The doors buckled under the full weight of the ratkin army.

  Seventh could hear yells, roars, weapons meeting wood. Erick and Frank pushed with their four ratkin on the doors, keeping it just a fraction more stable.

  There were brackets for a drawbar, but the bar itself was missing. Only hinges and undead were holding the doors closed. The scraping and hits amplified.

  Barely more than forty feet away, Seventh was firing Shadowbolts at the closing enemy. His hit erased a face. The scream echoed, continued. Ratkin had survived. The blast at least.

  Seventh and Charles had felled multiple enemies when they peeked to shoot. Too few for Seventh's liking. They were taking hits too.

  He had ordered a horseshoe formation to protect their flanks, but they took too many arrow hits.

  Seventh watched as his own archer fired a shot, took an arrow to the chest, promptly pulled the arrow from his own chest, and fired it back at his shooter. There were four ratkin of his own shooting. Not enough.

  Seventh knew there were more enemies areound. Sneaking, sulking. Approaching in the shadows.

  They were targets. Victims.

  No.

  “Fang, George, Dylan. You go right. Fang,” Seventh said, turning to Fang-Knife. “You lead. Run when you think there's enemy behind that pillar.” He pointed at the pillar to the right.

  The undead ratkin, Fang-Knife, slowly tilted his head, glaring at Seventh. He made a sound of approval. His knives were already drawn.

  “Adam. Charles. Follow me when I run.”

  Waiting.

  An arrow thunked on the shield Seventh was hiding behind. Arrowhead peeked through the wood. Firing a bolt back from shield-cover, Seventh made a near miss. Stone and fragments showering down on fur.

  Fang-Knife's ear twitched. He took low stance. Legs tensing up.

  A massive bang on the door almost acted like a starting signal. A splintering hole appeared on the door, followed by a ratking head. Erick hacked its snout off.

  They could hear the drums more clearly, closer. Ratkin war drums.

  Sprinting forward, Fang-Knife started the undead attack. He dashed around the corner, meeting surprised flankers. Knives flashed, blood spurted when iron met flesh.

  George and Dylan arrived a second later with their own ratkin on their heels. Dylan crushed his first ratkin head on the pillar with his mace, and blocked leaping demihuman with his shield.

  Snapping jaws came close. George sliced it off with casual ease, continuing his movement for a thrust over Fang-Knife, skewering charging enemy on his own momentum.

  Seventh was running around his own pillar. His entrance was less graceful than Fang-Knife's, but he thrusted his spear through a ratkin chest.

  Forcing the spluttering soon-to-be-dead enemy on the floor, he fired a Shadowbolt at the next one. It ripped an arm raised to a over-head strike off. Grasping its stump, ratkin felled on the floor. Screaming, yelling. Seventh stopped the noise with a firm stomp when moving forward.

  Adam was on his right. Enemies swarming around them. Seventh felt his left side bloom in pain. He elbowed the stabber. Cartilage crunched. With a kick, Seventh made more distance and drove the spearhead into fur and bone.

  A dull grey aura told him it was dead. The hall was starting to fill with the ethereal wisps of death.

  Charles notched and fired his bow repeatedly in smooth motion. Most of the shots connected and made ratkin stagger, fall or die.

  Adam's sword danced through the ratkin near him, severing arms, heads, and pierced small torsos. Half of his shield had splintered off. It was now another pointed weapon on his hands, with enough force it could penetrate light armor and fur. Adam had more than enough strength for that.

  Undead minions also did their part. The living couldn't separate them in the chaos. Undead fought animalistically. Repeated stabbing motions and wild slashes with blades. When weapons blunted or were lost, claw and tooth were used almost as efficiently.

  Seventh saw one ratkin being held on its arms, forced on the floor, and torn apart while screaming for help.

  Some ratkin started to fight each other. Seventh helped some with well timed sniping shots, stirring the confusion.

  Arrows started to rain again. Very close. Too close.

