He gestured at the [Knights] in their battered armor. They had never looked poorer. They had never seemed more glorious to Seraphel.

“Well then?”

She tilted her head, waiting. Ser Dalimont saluted her with his good arm.

“I follow the will of Calanfer’s Eternal Throne. And she has chosen to stay.”

The [Princess] met the [Knight]’s gaze in astonishment. She saw the other [Knights] raise their blades.

She smiled then. And her head rose.

“Onwards, then! In the name of Afiele! For Lord Lantal and Lady Risel and the memory of the dead!”

There was no other speech. The [Necromancer] swung his army around, letting the giant and a third of the undead siege the castle. The remainder was enough to beat back the ragtag army. He made the undead advance slowly. Waiting for them to retreat.

Afiele’s folk came on. The people of Ladel stared in horror at the Draug, the Crypt Lords, the faces of their friends and relatives. And still they marched.

“It brings me no joy. But if I must slaughter every last person in Afiele and Ladel, I will. Fools that don’t even know when to flee deserve death.”

The [Necromancer] gritted his teeth, addressing no one—perhaps the swaying figure next to him. He looked away, back towards the castle. And saw—a concealed postern door open. A flurry of fighting, the bloom of magic. He stared and then grinned mirthlessly.

Seraphel halted. The people of Afiele and Ladel saw a small group of sixty or less fighting through the undead. Grishen’s elites. And among them—unmistakable even from afar…

“She’s fleeing?”

The [Duchess] raced away from her castle, abandoning the countless people inside. She and a small bodyguard raced ahead, towards a distant group of Ashwheat fields that grew plentifully in Ladel. Trying to…lose the [Necromancer]’s undead.

Using Afiele’s last attack to escape? The [Necromancer] laughed and laughed.

“See how true nobility behaves?”

Again, he addressed only the puppet of a figure since there was no one else to talk to. He turned, pointed.

“Kill her.”

The undead split a third time. The giant lumbered after the [Duchess], and the fastest undead pursued.

The [Necromancer] himself turned and watched.

The Ghouls were as fast as the horses. They circled, driving the riders left and right. The Duchess was making for the fields. But the [Necromancer] was moving his undead around her en masse, to cut her off even if she tried to make a break through the tall, black wheat.

The giant closed in, trampling the crop ready to harvest. Seraphel hesitated. Culin stared at Grishen.

Trying to run away?

Grishen?

No. The Duchess of House Ladel planted herself in the fields. She saw the dead breaking off their attack on the castle. She stared at the little figure leading them.