Sariel’s eye twitched as it began to dry out. Everyone had stopped, stiff as a board. She knew this game well. The first person to get spotted moving was the boar, and they had to run before the hunters caught them. She’d played this game before in the village. She wasn’t sure why everyone had decided to play it now.

  But she was ready.

  And she was good at it.

  She tensed in anticipation, grounded as a statue as the woman yabbered. She wasn’t very good at getting people to move, tickling was always a dealbreaker and Maddison looked the part to crumble with a trick like that. But still, it didn’t take long for one of them to shuffle.

  Maddison moved as soon as the woman whispered something in his ear. Lowering his sword and turning in plain sight of the woman as a clear trespass that he’d lost.

  And the fun was about to begin.

  Sariel took in a deep breath, bellowing a yell that bounced off the walls as she charged Maddison. “Boar!”

  Before anyone could do much she was flying through the air, colliding with Maddison’s side, and successfully throwing the bulky mercenary into Cindy. All the woman could do was give Sariel a dish eyed stare as she hit the ground, the events unfurling so fast she nearly forgot to yelp as Maddison landed on her.

  Maddison felt the spell lax, immediately dropping his sword to pin the witch to the ground. The spell holding Cody quickly followed suit, the warlock falling to his knees coughing.

  “How?! Get off me!” Cindy roared, wheezing as Maddison drove a knee into her back. She glared up at Sariel with burning eyes, her rage coming out in globs of spit as she yelled. “You! You, how were you moving?! What tricks are you pulling?!”

  “Oy that there is a good question.” Sariel spoke, puffing her chest with pride. “When you play boar chase you gotta get like the trees. Personally, I turn off my head talker and forget I even exist. Unless I’m the hunter like you of course. Then I always got a feather in my sock.“

  Her face contorted, confusion and then a sneer when Sariel's confidence didn't budge. “You think you can trick me?” Cindy hissed, “think you’ve won because you have me on the ground?”

  “Yes.” Maddison replied, drawing a dagger and driving it into her back. Cindy gasped, any incantations blotted by the mercenary's thick gloves as he covered her mouth. She flailed, pushing and clawing at the ground to try and throw Maddison from her back as he twisted the blade. The blue paste that lined its edge sizzled as she wailed, the poisoned weapon quickly working its way into her skin to cut through every nerve it touched and devour her strength. After a few seconds her wails diminished to quiet sobs, and from quiet sobs, they shrank to silence.

  Maddison eyed Cody as he continued to pin the limp body, earning a nod as peeked through the curtains of the study window. There was a clear enough view of the dragon from their height, the beast fallen limp as Hord’anne poked and prodded at it curiously to confirm it was actually dead. “Dragon isn’t moving anymore.”

  Maddison sighed with relief, stepping off of Cindy and tearing the dagger loose with a extra bit of force.

  Everyone beheld the body in the silence, collecting their thoughts, and exchanging a mix of looks that all held the same burning question.

  What now?

  Maynard was still sitting on the ground, his blank stare now flabbergasted confusion as his children hovered by his side. Sajus wasn’t much better than he had been before, and Tim was shooting Maddison a cautious scowl whenever the man turned his head.

  Cody was still at the window closer to Sariel, his tome of spells spread wide. Ready to walk out the room or cast a quick spell if Maddison decided to wrap up their fight.

  And Maddison was dusting his new set of armour as if he hadn’t just bled a woman on the floor.

  But Sariel had other occupations as she crouched to stare intensely at the corpse. Something felt off. She couldn't place it. Maddison had certainly gone a little intense on ending the game, but she assumed he had his reasons. Hopefully better than the last person he stabbed. The issue was, the body seemed to still give off something.

  She craned her head, staring into Cindy's dead eyes. They were vacant and pale, a dribble of slobber pooling from her open mouth as she kissed the floor.

  And then she saw it. The smallest twitch of her eyelid.

  “Now I’m confused.” Sariel spoke, standing straight and causing a few people to flinch at just how loud she was. “I thought people died when you go and stab em in the back, does that mean that Corian fellow isn’t dead either?”

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  Maddison stopped, dropping his head back with a sigh as he weighed the worth of responding. “What in the name of the gods are you talking about?”

  Sariel pointed at Cindy’s limp body. “She didn’t die.”

  “What…?”

  Crow stamped its feet on the desk, sharing Maddison's sentiment at her comment.

  “No sir, she don't seem right. Saw her eyelid twitch too. Bristlebacks didn't twitch none when we put em down for bacon. Don't think I saw Corian twitch either, but it was dark and a little hard to tell.”

  Cody squinted as she spoke, his gaze drifting to the corpse with a sense of unease.

  “She’s dead Sariel.” Maddison sighed, waving his bloodied dagger and pointing at the few smudges of blue paste. “Maybe it's the poison melting her nerves.”