  Seventh was hit on his right side twice in rapid succession. He ducked whistling arrows behind a barely alive ratkin who were trying to keep the dead at bay. They didn't succeed. Still on their feet, knives pierced their skins and lacerated their insides. Grey aura emanated from them, marking death.

  Seventh grabbed one from the neck. Holding the corpse high, he ran towards the archers. The corpse shuddered in his grip, arrows slamming in. He heard screams and yells of dismay.

  The body felt weird. It prickled Seventh's hand. He could feel mana entering him. Cold, black as winter night arcane energy.

  Death mana.

  He was collecting it with Area Channeling. Mana flooded him. Corpses were everywhere, littering the floor. His running steps were wet from blood.

  He had enough mana now. Before he reached the archers, he used his momentum to throw his used up shield towards the enemy. It flew high and fast. Seventh pointed when it was reaching the zenith. With just two words, the death mana inside the body changed form, filling every nook and cranny with purpose after death.

  Just before smashing into the middle of the rearguard, Seventh saw familiar twitch.

  Barely a second old undead rose up in a flurry of claws. Archer panicked. Their formation broke as they tried to make room for the rabid ratkin.

  Seventh continued his run and made a jumping attack. He stabbed and stabbed, making more corpses. Sacks of blood, meat, and— most importantly— mana. His magic pulsed as he cast his spell to rise more minions on his side.

  There were casualties among his minions. He raised more troops, breaking the hazy line of twenty ratkin under his command.

  Drums echoed loudly.

  dum-dum.

  On the other side of the hall, Seventh saw Fang-Knife finishing up his last ratkin, stabbing below the rib cage, lifting the soon to be undead up. There was a pained yell escaping Fang-Knife's mouth.

  Sadness, sorrow, anger. He was killing his kind, his kin.

  Dropping the body on the floor, Fang-Knife met Seventh's gaze. There was only fury towards him.

  Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum.

  “BACK! TO THE GATE!” Seventh ordered.

  He ran through carnage of his own making.

  Only he could see the gray mixing with flickering sparks of black on the corpses.

  Something new, he thought. New colors.

  Erick and Frank had bravely held the doors. Floor was filled with splinters and dead.

  They had lost all but one of their own minions. Enemy tried to crawl through the holes, stabbing and skittering when stuck.

  The axemen plugged the holes by killing the ratkin where they could.

  Doors were equal parts flesh and wood.

  Eric was raising his axe for a killing blow.

  Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum.

  Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum.

  DUM

  The door exploded in splinters and pieces of bone, meat. A solid piece of metal pushed through, straight into Eric's head. Denting it without stopping. He fell heavily on the floor. Pieces of bone and grey matter spilling out from his ruined head.

  Seventh's body was washed with icewater.

  No, not Eric. He— we were going to get out. Together.

  He stumbled on the ground, slipping on blood, and looked forward. Large war hammer— a maul really— had broken through the door.

  On a return swing, maul ripped a chunk out of the door. Making a new hole spewing enemies out.

  There wasn't a movement in between. First Seventh was fifty feet away — then at the gate.

  Screaming. Blasting Shadowbolts through the cracks. Hitting his hand in and getting it shredded in the process.

  Whoever had that maul— it would suffer. He would kill it. Whatever it takes.

  Seventh could see Eric's death mana intertwining with his own. Mana flowing in him. So much power. Raw magic.

  Seventh could see it, behind the hole. Towering over his own kind, a seven feet tall brute made of muscle, deep brown fur and scars. Only a ragged loincloth covering his modesty. Maul casually leaning on shoulder. Dripping blood.

  The giant's eyes shone with excitement. It smiled.

  Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum.

  Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum.

  DUM

  The Champion of the ratkin dropped his maul on the floor, inhaled a lungful of air... and roared.

  A near physical force hit the undead defending the gate. Seventh could feel his body tense, locking up. Arms shaking he tried to lift his spear, but his body didn't work. He could hear sharp rigging in his ears. He was sure they would be bleeding if he was alive.

