Arthur Daigle's Blog - Posts Tagged "elf"

This story was originally intended for the Tales of Ever After anthology by Fellowship of Fantasy. It's divided into two parts because it runs a tad long, which is why it didn't end up in the anthology. I hope you enjoy it, and part 2 will be coming soon.


“You said the Walking Graveyard was dead,” Dana said as she scraped mud and bone shards off her boots. “You promised.”

“I thought it was,” Jayden replied. The Sorcerer Lord dunked his head in a nearby stream to wash his long, blond, messy hair clean. Most of the mud came out, but he had to scrub hard to remove the last few bits of soil. “The first time we fought the blasted thing I hacked it to pieces and dropped a stone tower on it. You’ll forgive me if I thought that was enough.”

Dana pointed at the foul remnants of the Walking Graveyard. The trail they were on ran through an idyllic pasture with blooming wildflowers filling the air with their perfume. An otherwise gorgeous scene was ruined by three tons of mud, bone fragments and shattered tombstones spread across the trail. “It followed us across the kingdom.”

“I normally admire tenacity, but not in this case.” Jayden waved for her to get off the trail. “Perhaps this can put the monster to rest for good. Cover your ears.”

Dana walked away while Jayden chanted. Dana was a girl of fifteen with brown hair and brown eyes. She wore a dress that had been dirty before the recent battle and now was in desperate need of cleaning, along with leather boots that came up to her knees. Dana was armed with a dagger and carried a backpack and sack loaded with coins, jewelry and other minor valuables.

Not long ago, Dana had been a simple farm girl, her father the mayor of a small frontier town. A terrible monster had menaced her town, and in desperation she’d reached out to Jayden, the world’s only Sorcerer Lord. He’d helped, but it was clear Jayden was deeply troubled. There was no telling what he might do if left alone, so she’d joined him to steer him from self destructive behavior, like attacking the king and queen of their kingdom.

The chanting grew louder as Jayden continued his spell. He was handsome and charming, and dressed in outlandish black and silver clothes. He carried no weapons, but his magic made him equal to nearly any foe. Jayden carried his own backpack loaded with treasure, rewards from their missions together. Most men would rest and celebrate after acquiring such riches, but money was of little interest to Jayden. He wanted the king and queen overthrown. Nothing less would do.

A spark formed in Jayden’s hands and flew to the defeated monster. This was the second time they’d fought the Walking Graveyard, a horror of mud, stone and bone, and apparently possessing enough of a mind to take offense at their earlier victory to track them down for a rematch. It might be dead this time, but Jayden wasn’t taking chances. The spark reached the Walking Graveyard and detonated into a white-hot blast of fire that cremated and scattered the monster’s body.

“That better be enough, for its sake as well as ours,” Jayden said. “I’ve better things to do than relive old victories, and as odious as that monster was, I’ve no desire to see it suffer needlessly.”

“And we don’t want it following us into a city,” Dana added.

“That wouldn’t do. We should reach our goal before lunchtime, and I don’t want to place people in danger because of me.”

With that done Dana and Jayden resumed their journey. They were on the western edge of the kingdom and close to the sea. Dana could already smell salt water, and the ground was a mix of dirt and sand.

“Admittedly there’s a certain mayor I’d like to introduce the Walking Graveyard to,” Jayden said casually.

Dana rolled her eyes. “Not this again. We were in the town of Rustile less than half a day. Let it go.”

“Their mayor is a pompous, overbearing halfwit who thinks blind loyalty is a virtue,” Jayden replied. “It’s fools mindlessly obeying orders that make this kingdom a dystopian nightmare. No critical thinking, no mercy, no faith, only slavish obedience to those who put him in power and keep him there.”

Dana shrugged. “At least he was honest about who he is.”

“How is that to his credit?”

“He didn’t hide his beliefs like some people. Being a lying two-faced weasel would be worse. Haven’t you ever heard people say just be yourself?”

That stopped Jayden in his tracks. “That’s terrible advice! What if a man was a drunken, illiterate bigot? Being himself would be the last thing anyone around him would want.”

“Fine, so what should you do?”

“Be better,” Jayden said as he resumed walking. “Be superior to who you were the day before, the week before, the year before. Learn, grow, improve, and never stop, because the day will come when people need you to be better for their sake and your own.”

This was typical of Jayden. He was judgmental and didn’t tolerate flaws in others. When villains committed terrible deeds, Jayden’s fury was terrible, and it lasted. It might take months for his ire to die down.

Jayden also had a thin skin when it came to the royal family, and anyone actively supporting them was a valid target for his temper. The major of Rustile learned that the hard way when he received orders to obtain pastures for the king and queen’s horses to graze on. The mayor tried to follow the order by evicting farmers from their land, which would have worked except Dana and Jayden had been passing through Rustile at the time. Jayden had no trouble scattering the mayor’s bullyboys, and followed that up by first looting and then torching the mayor’s house.

“We’ve reached our destination,” Jayden told her. He pointed to a city at the end of the road, a sprawling mix of wood and stone buildings that hugged the coast. “I came here once and was impressed by the number of ships in the harbor. There may be fewer today, but I trust we can hire one to take us out to sea.”

Dana looked at Jayden’s backpack, which contained a small silvery box called the Valivaxis. It could create a gateway to another world, except the only things on that world were dead elf emperors and living monsters that made wyverns and chimera seem tame in comparison. “What do we do with you-know-what once we get there?”

“Throw it overboard far from shore, where no one can ever find it,” Jayden replied. “It’s a pity given how rare the Valivaxis is, but I don’t feel we could find a safe place for it or person to entrust it to.”

They walked for hours more, but to Dana’s surprise they saw no houses or farms, just small pine trees. There were ruins, burned or rotted away, but few signs of men. “Where is everyone?”

“The soil is poor and supports few crops,” he explained. “There are lumberjacks in the countryside, but most of the wealth comes from fishing.”

As they reached the city’s outskirts, Dana asked, “What’s this place called?”

“Welcome to Fish Bait City, once the richest city in the kingdom,” Jayden said dramatically.

“You can’t be serious,” Dana told him.

“Obviously it’s glory days are behind it,” Jayden admitted. Rats scurried down alleys strewn with garbage. Most shops were closed forever rather than for the day, their doors and windows boarded over. Brick buildings were common and somehow decaying, with crumbling bricks and many holes. The few citizens on the street wore patched clothes that should have been thrown out. Topping off an incredibly bleak picture, the salty sea air stank from rotting fish.

“I mean you’re kidding about the name, right?”

“Shockingly, no. It was once the hamlet of Fish Bait, grew to be the town of Fish Bait, and with the coming of trade routes bloomed into the city of Fish Bait.” Jayden saw her disbelieving expression and added, “It’s considered bad luck to change a settlement’s name, no matter how silly. People believe renaming a town or city risks offending the dead buried there and drawing their wrath.”

“Has that ever happened?”

Jayden shrugged. “Twice that I know of. Both events were overblown.”

Dana stepped over a pothole as deep as a cooking pot. “What happened here?”

“It’s the king and queen’s doing.” Jayden led her through the streets, where they drew little attention from passing men. “Fish Bait City had the good fortune to avoid the worst of the fighting during the civil war. Unfortunately, the conflict that devastated the rest of the kingdom left the treasury empty. Existing taxes were raised, new taxes were made, and old forgotten taxes dug up from the grave and pressed into service. Government officials robbed merchants blind, and in time the merchants stopped coming.”

Dana rolled her eyes. “The civil war was twenty years ago.”

Jayden gave her a lopsided grin. “Taxes often outlive what they were meant to pay for. Three hundred years ago there was a wine tax to fund a war against a league of necromancers. The war lasted two years and the tax is still with us.”

They traveled through the edges of Fish Bait City until they reached a large harbor. Five medium sized fishing boats were docked alongside many rowboats. There were two larger merchant ships missing their sails and masts. Fishermen and laborers were present in small numbers.

“Grim as the city is, it has one thing we need above all else: boats,” Jayden said. More softly, he added, “It shouldn’t be expensive to hire one for a few days and take our most unwelcome guest out to sea. Make arrangements for our stay. I need to have a potter cover the Valivaxis in clay and bake it into a brick to better contain it.”

“Don’t you think I should be doing that?” she asked. He looked at her curiously, and she pointed at his gaudy clothes. “We’re not in the wilderness or a small town anymore. Which one of us is going to draw less attention from the authorities?”

“I’m sure they’ll notice me.” Jayden grinned and added, “I’m equally sure there’s nothing they can do about my presence.”

With that Jayden left her alone in the city. This was the first time Dana had visited a city, even a decrepit one, and the experience was overwhelming. Countless streets ran in every direction, brick buildings loomed over her, and nothing could prepare her for the smell. The ocean lent a pleasant odor to the air, but it couldn’t compete with the stench of manure, unwashed bodies, rotting fish and boiling tar. That last vulgar smell came from fishermen coating the hulls of their boats with tar to prevent rot.

If the city was unpleasant, the people were worse. The few men on the roads refused to make eye contact. Dana’s friendly greetings went unanswered as if she didn’t exist. When she hesitated at a crossroad, an older woman sweeping out her house spoke.

“You stay indoors tonight, young lady,” the woman said. She didn’t look up, just kept sweeping. “A fog is coming. Feel it in my bones.”

“Uh, thanks,” Dana replied. That was weird. She was going to chalk up the encounter to the woman being a touch off in the head, but nearby people nodded in agreement.

“Sorry about that,” a young man said. Dana stopped and looked at him, surprised that someone was talking to her. The youth had black hair and brown eyes, and the muscular build of someone used to hard work. He wore simple leather clothes, and more importantly he carried a spear. “It takes these people a long time to warm up to you. They wouldn’t even look at me for four months.”

“Weapons can have that effect.” Dana had a natural aversion to armed men and tried to slip around him, but the man followed her. He shifted his spear to his left hand and reached out with his right.

“Chuck Lowroad, at your service. I’ve never seen you before.”

Dana adjusted her baggage to shake his hand. “Dana Illwind. I’m new in town, Mr. Lowroad. My friend and I are only staying for a short time. Um, is there a reason why you’re armed?”

Chuck laughed. “I’m not anyone’s mister. Call me Chuck. I’m with the militia. I know, I don’t look like the soldier type. I was two weeks off the farm, looking to find my place in the world, when a pressgang gave me a job, a spear and two weeks training that revolved around where to find the best ale in Fish Bait.”

Puzzled, she asked, “How does that help you protect a city?”

“It doesn’t, especially since I can’t afford a drink. The city is six months behind in paying the militia and only sort of feeds us. I’ll be rich if I ever get my back wages. Say, I can’t get you a drink, for obvious reasons, but maybe I can do you a good turn. You’re new here so let me help. I know places in the city you might like to visit and a few you’ll want to avoid.”

Dana had met her fair share of helpful young men, and she’d learned that most of them were too romantic for their own good (or hers). Chuck looked nice, but she’d rather not trust her luck. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

Chuck nodded to a drunken man slouched down in a chair outside a tavern. “Leo, I’m skipping duty.”

“Bring back booze,” Leo called back.

“See, problem solved,” Chuck told her.

Dana stared at him. “Your baron is okay with this?”

“Weapons won’t solve the problems in Fish Bait City. We don’t even have crime since there’s nothing to steal. To be honest, half this job is knowing when to tell the baron we followed orders when we didn’t. You wouldn’t believe how vindictive he is. Let’s find a better topic of conversation. Do you have family here, or are you getting away from them?”

She edged away from Chuck. “This is getting personal.”

Chuck laughed. “Oh come on! Listen, people say I have a good eye for details. Let me guess your past. With those clothes you’re fresh off the farm. You’d doing okay for yourself with so much baggage. And you look confident, which is rare around here, so you’ve got an ace up your sleeve. Am I right?”

Indigent, she demanded, “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

Still slouched in his chair, Leo called out, “Talking like that’s going to get you kneed where it hurts, Chuck.”

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Chuck protested.

“You want to be helpful?” Dana asked. “I need an inn room for the night. Point me to a good one and I’ll let that ‘fresh off the farm’ comment go.”

“It wasn’t an insult!” Chuck sighed and said, “I’ll take you to the best in Fish Bait City. It’s not what it used to be, but the food’s good and the doors have locks.”

As Chuck led Dana away, Leo said, “Don’t get mad at him, girly. He’s not evil, just dumb.”

The tour through Fish Bait was far from scenic. Streets swarmed with beggars and orphans. The stench had been bad at the city’s edge, and as they walked it actually got worse. Dana had grown up in a small town and was no stranger to farm life and the smells that entailed, but the city’s rancid odor was appalling.

Dana put a hand over her nose when she saw men leave buckets of fish entrails in an alley. “What are they doing?”

Chuck shrugged. “Fed goblins cause less trouble than hungry ones.”

Dozens of goblins scampered through the shadows, and some stopped to eat from the buckets. They were two to four feet tall and had skin colors ranging from red to gray to green. No two goblins looked alike, some having webbed fingers, pointed ears, stunted wings on their backs, sharp teeth, and one had a third arm. They dressed in rags and were armed with clubs and slings. Filthy goblins babbled and hooted as they made mischief and set traps for anyone foolish enough to follow them into the alleys.

“This is disgusting,” Dana said.

“Don’t you have goblins where you come from?”

She frowned and said, “Not this many. They sneak into town to eat table scraps before we can feed them to our chickens. Sometimes they set traps like making outhouses tip over when you use them. I once threatened to give my little brother to the goblins when he was naughty. He asked if I could help him pack. I know goblins aren’t that bad, but there are so many of them here!”

“Yeah, it’s hard to deal with,” Chuck admitted. “If you get too many goblins together they can work some kind of magic. Some old coot said goblins are so stupid and crazy that too many of them close together can warp space. I thought he was joking, right until I found myself flying into the ocean when I chased a goblin.”

“How can that be?” Dana asked. No sooner had the words left her mouth then the air began to ripple and smell musty. Her skin tingled, and live eels appeared from nowhere to rain down on her. She covered her head as goblins laughed and an old woman gathered up the eels for supper.

Dana stared at the goblins and gave Chuck a disapproving look. Chuck raised his hands in mock surrender and said, “I know it looks bad, but we leave goblins alone here. Leo gave me two pieces of advice when I was forced to take this job. Number one is which bars have good mixed drinks, which I have to take his word on until I get paid. Number two is leave beggars, orphans and goblins alone, no excuses. The Shrouded One hunts anyone who hurts them.”

“You’re afraid of a fairytale?” she asked. Nearby goblins laughed as Chuck’s face turned red. “I heard that story when I was five. The Shrouded One lurks in doorways for thieves and bandits, punishing cheating merchants and greedy mayors, stealing miser’s gold and sinking pirate ships.”

Chuck looked down as the color drained from his face. “I’ve seen that fairytale. I’ve seen men try to kill him and what happened to them for trying. And he sunk two ships.”

“You, you’re serious.”

“You bet I’m serious!” Chuck’s earlier bravado vanished. “I used to think The Shrouded One was a boogieman to scare little kids, but he’s real and lives here. You think I’m joking? Come with me.”

