We all turned simultaneously to see a bard followed by a score of male citizens wading into the exposed side of the mass of undead. The bard was another golden cognito hero, and I could see her name was Lyra Musika. She had long, bouncy ginger hair with thick curls and wore brown leather armor. She wielded a blade and had a lute slung over her back to keep it out of the way of her swings.

  Her song was truly energizing. She sang a song of glory and heroism that made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

  But she was not the only golden cognito present. Further back behind the bard and her mob of fans was a thin, dark-featured, and dusty white-haired woman dressed in brown contoured wooden armor that mirrored her figure. Given my experience growing up, I pegged her to be a druid. She was wielding a red sword in her right hand, made entirely from magical light. It was almost—but not entirely—invisible in the sickly red of the Deathlight. She held a violet-colored shield in her left hand, also made out of pure light. She used the shield alternately to block attacks and to bash undead with it. I couldn’t quite make out her name.

  Two additional golden cognitos were closer and in the middle of the mob attacking our undead. They were both men, and I could clearly see their names. One was relatively small, and the other was a bruiser standing taller than everyone nearby. The small man was named Grazer, and he wore simple clothes and bore a short sword and dagger. He was thin, roguishly handsome, and wore soft brown leather armor. He looked to me like one of the thief guild members who specialized in adventure. With his shoulder-length black hair and fair skin, Grazer contrasted sharply with his giant companion named FatFred in nearly every way.

  The other man was obviously a warrior who had to be around seven feet tall to Grazer’s five and a half feet. The man had bulging muscles and was also wearing leather armor, but of a more unique and primitive variety. The spikes in the armor all appeared to be bones and sharp stones. I guessed that he was a barbarian. He certainly looked the part. The barbarian warrior had lots of tattoos covering his sun-tanned arms and face. They were all done in blue and seemed to tell a story that included both runes and images.

  The men and women defending on our side of the barricade let out a cheer of surprise and delight, and nearly all leaped over the top of the barricade to join the fight.

  Besides me and Bido, only the female inquisitor, a female watch member, and two female warriors remained. Looking around at each other and shaking their heads, the women joined in the battle but more tactically.

  Bido was grinning, even though he had not moved to join the battle. “Bards, right?” He said.

  I laughed. “I nearly leaped and joined the group myself,” I admitted.

  He nodded. “Still, we should help somehow. I’ll toast a few more undead. See what you can do as well.”

  And with that said, he brought the mirrors up again and began to flash them at the undead.

  Looking around me, I realized that all the Holy Lights were gone, and only the female inquisitor still had hers up around her, but she was a little way down the barrier from me. If we had another attack by shadows, we would be in trouble.

  I stood on a flat portion of the barricade to better view the battlefield. Bido seemed to think it was a good idea, so he moved down to a similar position and climbed up to stand above the mob of defenders and undead. He continued firing his mirrors.

  It was fortunate that I did take a higher vantage. I noticed that the druid spellcaster with the weapons of light had been joined by the sage golden cognito and his older sage companion. At some point, she stepped forward and engaged a lumbering corpse that strayed near where the three of them had stood on a corner at the back of the undead force.

  Her red-light sword made quick work of an attacking, lumbering corpse. The blade burnt its way through the creature, leaving glowing and sparkling tracks as the undead was quickly disassembled.

  I began targeting the more powerful zombies with my staff's Mage Blasts, but wished I had more Firebolts. It took four or five hits with Mage Blasts before the zombies went down. There had to be a better use of my magic.

  A loud shout from the druid caught my attention. Her voice carried over the top of the undead, and given my position, I could both see and hear more clearly.

  “Fatfred! Grazer! We have company!” She pointed behind her at a group of marching skeletons before turning to the sage and saying something to him.

  They had a brief but intense conversation, and then the druid stepped around the sage and his companion. She cast a spell while holding both sword and shield, extending her fingers.