  The lumbering brute hurried to the gate, maul held up high. When it would come down, the door would be destroyed. Network of holes had made the structure weak, and with just one mighty swing of an maul the wood buckled and cracked. Wood and corpses scattered around in a cone of splinters and meat. The shockwave flung rabble of undead away along with Dylan and Adam, making a hole in defense.

  Ratkin used the situation and flooded the hall, stabbing and biting everything they could. The undead lazily tried to dodge, to attack. They moved like underwater, too slow to protect themselves or their companions.

  Rushing the fallen undead, they attacked them mercilessly, bringing the knives down over and over again.

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  Red eyes burning with bloodlust looked at the undead. The Champion walked calmly among the petrified undead, striking them down as he went.

  The metal glimmered in red. Sticky rivulets of blood hung around its edges, pitter-pattering on the floor. The maul rose slowly.

  Frank had stood next to his brother the whole fight. He joined him in death when the weapon came down, demolishing his head.

  Seventh felt numb. Two of his friends, dead just like that. In a blink of an eye.

  Hiding again? You're losing control for that? A ratkin? The voice inside Seventh head echoed.

  Seventh made a scream in his own in defiance.

  No, he wasn't going to lose a battle of wills to anybody anymore. Body snapping back in action, Seventh lunged to pierce advancing ratkin. Filling himself with mana he aimed and fired amplified bolt of magic towards the Champion.

  Seventh wanted to erase the smirk out of the brutes face the spell, but his aim was off and he made a bloody dent on the maul-wielder's shoulder.

  The giant of a ratking made a grunting sound in amazement and the red aura around him flickered— just a bit— but it was enough. Undead all around the battle surged in movement continuing their grim tasks like nothing had happened.

  Seventh was in the thick of the battle. Spear swirling around he stabbed anything he could. He crushed ratkin's windpipe with bare hand, and slammed the choked enemy on to the next victim, casting his spell. New undead woke up to nightmarish scene of undulating mass of fur, teeth and blood and hugged his former comrade in a deadly embrace.

  Seventh could feel the Champion staring. Smiling. Laughing.

  The maul swung in a wide arc aiming at George.

  The old swordsman quickly dodged the attack with ease, something next to him disappeared in a bloody mist when the maul connected to it.

  George thrust forward before the largest ratkin could make a backswing. A hand left the handle from the maul and slapped the sword astray.

  Unbalanced George stumbled. Strong kick from the brute flew him away from the undead, in the middle of ratkin. Knives and swords flashed when they attacked en masse at the stoic swordsman. His sword shone through the mass until it wavered, and disappeared in the melee, covered in matted fur and leather armor.

  Seventh was hacking away at his own share of the stabbing rats. He felt his health dropping steadily dangerously low. He didn't feel or care about the damage. Numbness spread through his body, followed by the black and gold power.

  George didn't deserve any of this. He did his part. Everybody had. They were supposed to get out.

  Seventh couldn't swing his spear anymore. Too many bodies and too little space. He started firing magic in point blank. He had plenty of mana for that. Placing his hand on the ratkin chest before he released his spell. The ratkin blew to pieces.

  Seventh grabbed a hand trying to stab him. He saw a fur covered face yelling at him. He yelled back before headbutting the screaming ball of fur. Grip on the knife was loosened, and Seventh twisted, popping something in the arm, and slamming ratkin on the floor. It was stampeded to death there by his own kind and undead horde.

  With shadow magic and raising new minions, Seventh broke trough the meatwall. Only to see the Champion lifting something high in the air. It looked like a bloody sack of meat and bones, sliced into unrecognizable mess. There wasn't a right arm nor leg.

  It held a bow.

  It was brought down with a cracking slam.

  Laughter.

  Bellowing, merry laughter of joy and happiness. Champion was laughing and ratkin cheered. Before Seventh could do anything he was swept away in a tide of meat and fighting. The crowd cheered, chanted in their scratchy language.

  Eyes burning, Seventh's vision swam in sorrow, slowly being covered by magical haze. He could see it all. Death around him. Bodies. Wounded grasping in last slivers of life. So many bodies, resonating with his own azure aura.

