Balthazar gred at the Areancer with a snide look as he charged his death bst.

  “You shouldn’t threaten me.”

  “Hah! You may be ued by my aura, but a pathetic crab poses no dao me.”

  Balthazar smirked.

  “Maybe not, but you know what else doesn’t t as se? Rocks.”

  The man’s creepy smile faded slightly as his thin eyebrow rose. “Huh?”

  “Bouldy,” the crab said, turning his eyes up to his friend. “Smack this Arch-Stinker!”

  Rising up from his hunched position behind Balthazar, the golem took oep forward towards the surprised man, who quickly flung his charged bst at it. The spell hit the solid rod fizzled out with no effect.

  The same could not be said of the puning his way, sending him flying several paces to the side into a messy pile of rolled up robes.

  Something ged in the air around them as the Areancer was hit and Balthazar realized the aura was gone.

  The ord lizards felt the same thing as they all let out gasps of relief, finally free of the demoralizing effects.

  Struggling with his robes, the man tried to stand back up, his hood now pulled back, revealing a shiny bald head. “Don’t just stand there, you useless sacks of bones, attack!”

  The three zombies stirred back to unlife and turo their targets.

  Khargol stood up and shook his head vigorously. After regaining his focus, his gaze nded ohree ining zombies and he growled. There was a rage in his eyes that made Balthazar gd they were on the same side.

  “Take the fighter, I will hahe wizard,” he anded in a fierce voice, and the other two orcs obeyed.

  Without hesitation at their chieftain’s orders, the two warrior-brrabbed their clubs again and moved in on the mangled-fabie. The former adventurer readied to lu them, but the pair split up as they charged, oo each side, making the fused shambler turn his head left and right, unsure of where to focus his limited thinking power.

  The one Balthazar was fairly sure was called Burz struck the zombie behind the right kh his club, causing the creature to fall with a crisp sound of brittle bone snapping. Yatur quickly moved in as the moaning corpse turned his attention to the orc that had just attacked him, taking the opportunity to deliver a finishing blow to the back of the head.

  The zombie fighter fell to the ground with a loud thud and moaned no more.

  A short distance away, the fallen wizard twisted and flexed his many broken fingers and small blue sparks began crag between them as he fixed his dead eyes on Khargol.

  “Hey, big guy, shouldn’t you have brought a on too?” Balthazar yelled from the other side of the road.

  “I would be a shameful orc chieftain if I required a on to hahis foul trash,” the imposing orc replied, crag his knuckles as he walked unafraid towards the undead mage. “I have all the ons I need right here.”

  Before the wizard could finish casting, the orc leapt forward with one powerful step and cleared the distaween them with surprising speed for someone so big.

  Leaving no time for his foe to react, Khargol delivered a devastating jab that nded right uhe zombie wizard’s a him flying high into the air before falling back down like a sack of bones.

  “Oof! He levitated and fell down. Again. So unlucky,” Balthazar joked with a mog wince.

  The crab looked up the road, searg for the st zombie that had moved in on the lizards.

  J’ath was the farthest away, still regaining his footing after the effects of the aura cleared. His panion stood between him and the ining corpse, with her cws flexed and ready to strike.

  The neancer extended one arm out as he shambled on, mouth ajar, only a siing moaning ing out. Faint, translut tendrils of a purple can f out of his hand, reag for the shadowstalker.

  Jazk dodged the ining strike from one of them by stepping to the side in a smooth, almost dance-like movement. More tendrils pushed forward, and she was forced to do a backwards somersault out of harm’s way.

  Realizing his watcher was in trouble and uo get close enough to their oppoo strike herself, J’ath called out to her.

  “Jazk, to me!”

  She gnced back at him for a split sed, and that was enough to uand his iion.

  As if chraphed and without the o exge any words, the watcher rolled to one side, frustrating another of the neancer’s attacks and ing her long tail around the spear she had dropped on the ground before. With one quick twist of her body, she tossed the spear towards J’ath, who jumped up and grabbed it in his right hand. Before even nding from his jump, the lizard ander spun in the air and threw his spear forward with great force as he nded on one foot.

  The sharp end of his on cut through the ethereal tentacles and pierced straight through the zombie neancer’s chest, making another hht o the old one he already had, from a certain Sword of Heavy Might.

  His one remaining undead eye went bnk, and he dropped dead once again, sprawled on the road with the spear’s haig up from his torso.

  Just like that, all the anded dead were taken out, and Balthazar chuckled. He turo look for the Areancer and enjoy a good dose of gloating.

  The robed fool was on all fours by the edge of the road, frantically looking for his staff in the grass.

  “Well, well, well…” the smug crab started. “Like I was saying from the start, I was sure this would be nothing.”

