Volusia decided that he had confirmed, to his satisfaction, that there was nothing he could do to permanently kill off the undead child.

  At the very least, there was nothing obvious. He had tried repeated acts of brutal violence, fire, and even a few drops of their precious, dwindling supply of health elixir. Volusia had heard once that healing was harmful to undead, but that rumor seemed to be unfounded, or perhaps it needed to be healing from a priest or paladin rather than an alchemic substance.

  In any case, none of the methods did any permanent damage. He finally left the boy’s head inside a wooden box that had once held elixirs, the child’s tongue removed and nailed to the outside of the container.

  They couldn’t permanently destroy the monstrous boy, but they could disable him, at least. He wouldn’t have access to his body, which the soldiers chopped up into hundreds of pieces and buried in the desert. He wouldn’t have the use of his tongue, to spit poisonous lies or shout warnings if the squad stumbled upon a nest of his kind.

  It felt like a harsh measure, even after what Volusia had done to the boy’s head with his dagger. That had been a fit of rage. This was more like a punishment. But the Commander had to remind himself that the child was no child. Only a puppet of the enemy.

  He had only killed a human child once before, when he was little more than a boy himself, and they met on a battlefield…

  Volusia shook his head, got his mind back on track, and barked orders.

  “I need a dozen of you. You’ll split into two groups. I want you to comb this patch of desert for Baldwin. Yes, he’s dead, but not really. He’s another undead, I’m almost certain of it now. Find him, and we capture one of our enemy’s more important assets.”

  Assuming the boy told the truth about the talking undead being the most valuable to their leader.

  “Will he even still be out here?” asked Private Xavier, who still looked groggy, having only recently awakened from his brief nap. “Why wouldn’t he be back with the, um, main body of the enemy by now?”

  “He’s dragging four corpses with him, Private, that’s why,” Volusia replied. “Unless he’s superhumanly strong, that will slow him down.”

  If Baldwin was that strong, he would have tried to kill me. And if the undead could turn others into more of their kind easily, they would have been able to kill all of us off much earlier. So I think Baldwin has to be hauling those bodies around with him. Trying to get them back to the necromancer so that he can make more of those vile creatures…

  The Commander raised his voice. “Do I have a dozen volunteers?”

  A smattering of hands reluctantly went up.

  Volusia chose from those who had volunteered, then began volunteering additional people himself to round out the number he had asked for. He divided the dozen into two groups such that each one had a couple of soldiers to work alongside the miners who now comprised the bulk of his force. Then he dispatched them in two different directions.

  When he had sent the search parties off, he excused himself.

  “I’ll be in my hut. I must spend the next hour or so thinking of tactics we can use to defeat this menace. If anyone has useful knowledge or theories, my door is open. Otherwise, please use this time to get some sleep. Once morning comes, we head into the valley and then ascend the mountain by the route our boys found the other day, no matter what obstacles we may face.”

  An hour or more passed, and Volusia was no closer to having good answers. He needed the Lieutenant back, that much was clear. Either that or some sort of divine help, but that was unlikely to be forthcoming. And no one had come to give him advice. The mental load fell entirely to the Commander himself, as usual.

  There was a knock from outside.

  “Come in,” Volusia said.

  It was Specialist Curtis. The man didn’t waste any time on pleasantries.

  “One of the miners got a look at what was inside the box, and it disturbed him,” Curtis said. “Since then, the others are talking about it. They put two and two together and realized that the necromancer who attacked us is definitely the same one who attacked their camp. Now they’re saying wild things, like maybe the Army brought the beastfolk’s wrath down on the mining camp. Sir, if you’ll permit me to say so, you don’t want rumors to spread. Especially not ones that lend themselves to disloyalty. Worst case scenario, the miners might start to get more frightened of this situation than they already are. It’s not unthinkable—” he lowered his voice—“not unthinkable that some men might begin to desert, whether miners or otherwise, sir.”

  “I understand,” Volusia said gravely. “Gather everyone in the center of the village. I should at least address them. Help the miners understand what they’re facing. Remind our men of how important this mission has become.”

  Curtis nodded and stepped back out.

  The Commander closed his eyes, tried to remember what sorts of things his old commanding officers would have said in this sort of situation—though none of them had ever been in quite the same circumstances, he was fairly certain—and nodded to himself.

  There won’t be any mutiny from the soldiers, he thought. I can trust the men. Even without Sergeant Remus to keep them in line, we’ve been through too much together. But the miners are a potential problem. Have to nip that in the bud.

  He waited until the sound of the gathered men of the squad and the volunteers from the mine was thick enough that he knew they were probably all assembled. Then he emerged from his hut.

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  “Men,” Volusia said in his loud voice of command. “Thank you for assembling here.”