Chuck led Dana to the center of Fish Bait City. The buildings were larger but shockingly run down, the brickwork crumbling and wood walls rotting. Across from the ocean was a cathedral that dwarfed nearby buildings. It was in far better shape, but the windows were dark and the only people near it were beggars.

“You’re old enough to remember when the king and queen ordered the Brotherhood of the Righteous out of the kingdom five years ago, right?” Chuck asked. He pointed his spear at the cathedral and said, “The baron who rules Fish Bait City couldn’t wait to chase out the priests and monks so he could steal their property. He threw a party in the cathedral with his friends to celebrate taking it over as his new house.”

Dana eyed their surroundings nervously. No nobleman would allow beggars so close to his home. “I’m guessing that didn’t work too well.”

“A dense fog rolled in that night, and The Shrouded One came with it. The baron and his friends ran screaming into the night. The baron won’t come into Fish Bait City unless he has to, and he leaves before nightfall. These days only the homeless stay at the cathedral. That was five years ago, and The Shrouded One hasn’t left. He comes some nights and every time there’s a fog, punishing the guilty and protecting the unwanted. Hit a beggar, kick a goblin, ignore an orphan’s pleas, and you’ll pay.”

Still skeptical, Dana asked, “You’ve seen him?”

Chuck pointed at the two large ships in the bay. “Two months ago the baron ordered us to ambush The Shrouded One when he came with the fog. We waited on those two confiscated smuggler ships with every militiaman in the city. The fog rolled in, we heard church bells ring for midnight, and when the last bell tolled The Shrouded One was standing between us. I saw him get hit by arrows, spears, swords, fists, and Leo even head butted him. We just made him angry. If brotherhood priest were still here maybe they could banish him. As for us, we learned our lesson and keep out of his way.”

Dana put a hand over her face. “What is it with me running into weird monsters? Wait a minute. Why did your baron send militiamen instead of soldiers or mercenaries?”

“Oh, them.” Chuck laughed without mirth. “The king and queen are throwing a war, and everybody’s invited. Soldiers and mercenaries who are supposed to protect Fish Bait City got called away months ago. That’s why I got pressganged into the militia. Someone’s got to protect the city. The baron conscripted guys like me to do it, with a death sentence for deserters.”

Jayden had a deep and burning hatred for the royal couple, and he was sure they were going to invade neighboring kingdoms. If a city as large as Fish Bait had been stripped of defenders and left with only militiamen, then the war couldn’t be far off.

“Your baron couldn’t hire more mercenaries?”

Chuck shrugged. “Mercenaries come in by sea from time to time. The king’s agents hire them the moment they step on dry land. Doesn’t matter that we need them when the war needs them more. We even had an elf wizard show up a week ago. He left the next day with a job to hunt an enemy of the king. It wouldn’t have helped if they’d stayed.”

“Wonderful,” she said sarcastically. “It’s one hideous monster after another lately.”

“You need a place to stay tonight,” Chuck continued. He pointed out to sea, where a mist hung on the horizon. “There’s going to be a fog tonight, and that guarantees The Shrouded One will come. I’m sure you have money to pay for an inn room, but if you want protection—”

“Don’t you ever stop?”

Chuck studied her from head to foot and smiled. “I’ve got a good reason not to.”

To her relief, Dana saw Jayden coming down the street toward them. She pointed at him and told Chuck, “And there’s your reason to be a good little boy. Meet my traveling companion.”

Chuck looked worried as Jayden approached. “Wait, I’ve seen wanted posters for that guy. You travel with him? There’s a huge price on his head, and it keeps going up. The latest wanted poster puts the bounty at 1000 silver pieces! That kind of money attracts dangerous men who wouldn’t mind hurting innocent girls.” Chuck paused and gave Dana a questioning look. “You two aren’t…you know?”

“What? No!”

“So I’ve still got a chance with you?” he asked hopefully.

Dana went through her belongings until she found a gold coin. Once upon a time she would have been shocked to have such wealth, but since traveling with Jayden she’d come to see gold as a tool to be used. She pressed the coin into Chuck’s hand and said, “Here, I’m paying you to go away. Try those bars you heard about and have a drink on me.”

“But—”

“Scoot!” she scolded, and pushed him away. Chuck left looking like a puppy that had been kicked.

Jayden smiled at the spectacle. “And you thought I’d attract too much attention.”

Dana blushed. “We’ve got bigger problems than teenage boys. A fairytale lives here, and not one of the nice ones.”

And now for the exciting conclusion to Fairytales.


It took minutes to relate Chuck’s story to Jayden. He seemed curious rather than frightened, and said, “The potter I spoke with warned me to stay indoors tonight, but didn’t explain why. That’s one mystery solved.”

“I heard about The Shrouded One while I was growing up. He hunts evildoers, and lots of people think you’re a bad person. If The Shrouded One thinks so he might come after you.”

Dana and Jayden left to find an inn. Chuck had been showing her the way before he’d brought her to the abandoned cathedral, so she sort of knew the way.

“I’ve heard tales of The Shrouded One,” Jayden told her. “There are dozens of versions of the same basic story. A criminal or corrupt authority figure hurts a deserving person and The Shrouded One comes to avenge the injury. Violence ensues, The Shrouded One suffers wounds that should kill a dragon yet remains standing, and the villain suffers a terrible fate. Burned, buried, trapped, enslaved, transformed into a wombat, The Shrouded One’s penalties vary from tale to tale, but are always severe.”

They walked by more sullen residents, and Dana said, “That explains why people here act so weird. They’ve had a monster in their city for years. Why don’t the king and queen send soldiers to kill him?”

“Why risk soldiers to save a city they already ruined?” Jayden asked.

“I don’t want to fight this fairytale,” Dana said.

To her surprise, Jayden agreed. “We can’t risk losing possession of the Valivaxis. Whoever or whatever The Shrouded One is, we need to avoid him for now.”

They eventually found a two-story inn called The Oyster Beds, with a worn sign near the door showing an oyster sleeping in a luxurious bed. They’d nearly reached the inn when a filthy goblin jumped out of an alley in front of Dana and shouted, “Boogey, boogey!”

Dana put her hands on her hips. “Oh come on, was that supposed to scare me? I’m not a child!”

The goblin looked at her for a moment before saying, “You’re living in a kingdom ruled by men who would kill your parents, siblings, neighbors and cat, no questions asked. That better?”

She hesitated before asking, “Can we go back to boogey, boogey?”

The goblin folded his arms across his chest and marched off. “No. You ruined the moment.”

Jayden chuckled as he watched the goblin leave, and then he and Dana entered the inn. It wasn’t as rundown as the rest of Fish Bait City, but still looked worn out and sad. There was a common room with large empty tables, and a bar against one wall with a shocking number of whiskey bottles behind it. The only people present were a man behind the bar and a young girl mopping the floor. If the inn wasn’t impressive, at least it smelled nice from some kind of perfume.

“Ah, it’s so good to see you again, Alfonzo,” the man said. He stepped out to greet them with a smile. “I see you brought your daughter with you. So good to see you again.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Dana asked. “I’m Dana Illwind.”

“Dear girl, of course you’re not,” the man told her.

Jayden raised one eyebrow as he studied the man. “I’m not familiar with this game. You’ll have to explain the rules.”

The man pointed to a paper nailed to the wall behind the bar. “Our illustrious king and queen ordered innkeepers to report the names of our guests, and their comings and goings. Some men would rather not say such things, for reasons I don’t question, but that’s not a problem. The only guest my inn gets is Alfonzo the woodcutter, a poor but honest man who stays here when he comes to sell firewood. Sometimes dear Alfonzo brings his wife or his daughters and sons, charming children, truly.”

Jayden smiled. “I see. How often does Alfonzo stay here?”

“Why, you’ve been here quite often, sir. For tax reasons you stay in our cheapest room, but you might find a more pleasant one to your liking just this once, eh, Alfonzo?”

“Your baron doesn’t notice this?” Dana asked.

The innkeeper shrugged. “Our baron is a troubled man. I see no need to upset him.”

Jayden tossed the innkeeper a gold coin. “A room for me and another for the lady. If you serve meals we’ll pay for dinner as well.”

The innkeeper caught the coin and smiled. “We serve meals, and you’d be wise to buy them rather than go out. The only restaurants worth visiting are across town, too far away to reach before nightfall.”

“And before the fog arrives,” Jayden said.

Their host’s smile dimmed. “Ah, you’ve heard of that. Just as well. But don’t worry. If The Shrouded One didn’t come when the elf stayed with us then he won’t come now. Girl, show Alfonzo and his daughter to their rooms, and chase out any goblins that got inside.”

Their rooms were spacious and clean, but like the rest of the city had seen better days. Dana set her belongings on the floor and tested the room’s large bed before going downstairs. She met Jayden as the girl brought hollowed out loaves of bread filled with soup.

“You had an elf guest?” Jayden asked as he ate.

The innkeeper shrugged. “Elves, dwarfs, why, Alfonzo was once a young troll. But the elf we had last week, ah, he was a piece of work. The elves I’ve met were loud, rude, always complaining, but this one raised it to an art form. I lost track of how many times he told us he was a wizard and about the monsters he’d defeated. He left after one night’s stay, and without paying, I might add. He did give me this.”

Jayden leaned in as the innkeeper reached behind the bar and took out a potted plant. It was gorgeous, with leaves glittering like gems, large purple flowers tipped with gold, and perfume wafting from its blossoms so magnificent that it concealed the stench from outside.

“That’s an Imperial Starflower, a rare and magical plant,” Jayden said. “It’s also expensive.”

“He said it would improve the quality of my inn, which I can’t question, and that I could divide it into two plants once it grew larger.” The innkeeper placed the flower back behind the bar and added, “I seldom deal with wizards, but if I can sell one of the plants after dividing it then his stay may have been worth it.”

“The elf showed some class after all,” Jayden said.

The conversation ended when they looked through the windows to see residents of Fish Bait City seeking cover. Men shuttered their windows while women ushered children inside. Doors slammed shut across the city, and every chimney in view began billowing smoke. The Oyster Beds was no different, as the young girl closed doors and windows while the innkeeper piled dry wood in the fireplace.

“Worried your city’s less than esteemed guest might come down the chimney?” Jayden asked.

The innkeeper threw more wood on the fire. “It has happened but not here. I plan on keeping it that way.”

Dana’s attention was drawn to more papers tacked to the wall near the bar. These were different from the order demanding innkeepers inform on their clientele. Namely, each paper had a drawing of a man or woman, and the price the throne would pay for their arrest. Jayden’s face was on several of those papers.

“Um,” she began, and pointed a spoon at the papers.

Jayden and the innkeeper both looked at the papers. Jayden ate more of his dinner before saying, “You know who I am.”

The innkeeper seemed unbothered. “I do. I’ve even met men you’ve saved.” He cleaned a cup and put it behind the bar. “They spoke well of you and what you’ve done to save our kingdom, even though it’s bound and determined to destroy itself. It gave me hope that one day I’ll have more customers, and Alfonzo won’t be staying here anymore.”

For a moment Jayden looked bothered. “I fear that is a day long in coming.”

“I can wait, so long as it comes. Have no fear that the militia might try to arrest you. I hand out the occasional free drink to keep them happy, and most are honorable enough not to carry out our baron’s more offensive orders.”

The rest of dinner was a silent affair. Dana finished eating and went to her room on the second floor. The room was still dark when she set her belongings on the floor and searched for a lantern. She found one and lit it before closing the door.

And once that lantern was lit, she saw the words, “Little girl lost, go home,” written on the wall in tar.

Dana shrieked and raced from her room. She cried out, “Jayden!”

“Over here.” His voice sounded muffled, and in her panic it took her a few seconds to realize he was in his room and speaking through the closed door. She ran to it and grabbed the handle before she froze.

“Are you decent?”

“Morally speaking, no.”

Dana blushed again. “I mean are you dressed?”

“Oh, that. Yes.”

With that potential embarrassment out of the way, she opened the door and looked inside. Jayden’s room was no different than hers in its decorations. That included writing on the wall in tar that said, “I know your real name.”

“This is bad,” Dana whispered.

Jayden replied, “The Shrouded One is making an issue of my presence in his city.”

The innkeeper ran upstairs and into Jayden’s room. His face turned white as a sheet, and he grabbed Jayden’s arm. “I’m so sorry! I, I don’t know how he got in. The doors, we locked and barred them all! I’ll get you new rooms and clean these ones. Please, don’t ask for a refund! I can’t afford to lose the business!”

Jayden pulled free from the innkeeper and marched to the nearest window. He pulled the bar off and opened the shutters to show the street below engulfed in a dense fog. Thick as it was, the white mists didn’t hide the tall man wrapped in a ragged cloak that covered him head to foot. The strange man looked up at Jayden before moving silently down the street.

Jayden’s features hardened into a scowl. “You don’t get to walk away after that.”

“Sir, no!” the innkeeper begged in vain. Jayden ran from the room and headed downstairs to the entrance. Dana went after him in the hope she could prevent this from turning into a fight. She was two steps behind him when he unbarred the door and ran onto the foggy streets. She heard the innkeeper call out to them, but Jayden paid no attention to the man’s warning. Instead he ran into fog as dense as a cloud after an enemy who by all accounts was a fairytale given form, and one who faced many militiamen without injury, much less defeat.

“He went this way!” Jayden shouted as he turned a corner.

Their foe may have done just that, but as Dana and Jayden went around the corner they came upon a brick wall twelve feet high, with no doors or windows The Shrouded One could have gone through or places for him to hide.

“Looking for me?”

The echoing voice came from their right, but when they turned around they found The Shrouded One standing behind them, his return as silent and mysterious as his disappearance. Up close he was intimidating. The cloak didn’t leave an inch of skin exposed. What little should have been visible was covered with strips of dirty cloth wound around his body. The Shrouded One was unarmed yet showed no fear of Jayden, making him even more frightening.

“You entered my room uninvited,” Jayden replied. He cast a spell and formed a sword of utter darkness in his hands, the blade outlined in light that offered just a hint of illumination. “My coming shouldn’t surprise you.”

“Yet a surprise it remains, for all thought you long dead.” The Shrouded One’s voice came from their left, and then from behind them when he spoke again. “I first saw you twenty years ago and marveled at a boy with such promise. I mourned when I heard you’d been put to death, but seeing what you have become is far worse. You assumed the title and magic of the Sorcerer Lords, monsters in all but name. The elves of old killed those fiends, yet you took up their ways.”

Jayden hesitated before answering. “If you know who I was, you know the road I walk is not of my choosing.”

“Excuses,” The Shrouded One replied, his voice coming from above them and to the right. “Many in this land have known untold suffering without resorting to dark ways. Your acts would horrify the boy you once were. I’ve heard too many tales of the damage you leave in your wake. Fish Bait City is my home, my responsibility, and it has known too many hardships without you adding more. Others have faced me and failed. Bring chaos to these people and you will fall as they did.”