  The man stood back up quickly, fighting with his own robes but with the staff ba his grip. He was looking far less intimidating and much more deranged.

  “You may have taken out those weak, useless zombies,” he started, panting iween words, “but I will make much better, stronger ones out of you all!”

  Just as the tip of his staff was beginning to glow again, and before Balthazar even o say a word, a giant stone hand grabbed the hood of the ghoulish man’s robe and lifted him up into the air.

  Taken by surprise, he filed his arms and legs, dropping the staff. “Put me down! I am a high-level Areahis is absurd! You are just a crab! I will turn you and your friends into mindless zombies for this!”

  “Bh, bh, bh,” the crab mocked, while approag the suspended man and pig up his macabre staff. “You dumb adventurers, always thinking so highly of yourselves. I ’t really have you turning my tele into worthless zombies, you know? That’s bad for business. I already got one undead t, and that’s enough.”

  Balthazar pressed the staff in his rge iron pincer and it snapped in two with a loud crad a small burst of green smoke. “No more of that.”

  “You will pay for that, crab!” The man filed even harder, swinging his arms forward helplessly as the golem tinued holding him up. “Put me down! Put me dht this instant!”

  Balthazar smirked. “You heard our fiend, Bouldy. Do as he said.”

  The boulder looked at the crab, looked at the man, shrugged, and pressed the Areancer down against the ground with his giant palm.

  There was a slight squish sound apanied by some muffled crag, and after Bouldy lifted his hand, the man moved no more.

  Balthazar winced again. “Ooh, should have been more clear with your request, I guess.” The crab poked the back of his bald head with a cw, getting ion. “Ah well, at least you won’t be b us anymore now. Good riddance.”

  “Are you alright, Balthazar?” J’ath asked, forcibly pulling his spear out of the other neancer’s chest.

  “Me? Oh, I’m fihe mert cheerfully replied. “Told you all it would be nothing.”

  “That did not feel like nothing,” Khargol said as he joihem with his heavy scowl. “That was foul magic. I’ve never felt more horrible in my life. I nearly felt… cowardly.”

  Balthazar did his best to hold ba amused smirk as he saw what looked like a shiver run down the orc’s spine.

  “He is right, my friend,” said the lizard envoy, turning to Balthazar again. “This Areancer used some very powerful magic aura to sap our morale and steal the ce from our very hearts. I know myself, my watcher, and even our orc friends here. None of us are weak-willed. Yet, you mao resist it. This is most astonishing.”

  “Indeed,” the chieftain said, crossing his arms in his usual fashion. “Perhaps I have misjudged you yet again, crab. You must have a brave heart and a strong mind ihat shell, if you could show suabashed grit in the face of such a vile foe.”

  Balthazar stood still for a moment, staring at the other two, as if unsure whether they were pulling his leg or were actually serious. Then he remembered one of them was Khargol, whiswered that rather quickly.

  “Heh,” chuckled the crab. “Bravest of crabs. Yep, that’s me. You caught me. No point being humble about it, I guess.”

  Who was he to turn down a free opportunity to be shown the reition he seldom received from others?

  “I am hoo t myself as one of your acquaintances, mighty crusta,” J’ath said, taking a slight bow after unceremoniously ing the tip of his spear in the neancer’s robes. “And hopefully, in time, perhaps even as a friend.”

  “Things could have gone much worse tonight, were it not for you and yolem,” Khargol said, bringing his fist to his chest in his traditional form of respectful greeting. “You have earhis orc’s respect, and that is no small feat.”

  Balthazar the two of them. He almost felt humbled by their words. Not quite, but almost.

  Above the crab, Bouldy smiled befiving his friend a ge on the shell. “Friend.”

  “Hey now, stop it! Watch the polish, will you?” Balthazar said, trying to hold back a smile of his own.

  Behind them, Burz and Yatur picked their torches back up off the ground and double checked all the corpses really were dead by giving them a few kicks. The mert frowned as he realized Jazk was once again gohout a trace.

  “Hey, J’ath, is your watcher going to be alright?”

  “Ah, yes, worry not, my friend. She will be fine. Her pride may have been harmed, but physically she is uninjured.”

  They looked around at the colle of bodies scattered all over the road.

  “Well, crap,” Balthazar said, pg his pincers on the sides of his shell. “This is sure to stink up the pce by the time the sun es up.”

  The orc chieftain stepped forward. “Do not worry. We will gather these fools and take their remains far away from your business, dump them down some deep hole where they will cause you no trouble or bothersome questions. It is the least we do after what you did here tonight.”

  “Oh, great,” said the crab. “That’s a relief, because I’m still terrible at using a shovel.”

  H0st