The only thing that stopped them from coming at you all at once was a lack of space: they moved as one coordinated, buzzing, snapping posse. To win, they only had to swarm us and they knew it. I played for space and position, kept the two-hander low on the hip because I needed whatever cover I could get you—locked three of them at bay with big cross strikes, and then I overcompensated because the weight of my sword pulled you with it, and one of the death bees did a little jiggly skull dance to the right and planted that massive stinger right in my side.

It went in all the way—a hand wide at the base, leaking acid all over your insides. I slammed the guard down and it snapped off inside you, which hadn’t been what I wanted—the creature fell back, and I staggered and slashed blindly, and the stinger worked its way out with a pop. The sword I had to hold overhead in one hand as I used the other to keep everything inside you; stuff was coming out, Harrow, I don’t know precisely what stuff because I’m not a goddamn necromancer. Let’s call it some small intestine. Whatever it was should’ve stayed safely tucked away in your abdomen but was making a pretty serious bid for escape. We should have keeled over and died saying sadly, Oops.

We didn’t. The slippery coils went in when I pressed, and I had to get your hand out of the way of the skin growing back over your fingers. I got us to the bathroom doorway and tried to narrow the field; I shattered the skull of one scuttling toward me and severed its gross black eye stalks—and they were all different; each one had a different skull, and one traded mandible saws for a mouth ringed entirely in poison stingers, which it pumped like darts into every surface, and after a while I didn’t even bother trying to brush them off your arms. We were upright. That was the most important thing.

I’d just blinded one when the two-hander got seized in a pair of mandibles—you didn’t have the strength for me to tug it clear—and more were crowding the doorway. I was swearing, and yanking, and a skull mouth snapped in close to the hilt and the guard. I didn’t pull back. You weren’t wearing gloves. And it bit your damn thumb off.