If Jayden had been spooked, it passed quickly. “For such a staunch defender your name doesn’t conjure good feelings among the people of Fish Bait City, and your claim to have met me twenty years ago rings hollow when you first appeared here five years ago.”

“Your ignorance is staggering,” The Shrouded One retorted, his echoing voice coming from near his body this time, but farther back than it should have been. “I come from this city, birthed when I am needed, dying when I am not. I was here when you first came and your face showed hope, your actions mercy, your words love. I did nothing then or for years more, staying in the shadows because I wasn’t needed.

“But now I am needed, even if I am not wanted,” The Shrouded One declared from their left. “This city was deafened by the cries of its poor, every stone soaked in their tears until I had no choice but to come. There will be no more suffering here. The baron thought otherwise. Pirates, thieves and men called knights but blackguards by their deeds came to spread evil. They regretted their deeds, as will you.”

“I take offense at you grouping me with those fiends,” Jayden said. “And if you want to compare which of us faced greater odds and won, you’ll find yourself coming up short.”

Dana rolled her eyes. “Oh for the love of God!”

The Shrouded One turned to face her. “What?”

Hoping reason would win over bravado, Dana got between Jayden and The Shrouded One. “Congratulations, you’re both intimidating, so can we move on to the part where you don’t kill each other? The only one who wins that fight is the king and queen, who hate you both.”

Turning to The Shrouded One, she said, “I’ve traveled with Jayden for months. He’s hurt men who hurt innocent people, and who would have hurt even more if he hadn’t stopped them. He’s killed monsters and saved lives. We didn’t come to hurt anyone. We have to hire a ship and leave for a few days, no damage done. Calm down and don’t start a fight you don’t need and might not win.”

“Who is this?” The Shrouded One asked from five different directions.

Jayden walked alongside Dana. “She’s a friend, and a better person than I am.”

The answer seemed to satisfy The Shrouded One. “If one innocent and pure is willing to speak on your behalf then you might not be lost. Return to The Oyster Beds inn. Leave in the morning as you plan without harming others and there shall be no fight between us. But know this, Sorcerer Lord: the darkness inside you could consume you, your one friend in this world and countless others. Turn back while there is still time.”

With that The Shrouded One drifted over to a wall with a hole at the bottom from bricks that had crumbled away. The opening was only six inches high and a foot across, but as The Shrouded One neared it his cloak slipped inside. His body shriveled and twisted as he fit into the hole until he disappeared into it.

Dana felt nauseous. “That was disturbing.”

Jayden allowed his magic sword to vanish before he turned to Dana. “That was very dangerous.”

“Fighting him would have been worse. You might not have survived, and if he’s as strong as you then this city might not have survived you two brawling.”

“True. Let’s go inside before the innkeeper locks us out.”

As they headed back to the inn, Dana cautiously asked, “The Shrouded One said he knew you, and that you had another name.”

“He spoke the truth. I came here many years ago, so long ago it feels like it happened to someone else.”

“So, feel like telling me this other name of yours?”

Jayden stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. “Dana, you’re my friend, the first one in such a long time that I wondered if I would ever have another. I trust you, I respect you and I like you more than I like myself.”

Dana blushed again. “Oh.”

“That’s why I’ll never answer that question.”

“Wait, what?”

His grip on her shoulders tightened ever so slightly. “Officially I’m dead, and safer if all men believe that. You’ve tried to protect me from my enemies and from myself, but if my real name becomes known and that I still live, that knowledge is a death sentence. I worry that The Shrouded One has this information, but I doubt he’d tell my enemies. Make no mention of this to anyone, for your sake as well as mine. Let’s get what rest we can, for tomorrow has trouble enough waiting for us.”

Jayden headed back to the inn as if the conversation was over. Dana frowned and said, “Fine, if you won’t say then I’ll guess. Let’s see, you were nice if a scary nightmare fairytale actually liked you. You would have been younger than me back then, and I bet you were cute. All the girls chased you.”

Jayden rubbed his eyes. “Dana.”

“But you didn’t notice because you were always reading books.”

That got his attention. “What makes you say that?”

“You read spell tablets from the old Sorcerer Lords, and they died out over a thousand years ago. You don’t learn that just anywhere, so somebody got you books about ancient stuff like the Sorcerer Lords and you read them. Books like that must be expensive, so your family had money.”

“Let’s stop this conversation right now,” Jayden said firmly.

Dana smiled. “I’m getting close, aren’t I?”

They’d nearly reached the inn when Dana paused. The dense fog concealed many of Fish Bait City’s poor features, but it didn’t hide the city’s sickening smell. Dana grabbed Jayden’s arm and pulled him to a stop when she said, “Jayden, hold on. That smell, it’s beautiful.”

Jayden inhaled deeply. “Gorgeous, and out of place here.”

“It’s like that pretty flower at the inn the elf used to pay for his stay.”

“I pay no one” a bombastic voice called out. “I helped a stupid, ugly, clumsy man by giving him a flower. But I accept your meager praise of the Imperial Starflower I grew.”

Dana and Jayden fell back as they saw a male elf dressed in white and green robes. He was handsome in an arrogant, sneering kind of way, his black hair styled and trimmed, his youthful face and pointed ears flawless. The elf carried a staff sprouting living vines, and those vines wrapped around his waist and grew to thick vines with arrow shaped leaves and beautiful flowers.

“It’s a variant I bred with a longer lifespan, more fragrant blooms and resistance to common plant diseases. I wouldn’t expect a destructive brigand like you to understand the work it took, but there’s a chance your second rate mind might appreciate beauty, culture or making a lasting improvement in the world.”

Jayden put himself between Dana and the elf. “Fair warning, I’ve already been insulted tonight, and it’s left me in a foul mood. Name yourself and the reason for this meeting.”

The elf came closer, the vines slithering around him as he walked. “Your kind could never hope to pronounce my name, so I use the pseudonym Green Peril when dealing with the weak minded. I trained under the greatest nature wizards of the Elf King, and I have no equal. As for why I degrade myself by visiting this cesspit of a city, the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words applies.”

Green Peril took out a rolled up sheet of paper from inside his robes and tossed it to Jayden. Jayden unrolled it to see a picture of himself with a bounty listed at the bottom.

“More accurately, you’re worth a thousand silver pieces, a paltry reward, but one it seems I must accept,” Green Peril said.

Jayden cast a spell and formed his black magic sword. “I have no quarrel with you.”

“No,” Green Peril admitted. “You have a quarrel with the local human king. He and his shrewish wife are tired of your antics. I came to become their court wizard, and hopefully bring this nation of knuckle dragging halfwits up to an acceptable level of culture. Their representative was so impressed with me that he used a magic mirror to call his king. Your nemesis approved my offer of service and promised adequate pay, but only if I proved myself worthy by bringing back your head. Elves put an end to the Sorcerer Lords in ancient times, so the offer was almost wise and well within my abilities.”

The nest of vines grew and spread as Green Peril neared. “I thought it would take weeks to track you down, when to my surprise I learned from the birds of the sky that you came to the very port where I’d first entered this festering kingdom. I hope killing you is a challenge, because finding you was child’s play.”

Dana gulped nervously. Green Peril might be a legitimate threat. Bad as that was, Jayden still had the Valivaxis. He’d had a potter bake it into a clay brick, but if Green Peril was thorough he might find it. The Valivaxis was a gateway to the graveyard of ancient elf emperors, which might tempt the elf wizard into opening it, releasing the monstrous guardians within.

Then the elf noticed Dana. “And who is this? A servant? An apprentice? A pet? Regardless of the answer, her head is of no value to me. Send her away.”

Dana glanced at Jayden and asked, “Seriously?”

“I try not to stereotype, but all the elves I’ve met were insufferable,” he told her. He looked at Green Peril and said, “You’ve no doubt researched me, but I’ve recently learned new spells and am more of a threat than you know. Your chances of winning this battle aren’t encouraging.”

Green Peril smirked. “We shall see. Sorcerer Lord Jayden, I challenge you to a duel. Let us see which of us is the greater wizard.”

Desperate to keep this fight from starting, Dana said, “How is this fair? I mean, a Sorcerer Lord versus a magic gardener?”

Jayden and Green Peril both stared at her. The elf yelled, “What?”

“Jayden kills powerful monsters like the Living Graveyard and you make pretty flowers, which you pay your bills with. Gamblers wouldn’t bet money on you. You said you studied under great wizards. If they could see you now, groveling for a job from a human king and killing for him.”

“I’m placing myself in a position of power to influence this kingdom and set it on a course that will align it with the Elf Kingdom.”

“You’re trying to get a job, and from the start you’re going to be disloyal by manipulating your boss into doing what you want,” Dana said. “Why would they hire you? Everybody within five hundred miles knows Jayden, but I’d never heard of you before tonight. For all that boasting you’re a nobody. The king and queen can do better for a court wizard. They’re just using you to do their dirty work, then bang, out the door you go without so much as a thank you.”

Before the elf could yell again, Dana asked, “And what’s with that sapling you’re carrying?”

“It’s a magic staff to focus his magic and prevent misfires,” Jayden told her.

“Why don’t you have one?”

Jayden smirked. “For the same reason healthy men don’t use crutches.”

“So take away that twig and he’s in trouble,” Dana said. “I’m not impressed.”

“You!” Green Peril yelled, but he regained his composure. “You’re trying to bait me into acting foolishly and making an error in battle.”

“Or embarrass you into not attacking. You don’t have a good reason to fight him. He’s saved lots of lives in this kingdom.”

Green Peril looked at Jayden. “So that’s why you keep her around.”

Jayden shrugged. “Clever, brave, moral compass, her value knows no limits. If you seek to curry the king and queen’s favor, know that many have tried to steer the royal couple onto a safe course. They failed. The patrons you seek care for no one save themselves. If you want to improve the kingdom then there are other ways. I can help you do it.”

Jayden’s words had as much effect as arrows fired at a brick wall. Green Peril sneered and replied, “I made a pact with the king and queen you seek to topple, and my word is my bond. You shall die tonight, and this kingdom’s future will be better in my hands than yours. Foolish man, you won’t survive this night.”

“This is ridiculous.”

Green Peril frowned as The Shrouded One drifted down the street toward them. “Sorcerer Lord, mere minutes have passed since I warned you not to bring chaos to this city, and I find you in a duel.”

Jayden pointed his ebony sword at Green Peril. “For once I didn’t start this.”

“Who or what is this?” Green Peril asked.

“The Shrouded One, fairytale come to life,” Dana said. She pointed at the elf and added, “Green Peril, elf wizard, jerk and hypocrite.”

“I won’t tolerate battles within this city,” The Shrouded One said. “Whatever quarrel you two have, settle it elsewhere.”

Green Peril shrugged, and the vines around him stretched across the misty street, wrapped around The Shrouded One’s chest and crushed him like an egg. Dana screamed as the vines tossed The Shrouded One’s tattered remains aside.

“That settles that,” Green Peril said.

“It settled nothing.”

Dana, Jayden and Green Peril whirled around to see The Shrouded One rise up behind them. The Shrouded One faced Green Peril before speaking. “You chose this fight, wizard. Now feel the wrath of an entire city.”

Green Peril’s vines grew explosively until they nearly filled the street. Half the vines struck at Jayden while the rest went after The Shrouded One. Jayden hacked away the nearest vines while The Shrouded One was torn apart again. Green Peril began casting a spell, but never finished it. Bricks flew through the air as thick as raindrops in a storm, all of them aimed at the elf. Green Peril’s vines batted most of them aside, but one struck him in the stomach and broke his concentration, ruining the spell.

“Get back!” Jayden ordered Dana. He cast another spell and formed a shield three feet across made of spinning black blades. The shield hovered in front of him, and when one of Green Peril’s vines wrapped around it the shield tore it to shreds. Two more vines struck the shield and were reduced to pulp. Jayden hacked apart another vine with his sword when it came too near, but Green Peril’s vines grew and replaced what it lost.

“This battle ends now,” The Shrouded One declared as he rose up from the misty streets. Torrents of boiling tar poured down from the roofs onto the vines, scalding them to death. Green Peril’s plant tried to regrow, but Jayden lunged in and hacked it apart. The elf fell back as Jayden and The Shrouded One advanced on him. “You had your warning. Now suffer as those before you did.”

“Your other enemies weren’t wizards, or elves,” Green Peril retorted. He cast a spell and caused roots to burst up from the street. They wrapped around The Shrouded One’s head and crushed it, destroying him once again, but no sooner had he fallen then he rose up again farther down the street. “By oaks and ancestors, how many times do I have to kill you?”

“Until you get it right!”

Jayden charged Green Peril and had nearly reached him when the elf drew a glass bottle from inside his robes. He threw it at the wall of a nearby building and it shattered to release hornets. Once free, the hornets quickly grew as big as dogs. Green Peril pointed his staff at Jayden, Dana and The Shrouded One, and the hornets flew after them.

Jayden slashed one hornet in half before a second attacked him. The monster went straight for his face and would have stung him except it hit his black shield first. Dana heard a hideous shriek as the shield ground the hornet into mush before the spell failed and the shield vanished. Two more hornets went after The Shrouded One. They’d nearly reached him when the side of a two story tall brick building peeled off and fell on them. Both hornets were crushed, leaving two more flying after Dana.

Dana ran for her life with two flying monsters in hot pursuit. Thankfully, the giant hornets weren’t as fast as their smaller cousins, and she managed to stay ahead of them. She raced down the misty streets, the sound of buzzing wings not far behind. One hornet flew up high and tried to dive onto her. Dana climbed under an empty wagon on the street. The hornet landed and tried to go after her. The moment it did, she got to the other side of the wagon and pushed hard. The wagon was heavy, but Dana was strong from years of farm work, and she rolled the wagon wheels over the hornet. Squish!

She looked around and saw the other hornet still in the air. It came closer until she heard Green Peril shout, “Not the girl, you idiot! Kill the Sorcerer Lord!”

The hornet flew back to the battle and Dana raced after it. The hornet was flying close to the ground, and as it approached Jayden it lowered its stinger, long and sharp as a dagger.

Dana charged the hornet and leapt onto its back. Her weight was enough to force the monster down. She and the hornet rolled across the filthy street until they hit a wall. The hornet struggled to get free of her as she wrapped her legs around its back. It was still trying to break loose when she drew her dagger and drove it between the armored plates on the hornet’s back and neck, taking the monster’s head off.

She returned to find the fight still in progress. Green Peril plucked a green sprig off his staff and cast a spell on it. The sprig grew into an enormous plant, easily as large as nearby buildings, and it opened a gaping maw filled with teeth. Jayden tried to hide behind a wagon on the street, but the plant swallowed him and the wagon. Green Peril followed this up by casting another spell that caused his staff to sprout a sickle blade made of wood. He sneered and marched toward The Shrouded One.

“One down, one to go,” Green Peril announced.

Dana spotted three buckets sitting in an alleyway. They smelled of rotting fish, and as she approached she saw they contained fish entrails, a disgusting bribe to placate the city’s goblins. One bucket was still full, and she grabbed it and ran after Green Peril. The elf had nearly reached The Shrouded One when she caught up and splashed rotting fish guts over the elf.

