The night air tasted of damp grass and horse sweat.

  Marius stood outside the command tent with his arms crossed, half-listening to Captain Yasafina's report on the night watch rotations. The leonin's voice was steadier than usual, but he could hear the fatigue beneath it. Twenty thousand men didn't march without exhaustion seeping into every bone.

  "The eastern pickets report nothing unusual," Yasafina said. "Though the scouts are jumpy. They claim the wind smells wrong."

  "Superstition," Marius replied. "Soldiers always get nervous before a siege."

  "Perhaps,” she agreed. “Although even I’m starting to smell something odd…” she raised, and that made Marius look up. Her senses were different, that of a beast. She wasn’t usually wrong.

  He glanced at the command tent behind them. The canvas glowed faintly from within. Isolde was still in there, but now she probably wasn’t burning herself out with worry. Since the barbarian was with her. Marius had seen the way they looked at each other.

  Is he a suitable candidate for the King’s seat, though? Marius wondered, scratching his chin. Well, he is a barbarian but… I heard he’s the son of the previous chief. You can argue he’s fallen royalty. And given his age and strength, he might reclaim the seat.

  For the first time in decades, his thoughts about Isolde were clean. Paternal. Protective. The obsession that had gnawed at him like a cancer had been... reshaped. He still loved her, but it was the love of a guardian now. A mentor. Someone who wanted her to rule well and live long.

  It was a relief. A weight lifted.

  “Ah yes, we were talking about a smell,” he blinked away the thoughts and returned to the matter at hand. "Probably nothing. It’s a quiet night," he said.

  Yasafina's ears twitched. "Too quiet."

  Then a scream cut through the darkness.

  It came from the vanguard lines, sharp and sudden. Then it stopped. Not fading, but severed. Like someone had slammed a door on it.

  Marius's hand went to his side, fingers brushing the pouch of sand he always carried. Yasafina drew her sword in one smooth motion.

  Then the true smell hit.

  It wasn't rot. Not exactly. It was worse. It was the smell of preservation. Ancient spices mixed with wet earth and something metallic that reminded him of old copper coins. It was the smell of a tomb opened after centuries, but somehow worse.

  Ah, shit! Marius’ Mage senses screamed. Necromancy.

  "What in the gods' names–!"

  The ground erupted.

  Not in one place, but in dozens. All across the vanguard camp, the earth cracked and split. Dirt sprayed into the air. Tents collapsed. Men screamed.

  Figures crawled out of the holes.

  Three at first. Then six. Soon too many to count.

  They were wrong. Marius saw them in the firelight. Soldiers with skin like parchment, eyes sunken and black. Beasts with exposed bone and rotting muscle, among whom a direwolf missing half its face stood out, with a bear with its intestines dragging behind it.

  [Undead].

  Yasafina snarled and charged the nearest one. Her blade took its head clean off. The body kept moving. It swung at her with clawed hands.

  "They're not stopping!" she shouted.

  “Of course! They’re undead, smash their heads!” Marius commanded, his mind firing thoughts at a rapid speed. What was going on? Was this the cult’s doing?

  More explosions. The center of the vanguard camp detonated in a shower of dirt and broken men. The blast wave knocked Marius back a step. He summoned his sand instinctively, forming a shield in front of him.

  The dust cleared.

  A figure stood in the crater. Marius's breath stopped.

  He knew that silhouette. He had known it his entire life. The broad shoulders and the height that always made Marius feel small. The way the enormous man stood with his weight on his back foot, ready to move.

  Is that…

  “Brother…?” No, it wasn’t a question.

  Asharion.

  His brother.

  For a mad instant, Marius wondered where Valtor was now. If some half?starved sailor on some half?rotten ship would one day tell him the tale of his father’s corpse being puppeted through Thalassarian mud because of his stupid younger brother.

  Valtor had worshipped Asharion in the uncomplicated way only firstborn heirs managed. If the eldest son ever saw this, he’d burn Solstara down to the bedrock. Marius shared that sentiment, rage was filling his vision.

  The Dead King wore his old armor. The ceremonial plate he'd been buried in, it had to be, even though Marius wasn’t there when he was ‘buried’. No, Kaelan probably didn’t even bury him. The armor was rusted now from the dirty magic, covered in dried blood. His red cape hung in tatters. But the worst part was his face.

  It was still his face.

  Oh Kaelan, you fool. What have you done?

  The strong jaw Marius had always envied, along with the sharp nose. That same brow that furrowed when he was deep in thought. But the skin was grey, chalk-white in places and peeling at the edges. He could see bone underneath his cheek.

  And his eyes.

  The sockets were empty. Filled instead with a sickly green fire that burned like infected wounds.

  Marius couldn't move.

