of the assault, fending off claws and teeth with powerful swings of his hammer. The huge battle-weapon was dangerous even in the hands of an amateur, but when wielded by a master it became a piston of destruction, shattering bone and pulverizing flesh with every strike. But even had the enemies been few, it would not have been enough. The creatures did not withdraw or even cry out as Hemingway turned their limbs, skulls and torsos into pulp. They kept coming. When shattered bones could no longer support weight, the dead things would simply fall to the ground and DRAG themselves forward, clawing at whatever feet, legs, and knees were within reach.

Beside him, Harrison Blackshear was having a similar problem. Hars felt half naked with only one sword, but that one blade flashed across his field of view with a speed and accuracy that neither Hemingway Shaw nor their enemy could match. Three zombies pushed themselves toward him, and with one slash Hars turned the first creature's arms into hand-less stumps, and sliced open the throat of the second. The third creature sprang toward him, but Hars stepped to one side and cleanly beheaded the beast before it could get anywhere near December...

...who was quite content to stand behind them and do absolutely nothing.

But without hands, arms, or even heads, the creatures still came onward... guided by some infernal sense that did not require working sensory organs to function. The creature that Hars had beheaded continued its charge... arms waving back and forth in semi-blind slashes as it went past him. The two that Hars THOUGHT he had rendered harmless closed in quickly. Hars fought them off... but his efforts only yielded more animated fragments that grabbed and tore at his boots-

"DAMN YE!" Hars swore as he felt something bite down on his foot. The third creature's head was hanging by its teeth from the back of his ankle. Vice-like jaws exerted exponentially increasing pressure until Hars brought his other foot down, crushing the weak skull under his heel-

And even THEN, a few dislodged teeth wiggled back and forth in his boot-leather.

"YAAAH!" Hemingway grunted as an upward swing of his hammer sent the pieces of another creature's head flying back into the crowd. He then kicked the still-moving zombie backward into the path of the several that were rushing to take its place. "HOW MANY DO WE HAVE LEFT!"

"'Bout the same number we started with!" Hars shouted back. "Cut 'em to pieces and the PIECES just keep commin!"

"Little Brother! Are you making yourself USEFUL BACK THERE!?"

"No, not really," said Emerson. Emerson had wasted exactly one throwing dagger on the horde of undead. When it failed to stop, kill, or even slow down the creature who was now wearing it like an eyepatch, he decided to keep out of the way. Emerson was very good at keeping out of the way. In fact, at he was currently playing 'keep-away' with the headless zombie that had gotten past Hars. The creature kept lunging after him... and Emerson kept darting out of reach before it could get to him.

Both Emerson and the creature seemed perfectly content to continue this indefinitely.

Unfortunately, the mob of undead would not let this stand-off continue for long. Within seconds, Hemingway and Harrison were retreating before a wall of animated corpses... both whole and in pieces. The full force of the mob had now reached them, and was now beginning to spill around the embattled humans in a move to encircle them.

"We can't FIGHT these things out in the open!" Hemingway shouted.

"Especially when they don't DIE when ya kill 'em!" Hars grunted as he sliced a zombie in half. The pair of rotting legs disappeared under the feet of the other creatures, but the intact top half somehow managed to fall TOWARD him, forcing Hars to back away... slashing fiercely with his blade. The torso hit the ground in three pieces, two of which continued following him as he and Hemingway backed away. "We need to get to cover!"

"What we NEED is Thane and Gallows! WHERE THE HELL IS GALLOWS!"

Gallows had not moved. December could see him clearly on the rooftop, watching the fight with almost as much detached non-interest as December himself. He appeared to be waiting for something, and every once in a while he would look away... turning his eyes to the surrounding streets, where a few straggling zombies were making their way toward the fight... drawn by the sounds of combat. To December, the archer's plan was obvious. He was waiting until the crowd had reached maximum density... the largest number of creatures packed into the smallest area... before he used one of his dwindling supply of arrows. The front of the mob was beginning to spread out and surround them, while the last few creatures were just joining in the assault from the rear. That meant-

"Mr.Blackshear," December said calmly, with just enough volume to be heard over the wails and screeches. "I suggest you prepare for a retreat."

"But with a little MAGIC we could-" Hars began. He was interrupted by a faint-

-thwiip!

The arrow's glowing tip drew a bright red line through the air, connecting the archer's bow to the squirming, howling ranks of the undead. The stricken creature didn't notice the shaft of wood protruding from its back until the enchanted arrowhead had already ignited, turning the zombie into a literal fountain of fire. Flames sprayed in all directions from its suddenly burning torso until finally the creature swelled up like a blowfish and exploded... sending flaming chunks of itself hurtling into the crowd. But even before the creature's fiery end, a second and third arrow... both identical to the first... struck at opposite ends of the mob. Within seconds, flames had spread through the crowd like a plague-

-a plague that the undead attackers didn't seem to notice. Except for the three that had taken enchanted arrows to their torsos, the zombies continued their pressing attack against the Night's Bloom as if nothing had happened.

"Now THAT was helpful!" Emerson Shaw said in an annoyed tone. "Now instead of fighting regular PLAIN zombies, we have to fight zombies that are ON FIRE! THANKS GALLOWS!"

"WE COULD USE SOME HELP UP HERE!" Hemingway shouted back as he and Hars retreated before the onslaught.

"I-"

"NOT FROM YOU, EMERSON!," shouted Hars. "DECEMBER. USE SOME OF THAT DAMNED MAGIC AND GET THESE THINGS OFF OF US!"

Now, December, who has stood back and calmly done nothing for the whole of the assault... took action. Frowning, he marched forward and grabbed Hars by the right shoulder a parent snatching up an unruly child. Instantly, Hars stiffened and then slumped weakly to his knees, face contorted in pain.

"What... what are you-"

"Discipline," said December. "It is I who give the orders here, Mr. Blackshear, not you. You would do well to remember that. Now cease your attacks and fall back. Prepare to retreat."

"HEY!" Hemingway protested. "What are you-"

December released Hars, who staggered away, unable to move his right arm.

Hars' sudden departure left a crowd of zombies with no one to fight. They decided that December made as good a target as the swordsman, and closed in around him. December's slight frown deepened. The faint glimmer in his eyes became a steady blue glow. The first creature sprang into the cone of sub-freezing air and grabbed for December's arm-

-crik-

All seven of the beast's fingers snapped off abruptly. December shoved the horrid thing away from him, and there was a loud CRACK the creature's knee... now frozen into a state too delicate to support its own weight... shattered. When the zombie hit the ground, half of its body broke apart with the muffled crackle of frozen ichor. The remaining half wiggled desperately as the oncoming mob swarmed over it, crushing it into a thick, slimy goo.

The second beast to attack December met with a similar fate as, nearby, Hemingway Shaw's massive hammer demolished another rotting skull.

"I'M NOT SAVING HIM!" Hemingway shouted as he stepped back, allowing several of the zombies to organize a stumbling charge. He glanced at December. "HE'S CRAZY!"

The zombies charged... and so did Hemingway Shaw. The fighter's bulk, and the unstoppable momentum of his hammer... sent three of the beasts flying back into the crowd.

"I do not need saving," said December. He eyed the wall of rotting, animated flesh that was surging toward him. He picked out one of the creatures and, ignoring the others, walked toward it. "I told you to fall back. I expect you to do so."

"But what about YOU!?" Emerson called from the rear of the paltry formation.

"I," December replied. "Am about to begin negotiations for our surrender."

"WHAT!?!"

A circle of zombies closed around December, but the crimelord seemed not to notice them... even when a storm of clawed fingers and rotting teeth began to shatter against his hardened skin. Buffeted back and forth by the tide of attacks, December did nothing to defend himself. Instead, he reached out and... calmly... wrapped his fingers around the rotting throat of the most intact-looking creature.

There was a pulse of power-

-CRACK-

The creature's head came loose in December's grasp. The headless body slammed against him, causing him to stumble slightly... but he quickly regained his balance, shoved the offending carcass away with his free hand, and brought the captured head before his own glowing eyes.

"Listen to me," he commanded.

With its jaw frozen in place, the severed head was incapable of movement... but yet, there was a reaction. Something deep within its eyes... BEHIND its eyes... seemed to focus on December's face. The putrefied orbs shifted slightly in their sockets, just as a rampaging creature slashed the frozen stumps of its fingers angrily down December's back.

When both of the zombie's hands snapped off at the wrists, December continued.

"Continued efforts to harm me will only further degrade the efficiency of your..." December glanced around him and scowled in disgust. "...army. Stop now, or I will destroy them all."

The din of combat turned to silence as the zombies cease their attacks. Hemingway Shaw halted his hammer in mid-swing, nearly throwing himself off balance. His intended target simply stood motionless, regarding him with pus-filled eyes.

"...whoa..." Emerson Shaw murmurered.

"Good..." December spoke slowly and clearly into the severed, half-frozen head... directing his words not at the creature itself, but at the unseen thing that was controlling it, just as it had controlled HIM mere hours ago. "It appears we are the victims of a misunderstanding. You know of my power, just as I am aware of yours. Previously, our motives placed us at odds... however, that need not be the case now. You wish to destroy this town, but I no longer wish to save it. Neither I nor my companions are residents here. This place and its people are of no further concern to us. All we wish to do now is to find our companions and leave. Allow us that, and I will forget our earlier encounter. Your actions here will meet with no interference with us, so long as they do not affect us directly. Do you understand?"

The mob of undead released a collective sigh. Several dozen decaying throats moaned their agreement to December's bargain. Zombies on the outer perimeter of the mob began to separate from the crowd and wander away.

"As a sign of good faith, might I suggest relinquishing your hold on my servant. You have no further need of him."

December turned expectantly to the bundle of chains hovering behind Emerson Shaw. J'Hasp's body remained bound and motionless, but after a few seconds, tendrils of thin green slime began to ooze from J'Hasp's nose, ears, and mouth. The slime ran down the side of the creature's face and fell to the ground first in single drops... then in a steady flow... and finally in a putrid gush of green venom.

J'Hasp opened his eyes and began to strain against the chains-

"MASTER!"

"Shhhh," December said softly. "You are still injured old friend. Rest now..."

J'Hasp lay still once more.

"Our agreement is sealed," said December. The crimelord slowly knelt and placed the severed head gently... respectfully... on the ground. When he stood, the zombies that had surrounded him were gone. The crowd's dispersal was nowhere near as rapid as its arrival, but it was steady... and eerily silent. The creatures made no sounds as they collected the broken and severed pieces of themselves and shuffled away. The head that December had spoken into was picked up by another zombie... barely a skeleton... and carried off.

"Emerson, untie J'Hasp. Mr. Blackshear, signal Gallows to come down from his perch... the danger has passed."

"What did you DO!?!" Hemingway Shaw demanded. He stepped into December's path, brandishing his hammer.

"As I said..." December pretended not to notice the hammer clutched in Hemingway's meaty fist. "...I secured our safety."

"YOU SOLD US OUT!" Roff added, joining Hemingway in the confrontation with December. "You... could have DESTROYED those things and saved ALL of us, but instead, you SOLD US OUT! WHY!?!!?"

"Because this is not our fight. Now step aside."

"NO-!" said Roff. Neither he nor Hemingway budged.

"Step aside, Hemingway," said Hars. "Stand down. That's an order."

"HARS!? YOU'RE not in agreement with this, ARE YOU!?!"

"I'm in agreement with us getting out of here alive. All of us... including me. Now back down."

"But..." Hemingway lowered his weapon and looked expectantly at Harrison. "..but... but the PEOPLE! J-Just a few HOURS ago he was willing to sacrifice us to protect them, but NOW he's just going to let them DIE!? WHY!?"

"Because I have been shown the errors of my judgement," said December. "Compassion comes at too high a price. It was a lesson that needed to be learned here and now, rather than in Montfort, where the stakes could be considerably higher."

"NO!" said Roff. "I'll not accept that!"

"Neither will I!"

"There is nothing to accept," said December. "The deal has been made. It is not now, nor has it ever been a matter for discussion."

"You could HELP this people and you're just going to walk away!" Hemingway shouted. "That's MURDER! You're a MURDERER!"

"Yes," December said coldly. "I am."

"We were better off with Trisk!" Roff spat. "He was as evil a bastard as YOU, but at least HE wouldn't leave the whole town to die-"

"Then perhaps Trisk will save you now," said December. "After all... it is his town. Not mine."

"But I'M not going to-"

"Ehhh, I hate to break up a good shouting match," said Emerson Shaw. The moments of heated discussion had given the mob of undead enough time to disperse, but not all of the creatures had done so. Five of them remained... their rotting shapes haunting the group like hounds parked impatiently around a dinner table. As Emerson pointed to the closest of the beasts, the creature's black lips peeled back and a thin sliver of tongue darted across the row of jagged teeth.

"That deal certainly didn't last long," said Hemingway.

"They are not here for us."

"Then what do... they..." Emerson's words trailed off as he, Hemingway, and Hars followed the stale, unwavering gazes of the creatures. Gazes that converged on Grigory Roff.

"...whew!" said Emerson. "For a second there I thought it was ME!"

"What... what is this?" Roff quickly stepped behind Hemingway Shaw. "What.... I thought... I thought you made a DEAL!"