Green Peril screamed in outrage, “These are new robes!”

Dana clobbered him over the head with the bucket. “Let Jayden go!”

She didn’t know if the elf could do what she demanded, but the matter soon became moot. The plant monster cried out in agony as it coughed up the wagon it had eaten along with Jayden. It kept coughing, then threw its head back and howled as Jayden’s black sword cut it apart from the inside. The monster fell dead to the street and Jayden hacked his way to freedom.

It was dark and foggy, but Dana could still see how furious Jayden was. He dripped with sap, his long messy hair was plastered to his head, and his clothes were torn where the plant monster’s teeth had cut. He barred his teeth as his magic sword vanished and was replaced with a black whip.

“I…have had…enough,” he declared.

“A pity, because I can keep this up all night,” Green Peril replied. He kicked Dana away and gripped his staff/sickle with both hands. “So, who dies first?”

“After you,” The Shrouded One told him.

It was hard to see what happened next. The fog rippled, and Dana’s skin tingled right before a rowboat came flying through the air. It was an old wreck with a large hole below the waterline and seawater pouring out of it. Green Peril saw it hurtling toward him and leapt out of the way before it crashed into the street where he’d been standing.

Green Peril charged The Shrouded One and sliced him in half at the waist. The Shrouded One rose up from the fog a block away, and the elf yelled curses into the night. “I’ll kill you a thousand times if that’s what it takes!”

Jayden was on the elf before he got a chance to carry out the threat. He swung the black whip and it wrapped around Green Peril’s staff. The whip sizzled as it ate through the staff. As Green Peril tried to pull free the staff snapped in two.

“You needed that staff to focus your magic,” Jayden said. “It’s a limitation the magic of the Sorcerer Lords doesn’t share. Losing it won’t prevent you casting more spells, but it should weaken them enough for me to end this.”

“I have no limits!” Green Peril shouted. He cast another spell, but it took him longer and his body shook at the effort. Briars with long thorns grew up around him, spreading so fast that Jayden and Dana had to retreat. The wall of briars was twenty feet thick, five feet tall and had thorns three inches long that dripped what was almost certainly poison.

“How quaint,” Jayden said. He swung his whip at the briars, and was rewarded with a hiss as it burned through them. Briars fell to the street, still sizzling, and Jayden swung again to hack more briars down.

Green Peril began to panic. Jayden came from one side while The Shrouded One came from the other. Sweat poured off the elf as Jayden destroyed the briar wall, and there was terror in his eyes as he ran away. Jayden and The Shrouded One followed him as Green Peril fled to the port. He cast another spell, gasping at the effort it took, but he grew another nest of vines around him. Green Peril got into one of the smaller boats and his vines seized the boat’s oars. He managed to row the boat out to sea.

“You brought suffering to this city, wizard,” The Shrouded One said. “Do you really think I’ll let you escape so easily?”

Small anchors tied to tarred ropes swung from one of the large ships in the harbor and caught the edge of Green Peril’s boat. Green Peril tried to pull the anchors off, but the ropes went tight and held him in place.

On shore, Jayden began to chant. A tiny flickering spark formed in his hands as he prepared one of his more devastating spells. Green Peril saw this and cast a much faster spell that made roots burst up from the street. The roots grabbed a nearby house and collapsed it on The Shrouded One, destroying him once again, but the ropes didn’t slacken when he fell. Green Peril cried out in fear as Jayden finished his spell and sent the tiny spark flying at the elf. He jumped from the boat as the spark hit and detonated into a ball of fire.

For a second that seemed to be the end of it, but a giant hawk burst from the sea and flew away. The huge bird bobbed up and down as it fled into the night.

“Transformation magic,” Jayden said as Dana walked up alongside him. “I didn’t think he’d be strong enough to cast a spell that difficult without his staff to focus the energies. I can’t follow him and none of my spells have enough range to reach him. Still, using so much energy without a staff will exhaust him. Our foe lives, but will need days to recover his strength and months to replace his staff.”

Dana wiped sweat off her brow. “Looks like he’s not going to be the court wizard.”

“Likely not. The Shrouded One hasn’t reappeared. Hopefully he’s satisfied how the battle went and won’t cause us trouble. Let’s return to the inn. I need a bath, and we need to be out of this city before its people ask awkward questions in the morning.”

“Why aren’t people asking questions right now?” Dana asked.

Jayden and Dana looked at the houses around them. The battle had been deafeningly loud and done considerable damage to the city, yet no doors or windows opened. Militia and citizens alike made no move to investigate the disturbance.

“This is what fear does to people,” Jayden told her. “Year after year of threats they can’t stop, and the men and women can only keep their heads down and hope danger passes them by. No one should live like this, helpless and frightened, yet so many in the kingdom do. This is why I fight the king and queen, for their rule has brought suffering to good people.”

Dana paused. “Wait here.”

“Why?”

“Just wait,” she told him, and headed to the house Green Peril had destroyed. It was abandoned, thank God, but she dug through the rubble anyway until she found the tattered remains of The Shrouded One’s cloak. And in those shreds of fabric she found a small bruised goblin only two feet tall. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ll heal,” the goblin told her. He had lavender colored skin and wore leather clothes. There were straps on his waist and back where thin wood posts once connected him to the cloak of a much taller man. The goblin sat up and blinked. “How did you know?”

“My skin tingled when your warp magic threw the rowboat at Green Peril. I’d felt the same thing earlier when goblins warped live eels on me. You made The Shrouded One.”

“Sort of.” The goblin looked down as more goblins crept in. “We knew the story and how it scared people. We used to laugh how things that don’t exist frightened men. But then the civil war came, and the old queen died and the king got a new queen, a bad one. People got scared of real things, their own leaders. One day they took away the brotherhood priests, the only men left in Fish Bait City who tried to help. We had to do something, but we’re so small.”

More goblins came, some carrying bricks, others empty buckets coated with hot tar. The first goblin looked at Dana and said, “But The Shrouded One is feared. Bad men would be too scared to fight back if they thought they were fighting a fairytale. So we played a trick on the whole city. We made cloaks that fit over us like a man, and when it’s dark or foggy we come out to protect people.”

“Were any of you hurt tonight?” she asked.

Another goblin held up a shredded cloak. “Green Peril aimed high, just like all the others.”

Dana studied the growing crowd of goblins gathering around her. “You threw the bricks that flew at Green Peril. I heard your voice coming from different places because there were lots of you talking for The Shrouded One. And you were on the roofs and dumped boiling tar on him. How did you make the wall fall on his bugs?”

“Half the city is abandoned,” a goblin told her. “We’ve rigged walls and whole buildings to come down when we need them to.”

More goblins peeked out from the large ship in the harbor where they’d snared Green Peril during his escape. Others came with shredded cloaks and a few with intact cloaks folded up. It was hard to see them in the fog and impossible to guess their numbers.

“Dana?” Jayden called out.

“Give me another minute!” she called back.

The lavender goblin took Dana’s hand. “Please, you can’t tell anyone about us. We only get away with this because men are afraid. If they figure out we’re just goblins, that we can die like anyone else, they’ll hunt us down. When we’re gone Fish Bait City will get worse. I know these people deserve so much more, but we’re all they have.”

Dana looked at the mob of goblins. It was strange. Fish Bait City’s baron was an evil man who stole land from the brotherhood and no doubt did many things as bad or worse. Fear kept the baron in check. If he wasn’t afraid anymore, people who’d already suffered so much would suffer more. Jayden helped good men across the kingdom, but he could only be in one place at a time. Once he left a town or city its citizens were on their own. These people might fear The Shrouded One, but they needed his protection.

“Tell me one thing,” she said. “You said you knew Jayden as a boy. How?”

“He was part of a royal expedition, one of hundreds who wanted to improve Fish Bait City. He was young, so full of promise, but the king and queen put an end to that.” The lavender goblin looked down, as did the entire mob. “If he’d grown up to be the man we thought he would, nobody would need The Shrouded One.”

“Dana?” It was Jayden, his voice carrying a hint of concern.

“Coming!” she called back. She looked to the goblins for more information, but they said no more. Perhaps they wanted Jayden to have his secrets the same way they had theirs.

The lavender goblin looked into Dana’s eyes. “If you tell them what we’re doing, they’ll kill us.”

Dana bent down and stroked the goblin’s cheek before she left. Their lives were in her hands, and thousands of people depended on them. What choice was there? She smiled and said, “Silly goblin, you can’t kill fairytales.”

This is the first part of Dead End, with Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden.

*****
“Dana, I do believe we can finally travel.”

Jayden’s cheerful voice made Dana sit up from where she was playing on the floor with a toddler boy. This was harder than it sounds, since the boy had no intention of losing his playmate and wrapped both arms around her. She staggered for a moment before grabbing him and carrying him to the window.

It wasn’t a cheerful sight. Dozens of fruit trees in straight lines were still bare of leaves. The ground was covered in wet snow as slippery as grease. Smoke rose from the chimneys of nearby houses even during the day.

“It wouldn’t be fast or dry,” she pointed out.

“A temporary situation. Look by those rocks. Green grass, proof that spring is upon us, and with it mobility.” Jayden rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Muddy boots is a small price to pay for ending two months inactivity.”

“Ba,” the toddler said.

Dana rubbed his mop of messy yellow hair. “You’re not a sheep.”

“Ba, ba, ba. Da? Ba!”

The rest of the family they were staying with gathered around the lone window of their house. Grandfather Glen Stex, his two daughters, three daughters-in-law and fifteen grandchildren made for a large family. Dana and Jayden’s presence made their house even more crowded. Still, it was a cheerful place, and their hosts were always kind.

After destroying the undead horde hidden in Duke Wiskver’s estate, Jayden had been adamant on pursuing whoever had made the skeletal horrors. They’d marched to the nearest village, where Jayden introduced them as Stanly and his daughter May. He’d questioned the locals if there had been strangers or suspicious events in recent months. The residents had been happy to help, especially when Jayden started buying drinks.

Then the snow came. Winter storms were nothing to sneer at in the kingdom, and this one had been brutal. When the storm ended there was nearly two feet of dense snow, the kind that packed down easily and clung to boots. Walking a mile became a grueling challenge, and going to the next village was impossible.

Fortunately the villagers were only too happy to take them in until the weather improved. This didn’t surprise Dana. Merchants and travelers came to small villages like this only rarely, leaving residents starved for information on the outside world. So great was their isolation that they didn’t even have wanted posters for Jayden, surprising given how high the price on his head was. Jayden had insisted on paying for room and board, making Glen and his family even happier to have them. Their stay had been pleasant, but Jayden had chaffed at the delay as days stretched into weeks and then two months.

“I’d wait another two weeks if I were you,” Glen cautioned. “Roads are going to be thick mud where they’re not covered in ice.”

“Delightful as your company has been, I have work to do and limited time to complete it,” Jayden said. He shook Glen’s hand and smiled. “Your hospitality exceeded all expectations. I’m glad we met.”

“I’m not sure it counts as hospitality when you paid for everything you received,” Glen told him. “I’d have been happy with half what you offered.”

“Many men wouldn’t have opened their home up to strangers, a testament to your kindness and generosity,” Jayden replied. “Nevertheless, I fear our paths must separate.”

Glen opened the door for Jayden and Dana. “Let me at least walk you to the road.”

“It’s been wonderful spending time with you,” Dana told the women and children. She tried to hand off the little boy to his mother. Then she tried again. The boy’s grip tightened. “And, um, it was great getting to know you all. Come on, little guy.”

The toddler’s smile turned into a shockingly serious look. “No.”

“Some children’s first words are mama,” the boy’s mother said. The family laughed as Dana tried to pull the little boy off her.

“No! No, no no!”

A girl of eight years came up and put her hands on the little boy. “Sorry, he gets like this. You kind of have to pry him off. Mom, you get his left arm and I’ll get the right.”

The little boy’s face turned red as his sister and mother removed him from Dana. He made a humming sound that turned into a howl before screaming, “Dada!”

Dana looked away as the boy’s mother held him tight. He squalled and struggled to break free, his howls doubling in intensity when he saw Dana heading for the door.

“I told you not to play with him so much,” Jayden reminded her.

“I couldn’t help it. He’s cute.”

Glen picked up a wood ax by the door and went outside with them. “I’m sorry about that. He’s a good boy, strong willed and with a loving heart. He took it hard when his dad was conscripted. We all did.”

Dana and Jayden’s stay had provided fresh evidence of hardships in the kingdom. Glen was 57 years old, patriarch of his little clan and the only man left. Press gangs had come through the village in late autumn and forcibly enlisted Glen’s sons and son-in-laws. Each man was presented a spear, dagger, wood shield and uniform, and declared to be infantry in the king and queen’s army. Rumor was nearby villages had suffered similar losses, and farmers rich enough to own draft animals had lost those as well. Dana wondered how these people would run their farms.

She also wondered if men in her hometown were being conscripted. The king and queen had already called up the militia to serve, but many men weren’t in the militia. Life had been hard back home with so many farmers and ranchers gone, and could get even worse in press gangs came for the rest.

As they walked down the muddy, snowy road, Glen took a scrap of paper from his pocket and pressed it into Jayden’s hand. “These are my boys’ names and descriptions. Chances are you won’t meet them, but if you do, tell them we miss them, and we’re doing the best we can.”

Jayden studied the paper before slipping it into his backpack. “I’ll keep this with me, but I intend to avoid armies as much as possible.”

“No surprise when they’d impress you the second they got the chance.” Glen walked on in silence for a few more steps. “I can’t imagine why the king and queen need so many soldiers. I heard talk of trouble at the border with Kaleoth, but that’s a small kingdom. If war breaks out it would be a short one.”

“You’re following us farther than I’d expected,” Dana said.

Glen’s brow furrowed. “I don’t talk much about it, but there’s a frozen one hereabouts called Jenny Glass Eyes. Long ago a woman died in the cold and evil spirits moved into her body. She’s haunted these parts for decades, coming out on winter nights, scratching at doors trying to get inside, ambushing travelers when she can. I figure it’s too warm for her to come out if the snow is melting, but I want to be sure you two are safe.”

Dana smiled at him. “That’s very kind of you.”

“I got worried when you went out for a walk last month,” Glen told Jayden. “I wouldn’t have allowed it if I’d known you were going, but you left when I was in the barn. You seem like a clever sort, plenty strong, too, but Jenny Glass Eyes is tougher than she looks. I was plenty glad to see you come back that night.”

“I apologize for troubling you,” Jayden said.

“I understand staying indoors for weeks can be trying,” Glen said as they walked. He pointed at depressions in the snow. “Those must be your footprints. You went pretty far. Wait, what’s that?”

Ahead of them was a patch of bare ground covered in a layer of wet ashes. Glen approached it carefully with his ax held high in case there was danger. Up close they saw what looked like blackened bones mixed in the ashes. Most of the remains were unidentifiable, but there was a charred skeletal arm wearing a melted gold ring. Glen’s eyes opened wide, and he pointed his ax at it.

