Tybalt and Mariella frolicked in the stream, splashing each other, play-wrestling in the water, and occasionally stopping for long, deep kisses that stopped just short of leading into more sex.

  It was a carefree break from what had been days of worrying about Tybalt and then firmly holding her ground against his arguments for why she should stay- even though she badly wanted to just do what he said. She allowed herself to just enjoy it, her mind empty of any thoughts for the future.

  It was while they were walking down the mountainside after bathing together in the stream that she forced her mind back to what was truly important and urgent.

  I don’t have a good way of telling him the other reason I need to go home, Mariella thought, annoyed with herself. Tybalt is right that we’re bad at communicating…

  She could still feel his touch on her skin, could remember the taste of his lips and the sensations of their coupling vividly- but she powered through those feelings and tried to think objectively. She tried to assess the necromancer’s power realistically.

  He’s stronger than me now, but he’s still pretty weak relative to the Kingdom’s heavy-hitters, even with every undead I’ve ever seen him use all fighting together at once. If I don’t go back and win my family over, I don’t know how he’d have a chance against a battalion from the Army, let alone a brigade. Or even a small, elite squad. I’m going back for him, at least as much as for myself… Strategically, the risk of losing me is insignificant next to the possible upside of gaining my family as allies.

  If General Vespasian backstabbed the King and the Grand Duke, he would certainly take some of the Army with him. He had occasionally spoken to Mariella and other members of the family, about his desire to change things in the Kingdom. She had never been interested enough in politics to press for specifics. But Mariella felt certain that his desired changes would overlap to some degree with Tybalt’s. They were both from the bottom rungs of society. And the General’s daughter would be the most persuasive messenger possible to push him in Tybalt’s direction.

  But I can’t use that as my reason with Tybalt, because this man, who loves to call himself selfish, might actually physically stop me from going if I say it’s partly for his sake…

  The same line of reasoning was why she had suggested that Tybalt try to impregnate her, too. Her family would be tied by blood to the necromancer. That was another way of pressuring them. It was a dark suggestion, conceiving a child under such circumstances, but it wasn’t as if there was any chance she would let her child grow up in the same conditions that Tybalt had faced. The worst case scenarios she could picture were that her parents would expel her from the family or that they would try to place her under confinement while the Kingdom dealt with Tybalt.

  Neither outcome would lead to the child growing up in poverty. If Mariella was unable to return to Tybalt and was somehow banished from the Kingdom and cut off from familial support, an itinerant mage could always find ways of earning money.

  It’s nice that he doesn’t want our child to suffer that uncertainty, though. It’s… responsible. A good trait in a husband, or a father. The idea that our baby could be killed, I… I can’t believe that.

  They made it down the mountainside, all the way to the edge of the mining outpost, in near silence, both lost in thought. They stayed close physically, sometimes holding hands, other times walking with arms wrapped around each other’s waists. They touched each other casually, as if they had known one another for longer than a few months.

  It was just past sunset by the time they arrived.

  “Is it all right if I just watch you work this time?” Mariella asked, gazing at the lonely-looking buildings. They stood out even in the relative darkness.

  This seemed like an easy task for the necromancer, and if she wasn’t fighting, Mariella could judge for herself how she felt about seeing his dark magic at work up close.

  Observing Tybalt destroy a mining camp would not evoke the same emotions, naturally, as witnessing him save a village from destruction.

  Will I really be all right with this, day after day…?

  “I was going to suggest that myself,” Tybalt said. “Burned bodies are less useful.”

  ***

  “Do you hear them?” Specialist Curtis asked.

  “I- ” Tormund began.

  “That’s the fifth time you’ve asked, Curtis,” Indus said impatiently. “If you keep saying that, people will start ‘hearing’ things just to shut you up.”

  “I just, I swear, I can hear something crawling over the rooftop,” Curtis said.

  It could have just been the wind blowing the sand against the roof tiles. Maybe.

  But the sun had just set, twenty minutes or so ago, and this was when the undead seemed to become more active. They’d been growing more brazen lately, though the most one would see of them was still just a flicker of movement in the corner of the eye.