  A massive gust of wind shot out before her, sending dust, dirt, debris, and a couple of dozen skeletons flying back and smashing against walls, posts, and a scattering of small trees and shrubs. About two-thirds of them managed to scurry back to their feet, but all were damaged, and many were missing parts. It didn’t give much time, but the two sages used it to move down the street and away from the battle. Given the age and frailty of the older sage, I understood the need to get away from here. The druid, whose name I could now read as Sissaya, moved to regroup with her companions.

  I could not see where the bard had gotten to, but I presumed she had either departed or was overcome by the spell’s area effects.

  As I stood on the barricade, I watched as the warrior FatFred began to kite the front line of skeletons, winding back and forth as they locked in on him through some intentional skill to draw opponents away from others or just serious lousy luck as they zeroed in on him. As he swung by the druid or his other companions, they would take shots at the marching skeletons and take out several at a time. It was a classic move and was done flawlessly. At least until the numbers grew too large to handle and FatFred began to get overwhelmed.

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  I saw that as my cue to step up my own game. I had a clear shot at the undead, and the humans were scurrying out of the way. I didn’t have too many area of effect spells that wouldn’t also damage my friends. I would need to work on that. I had already used my Volley of Stones ring, which would have been an excellent option, but I decided to turn the dial to eleven and try out one of my more powerful SUS rings.

  I commanded a gold ring to let loose the Thunderstrike spell. It was an area of effect spell that used concussive force to damage and stun opponents. I doubted the stun effect would work on the skeletons, but the concussive force should work well on their brittle bones.

  I let the spell fly, and it swept down on the skeletons like a tidal wave of sound and concussive force. It dawned on me that this was a more powerful version of what Simon used so effectively in the bay and what I had used minutes ago.

  The skeletons exploded into fragments when the spell hit them.

  I focused on the skeletons to help the sage move further away because they were the most distant from my comrades. This was a dangerous spell, and the collateral impact on nearby shrubs, trees, and windows left no doubt that it caused severe damage.

  The aftereffect was the echoing sound of thunder, which bounced all around and lasted for ten or fifteen seconds after the debris had fallen where the skeletons had stood.

  I kicked up a lot of dust with the spell, and eventually I saw the bard Lyra coughing and wiping herself down from either the druid’s dusty attack or my own. She must have been on the edges of both spells because she had been knocked down and stopped singing. She had an angry expression and was shaking dirt and debris from her formerly immaculate hair and clothes.

  The battle was far from over, but at least the number of undead had been reduced to a fighting chance.

  The enchanted weapons worked well against the undead. They were not like Sissaya’s light sword, but they were more effective than before.

  Bido mixed things up a bit by casting different types of mirror attacks. The cold attacks on the undead did not work well, but his sunlight attacks were even more effective than the fire attacks. He switched to his yellow mirrors partway through when he made that discovery. The new color mirrors also had a minor disrupting effect on the Deathlight. That aspect of the spell may have been the main damaging effect against the undead, but none of us were experts and didn’t know. We would share this knowledge later with the clerics and sages, but we did whatever seemed to work for now.

  My Mage Blasts worked, but not exceptionally well. They were too weak.

  I mixed things up with some more elemental attacks. At one point in this slugfest, I got an opening in the fighting and hit an area of effect in a straight line with an Air Blast spell ring that worked nicely. It ripped apart some undead, but the Deathlight did not waver. So much for hoping I would blow some of it back like fog.

  During the battle, I spoke briefly with each of the four golden cognitos.

  Sort of.

  Grazer’s conversion consisted of, “Cool. Enchanter. I have no idea what that means.” He briefly made eye contact and shrugged before spinning off and battling with a cluster of lumbering corpses.

  The barbarian’s chat went on a little longer.

  “Well met, Gwydion!” FatFred said as he cut a skeleton in half and then stomped on its bits in front of where I was standing.

  “Nice to meet you, Fred,” I replied.

  “It’s FatFred. I’m comfortable with myself.” He said back at my diminution of his name. And then he spun off into the same cluster of lumbering corpses to help Grazer out of a tight spot.