"I did," said December. "That deal did not include you."

The zombies began to lumber forward... moving past Hars, Emerson and December and forming a semicircle around Roff and Hemingway.

"Don't you worry," said Hemingway. "I'm not going to let them get you."

"On the contrary, Mr. Shaw... you are going to do that very thing."

"LIKE HELL I AM!" Shaw raised his hammer and prepared to swing it at the whichever of the creatures attacked first.

"Mr. Blackshear, you appear to have a discipline problem. Do you wish to handle it, or shall I?"

"Hey now!" said Emerson. "Take it easy with that kinda talk!"

"Hemingway..."

"You expect me to stand here and let those things tear a man apart in front of me! NO! YOU can stand there if you want, but I can take all five of these things down by myself-"

"-and violate the terms of our safety in the process. That, I will not allow."

"What... are you AFRAID of these things all of a sudden?" said Hemingway. "You didn't need to bargain for ANYTHING! You could have-"

"FINE!" Grigory Roff shouted. He backed away from Hemingway and pointed an accusing finger at December. "GET OUT! YOU WANT TO LEAVE... THEN GO! GET OUT OF MY TOWN! I DON'T NEED YOU! WE DON'T NEED YOU! GO!"

"WAIT!" Hemingway turned and grabbed for him, but Roff started running.

"NO! COME BACK!" Hemingway shouted. It was too late. The zombies lurched, leapt, and scurried along the street after Roff. They were going to catch him.... of that, there was no doubt. The creatures were quick, and Grigory Roff was not as young as he liked to pretend. The last thing December and the other's saw of him was Grigory Roff glancing back at the quintet of hungry corpses gaining on him... and then, instead of screaming or crying out, Roff flashed a obscene gesture at December before disappearing over the hill.

There was a long, ugly silence as they waited for the scream. It never came... and that only made it worse.

"YOU KILLED THAT MAN!" said Hemingway. "YOU KILLED HIM!"

"He was not the first," December replied. "nor will he be the last."

"HOW can you be so-"

"Because I am December... a fact that I was only recently reminded of. Come... let us find Thane and be done with this place."

"And what if Thane is DEAD, eh?" said Hemingway. "What if your new friend has KILLED him? What of your bargain THEN, eh?"

"If Thane is dead, then it is undoubtedly due to his own negligence," said December. "In which case we are better off without him."


---



Catching up with Floyd and the others was less a matter of speed than of how much pain Yexhill Thane could endure. Even wrapped in rags, Thane's feet protested every step with sharp, ripping throbs. By the time he reached the others, he felt like he was running over broken glass... and was leaving bloody spatters on the dirt with every footfall.

But he figured that the alternatives... letting those creatures catch up with him, or having to explain to December that he'd lost the D'Arcy's... would be a lot worse.

At the first sign of the undead, the small crowd outside the D'Arcy residence had transformed into a mad charge to anywhere but there. The crowd thinned rapidly as runners either slowed down and fell behind or decided to take refuge in the buildings lining the street. Both proved equally fatal. Their pursuers tore the stragglers apart with ravenous fury... a fury which proved almost equally effective against the doors and windows of the shops where some of the townsfolk hid. Running was the only way to survive. Run... and keep running.

Floyd D'Arcy ran quite well for an old man. Thane knew for certain that the old man was going to trip over something or simply run out of energy... but being chased by several dozen hungry corpses had restored much, if not all, of Floyd's youthful vigor. Francesca D'Arcy ran with her son in her arms, which slowed her down just enough to keep both Floyd and Yexhill shouting constantly at her to run faster Faster FASTERRR!

FASTER... because there was no one left behind them! FASTER... because everyone SLOWER than them had already been EATEN!

"GODS ALIVE, WOMAN... GIVE ME THE BOY!" Yexhill shouted at her. He held out his arms, expecting her to throw the boy to him in mid-stride like a bundle of clothes.

"NOO!" Francesca cried. She ran Frantically, jostling poor Case from side to side so violently that the boy was turning green with nausea. "NO!"

"I'M FASTER THAN YOU-"

"THEY'RE GONE!" Floyd shouted. Floyd was running on the other side of, and slightly behind Francesca. He had looked back... and suddenly he wasn't there.

He'd stopped running.

"What?" Thane glanced behind him, and then he stopped as well.

The zombies weren't gone. But they were no longer giving chase. The creatures had scattered, and were busily tearing down buildings or dragging screaming townsfolk out of alleys... systematically turning the town and its inhabitants into rubble and bloody chunks.

"They're destroying everything!" said Floyd. "My town! They're tearing it up!"

"At least they aren't chasing us," said Thane. "Come on. Let's get out of here before they change their minds."

But despite his own suggestion, Thane stood and watched the zombies for a few more seconds. They were very efficient. The mob had broken into small groups that moved from building to building, where they battered down the doors and shattered the windows. Anyone they found inside was quickly dismembered, and then the building itself was demolished. A separate, slightly larger group of creatures waited in the street to catch any townsfolk strong, desperate or quick enough to escape the demolition crews. As Thane watched, they pounced on an elderly man and his family who reminded him very much of the D'Arcy's. The screaming didn't last long.

"They're organized," Thane whispered.

"...and they're so many..." Floyd added. The methodic carnage stretched as far as Thane could see. Tiny dots darted back and forth at the far end of the Thane's vision, and he could hear buildings collapsing from an even further distance. The zombies were everywhere. Thane could certainly take on one or two of them himself, and the Night's Bloom could make short work of a small group. But all of them? All of them... organized into an army?

"They're following the street," said Floyd. "This is the main road. They're following it straight into town."

"We need reinforcements," said Thane. "Reinforcements... or some serious magic. Preferably both. If we can get a message to Montfort we could save the town. Hell, maybe even the Tower Guard would come... but that damned necromancer stole our signal coins!"

"HOOOO!!!" came a shout from behind them. The crowd of townsfolk ahead was now out of sight... hopefully had kept running and hadn't decided to hide in one of the doomed buildings. But now, a second, much smaller group of six armed men was approaching them. "MOVE, YA BLASTED FOOLS! DON'T JUST STAND THERE!"

The shouting got the attention of the zombies in the street. They didn't attack... but watched...

...not yet... but soon...

"Roost?" said Floyd. "What are you doing wearing the Sheriff's armor-"

"Sheriff's dead, and so are a lot of other people. Roff's in charge now, and I'm second in command-"

"Martial law?" Thane asked.

"Ummm... whazzat?"

"Never mind."

"We've got to get you folks out of here."

"You're not going to fight!?" said Thane.

"Damn RIGHT we are... AFTER we get everybody we can to safety. This is as far as we can go down this street... we step into that mob and they'll tear us apart. We've already fought our way out of that once. Had twice as many men as I got now. And now they're watchin' us... come on-"

'Sheriff Roost'... a tall, muscular man who would be intimidating if it weren't for extra sack of weight clinging to his abdomen... took Francesca D'Arcy's arm and escorted her away.

"Where are we going!?"

"Anyone who can fight is gathering at the town hall. We set up a safe house at the Masserton place. Women and children should be safe there, and the woman can see to the injured." Roost was looking. "And dont' THINK I haven't noticed you're a stranger here. I've got some questions that you'll be answering-"

"And I've got some answers you don't want to hear," said Thane. "Something is controlling these creatures, and if its the same thing we fought earlier, you've then you've just killed half your townspeople. It lives underground. It can sense our movement and can burrow through floors-"

"The Masserton place has a stone floor-"

"But KNOWS what you're doing! It knows EXACTLY where you put those kids, and it knows EXACTLY where you're gathering your army. If it wants to destroy this town, then it'll just wait until you gather everybody into one big group..."

"TWO groups," Roost corrected him angrily. "... one at the town hall and one-"

Realizing that Roost was an idiot, Thane turned to Floyd.

"If those kids haven't been attacked, then they will be soon. We need to get there and evacuate them... right now!"

"Hey, wait a minute!" said Roost. "I'm in charge!"

"Then help us save your children! Floyd... which way-"

"That way-" Floyd pointed.

"We're coming with you!" said Francesca.

"Damn right you are. If we don't get to December and the others... or my ring... then HE'S the only magic we've got!"

Casey looked sheepishly at Thane.

"December!?" said Roost. "HE'S behind this!? I should have kno-"

"What he's BEHIND," said Thane. "Is saving all of your miserable lives. If this town survives, it'll be because of HIM ... so shut up and either help us or get out of the way!"

---

...Montfort...

The crowd at the Pandemonica was lighter than usual... but, as far as Lovvorn was concerned, that just meant that there was more beer for him. Not that the Pandemonica ever ran out of ale. He was working on his seventh... or seventeenth... or twenty-seventh stein of ale while flirting heavily with the waitresses. At this stage of drinking, 'flirting' consisted mostly of grabbing their buttocks whenever one of them walked past... which wasn't nearly as often as Lovvorn would have liked.

"I need to drink faster," said Lovvorn. "Yessh, I do believe I-"

The beer in Lovvorn's drink suddenly began to bubble, launching a spray of foam into the drunken mage's face.

"EEK!" Lovvorn slammed the drink down onto the table and looked around accusingly "Who's throwing things into my beer!? There's RULES in this place, you know!"

Everyone at the Pandemonica had long since grown accustomed to Lovvorn's drunken outbursts. They ignored him. It was the only safe course of action, considering the company the mage was known to keep.

The beer continued to bubble with increasing violence, until finally the stein overturned, covering the table with ale and foam.

"MY DRINK JUST SPILLED ITSELF!" Lovvorn cried with a genuine concern that almost bordered on panic. Wasted beer was an emergency could only be assuaged by... ordering another beer. The mage raised his tattooed hand-

"...uh-oh..."

-and quickly lowered it again.

The spilt beer had completely covered the table, but... oddly enough... not one drop of it had rolled off onto the floor. And not only that, even after the golden liquid had ceased flowing, the bubbles and foam had continued to swirl... eventually forming a recognizable pattern.

N'Doki's face glared up at Lovvorn from the table.

Lovvorn blinked... blinked again... but the hideous face still remained.

"You owe me a beer!" Lovvorn said finally. Then, he added in a lower tone: "...is there trouble?"

"Yes," the image of N'Doki spoke with the necromancer's voice. "Dere haf been some unexpected developments."

"Unexpected? That sounds bad. I'll gather Eric and we'll pop right over-"

"No!" N'Doki snapped. "De situation is under my control. I haf come to warn you dat de signal coins haf been corrupted by unfriendly magics... ignore any summons you receive from dem. Respond only to me."

Lovvorn gave a comical salute.

"Yeth, THIR!"

"Under no circumstance are you to come to Bephal."

"Oh?" Lovvorn said suspiciously. "What exactly does 'no circumstance' mean?"

"It means dat we do not need your magics. Your presence would complicate tings considerably."

"Uh-huh. THAT'S the kind of thing I'd rather here directly from Decem... uhh... the boss."

"He is not here."

"Well... maybe we should talk to Eric."

"No."

"Well... maybe you should REPLACE MY BEER!"

"I must go. Be on guard..."

"WAIT A MINUTE!"

"...somet'ing may be on its way to Montfort..."

"WAIT!"

The N'Doki-image distorted, and finally dissolved at the spilt beer ran off onto the floor.

"WAIT! YOU STILL OWE ME A BEER!"

---

"Something's not right," said Sheriff Roost. He and his six armed escorts had accompanied Thane and the D'Arcy's to a pile of half-collpased rubble in the middle of the city. They stood in the filthy yard of the Masserton house and regarded the wreckage with awe.

"Looks like we're too late," said Thane. "It's destroyed the building-"

"No, it always looks like that," said Floyd.

"Oh. And you put KIDS in there!?"

"There should be guards," Roost explained. "I left guards here. And I've sent MORE guards since then... and more children! But there's nobody here!"

"Maybe they're inside," said Casey. At one point during the short walk, Floyd had convinced Francesca to put the boy down and let him stand on his own.

"They shouldn't be," said Roost. "Wait here-"

"No," said Thane. "You've screwed up enough. I'll go in and check it out."

Thane walked quietly to the door. He paused.

"What's that?" said Casey, who had crept up behind Thane. "On your back?"

"Tattoo... now go away."

"But its moving!"

"No it isn't. Just your imagination... now go away."

"But-"

"Dammit, kid!"

"I got him..." Floyd took the boy's arm and dragged him away.

Thane's back and left shoulder were beginning to burn where the 'tattoo' was stretching across his skin. He ignored it and opened the door. The hinges announced his arrival with an ominous

....creeeeeeeeeeeeeaaak....

"Oh HI!" said Filkus. The zombie held up a bloody strip of fresh meat. "Want some chicken!? Tastes just like... uhh... chicken!"

SLAM!

With the door firmly closed once again, Thane had shut out the horrible vision and was now free to go quietly insane...

"What was it?" said Floyd.

"Eh?" Sheriff Roost waddled up to the door, but Thane wouldn't let him past.

"It... it..." Thane stammered. "...it... it..."

Thane suddenly doubled over and launched a stream of vomit onto the sheriff's boots.

"ACK! GET THIS MAN OUT OF HERE AND OPEN THAT DOOR!"

One of the sheriff's deputies pulled Thane aside while another one pulled the door open again.

