"Why did you have to take that stupid, unholy necklace?" Savaran swung his sword and missed the ghoul closest to him. Its saliva was dripping and spitting from its mouth. With a swipe of the torch in his other hand, it fell back into the darkness to avoid the flames.

The ring of light from their fire was all that stood between them and being overrun by their enemies. As long as it burned, it at least made them think twice about swooping in and offered a modicum of protection.

"It's pretty!" Daria called back, putting an arrow right between the eyes of the she-vamp they hadn't been able to kill during the previous night. That wouldn't kill her, but it would keep her busy and certainly annoyed for a few minutes.

"It's gaudy!" Savaran replied, ducking a swing from his opponent's claws. "Perhaps we should just let them have it!"

"Are you crazy?" Daria plunked another arrow into the vampire's forehead. "We give them back this necklace," *THUNK* another arrow in. "And they can revive the wizard!" *THUNK* and yet another arrow.

"Undead wizard!" Traven called out, taking a swipe at the last remaining wight in the lich's service that had been hunting them. He didn't connect, but it fell back after seeing what the blade did to other undead. Wights were at least intelligent enough to know when there was a danger to their own wellbeing.

"Lich!" Savaran reminded them both.

Daria scolded him for his insistence. "Does it really matter?"

"Yes," Savaran lopped the head off a second ghoul that came from out of the night. Even headless, the monster kept coming. "It matters because he was a lich! And his little merry band here is pissed off at us!"

"What would you rather have?" *THUNK* Another arrow went into the vampire. "A couple of bitchy undead minions chasing us? Or one pissed off immortal wizard?"

"Undead wizard!" Traven stuck the headless ghoul with his dagger and turned it to char.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Savaran cursed, switching opponents with Traven and wounding the wight with his blade. "Lich!" The wight retreated.

"How many are left?" Daria called out as the vampire also vanished back into the dark.

"Well," Savaran removed the right arm of a ghoul that attacked. "There's Miss Vampire you're using as a pin cushion. That last wight. And we had four ghouls left before Traven toasted that one. So, three ghouls." The vampire lunged at him now. "Whoa!"

It barely missed rending him with claw-like fingernails that he'd already felt the sting of last night. His arm still throbbed as Daria whirled and smoothly landed another arrow into her shoulder.

"Stake its heart with the next one!" Traven called out to Daria.

"That only works," she reminded, "if you have a wooden stake blessed with holy water!" One more arrow in. "Got to take its head off! And that's Savaran's department! Unless you're going to land a lucky shot with that dagger of yours!"

"Little busy here!" Savaran took a head off another ghoul, and then its right leg as he dropped down and finished with a second strike. Then he kicked it out of the light.

Traven dodged an assault from the last remaining ghoul to still be in one piece and that had all its appendages. Luckily, its claws got caught up in his cloak. But he couldn't shed the clothing and the creature knocked him down and started to pull him by it out of the ring of light.

"Oh no you don't!" Savaran whirled and chopped down on the undead minion.

"Watch out!" Traven cried as the blade sliced the fabric and buried into the ground an inch from his leg.

Savaran had missed him, but scored a strike that had lopped the hand of the undead clean off, allowing Traven to scamper back to protection. Shaking his cloak like it had been covered in man-eating Flesh Ants, the former prince kicked away the still twitching hand as it dropped out of the folds.

The wounded wight came from Savaran's right, baring claws and teeth. Daria put an arrow straight through one of its ears and out the other. That stunned it long enough for Savaran to turn and pull the creature into the fire. As flaming logs scattered, it burned with an even fouler stench, howled, and tore off into the woods to die.

"How's everyone doing?" Savaran asked as he dodged another swipe from the she-vamp.

Daria missed for the first time as she tried to fill her with one more arrow. She reached for another, only to realize that was her last one. "Out of arrows!" she proclaimed, dropping her bow and drawing a short blade.

"Getting tired!" Traven replied.

They hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. And, at the expense of resting during the day, they had tried to put enough distance between themselves and the lich's undead horde in the hopes that they'd give up the chase.