  White sparks rose from the grey all around him.

  “RAISE. DEAD”

  The spell echoed all around the battlefield. All bodies surrounding the ratkin, undead alike stirred.

  Dozens of corpses flickered in the blue aura of Seventh's command. His body burned. He was filled with power. Enough power to end Champion.

  Its head was turning in surprise towards Seventh. There was new emotion mixed in. Curiosity.

  Fear.

  The little sanity in the battlefield broke. Undead were fighting the living, the living were attacking anything they could. Friend and foe alike.

  Most ratkin stopped when they saw their weapons drawing blood, but fear is the mind-killer. It dulls the reason leaving only panic in it's place.

  Rage works in the same way, only it leaves anger in place of clarity and reason.

  Drawing the mana out from the corpses Seventh could shoot his dark magic and raise the dead in never ending cycle of death.

  All he could see was the Colors and the Champion backing away, swinging its maul. Raking undead away.

  There was a familiar looking undead. Seventh distantly thought about that. There should be more arrows on him.

  Raw power. Seventh had raw power coursing in his veins. Icy water sparkling with death. He could taste it in his mouth, hear it in his head.

  DUM-DUM. DUM-DUM.

  DUM-DUM. DUM-DUM.

  DUM

  Champion shone in power too. Red, visceral. He wasn't laughing anymore. Seventh had succeeded in wiping that smirk away.

  In a flash, the mountain of muscle moved in front of him. Champion had a mobility skill. The maul was coming right at Seventh.

  He was body-slammed to the side. A flash of red and metal decimated an undead that had shoved Seventh away.

  Only his aura remained, already intertwining with Seventh. It had to be put in good use.

  For Charles and Dylan, Seventh thought as he flicked his hand in ranged magical attack. A roiling ball of dark energy whistled past the dodging Champion. His movements hadn't been that fast before.

  “Shadowbolt!”

  Champion blocked the magical bolt with his maul. It ricocheted from the boiling red aura.

  He had to hit. To revenge.

  “SHADO—“

  After a flash of metal, Seventh could see only red, black and gold. Only thing he could feel was pain.

  His head was... numb. It felt wet in the back. Loose and broken.

  The world flickered. Normal color returned. Flickering blue box glitched in and out of existence. The text was incomprehensible gibberish. Broken code.

  Seventh was sprawled on an ashen floor. He heard fighting. Less than moments before.

  His arm was numb. He had flown— or skipped like a stone— on the floor for at least 40 feet. He could see the Champion sauntering towards him, slowly. Dragging the maul behind him, making a groove on ash.

  Seventh could see raw power emanating from the Champion. It was surrounded by a heat wave. Everything else was wavy blur, everything except the closing foe. And a spear on the floor.

  It wasn't his. It was short, crooked piece of ratkin weaponry.

  Grunting, Seventh tried to reach it. Hopeless. Could he get up? His legs were numb. Useless pieces of broken tools.

  He needed to survive first. The Champion was thirty feet away.

  Perusing his satchel, Seventh found sharp broken glass, snapped quills, and ruined parchment. He prayed the glass wasn't from his potion.

  His fingers found the small bottle. It was covered in black ink making the smooth glass slippery. Seventh hold it in tight.

  The hulking ratkin didn't hurry. Twenty feet away.

  Seventh gulped it down. His thoughts immediately cleared. Had he— what happened? He remembered throwing ratkin at the archers, death mana, doors, champion. The deaths.

  Did I throw that ratkin that far? That was pretty cool, he thought absently.

  Focus. Weapon over there. Crawl!

  He was two feet short. He could hear chuckling ten feet away.

  Crawling to the spear, he could hear the ratkin chanting. They were cheering the champion— cheering his execution. How far was the Champion? Eight feet? Five? One?

  He grabbed his spear at the same time he felt strong arm gripping his head. He was being lifted up— slowly.

  Seventh was turned to see the face of his killer. Small beady eyes. Mouth filed with yellowing teeth. That damn smirk was back.