  People shouted around him, but he was stunned seeing his brother raise the massive greatsword he'd carried in life. The blade dripped with black ichor that hissed when it touched the ground.

  Ahh, even nightmares become reality in this goddamned world.

  Marius felt a cold anger in his heart, mingling with disgust. That bastard Kaelan had done the unthinkable. He had desecrated his father's bloodline. He had raised the dead and turned their king into a weapon!

  Asharion moved.

  One moment he was standing in the crater. The next he was in front of Yasafina. The speed was impossible. Marius didn't see him cross the distance.

  The greatsword swung.

  “Y-your Highness, stop!”

  Yasafina barely got her blade up in time. The impact sounded like a church bell struck by a battering ram. She was thrown backward, her boots carving twin furrows in the dirt before she hit the ground and rolled.

  Soldiers rushed forward. Brave and stupid, those lots. Asharion cut through them like wheat. Limbs flew and blood sprayed. Men screamed.

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  Marius let out a sigh. Then he forced his legs to move.

  Sand erupted from the pouch at his side, spreading across the ground in a wave. It hardened into a massive wall between Asharion and the fleeing soldiers.

  The Dead King turned his head.

  Those empty, burning eyes locked onto Marius.

  And for the first time in his life, Marius Thalasson felt true terror.

  He didn't see a monster. He saw the brother who had taken everything from him, now returning from hell to take the only thing Marius had left. The hope to save this land.

  ****

  Another explosion threw me off my feet. I hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up with my axe already in hand. My ears rang. The air tasted of sulfur and grave dirt.

  "Isolde!" I shouted.

  She was on her knees, staring at the ruins of the command tent. Her face was pale. Her eyes were wide and unfocused.

  I grabbed her arm. "We need to move."

  "What's happening?"

  "...I don't know. But we're not staying here to find out."

  I hauled her to her feet and dragged her toward the tent entrance. Or what was left of it. The canvas had collapsed into a burning heap. I kicked through it, pulling Isolde behind me.

  We stumbled into chaos.

  The camp was a vision of hell. Fires burned everywhere, turning the night orange that cast wild shadows across the tents. Horses screamed and stampeded through the lines as men ran in every direction. Some were fleeing while others were forming ranks.

  And in the center of it all, the dead were rising.

  I saw them crawling out of the earth like worms. They weren’t the skeleton we’d fought before, they were practically magical zombies. Rotting and shambling corpses. Their flesh hung in strips, and their eyes were black pits. Some were missing limbs but kept moving anyway.

  And they weren't just human.

  A huge bear lurched past, its skull exposed, its intestines dragging behind it in the dirt. A direwolf missing half its face lunged at a screaming soldier. Something that might have been a horse once charged through a tent, trampling everything in its path.

  "Gods above," Isolde whispered.

  Then she saw him.

  The Dead King stood in a crater fifty yards away. Even from here, I could see the green fire burning in his empty eye sockets. He wore rusted armor and a tattered red cape. He held a greatsword that dripped black ichor.

  Isolde went rigid.

  "No," she muttered. "No. That's not… oh, gods."

  I activated Dragon's Eye, pouring some Mana into it to increase its range. The world slowed, and colors sharpened. And floating above the Dead King's head, I saw it.

  [7th Ascension]

  "Fuck."

  Isolde turned to me. "What? What is it?"

  "He's 7th Ascension."

  Ragna appeared beside us, her club already in hand and blood splattered across her face. She must have been fighting since the first explosion. "Did you just say 7th?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's impossible," Isolde said. Her voice was shaking. "He… Is that truly him? My father was 6th Ascension when he died. He can't be… "

  "Well, something changed in the afterlife," I said. "Because Dragon's Eye doesn't lie."

  Marius was already engaging. I saw him raise a wall of sand between the Dead King and the fleeing soldiers. But Asharion moved through it like it wasn't there. His sword cut the air itself, sending arcs of black energy that carved trenches in the ground.

  Yasafina charged back in. Her blade moved in perfect arcs, deflecting strikes that should have killed her. But even she was being pushed back. I could see it in the way she fought. She was fast and skilled. But she was outmatched.

  She’d lost against a 6th Ascension Domain Lord, low chance she’d win against a 7th Ascension Undead King.

  Captain Meroval joined her, his shield raised. Two 5th Ascensions tried their best against the creature. He slammed it into Asharion's side. The impact should have staggered the Dead King.

  It didn't.

  Asharion backhanded Meroval. The knight flew twenty feet and crashed into a supply wagon hard enough to smash it into splinters.

  "We need to help them," Isolde said.

  "No." I grabbed her wrist. "You can't fight that thing."

  "What do you mean, Thorvyn? What else can we do?"

  A howl answered her question.