No such luck. The no-headed, one armed ghoul scampered out of the darkness at him. Sidestepping its more than usual clumsiness, Traven buried his dagger and set it alight. The flames crept up his sleeve and arm, grabbing hold of the flammable material. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

Savaran turned and threw him to the ground, pulling his cloak over the flames and snuffing them out. Claws ripped at his back. "Aaaaaarrggghh!"

"Savaran!" Daria called, responding by stabbing the vampire with her sword.

That annoyed the she-vamp. She turned and grabbed Daria by the throat, lifting her off the ground.

Traven tried to stab at the creature, but the one-handed ghoul grabbed him by the cloak and started to pull. His dagger dropped from his grip.

Savaran started to swear in his mind. They had been doing so good. And one mistake had turned it this into a shitastrophy of epic proportions. Forcing himself to recover, he lopped off the arm of the ghoul dragging Traven away, pulled the ex-prince back and then, in a single, smooth motion, picked up the magic dagger and flipped it end over end into the vampire's abdomen.

It screamed and started to smolder, but didn't burst into flames as the other undead did. But it did drop Daria on her posterior. And while it was busy trying to pull the dagger out, Savaran cleaved her head from her shoulders. It landed with a thud in the fire, an amazed look burning off her face.

He knelt in pain, still hearing the two remaining, but seriously impaired ghouls in the darkness moving and growling.

Daria removed the dagger from the she-vamp's corpse and lunged at one, the one missing an arm and its other hand, catching it cleanly across the chest. The wound smoldered, but did not ignite. She then stabbed it in the shoulder and that did the trick as the creature fell away into flames. But it took the dagger with it.

The remaining ghoul with only its left arm hovered there, just out of reach of them. Almost as if daring one of them to try to fetch the dagger from what was left of the corpse of its fallen comrade.

"We've got to kill it," Savaran groaned. "I'll cover you, Daria. You get the dagger."

"You good enough to do that?" she questioned him.

"Do we have a choice?" he asked. "You want Former Prince the Third to do it?"

"Good enough plan for me," she conceded.

"Hey!" Traven whined. "I think I held my own pretty good these last two nights!"

"Yeah, yeah," Savaran mocked him. "Remind me to give you a cookie for your efforts when we get back to civilization. On the count of three. Ready?

"Ready," Daria confirmed. "One. Two. Three!"

Savaran forced himself towards the ghoul, feeling blood running down his back. Swiping his sword this way and that, all he was trying to do was keep it busy. But the ghoul took advantage of his injured state and got through his defenses. Luckily, its claws still missed.

Daria did as had been planned. With the retrieved dagger, she stabbed the ghoul, set it on fire, and kicked it away from Savaran.

The former general knelt down, just outside the ring of light, making sure his mental count was right. Yep, all the baddies had been dispatched, and he watched the final ghoul burn like a torch.

Daria helped him back to the fire. "Let me look at that," she said, working to remove his blood-stained clothes.

"Damn it," Savaran complained. "This was my best cloak and shirt."

"They're your only shirt and cloak," Traven reminded him.

"Don't be a wise ass. How bad is i?"

"Well," Daria said examining the wounds, "I'm sure it hurts. But you'll live. You pussy." She slapped him on his back, sending shards of pain through his body."I've got some more salve.Give me a minute and I'll get some." She left to rummage through her pack.

"Hey boy," Savaran motioned to Traven to come over.

"Yeah?" the once-a-royal replied.

He smiled at the former prince. "You did good."

"Uh, thanks?" "Don't let it go to your head though," Savaran scolded. "Now get out there and get that fancy dagger of yours before you forget it."

Traven did just that, leaving Daria who had just returned with a jar of salve to tend to Savaran's wounds.

"Aw," she said, "that was nice of you to encourage the boy."

"Well, it's true. And if it wasn't for that dagger of his, we'd probably be undead minions ourselves by now." The salve soothed and burned at the same time as she applied it to his wounds. "I'll just be glad when we're rid of that book."

"Yeah. Figure we've got four days of travel on foot to get ourselves back to Masterton," observed Daria. "Since we lost the horses to the ghouls last night. Shame."

"Better them than us." He winced again.

"Don't worry, I'll make it up to you once the boy goes to sleep."

Savaran stretched his back and shoulders, feeling the relief of the salve. "Not tonight. I think we all need some sleep."

"Really?" Daria complained.

"Really."

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