"NO!" Thane shouted... too late.

The deputy who'd opened the door... froze.

"...Oh... GODS!..." he managed to say before something... something Thane knew all to well... wrapped around his torso and yanked him into the house. What followed then could only be described as the sound of a grown man trying to scream himself to death.

"KILL THAT THING!" Roost ordered. Two deputies charged in...

"OOOOoo... more friends to play with!" Came a familiar effeminate voice from inside the house. "But you didn't bring any kiddies! Oh well, I'll just have to play with YOUR insides instead! You first-"

"ARRRRRRRRRGH!"

"...you can wait in the corner until I'm done-"

WHAP!
THUD...

...pause...

"I know a game we can play! Let's guess what your insides look like!"

ssshhhhllLLURP!

"-aiieEEEEEEEEE!"

"I WIN! Now its your turn- No wait... don't run awaaayyy!"

Covered in blood... none of it his own... the second deputy came sprinting out of the Masserton house. He ran past Thane and the sheriff... past the other two deputies... and kept on running with no visible signs of slowing down.

He would not stop running for quite a while.

"What's going on!?" said Francesca D'Arcy. Floyd's daughter had stayed well back from the door, but all the excitement had gotten her interest.

"GET BACK!" Floyd shouted at her. "IT'S KILLED THE CHILDREN! YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE! Casey, go to your mother, NOW!"

"Ohhhh, is little CASEY out there!?!" said Filkus. "Caaaaseeeeeeeeyyyyy! Would you like to play with Filkus!?"

"Uh-oh."

"Men-" Roost started to give an order, but Thane stopped him.

"No... let it come to you!"

Having recovered most of his sanity, Thane joined the deputies in front of the door. From there, he had a horribly clear view of what he had seen only a glimpse of before.

"...oh my gods..." Thane muttered.

"Steady..." said Roost. "...steaaadyyyy..."

Floyd had been only half right. Filkus HAD killed the children... but what he had done to them before, during, and afterwards was...

Not even Hemingway Shaw would have words in his vocabulary to describe it.

Filkus had decorated the house, and then himself, with... pieces... And now the monster was hanging from the ceiling like a giant spider, suspended by a network of entrails... only some of which were his own.

Filkus had built a nest. He'd taken the 'insides' of his victims and constructed a damned NEST!

As Thane watched, the monster slowly descended to the floor and giggled at them.

"Heeheeheeeheeeheeeeeee!"

"Sh-sheriff?" said one of the deputies. "I...I...I-"

"Easy boys. It's just a zombie."

"But... but my KID was in there! I don't see him! I don't see-"

"Oh, was yours the one with the big ears?" said Filkus. The deputy in question had enormous, almost elven ears. "He was a LOT of fun! He squealed and squealed and squealed... just like a little piggy! EEEE!! EEE!! Daddy help meeee!!! EEE!"

"NYAAAAA!" The deputy charged into the slaughterhouse.

"NO!" Thane cried, then he charged in after the man.

"HEEHEEEEEEE!" Filkus laughed. A length of intestine unrolled from the zombie's open gut and looped around the deputy's right arm. The bone in the deputy's forearm shattered with an audible crunch-

"AHHHHGGH"

Thane snatched up a sword that one of the other deputies had dropped and sliced the rope of flesh in half.

"HEY, THAT WAS MINE!" Filkus cried. The monster turned to Thane as the deputy escaped, cradling his now useless arm. "You shouldn't play with swords! They're all sharp and pointy... and no fun at ALL! Give the nasty toy to Filkus so he can throw it away..."

"Oh, I'll give it to you all right!" Thane spat. Thane was not a swordsman... he could barely even hold the weapon correctly... but he wasn't going to fight Filkus without one. Not this time. "Lets see how many kids you can kill when you're in PIECES!"

"Now don't be mean!" Filkus frowned. "Filkus LOVES the kiddies, and the kiddies love Filkus! You're not a kiddie, but you can play with me if you want!"

More 'tentacles' unfolded from the hole in the zombie's abdomen. The muscular lengths of flesh writhed in the air, spreading out all directions like a flower with Filkus at its center.

"Come on... give Filkus a BIG HUG!"

Sheriff Roost and the one remaining deputy chose that moment to disregard Thane's suggestion and charge into the house.

"WATCH OUT FOR THE-"

Roost and his deputies had little experience fighting even normal men... let alone entrail-swinging zombies. Filkus twirled like dancer toward his new friends and took them both out with disappointing ease. Roost managed to duck under the first speeding length of intestine. The deputy was slapped across the face and sent flying head-first into the stone wall. Unconscious, he slid to the floor... a future 'playmate' for Filkus. Roost was about to charge when the second tentacle... the one he HADN'T seen... came at him from behind and encircled his throat. With a twist and a yank, Filkus popped the sheriff's head off of his shoulders and send it bouncing across the room.

"Heeheehee!" Filkus laughed. Before the creature could turn its attentions back to Thane, however, Yexhill had charged... leaping over several gutted corpses and impaling the zombie through the midsection with his sword. "EEK!" Filkus gasped.

Then he smiled.

"...ungh!" Thane tried to yank the sword out in order to strike again, but the blade was caught on something. Or rather, something inside Filkus had caught the blade.

"ungh!" Filkus mocked him.

"Ungh!" Thane pulled again.

"Ungh!

"UNGH!"

"UNGH! heeheehee!"

"...forget it!"

Thane released the sword and darted out of reach.

"Oh no, that was just getting FUN!"

Several loops of intestine snaked out after him... but Thane had a plan, and it did not involve getting caught from behind. Turning, he snatched up a small, blood-splattered table and, using it as a shield, charged the zombie as hard and fast as he could. Tentacles battered against the table, and had just begun to wrap around it when Thane slammed into Filkus, knocking the zombie to the ground and trapping most of the squirming tentacles under his makeshift shield.

"Eh? What's thi-"

Thane ripped off one of that table legs and immediately brought it down onto the zombie's rotting skull.

CRACK!

"HEY!"

CRACK!

"THAT'S NOT NICE-"

CRACK!
CRACK!
SNAP!

The table-leg snapped in half. The half remaining in Thane's hand came to a nice, sharp point. Thane jammed it into the zombie's open mouth, and then angled it upward into the creature's skull.

SCHLUP!

"NNNNNNNGH!" Filkus screamed.

"GIVE me my RING, you filthy-"

"NNNN!"

Thane rammed the table-leg in deeper, hoping to damage whatever brain the zombie still had left.

"DIE, YOU #@H$%!"

"NNNN-"

"DIE!"

The sharp stake met some resistance. Thane shoved as hard as he could. The shaft of wood paused... and then pushed through with the loud and very wet sound of ripping flesh. The top of Filkus's skull cracked open, and the pointed end of the table leg emerged into fresh air... carrying a few brain-like chunks of meat along with it.

Filkus went still.

Thane sighed.

Then he sighed again.

Then he got up, moved the table, and looked down at the bloody mess on the floor.

His ring was in there somewhere.

"...gods help me," he said as he got down on his hands and knees and stuck his arm elbow-deep into the dead zombie's gut. His hand swam through the contents of the creature's torso... encountering several chickens (whole and in parts)... as well as rotted bits of things that Thane did not want to consider.

Finally, he touched somethings small, hard, and metallic. His finger nudged it just out of reach. Thane sank his arm deeper... fingers probing for the ring-

Filkus sat up.

"HEY, IS IT MY TURN YET!"

"aawwWW F-"

Inert tentacles wrapped around Thane's leg, yanked him up into the air, and began to spin him around the room.

"WEEEEEEEEEE!" said Filkus. "Around and around and around he goes! Wherever he stops-"

Filkus let him go.

Thane went flying. There was no time to roll get his balance... all he could do was tuck his head down before striking the stone wall shoulders-first-

WHAM!

"NOSEBLEED!" Filkus giggled. "No wait... that doesn't rhyme..."

Thane slid to the floor... landing on top of something soft and bloody. He didn't look to see what, or who, it was. By the time his vision cleared, the only thing he could see was Filkus pouncing on him.

"UNG!" Thane grunted when the zombie planted its foot on his stomach. Thane grabbed for the toeless stump. Tentacles spilled out onto Thane's face and grabbed his skull.

"GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NOW!" said Filkus.

"MMPH!"

"NOW WE GET TO PLAY!"

Thane could breathe... but he didn't want to. Every time he moved, Filkus jerked his head to one side, nearly breaking his neck.

"Stop squirming, you sissy! You stuck things into ME, so now its only fair that I get to stick things into YOU! Hey, I know! We'll start with THIS!"

Filkus grabbed the end of the table leg that was still protruding from his skull. He slowly slid it out.

"Heeheehee!"

"My friends are gonna tear you apart!" Thane managed to say.

"OOOOOO, sounds like FUN!" said Filkus. He held up the wooden stake. "Now where shall I put this? I KNOW!"

The zombie raised the sharpened table leg and prepared to bring it down... but then he stopped.

"...eh?... what? OH NOOOOO! NO! NO! NO!"

Thane stopped struggling. Was this part of the zombie's sick game... or was something going on?

"But I was having so much FUN with this one! We were gonna play a GAME and I was gonna stick things in him and EVERYTHING!"

There was a short pause.

"...oh, alll riiiiight..."

Filkus' tentacles peeled away from Thane's face, and the zombie removed his foot from Thane's torso.

"I'm supposed to leave you alone now," Filkus pouted. It actually... pouted. The poor thing looked like it was about to cry. "...spoilsport..."

Thane sat up, but didn't move.

"...but HEY! You can watch me play with CASEY if you want!"

"Don't you touch that boy!"

Humming a happy tune, Filkus skipped across the room and trotted out the door.

"Ohh, CAAAASEEEEYYY!"

Thane got up and ran after him, but it took a few seconds to regain his balance.. and his stomach. By the time he got outside, he was too late-

There were fifteen men armed with swords, crossbows, long bows, shovels, hatchets and machetes surrounding the yard.

And there were more men on the way.

A lot more.

The town hall where Roost had been gathering his troops must not have been far away... certainly close enough for Floyd D'Arcy to run for help in the few minutes that Thane had kept Filkus busy inside. Francesca and Floyd were standing at the edge of the crowd. Other women and children... those lucky enough not to be at the Masserton house when Filkus dropped by for fun and games... were gathering around them.

Casey D'Arcy was standing at the front, near the men

"Up to your old habits, Filkus?" said Casey. He was doing his impression of Jerimiah Trisk again.

"OoohooHOOO!" said Filkus. "You can't fool ME again-"

F-FOOOOM!

A fireball exploded from Casey's outstretched hand and engulfed the zombie's head. The boiling mixture of natural flame and hellfire clung to the monster's skull like a glowing halo of agony.

"AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE-EEE-EEE"

Barely able to see through the cloud of fire, Filkus staggered blindly....

...into Trisk's next attack. The boy's fingers spat a solid bolt of fire that impaled the zombie through the gut and drove him back into the stone wall of the house.

Pain and terror... and fire... exploded from Filkus's screaming mouth.

"KILL IT!" one of the townspeople shouted.

"EEEEEE!" Flaming tentacles burst from the zombie's torso-

-but a third blast of flame sent them retreating back into their hole before they could do any harm.

Casey stepped forward and pointed one burning finger at the shrieking monstrosity...

...but the boy blinked... and stumbled. He quickly righted himself and turned to the others.

"Vengeance is yours," he ordered. "Destroy this thing. Dismember it and incinerate the pieces"

"NOOO!" Filkus screamed-

-and so did Thane:

"MY RING!"

The armed crowd closed in on Filkus.

"YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!" Filkus shrieked. Again, the entrail-tentacles appeared... but instead of attacking, they drove into the ground with enough force to launch the burning zombie into the air. Filkus vaulted over his attackers and... suspended on his own entrails like a spider on long, stringy legs... scurried away from the crowd.

"I'VE GOT FRIENDS TOO, YOU KNOW!" Filkus screamed. "YOU'LL SEE! YOU'LL SEE!"

"COME BACK HERE WITH MY RING!" Thane shouted. He chased after the escaping fiend.

"Let them go!" Casey ordered. "We must prepare for the greater battle ahead-"

That was the last that Thane heard before he was out of earshot.

---

"...must prepare for the greater battle ahead!"

The Bephal militia... an organization that did not exist until earlier that morning... converged on the wreckage that was the Masserton 'estate'. All of them knew Casey D'Arcy. All of them also knew Jerimiah Trisk. There were some among them who did not believe the old mage had returned from the dead to protect the town... but those were in the minority. Of those who didn't believe, most would have followed a three-legged dog into hell itself, if that dog showed half as much power as Casey had when he'd descended on the Town Hall like a flaming phoenix.

When the call-to-arms had sounded, the men picked up whatever weapons they had... from swords to sturdy wooden planks... and rushed to the Masserton place. Most arrived just in time to see Filkus rising above their heads and sailing into the distance on spindly legs of...

...no, that couldn't possibly be real.

The chase would have most certainly been underway had it not been for Trisk.

"The town is under siege!" Trisk's voice bellowed from Casey D'Arcy's small throat. "The enemy's numbers are great, but not superior to our own if we all fight together!"