  Sariel shook her head defiantly. “Here I’ll show you, I know all them ticklish spots.” As Sariel stepped closer, the apparent corpse shot its arm out, snatching her ankle with a white knuckled grip. Instead of screaming, Sariel pointed down at the moving body with a face brimming with excitement. “You see?! I told you!”

  “Get away from her!” Cody yelled, his fingertips flaming as he poised to deliver a final blow. But a gutteral scream shattered his focus, his attention ripped to the window as he saw the zombified drake bite down on Hord’anne’s turned back.

  His heart sank as he watched Hord’anne drop, the panic swelling in his chest as he turned back to Sariel, hoping Maddison had the reflexes to do something.

  The mercenary was already back on the witch, tearing the blade out of Cindy’s back after a second go at her heart and ramming it right into her wrist to loosen her grip on Sariel’s ankle. As soon as Sariel got her foot loose he shoved her back, rising to make himself an obstacle between the two while searching every detail of the moving corpse to plan his next strike.

  The poison in the dagger hadn’t been enough to kill her, even after piercing her heart. Such a hold on life didn’t come easy, and certainly wasn’t expected of a lone witch tormenting a village.

  Unless there wasn’t anything for the dagger to kill.

  Maynard’s words sprang into his mind, his stomach sinking as they started to make some sense. ‘Died. Died. Died.’

  He heard the howl of the zombified dragon as it rattled the walls, watching Cindy rise with a rigid twitch. Her clean appearance in the town had melted away, the sight of her confirming the worst. Her pale skin had a greenish black tint where parts of her flesh looked to have been ripped and torn at by wild animals. Her once done up and shimmering golden hair tangled loose at her shoulders and filled with a rancid mix of sticks and mud.

  The creature before them was a walking, talking, corpse. Just like the dragon.

  Maddison kept his arm out to keep Sariel from approaching Cindy, trying to discern their foe’s next move. She stayed rigid. The only hint of intent they could see was the crooked grin peeking through her tangled hair. After some time to relax its body, the creature hissed out a sigh, rigidly cocking its head to gaze at the ceiling with eyeless sockets. “It slipped away… skat.”

  Maddison’s spine tingled at its voice. Still a woman’s but certainly not the voice the baker had once used. It was richer, and filled with a more sadistic inflection to its disappointment.

  “I’m assuming you’re not Cindy?” Maddison finally spoke, gaining a reaction as the corpse twitched its head.

  The smile grew so much it started to tear at the flesh remaining on her cheeks. It spoke again, with a voice that echoed through the shell it had crawled into. “That enchantment took so long to make. She was so pretty too.”

  The corpse took a step forwards, stopping when everyone in the room tensed.

  “Cindy…”

  Her head turned at Maynard’s voice, the creature snorting before letting out a chortling laugh.

  “I’m so sorry. Please. Please have mercy!”

  “You’re sorry?” The creature laughed, “I think we’re past verbal payment. Cindy is dead, obviously.” She said, motioning to her hanging and rotted flesh as her laughter rose to a cackle. The creature twitched again, its joints squelching as it took a few steps to hover over the horrified man. “Did you ever tell the town how she slaved to save your dear little wife? You had her at her bedside every waking hour, let the sickness spread, the rest be damned if she died.”

  Maynard pressed his back up to the desk, trying to hold some distance between himself and the rotting creature. Timber didn’t dare to stay near his father, and had pulled Sajus back to hide behind the thick desk.

  “And then she did. Oh she tried so hard, but that bitch bit the dust.” The creature purred, it’s voice sinking to a gutteral growl. “And then what did you do?”

  “N-nothing! I did nothing! She left, she left and never came back!” Maynard pleaded, his words ending in a scream as the corpse sunk down, grabbed his shoulder and drove its pointed fingers into his flesh.

  “You’re glossing over the best part darling. I thought you loved your songs and stories, where is the justice in cutting this one so short?”

  “She killed her. She killed my wife.”

  Maynard screamed again as she dragged her claws across his skin, red quickly soaking his blue robes at the shoulder.

  “She let her die, she wanted her to die.”

  The corpse’s lip twitched with disgust, its head moving about as though it could see the room past its empty eye sockets. It pulled its fingers out of his shoulder, earning some relief from Maynard as he frantically muttered every prayer that came to his mind.

  “You like to write songs… to play them?” The corpse purred, gently tracing its fingers down his bloodied arm to rest its hand on his.

  He nodded, and it squeezed.

  An unnatural swell of strength crushed bone and flesh as he howled for it to stop. When it finally let go of the mangled mess, it drew in close to his ear with a honeyed whisper. “Three times strikes a charm... right?”

  Maynard quickly nodded, tears swelling his eyes as he whimpered between sobs.

  “Let’s start with the story then. Bervolt needed to bury its dead, you asked her how far out to burn them and bury their ashes.”

  Maynard slowly nodded, “I asked her to show me.”

  “And when she did?”