“Less sarcasm, more generalship,” Voren snaps, manifesting his ice hammer again. “Vampires don’t wait for introductions.”
The shadows are getting closer. I turn back to my kneeling subjects. It feels absurd. It feels powerful. It feels like a migraine waiting to happen.
“Up,” I order. The word scrapes out of my throat, heavy with that weird, icy authority I haven’t quite figured out how to holster.
The skeletons rise in a clatter of rusted joints and rotted leather. They stand rigid, empty sockets fixed on me, awaiting the next instruction.
“Kill the fanged ones,” I say, pointing my blade at the incoming blur of motion, wondering what they called vampires seven hundred years ago. “Don’t let them reach the trees.”
The reaction is instant. My bony battalion turns as one and surges forward. It’s not graceful. It’s a tidal wave of rattling unrest. They crash into the vampire line with a sound like a cutlery drawer being thrown down a flight of stairs.
“Now that is entertainment,” Dastian comments, blasting a vampire mid-air with a bolt of chaotic red lightning that turns its hiss into a surprised squeak.
I don’t have time to admire the carnage. One of the bloodsuckers bypasses the skeletal wall, moving faster than thought, fangs bared and aiming for my jugular. I side-step, bringing my blade up in a clean arc. It connects, slicing through dead flesh, but the force of his momentum sends me skidding back into the mud. He snarls, the gash across his chest knitting together with annoying speed. He lunges again before I can scramble to my feet, pinning me to the damp earth with a weight that knocks the breath out of me.
“Slayer,” he hisses, fangs extending. “You smell like death.”
“Funny, I was going to say the same about you,” I wheeze.
I bring my knee up hard, aiming for his balls. He grunts but doesn’t let go, his claws digging into my shoulders. Before I can bring my blade up, a bony hand reaches over his shoulder and grabs a fistful of his greasy hair.
One of my skeletal minions yanks the vampire’s head back with a force that snaps vertebrae. The vampire screeches, flailing, but the skeleton doesn’t let go. It just stares at me with empty sockets, waiting for orders.
“Good boy,” I mutter.
I slash my blade through the air, severing the vampire’s head. He turns to ash that mixes unpleasantly with the mud.
“Behind you!” Dreven warns, his voice sharp.
I spin, blade ready, but I don’t even have to strike. The skeletons have formed a defensive ring around me, clattering shields and rusted swords against the encroaching horde. They aren’t just fighting; they’re guarding.
Rusted blades flash, brittle fingers clamp ankles, feet trip sleek monsters into muddy graves. It’s ugly, effective, and deeply satisfying.
Voren wades in like vengeance. Dreven is a moving blackout to my left, cutting vampires out of the air and dropping them into silence. Dastian gleefully turns a trio into ash.
A vampire sidesteps my wall, vanishes in a blur, then reappears behind me. Fangs graze my nape.
“Don’t,” I say without turning. The word drops like a stone in a well. The vampire freezes mid-bite, muscles shaking, eyes blown wide. Something old in me looks back through him, uninterested and absolute.
“Down,” I add, and he drops like I cut his strings.
I step over the vampire’s twitching body. The skeletal guard shifts with me, a clattering army that keeps the rest of the vampires at bay. One of them tries to break through, but a skeleton with a mossy shield bashes it sideways, and Dreven finishes the job with a shadow that swallows it whole.
“They’re thinning out,” Voren shouts from somewhere to my left, his voice carrying that frost-edged calm.
“Good,” I yell back, slicing through another vampire’s neck before it can grab me. “Because I’m about done playing general tonight.”
The skeletons don’t tire, which is handy, but commanding them feels like holding a storm on a leash—exhilarating andexhausting. I spot Dastian turning a vampire into a living firework, sparks flying as it screams and crumbles.
Another wave crashes against my bony barrier. I focus, pulling on that cold thread inside me, the one that feels like the Crown’s whisper. “End them,” I command, and the skeletons surge forward in a tide of rattling death.
It works. The vampires don’t stand a chance against the relentless press. One by one, they ash out, until the cemetery falls quiet again, save for my ragged breathing.
I lower my blade, chest heaving, and look at the skeletons standing sentinel around me. They’re waiting. Expectant. It’s unnerving.
“Oh, what now?” Dastian asks, turning at the sound of shuffling.
“Zombies,” Voren states. “Fun.”