  Seventh stabbed his new spear to the shoulder. It sank in shallow. The Champion didn't even flinch. It started to laugh. Deep rumbling chuckle from the stomach.

  With a mocking tone, it started to speak. Nothing Seventh could understand. Seventh could see the mouth moving, eyes gleaming with glee, its left arm grabbing the spear, driving it deeper.

  The hand holding his head started to squeeze hard. Bones scraped together.

  The monologue stopped. The squeezing seized. Its eyes were expecting. Seventh chuckled weakly.

  It was waiting for his last words. Seventh started to laugh. Not scared or manic laughter. This was deep, happy laughter.

  The Champion laughed with him, right until Seventh stopped to smile, and spoke. "Shadowbolt."

  Seventh didn't know a lot about magic. The System had given his spells, skills, and the understanding how to use them. He had vague knowledge about wands and staffs, but he hadn't owned one let alone used one.

  Staffs were used to channel and amplify magic when spellcasting using arcane focus, but his spear wasn't a staff. Spearhead wasn't a proper ficus. But it was deep inside a shoulder.

  The spell surged from his body, through the shaft, splintering the wood while traveling to the roughly forged spearhead.

  There the spell exploded, tearing flesh, ripping torso from shoulder down to the lower rib cage, almost amputating the arm. Dark wave on magic sliced through the air— bathing the floor in warm, steaming blood.

  The chanting ceased. Grip loosened from Seventh's head. Two bodies crumbled on the floor in a pile of bruised, broken flesh.

  Slowly, painfully Seventh stood up. He saw the remaining ratkin. Maybe north of a dozen. Not a single undead in sight.

  Smiling with crumbling jaw, Seventh rose his arms slowly in triumph, daring to challenge remaining enemies. They seemed to hesitate.

  The ratkin were screaming at the first twitch of their former champions corpse. Smart ones started to run immediately. Stupid ones rushed towards Seventh.

  The large form stood up to loom over Seventh. Its left hand hung loosely on a bit of sinew and skin.

  "Hunt them down," Seventh ordered. “Rip them apart. Tear them to bits. Leave nothing left.”

  With a grunt of acknowledgment undead brute of a ratkin started to sprint towards his former friends and new enemies. Roaring, arm flopping in the air.

  He didn't even stop at the first ratkin, just ran them down snapping bones with cheer mass. Screaming rodent was trapped in a meaty hand that slowly squeezed until bones broke. The corpse glimmered in a grey aura with pure white core.

  The drums had finally stopped.

  Seventh stood alone in a battlefield covered in dust and ash.

  Odd. Where all this came from?

  Groggily taking his first steps, Seventh stumbled. His left foot felt like cracked twigs held together by hopes and dreams. Right was almost okay. The ankle had new and exciting angle.

  Hadn't he seen this all before? Another Bob memory?

  Seventh felt back of his head with his hand. The potion had healed most of the head trauma, but not all. Fragments of bone were still floating over his brain, barely covered by new skin.

  Seventh walked towards the sounds of battle. He had still ratkin to hunt. To kill. To raise.

  One wasn't enough to survive. He needed a party.

  A party.

  Seventh stood in a field of ash. Only ratkin bodies, sticky with blood, were on the floor. No fallen undead with mauled bodies forced to march heedless of wounds and pain.

  Where is my party? Dylan?

  Exploded into a fine mist.

  Adam? Charles?

  Dead. Popped like rotten fruits on the sun.

  George?

  Frank?

  Erick?

  Champion.

  Anyone?

  No.

  Seventh knelt in dust and ash. He had walked where he had seen Adam and Charles. They still wore the same commoner's clothes under the battered leather armor. Their weapons were lost, scattered somewhere in the chaos.

  He raised his right hand to touch them. Exploding spear had ripped oof his pinky and ringfinger at the second joint. Grey wood was embedded in his palm. Those didn't matter.

  He wasn't strong enough to protect them. He didn't protect anybody. He had failed.

