The crossbowman was a skinny man, dressed all in black, with a few items of black leather armor. He wore a black hood, and his face had been marked with coal, making him nearly invisible in the dark. His eyes, though, were now stark white against the darkness of his face, wide with terror.
“We’re just… brigands,” the man gasped. “Robbers, nothing more.”
I knew he was lying. I whipped out Grave Oath and knelt down, dangling the tip of the blade an inch away from his face.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said, “before I stick this through your eyeball. Who are you, and why are you trying to kill us?”
“Don’t use that thing on me,” he whimpered. “I want to reach the cosmic sea, not become servant to you as one of those.” His wide eyes swept toward my undead soldiers.
“Ah, so you know this blade, do you? So much for your ‘I’m just a common brigand’ story. Last chance, whiffle-whoffle-cock, or I’ll I peel your face off with Grave Oath before I suck your soul out. Tell me what I want to know.”
“We deserted Sergeant Rollar,” he gasped. “He wasn’t paying us, and you looked like wealthy targets to rob.”
“That seems stupid. You didn’t see my skellies guarding the camp?”
“Not until we started firing, and then it was too late. They looked like regular guards by night.”
“Are there any more of you out there? I’d rather not stay awake all night.” What I didn’t tell him was that I hardly needed to sleep anymore.
“No,” he said, his fear almost palpable. “We three were mercenaries. Rollar hired us a while back.”
I pressed my blade closer in so that the tip was a mere hair’s breadth from his eye.
“Mercenaries, eh?” I asked. “So, you’re all pretty good shots with your crossbows, are you?”
“You. . . you’ll let me live if I work for you?” Hope filled his tone, and I might have felt sorry for him.
“He could be useful,” Rami said from over my shoulder.
“If he was part of the group that ravaged the village,” Elyse said, “I don’t want to see him live.”
“Please!” the man pleaded. “I beg of you, Soultaker. I’m the best marksman in all of Prand. I can—”
“Get it over with,” Isu said as the man continued begging for his life in earnest.
“I could use a few zombie crossbowmen,” I remarked.
“What?” the soldier blabbered. “Zombie—”
I plunged Grave Oath into his eyeball, and he barely had time to yelp before my enchanted blade began sucking out his soul. He writhed and jerked beneath me, but I kept him pinned down until the life faded from his bulging eyeballs and he went limp. A raw, potent energy filled my body, as if my muscles were swelling with magic and fire.
I stood and hurled strands of myself into each of the dead crossbowmen like harpoons, blasting tendrils of my consciousness and power through their veins until I found their hearts and I revived them with jolts of my death energy. Their glazed-over eyes now shone yellow-green in the darkness, and they stood up, picked up their crossbows, and trudged over to me.
“And now, I have some crossbowmen of my own,” I said. “First, retrieve all the bolts you shot at us earlier and restock your quivers. After that, you newbies are on guard duty. Put a crossbow bolt through anything that’s even remotely suspicious; ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ is your new mantra.”
The zombie crossbowmen couldn’t speak to respond, but I threw this thought into their now-empty heads, and they knew exactly what to do. I stationed my skeletons and Crusaders up around the perimeter again and placed the zombie crossbowmen in strategic positions from where they’d be able to get a commanding view of the camp.
“All right,” I said after I leaned back against the tree and popped open a bottle of Erstian wine. “Now, I can relax.” I swigged on the bottle before I offered it to the women. “Wine?”
Elyse reached over from the tree she was leaning against and grabbed the bottle from me. She took a heftier swig than a bishop had any right to. She then offered it to Rami, who shook her head. Isu stood and snatched the bottle out of Elyse’s hands and chugged over half of it down in one gulp.
“Ahh,” she said with a wicked grin, “wine is one thing I missed about being mortal.”
“Leave some for the rest of us,” I said with a laugh.
She cackled and tossed the wine bottle back to me. “Thank you. I believe I shall allow the wine to penetrate me while I stroll around the woods.”
“By yourself?” Elyse asked. “Out there?”
“I’m the Goddess of Death—”
“Ahem, former Goddess of Death,” I said.
Isu spun around, her eyes filled with rage before she brushed down her dress and composed herself. “I have nothing to fear. I may be mortal, but I am still a Fated necromancer.”
“Don’t wander off too far,” I said. “We wouldn’t want you to get lost.”
“I simply need a few moments of peace to myself.”
She turned on her heels and marched out of the campsite before melting into the shadows beyond.
“Aren’t you a little worried about her?” Elyse asked.
“She can take care of herself out there,” I answered.
“That’s not what I meant. Are you really sure you can trust her?”
“Not entirely, but she’s useful to have around. More wine?”
“I shouldn’t have too much,” Elyse said, “but why not. I’ll have a little more.”
I handed her the bottle and couldn’t help sucking in a quick breath as I noticed just how exquisitely beautiful she looked in the firelight. The flames added a glimmer of reddish gold to her long blond hair, and
