The undead warrior tipped its skull downward to assess and then back up to his challenger. There was a metallic clang as its own weapon was unsheathed, and with two bony hands, it was raised overhead and brought down across the man’s shoulder to cleave his own head cleanly off. When the Brineberth guard’s headless body fell back, his sword slid from between the skeleton’s ribs, nothing to have pierced, and the warrior continued on as if nothing had touched it at all because, mostly, it really hadn’t.
Amma tipped her head. “Huh. I guess just bones are good after all.”
A clattering then filled the air as hundreds of other skeletal soldiers made their ungraceful fall over the keep’s wall and reassembled themselves on the other side. Guards called from below, the sound too much to ignore, and there was chaos breaking out across the courtyard.
Damien’s hand clasped Amma’s. “We don’t want to miss the fun.” There was a smile on his face that made her want to throw herself at him, but he didn’t give her the chance, pulling her along back inside.
In the ballroom below, no one had any idea the horror that was falling all around outside. The music was loud, the air heady with spiced meats and wine and sweets. Many hours into their cups, most of the guests would have perhaps not heeded a first warning if it had even come already.
Damien took careful stock of the room from above as his hand squeezed hers, the spiraling stairs downward, and the widest set at the end that headed back to the main hall. Amma searched for Cedric, eventually eyeing him in a group of Brineberth citizens who had taken up important posts in Faebarrow as well as a few merchants who were enjoying the deals they were getting now that Cedric had such a hold on the barony. She frowned and searched again for her parents. They were together, at least, if central to the room and vulnerable.
“Ammalie, where were you?” Tia’s voice broke her of her long look over the edge. The guard had just ascended a flight of winding stairs, eyes finding Damien’s hand on her and scowling even more deeply than she already had been.
Before Amma could say anything, Damien readjusted his hold of her, taking her by the wrist instead. “Take the baron and baroness to safety and then return. You’ll be needed later.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” she spat, looking him over before glaring back at Amma. “If there is a threat, she comes with me.”
Damien hesitated, Amma could feel it in his hold on her, but she wasn’t going to let him go back on their bargain. Amma stepped forward, loosing her hand from his hold and standing defiantly. “Then take an order from me for once. Get my parents somewhere safe, now.” She winced at herself. “Please?”
The woman took a heavy set of breaths in through her nose and out, eyes flicking from one to the other, hand hovering over her hilt. The tense moment was all too strange in the midst of everyone else carrying on, laughing, drinking, and dancing below.
“I’ll be coming right back here, and I want you with me then,” said Tia, eyes flicking once to Damien with a sneer. “And don’t touch her.”
When the guard stormed off down the stairs again, Amma swallowed, feeling lightheaded. There was a shout from the main hall, a guard calling to another, and someone else answered, clear the undead had breached the front of the keep. Voices were rising, and metal sang as it crashed against metal, echoing off the halls. From below, there was another disruption, an indiscriminate shout, a glass shattering, and it seemed the army they had called up had made it below as well. There was a sizzle of arcana through the air, both Faebarrow’s and Brineberth’s casters responding in kind.
“I suppose some theatrics are in order.” Damien’s dagger slid from his bracer into his hand, flipping around so that the blade caught the light streaming down from the chandeliers hanging out over the ballroom. He gripped the neck of his coat, pulling it to the side, and dragged the blade just under his collarbone, a long red line seeping upward, a deeper and longer cut than Amma had ever noticed him making before.
He placed his hand over the wound and muttered some arcane words, and the world around them devolved into shadows, darkness striking out the candles and dousing the magical lights. The last thing Amma saw before her vision went out were Damien’s eyes glinting violet with delight.
Screams pierced the air as the rest of the guests fell into chaos in the new darkness of the hall. Damien and Amma stood silently, unmoving in the shadows while all manner of discord broke out below. As her eyes adjusted, she grabbed onto his coat and pulled him closer. A hand wrapped around her waist, and Damien’s voice fell low amongst the growing noises. “I hope you are prepared to leave this place again.”
She nodded, fingers finding their way to his collar and the warm blood dripping down him, sticky and wet on her palms as she held tight.
“Good, because I’ve decided to take you either way.”
A shiver ran through her, be it from fear or excitement, she didn’t know or care, and then movement on the far side of the balcony caught her attention. A line of skeletal soldiers was streaming in from the main hall and down the stairs toward the party. She hoped Tia had gotten her parents to safety.
Damien tugged her then, guiding her carefully along the ringing balcony toward the fray of skeletons. Easier to see now and so close, her heart hitched at how they looked, menacing with weapons drawn, but none even glanced at the two of them as they filed down the stairs. In their wake, not a single Brineberth soldier followed, and finally a line of the undead formed at the entry back into the main hall, standing at attention.
Damien continued forward with her to the stairs where they stood before the undead, looking down on the chaos below. From there, exits and escape seemed obvious, but within the mess of shadows and bodies, it was quite different for the rest, and they bumbled around like panicked field mice, shrieking as the undead closed in around them in the dark.
Arcana broke against arcana, some of the risen dead apparently casters in life, and even the assembled mages were having a hard time against the undead army. Damien was casting again, a hand pressing against the wound he’d made, still seeping, and something like a storm blew through the ballroom, wind whipping overhead, debris flying through it, and fissures opening above the crowd. Within the tears in space, silvery rivers ran, glinting with their own light, and Amma felt beckoned to them even as a pall of dread settled over everything. Crashes of broken glass, screaming guests, and the wet squelch of gutted soldiers filled the air.
The arcane lights in the hall flickered back on, casting the room in crimson, and Amma laid eyes on Cedric then. He was no different than the others, though perhaps stronger than most and using that strength to push people out of his way. Seeing him lost, trapped, terrified, Amma was inundated by a feeling she didn’t quite know, a mixture of relief and anger, a sort of joyful righteousness at him finally feeling the fear she’d known for too long. Cedric managed to push himself closer to the stairs, and his eyes lifted to see her.
Amma’s heart shot into her throat, and she pressed herself back against Damien at the head of the stairs. He gripped her and squeezed, her anchor to anything like safety in that moment.
“People of Eiren, I must thank you for your hospitality.” Damien’s voice rumbled from behind Amma, low but booming with arcana out over the sunken ballroom. She could feel the words as they left him, vibrating from his chest. “You are especially entertaining like this.”
There was a glint of metal, and the blade Damien used to cut into himself was held to Amma’s throat. Her eyes widened, fear flooding every part of her, hands slick with his blood as she gripped his wrist and choked on a scream.
A handful of Brineberth soldiers had reached the foot of the stairs, weapons drawn, but the undead met them, holding them back, though none moved to actually strike in the quiet unease that had fallen over the keep with Damien’s words.
Taking a few slow steps down the staircase together, Damien and Amma were surrounded by a retinue of the undead, clad in bits of ancient armor, clearer who they had been in life, minotaurs, dwarves, even a centaur amongst them, swords and bows and halberds ready.
In the ballroom below, the guards had either been slain already or were being held at the end of a similarly deadly weapon, the few mages in attendance had been rendered useless, and if not for the red light illuminating everything, the streaks of blood on the ground would have been much more gruesome. The rest of the guests, dignitaries, merchants, and Faebarrow’s wealthiest, were helpless.
“But I do grow tired of this charade,” Damien announced to the assembled as they fell into terrified stillness, hemmed in by the undead who had covered every empty inch of the room. “It is time you knew me for who I truly am: Xander Sephiran Shadowhart.”