“That’s Jenny Glass Eyes!”

Dana went for her sword Chain Cutter hidden deep in her backpack. “You’re sure?”

“I saw that ring on her hand when she attacked me twenty years ago. Look, she’s missing her little finger. Back then I had to cut it off to get away.” Glen pointed at footprints in the snow, wider now that the snow was melting around them. “You can see where the fight happened. Those are her prints right there, and those ones are… yours.”

Glen’s face turned white as he looked at Jayden. Jayden’s earlier cheerfulness was replaced with a studious look. “I see a rose sprouting from the remains. Legends say when a frozen one dies a blue rose grows where it was destroyed. Check what color the flowers are in summer.”

“What kind of man are you?” Glen whispered.

“The kind who doesn’t tolerate abominations.” Jayden turned to face Glen. “It angers me such a threat was allowed to exist for so long, and pleased me greatly to end it. Good day, Glen. May the future be more merciful than the past.”

Dana and Jayden left without another word, leaving Glen dumbfounded behind them. Once they were far away, Dana said, “You should have taken me with to fight Jenny.”

“Doing so would have alerted our hosts. And I needed the exercise. When I heard it scratching at the door, I suspected it was a frozen one and went to deal with it. Frozen ones are legitimate threats to farmers, not sorcerer lords. I’m surprised its remains melted out before we left.”

“Do you think it had anything to do with the necromancer we’re after?”

Jayden frowned. “I thought so at first, but our generous host’s tale proves my concern baseless. This was a local threat that should have been slain long ago, further proof that the king and queen are delinquent in their duties. We were in the right place at the right time to remove the threat.”

“One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed,” she scolded him.

“Likely so, but I plan on taking a great many monsters like Jenny Glass Eyes with me before I go.”

This was typical of Jayden. He didn’t seek death, but he didn’t fear or respect it the way he should. Such a cavalier attitude was going to get him in trouble. They walked on in silence for a time before Dana spoke again.

“I’m sure you still want this necromancer. How do we find him?”

“The first way involves making inquiries among the locals in the hope that one of them saw or heard something ominous. This is risky because it might draw royal attention. It’s also time consuming, and futile if the necromancer resides in an isolated location where few would notice him.”

“Let me guess, the second way involves magic.”

“It does, and is even riskier. Sorcerer lords in ancient times developed a spell to detect other sorcerer lords. Generally they used it to find and kill one another, as they were a paranoid and vengeful lot, but it can be used to find any form of magic. I need a body of water to cast the spell on, and with winter over we should find one shortly.”

Dana frowned. “Exactly why is this risky?”

“Wizards from every school of magic crave privacy. You know of my mind cloud spell, which makes it hard for other wizards to find me. Rival schools of magic have their own ways to deter spying, some of which retaliate against the spy.”

“The necromancer made lots of skeletons once,” Dana said. “If he figures out he’s being watched, he could come looking for us with an army behind him.”

“We could be in serious danger, but I fear there is no choice. We lost two months in our hunt for the necromancer, giving him time to produce horrors similar or even greater to what we already saw. The longer he remains at large the more damage he can do. That means doing this the hard way.”

It took the better part of a day, but they found a narrow pond clear of ice. Jayden stood at one end and began chanting. The water turned choppy like someone was splashing in it. Waves grew until they were as tall as Dana and incredibly noisy. Jayden’s chanting grew louder until he clapped his hands together. The waves fell silent, and the water became as still and reflective as a mirror.

A tiny ripple formed in the water, then another. More ripples formed as if someone was dropping pebbles into the water. Dana tried counting them and stopped when she reached fifty. She waved her hand at the scattered ripples. “There can’t be this many wizards in the kingdom!”

“The spell detects any form of magic, including wizards, magic items and certain monsters.” Jayden pointed at a wide, shallow ripple near the middle of the pond. “That, for instance, is me. My mind cloud spell dissipates traces of magic left behind when I cast spells. A wizard hunting me wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my location, nor how powerful I am.”

“What about that big ripple at the edge?”

“It’s too strong to be a spell caster. I suspect a dragon or other powerful monster. There’s a dragon living in Kaleoth who’s been hibernating for three years. We used to have two living in the kingdom before the king and queen thought they could give them orders. Both dragons left for greener pastures, or at least more peaceful ones.”

Dana couldn’t see a pattern to the ripples or way to tell them apart. “How do you know which one is the necromancer?”

“I don’t. Our foe is powerful enough that his magic will be easier to detect if he casts a spell. If he is silent for a few days then the traces of magic I’m trying to detect will fade away. He may use spells to conceal his position the same way I do. But if he uses powerful magic no spell can hide him, and making a horde of undead like we saw at Wiskver’s estate qualifies. He did it once. I’m counting on him being rash enough to do so again.”

“If that happens we have a big fight on our hands.”

Jayden studied several of the larger ripples. “True. Some of these are much too close together. They’re likely magic items owned by nobles.”

“Do you use this spell to find old sorcerer lord treasuries?”

“If only I was so lucky. Magic items only show up when they’re used, making magic treasures buried a thousand years ago impossible to detect. In truth I’ve found this spell to be of questionable value. I can detect only some magic with it, and at such a great distance that it’s often long gone before I reach it. My hope is the necromancer doesn’t live far from Wiskver’s estate, or that he’s…that’s bad.”

Water in the middle of the pond suddenly spiked up three feet in the air before dropping back down. It did so again, and then a third time that didn’t fall back down.

“My, my, my, what an inquisitive little boy you are. Not many hunt me. Smart wizards don’t try.” The taunting voice came from the pond. It spoke with an accent that made the letter w sound like v.

“Smart wizards don’t degenerate into necromancy,” Jayden retorted.

“Cowards turn down power because they fear where it leads. I fear nothing. I see you, a brat and an impetuous fop. I saw through the eyes of my creations when you two idiots destroyed them.”

Jayden began chanting again. The pond began to ripple around the spike of water.

“Oh this is rich, like frosting on a cake. You think you can focus your spell to learn where I am? I’d forgotten how foolish apprentice wizards are. It’s embarrassing.”

The pond grew choppier until water shot into the air like a waterfall flowing in reverse. Only the part of the pond with the spike of water representing the necromancer’s magic remained unchanged. Dana pulled back and drew her sword. Jayden continued chanting.

“Do you want to know what’s funny? I’m not trying to hide from you. I could have broken this spell in seconds if I desired. I don’t care. Come to me. Fight me. Die. You wouldn’t be the first to follow those well-worn steps, nor will you be the last.”

Water in the pond shot thirty feet into the air. Suddenly the huge waves turned inward and hit the spike of water. Dana heard the necromancer’s taunting words change into frightened cries as the entire pond seemed to turn against itself.

“What did you do?” Dana demanded.

“He was foolish enough to allow me to determine his precise position. I used my detection spell to send a pulse of magic at him, nearly everything I had. I imagine it hurt.”

“You pile of maggot-infested dung! Two can play that game!”

The sky darkened around them and grew cold. Plants died and the few animals present fled. A globe of utter darkness formed over the pond. The globe hummed and shimmered before vanishing to reveal a hideous mockery of a man, with greasy white skin, tangled black hair, long nails and longer teeth. The monster wore only tattered bits of filthy clothing and stank like rotting meat. It was hunched over to fit in the globe, but now that it was free it bounded toward them on all fours. As it neared them, Dana felt a stab of pain followed by rage, like she had when the undead appeared at Wiskver’s estate.

Jayden cast a spell to form his black sword and met the monster head on. He swung at its legs, but the monster leaped over him and landed next to Dana. It howled and lunged at her face, its toothy maw opened wider than her head. She screamed and swung her sword. Sword met teeth, and Chain Cutter hacked through the monster’s yellowed fangs. Pain should have driven it back, but the monster rammed into her and knocked her onto her back.

The monster leaped at her with outstretched hands, claws reaching for her throat, when Jayden drove his sword through its back with a powerful overhand swing. He speared the beast, pinning it to the ground. The monster shrieked and tried to reach Dana. She got to her feet and swung Chain Cutter, hacking off the monster’s right arm. Another swing took off the left one. Anything else should have died, yet the monster howled and struggled to reach her.

“Enough!” Jayden roared. He pressed his left foot against the monster’s back and pulled his black sword up, cutting the beast in two. Once his sword was free he brought it down again, removing the monster’s head. The air chilled again, and Jayden turned to see another black globe forming. He charged it, and as the globe dissolved to release another monster as wretched as the first, he plunged his sword into it. The monster’s howls died stillborn as his sword went through its heart.

“Send another barrow wight!” Jayden yelled. “Send three, a dozen, a hundred! There’s nothing your foul magic can produce that I can’t kill!”

“We shall see, little mage,” the taunting voice said with its strange accent. It grew softer as it spoke for the last time. “All that lives must one day die.”

Dana ran over to Jayden. The monster he’d impaled was blackening and crumbling away until there was nothing left of it. Once it was entirely gone, he marched back to the first one and drove his black sword into each piece, destroying those as well.

“He’s stronger than I’d feared,” Jayden said as his sword destroyed the final piece of the monster. “Barrow wights are as hideous as they are uncontrollable. Bending two of them to his will is difficult, and sending them over such a great distance staggeringly hard.”

Dana stared at the ashes at her feet, the only sign that there had been a fight. “I never saw your sword do that.”

“In times long past this land was infested with necromancers, some working alone and others in cabals dozens strong. They damaged both the people and the land itself. Shadow magic was developed in direct response to the threat of necromancy and is especially potent against it. Early sorcerer lords hunted down those necromancers and slew them.”

“Then why is he willing to fight you?”

Jayden let his magic sword dissipate. “Sorcerer lords died out long ago. I daresay my spells will come as a surprise to him. But that is a small advantage, and he has large ones. The necromancer has power to spare, time to use it, and royal support. Most necromancers live in fear of the law, constantly moving, never able to build laboratories or spell libraries. Our foe has no such concern, and my spell tracked him to where he has no shortage of human remains.”

Worried, Dana asked, “A graveyard?”

“The biggest and most isolated in the kingdom. Heaven help us, it’s not far away.”

Spring days were short, and they had to make camp not long after Jayden confirmed the necromancer’s location. There were no villages here, just wilderness encroaching onto old fields. Jayden said these lands once had farms, but they’d been destroyed in the civil war and were never resettled. Eventually they found the ruins of an old church and took shelter there.

“We’re fortunate to find this church in more ways than one,” Jayden said as he piled up loose boards and dry brush over the doorway. “The ceiling is intact, no animals or monsters have occupied the building, and I feel lingering holy influences. The necromancer’s creations may be unable to force their way in.”

“I feel it, too,” Dana said. She unrolled a blanket and used her backpack as a pillow. “It’s sort of a calm feeling, like the church is waiting for people to come back.”

“We have a long walk tomorrow, and possibly a battle with the necromancer. Sleep well, Dana, for the future will be taxing.”

Before she went to bed, Dana asked, “What if he runs away?”

“He has little reason to flee with the power and resources at his command. He can comfortably wait until we come to him and face him at his strongest.”

Dana was tired and wanted to sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake. That was difficult under a warm blanket on a cold night. She stayed quiet and motionless, waiting for what she knew was going to happen. She could only guess what time it was when she heard Jayden get up and collect his belongings. She let him go a few steps before speaking.

“Go back to sleep, Jayden.”

He stopped but didn’t turn to face her. “I’m trying to be gallant. Pick a direction other than the one I’m taking and you’ll be safe.”

“You’re not trying to be gallant. You are gallant. You’d go into a fight alone that you might lose if that means I live. The necromancer knows there are two of us. I get the feeling he’d kill me, even use his magic on me after I’m dead and send me after you. The only way I’m getting out alive is with you, and I’m sorry if this upsets you, but I don’t think you’re getting through this alive without me.”

“Your prediction is possibly, even likely given how morally degenerate our enemy is.” He set his belongings down and wrapped himself in his blanket. “It’s strange. I’m grateful we met, yet terrified and ashamed at the same time. I’ve been alone for so long partly because I never wanted to be in this position. I have few friends, Dana. I can’t lose one.”

* * * * *

Morning came, and Dana was relieved to see that Jayden hadn’t left in the night. She recognized how brave he was to try facing this madman alone, but she’d seen him hurt in fights and nearly killed by Wall Wolf. Jayden needed her just as much as the kingdom needed him.

“Our destination has no name by design,” Jayden explained as they headed out after breakfast. “The king and queen wanted its location unknown, as well as its occupants, for the graveyard contains rebels who died in the civil war.”

“My parents never told me much about the war,” Dana admitted.

“They likely knew very little. The king and queen worked hard to erase less savory aspects of our kingdom’s history.” Jayden grimaced as he spoke. “Rebels in the civil war were needlessly brutal, causing considerable damage to infrastructure like bridges, dams, canals, granaries, even schools. If they couldn’t hold territory, they made sure the victors would gain no benefit from it. Nor were they merciful to prisoners or civilians.

“The king and queen were equally brutal. They ordered fallen rebels buried in mass graves without headstones or memorials. These mass graves were placed deep in the wilderness and in utter secrecy. In theory this meant the gravesites couldn’t become rallying points for rebels eager to avenge their losses.”

Dana thought back to the graveyard outside her hometown. It wasn’t visited often since people had so much work to do, but the entire town went there on the first day of the year, drinking toasts to their ancestors and sharing stories of loved ones who had passed on. It was a time of celebration and remembrance. Originally Brotherhood of the Righteous priests led the event, but her father did the honors after the priests were expelled from the kingdom.

“That’s terrible, and stupid,” she said.

“It didn’t stop there. The king and queen declared that rebels lost their property. Farms, livestock, coins, legal rights, it was all forfeit.”

“What happens to their things?”

There was fierceness in Jayden’s voice when he answered. “It went to the crown. Loyalist forces were clamoring for rewards for their services, and they accepted rebel property in lieu of cash. Widows and orphans who had already lost so much were evicted and made beggars. Many of them had no involvement with the civil war. Their men went to war because treacherous noblemen ordered them to fight or forced them to, and their families suffered for it.”

“How do you force someone to fight for you?” Dana asked. “Give a guy a sword and he could use it on you instead of your enemies.”

“The first way is to seize his loved ones and hold them hostage. The second way is to put unwilling soldiers in the front of your army and dependable troops behind them. They can’t run without being cut down by their enemies or their allies.” He saw Dana’s terrified expression and added, “I did say the rebels were brutal.”

“It doesn’t sound like there was a good side in the fight,” she said reluctantly.

“There could have been. The king and queen refused to let Brotherhood of the Righteous priests bless the bodies or hold funerals for defeated rebels. Priests argued these blessings made sure bodies couldn’t be inhabited by foul spirits or used by necromancers. The king and queen didn’t care. Denying rebels even such a basic right was another way to take revenge. Our enemy is camped on one of those mass graves. We are paying the price for the king and queen’s act of spite.”

