The light from Arthur's torch danced with uncertainty as he moved forward tepidly, flinching at every strange shadow or shape that moved just beyond the torch's light. Praetorus' footsteps behind him were hesitant as well, and it sounded as if the archer were losing pace further and further behind him with every minute.

  "Praetorus, I swear to the Lady, I will cut you if you abandon me now," Arthur grumbled. "We haven't even reached the dragon yet, and you're already losing your nerve?"

  "I am not abandoning you," Praetorus replied tacitly. "I am spacing us out. Should you trigger a trap, it will not ensnare us both."

  "Oh, that's wise thinking," Arthur snidely responded. "Now that I think of it, why don't you take the lead? Aren't you the expert tracker or ranger or something?"

  "We are not in the woods. I am out of my element."

  "Well, tough bollocks, friend." The knight-apprentice stood aside and bade the archer to pass him. "I'm not exactly accustomed either, yet here we are, crawling in the tunnels like a couple of blind moles. Better you can shoot whatever is ahead, than me charging with my sword."

  "What exactly do you think is in here?" Praetorus took point without further complaint. "Is it true? Is it the work of something unholy, as Diana has said?"

  "Can't say I rightly know either, my pasty companion. Though all the evidence points to something like that." Arthur frowned. "Necromancy, I believe it was called. Magic used to raise the dead, or so they say."

  "Have you witnessed it before?"

  "No. And I've no wish to."

  Arthur fell silent, and the pair continued on without a word for a few minutes. The tunnel seemed to stretch on endlessly, still silent and dark; every now and then, something in the tunnel would creak slightly, making them jump, but no other noise aside from their footsteps was heard.

  Their torches cast shadows that flickered and danced on the walls; as they continued on, Arthur noted the faint depictions and illustrations on the stone faces, ancient murals painted by hands long dead that seemed to move with the uncertain light of the flames. They were at least a thousand years old; even though he considered himself a poor academic, the knight-apprentice was able to discern the ancient armor in the artwork as that of warriors that predated the Regency, their leather jerkins and mail shirts apparent even in the dim light.

  The mural seemed to depict a story of some kind, where a band of warriors appeared to confront a dark cloud of some sort; scores of them lay dead at the base of the cloud, while a few of them seemed to be sealing the cloud away in a great mountain, a mountain whose peak seemed awfully familiar.

  "Are you seeing this?" Arthur asked Praetorus.

  The archer barely nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead. "I do. It appears the mountain depicted in this mural is the mountain we are in right now."

  "Do you suppose that cloud is the dragon?"

  "It would seem so. I also see the countless dead at its feet." Praetorus paused. "Perhaps Diana was right. Perhaps this was a foolhardy endeavor after all."

  "Nonsense!" Arthur forced himself to grin and slap the archer's back. "That means we will do what an army cannot! 'The dagger may not be as impressive as the broadsword, but precision prevails where brute strength cannot!'"

  The archer pondered this for a moment. "Most wise. I did not expect such wisdom from you."

  "Oh, that was a saying my father came up with," Arthur shrugged. "'Braddock family wisdom,' as he'd love to say."

  "I see. Your father sounds like a wise man, then."

  "Yeah," the knight-apprentice said bitterly. "So it'd seem."

  A noise erupted from up ahead, freezing them in their tracks. The tunnel was silent, save for the faint crackling of their torches; Arthur almost dismissed it as a figment of his imagination until it came again, slightly louder now.

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  A footstep. It was unmistakable, the sound of a footfall; it was too heavy and deliberate to simply be shifting rocks.

  "Hello?" Arthur's voice bounced off the stone walls, echoing up and down the tunnel. "Diana? Is that you?"

  "Diana went the opposite direction," Praetorus reminded him, his voice hushed. He raised his bow. "Unless she somehow looped around in front of us."

  The footstep came again, then again; it became a shuffling sound, as if something was shuffling their way. Arthur raised his torch higher and peered ahead, trying to get a closer look, but it was simply too dark.

  "Praetorus? Do me a favor, will you?" Arthur unsheathed his sword once more. "Light an arrow and send it down the tunnel, yeah?"

  Praetorus deftly obeyed, wrapping a scrap of cloth around one of his arrows and holding it to Arthur's torch, before he nocked it, drew the bow back, and released.

