I wondered if I should have joined him and started a group with him and other golden cognitos. Maybe so. But my instinct told me that we were heading in the right direction.

  I had learned to trust my hunches. Whether it was luck or a sixth sense, they had held out well for me so far.

  After we had walked about a dozen yards, I asked, “Do you two want to head north to the cemetery with Paternus?”

  They looked at me like I had two heads.

  Biff said, “Are you nuts? Let the Archmage and heroes handle that. I’m sure we will find enough trouble on our own without going and looking for it there.”

  When we came to the cathedral, it looked abandoned. I would have thought that it could serve as a protected, holy place. I had intended to help defend it and shuttle people either into it or to the ships in the harbor. It seemed like it would be the safest place in the city, except perhaps the Archmage’s Tower, which I figured I had little chance of entering.

  The cathedral had served as a point of extraordinary power and protection during the last invasion. But something was very wrong. I could see that many of the ground-floor windows had shattered. True, they were not stained glass windows, but I had expected the entire holy grounds to repel the undead.

  I was wrong.

  And that scared me more than anything.

  Biff was pulling at my robe sleeve. I turned to see where he was pointing.

  Across from the cathedral was a house with a white picket fence and a well tended front garden. The house had a proch and on it two men were sitting at a table playing a board game that looked like three-dimensional chess.

  One was my age and had a golden cognito, which was interesting and confusing given his complacency during this crisis. The other was much older and wore the robes of a sage. As I began to make my way to the yard’s front gate, I suddenly sensed that Bido was in danger. I turned to look at him and saw that he was also staring at me.

  We both knew what that meant.

  Before either of us said anything, we heard a woman scream for help from down the road and a bit north of the sage’s house, across from the cathedral.

  Bido and I continued to stare at each other for another moment while Biff launched himself toward the shout for help. Bido and I took off at a sprint after him. Angling left at the first intersection, we went about thirty yards north on Market Street before immediately stopping.

  Ahead of us, we saw a troop of slowly walking undead. I think they were called lumbering corpses, the lowest level of the various types of undead. But behind them, at the far edge of the street and surging over the city wall, was a giant wall of thick red fog.

  The Deathlight had indeed entered the city.

  Bido didn’t even wait for the lumbering corpses to get closer. He aimed his magical mirrors at them and shot off a beam of red light from both mirrors simultaneously, striking the first two in the slow-moving mob coming our way. Both instantly burst into flame and only made it a few more yards before collapsing. The fire caught a few others aflame as the oily fire sparked and crackled between them.

  A high-pitched “Yay!” was heard, and we understood where the scream came from. A young woman was holding a baby in her arms and a three- or four-year-old boy by the hand. The youngster had been the one to cheer. The mother was trying to drag him along with her down Market Street toward us, but the boy held a stick, which he swung like he intended to attack the oncoming horde.

  Biff ran forward and put himself between them and the nearest undead, who, now that they saw us, seemed to be moving more quickly than they had a moment before.

  I heard running feet, and four city watchmen motioned for us to follow them. “Get behind the barricade!” One of them yelled at us.

  “Biff! Get the boy and mother to the barrier!” I said, pointing back down Market toward the wharf. A wood barricade across Market and St. Michael’s Way had been set up. We had been so focused on the scream to the north that we failed to notice the armed men and women behind the southern barricade waving at us frantically to get to them before the mob of undead arrived.

  Biff grabbed the boy with one arm and the woman and her baby with the other and sprinted toward the barricade. Even with his load, he got to the barricade before Bido or I did.

  My friend was strong.

  A small gate opened, and we all made it through. Biff set the woman and the child down, and they rushed toward the harbor.

  Taking up defensive positions behind the barricade was an odd assortment of defenders: there were four holy order inquisitors, half a dozen warriors, the four city watch soldiers that accompanied us, and two dozen citizens with bows, slings, sticks and one man who had a shovel and kept saying over and over to himself, “I’ll bury ‘em. I’ll bury ‘em. I’ll bury ‘em.”

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  However, I noted with rising concern that there were no clerics or marines, and there was no chance we would hold the barricade for very long. I was no master tactician, but even I could see that the barrier was spread too wide across the road, and we were too few to defend it. There simply were too many undead.

  Bido whispered, “Gwyd, if you have any good one-off rings, now might be a good time to try one.” He held his mirrors up and had them ready to fire once the undead were in range.

  The Deathlight caught up and then passed ahead of the undead. It seemed to pulse as it moved and gave the undead even more speed as they appeared to grow in size by a good half foot. The Deathlight itself would start and stop, then move faster and slower in a chaotic yet rhythmic manner. It reached and passed us by in moments. Just before it passed us by, I could see that it extended in height no more than thirty or forty feet. It appeared to billow forward like a cloud and yet was as transparent as deep red lantern light at night. It was an unsettling phenomenon to behold. Many of the taller buildings had an entire floor level or more above the upper reaches of the Deathlight’s eerie “mist.”

  The effects of the deathlight were even more disturbing than its description had been in history books. As the light passed over us, sounds changed. They became distorted in unnatural ways. Some cries seemed muffled and distant, while others were disturbingly nearby. The light also had a cold and clammy feel to it. It was both like and unlike thick fogs off Shark Bay. It had a foul odor and left a sour aftertaste in my mouth. The light also had a drowsy effect, slowly draining my strength. It was a powerful and unnerving special effect of the necromancer’s magic.

  “Gwydion!” Bido repeated several times before he got my attention. He had placed his hand on my shoulder and began shaking me. “Can you do something?”