All eyes turned to Trisk. The fiery aura that had surrounded the boy earlier was gone... but the power was still there. They could see it in the boy's face. The young, innocent features were twisted into an expression of aged malevolence and spiteful rage that hadn't been seen in Bephal since the night the old mage died.

"Let the enemy come to us!" Trisk raged. The boy marched back and forth before the crowd. Behind him, the door to the Masserton house was still open. Trisk knew this, of course. He wanted them to look at it... he wanted them to see what was going to happen to them, their wives, and their children if they didn't fight. But there was something ELSE that he wanted them to see as well.

"Draw the enemy close... let them come here... to ME!" The boy lifted his arms and floated into the sky on a column of fire. Trisk's powers were still limited... but if he didn't inspire these men to fight, then his town was doomed. He was took weak to deal with the horde of undead on his own, but with a small army at his command... "THEN WE SHALL FIGHT THEM TOGETHER!"

"TRISK!" someone shouted. Casey's glowing eyes found the source of the voice. "...is... is it you? Is it really you?"

"YES," Trisk boomed.

A half-hearted cheer went through the crowd. Half-hearted... because, while they welcomed the power, they also remembered the man who'd wielded it in life. In the end, Jerimiah Trisk had been more than slightly mad. So, which Trisk was it that had returned to save them? The stern soldier of the town guard? The corrupt and renegade mage? Or the undoubtedly evil recluse who was rumored to have turned to necromancy in his final days? Perhaps all three? Or perhaps something worse. After all, the Trisk that they knew could not have gone anywhere but hell after his death.... could anything truly good ever return from such a place?

Trisk let his fiery display burn brighter, further impressing his will and his power upon the crowd. He read their faces, and knew that his display wasn't wasted. Even if they hated him... which some of them surely did... they still KNEW him. They feared him. And perhaps their enemy would fear him as well.

"THE TIME HAS COME!"

Trisk pointed. The first straggling zombies were appearing around corners at the far end of the street. The monsters did not attack... they were only scouts. The main attack was coming rapidly behind them.

"RAISE YOUR WEAPONS!" Trisk ordered. With the flame-wielding mage behind them, the militia fixed the zombies in their sight... and stared the beasts down. "PREPARE T-"

The mage's words ended abruptly. The crowd turned to see what had happened, and what they saw was... even for a town besieged by the undead... very, very strange. Though the sky overhead was ominously gray, there was still enough light to see... and to cast shadows. But now, those shadows had come alive, and had engulfed the floating mage in a shroud of darkness. Trisk's flames snuffed out, and the squirming boy fell to the ground with a very uninspiring thud.

"AAAGH!" Trisk's voice called from within the thickening cloud of darkness. Those closest to the mage could see that the 'cloud' was not a single shape, but was a mass of smaller shapes... shapes that looked like men. Or the ghosts of men. The ghosts of very angry men.

"HOLD DIS ONE, BANKITA!" came another voice... this one deeper and more inhuman that Trisk's own. From nowhere... literally... a man appeared. He was tall and dark... with skin like leather and a body like a skeleton. His teeth were sharp, and his face radiated malice.

Perhaps Trisk HAD escaped from hell...

...and this demon was what he had escaped FROM! If so, then Trisk's freedom was now at an end, for the demon had entangled the mage within a net of dark and angry souls. Trisk was captured and powerless-

-and the zombies were just now spilling onto the street. The charge had begun.

"YOU FOOL!" Trisk howled. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!"

"...I come here for a reason, Trisk," said N'Doki. "Now, I make sure dat I did not come for not'ing, eh? You rest dere... I release you in a little while. Or maybe not..."

N'Doki stared off into the distance... not at the charging horde of undead, but past them at the mostly empty street where Filkus and Yexhill Thane had vanished.

"...hmmm..." The necromancer nodded his head, and darkness claimed him. He was gone.

He left Trisk behind, but the damage was done. With their savior nullified, the Bephal militia prepared not to meet not their enemy... but their doom.

---

"Ooooo the mean old man is back!" Filkus huddled in the back corner of a blind alley, his trembling body curled into a tight ball on the ground. A cloud of smoke hung around him, and parts of him were still sizzling. "He's gonna hurt me! He's gonna hurt me baaaaaaaad! OH, NO!"

Filkus stopped trembling and looked out at the alley. For a second, he thought he heard someone coming. But no... it must have been one of the others. They were all around him now, but they weren't here to bother him. They were here to fight. Filkus didn't like to fight. All he wanted to do was play...

...play with the lovely boys and girls...

"...please don't let him hurt me!" the child-killer wept. There was no one around to hear him, but he begged anyway. "Oh, pleeeeeeaaasse don't let him hurt me again! He's so mean! He's so, so mean-"

Again, Filkus stopped.

"Who's there?" he called. There was no answer.

"Oooooo, its him, its him! HIDE! Gotta hide!" Filkus looked for some place to conceal himself, but there weren't any. While he searched frantically, a thought occurred to him. Trisk wasn't in the habit of creeping around alleys. If he was here, then he would have shown himself by now.

So who was it that he'd heard?

"...is somebody in there?" said a voice at the front of the alley. It was a CHILD'S voice!

"F-filkus is here... do you want to play with me?"

"I'm not allowed to play with strangers."

"Filkus isn't a stranger! Filkus is Filkus! EVERYBODY loves Filkus!"

Filkus trotted to the front of the alley to greet his new playmate-

KA-WHACK!

Yexhill Thane struck the galloping zombie across both kneecaps with a sturdy broom-handle. Filkus dropped like a sack of stones, but as the zombie fell, Thane struck again, hitting the poor creature across the face. He'd been aiming for Filkus's jaw, but instead he put a deep, linear dent in his face right across the bridge of its nose-

CRACK!

Thane executed a half-spin, and thrust the staff behind him, putting the blunt end of it into... and through... Filkus's forehead.

"EEEK!" Filkus yelped as he finally hit the ground.

Thane twirled the staff and brought it around-

-just as a knot of greasy tentacles launched out of the zombie's gut.

With several quick sweeping motions, Thane wrapped the flying entrails around his staff... managing to crack Filkus across the skull twice in the process. When Filkus tightened his grasp, the broom-handle snapped in half.

-Thane took both ends, crisscrossed them in the air several times, and then drove them into the dirt on opposite sides of Filkus's body. Filkus was tangled and pinned by his own guts. He wouldn't remain that way for long, so Thane thrust his arm into the fiend's torso... searching for his ring.

"OOOOO, You're being NAUGHTY!!"

With his free hand, Thane snatched up the brick he'd hidden earlier and smashed it into the zombie's face.

Repeatedly.

CRACK!

"YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO-"

CRACK!

"STOP IT!"

CRACK!

"LET ME UP!

CRACK!

"STOP IT!"

CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!

When Filkus's face was incapable of forming any more words, Thane put the brick down and ran BOTH hands up into the monster's body.

"...c'mon, gotta be in here somewhere..."

"mmmneemanggGGG!" Filkus mumbled through the hole that was his face. "MMNNENEENENNNN!"

Thane paused... then CRACKED the zombie across the skull one more time for good measure.

Meanwhile, the creature's tentacles were yanking at the stakes, trying to untangle themselves.

Deep within the zombie's gut, Thane's fingers brushed across his ring-

-One of the stakes came out of the ground...

Thane GRABBED... and got a hand full of SOMETHING-

-Just as something rotten and squirming wrapped around his neck and pulled him back.

"NYYYRRRAAAAGH!" Thane's fist came free of the zombie's torso... holding the shriveled but still juicy remains of some unidentifiable internal organ. Lodged in the gooey flesh was a shiny gold ring..

...which went flying out of Thane's grasp as the zombie flung him aside.

"DAMMIT!" Thane grunted as Filkus slammed him to the ground.

Filkus stood up, and took a moment re-arrange his distorted face. Thane scrambled for his ring. Filkus saw him, and leapt-

Thane reached-

WHUMP!

Filkus's foot landed on top of the jeweled ring just before Thane could grasp it.

"THAT IS MINE!" The zombie said angrily.

"No it isn't! GIVE IT HERE!"

Thane tackled Filkus' legs, which he assumed weren't fully restored from their encounter with the broomstick. He was right. Both man and zombie went down and began rolling back and forth in the dirt... Thane trying to reach his ring, and Filkus trying to keep it from him.

"MINE! MINE! MINE!" Filkus squealed. "I FOUND IT! ITS MINE!"

"You found it ON MY HAND!!" Thane growled.

"YOU GAVE IT TO ME!"

"I DID NOT!"

"DID TOO!"

"Give me the ring and I'll kill you quickly! I promise!"

"I'M ALREADY DEAD!"

To prove his point, Filkus thrust Thane away from him... with enough force to send him flying into the alley. Thane landed on his back...

...and an instant later, Filkus landed on top of him. The zombie was holding his ring.

"Oooooo, precious RINGY!" the zombie taunted.

Thane reached for it, but Filkus snatched it away before he could grab it. With his other hand, Filkus grabbed Thane by the throat.

"...stealing from Filkus... that's very naughty! Now I'm going to have to punish you!"

"NNNGH!"

"Punishing isn't as much fun as playing... but it all ends up the same!"

"Indeed it does."

The words came from the far end of the alley, where the shadows had darkened and thickened. Something moved within the darkness... something OTHER than the twisting shadows that comprised it. As Filkus and Thane watched, a mostly-human figure stepped out from some turbulent black elsewhere and joined them in the alley.

"...ohhh..." Filkus's grasp on Thane's throat loosened. "H-have you come to... play?"

"Yes," N'Doki replied. The necromancer approached them calmly, as if he had just happened to come across them while out on an evening stroll. "I haf come... to play..."

N'Doki pointed at Filkus, and jagged, yellow arcs of energy burst from the necromancer's clawed fingertip. The blast ripped into the child-killer's chest... simultaneously burning, rotting and ripping at his flesh with a carnivorous hunger

Filkus howled in torment as bits of flaming goo radiated from his burning torso. N'Doki made a sweeping, lifting motion... the cruel lightning followed his hand... and with it went Filkus, rising into the air above Yexhill Thane and hanging there, thrashing violently like a wasp caught in a web.

"...EEEEEEAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHH!!!" Filkus shrieked as N'Doki drilled through the layers of death and insanity... and bored into the very essence of his soul. Not even madness... even a madness as absolute as Filkus's... was enough to save him from the hell that crackled effortlessly from the Necromancer's fingertips.

The murderer's screams were like a symphony to Thane's ears.

And to the necromancer's.

"I can undo you wit a t'ought," N'Doki said with mild, almost bored disinterest. "...but where would be de enjoyment in dat, eh? Tell me why I should let you die so easy..."

"He's a child killer, N'Doki!" said Thane. "Make him PAY!"

"Ahhhh, a slayer of children," N'Doki said with a smile. "We had such men in de slave camps. Dey come in de nite and steal de young ones away... take dem to torture wit games of pain and blood. But one nite dey come for N'Doki, and dat nite we played a different kind of game! HA! But perhaps not DAT different, eh? Tell me, killer of de children... does dis hurt?"

"Y-YESS! PLEEEAASEE-"

"Good."

N'Doki closed his fingers into a tight fist. Gigantic sparks continued to peel away from his knuckles... but the energy grew thicker... hungrier. Filkus's screams became a stream of unintelligible sounds as his rotted, burning corpse began to slowly... very slowly... twist inside out.

"HAHAHAHAAAA!" N'Doki laughed heartily at the grotesque artwork taking shape in the air above him. Filkus's howls rose higher and higher... reaching their agonizing climax at the exact moment that his twisted body yielded to the impossible strain and literally tore itself apart-

-but the pieces kept screaming! The sounds took on a distant and almost ethereal quality... there was still a soul within that hovering cloud of burning gore, and that soul was still being tortured by the fiend below. Angry lightning continued to illuminate the alley with dark flashes of agony.

"I believ dis belongs to you..." said N'Doki. A tiny shimmer of gold fell out of the floating remains and landed in Thane's outstretched hand. "Take it. I haf no interest in trinkets."

Smiling, Thane slipped the ring onto his finger.

"You're not done with him... are you?"

N'Doki smiled...

"Of course not."

...and Filkus's body reassembled itself in the air above him.

But the flesh that re-formed was not the same as that which was destroyed.

The child-killer was human again. No longer undead... no longer a zombie...

...fully and completely... human.

Filkus looked as surprised as Thane. The murderer's smooth, almost girlish face was stretched into an 'O' of shock. He looked down at his torso...

...no rotten flesh... no hanging intestines....

Human.


Filkus looked as if he wasn't sure whether to be happy... or terrified.

"...I haf only begun... to play..." N'Doki's demonic chuckle resonated down the alley as Thane slowly backed away.

Filkus decided on terrified.

"Go," said N'Doki. "Dis is not for you to witness. Not if you wish to retain your sanity."

"Make it hurt," said Thane. "...and make it slow." Then, before he could catch a glimpse of anything worse than what he'd already seen... he turned and ran.

"NO, NOOOO!" Filkus screamed after him. "DON'T GO! HELP FILKUS! PLEEEEASSSE!"

Filkus dropped from the air and landed in a smoking heap at the necromancer's feet. N'Doki leaned down and ran the tip of one clawed finger across the still-sizzling skull.