  The arrow whistled as it sailed down the tunnel, before it stopped abruptly about twenty-five feet ahead. The flaming shaft embedded itself in something with a resounding tink, as the arrow appeared to be floating mid-air in the dark. It had struck something, but what?

  The arrow suddenly moved, drawing closer to them. Arthur held his sword up as Praetorus readied another arrow.

  It finally emerged from the dark, the dim torchlight illuminating it faintly; it was a skeleton, still wearing a breastplate and wielding an ancient spear. Its eye sockets glowed a faint purple, as if two tiny flames burned within its bleached skull, as it staggered towards the two bewildered boys.

  Praetorus acted first, loosing his next arrow at the skeleton; the arrow lodged itself in its skull, but still the reanimated corpse stumbled onward.

  Arthur mustered his courage and charged ahead, leveling his sword at the thing; he clashed with it in a cacophony of crashing steel, as he thrust his blade against its breastplate and forced it back. The skeleton stumbled and fell over, collapsing in a heap of bones and refuse; the light within the skull fizzled out, rendering the whole thing inanimate once more as it became a pile of dust and junk at Arthur's feet.

  The knight-apprentice was stunned for a second, before letting out a laugh. "Ha! That was necromancy? I expected more!" He turned and grinned at Praetorus. "We've naught to fear!"

  The archer frowned. "It resisted my arrows. It seems that melee is our best option."

  "Oh come now, lad. I'm sure your skills with a knife are just as superb." Arthur sniffed, kicking the skull around. "Hell, you probably won't even need it. Give it a good push, and they're good as done."

  "I am not too familiar with magic," Praetorus said, slinging his bow over his shoulder as he drew his dagger. "But even I know that necromancy requires a necromancer. If we find and kill him, we will not need to deal with any more of the risen dead."

  "Why bother? It'd probably be more fun having these fellows around to liven up these tunnels."

  "There were several dozen coffins in the tomb we entered alone. I am not keen on facing dozens, maybe hundreds of them at once."

  Arthur shrugged. "That's fair. I say we-"

  An arrow whistled past Arthur's head, barely missing him; he whipped his head back, feeling a stinging sensation on his cheek. He pressed a hand to it and saw blood; the arrow had grazed him. A few millimeters over, and it would have...

  He pushed the thought out of his mind as he whirled about, towards the direction where the arrow had come from. "Who's there?!"

  Another arrow shot out in response, this one whistling past his shoulder; he staggered back, dropping the torch from his hand. The flame sputtered as it landed on the rocky tunnel floor, but still remained alight; Praetorus loosed his own arrow in turn, and Arthur heard the projectile find purchase in something fleshy.

  A shadow stepped out from the darkness and just barely into the torch's light; the faint illumination revealed an archer, this one in chain mail, but its face was leathery and withered, indicating that flesh still clung to its bones. Praetorus' arrow sprouted from its chest, but it didn't seem to even notice. This one wasn't stumbling about as the skeleton had; it moved as if it were alive, as if a living, breathing person were right there, shooting at them with the same precision as it had in life.

  Arthur grit his teeth and charged again, leveling his sword as a makeshift lance once more; again, he buried the blade into the enemy archer's chest, the ancient chainmail easily giving way to his sword.

  This time, though, the undead archer didn't merely collapse as its skeleton counterpart had; instead, it dug its heels into the ground, grabbed the blade with its hand, and looked at Arthur in a clear expression of fury. The purple glow in its eyes burned much more brightly than the skeleton's, as it snarled and drew a rusted dagger from its belt.

  Acting quickly, Arthur planted a foot against his foe's chest and kicked, yanking his sword out in the process; with a slash, he lopped the archer's head off in one swift motion, before kicking it again squarely in its belly to send it toppling to the ground. The corpse wriggled for a second, its arms and legs flailing unnervingly, before a faint purple cloud erupted from its neck and dissipated; with that, the corpse stilled completely.

  Arthur kept hacking at the corpse for good measure, chopping off its arms and legs, before he stumbled back and panted heavily. "Well. That was certainly more taxing."

  A dull roar echoed down the tunnel. The pair whipped their heads towards the sound in unison, their weapons ready.

  "That must be the dragon," Praetorus murmured. "And I believe the necromancer knows of our presence as well. The archer was clearly animated more strongly than our first foe."

  "Never a dull moment, eh?" Arthur grinned lopsidedly, shouldering his sword. "Let's pick up the pace, then. We've a dragon and a necromancer to kill."