  “Why did I have to get stuck with you?” Indus grumbled. “If you’re gutless, you should have stayed out of the Army to start with.”

  Curtis’s face would have reddened if it wasn’t already flushed from the fever he was running. His lips parted to make a retort, but then a wave of chills overtook him. He shuddered and closed his mouth.

  Not worth it. No point in arguing with him. Not much point in calling out when I hear the monsters, either, if I think about it. They’ll either come inside and get us, or they won’t.

  “Hey, you’re all right, man.”

  Curtis blinked as he realized he couldn’t see who was speaking to him; his vision was slipping in and out of focus.

  Right, that’s Vari, he’s been taking care of us…

  The miner mopped Curtis’s brow with a damp cloth.

  “That’s kind of you,” Curtis managed after a moment.

  “No sense in going after each other with the enemy out there, am I right?” asked Vari, looking back and forth between Indus and Curtis with a hint of nervousness.

  Indus snorted but looked away, indicating he either thought the two of them were beneath him or knew but didn’t want to acknowledge that Vari was right.

  A loud creaking sound emanated from the front of the bunkhouse, drawing all eyes toward it.

  The door was open.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Is there someone there?

  Mist began to drift inside, and warning bells began tolling in Curtis’s mind.

  When was it ever misty out here, except that first night? When demonic work was undoubtedly being done…

  A figure stepped through the door, and Curtis sat bolt upright.

  “Fion?” He whispered the name, fighting the disbelief inside him.

  A hand settled on his shoulder.

  “Control yourself, soldier,” whispered Vari. “You can’t believe your- ”

  Curtis shoved his hand away. The female figure had staggered, and now the Specialist recognized a wound in his sister’s side.

  “Get off of me, idiot,” Curtis grunted as he rose.

  “Be still,” said Indus.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Curtis replied, not even looking back at Indus. He was feverish, but his eyes couldn’t be mistaken.

  As he took a step forward, he felt the fire inside him weaken, felt his energy drain, but he ignored it. He had to treat her injury. He had to do it, before it was too late.

  “Curtis- ” Vari started talking again, but Indus shushed him.

  “No, the rest of us have to get ready to fight,” the Sergeant said. “Let Curtis distract them.”

  Fuck you, Curtis thought. I- I know what I’m doing. I have to get to her…

  He took another step forward, and suddenly the thing that had worn his sister’s face lunged toward him. Curtis had only a moment to be shocked at the male features that now presented themselves, only a second to take a surprised step backward, before the creature’s hands were on him, shoving him against the nearest wall.

  “Be… still…” breathed the creature that Curtis dimly recognized was one of the miners- or had been, once. The Specialist quickly lost feeling and the power of motion in his neck and arm, the places the monster had grabbed. He stopped struggling almost immediately, from shock and feverish physical weakness more than the monster’s power.

  “All men, to battle!” Indus cried. But he began coughing almost before the words were out of his mouth.

  It was an omen of their performance in the fight to come.

  Curtis watched as monsters in the shapes of men moved through the door one after the other. First, there was a hulking older man who Curtis recalled had been one of those to betray them to the necromancer. He moved slowly, with stately grace, as if entirely unconcerned by whatever threat the humans inside might pose.

  The Specialist sensed a strange power emanating from the older man. It took him a moment to recognize it. Then he knew.

  Curtis could feel himself growing weaker, his strength flowing toward the graybeard.

  Unholy power…

  Then there were the smaller, quicker creatures, darting through the door behind the older man’s bulk. While he stood there, seemingly absorbing their strength into himself, the smaller undead attacked, inflicted physical injuries, and began to subdue the miners and drag a few of them away, out of the cabin, still kicking, screaming, and crying.

  Then Curtis was barely able to track what was going on. His head couldn’t swivel without any power in his neck, but he could still see- or mostly hear- what passed around him. Splashes of blood spattered on his face and the wall beside it. Screams and moans of pain, and the sounds of crunching bone and heavy impacts shattered the peace of the night for the next several minutes.