"And now," N'Doki crooned. "Let us see what games we can play, you and I..."

"...please... you don't want to hurt Filkus... eh-eh-everybody LOVES Filkus! All the kiddies... all the kiddies...love... oh, please... somebody HELP MEEEE!"


"Oh, little man," said N'Doki. "Dat is exactly what I am here to do..."

---

Thane turned the corner and was ten paces down the street when the alley behind him gave birth to the most hideous sound that he had ever heard. It could not have been human... the thing that made that sound. Neither rage nor torment could ever coax anything like it from a human throat... living or dead. It was as if someone had ripped a hole into hell itself. ...a very small hole. A hole just large enough for that... SOUND... to seep into the world. Yexhill Thane's blood turned to ice, and for a moment, the tattoo on his back ceased its burning march across his skin. Perhaps the magic that drove it had been humbled by what was happening in the just a few feet away. Or perhaps not.

There was a part of Thane that wanted to run back and see Filkus's punishment. But that part was small... and it grew smaller as the sound rose... warbled to a crescendo... and slowly, slowly faded.

Before it had faded completely, however, Thane was nearly knocked off of his feet by a man rushing past him.

"RUN! RUN!" the runner shouted. Thane only got a glimpse of him before he was gone... but that glimpse was vaguely familiar-

-Thane heard a sound behind him. He turned-

...two...four... FIVE zombies galloped past him, shrieking and roaring after the running man, but paying absolutely no attention to Thane whatsoever.

"Wha...?" Thane stood perplexed for a moment... then jogged after them. There was no hope that he could catch up with them, but maybe he...

Another sound.

This was not running... or screaming... or unholy howls out of hell... but instead a combination of all three.

Combat.

Someone... a lot of someones... were fighting!

"ALL RIGHT!" Thane ran faster, eager to be a part of whatever battle was unfolding ahead of him. But when he turned the next corner, he found that the battle was already lost.

The people fighting just didn't know it yet.

Chaos had blossomed around the half-collapsed house where he'd found Filkus. A large group of armed townfolk was fighting an equal number of their formerly-dead neighbors. Though the numbers were about equal... with more townspeople arriving as Thane watched... the dead still possessed a vastly superior advantage. Most of the townfolk were armed with things other than real weapons. Those that did have weapons were sorely lacking in the skills needed to use them. No one had any armor. Their enemy, however, had talons of sharpened bone that required no skill or thought. And they needed no armor, for the dead could not be stopped by mere wounds. Dismembered. Disemboweled. Decapitated. Sliced in half or ripped down the middle... they kept right on coming. The living were fighting for their town and their lives... but the dead were driven by some seething evil that mere desperation could never hope to match. Whenever their claws found living flesh... whenever their ears heard a dying scream... the zombies would howl in ecstasy and redouble their assault, as if each act of slaughter was a heartbeat driving the putrescence through their rotting veins.

It shouldn't have been like this. Where was the boy? The D'Arcy child and his magic? They had the numbers... all they needed was a planned defense... organized lines of resistance... something... ANYTHING other than the chaos that the undead assault had thrown them into.

They were all going to be slaughtered. The dead had already surrounded their position, and newly-arriving reinforcements were foolishly diving into the rampaging mob in an attempt to hack and slash their way to the house. They only succeeded in getting themselves surrounded as well.

And now a SECOND group of reinforcements...

...was turning around and RUNNING!?!?!

WHERE WAS THE BOY!?!

Thane didn't waste any further effort trying to figure out what had happened to D'Arcy and his much-needed magic. There was a battle going on, and he had to join it.

He HAD to.

He didn't have a choice.

His back and left shoulder were on fire, and the flames were spreading... wider and deeper...

But he was not going to do this by himself. These people needed magic... and a plan... and a few good fighters. With just THAT much, they could turn this thing around. And if the gods were willing, he was going to get it for them.

As he ran toward the battle, Thane wiped the goo from his ring and stroked the faceted jewel. The touch of his fingers brought the magic to life, and as it spilled forth, Thane thrust his fist forward aiming it at the sky above the chaos.

"BLOOOOOOOOM!!" He cried, as the flaming rose took shape...

---

"We're being followed," Gallows informed them. He pointed, but December did not look. His attention was directed elsewhere...

"You should rest," he said. J'Hasp looked up at him. The small humanoid had unexpectedly emerged from the chains several minutes ago and taken its usual place at December's side. The creature was still hurt. Its normally animated gait was a slow and painful drag that left patches of blood staining the street behind it... but the December's friend and companion would not be carried or held. It wanted to walk beside its master, and so it did. Its only response to December's words was a confused double-blink... as if it had no idea what those words meant.

"Did you hear me?" said Gallows. "I said we-"

"Of course we are being followed," December said curtly. "But we are quite safe... so long as we do nothing foolish."

December ended with an obvious glance at Hemingway Shaw.

"Safety bought in blood," said Shaw. "How can you live with yourself?"

"-by ignoring the bleating of heroes and other fools," December replied. "I chose my battles, Mr. Shaw... I assume you have heard of the concept."

"Yes, but THIS is a battle we should FIGHT!"

"We did fight it. And behold the cost..." December looked at J'Hasp.

"...J'Hasp sorrrrry..." J'Hasp mewled.

"He looks fine to me!" said Hemingway.

"J'Hasp's powers of regeneration serve him well, however-"

"Well THAT'S just dandy!" said Emerson Shaw.... breaking his nearly three-minute silence. "YOU can get your throat ripped out and you're still takin'.... HE can get sliced, diced, and frozen... and he just grows a new skin... but us REGULAR folks have to limp around like lepers for WEEKS just to heal a broken toe! Seems to me that you and J'HASP need to be doing most of the fighting, and let us humans play the background for a change, eh? How about we try THAT next time, eh?"

"Quiet, little brother, we're having a serious conversation here-"

"So am I! Have you seen your FACE lately, big brother!?"

Hemingway Shaw still bore the fresh, bloody reminders of his fight with J'Hasp. The bandages covering the wounds were soaked again, but he hadn't changed them since the earlier skirmish with the undead.

"THAT'S gonna leave a mark! And as for your 'serious conversation'..." Emerson darted ahead of his brother and turned to face him.... walking backwards the entire time. "This is one of those rare occasions where you're wrong!"

"You don't know what you're talking about, so you might-"

"Ohhhhh, yes I do! I'm here to make MONEY! And I can't very well make money if I get myself KILLED trying to save every damned person in this town!"

"We're not heroes, Shaw," said Hars. Harrison Blackshear had remained bitterly silent since December made had made his bargain. Hars was not happy... about the bargain, about December, or about anything else. And he was ESPECIALLY not happy about Hemingway Shaw's constant arguing. "We're thieves. We rob caravans, and in our off days we do odd jobs for him-" He jerked his head toward December. "Nothing in that description even remotely sounds like 'hero'."

"So you don't WANT to help these people?"

"Ya, I want to," said Hars. "But we aren't going to."

"Why, because HE said not to?!"

"That... and because I don't wanna die in this piss-hole of a town! In case you haven't noticed, we're outmatched here, Shaw! We can't even cross the street without gettin' our faces pounded in! We keep pushin' our luck in this place, and eventually its gonna push back!"

"But HE'S not outmatched!" said Hemingway. "We've seen what we can do! He can-"

"Tread lightly, Shaw," December warned. "My curse is my own... to apply and withhold as I see fit. Apply your thoughts elsewhere, lest they lead you to an unfortunate end."

Shaw and December exchanged stares. Shaw blinked first.

"This isn't right!" he complained. "Gallows! How do YOU feel about this!"

"I feel a lot of terrified people in a great deal of pain," said Gallows. "All around us."

"You want to help them, don't you?"

"I want to get as far away from them as I can. Being here hurts... and it hurts worse the longer we stay."

"VERY well said!" said Emerson. "My thoughts exactly! Being here BITES and I'd like to be on my way before somebody looses an ARM!"

"So I'm out-voted, eh? That it?"

"No, that is not it, Mr. Shaw. You imply that this arrangement is a democracy. I assure you that it is not... and if you continue your present course of discussion, I will demonstrate the nature of our relationship in exacting and painful detail."

"See..." said Emerson, still walking backward in front of his brother. "I TOLD you you were wrong!"

"Something's happening," said Gallows. The assassin pointed.

The undead had ravaged the street ahead of them, but there was no sign of the zombies now... other than the carnage they'd left behind.

"They're fighting," Gallows explained. "The people are fighting back. They aren't winning."

"How unfortunate," said December.

"Hey, how come we don't scare up old skull-and-bones and have HIM find Thane for us?" asked Emerson.

"N'Doki sees to his own ends, and will report to me when we return to Montfort."

"And we'll have nothing more to do with that necromancer," Hars growled. "He's evil-"

"Indeed he is," said December. "I would not have him any other way."

"I don't understand you," said Hemingway. "At first, I thought you were almost human. But now I see that was just an act. You're just as bad as that walking skeleton you call a friend-"

"-only a lot less ugly!" Emerson added.

"Which makes me wonder why you spend so much time and energy pretending to be something you're not. Seems you'd get a lot more done if you'd just... be what you are: A cruel, heartless bastar-"

"Will you SHUT IT UP, SHAW!" Hars barked. "THAT'S ENOUGH FROM YOU! JUST SHUT UP! THERE'S NOTHING LEFT TO DISCUSS HERE! We're DONE talking! FINISHED! THROUGH!"

"Unless you want to talk about that..." Gallows pointed up at the sky over the center of town. There, drawn in flames against the motionless gray clouds, was a giant burning rose.

"I think we just found Thane," said Emerson.

"That's his signal. He might be in trouble."

"If there's a fight, you'd best believe he's mixed up in it," said Hemingway Shaw.

"That, we cannot allow," said December.

"Well then we'd best be on our way!" said Hars. After a quick hand motion to the others, he began jogging swiftly toward the heart of Bephal.

"Don't worry," Hemingway added. "We'll try not to hurt any of your new friends. Em?"

"Right behind you!" The Shaw brothers sprinted after Blackshear. Behind them, Gallows floated upward and drifted not toward the center of town... but toward the nearest patch of shadows large enough to conceal him.

December watched them go.

"Clearly some disciplinary action is in order."

J'Hasp looked up at him in silent agreement.

---

It wasn't much of a battle.

Gallows had seen better... much better. But for sheer ugliness, this one ranked near the Horde's assault on Filmer Mount, which.... until now... had been by far the most visually unpleasant fight that Gallows had ever witnessed.

This was ugly.

Ugly in the sense that half of the combatants were dead, and looked like they'd spent at least a decade buried in moist earth. Ugly in the sense that the dead weren't merely content to kill their enemy... dismemberment and the gleeful tossing of entrails seemed to be the overriding rule rather than the exception. Ugly in the sense that Desperation vs. Insanity was ALWAYS an unpleasant thing to see...

...and even MORE unpleasant to feel.

As Gallows settled into place behind the chimney of a small building, he took a moment to tighten his concentration. With a little effort he managed to muffle the chaos in his brain enough to focus on a target without wincing. He crouched in the shadows, drew one of his arrows, and studied the scene below.

Things were considerably worse than they had first appeared.

Desperation was loosing. Badly. To say that their defenses had been over-run would be an understatement. From what Gallows could tell, there never HAD been any defenses. Everything was in disarray. There were still plenty of fighters, but they were scattered in small, widely-separated pockets that were being systematically surrounded and destroyed by their attackers. There were even a few women and children... the D'Arcy's among them... clustered near a demolished building at the heart of the combat. They were looking for a way out, but there was none. Unless the building behind them could offer some sort of shelter, they would all be dead in the next few minutes. A few minutes after THAT, the battle would be over. The zombies didn't have the numbers to kill EVERYONE so quickly, but some of the human fighters... those fortunate enough to be near the edge of the combat... were already fleeing. Gallows read the fear in the air, and he knew that soon there would be a mass exodus as everyone who COULD run... ran. At that point, those who remained would be quickly slaughtered, and the runners would be hunted down at the attackers' leisure.

But that end was not inevitable. Not yet. Gallows wouldn't be so bold as to call the situation good... or call the slim chance of victory a 'hope'.... but that chance was there. It had arrived with Blackshear and the others.

The trio of fighters... or rather, two fighters and Emerson... were at the outer fringe of the battle, scanning the chaos for Thane.

Gallows had already spotted him. Thane's flaming signal had faded, but Gallows didn't need it... or his own magic... to find him. Thane had obviously charged into the battle expecting a fight, but he found only disappointment. Not only were the zombies not attacking him, but they were making a concerted effort to AVOID him. Groups of undead scattered at his approach, and as he made his way through the crowd, the zombies parted before him like water flowing around a rock.

The undead were keeping up their end of December's bargain, and Yexhill Thane was not happy about it.

But Thane was making use of his unique situation. He had spotted the D'Arcy's through the haze of combat, and was now making his way toward them unopposed. If he reached them...

...he intended to lead them to safety, but any attempt to do so would probably violate December's bargain, and he would quickly find himself overwhelmed with more combat than even he could wish for. Gallows certainly didn't have enough arrows left in his quiver to help him if that happened.

But perhaps he only needed ONE arrow...

