Tristian cautiously peeked out above the lip of the open sarcophagus he was hiding in. His ruse to buy time was working flawlessly. The corpses he'd reanimated and summoned from somewhere else within the dungeon were putting up a fierce resistance against the last zombie cyclops, and Tristian had put the distraction to good use. With an incredible effort, he'd dumped Darlac's barely conscious body into this big, comfy and conveniently open sarcophagus, jumped in after her, and was now preparing for his final strike.

  A ray of fire burst forth from his hands, aimed at the zombie cyclops. Alas, his target was off, as it happened so often. He hit his own undead minion, the smallest and the only one still standing its ground, setting it ablaze. Three more rays followed, blessedly, with better aim. The cyclops hit the ground like a falling column, its hide armour smouldering and emitting a fetid smoke.

  Tristian should have felt content with a job well done. His first attempt at necromancy had worked out just fine and saved Darlac's life and his own. Yet, it was one more anathema in the eyes of his goddess, one more decisive step away from the Dawnflower's path. Jaethal would be proud of him, though. She would make him a big bowl of spring salad with raw cat brain and a honey-based dressing, or another beginner-level dish from Serving Your Hunger, as a first step of introducing him into the mysteries of Urgathoa.

  It wouldn't be much worse than what he was preparing to do and undergo. Again.

  Anyway, he conjured an orb of light above Darlac's head, then took her limp hand and felt out her pulse. She was still warm with life, her heart beating steadily, but the bruises forming around her eyes and ears looked alarming. There was no time to waste if he wanted to keep her alive.

  Or he could just leave her here and be on his merry way.

  He shuddered to his core at the revolting idea that would make his life so much easier. Sneaking through the dungeon unnoticed by its undead denizens, perhaps including Vordakai himself, didn't require the presence of a companion by his side. Also, once Darlac became aware of what he was up to, she would likely turn on him, and he was not sure he would be able to handle that. As things were, letting Darlac tag along (or resurrecting her in the first place) had been a serious act of self-sabotage. Almost as if he didn't want to perform this task to wheedle himself back into his mistress's good graces.

  Sooner or later, someone he'd betrayed or was about to betray would inevitably have his hide.

  Tristian focused on Darlac's skull and pushed a large dose of healing energy into it. The aasimar's eyes fluttered open.

  "What the..."

  "How many fingers do you see?" he asked, showing up two.

  "None," mumbled Darlac. "Light. So much light!"

  The cleric put out the orb of light illuminating the inside of the sarcophagus to avoid causing her more pain.

  "Better now?"

  "Oh, sweet, blinding light! Wings. Dazzling white feathers... Ancestor?"

  It was a good thing she couldn't see Tristian flinch and blush at her unhinged ramblings.

  "You need more healing," he said, his face burning hot in the dark. "You're seeing things you're not supposed to."

  He laid a hand on Darlac's forehead, whispering a prayer. More warmth flowed from his body into hers to mend what was broken.

  "Any feathers now?"

  A faint light appeared around Darlac's head as she activated her halo. The bruises cleared off from around her eyes, as did the confusion in her gaze when she looked at him.

  "What feathers? What are you on about, Tristian? And why are we cowering in this stinky hole?"

  Tristian heaved a weary sigh.

  "Well, you may or may not have cracked your skull during the last fight and became a tiny bit delirious. But that's something to expect when you face off against a thick-skinned zombie cyclops without a helmet. We won, we live, and that's what matters."

  "Do you think Vordakai can see us in here?"

  "Yes, unfortunately. I haven't applied Hide from Undead as yet. So yeah, we'd better climb out of this sarcophagus before someone comes and puts the lid back."

  Tristian climbed out first. Darlac followed and landed beside him with a heavy thump. They headed back to their modest campsite to pack up their belongings... or at least Tristian did, until he heard a gasp and a soft oh, no from behind. As he turned back, he saw Darlac kneel beside the small body he'd used to distract the cyclops and then scorched to second death by mistake.

  "These bodies were not here when the fight started," she said, her voice breaking.

  Tristian squatted down beside her and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. Only then did he realise that the small corpse, lit by the halo's faint light, had once been the Bruiser, Darlac's friend and comrade. The other two looked vaguely familiar, too. He tried to remember if he'd met them during the Nightvale–Varnhold summit, but his memory failed him. Perhaps because he'd missed out on most of the party, having been summoned by his mistress on some urgent flower business.

  "I'm sorry, Darlac," he said softly.

  Darlac's fingers stroked the corpse's eyes closed. Luckily for Tristian, she didn't push the question of how the bodies of her three friends had got there. Instead, she stood up and saluted.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "Farewell, comrades. You will soon rest in peace."

  Tristian quickly cast his protective spell on both of them, then scooped up their belongings, passing one backpack to the paladin, and they continued their way.

  "I don't know what I expected," said Darlac, staring at the floor in front of her. "I mean, Vordakai is a necromancer. If he kidnaps an entire people, he will obviously not keep them alive for ransom. I just... wonder if it's reversible."