  There was a quiet murmur of assent, but the Commander caught some notes of discontent there. Grumbles muttered under the breath.

  “I’m sure all of you understand how dire the situation is, with a necromancer among the beastfolk,” Volusia said. “It is likely that if the Army had not been dispatched this week, this murderous dark mage would have turned the mine into a site for his unholy rituals, making every man in your number into one of his abominable creatures.”

  The tenor of the voices changed. It was as if the idea had not occurred to them that they would still be under attack even if the miners had never alerted the Army to the beastfolk still present in the area.

  He held back a smile. There goes the idea of blaming the Army for the beastfolk attack.

  “I know that many of you will be upset or confused,” the Commander went on. “You’ve never faced a threat like this before. You’ve probably never even heard of necromancy outside of ghost stories, am I right?”

  People raised their voices in statements of relieved agreement.

  “Yes, exactly,” or “Thank the gods you understand…”

  They were hoping that he would take the burden of their ignorance from them, tell them that he knew exactly what to do and had faced necromancers before or something.

  “I should have addressed you all earlier,” Volusia said. “Not allowed rumors to circulate or for you to hear what was going on from Specialist Curtis, Raybeck, or anyone else before you heard it from me. In my mind, the meaning of ‘Code Black’ is clear, but of course, most of you are not professional soldiers. The truth is, this is a disturbing situation and not something I’ve ever faced before.”

  The crowd started to get louder.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How can you lead us in dealing with it, then?”

  “Let us go home!”

  “What are we going to do…?”

  This group turns on you fast… like herding cats. I don’t know how they manage to keep the mine operating with this kind of attitude.

  “Let me say a quick prayer to Vika for guidance,” Volusia said loudly.

  The crowd stilled a bit and murmured a general assent. A prayer never went amiss in the Commander’s experience. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and began to speak in his loud, clear voice.

  “Lord Vika, please hear me. Your tired, faithful servant calls on you. I used to sing your praises before every engagement, but I’ve gotten a bit lax of late. I apologize for that. Maybe I’ve taken you for granted. No, I know I have. But in every arrow that’s failed to connect with me, every spear that’s missed my heart, every swordstroke that fell short of cleaving my head from my neck, I know there is your hand at work. You’ve spared me, through all these years, for something. Maybe this is it.

  “Dear god, an ancient evil is at play. Something we here can hardly understand. A power that desecrates the dead and threatens to crush all life in Abadd if left unchecked. Please, if you have any regard for us foolish mortals, give us your guidance now so that we can defeat this evil and purge its enablers from this land. Lend us your strength of arms, your tactical brilliance, your righteous force. Give us—”

  Volusia felt a sudden sense of heat and light overtake him, as if he was suddenly bathed in direct, warm sunlight after having gotten used to the chill of the night. That feeling of warmth—and a surprising, hearty strength—settled over him like a thick coat. Or like armor.

  The Commander felt suddenly unstoppable.

  He opened his eyes. There was a divine message in front of him.

  The Commander felt similar reactions from everyone around him. Miners and soldiers alike were experiencing the same thing he was. Vika had shone his radiance down on all of them as a body.

  His knees shook as he read the text. He swallowed a lump in his throat. Volusia’s reading wasn’t his strongest skill, but there could be no doubt of the meaning of the words in front of him. Just at the moment when he and the men who followed him had been closest to feeling crushed under the weight of their task, the God of War had showered them with his divine favor.

  The only thing Lord Vika demanded in return was that they not abandon their sacred mission. From Volusia’s perspective, this was perfect. A gift from the gods. The Commander would never have abandoned his task anyway.

  All the years I’ve fought in the King’s Army, praying before dozens or hundreds of fights, Vika has never done this, he thought. I’d heard of the War God granting his blessing to the worthy. But this must mean I was right. This enemy… it must be a threat to the whole world. We’ve drawn the attention of the gods, because we’re the front line against it. Tears beaded in his eyes. This is what it feels like to be important in the eyes of the gods. Is this… what I would have felt every day if I had taken holy vows and somehow become a paladin?

  He shook his head. Unimportant thoughts for another time, when he had an ale in his hand and this was all well past him. When he would have some sort of rare class from Lord Vika.

  For now, all Volusia needed was for the hunting parties to return with Baldwin. Once that happened, they would be ready to set out and purge the mountains of necromancer, undead, and beastfolk once and for all. Or perhaps he should round up the hunting parties and leave here right away.

  “I accept,” he whispered.

  The Commander felt a surge of power flow through him as Lord Vika’s blessing hit in full. The feeling of invincibility from before had solidified. It felt as if it would last forever, even though he knew that there was a strict time limit.

  We must go before we lose the Blessing of the War God, above all else. With this power… no beastfolk will be able to stand against us, at least.