Gallows notched one of his flame arrows and drew it back against the bowstring. He took aim... adjusted slightly... and fired.

The arrow struck behind and slightly to the right of Yexhill Thane. It immediately erupted into a brief but brilliant plume of fire that could be seen from the furthest reaches of the battle.

Even someone as dense as Emerson Shaw could have spotted it. And he did.

Having pointed out Thane's location for them, Gallows leaned back and waited. The Night's Bloom would have the same protection as Thane... at least for now. Hemingway Shaw would eventually yield to his growing sense of heroism, but until THEN, there was nothing more that Gallows could do. And AFTER then...

...it would be up to someone else.

---

"NYAAAAAAAaaaa..."

Blood poured from the ragged stump of his left arm, the man stumbled drunkenly toward December. The trembling of his legs worsened with every step until finally he collapsed. With his one remaining hand, he grasped at the fringes of December's shirt.

"...help me!" Half of the man's face had been torn away, but both eyes were still intact. December looked into them as the man's trembling grip loosened.

"You are already dead," December said quietly. He said nothing else.

"...ahh..." The man choked and let go. He fell... slowly... at December's feet, leaving a splattered streak of fresh blood down the front of December's pants. His eyes began to glaze over... but he was not quite dead. He still fought... not against an undead enemy, but against death itself. He held on... just long enough...

The one arm swept backward, pointing curled fingers at the battle.

"...wife..." he muttered. "...I saw her... I... saw her.... help... pl-please..."

The thermal glow of the man's body begin to deepen and cool. He was dead.

December looked out at the madness. He scanned the crowd for-

-no.

"No," he repeated the word aloud. He looked down and saw that he had clenched his fists. The air around him was already growing colder in preparation...

...but unclenched his fingers and let the power fade away.

"Master!" At December's side, J'Hasp crouched down and prepared to spring into the crowd. He had caught the dead man's scent, and would easily be able to follow it back through the chaos... "J'Hasp help!"

"No, J'Hasp," December ordered. "We have found what we came to find. Now we are leaving." December retrieved a flat metal disk from his pocket. It was the size of a piece of local currency, but it bore none of the official seals or emblems... instead, December's own seal graced the front, and a complex magical rune decorated the reverse. December stroked the run with his thumb. The metal coin throbbed briefly...

...and nothing else happened.

"Lovvorn," December spoke into the coin. He didn't bother speaking again. If Lovvorn didn't reply to the first attempt, then either something was interfering with the magic, or something had happened to the mage. December turned to J'Hasp. "And it appears that the Night's Bloom may have a long walk ahead of them."

"De general deserting de scene of battle?" N'Doki hissed from behind him. December was not aware of the exact moment N'Doki appeared, but he was not surprised at the necromancer's arrival.

"General?" December spoke without turning. He could feel N'Doki walking up behind him.... "This disaster is not my affair. My involvement here has reached its end."

"Ahhh, and what of de women and de poor little children. SURELY you care for dem still, no?"

"Do not mock me, N'Doki."

N'Doki stood beside him, and together they watched the battle surge closer to its inevitable end. Most of the fighting had stopped... the remaining citizens of Bephal were now searching frantically for a means of escape. Unfortunately, the army of undead had been maneuvering around them from the very beginning. The humans were surrounded... trapped. If they worked together, a significant number of them may have been able to fight their way out... but that was a very unlikely 'if'.

"Are we done here?" December asked. "Have you discovered the source of the disturbance you sensed?"

"I know more dan I did," N'Doki replied. "Dere is not'ing more for me to learn here."

"Good. Return us to Montfort immediately-"

"Ahhh, but de same I cannot say for you."

December's head rotated very slightly. He did not look directly at N'Doki, but merely glared at the necromancer from the corner of his eye.

"I have learned your lesson," he said slowly.

"AHAA!!" N'Doki cackled. "HAVE you now!"

"There is a weakness... a vulnerability that I did not see until now."

"Mmmmmm... and what would dat weakness be, eh?"

"Compassion."

N'Doki sighed and shook his head.

"How is it dat de man who has lived so long... and seen so much... can yet be so ignorant."

A fresh burst of screaming overshadowed December's confused glance. Some of the townsfolk who had escaped the carnage earlier had regrouped... found more weapons... and were now attacking from the north. Their arrival was both expected... and inconsequential. Their numbers were too small, and their strategy too simple. Those that did not die instantly only managed to re-insert themselves into the loosing battle that they had barely escaped the first time.

"After dese many hours, you haf only seen de smallest part of what is before you."

"There is more?"

"More dan DIS!?" N'Doki pointed to the battle. "Ahh, but DIS is everyt'ing!"

"You speak in riddles once more-"

"RIDDLES!?! A FOOL beholds de OBVIOUS and calls it a RIDDLE!"

N'Doki's hand appeared on December's shoulder. The necromancer waved his other hand at the mob of undead before them.

"Tell me what you see, December."

"Death. Senseless destruction."

"You look too close! Back away from what you are trying so hard not to feel... Look wit your MIND, not your HEART! What do you see!"

"If there is something of importance to see here, then POINT IT OUT and let us be done with it!"

"I AM POINTING! But you are not SEEING!"

"No more games, N'Doki."

"Dis is no game! Dis iss a matter of your own survival! You WILL SEE what N'Doki shows you... but wit'out N'Doki, you will see it TOO LATE! Ahhhh... but N'Doki not allow dat! Dere iss too much at stake! You t'ink dis is about compassion!? BAH! DAT is only de smallest part! But if you learn DAT... den dere is still hope dat you can learn de GREATER lesson! ...given time..."

"Time has run out," said December. "For Bephal... and for your lessons."

"Not yet..." N'Doki stepped back, and December saw the familiar darkening of the air that heralded the necromancer's departure. "...dere iss still time... if you make it..."

And with yet another cryptic riddle, the necromancer was gone.

"It appears that the Night's Bloom may not be the only ones walking back to Montfort," said December.

---

"I don't GET it!" said Thane. "Why aren't they FIGHTING!"

Thane had reached the heart of the battle, where the largest and most organized group of militia had gathered around the Masserton house... forming a protective circle around the women, children, and the growing number of injured. Surrounded by the undead, the fighters were desperately holding back the enemy while searching for a way out.

Thane had made his way to them without having so much as TOUCHED a single fighting corpse.

"MR. THANE!"

Thane was surprised to see Floyd D'Arcy still among the living. The old man had found a cracked pick-axe to defend himself with, and several younger men to hide behind. Behind HIM, there were about six children, a few women... including Francesca... and a pile of young men in various stages of bleeding to death from missing limbs.

"Where's the BOY!" Thane shouted to Floyd.

"IN THERE!"

Thane expected the old man to point at the house, but instead, he indicated a vaguely boy-shaped black rock on the ground behind him. At least, it looked like a rock.

"THAT FRIEND OF YOURS WRAPPED HIM UP! WE CAN'T GET HIM OUT! IF WE COULD GET HIM OUT-"

"WHAT FRIEND!?"

"OHH, I THINK YOU KNOW WHICH ONE!"

"N'Doki..."

Thane knelt beside Casey and tried to test the cocoon's surface, but then he saw why no one could free Casey/Trisk. His hand went right through the 'solid' black shell as if it wasn't there. He reached out to touch it, and found himself grabbing Casey's arm instead. But the arm was cold and stiff... and it wouldn't move no matter how hard Thane tugged.

"...magic..." Thane grumbled. "Maybe I can burn it off..." He stepped back... then thought about what he was about to do and decided not to do it.

"THEY'RE PULLING BACK AGAIN!" Someone shouted. Thane turned in time to see the mob of undead peel away from the crowd of
humans... just as they had done when he had arrived. The retreat did not go far or last long... only long enough to allow three armed figures to approach the circle of humans.

"HARS!" Thane called.

"I should have known you'd be in the middle of this fight!" Hars shouted back.

"Yeah, but there's NO FIGHT! At least not for me! Whenever I try-"

"I know," said Hemingway Shaw. "December made a deal."

"DEAL?! What KIND of DEAL!?"

"We let them kill all these people, and they leave US alone."

"WHAT!?!"

"It's true," said Hars. "The only reason we're still here is to get you and get out."

"I'm not leaving these people!" said Thane desperately. "I have to FIGHT! NOW!"

"Thane's got his ring," said Hemingway. "My brother's got his knife... We may not be much, but maybe we've got enough magic to-"

"To do what? Fight off an ARMY of monsters?" said Hars. "With a magic ring and a knife!?"

"Maybe we won't have to fight at all," said Hemingway. "Look around you. You see any fighting going on?"

The fighting in their immediate vicinity had stopped. The creatures that had been attacking had shifted their assault elsewhere, creating an empty bubble of clear space around the Night's Bloom. Part of that bubble extended into the ranks of the Bephal militia.

Hemingway smiled.

Thane frowned.

Hars scratched his chin, and Emerson Shaw looked around for something valuable to steal.

"December won't like it," said Hars. "...but... looks like he isn't around to say much about it."

"We do this and it'll violate his deal," said Hemingway. "We might not get far. And if we DO..."

"December will kill us," said Emerson. "Well, brother... looks like you and me are on the road again. What town do you want to try next, eh?"

"Let's get out of THIS one first," said Hemingway.

"EVERYBODY GATHER AROUND US!" Hars shouted. "EVERYBODY WHO CAN WALK! There's four of us, lads... so if we form a box with as many people as possible in the middle, we should be able to keep a lot of 'em out of harms way. The rest will have to fend for themselves. And when we get out of this mess, we LEAVE! We're not sticking around to fight every zombie in Bephal."

"Agreed," said Hemingway.

"...yeah, especially since we'll probably be dead anyway." Emerson added.

"We'll go that way..." Hars pointed out into the street. There were several groups of people still fighting, and Hars was pointing at the largest of them. "We'll pick up as many of those fighters as we can. If we can make it that far before the zombies attack us, at least we'll have enough men to fight the rest of the way out."

"What about the rest-"

"We can't save 'em all, Shaw. We're thieves... not heroes."

"December could-"

"GATHER AROUND!" Hars repeated his order, ignoring Hemingway.

The Night's Bloom assumed the formation, and all of the non-combatants crowded into the center of the square. Those who could fight formed a tighter circle around the perimeter.

"I've got Casey!" said Floyd. The old man had Casey's shrouded body slung over his shoulder. He and Francesca stayed close to Thane. "Do you think we can make it out of here?"

"No," said Thane. "Not all of us. But I'll die before you, I promise you that."

"LETS GO!" Hars ordered. "BUT STAY CLOSE!"

As the assembly moved away from the house, the 'rectangle' slowly morphed into a diamond, with Harrison Blackshear at the front. Hemingway and Thane at the left and right flanks, and Emerson brought up the rear. The zombies immediately closed in around them. They did not get close enough to attack... but instead, they glared at the Night's Bloom with stares of increasing hostility.

"They're on to us!" Thane shouted.

"FASTER!" Hars ordered.

The speed of the diamond increased... nearly doubling as it cut through the mob of zombies toward the embattled group of fighters ahead. People were shouting at them now. Some men cried out to be rescued. Others merely screamed as they tried in vain to fight their way toward the moving bubble of safety...

...only to see it move on past without slowing down.

And then, without warning... the bubble burst.

They were mere yards away from the group of men they'd been trying to rescue. A visible shudder went through the mob of zombies, and then they all attacked.

The ring of fighters around the outer perimeter held... then wavered... then finally collapsed inward as the zombies renewed their slaughtering rampage.

"DON'T RUN!" Hars shouted to the crowd. "IF WE STAY CLOSE WE CAN STILL FIGHT OUR WAY OUT !"

Most of the men obeyed his orders... they stayed and fought. Others fought only long enough to find an opportunity to bolt. The group of humans surged forward another few desperate yards... but then the mob of undead came at them from two directions, cutting off their route.

"KEEP FIGHTING!" Hars ordered as the zombies closed in around him. "KEEP FI-"

The howl of angry corpses and the whistle of swinging steel swallowed them.

---

"Fools..."

December had watched the rescue attempt from the beginning, and now, as the foolhardy plan bore its inevitable fruit, the very furthest thing from December's mind were the words of his mentor.

"They have doomed themselves. And perhaps us as well."

The sudden increase in violence had drawn J'Hasp's attention, but neither the creature nor its master was oblivious to the three hulking shapes shambling out of the alley behind them. J'Hasp hissed-

"Calm yourself," December said steadily. The motion of zombies had evolved from a slow shamble to a very fast walk. "You are too weak."

Heavy and cold, the air began to descend around December like a thick curtain.

"-I shall..."

The trio of undead split and went around him... paying him no attention whatsoever. Their target appeared to be the group of men that was taking advantage of the shift in forces toward the Night's Bloom and making a desperate dash for safety. The scene repeated elsewhere as more undead reinforcements streamed into the battle. A small group of them had been held in reserve for this very moment... the moment when the humans were fleeing permanently, with no plans for return. Though they were few, the reinforcements where whole, undamaged, and unexpected. Their targets were weary and injured from battle... but they had more than enough energy to scream when the zombies took them by surprise. The humans thought they had gotten away.