  Tristian remained silent. If the soul was willing to return and had not yet moved on, perhaps there was a faint flicker of hope. Then again, it was anyone's guess what dark things a lich could do to a soul – especially one that was in league with the hungry powers of Abaddon. It was better not to dwell on the possibilities in front of a mourning person.

  Darlac wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The tears continued to flow, but her gaze filled with determination.

  "It's better to accept he is dead," she said softly. "Even so, even if I can't have him back, I want to hold him one last time. And if he has been turned... I want to grant him the mercy of final death and lay him to rest."

  Tristian fumbled for her hand and awkwardly squeezed it.

  "Please don't give in to despair, Darlac," he said with little conviction. "Perhaps Vordakai keeps him alive for... some reason."

  He bit his tongue. That was not much of an encouragement. Why would the lich keep the baron alive? To torture him? To make him watch whatever was being done to his people? He could tell Darlac was thinking the same. She took a deep, shaky breath.

  "We'll see this through. If not for those already gone, then for the next victims Vordakai has his eye upon. I shall know no rest until that monster returns to ancient history, where he belongs."

  Picking their way around bloated bodies of dead zombie cyclopes and shuffling patrols of still active ones, wading through stagnant water, climbing through three hydra corpses with bloody, gaping eye sockets, slipping on dead fish that stank worse than Cloudkill ever could, they progressed relentlessly.

  "What's this weird obsession with eyeballs?" wondered Darlac. "You mentioned that Vordakai blinded himself in order to be able to use that artifact. But why blind an entire family of hydras, of all things?"

  "Oh, that wasn't Vordakai," said Tristian. "That was the baroness looting the carcasses."

  "For their eyes."

  "Mhm. Why, you Varnlings don't eat them? You're missing out."

  Darlac contracted her eyebrows in an effort to determine whether he was serious.

  "Stop trolling me, Tristian. You're acting like Hazel, and it doesn't suit you at all."

  "I'm not. You know, we had plenty of dead hydras during the Bloom. One day, for some reason, we let Jaethal cook, and she came up with a genius recipe. Smoked trout and hydra paté. Of course, she only told us about the smoked trout part. It was absolutely scrumptious. One of the best things I'd ever tasted, second only to kameberry pie. And once we ate our fill, Jaethal revealed the other ingredient. Valerie almost got sick, but actually, it was so delicious that we decided to, erm, broaden our horizon and keep an open mind. And later on we realised that it works just fine without smoked trout, too."

  Darlac snorted with laughter at the absurdities of everyday life in the Stolen Lands. Her short-lived mirth bounced back from the ancient walls and, for a fleeting moment, the oppressive evil aura seemed to waver.

  "Now I hate you so badly, Tristian," she said. "Do you know the feeling when you're mourning and someone makes you laugh, and as a result, you feel like shit?"

  "I'm sorry. I'm probably a coward in the face of grief, but... it's so good to hear you laugh again. And maybe, just maybe, you could hold off on grieving until you're 100% sure it's justified. You know what? I can see you and the baron sitting in The Beer Mug and having hydra paté on toast for breakfast. It can still happen. Until the opposite is proved, you're free to believe in a happier future."

  "If we make it through this, I'll give it a go. I mean, the paté. Just to show you I'm not squeamish. But I won't tell Maegar what's in it, until he tastes it for himself. Oh, how I'd love to see his face... Wait, what's that?"

  She pointed at the spot where the corridor split in two. There was a chalk drawing on the wall of the left branch. A strawberry, of all things, markedly different from the tomb's somber ornamental motifs, even blasphemous.

  "Oh," said Tristian, recognising the sign.

  Good luck, my Skylark. And beware of the Falcon.

  Suddenly, he felt a lot less keen on rejoining Guelder. Did Darlac have enough charisma to talk the baroness into accepting both of them into her team, and also to protect him from Hazel's next attempt on his life? Not that it wasn't justified, even though Hazel was in no position to have an inkling about Tristian's mission. After all, Guelder and her companions had seemed to be blissfully unaware of the artifact's existence.

  "Who in their right mind draws a strawberry on a historical monument's wall?" mused Darlac.

  "Someone who worked as a bodyguard of a renowned scholar for long enough to develop a healthy level of disrespect for everything historical," said Tristian. "Hazel Stormwalker. This is their method to mark parts of a dungeon the team intends to return to and explore later. Hazel applies the same mark on their own map, then wipes it off once the exploration is done."

  "So this specific strawberry means the baroness intends to return here."

  "Exactly. We can wait for her at this spot, or we can make haste to catch up with her in the unstrawberried direction."

  Was that even a word?

  Regardless if it was, Darlac didn't react to it. Her gaze locked onto a lanky shape further down the strawberried branch, and her hands, trembling in excitement, reached for her swords. Her golden lips drew into a vengeful smile.

  "Now who is the hunter, bastard?"