  I turned just in time to see an undead direwolf charging straight at Isolde. Its jaw hung loose, exposing rotting gums and broken teeth. Its fur was matted with grave dirt and blood.

  [5th Ascension]

  Isolde froze.

  I didn't.

  I stepped in front of her and swung my axe. The blade bit into the wolf's skull with a wet crunch. The creature staggered. But it didn't fall.

  It lunged again.

  I dropped the axe and caught the wolf's jaws with my bare hands. My Valtherian Physique flared to life. The muscles in my arms burned as I forced the jaws apart.

  The wolf thrashed and its claws raked across my chest, tearing through fabric and skin. I didn't let go. “GARGHHH!” With a roar, I ripped the jaws apart. Bone snapped, and flesh tore. The wolf's skull split in half with a sound like wet branches breaking.

  I threw the corpse aside and turned to Isolde.

  "WAKE UP!" I shouted in her face.

  She blinked once, then another time. Then her eyes focused on me. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  “You are a [Mage] before a Queen, how can you grow dazed?! Focus!" I shouted at her face, and her eyes cleared. She swallowed and nodded.

  We turned to the sound around us. More undead were coming. A lot more.

  Ragna was already busy fighting against another wolf, I hadn’t even noticed it. But these weren't the random zombies shambling through the camp. These were coordinated, moving in a pack as they flanked us from three sides. And leading them was something that made my stomach drop.

  It was massive. Easily fifteen feet long.

  It looked like it had once been some kind of aquatic beast during its life, like a giant salamander or crocodile perhaps. But it had adapted to the sand over who knew how long? Its skin was covered in rough, scale-like plates. Its legs were thick and muscular. And its jaw was filled with rows of jagged teeth.

  But now it was dead.

  [6th Ascension]

  Half its face was gone, exposing the skull beneath. Its eyes were black pits filled with green fire. Black ichor dripped from its mouth.

  And it was staring directly at Isolde.

  “It’s a Sand Salamander… they went extinct a century ago.”

  I clicked my tongue at the explanation. "It doesn’t look friendly."

  The Sand Salamander charged, and I raised my axe. But before I could move, a blur of red and fire slammed into the creature's side.

  Ragna.

  She laughed. It was a wild, manic sound that cut through the screaming and the chaos.

  "Finally!" she shouted. "Something worth hitting!"

  Her club smashed into the Salamander's skull. The impact should have shattered bone. Instead, the creature's head twisted at an unnatural angle. It snapped back into place.

  Ragna grinned wider. "Oh, you're going to be fun! AHAHA-"

  The Salamander lunged at her. She dodged, continuing her laugh, her movements fluid despite her size. Flames flickered around her hands. Her Dragon Aspect was activating.

  "Ragna, be careful!" Isolde shouted. "It's at least 5th Ascension!"

  "Good!" Ragna called back, knowing that fact already. "I was getting bored!"

  I glanced back at the Dead King.

  Marius had summoned his infamous Sand Knights. Dozens of them. They swarmed Asharion from all sides, their blades striking in perfect coordination.

  The Dead King cut through them like paper.

  His greatsword moved in wide arcs, each swing releasing waves of black energy that disintegrated the knights on contact. Marius was sweating now. I could see it from here. He was pouring mana into his summons, but Asharion was destroying them faster than he could create them.

  It made sense. The Sand Knights likely earned their reputation by slaying weak soldiers who couldn’t cut through sand. But against a 7th Ascension powerhouse…? Things were a little more complicated.

  Yasafina tried to flank. The Dead King caught her blade between two fingers and threw her aside like a doll.

  "He's too fast," I muttered. "They can't keep up."

  "What do we do?" Isolde asked. “I think I can help now.”

  "Well, Marius isn’t dying immediately which is a good sign. So we need to keep the fodder off them. If Marius has to fight the King and the zombies, he's dead," I said. “I might be able to make a difference by scavenging a strong [Skill] from these undead.”

  Borric appeared beside us, breathing hard. His merchant clothes were torn and bloodied. He held a sword in one hand, the blade shaking.

  "This is insane," he gasped. "We're all going to die."

  "Borric, let’s not say stupid things," I said. "Use your Merchant's Eye. Find the zombies' weak points and call them out to Isolde. Her Class should be extremely lethal against large numbers. Ragna, I, and the other 4th Ascension Knights will take care of the big foes."

  "I'm a merchant, not a tactician!"

  "You're a Contract Sovereign now. Act like it."

  He swallowed hard. Then nodded.

  I turned to Isolde. "Can you fight?"

  She looked at the Dead King. At the monster wearing her father's face. Then she looked at me. Her jaw set. Her hands stopped shaking. "Yes," she said. "I can fight."

  "Good. Because here they come."

  The undead horde surged forward.

  And the real battle began.

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