"IT'S A NIGHTMARE!" December was close enough to hear one of them shout. He was one of the few men armed with an actual weapon... but his sword hung limply at his side; his arm simply too tired to raise it. Instead, as the creatures closed in around him and his neighbors, he tried to run. He almost made it. One of the creatures caught him, and soon, warm bits of his anatomy were raining down on the battlefield.

December watched the entire affair without visible reaction. When the slaughter immediately before him was complete, his slightly squinting eyes sought out the Night's Bloom. Harrison Blackshear...

...December couldn't see him. The street was too cluttered. There were occasional glimpses of heat where the leader of the Night's Bloom once fought, but it could have been anyone. Whoever it was, they were surrounded.

So was Hemingway Shaw, who was still trying to fight his way out of the crowd. There were men... and a few women... all clinging to the space around him, as if his presence offered some magical protection. Perhaps they had reason to believe it did, since the numbers of undead were unusually light on that part of the battlefield...

...but that was only because they were walking into a trap. Hemingway hadn't seen it yet, but his enemy set a trap, and the undead would close in around him just when he came within sight of safety... just when hope was at its highest.

Immediately behind him, Emerson Shaw and Yexhill Thane were trying... and failing.... to protect his rear. Thane's ring unleashed one... then two blasts of flame over Emerson Shaw's protests. Now besieged by FLAMING zombies, the remains of the Bephal militia began to scatter. The formation came apart... literally splitting down the middle as the undead pinched in from either side, separating Hemingway and Blackshear from the others.

Unaware that his fighting force was now cut in half, Hemingway continued charging headlong into a trap. What would follow would be a fitting, yet gruesome end for the meddling Shaw brother...

...and all of the people that he was leading to safety.

December raised the coin that he still held in his hand, stroking the cold surface once more.

"Mr. Lovvorn," he said. This time, he repeated it. "Mr. Lovvorn, I am... ready to leave."

The coin hummed briefly. December expected to hear the drunken mage's voice... but the only sound reaching his ears was the sudden outburst of screaming from the battle.

"GO!" Hemingway shouted. "FORM A WEDGE AND DRIVE THROUGH THEM!" Hemingway pointed at the solid wall of undead driving toward them. But instead of fighting he turned back and began to smash his way toward Harrison Blackshear. "I'm COMING! HOLD ON!"

"NO!" Hars's voice shouted back. Then he added: "YOU'RE BEING FLANKED, YA BLOODY FOOL!"

And then hell unleashed itself upon them all.

Zombies surged in from both sides, catching the separated groups of humans in a vice that immediately and brutally overwhelmed the defenders. The cluster of people around Yexhill Thane scattered as the monsters drove past the unskilled fighters... almost ignoring them... and instead focused their malicious energies on the women and children at the heart of the formation.

One of the zombies exploded in a ball of fire. And then another.... and another...

Gallows had joined the battle. But the archer was down to his last arrows... flaming projectiles that offered little help against creatures that did not fear fire.

"NOOOO!" Thane shouted. He had armed himself with a shovel, and now using it as an ineffective bludgeon, trying to fight his way back into the doomed crowd. He charged into the flaming hole that Gallows had cleared for him. Floyd and Francesca D'Arcy had been beside him a moment ago, but now they were gone. December looked for them, but instead he found Hemingway Shaw. He had Harrison Blackshear by one arm.... The swordsman was bloody and weaponless... barely able to stay on his feet with Shaw's help. Having found Blackshear, Shaw turned to see the people he thought he'd lead to safety being literally torn apart right in front of him.

He screamed as the undead swarmed around him.

"N'Doki!" December called. He looked around, frowning. "N'Doki! I have seen enough!"

If the necromancer were listening, he chose not to reply.

An all-too-familiar scream lanced outward from the heart of the battle. Francesca D'Arcy. Emerson Shaw had her by the hand, and was pulling her back toward the house. She was pulling away, pointing at...

Where was Floyd D'Arcy and the boy? Perhaps Thane had reached them in time...

...but then, where was Thane? Gone.

Where was Hemingway Shaw? Where was Harrison Blackshear?

"Masster?" J'Hasp said cautiously.

"Yes?"

"... no help?"

"No."

"No help... friends?"

"No, J'Hasp."

The creature looked up at him. There was an odd pause, and then J'Hasp spoke a word that December very rarely heard from his companion. Hearing it now, under these circumstances, was... uncomfortable.

"...Why?"

December stared into the sadly curious eyes and saw tiny reflection of himself staring back at him from the dark pupils.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or perhaps it was one of N'Doki's illusions. Perhaps it was something else entirely.... but the tiny image staring back at him...

"Why, Master?" J'Hasp repeated.

...glaring up at him from J'Hasp's eyes...

"What is that...?" December mouthed silently. "...what is that... thing..."

But December already knew the answer. Jusst as he knew that there was no magic... no trick of the light.

It was him.

That inhuman thing he saw reflected in his friend's eyes.... was him.

"Stay here," December ordered. He turned and stormed into the street, where the battle raged to its bloody conclusion. The temperature around him dropped from merely uncomfortable to deadly. Instantly deadly.

The first beast that charged him became a spray of frozen chunks. The impact forced December back a step, but the crimelord righted himself-

-then was nearly knocked down by the second beast. The zombie's skull shattered under December's boot as he regained his balance.

The battle was now reacting to his presence. Zombies began to circle him. December stood his ground and let them come.

He held his hand before him, palms together... then slowly moved them apart. The air between them grew sharp as something took shape.

"Come if you will," December said.

As December concentrated, one of the zombies bent down, picked up a rock... and threw it. The fist-sized stone bounced off of December's skull

"UNGH!" December reeled, but maintained the position of his hands. Another rock hit his jaw hard enough to numb the entire left side of his face. December backed away, but the beasts had circled him. Now they were all searching for projectiles... rocks... bits of wood and metal... pieces of their own bodies...

Another stone rocked December's head back, and sent a jet of blue blood racing down into his left eye.

One zombie had a broken shovel... which looked remarkably like the one that Yexhill Thane had been carrying. The bloody tool had been snapped in half, and the creature hurled the bladed end at the back of December's head-

The zombie exploded the instant the projectile left its hand.

Hearing the explosion, December spun... too late. He saw-

"...yyyeeeEEEEEEEE!"
-clink-

-J'Hasp streak across his field of vision and snatch the speeding shovel out of the air. J'Hasp's clawed feet touched the ground only for an instant-

-in that instant, the creature threw the shovel blade past December, decapitating the zombie coming up behind him, then sprang in an entirely different direction... landing claws-first on a howling zombie's chest.

"LEAVE MASTER ALONE!" J'Hasp shrieked as his claws shredded the beast's torso. "YOU LEAVE ALONE!!" The zombie fell... not dead, but lacking three of its four appendages. J'Hasp sprang away-

"J'HASP!"

December hurled the now-complete ice gem-

-At J'Hasp.

"TAKE IT!" December pointed. "THERE!"

J'Hasp's claws closed around the tumbling gem. Cradling the massive diamond to his chest, J'Hasp leapt over the heads of the creatures surrounding December. J'Hasp landed behind them-

-and ran.

---

"About bloody time," Gallows said as he took aim and let another arrow fly. The resulting fireball cleared a small path for December to charge ahead... or not... and eliminated the zombie that was about to take his head off with a rock. Unfortunately there were six more about to do the same thing.

Gallows reached for another arrow. His quiver was nearly empty. He was down to flame arrows now... with precious few of them left. He drew the next one and was about to place it in his bow...

...he stopped and turned. The rooftop behind him-

Nothing there.

Not YET...

A second later, J'Hasp scrambled over the edge. The creature was holding something close to its chest.

"TAKE!!" J'Hasp hissed. He held out an enormous jewel... it looked like a massive diamond, but with a faint bluish glow. When Gallows took it, it felt... delicate. And angry.

There was anger inside of it. Rage.

Power.

Smiling, Gallows took his next flame arrow and thumped the glowing arrowhead with his finger. The arrow's glow faded. He waved his hand over the tip and pronounced a single syllable.

The arrowhead began to glow again. He placed it against the ice gem. The instant the metal touched the delicate surface, the glow intensified to a brilliant blue. It got brighter... brighter...

...soon the arrowhead was too bright to see. It was like a tiny sun poised on the end of a wooden shaft Gallows spun and slipped the arrow into his bow. Squinting past the blinding light, he took aim-

-and let the missile fly.

---

Rotten teeth shattered against Yexhill Thane's force field. The punch demolished the zombie's jaw, but did nothing to stop the fiend from charging past him, shrieking after Floyd D'Arcy and the boy.

"GET IT!"

Floyd swung his pick-axe. The zombie's head tumbled up and over the crowd, but the damned thing kept COMING!

A spinning kick drove Thane's bloody foot into the creature's spine. The backbone shattered, and suddenly the creature was down.

But not dead.

Using its arms, it dragged itself across the ground toward the enshrouded form of Casey D'Arcy.

"AAAAAAA!"

Floyd looked up. The scream-

"THANE!"

They had him. When he'd turned to kick, they'd rushed him. Now they had him by the shoulders, dragging him away.

"KEEP FIGHTING!" Thane shouted back as his force field died.

"THANE!"

"KEEP FIGHTING, DAMMIT!! KEEP-"

"REEEEEEEEEE!" Something that might have once been Claude the Candleman... maker of exotic candles (some forged from congealed human fat)... charged the old man with talons outstretched and a mouth full of grinning brown teeth. Floyd's pick-axe smashed the teeth, but the sharpened bone talons ripped across his shoulder.

"ARRRRGHHT!" The weapon tumbled from Floyd's suddenly impotent grasp. He expected his ruined arm to hit the ground along with it, but when it didn't, the old man used the last of his strength to tear himself out of the zombie's grasp and throw himself onto Casey, covering the boy's body with his own.

The fight was over. He was done... but the beasts were STILL going to have to go through him to get to the boy.

"If you're still in there, boy! Close your eyes! Close your... OH GODS, HERE THEY COME! I'M SORRY, FRANCESCA-"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

-thwwiip!-

Floyd D'Arcy had already closed his own eyes. He didn't see the lightning, but he heard the thunder...

...that HAD to have been what it was. A massive thunderclap, followed by wind so cold that it must have come straight out of the devil's heart... so cold that it actually BURNED! It felt like-

-it stopped.

Floyd looked up and opened his eyes, expecting to see December standing over him. Instead, he saw four zombies... frozen in place. As he looked, one of them toppled... it struck its neighbor as it fell, sparking a chain reaction that brought all for creatures shattering to the ground.

"Wha..." Floyd began.

Then, lightning struck again...

---

Blackshear was down. Probably dead. Hemingway didn't have time to look, but he was pretty sure...

...pretty sure that everyone was dead. Everyone except him.

Now it was his turn.

His heart thundered in his chest. He barely had strength to lift his hammer, but he did it anyway and brought the weapon down onto a zombie's smiling, rotten face. The satisfying crunch gave him the strength he needed to raise the weapon again.

"UNGH!"

Something hit him from the side. He was a stone... he was a mountain... rare was the man or beast that could simply run into him and knock him down...

...but he was sooooo tired.

He kept hold of his hammer as he fell, but his arm ended up trapped underneath him. He couldn't move. There was a human skull mere INCHES from his face... GRINNING at him... and he could not move!

The zombie's head shot forward. Hemingway turned, and the beast's teeth bit into his already shredded cheek. It began to chew...

"AAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"...stop... yer cryin'..." Harrison Blackshear said has he fell on top of the creature and folded his arm around the zombie's throat. "...and... FIGHT!"

Hars ripped the creature's head off of its still squirming neck and tossed it away.

It was a small and utterly meaningless gesture, because now...

...now they were going to die.

Three more of the beasts pounced-

-thwwiip!-

There was an explosion, and an unnatural cold tore at their expose skin... burning almost like acid.

Then someone started throwing things at them-

-bits and pieces of the zombies that had come apart in the air, flash-frozen in mid-leap.

-thwwiip!-

-another explosion of cold and wind-

-thwwiip!-

-and another.

-thwwiip!-

-ANOTHER!

"NRRRGH!" Hemingway Shaw grunted as he forced himself to his feet. Hars tried to follow suit, but the man had lost too much blood. With blood streaming down his own face, Shaw picked up Blackshear and limped past the ring of cold, motionless statues surrounding them.

---

"Drowning's not a bad way to go, I hear!" Emerson Shaw said as he pushed Francesca D'Arcy behind him. They'd been trying to retreat to the Masserton house, but that position had already been overrun...

...so now they were waiting.

Emerson Shaw's enchanted dagger hummed in his hand, filling his limbs with power that it had drained from the zombie in front of them. Unfortunately, the zombie had plenty of power to spare... and the fact that it was missing half of its head didn't seem to matter much to it.

Had there only been ONE zombie, then Emerson wouldn't have worried.

But there were about forty.

"...but oddly enough, I've heard being beheaded hurts like HELL!" Emerson chattered. "But being torn apart and eaten alive... THAT one I'm not sure about."

Emerson weighed his chances. He could get away. He was sure of that... he was fast and agile enough to slip past without so much as a scratch. But that would involve leaving Francesca to die. Being fast and agile wasn't enough to save them both. There had been other people around to protect them... men with swords... but now all of THEM were dead...

So what was he going to do NOW!? After all... he barely knew this woman...