  There was a feeble effort to fight back. Curtis heard it. But it lasted all of one minute. He heard Indus cry out as the monsters beat him, and Curtis retained just enough presence of mind- despite the difficulty of breathing that he was only just becoming conscious of- to wonder why they were hurting him instead of just killing him.

  The monsters could easily go for Indus’s vitals and end him quickly. He was a major threat. Wasn’t he?

  But the undead seemed uninterested in inflicting a quick death, unlike monsters the squad typically encountered in the wild.

  These ones are more intelligent. More goal-directed. So, what do they want…?

  As the noises subsided, Curtis heard a faint female voice from just outside.

  “I didn’t think it would be over so quickly,” she said, sounding impressed.

  “It was a straightforward task.”

  Those voices were Tybalt and Mariella. For the first time since he was pinned against the wall, Curtis willed himself to resist.

  With his non-paralyzed limb, he pushed against the weight of the monster that held him.

  If he could just get at the main enemies, he could reverse their fortunes.

  Then another pair of hands grasped the hand Curtis was struggling to move. Another undead had come over to help handle him. Just like that, he was helpless. The one hand that had been restraining his neck released it. The two undead dragged him forward, and though the Specialist pulled against their grips, he found he was too weak for effective resistance.

  Useless, Curtis thought. I’m so… useless. Damn it!

  ***

  The prisoners were slowly paraded before Mariella, forced to awkwardly shuffle across the ground on their knees. Two dozen surviving miners whose names and faces she didn’t know and a pair of soldiers who were all too familiar. There were other miners still inside the bunkhouse, but they were dead or dying.

  She focused on the two soldiers: Indus, the squad’s most enthusiastic torturer, and Curtis, whose work as a medic was much less offensive- but not someone Mariella would mourn, for reasons of her own.

  They had polar opposite reactions when they saw her.

  Curtis lowered his eyes as if wishing he could erase the sight from his memories. As if he imagined that not having seen her might extend his lifespan.

  Indus turned livid. He’d worn the expression of a beaten dog a moment before, and the side of his face was already almost caved in from a series of blows to his head. But now, he seemed to remember he was a soldier. He looked ready to fight. He struggled against the grip of the undead who held him, trying and failing to rise to his feet and face her.

  “You! You traitorous bitch!” Indus spat.

  Mariella froze for a moment, not sure of what to do or say. She was a traitor at this point, yes. What could she say back to that?

  Then Tybalt closed the distance between himself and Indus. His body blocked Mariella from directly seeing what happened next, but she heard the sound of the slap landing as clearly as if it had been right beside her ear. She saw a small, white shape go flying off to the side, along with a streak of red that painted a few polka dots in the sand.

  Did Tybalt knock out one of his teeth? She caught herself smiling. I shouldn’t be happy about that… right?

  But she was. Her lover had defended her honor… and she liked it.

  The necromancer walked back over to Mariella, and she saw that Indus’s body now sagged in the grip of the undead that held him. She turned and realized that Tybalt was watching her, gauging her reaction. He seemed pleased.

  “Well?” Tybalt asked, looking Mariella in the eye. “What did you think?”

  “What did I think?” she repeated.

  “About what you saw.”

  Right, I wanted to see how it felt, being up close when he does his thing. When it’s not just him defending helpless villagers, but he’s actually taking aggressive action.

  She spoke slowly, haltingly. “I saw soldiers who move only according to their master’s command, who have no desire to pillage… and presumably no interest in rape. Soldiers who only kill when ordered. Perfect soldiers, I suppose.”

  Maybe I could sell my father on this. The undead, as a way to change the way the Kingdom wages war into the future. Maybe…

  In some part of her mind, she knew she was grasping at straws, but she allowed herself to believe.

  “I’m glad that’s how you saw things,” he said. He put an arm around her waist, and she allowed herself to lean into his chest. He whispered in her ear, “I kept the ones from our squad alive for you. There were only those two left, but was either someone you wanted to spare? I’d do it for you…”

  The fire mage felt herself about to cross another line, but she didn’t hesitate this time.

  Looking into Indus and Curtis’s faces, it was an easy decision.

  The only emotion they evoked was contempt.

  “No,” Mariella whispered. “K-Kill them both.”