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I PICKED UP SPEED ONCE I reached the foothills. I flashed through werebear territory, or the underworld’s equivalent of them. Even bigger than me, the bears were slow in comparison. They glowered at me as I encroached on their turf, but they didn’t give chase. The sight of a troll with a demon and a vampire clinging to its back had to be unsettling.
I eventually ran out of steam and had to stop to eat. Aurora hadn’t tried to feed me as I’d run. She’d been too busy looking backwards to make sure we weren’t being followed.
“That was an experience I hope we don’t have to repeat,” Ruen said as they dropped to the ground.
“Could you really understand the trolls?” Aurora asked. “Or were you just grunting and growling at each other?”
I pointed at my mouth, then my ears to indicate we’d been having a conversation, but they both seemed doubtful.
“Did you see the large city far in the distance when we were on the summit?” Ruen asked.
Aurora nodded. “It must be their capital,” she figured. “The overlord must be living there.”
“You said the scroll fragment is only a couple of days travel from here,” he mused. “The overlords have turned up when we found the pieces of the spells in the other four realms. We can assume the ruler of this dimension will appear once we have this fragment as well.”
“How do they always know when we’re close to the scrolls?” she asked in frustration.
He lifted a bony shoulder in response, then put a hand on his hollow stomach. “I’ll hunt for more game.”
“I’ll wait here,” she decided and sank to the ground to sip from her waterskin.
I ambled off to search for food, feeling ignored and ostracized. My bestie didn’t even realize she only spoke to me when she had a direct question, or to give me directions. I was like a big, stupid steed that was only useful for transportation.
Chowing down on half a dozen geese-sized birds and a couple of cats replenished my energy. My companions were ready to go when I joined them. This time, Aurora fed me snacks as I ran, so I could keep up my strength until dawn.
Just as the sex demon predicted, we reached the area where the scroll section was hidden a couple of days later.
“Why am I not surprised that the spell is in a gigantic graveyard?” Ruen said sardonically.
We were hunkered in the woods near the cemetery, peering at the graves through the ashen leaves of a tree.
“What does that sign above the gate say?” Aurora asked, squinting at it.
“Redux,” he said.
“Is that the name of that abandoned town over there, or the name of the graveyard?” she asked.
I turned to look where she was pointing, but the town was too distant for me to make it out. All I could see were large fuzzy shapes that were probably buildings.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Redux means to bring something back, or to revive it.”
“Huh, I guess that’s a fitting name, since there seems to be hundreds of zombies shambling around,” she said ruefully.
“I can see armor and weapons scattered throughout the cemetery,” Ruen said. “I think the overlord knows the scroll is here. He’s been sending his troops in there over the past few decades to try to retrieve it.”
“The zombies keep killing them, then the necromancer who controls this area brings them back,” Aurora deduced. “I’m not going to be of any use again,” she said with a sigh. “My magic doesn’t work on zombies.”
“It’ll be far too dangerous for you to enter the graveyard,” he said. “Saige and I will have to locate the spell and retrieve it and hope whatever is guarding it doesn’t kill us.”
“Do you have any idea what the guardian is this time?” she asked me.
I shook my head in response. I could feel it on the edges of my radar and assumed it was going to be a carbuncle like the other guardians. There were far too many zombies for just one necromancer to have raised them all. I was worried that there were dozens of them and that they would be able to call on even more minions.
“Have you come up with a plan on how to get through the zombies?” Ruen asked.
Realizing he was talking to me, I lifted my hammer and mimed swinging it.
“We’re going to barrel through them, killing everything in our path?” he interpreted and I nodded. Normally, he’d be ecstatic about this plan. Since we were fighting zombies, he heaved a resigned sigh. “I predict we’re both going to die,” he said dourly. “We probably won’t even make it to the guardian, let alone retrieve the scroll.”
“Fate set all this up a long time ago,” Aurora reminded him. “Have some faith that you’ll make it out alive. Has Saige ever let us down before?”
He looked at me sourly, then turned back to her. “She’s never been a moronic troll before. Something will probably distract her and she’ll wander off, leaving me to complete the mission on my own.”
Growing tired of his bitching and moaning, I rolled my eyes and stood up. Aurora stood as well and gave me a hug before I could leave the cover of the trees. She was so tiny and fragile compared to me that I felt like a hulking giant. “Good luck and don’t let the guardian kill you,” she said. “If the overlord catches me, make sure you lead a zombie army back here to rescue me from him.”
I gave a rumbling chuckle and nodded. Ruen tucked a spare sack into his waistband, then we stepped out of the trees together.
I took the lead and entered through the gate. The air smelled heavily of rotting flesh. Low fog appeared after a couple of hundred yards. I hunched over and moved stealthily past the inert zombies that seemed to be waiting for instructions. Ruen scurried along beside me, head swiveling from side to side in search of danger.
My radar led me towards the guardian at the center of the gigantic boneyard. I couldn’t sense any necromancers, which was strange. Someone had animated the corpses and they had to be around here somewhere. They would have collapsed if their masters had died. It was weird that they hadn’t attacked us yet. It was like they’d been put into a stasis.
The zombies became more numerous as we drew closer to the guardian. They were clumped together so thickly near a cluster of stone crypts that we had to halt. None of them seemed to be aware of us. The oldest ones were just bones with scraps of meat and little to no clothing. They were enough to give a monster nightmares. Most were missing limbs from battles with the soldiers who’d been futilely sent to find the scroll. The fresher zombies still wore pieces of armor and held rusty weapons. They were in far better shape than the older corpses.
“Can you sense where the guardian is?” Ruen whispered.
I nodded and pointed my hammer at the crypts that were surrounded by the dead.
“Figures,” he muttered. “The scroll must be in one of those mausoleums. We need to get closer, so we can figure out exactly where it is.” He debated for a second, then came up with a plan. “Wait here. Once I find the fragment, I’ll signal for you to cause a distraction. Draw the guardian away and I’ll steal the spell.”
He paused to wait for me to nod, then dropped to the ground and scurried away on all fours. I watched him scuttle into the fog, smirking inwardly. It never failed to amuse me when he went into cockroach mode.