  I fought off the main spell effect of drowsiness, but I still felt tension in the air. Breathing was labored, as each breath took more strength than usual.

  A sluggish mind and body would be just what the necromancer was hoping for. That thought sent a burst of adrenaline through me, and I caught the twinkle of a gemstone in one of my rings. It was a diamond.

  Having a wide selection of magical 7pt diamonds suddenly gave me an idea. I called on one of their powers, and a sphere of white light surrounded me and those around me in a twenty-foot radius. I had used this spell during my time with the paladin and his cursed necklace. It was a Holy Light spell.

  As soon as the light engulfed us, the effects of drowsiness, labored breathing, fear, and anxiety disappeared. It left us with a clear head and focused mind, which was necessary for fighting the corruption around us.

  Other than creating a protective space around us, the sounds returned to normal and became clearer. The cries and screams were still disturbing, but not in a way that distracted me from thinking on my own. The gems in my staff offered a wide range of effects, but I had a limited number of area of effect spells. However, I did have a ring that could prove helpful out in the open like this. It was given to me by one of Master Glimmerblade’s long-time friends who had paid him a visit from the capital a few weeks back. After a lengthy introduction story and a fair bit of wine, he told about how he had used this spell to scatter a clan of goblins across several acres of wheat fields.

  Whether the story was true or not, he had agreed to cast it upon one of my newly made Single Use Spell rings. The spell’s name was Twister.

  I located my battlestaff’s gold ring that housed the Single Use Spell and willed its effects toward the onrushing undead. There were dozens and dozens of the creatures looming down on us.

  With an inrushing of air that pulled us all up against our side of the barricade, a twenty-five-foot tornado appeared and whipped through the front ranks of undead as they closed on us. The creatures were tossed about as if they were no more substantial than dolls. Some flew apart messily in the intense winds, others crashed into each other, and still others were sent flying high into the air, only to crash down to earth in some distant section of the city.

  I think that the elementalist had not been exaggerating the spell’s effects, and I was pretty sure that this was not its maximum potential, just what he had been willing to imbue into the ring for me.

  I maintained focus on it for several minutes before releasing the spell, clearing the road before us of all undead. Finally, as the roaring subsided, I could hear the cheering of those around me. I had been so focused on directing the twister’s movements that I did not fully appreciate its dramatic effects. But Biff, Bido, and the others grinned from ear to ear at the spectacle.

  The spell could have been prolonged even longer, but I began to feel a strain, and my stamina dropped quite low. Every second I held it, the spell wanted to cut loose or fall apart. Keeping it together became progressively more difficult, and I feared I would lose control and it would push back on me, the meager barrier, and the few defenders we had gathered here.

  The cheering subsided when the dust settled, and we all saw a new column of skeletons and undead carrying weapons that had to be three times the size of the band I had just blown apart. The next group was still at the far end of the street near the city wall, but in about two minutes, things would get busy again.

  Bido said, “I don’t suppose you have two of those, do you, Gwydion?”

  I shook my head and said, “No. I wish I did. Remind me to add a couple more the next chance I get.”

  Turning to one of the inquisitors nearest me, I asked, “Will this barricade hold against them?”

  The inquisitors and some locals who assisted them had disassembled benches, potted plant stands, and tables at Barricade Park to create these makeshift walls. I now understood why several small inner-city parks were each called Barricade Park. They had been designed for this very purpose.

  It was a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, the response from the warrior priest was not encouraging.

  “It will only slow them down. We don’t have enough defenders to take advantage of the barricade.”

  There was nothing that needed saying, so I just nodded.

  She added, “But we can cast Holy Light around us to mirror your own. If we spread out, we might be able to funnel them into only a few channels that we can defend more easily. But it will spread us out, and we were trained to stay together.”

  I looked behind us and saw dozens of citizens and their families running toward the harbor.

  She saw where I was looking, and her shoulders slumped.

  “We can buy a little time.” She said, calling out to her comrades. “Form up; we have to create a wall of Holy Light along the barrier to funnel these beasts into the waiting arms of our mages and warriors.”

  The weakest types of undead could not directly enter areas protected by Holy Light. At least, that is how Steven had explained it to me in the past.

  The four inquisitors fanned out and cast their Holy Light spells. When we overlapped and combined our light, the gaps created either two wider or three smaller openings. We opted for the three smaller ones since that option would limit the undead to near single-file attacks. The plan made sense, but it would mean three pocket openings where the undead would focus their efforts, and that would be where the warriors, Bido, and I would station ourselves.

  Bido and Biff chose gaps on either side of mine. My best friend was reluctant to part with me, but we each had magical weapons. I had the city watchmen join me at my position while some young warriors and regular citizens filled the other holes.

  It dawned on me that I was the only golden cognito present.

  It further dawned on me that Bido and I were the only mages. We could have used a wizard or an elementalist.

  “I wish Adriana were with us,” I said as the undead drew near.

  Biff muttered quietly, “I wish I knew where Wilma was.”

  An illusionist would not have been much help against unthinking undead. But then again, in all fairness, neither would enchanters.

  From a distance up the street, I noticed a young man helping an elderly brown-robed mage cross toward Bottleneck Street. The young man had a golden cognito, but I could not read his name from here. I assumed it was the pair playing chess on the house porch.

  I thought Sages were not allowed to be personas. I thought to myself before being interrupted.

  “Here we go!” One of the warriors yelled as the first undead entered the gaps.