After plowing straight through the ranks of the barbarians, Rollar and I wheeled our mounts around and charged straight back into the battle. He used his magic hammer to blast earsplitting booms of thunder into the mass of barbarian cavalrymen, and the force of these blasts ripped them off their mounts, or terrified the wolves so much that they threw their riders off and ran yelping in fright from the battlefield.
In the thick of it, Drok was in berserker mode, his two huge axes flying around him like steel tornadoes, as he engaged multiple opponents at once. I jumped off Fang, Grave Oath gripped in one hand and my kusarigama in the other, and left my pet lizard to rampage on his own while I took on some barbarians on foot.
A huge, gray-haired veteran, his face almost entirely blue from tattoos, ran screaming at me, his long-handled battle-axe raised above his head. He took a downward swipe at me with the heavy weapon, but he hadn’t counted on my speed. I darted forward, under the blow, and slammed the kusarigama through his stomach in passing, impaling him on the blade. I then spun my body around in the opposite direction, stabbed Grave Oath into the back of his skull, and sucked his soul out of his lifeless body.
Before his body even hit the ground I was on to the next opponent—two of them actually, who came at me from both my left and my right at the same time. In a mere second, I drew on the power of half a dozen of my skeletons, channeling their combined strength into the kusarigama chain, which I whipped around me in a full 360-degree arc. The force of the chain hitting each barbarian, one a split second after the other, sent both of them flying out over the battlefield to crash into the trees on either side of the road.
I waded through the close-packed battle, slashing and stabbing with Grave Oath, ducking under, jumping over, and sliding past axe, flail, and morning-star attacks with effortless speed, all the while countering with whipping blows of my enchanted kusarigama chain and hacking and cutting with the weapon’s razor-sharp blade edge.
I could have decimated the ranks of the barbarians in seconds using a few well-timed corpse explosion spells, but I wanted to keep as many of their dead intact as I could for resurrection as zombies. As disappointing as it was, I held off on detonating any corpses.
Ahead of me, Fang caught a barbarian in his jaws, and with a toss of his powerful neck he threw the screaming warrior through the air toward me, as if it were some sort of twisted game he and I were playing. I lashed a section of the kusarigama chain out like a bat, smashing the airborne barbarian in the opposite direction, back over Fang’s head. A howling barbarian in berserker mode came flying at me from the side, dual-wielding a pair of morning stars. I took one of his arms off with the kusarigama blade and plunged Grave Oath up under his chin, all the way through his head into his brain, and watched his massive body shrivel up like an apple left out in the sun as Grave Oath sucked his soul out.
I killed a few more warriors with what had become routine enjoyment, and then it was over. Barbarians and their direwolves lay dead in heaps, scattered all over the road. These raiders wouldn’t be hitting any more villages or towns, and Prand would be safe from their predation. My uncle and his oblates wouldn’t, and nor would any of the Blood God’s servants, because these warriors and their mounts were about to enter the service of the God of Death.
Raising zombies—both human and beast—had been a challenge for me at first, but now, I was so familiar with the process that it had become second nature. In the blink of an eye, I’d sent a piece of my consciousness, along with a large enough speck of life force, into each barbarian and wolf’s body. Within seconds, all of the dead were staggering to their feet, their eyes glowing an unearthly shade of yellowish green as they joined my ever-growing undead army.
Chapter Seven
Around me, Elyse, Isu, Rollar, and Drok stood panting and sweating, exhausted from the intensity of the fighting. As for me, though, I’d barely broken a sweat; one of the many perks of being a deity. From the wagon, I could see Anna peeking out with a strange look in her eyes. It wasn’t one of fear, as I’d expected; it was a look I was very familiar with seeing in the eyes of many women in my presence.
I hadn’t told the others about our stowaway yet, and I figured I’d keep it a secret for a little longer. After seeing that particular look in her eyes, and feeling intensely charged myself after all the fighting and winning, I wanted a bit of alone time with Anna. I’d waited long enough for this, and a battle victory deserved a bit of a reward, I figured. All the signs indicated she thought the same.
“All of you,” I ordered, “get organized and scout through the woods in all directions. There may be more of these motherfuckers hiding out nearby, and we want to wipe them out completely! Meet back here in half an hour!”
Although they were all drained from our morning battle, they obeyed. I didn’t expect them to find anything or run into any trouble, but I needed them gone for the moment. Plus, it never hurt to be sure.
I walked over to the supply wagon in which Anna was hiding, pausing to wipe the blood off my weapons and armor with rags that I tore off undead barbarians as I passed them.
Anna watched the others heading off