"We're going to die, aren't w-we!?" Francesca said frantically as they backed away from the wall of undead pressing toward them.

"Yep," said Emerson. "I do believe you are!"

There was no shout or battle cry... the zombies simply all charged at once.

Suddenly, and explosion sent both Emerson and Francesca staggering. There was no light... or even heat... but instead, a bitter cold and swirled around them, tearing at their skin like a living thing. Emerson shut his eyes before they froze in their sockets...

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!?!" Francesca screamed. Emerson heard the scream clearly, because the terrible wind was gone.

"Get up, Mr. Shaw."

Emerson opened his eyes. December was standing over him.

"...what the hell happened to YOU!?" said Shaw.

December looked like he'd been beaten repeatedly with a very large stick. His clothes were bloody and torn, and one eye was swollen shut. But if he was in any pain, it didn't register on his face.

Behind him, the mob of zombies was disintegrating... their frozen bodies coming apart as they collapsed.

"I mean, uhhh..." Emerson stammered. "...you're not going to kill me, are you?"

"Of course not, Mr. Shaw," said December. "I usually leave disciplinary actions to Mr. Hood."

Emerson gulped.

"However, in light of the fact that I have violated my own orders, any discipline rendered will be... minimal."

"Heh. Yeah. Uhhh, 'minimal' means..."

"It means minimal, Mr. Shaw."

Not far away, another plume of sub-arctic cold erupted, freezing dozens of zombies into a solid mass of frozen flesh. Before that plume died, another rose to take its place.

"Who's doing that?" said Emerson.

"I am," December replied.

---

Thane vaguely aware of his body being pulled and twisted in ways that it was not meant to go... with the subtle beginnings of agony from the dozens of claws that were just starting their trek across his flesh-

And then everything went black.

Unfortunately, it was not the blackness of death or unconsciousness. He was still very much awake.

What came then was the sound of flesh being torn and bones being broken. Thane felt certain that the flesh and bones in question belonged to him, but he felt no pain-

-other than the sudden jolt of his backside hitting the ground. He had fallen clear of the black cloud that had enveloped him, and realized that the cloud was not a cloud at all...

...nor was he its intended target.

"GHOSTS!" Thane gasped as he pushed himself away from the unholy sight before him. Black shapes like shadows were weaving in, around, and through the zombies that had been holding him. The shapes tore at the undead attackers, ripping them apart from the outside AND the inside. Limbs and hunks of rotting meat spun out of the black cloud like debris from a whirlwind... faster and faster...

Thane turned away-

Something grabbed his shoulder and yanked him up.

"YOU!" Thane gasped.

"Expecting someone else?" said N'Doki.

"That's... that's TWICE you've saved my life! What... you trying to make up for betraying us earlier?"

"Let us just say dat you int'rest me, Yexhill T'ane."

"...is that good, or bad?"

"Ohhh, 'tis quite bad." N'Doki smiled.

"If you could do that for ME-" Thane pointed at the small mountain of twitching body parts that N'Doki's ghosts has left behind. "Then you could save all these people!"

"I could," N'Doki nodded.

"WELL!?"

"...well?"

"SAVE THEM!"

"Ahhh..."

Still smiling, N'Doki raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

---

With a snap of his wrist, Gallows folded his collapsible longbow and set the weapon aside. The final arrow had already found its target and, though there was plenty of power left in December's gem, Gallows had no more baptism arrows to make use of it. The gem itself didn't seem to be doing all that well anyway. Each arrow had sampled only a tiny fraction of the gem's power and replicated it with its own internal magic, but a dozen tiny samples seemed enough to destabilize the gem. The faint but steady blue glow was now weakening flicker, and the gem now weighted only a fraction of what it had when J'Hasp had handed it to him. And it was growing colder... so cold that it hurt to hold it, even with leather gloves. Either the gem was about to disappear altogether... or it was going to explode.

Gallows tossed the gem off the edge of the roof. Gallows didn't hear it hit the ground, but a roaring blast of cold air shot up past his rooftop perch, reducing the temperature to and uncomfortable degree before dissipating.

Now there was nothing left to do but see how the others would make use of the gift that had given them. December's power was more effective against the zombies that mere fire, but the undead were too scattered... with too many innocent people mixed in with them... to make the most of it.

Or perhaps December WANTED him to freeze the innocents... it was hard to tell with men like December.

The best Gallows could do was release the Night's Bloom from the various corners they'd gotten themselves backed into, and then take out a few key zombie formations between them and the most obvious routes of escape. Now, with any luck (or intelligence) enough people could escape to keep this debacle from becoming a complete massacre. December was helping to even the odds even further. He'd created a few more ice gems... a process that made Gallows' head buzz even from across the battlefield... and used them to clear out a small section of the street. Survivors were now streaming past the frozen dead, running as fast as they could.

But it wasn't quite fast enough.

There were still plenty of undead on the ground. They were scattered now... chasing after humans in groups of two or three instead of overwhelming mobs. That reduced the effectiveness of December's ability, since, as powerful as he was, the crimelord couldn't be everywhere... and save everyone... at once. In fact, December himself was in grave danger... as more of the zombies had taken to throwing rocks and other projectiles at him from a safe distance. The Night's Bloom was in no condition to protect him, and if he didn't get himself to safety soon, he was going pay for his involvement with his life.

Somehow, Gallows didn't think that was going to happen.

He was wondering what other tricks December might be holding in reserve...

...when the answer presented itself in brilliant plume of fire rising up from the battlefield. At first, Gallows thought that Thane was using his ring, or that someone had detonated a cask of black powder on the ground, but when the inundating waves of heat and anger expanded across the sky, he knew that another power had entered the fray... a power that had been present, but held in check until that moment.

Casey D'Arcy rode the plume of flame upward until he was towering over the field of bodies. December's involvement had saved many, but it had come far, far too late.

Jerimiah Trisk glared through the boy's eyes... with a sea of anger boiling higher and hotter in the tiny frame. Gallows heard the scream of rage in his mind before it left Casey's trembling lips-

"AAAAAGGH" Gallows ducked down and folded his arms over his head, as if THAT would somehow mute the anger burning into his brain. His eyes shut out the burning mage-child, but the sight that his eyes missed... magnificent though it was... could not hope to match the explosion of righteous fury that blazed across his mind.

There was a single monstrous thunderclap... an invisible bolt of power that seemed to have no source and no destination. An instant later, a column of fire shot downward from the floating fireball that was Casey D'Arcy. It struck the ground directly below him and exploded into a multiple lances of flame and hellfire that streaked toward their targets with deadly accuracy. Pillars of fire erupted on the street... each burning flash marking the spot where a zombie had once been. While Yexhill Thane's ring lacked the power to completely incinerate a human body, Jerimiah Trisk had no such limitation. The bolts of flame crackled and danced from zombie to zombie, igniting each into blast of light and a thick spray of black ash before streaking on to the next target. The flames etched a spiderweb of heat across the battlefield; streams of fire danced around the living and seeking out only the animated dead that still hunted them...

...with one exception-

---

Yexhill Thane watched in awe as the flames literally erased the zombies from the street.

"You... YOU DID THIS!?" he gasped.

"No and yes," N'Doki replied. He stepped toward Thane. "N'Doki makes many t'ings possible! Such as our survival..."

"What-"

Thane saw the blast of flame heading toward them. He expected it to veer around them, but very quickly it became clear that it was not going to do so. Each bolt of fire had a target...

...and so did this one.

Thane reached for his ring. Maybe he would have activated the field in time... maybe it would have protected him...
or maybe not. He never got the chance to find out. The instant his hand moved toward the ring, he felt N'Doki touch him. Not just touch...

...he felt the necromancer ENGULF him. Heat and darkness... and that SOUND! THAT SOUND! It was like someone had thrown a blanket of screams over him and then yanked him sideways into hell. Instinctively, Thane closed his eyes. He knew that there was something to see... something horrible... but he also knew that to look upon it meant the worst kind of madness. He shut it out... whatever it was... before the slightest glimpse could reach his eyes.

Soon, the only scream he heard was his own.

---

The fiery display lasted only long enough for Trisk to seek his revenge... and then it died as quickly as it had been summoned. Casey D'Arcy dropped from the sky not like a stone, but like an arrow fired at the earth. The boy's dizzying descent slowed at the last instant, allowing Casey to hit the ground with a painful thud rather than an ugly splatter.

"CASEY!" Floyd and Francesca D'Arcy converged on the boy from different directions, while the Night's Bloom gathered around December.

December... weak and bloody... was still standing, but was leaning heavily on J'Hasp. The injured creature seemed to have no trouble supporting his bulk. Nor did the aura of intense cold surrounding his master cause so much as a shiver. J'Hasp's rapid breaths hung around them both in a thick white fog.

Hemingway Shaw carried the conscious but immobile form of Harrison Blackshear cradled in his arms. Weakness weighted heavily on Shaw's massive frame, and blood fell from them both in a splattering rain. The claws of the enemy had found both of them...

...but Emerson Shaw was untouched. From the moment his knife touched flesh, he had had the speed and agility to stay out of reach. But, at a time when even December wore wounds, it also gave Emerson Shaw the appearance of not having done anything at all.

"F...find a good place to hide... brother?" said Hemingway. He placed Hars on the ground... and then joined him in the dirt before he could collapse.

"Me? Hide?" said Emerson. "I'd NEVER run from a fight! Unless I was loosing..."

"Ohh, I think we were losing," said Hemingway.

"Where's Thane?" Hars said weakly.

Everyone looked around. There were people everywhere... but none of them looked like Yexhill Thane.

"We may have lost him," said Hemingway.

"See what being a hero gets you!" said Emerson. "He owed me money! Now I'll never get it!"

"Have you no shame, brother?"

"No. You know that."

"I also know... that we'd be dead if it wasn't for you." Hemingway looked to his employer. "Glad you changed your mind."

December only nodded. He stood up straight, taking his weight off of J'Hasp. J'Hasp shuddered and scampered away, but the creature did not go far. He paused to rake his claws through a pile of smoking ash, and then crouched where he was to watch the crowd.

"Mr. Blackshear's wounds appear life-threatening," said December. "However, Lovvorn is not responding to my-"

"AWAY FROM ME, YOU SMOTHERING FOOLS!"

Everyone turned toward the bellowing voice. They saw Francesca D'Arcy go flying backward, and Floyd cowering on the ground below the hovering figure of Casey Jerimiah Trisk D'Arcy.

Trisk was glaring at December, and as everyone watched, the mage floated rapidly toward them.

"Forgive me, gentlemen," December said to the Night's Bloom. "An old enemy has come to greet me."

"Do you see what you have DONE!?!" Trisk screamed. The boy came to a halt before December and hovered a few feet from the ground, so that Casey's glowing eyes were level with December's. "Do you SEE!?!"

"I see a man who should be dead," December replied. "Much as this town would be if it were not for my assistance."

"ASSISTANCE?! I could have saved them ALL if you hadn't-"

Something fast and dark blew past Trisk. All of the nearby shadows rose up and tied themselves into a knot beside and slightly behind December. The knot darkened... deepened... and then unfolded, dropping N'Doki and Yexhill Thane back into the land of the living.

Thane was still screaming.

"---AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaa... uhh... what? What's everybody lookin' at?"

"I t'ink we are just in time, yes?" said N'Doki. "Dey appear to haf started wit'out us."

"YOU!!" Trisk roared. Flames billowed around the boy as he raised his hands and-

"Nope..." Gallows was standing directly behind Jerimiah Trisk... and HAD been standing there since the moment the mage started talking. The assassin's quiver was empty, but he still had his mini-crossbows, one in each hand. Both were loaded and aimed at the back of Trisk's head. "Stop the fire and brimstone and you get to keep your brains on the inside of your skull."

"HHSSSSSSSSSSS!" J'Hasp crouched below Trisk and snarled.

"Kill him!" Hars ordered. "Not the boy... the OTHER one!"

"Are we on N'Doki's side now?" said Emerson. "It's so hard to keep track of these things..."

"He saved my life twice in the past hour," said Thane. "So if its gonna go down, guess who gonna stand with..."

"We appear to be at a standoff," said December.

"Arrogant simpletons!" said Trisk. "I could kill you ALL with-"

"Then do it," said December.

"I DARE ya!" Emerson added. "I DOUBLE-DOG-DARE ya!"

"If you insist," Casey's eyes began glowing brighter.

"Or perhaps dis one should be less concerned wit us... and more wit destroying dis t'ing dat has come to kill Bephal. DAT is why you returned, is it not?"

"You people ARE a threat to this town!"

"We are also your only hope of saving it," said N'Doki. Trisk glared at him. N'Doki smiled back.

"Wait a minute," said Emerson. "Didn't we ALREADY save this town? Twice!? Now the VILLAIN wants us to save it AGAIN!?"

December gave N'Doki a curious glance.

"What game are you playing, monster?" said Trisk.

"De game dat ends when your enemy is destroyed," said N'Doki. "You cannot achieve dat on your own. Kill us, and you kill dis town."

"What do you know, N'Doki? No more secrets. No more riddles."

"No more secrets indeed!" said N'Doki. "De time for secrets has passed! Now... NOW it is time... for de truth!"

[To Be Continued]