As lightning crackled and fire convalesced, Ruby tried to piece together how she’d been so fucking oblivious. They’d crawled right up on top of them without her noticing. She bit her lip, ever a sign that a woman was deep in thought, and unsheathed the elven blade at her hip. Named Lucrezia after one of her other lives, it began to sing in high elven, relishing it’s release after a long sleep. She turned slowly, careful not to let her guard slip any further. Four remained, hangered and limping on whatever notion of life they clung to. Ruby stopped rotating when her gaze met Duffy, now whimpering on his hands and knees, swords discarded in favour of using his hands to hide from his troubles.

“Oi, you little shit. Get a grip!”

Forgetting herself for a moment, the spell singer strode up to her brother, swatted away his hands and delivered a backhand that could end wars. The bard widened his eyes. For a moment, he remembered who he was. Then, as the swell of pain through reddened cheek brought him back to life, he remembered who she was.

“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” He roared, as much as a ten-year-old could and pushed himself upright. His nostrils flared, snotty little tribelets of emotion. “You only ‘ad to ask!” He balled his fists when he saw she had drawn her weapon, reckoning for a fight.

“Duffy. I’m going to calmly and politely as you to look at your surroundings.” Ruby stepped to one side to break free of his stare and offer the reality of their situation as a bargaining chip.

Duffy looked. The fetid heath, a repeating horror ever present paled insignificantly to two other scenes. One, the would-be gentlemen suddenly alive with the crackle of sorcery and the fury of a man uncertain as to wherever or not death stared him in the face. Two, the undead, lingering and unclean and bearing down on them all indiscriminately.

“Where’d they come from?” He blinked. All his fears fell away.

“A question I’m sure we’ll answer once we’ve gotten ourselves out of this mess.” Ruby span her blade full-circle and strode to the mage’s side. “They’re long dead. Smash them apart, cut off limbs, anything to immobilise them!”

Duffy watched Ruby as she took her first steps into a dance long practiced. His young eyes fought back tears at the sight of his sister’s life hanging in the balance. Another fireball and a spiralling slash severed the limb of the nearest skeleton, but it only set it back. The empty eye sockets stared as bones clicked and it reoriented itself about its new form. It continued towards them silent and determined.

“So sorry about the confusion my dear,” Ruby said apologetically as she ducked under a scrabbling claw and shoulder rushed the skeleton. She gagged, but stayed upright, as the smell of death flooded her nostrils like an unwelcome guest. “A lady’s honour that these are nothing,” she jumped back out of a counter strike, “nothing at all to do with us.”

A staccato rhythm drowned out the man’s no doubt witty response. Ruby turned, catching a glimpse of young Duffy turn into a man still lacking any balls. The tufts of black hair danced in the uprush of magic and blue ribbons danced about his limbs. She rolled her eyes. Promising the world did nothing to drag him out of his sulking, but as soon as a ‘fair maiden’ was in danger he came running.

“I would not remotely be sad if one of those fireballs caught him in the ribs,” she muttered to the mage, winked, and the trio formed a triangle on the high road through the low lands. “Glad you could join us at last!” These words did reach the bard’s ears, who wiped his tears away and plucked from the ether a black handled katana.

“I’m so sorry, dear heart, but I’m here now.” Back turned to the spell singer and the barbed tongue blastomancer, Duffy watched the two skeletons on his side crest the rise onto the road and free themselves proper of the pearl swamp waters. “Between your insurmountable sarcasm and self-loathing, what do you two propose to do about them?”