“That’s how the necromancer made his army!” Dana exclaimed. “I couldn’t figure out where he got the bones for all those walking skeletons at Duke Wisker’s estate, but he’s got an entire cemetery to dig up.”

“The bones were from men who died fighting, so many were badly damaged. I believe the necromancer experimented with replacing destroyed or missing limbs with bones taken from animals.”

Fearing the answer, Dana asked, “How many men were buried there?”

“I don’t know. The necromancer may have looted other mass graves. Worse still, you saw the barrow wights he sent after us yesterday. He may have other undead more dangerous than animated skeletons.” Jayden stopped walking and turned to face her. “I don’t exaggerate when I say this battle may be more than I can handle. Your life is in mortal peril if you come with me.”

“What happens if we don’t stop him?” she asked.

“The necromancer will continue amassing undead followers for uses too horrifying to contemplate. The king and queen will try to use these abominations in their war. Perhaps the necromancer will humor them and send his minions to fight their battles, but it’s equally possible he’ll unleash his nightmare army against the two of them. Innocent people will die by the thousands or tens of thousands before he’s stopped.”

“Who can we call on for help who could get here in time?”

Jayden paused. “Reginald Lootmore and Suzy Lockheart are too far away to reach us in time. I don’t know where Ian McShootersun is. Other men I know lack the power or skill to make a significant impact. They would be targets rather than assets. I might be able to convince nobles or army officers of the danger and get their aid, but they have little reason to believe me when I’m a wanted man.”

“Then you need me.” Before he could argue, she said, “He’s got to be stopped. If you fight him alone he’ll swarm you with skeletons and wights. I’m not a sorcerer lord, or lady, I guess, but I can help. You need friends, Jayden, and right now I’m it.”

He smiled at her. “It’s ironic. The harder I try to keep you safe by excluding you, the harder you insist on remaining.”

“You could have more help, you know. There are people who like you and could fight. And let’s face it, you’re going to run into more big battles, not fewer.”

“More fights like this,” he said ruefully. “Dana, you have no idea how many battles I’ve fought, how many enemies I’ve defeated—”

“How many people you’ve saved?”

“There is that. I’ve done much, yet there is so much more to do. This battle will be terrible, and you’re right that coming battles will be as bad or worse. Would you stand with me through that, knowing it will never end?”

“We saved hundreds of children and young girls sold as property. I’ll stand with you through anything to save even one more.”

They spent much of the day heading deeper into the wilderness. Abandoned farmhouses gave way to scrub forests thick with briars and weeds. The roads had already been muddy and narrow, but as they went on the few roads shrank into narrow game trails. Wildlife was rare so early in spring, yet they saw not one bird or rodent.

“Hey, it’s our anniversary,” she said playfully.

Jayden stared at her. “Our what?”

“We first met on this day one year ago.”

“I’m surprised you keep track of the date,” he said. “You know, it’s embarrassing, but outside family members or servants, this is the longest I’ve known a woman.”

Dana laughed. “What about those two girls you told me about?”

“The first young lady and I were together for eight months. The second lasted only eight weeks. I have difficulties with relationships. I’m told I rub people the wrong way when I don’t offend them intentionally.”

Feeling mischievous, Dana asked, “And how long were you with Suzy Lockheart?”

“She and I weren’t together in any sense of the word. We were in the general vicinity of one another for less than a month total, although it felt like years spent in purgatory.”

“You were a little rough around the edges when we first met, but you’re doing better these days.” Jayden gave her a questioning glance, and she went on. “You don’t lose your temper as often, and insults and snide remarks are way down.”

“Judging by that left handed compliment, you’ve taken it upon yourself to compensate for my good behavior.”

“It’s good you’re getting better around people. You deserve to have healthy relationships like you did when you were a boy. Maybe you could fall in love. No, seriously, there’s a woman my hometown who…oh.” Dana stopped marching. “Oh dear.”

“Not a cheerful sight,” Jayden agreed.

Ahead of them was a wide path beaten through the undergrowth. Seven men could have walked down it side by side, and the thick growth of plant life had been trampled into the muddy ground. Strange as this path already was, trees growing alongside it were dead, their blackened bark peeling off in strips. Normally hardy weeds sprouted this time of year, but here they were stunted and brown. Dana touched a dead tree, only for it to topple onto the path.

“One way leads to our foe, the other to Duke Wiskver’s estate,” Jayden declared.

“How did the necromancer get so many walking skeletons into Wiskver’s estate without anyone noticing?”

“I imagine Wiskver brought them to his property inside armored wagons, the same way he did the slaves.” Jayden ran his fingers along a dead tree branch. “The necromancer may have used magic to temporarily mask the natural aversion all life has to the undead.”

The branch crumbled apart under Jayden’s gentle touch and fell to the ground. He scowled and drew back his hand. “I have to wonder how Wiskver thought he could profit from such monsters. They don’t require food, drink or rest, but how could he have used them as laborers without others noticing? How could he think such bloodthirsty monstrosities would consent to cutting timber or tending crops?”

“How close are we to the graveyard?” Dana asked.

“Close enough I should take precautions. Hold still.”

“What are you,” she began, but stopped when Jayden placed the palms of both hands on her forehead. He began to chant and his fingers grew warm. Dana waited for him to finish before she asked, “What did you do?”

“I placed a mind shield on you. It will last long enough for our purposes. As you don’t cast spells it won’t hide you from magical detection, but it protects you from the fury you felt when near the undead.” He smirked and added, “Blinding rage has its uses, but your best feature has always been your mind, and I need it to be as keen as your sword.”

Dana held up Chain Cutter. “Can wizards sense my sword?”

“You saw how unfocused my detection spell was. Your sword will register as one of hundreds of magic sources with no way to determine what it is or who wields it.”

“That’s helpful, I guess.” Dana paused when she saw green among the dead plants. “Jayden, look, that plant is growing. I didn’t think anything would—”

The tiny weed grew so fast it shot across the ground, spreading new leaves and sinking deep roots before lashing out at Dana. She screamed and swung her sword, hacking the plant in half, only for it to sprout four new ends that wrapped around her and pinned her to the ground.

More vines grew outrageously fast and headed for Jayden. He barely had time to cast a spell that formed a shield of spinning black blades in front of him. Vines grappled the shield, were shredded, regrew and were shredded again when they hit the shield. He cast another spell to form his black sword and cut off the vines holding Dana. For a moment the floral assault paused.

“Why does this not surprise me?” a familiar voice called out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dana said as she got up.

“Green Peril?” Jayden asked in disbelief.

It was the elven wizard, wreathed in living vines as he emerged from the ruined forest. He wore the same white and green robes as when they’d last seen him in Fish Bait City. His face was as handsome and sneering as ever, but there was one big difference in his appearance. Jayden had destroyed the elf’s staff in their previous battle. Green Peril held a new one, dark red like blood made solid, and with a cluster of opals near the tip. Dana didn’t know much about magic even after a year traveling with Jayden, but this staff looked impressive.

“Birds in the sky told me they’d found you but dared not approach. Land soaked in death and suffering, unhallowed and unwelcome to all life, this would scare anyone with wits and working eyes. Yet this is where I find you.”

“Don’t you know when to quit?” Jayden demanded as he stepped between Dana and the elf. “The last time we fought you ran for your life! You didn’t bring allies for this battle, proof you learned nothing from our encounter.”

“The last time we fought you had help! No ghost is here to save you, but that would explain your destination. Do you seek to recruit another tortured soul?”

“Shadow magic doesn’t work that way, you pampered twit! You’d know that if you’d done even the most rudimentary research into the man you’re trying to kill.”

“Why are you even here?” Dana asked. “The king and queen must have hired a court wizard by now.”

“I’d have heard about it if your idiot king and shrewish queen had accepted another wizard into their service,” Green Peril retorted. “Even if they don’t honor their promise made months ago or pay the ever growing bounty on your head, I have reason enough to hunt you down after you humiliated me! I suffered endless insults for losing to a human! Your death will cleanse the stain upon my honor.”

Green Peril held his staff in front of him. “I learned new spells, and spent a fortune in gold and promises to lesser elves to produce my staff. Blood wood harvested from a willing tree, carved with the finest tools, imbued with nature magic, it is the ultimate weapon.”

Dana’s brow furrowed. “Lesser elves?”

“Each elf thinks himself superior to all other elves,” Jayden told her.

“I had to grovel to get the blood wood!” Green Peril yelled. He drew a step closer to them, and to Dana’s surprise green grass sprouted and seeds burst into life. That hadn’t happened the last time they’d seen the elf. It made her think his replacement staff was as powerful as he claimed.

“That’s just peachy,” Dana interrupted. “You got your stick finished in time to use against an actual enemy instead of someone who saves lives.”

“What’s your pet babbling about?” Green Peril asked.

Before Jayden could issue an angry reply, Dana said, “We’re chasing a necromancer who made an army of walking skeletons and hid them in a duke’s estate. We killed them, and we’re after the necromancer before he makes more.”

Green Peril laughed. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”

“Look, these plants died a long time before we got here. Jayden’s magic didn’t kill plants the last time you two fought, or he would have won even quicker than he did.”

Before the elf could answer, Jayden said, “I’m facing what could be the biggest battle of my life against a man who will do unspeakable acts if left alive. I can’t afford to exhaust myself beating you hours before doing battle with the necromancer.”

Green Peril hesitated, given Dana hope that this meeting could end peacefully. The elf wizard retreated a few steps and pointed his staff at a tree left half dead by the necromancer’s magic. He cast a spell, and to Dana’s amazement the tree’s branches bent like they were made of loose cloth.

“Brother tree, friend to elves since ancient times, speak to me,” Green Peril said to the tree. Normally Dana considered talking to trees to be a bad sign, but it made a rustling, whispering noise as it moved. It waved branches along the trail of devastation, and it trembled as if in fear. Green Peril’s face turned pale, and he placed a hand against its trunk.

“You have suffered much, brother,” Green Peril said solemnly. He cast another spell, and fresh growth burst from the trunk to replace what it had lost. The tree stopped moving as Green Peril turned to face Dana and Jayden. “You speak the truth, a shocking a turn of events.”

“Then can we call off this senseless vendetta?” Jayden asked.

Green Peril bared his teeth in a snarl, only gradually regaining self-control. “Vulgar and brutal as you are, there is a greater foe I must deal with. I declare a truce until this perversion of a man is destroyed. After that, no promises.”

“Fair enough,” Jayden replied. “We haven’t far to go to reach him.”

“I said truce, not partnership,” Green Peril snapped. “I’d sooner fight alongside an drunken ogre with lice than trust you not to put a dagger in my back. The only concession I’ll make is to care for your pet girl after you’re dead. What’s her name again?”

Dana slapped a hand over her face. “I can’t believe this.”

Jayden spat in disgust. “This necromancer is a threat like none I’ve faced, and we are mere miles from the graveyard he plunders for bodies. He knows I’m coming and is not intimidated. Battling him together stands the best chance of success. Claim you lead us if it sooths your bloated ego, but if you go alone don’t expect to do anything except die.”

The two wizards stared at one another in mutual loathing. Jayden had often told Dana how ancient sorcerer lords fought one another. Watching these two, she had no trouble believing the tales.

“We’ll let you have any treasure or magic he has,” Dana offered. A shocked look from Jayden made her hastily add, “Minus sorcerer lord spell tablets.”

Green Peril hesitated. “And I get to claim leadership of the expedition?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep you two from butchering each other before we even reach the necromancer.”

“We have a deal. I won’t insult either of us by offering to ‘shake on it’, as you clearly don’t want to and I don’t know what diseases the two of you carry.” Green Peril headed down the trail of devastation. “Come along.”

This is the conclusion of Dead End with Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden.

*****
Jayden grumbled as he followed. Dana saw him smirk, and before she could stop him he asked, “How is your job hunt coming along?”

Green Peril stopped and glared at Jayden. Hoping to distract him, Dana ran alongside the elf and asked, “What did the tree say to you?”

“She said months ago a great host of undead marched through these woods, destination unknown,” the elf replied. “They had trouble passing through the dense stand of trees and thick underbrush, so a human created the path we walk on by blighting the land. Once the way was clear the undead marched on and the necromancer returned to where he’d come from. She asked me to find this wretch and rip him limb from limb.”

Puzzled, she said, “That’s kind of vicious.”

“Trees are bitter and vindictive,” the elf told her. “Most of the time they don’t get to strike back at their enemies. When she saw me she thought, rightly so, that I was willing to pay back this monster in full.”

Green Peril marched on. “She also said this land has been abandoned and neglected for decades. When I become court wizard, and I will, I shall oversee the restoration of this kingdom. Clearly humans aren’t up to the task.”

“Before we go any farther, Jayden knows a spell to shield you from the whole ‘kill everything’ feeling you get by being close to walking skeletons,” she told him. “I’m sure he won’t mind casting it on you.”

“I have my own shielding magic, child, far superior to anything this wretch could offer. I gather you are desperate to travel with this clod and depend on his outdated spells. It doesn’t speak well of this land that a child should need a criminal’s aid. Never fear, soon enough you’ll be able to go back to your mud hut and live in peace.”

Dana looked over to Jayden. “I tried. I really did.”

“Don’t expect better from him. That we’re not ripping one another to pieces is a testament to your kind nature, but this is all we can ask for.”

Their journey was tense from their grim surroundings and the constant tension between the two wizards. Dana stayed between them as a badly needed buffer, but she had little success in tamping down their hate. After two hours they reached what had to be their destination.

The trail ended in a wide valley flanked by steep hills. Trees had once grown here in abundance. In their place was blackened trunks tipped over at sharp angles. There were no animals, nor signs that anyone had ever lived in the valley. A huge earthen mound two hundred feet long and twenty feet wide dominated the valley’s center. Dana saw a long, deep gash running down the center of the mound.

“Welcome!” an echoing voice called out. Dana recognized the necromancer’s strange accent. She couldn’t pinpoint the voice’s source as it bounced between the high hills. “I see you brought another fool eager to die! You surprise me, sorcerer lord! I’d been told you only traveled with this brat!”

A lone man stepped out from the edge of the long mound. Dana had met several wizards in the last year, all of them flamboyant, like they wanted the world to see them. In contrast the necromancer was bland, with average height and weight, short brown hair, balding in the front and wearing simple leather clothes. He carried no staff or weapons, nor did he have jewelry. If she’d met him on a street rather than a mass grave, she wouldn’t have given him another thought.

“I’m awed you would face me,” the necromancer continued. He walked casually, watching his guests but taking no action against them. “You might as well have walked into a dragon’s lair. The results would have been faster and less painful.”

“Where are his creations?” Green Peril whispered.

“I don’t know,” Jayden answered softly. “He sent two barrow wights against me earlier, but that can’t be the extent of his servants. He’s out of range for my spells. Yours?”

“The same. He planned his entrance well.”

The necromancer stopped and pointed at Green Peril. “You? Ha! This day gets better with every second! I’d heard about the elf sent to kill the sorcerer lord. You thought you were going to be the king and queens official wizard, and you couldn’t kill one man.”