  A few minutes later, the bard swung by, looked me over, and yelled, “An enchanter? How enchanting!” And then she broke into another song and spun away before I could say a word in reply.

  The druid ended up positioning herself on the other side of the barricade between me and Bido, and we had a real conversation.

  “Got right into things this morning, didn’t it?” She called out to me.

  I laughed. “Keelwell is never boring.”

  “Not much for cities, ordinarily, but I think yours is growing on me.” She said, hacking at a zombie that had gotten close.

  I sent a couple of Mage Blasts into it and three more into one, sneaking up on her from the side.

  I got a “Thanks!” in reply.

  Not knowing what to say, I began, “My mother’s a druid. I love the outdoors.”

  She laughed and said, “Pretty early to introduce me to your parents, don’t you think?”

  I was at a loss for words, and she just laughed harder.

  “Who is your mother?” She finally asked.

  “Lady Joanna Maria Istari,” I answered.

  “Whoa! Your mom is Starry Istari? Cool. She taught me my light spells when I was younger.”

  I had no idea that my mother had apprentices or did teaching. I know she went into the wilds occasionally, but I always thought that was her periodic need to escape the city. I never realized that she had a double life outside our home.

  Being an apprentice also meant living in the guild or at Sundance’s shop, so I went without seeing either of my parents for weeks.

  As I was piecing that together, I glanced toward Bido when I sensed that he was in danger and saw that a half dozen zombies had managed to break through the barricade where a couple of warriors had once defended. But with everyone out in front of the barricade, nothing was stopping some undead from breaking through at the edges if they wanted.

  Apparently, those six wanted to, and they were coming up on Bido’s blind side.

  “Bido! Jump for it!” I yelled and pointed.

  He jerked his head toward me and then looked behind him, where I was pointing. He saw the undead and leaped off the barricade and into the battle to avoid their rush. He got clear of the pack of zombies but fell into a melee between several warriors and some skeletons.

  With his sudden departure, the zombies all turned to look at me. I was the only one standing partially on this side of the barrier. More movement caught my eye, and I saw a group of skeletons approaching me from the other end of the barricade, almost as if they and the zombies were coordinating.

  Out of reflex, knowing nobody else was around, I pointed at the zombies and used a silver ring to cast Fire Blast. It was a modified area of effect spell, like an especially hot series of Fire Bolts that I got from my master’s friend, along with a couple of other interesting spells.

  If they had been skeletons, I would have been in trouble. Fire is not very effective against them. But zombies were coated in some kind of oily residue that was flammable.

  Very flammable, as it turned out. They burned. Brightly.

  I took out all six of them with one area of effect spell.

  As I watched them fall, I remembered that other undead were around. I was reminded of that fact abruptly by several strikes from the skeletons that had been coming my way. Each strike with their sharp finger bones was like claws or daggers. I took three successive blows that dropped my health by one-third in seconds.

  My wizard armor spell might have been a good idea prior to running into this mess.

  I’m not sure what would have happened if Biff, FatFred, and Sissaya had not all come to my rescue because I went down hard.

  Fortunately, I fell backward onto the empty street near the piles of flaming zombies rather than forward into the chomping maws of the skeletons.

  Still, I stood back up quickly and let loose another Mage Blast. The others did most of the work, but I gave better than I took from the skeletons.

  The fighting seemed to break in our favor. It took several more minutes, but we started to whittle down the last packs. No new backup wave for the undead had appeared, and it began to look like we were in the clear.

  With the last undead falling, we had a break for several minutes.

  All the defenders gathered back on our side of the barricade. Our numbers had grown a bit with the addition of our backup, led by the bard. But we also lost several defenders. Three of the four inquisitors were still present, as were two of the four original watch members, along with an additional half a dozen watch soldiers who arrived from the harbor just as Lyra began her singing.

  We were tired. Combat is exhausting work, and no amount of training truly prepares you for it.

  But I knew that this was far from over…