  Gently brushing Charle's peaceful face, a small piece of ash fell of. It wasn't just ash on him, but a piece of him. The elven archer had turned to dust and ash, crumbling in front of Seventh eyes.

  He opened his mouth, and something primal tore loose— a broken, bone-deep wail that didn't sound human or undead. It clawed down the corridor, bounced from stone to stone, and left a silence even the dead would not dare to disturb.

  He tried to use Raise Dead. He tried to see Charle's aura of royal black and gold.

  There wasn't nothing. He had used everything. He had used his friends. For magic, for Power.

  It burned them all. It cost everything.

  He couldn't breathe. He didn't need to.

  Kneeling in dusty floor. Ash that was once his friends.

  His eyes burned in sorrow.

  Blood. Dust. Ash.

  Seventh curled up in a small ball, head down. He sobbed for his friends. Not a single tear— not for lack of trying. He had a cursed body of decay, and memory of life. Forbidden to feel and show emotion.

  A ragged shape appeared at the edge of the hall. Fang-Knife. One arm limp. Still watching him with hate. No, not hate. Disgust. Bottomless disgust.

  Seventh tried to wave at him. All he did was a weak flop of his arm.

  The ratkin slowly walked over his master. Looming over him like the Champion.

  “They're all gone. All of them. Burned away,” Seventh whispered. He couldn't touch Adam too. He would crumble too. Would the others too?

  He heard a sound of knife being sheathed and looked at Fang. Ratkin's eyes were cold, not just dead, but cold. He pointed at his knife, and poked Seventh in the back.

  “S-s-sque-ck.”

  That wasn't just a moan or undead grunting. That was speech, at least a try of it. Seventh stared at his one last remaining party member.

  Fang repeated the pointing of his knife, and poked.

  And again until Seventh realized what Fang meant. That hurt more than the poking and the battle wounds.

  Seventh looked over the battlefield. The small mounds of dead ratkin. Some shone with their death aura. Some didn't. Those were crumbling all around them, leaving only piles behind them.

  “No backstabbing in this party, ” Seventh said. “I'm so sorry.”

  Fang-Knife opened his mouth to say something— or just to make his usual retching sound— but stopped when seeing the pained expression of Seventh. He just closed his mouth.

  Seventh stayed still while Fang walked away. He could hear shuffling, grunting and dragging noises.

  Lifting his head, Seventh could see Fang dragging a ratkin corpse to him. It had an aura. Usable for his magic.

  The corpse was dragged right next to Seventh. Fang made sure he didn't step on the ashen piles of his former companions.

  “I— I— I can't. Not anymore. I— no. No more,” Seventh stammered. Looking at the corpse. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open. The body's chest and abdomen were bloodied mess. Viscera leaking out and mixing with dust and ash.

  Fang made retching noise and pointed at the corpse. He curled his fingers and made distinctly mage-like movements with them.

  Seventh met his gaze. “But I— killed them.”

  Fang made the noise again and pointed at his ear.

  In the stillness of battlefield, a noise was barely audible.

  dum-dum. dum-dum. dum-dum. dum-dum. dum-dum. dum-dum. dum-dum.

  “We can't fight here. Not after all that,” Seventh said and looked at his legs. “I can't even move properly.”

  Fang nodded in agreement. He pointed at the far end of the hall. Kneeling next to Seventh, the ratkin rummaged his satchel and pulled out ink-stained map. Retching he pointed at the lower corner.

  Pilgrim's Rest.

  Seventh raised the first ratkin Fang had brought to him. The first undead and Fang brought him more and more bodies. He kept raising them until his mana ran out. Six undead, including Fang.

  Seventh tried to walk to the others. His party. Just to check if they could be raised. He already knew. There were no aura. There was nothing left of them.

  Fang appeared again out of nowhere, shoving an axe on Seventh's arms. Was it Eric's or Frank's? Their weapons were almost identical, like the men themselves.

  With a poke and pointing Fang signaled his want to leave. Drums were slowly getting louder.

  Using two undead as crutches, Seventh hopped away. Running away from the battlefield, blood, dust, and ash.