“There were no witnesses to that battle except these two and the Shrouded One,” Green Peril said. “How would you know of it?”

“People in Fish Bait City found a dead plant monster in the streets,” the necromancer told him. “They told their nobleman, he told the king and queen, and when they heard Jayden was still in the kingdom it was clear what had happened.” The necromancer grinned like an idiot. “In case you were wondering, the job offer has been revoked. The king and queen have no need of failures when a better choice is available.”

“What do you mean?” Jayden demanded.

“You are dull, boy.” The necromancer bowed and said, “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Cimmox Valgor, unofficial court wizard to the king and queen.”

Green Peril bellowed, “They wouldn’t be depraved enough to accept a necromancer into their service!”

“I don’t share your faith in them,” Jayden said softly.

“Accept me?” Cimmox asked slyly. “They sought me out! The king and queen plan a grand and glorious war. Losses promise to be staggering, but I can make the dead serve again regardless of which side they were on. Friends, enemies, civilians, whoever they were, they will fight in my name once they’re dead. The king and queen can lose an army, and I can give it back.”

“Good God,” Dana said.

Cimmox pointed at Jayden. “The king and queen told me much of you, secrets gleaned from those who saw you in battle. Let that be a lesson to you, boy, leave no witnesses. I hear you seek to overthrow the royal couple, maybe take their place. Ha! Do you want to know a secret?”

Jayden formed his black sword. “Do tell.”

“All your years fighting didn’t matter one bit. The king and queen have replaced everything you took from them. They sent word to the dangerous, the desperate and the depraved. Come, they said! Come and serve, your crimes forgotten, your sins ignored, and rich rewards for the taking.

“Come they did. Gladiators from Battle Island, beast tamers from Quoth, wizards of the Inspired and more gather in record numbers, promised gold and positions of power in return for shedding blood in the king and queen’s name. Every foe you bested has been replace two times over. You may as well have done nothing.”

Jayden was silent for a moment, staring at the necromancer in such disgust that even that twisted madman took a step back. When Jayden spoke, it was like the wrath of the underworld being unleashed.

“You heard of my victories against the king and queen’s soldiers. Gargoyles, a chimera, Wall Wolf the iron golem, all these and more fought me and died. I’ve faced your inexcusably foul creations and slew them, as any sane man would. All this you know, yet you’d face me. What madness made you think you’d win? What idiocy made you think you ever stood a chance against me?”

“Oh dear,” Dana said. She could feel an entire year’s work trying to temper Jayden’s rage slip away.

Jayden marched toward the necromancer. “You claim to be one of many degenerates called to arms by the king and queen. You freaks and nightmares came a long way to die. You should have stayed in whatever hole you’d been hiding in, because now you stand before me, and nothing under heaven can save you.”

Cimmox stared at Jayden before saying, “You would have made a fine necromancer. Instead you’ll make fine parts for my next creation. You’ve met some of my followers. Let me show you the rest.”

The great earthen mound heaved like a living thing before the gash in it opened wide to vomit out masses of the undead. Walking skeletons made up the bulk of the unspeakable horde, but Dana saw barrow wights loping like wolves among their lesser cousins. More and more abominations poured forth as if they would never stop coming. None carried weapons beyond their sharp teeth and claws. The crowd of nightmares howled like wild beasts.

“Let them come to us,” Green Peril said. He planted the tip of his staff into the ground and cast a spell. His red staff sprouted roots that sunk deep into the ground before growing forward as fast as a galloping horse. The vanguard of the skeletal army covered half the distance to them when a tree root as thick as a wine barrel and fifty feet long burst from the ground and swept over the undead. Thirty of the horrors were crushed to pieces. The root made another swing and battered apart still more, but the rest of the horde grappled the root and ripped it apart.

The time this bought them was well spent as Jayden finished chanting. Dana recognized the spell and braced for the coming explosion. When he finished a single spark drifted toward the oncoming horde.

Green Peril watched the spark float along. “You must be joking.”

“Wait for it,” Jayden told him.

BOOM! Jayden’s fireball burst among the front of the undead, swallowing them up like so much kindling. Dana had seen this spell before, but this time something was different. The fire grew with each skeleton and barrow wight it consumed, as if they were fueling it. The blast grew and grew until it was double its normal size before burning out.

Jayden’s spell had cost the undead army a quarter of its size, yet more came up from the grave to replenish their numbers. They spread out to avoid being caught by another fireball. Behind them Cimmox laughed like this was a grand joke. Dana didn’t know why he stayed out of the battle, but every second he did gave them a chance.

Green Peril took a jar from inside his robes and uncorked it. He poured out dozens of tiny green beetles and cast a spell on them. The beetles swelled up, doubling in size every second until they were as big as hounds. Green Peril pointed his staff at the oncoming undead, and the beetles charged into the horde, their sharp jaws cutting skeletons apart.

“You have an army of bugs?” Cimmox mocked him. “All things die, elf, even the undead. Let me show you.”

Cimmox finally cast a spell, and ten skeletons in the front of the army suddenly turned black. One said, “Hey, what’s going on?”

BOOM! The black skeletons exploded, destroying themselves, nearby skeletons and all of Green Peril’s beetles. Cimmox laughed again as his surviving monstrosities surged forward.

The horde was almost upon them when Jayden turned to face Dana. She saw the concern in his eyes. Dana held up her left hand and said, “Jayden, wait, I—”

Jayden cast one last spell before the nightmarish horde struck them. He spoke strange words that caused shadows to bend and twist until they formed a fierce suit of black armor with razor sharp edges. Pieces of the suit flew through the air before hitting Dana, locking in place over her until she was covered head to toe in black magic armor.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. The armor was menacing, yet so light it felt like she was wearing only a summer dress. Somehow she could see through the helmet even though it had no eye slits. Her fingers on both hands ended in thick, sharp claws, barely flexible enough to hold her sword.

Then the horde hit them. Dana lost sight of Jayden and Green Peril as skeletons swarmed around them as thick as stalks of wheat in a farm field. She tried to stay close to the two wizards and failed utterly in the face of overwhelming numbers. Dana swung her sword with wild abandon and sliced apart the first two skeletons to reach her.

A hideous skeleton made of both human and bull bones pushed its way to the front of the crowd. “I want the little one!”

Dana charged the mismatched skeleton, hacking apart a smaller skeleton that tried to tackle her. She swung once and took off the large skeleton’s right arm before slicing through its right leg. The skeleton fell to its knees. Somehow looking surprised even without a face, it asked, “Can we talk this over?”

A barrow wight bounded onto the crippled skeleton, crushing it underfoot before leaping onto Dana. It hit her with enough force to knock her over. Once she was down the barrow wight bit her right arm. Its teeth scratched her shadowy armor without penetrating. Dana swung her left arm into the barrow wight’s head, and the wight howled in agony before staggering back. Its head was blackened and crumbling under her blow.

Dana got up and punched it again, watching her blow burn its chest. Jayden’s shadow magic was especially dangerous against necromancy, and that clearly included her armor. The wight tried to flee, but she was on it in a flash and impaled it. The wight howled even louder as its entire body blackened and fell apart.

“What was that?” Dana asked. In seconds she remembered that Chain Cutter had been made in part with Jayden’s shadow magic. It must share his magic’s destructive effect on the undead.

The horde of undead parted as a giant plant with a toothy maw grew up from nothing in their midst. Skeletons to Dana’s right screamed in panic as a giant plant monster leaned down and gobbled them up. It was like the plant Green Peril had used against Jayden in Fish Bait City. The huge plant leaned down to snap up another mouthful.

Fortune turned against them as a crackling black bolt shot through the air and hit the plant monster in the side. It toppled over under the assault, and Dana had to run to avoid it landing on her. Four skeletons weren’t as fast and were crushed beneath it. The plant hadn’t even hit the ground when it started rotting, and in seconds it was nothing more than festering slime.

“Did seeing your plant die hurt?” Cimmox taunted them. “I hope it hurt.”

Skeletons piled on Dana while she was distracted. She braced her feet against the ground and pushed into them, knocking them back. She punched and kicked the skeletons, taking them apart piece by piece. She grabbed one skeleton in a bear hug, and her armor burned it with shadow magic. One skeleton bit her shoulder and dented her armor, only for the monster to be burned away. She finished the last one with a swing of Chain Cutter.

Jayden ran past her with his shield of spinning black daggers in front of him, grinding up skeletons in his way. A single skeleton jumped him from behind and wrapped its arms around his throat. He staggered under the attack before a vine seized the skeleton, pulled it off and crushed it against the ground.

“Jayden!” she shouted.

“Keep away from Green Peril!” he shouted. “He’s using spells that cover a wide area.”

Just then a forest of wood spears shot up from the ground, impaling countless undead on their sharp tips. The spears quivered before launching into the air. They came down on more undead and destroyed scores of them.

That cleared enough space for Dana to see the elf. Vines wrapped around his body grappled skeletons and crushed them. A barrow wight leaped over the vines and tried to claw his face. Green Peril swung his staff and struck his foe in the chest. The opals on the staff flashed, and the barrow wight disappeared in a blast of light.

“The horde is thinning,” Jayden told Dana. “If we reach Cimmox, we can deal with the source of the problem.”

“What about Green Peril?” she asked.

Jayden and Dana turned at the sound of horrid screaming, and saw thick roots crushing two barrow wights and dragging them underground.

“I think he’ll manage,” Jayden said dryly. “Come on.”

Dana and Jayden charged through the scattered ranks of undead. A skeleton lunged at Dana and scratched her breastplate. She swung her sword and took off its arm, leaving Jayden to finish it with a sword strike to its chest. Jayden’s shield of daggers cut through three more skeletons before it gave out under the strain. Once it was down a dozen skeletons mobbed them and fought them to a standstill. Dana struck down two while Jayden cut four more apart. Seconds later a boulder flew through the air and flattened the last six. They turned to see Green Peril pull another boulder loose from the ground with the vines twined around him and hurl it into another skeletal mob.

“You don’t leave your leader behind!” Green Peril yelled at them. He frowned and added, “Admittedly I’ve done so, even robbed a few of them, but it was justified.”

Cimmox saw them coming and laughed. “That fight forced you to use your best spells while I used only two. It’s embarrassing. Doesn’t anyone conserve their magic these days? Let me show you what I saved just for you.”

The necromancer uttered strange, hateful words and made intricate gestures with his hands. Dead trees near him rotten away into a slimy goo from his foul spell. No sooner had he finished then bones littering the valley rose up and flew to him.

“Wait, I can still fight!” a skeleton pleaded before it was ripped to pieces and carried off into the air, as were all the skeletons still standing. Broken bones joined the cloud, as did those reduced to splinters in the fight. Still more bones shot up from the gash in the burial mound to form a dense cloud around the necromancer. The cloud tightened as bones linked together in a revolting mass twenty feet across with the necromancer standing on top of it.

“How do you like it?” Cimmox asked. The huge, barrel shaped skeletal creation stood up on six legs as thick as tree trunks and ending in wicked claws as long as a man’s arm. It had no head or eyes, but the many skulls in it had red light pouring from their eye sockets. “It won’t last long, but it doesn’t need to.”

Green Peril yelled, “You destroyed what was left of your own army!”

“I made them to expend them,” Cimmox replied casually. “I mourn them no more than an archer does for the arrows he fires. The king and queen are eager to have Jayden’s head. Yours means nothing to them. Let’s see if you’re smart enough to run.”

“Go left and I’ll go right,” Jayden said to Green Peril. The two wizards split up. Dana followed Jayden.

“Smart enough to master magic, yet dumb enough to stay in a losing fight,” Cimmox said. He picked a leg bone out of his creation and pointed it at Dana. “This is a battle of wizards. Children aren’t welcome.”

“Get down!” Jayden yelled.

Cimmox cast a spell, and the bone glowed before exploding into a stream of bone needles that flew through the air. Dana tried to get behind a dead tree, but she was too slow. The needles hit without puncturing her armor, instead cutting long grooves across the back and left side.

“Wretch!” Green Peril screamed. His next spell caused plants to grow around him and spray the necromancer’s foul creation with orange sap, gluing two of its legs together.

“Oh be quiet,” Cimmox said tiredly. He spoke vile, hateful words before vomiting up a stream of black liquid, far more than he could possibly hold in his stomach. The steaming liquid hit the vines wrapped around Green Peril and melted them away. The elf avoided the noxious stream only by diving into the mud. “Now then, where were we?”

Cimmox’s gloating expression turned into one of terror when a giant black hand missed him by inches. Instead the blow connected with his skeletal mount and staggered it. Jayden was running to Dana and made a swinging motion with his right hand. The black hand mirrored his movements and hit the huge skeletal monster again.

“That is enough,” Cimmox snarled. “I met an old friend of yours while I was waiting for you to arrive. No introductions are needed for one of his status.”

Cimmox cast another spell and formed a large black sphere behind Dana and Jayden. It was much bigger than the one he’d used to send the barrow wights against them, and Dana could see why when it dissolved to show its horrible contents. It was the Living Graveyard, back from the dead yet again.

“It’s a pleasure to work with one created when necromancers and sorcerer lords fought for this land so long ago,” Cimmox said. “Let’s see which one of us kills you first.”

Dana and Jayden took cover in a grove of dead trees. She turned to him and said, “You and Green Peril fight the wizard. I’ll keep the Living Graveyard back.”

“You can’t fight him alone,” Jayden said.

“A year ago I couldn’t. I can now because of you. We beat him before I had Chain Cutter or you could make this armor. Trust me.”

The giant skeleton brought one of its huge legs down on the grove. It crushed three trees and toppled two more, forcing Dana and Jayden to fall back. Cimmox laughed and the Living Graveyard marched toward them.

Green Peril ran over to them, filthy, out of breath and bruised. He opened his mouth, but suddenly his eyes opened wide in surprised. He looked at them and said, “I can stop Cimmox, but I need time. Can you keep him busy for two minutes?”

Jayden looked at Dana and Green Peril, fear visible on his face. As a boy he’d lost everything, and this fight could cost him what little he’d clawed back. Fear gave way to resolve, and he stepped out from the shattered grove. “Two minutes, elf. Use them wisely.”

“Is this the best you can do?” Cimmox gloated as his monster lifted a leg to stomp on Jayden. “Soldiers spoke of you in terror. Knights trembled at the mention of your name. The king fears you even if he dares not show it. How could a stripling wizard like you, a fool using magic outdated a thousand years ago, earn such respect?”

“By thinking,” Jayden said. His next spell made shadows around the valley shimmered and solidified into pieces of frightening black armor identical to what Dana wore. Black armor pieces flew through the air and struck Cimmox hard, snapping over him and encasing him head to toe.

“What is this?” Cimmox yelled, his voice echoing inside his new helmet. He held up his hands and tried to move his fingers. “I can’t cast spells in these gauntlets!”

“No, you can’t,” Jayden said, his voice low and menacing. He still had his black sword, and the giant hand floated in the air. “Goodbye, Cimmox. You won’t be missed.”

