for me to reach. The skull had taken her by surprise, but I didn’t think I’d catch her again so easily.
I guess the skull hit her in the bridge of the nose, because that’s where the mess was. No blood, but a dark stain and a writhing of the flesh as though a hundred worms wriggled, one over another.
For the most part the brothers still stood in the daze that had held me. The Nuban worked to load another bolt into his crossbow. Makin half-drew his sword. Gorgoth let go of Gog.
The necromancer took a breath, like a rasp drawn over ironwork, rattling in her throat. ‘That,’ she said, ‘was a mistake.’
‘So sorry!’ I kept my voice cheerful and lunged at her. She slipped around the pillar, leaving me to skewer the stonework.
Gog hurled himself bodily at Magog, and tore his little brother from the skeleton’s one-handed grip. I caught a glimpse of pale finger-marks on the child’s neck.
I moved around the pillar with a little caution, only to find the necromancer had somehow slipped back to a further pillar, five yards off.
‘I’m very particular about who I allow to place spells on me,’ I said, turning and aiming a swift kick at Rike. He’s hard to miss. ‘Come on, Rikey! Up and at ’em!’
Rike came to with a wordless howl of complaint, somewhere between disturbed walrus and bear-prodded-out-of-hibernation. Just in front of him the two skeletons bent to reach for the leucrota brothers, still a tangle of limbs on the dusty floor. Rike loomed over both of the undead, and took a skull in each hand. He wrenched them together in a clap that reduced the pair to shards.
Roaring unintelligibly, he shook his hands. ‘Cold!’ He graduated to words. ‘Fecking freezing!’
I turned to the necromancer, some witticism ready on my tongue. The taunt died where it sat. Her whole face writhed now. The flesh lay shrunken on her limbs, pulsing sporadically. The body that seduced my eyes now held all the allure of a famine-corpse. She held me with a dark gaze, glittering in rotting slaughter. She laughed and her laughter came as the sound of wet rags flapping at the wind.
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