Dana dearly wanted to stay and help him, but the Living Graveyard was almost on them. She needed to keep it away from Jayden for him to finish the necromancer. With damaged armor and a magic sword, she ran to fight a monster that had died and come back three times she knew of.

The Living Graveyard was as hideous as always, twelve feet tall, eight feet across and made of grave soil, human bones, broken headstones and splintered coffins. The nightmare monster had a cluster of human skulls embedded in its chest and two intact gravestones jutting from its shoulders, one reading No Rest and the other No Peace. Dana raised her sword to strike, and watched the Living Graveyard walk past her to Jayden.

It was ignoring her. Over the last year many people had done the same thing, focusing instead on Jayden. Normally she was happy to take advantage of this, but not today. She’d come so far, done so much, owned a named magic weapon, and this monster still walked right by her.

“Get back here!” she screamed. Dana charged the monster and swung Chain Cutter with all her strength. Her sword sliced into the Living Graveyard’s right hand and hacked it off. This brought the monster to a halt, and it tried to club her with its now handless arm. Dana ducked under the clumsy swing and sliced the arm open up to its elbow. She followed up with a strike on its right knee, chopping out a huge piece of dirt and bones.

The Living Graveyard’s next blow sent Dana flying backwards. Her armor was cut open across the stomach, but luckily the damage went no deeper. She struggled to her feet as the Living Graveyard marched after her. It lifted one foot and tried to step on her. Dana rolled aside and cut open its leg. The Living Graveyard howled at her with its grinning skulls, and for a moment she quavered under the awful screams.

Then she saw the edges of the wounds she’d scored on the Living Graveyard were black and crumbling away. Cimmox had said that this monster dated to when necromancers and sorcerer lords had fought to decide who would rule this land. That meant it was made with necromancy, not surprising given its appearance. Her sword was poison to it.

Dana charged the Living Graveyard and drove Chain Cutter deep into its body. The monster tried to claw her with its remaining hand. Instead of fighting it she let go of her sword and fell back. The Living Graveyard marched after her. She kept falling back and it kept after her as bits of it flaked away. More and more of it began to crumble and blacken.

As she retreated she came across Green Peril. The elf was kneeling with his staff pressed against the ground. He spoke, but not the strange words of magic. “All things die, but in dying they leave the seeds for new life. From death new life grows, sprouting, spreading, replacing what was lost.”

The Living Graveyard was going to trample Green Peril on its way to her. She didn’t know what the elf was doing (it sounded more like a prayer than a spell), but she couldn’t let the monster kill him. She charged it and drove her clawer gauntlets deep into its right side. Coffin wood burst into flames, bones cracked and headstones turned to gravel. The Living Graveyard seized her with its remaining hand, and she felt her armor buckling. Smoke rose up as her armor began to dissipate.

Crash! Dana kept clawing the Living Graveyard as she spared a glance at Jayden. The sound came from his giant hand slamming into the monstrous skeleton. He was tearing it apart, and as she watched he tore off one of its legs. The monster hobbled after him, trying to crush him underfoot, but with one leg gone and two glued together it didn’t move fast. Cimmox was still on top of his foul creation, struggling to pull off the magic armor that trapped him. The magic armor was toxic to the hideous creation he rode, and his feet burned into it.

“It won’t come off!” Cimmox screamed. With his accent it sounded like von’t.

“How can you cast spells with that atrocious accent?” Jayden demanded. He plunged his black sword into another of the skeletal monster’s legs. “You sound like your mouth is full of live fish!”

There was an ominous crack as the Living Graveyard broke Dana’s breastplate. Her shoulder guards went next. Broken bits dissolved into smoke, and then intact pieces began to boil away. Jayden’s spell was ending before the fight was over.

Devastating as this was to her, it hurt the Living Graveyard just as much. Her sword was destroying it from the inside out. Touching her armor was killing it as it tried to kill her. Its right arm fell off, then two of its skulls followed. Her armor was almost gone when the monster’s hand wrapped around her came apart. Dana grabbed her sword and pulled it out, then swung again and again. The Living Graveyard howled at her, a halfhearted moan rather than a scream. She answered with a scream of her own as she drove her sword deep into it. The Living Graveyard toppled and fell silent.

That’s when she heard a whisper, easy to hear even over the deafening sound of battle. 'It still lives. Strike again.'

Dana didn’t know what it was, but she did as told and swung Chain Cutter into the fallen monster. She cut off huge slabs of dirt and rotten wood, hitting it again and again. Her third swing tore deep into the monster, and that’s when she saw a human skull with horrible symbols carved into it. The skull had long legs like a crab, and now that it was visible it tried to run away.

“That’s how you keep coming back!” she cried out. “You’re like an estate guard. As long as that part of you gets away you can make a new body. Get over here!”

Dana chased the fleeing skull past Green Peril, the elf still speaking formally. Plants began to grow around him. His staff had white patches, and it sprouted leaves and vines that spread across the tainted landscape.

“From deserts dry to frozen tundra, life struggles and succeeds,” Green Peril said solemnly. “In oceans depths and mountains high, life struggles and succeeds. When molten rock pours forth to make new land, once red lava cools, here too life takes root.”

The fleeing skull ran by the elf and headed for Cimmox. The necromancer still struggled to remove his magic armor. His giant creation was trying to flee while Jayden chased it and hacked pieces off. Dana didn’t know what the skull could do if it reached Cimmox. Could it make another body fast enough to rejoin the battle?

Dana raced after the skull and caught up with it. It zigged and zagged, trying to avoid her. It ducked under a fallen tree and came out the other side, but Dana jumped over the dead tree and came down on top of it. The skull looked up as she plunged her sword into it. A shower of sparks shot up from Chain Cutter as the sword pierced the skull. The cursed thing screeched so loud that Jayden and Cimmox both turned to watch. Dana held her sword in the air, and the skull slid down the length of the blade before splitting in two.

“No,” Cimmox said. “It’s not possible!”

Cimmox threw back his head and issued such a horrible cry that Dana and Jayden fell backwards. Even Green Peril much farther back was rocked by the sound. The magic armor encasing Cimmox was ripped apart. Cimmox’s skeletal monster, already badly hurt, broke apart entirely. The necromancer fell to the ground and landed on his back.

The three of them staggered to their feet. Cimmox was missing what little hair he had. His face was gaunt and pale, his eyes sunken and yellowed. “Cry of the banshee is the only spell I know that needs no gestures. That took ten years off my life.”

With his hands free again, Cimmox cast another spell. Black liquid like tar spread across his hands, and the few drops of it that fell burned the ground. “I’ll get those years back by taking fifty years off your life.”

His next spell knit together shattered bones to form long spider legs that sprouted from Cimmox’s back. He ran fast as a horse with those revolting legs, his hand outstretched as he charged Jayden. Jayden raised his sword while Dana ran to his side.

Then Jayden looked like he was listening to something. Cimmox was almost upon them when Jayden said, “At least your wife isn’t here to see what you’ve become.”

Cimmox halted his charge. He looked confused before his face betrayed a great sadness. He backed away as Jayden continued speaking.

“She loved you. She tried to protect you. She deserved better than for you to ignore everything she said. So many times she tried to save you from threats, only for you to destroy yourself. You can still go back to her, but not like this.”

“I,” Cimmox began. Tears ran down his face. He scowled and raised his hands. “How dare you use her against me! I’ll kill you all!”

He didn’t get the chance. Grass spread across the valley floor as fast as a flying hummingbird. Trees sprouted and grew in seconds what should have taken years. Dana, Jayden and Cimmox turned to see Green Peril standing next to a tall white tree set with opals. The elf stood up and looked at Cimmox like a judge passing sentence.

“Life recovers from all losses. Fire, flood, frost, drought, through it all life survives, prospers and grows. Life conquers death!”

Dead trees sprouted new leaves and shoots. Vines twisted and wrapped around one another. The whole valley came alive in an unstoppable wave that reached for Cimmox. The necromancer blasted the plants with the same black bolts he’d killed Green Peril’s plant monster with. He cut huge gashes into the plants, yet the damage regrew in seconds. Cimmox turned and fled, running away on his spidery bone legs.

The tidal wave of greenery swept over him. For a few seconds he fought back, unleashing magic more horrible than any Dana could imagine. It was useless. The plants bound him and pulled him in, and with a sudden thunderous rush crushed him.

Dana leaned up against Jayden. “Wow.”

“That wasn’t nature magic,” Jayden said. “You cleansed this entire valley of the taint of necromancy, undoing Cimmox’s damage and the atrocities of the king and queen.”

“I had help,” Green Peril told them. He ran his hands over the lush plant life. “I imagine we all did.”

Hesitantly, Dana said, “I heard a whisper during the fight. Jayden, what you said about Cimmox’s wife, how did you know?”

“You weren’t the only one hearing whispers.” He looked at her and said, “Cimmox traveled a dark road. A man who sinks that far into perversion and depravity suffers a cost to his soul. I heard a voice telling me to give him one last chance, and what to say to reach him. He refused.”

She pointed up. “You mean we got help from…”

“Yes.”

“Huh. A bolt from the blue would have been nice.”

“A wise gardener removes weeds carefully, lest he damage his crops at the same time,” Green Peril replied. “We were given what we needed, no more, no less. Do not depend on such gifts, for they are given only in exceptional circumstances and against the most implacable of foes.”

“Where’s your staff?” she asked.

Green Peril glanced at the large white tree. “There. You can still see the opals. I needed a focus for the purification ceremony, and only my staff was strong enough.”

“So you can’t try to kill us?” she asked hopefully.

Green Peril gave her a sincere smile. “No. Nor do I wish to. If the king and queen would employ such a fiend then they don’t deserve my help.”

A thorough search of the area turned up no treasure. If the king and queen had paid Cimmox, he’d either spent it or hidden it. They did find a small camp with a stack of scrolls made of vellum. Jayden identified the as spell scrolls containing secrets of necromancy. He wasted no time in burning them. They tried to bury Cimmox, for even villains deserve burial, but they couldn’t find his body amid the plants.

“Our endeavor was successful, yet yielded little fruit besides defeating Cimmox,” Green Peril said. “I need time to replace what I’ve lost, no easy task when I will go home empty handed yet again. I will return in time.”

“Not as an enemy?” Jayden asked.

“No. You have earned my respect. Take comfort in knowing that no one else has.” Green Peril cast his last spell that day and transformed himself into a giant hawk. He spread his enormous wings and took to the sky, then flew south.

“That was exhausting,” Dana said.

“But necessary.” Jayden hesitated before asking, “Dana, before I gave you magic armor, why did you say wait?”

“I thought you were going to make one of those huge hands, scoop me up and make it carry me away.”

Jayden nodded his head slightly. “That was a much better plan than the one I came up with.”
* * * * *
With Cimmox and his foul army gone, Dana and Jayden headed to more populated parts of the kingdom. They needed days to reach the nearest town where they could buy food and maybe a good night’s sleep at an inn. Both of them still wore heavy winter clothes that helped mask their identities.

“Where do we go from here?” Dana asked as they entered the town.

“Cimmox made bold claims that may have been lies. He’d provided Duke Wiskver an undead army, so he was likely honest when he said he had royal patronage. The question is whether the rest of his tales were idle boasts. We could face threats more numerous and terrible than what we’ve seen to date.”

“The king and queen have money to hire more men, especially after years of high taxes. They may not even need the money.”

“What do you mean?”

“Last summer they promised to hire Green Peril if he killed you. They could make promises like that to other people, making them work before they get paid. If they die in battle, the king and queen aren’t out a single coin.” Dana grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. “What’s going on up ahead?”

Over a thousand people were gathered in the town center, so many it seemed the entire town was present. People looked worried and spoke in hushed tones. As Dana and Jayden drew near, a lone man carrying a scroll came to the center of the crowd.

“Settle down, everyone,” the man called out.

“Mayor, what’s this about?” a farmer asked. “I’ve got planting to do.”

“I’ll get you back to your fields soon,” the mayor replied. He unrolled the scroll and held it up for them see. “A royal proclamation came last night by fast courtier, with orders to read it to the entire town.”

“You had to have the sheriff come get us for this?” another farmer asked.

The first farmer said, “The old mayor wouldn’t have done that.”

The mayor stared the farmer down. “That’s enough! The old mayor is gone. I’m here. The king and queen declared a state of war with Kaleoth, Brandish and Zentrix. Quiet that shouting! Mercy, it’s like herding sheep. The proclamation says Brandish and Zentrix are colluding with Kaleoth against our kingdom. We’re surrounded by enemies and have no choice but to fight our way out.”

“Against three kingdoms?” a frightened farmer asked.

“We’ve got no choice but to go forward.” The mayor checked the scroll before speaking. “There’s also been a rebellion by Skitherin mercenaries. One company went rogue and incited the others to rebel. Inform the authorities at once if you see them, because those men are dangerous.”

“This keeps getting worse,” a rancher said.

“Can’t you idiots stay quiet for five minutes?” the mayor asked. “Rumors have been going around about undead in the kingdom. Criminals and madmen have been claiming that walking skeletons were seen not far from here. We can’t have fear mongering during a time of war. Anyone caught spreading lies will be charged with sedition and sentenced to ten years hard labor, so mind your own business.”

The mayor walked up to a message board and tacked the scroll onto it. He stepped away and began, “I’m leaving this here for the rest of the—”

A giant black hand swung down and smashed the message board to splinters. Men yelled and women screamed as the hand grabbed the mayor and threw him into the crowd. Panicking people scattered in all directions until the town was empty. The huge hand didn’t follow them, in part because Dana was struggling to hold Jayden’s right arm. She held on until he let the hand dissolve into a cloud of black smoke. Jayden threw his head back and screamed. He pulled away from her, but she followed him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Jayden, don’t!”

He kicked pieces of the destroyed message board. “I’ve fought for decades to keep this from happening, Dana! You have no idea the hardships I’ve faced, the wounds I’ve suffered. Twenty years and every day of it a battle for time, for money, for some shred of hope, and it was for nothing.”

He stared at her. “I was supposed to stop this. It was my penanced for failing to stop my father descending into evil. My failure means countless multitudes will suffer the horrors of war.”

Those painful words showed how Jayden blamed himself for the king’s misdeeds, as if a child was responsible for the crimes of his father. In a way it proved his virtue, for he loved these people and would sacrifice himself if it meant saving them, but this self-loathing was destructive. He’d ruin himself, and he could do immeasurable damage to others if he didn’t get it under control.

“You didn’t fail,” she told him. “You haven’t succeeded yet. There’s a difference. You’ve saved lots of people, and you can save even more. Come on, Jayden. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

They left the town as residents slowly began to return. Dana wasn’t sure what they could do in the face of such a terrible threat. Three Kingdoms faced invasion, and people here were at the mercy of the king and queen, plus whatever monsters and madmen the royal couple had invited. What could two people do to stop that, even when one was a sorcerer lord?

Dana looked back the way they’d come, where a necromancer who’d created armies of the dead was gone forever. One threat was gone, yet so many remained.