Headless’ thrown head found Brad right in the chest. The man looked down and screamed. The head screamed, too. Jerry found it funny.

  More screams came from the forest. Through the tree line, bandits jumped out in panic, running away from something. Behind them, a massive tree trunk appeared. Axehand easily held it aloft with both axes, wielding it like a gigantic bat. Jerry blinked. He’d had no idea that the skeleton was so strong.

  The bandits darted around like frightened children, but Axehand gave them no quarter. With an annoyed grunt, he swung the trunk into two of them, sending them flying away.

  Another bandit had managed to sneak in. His sword met Axehand’s augmented ribs with a dull thud, barely denting them. Slowly, the skeleton turned around. The man defecated right then and there. Then, the branch came down and gently smashed his head in, granting him a messy death.

  Meanwhile, Boney had grabbed Jerry and was running away for dear life. With speed worthy of a Milarympian runner, he reached the half-made fence and leapt over it to land in relative safety.

  “Oh hey, nice!” said Jerry, who had been carried along. “Good job, Boney. Have you considered becoming an athlete?”

  “This is hardly the time for jokes, Master,” replied the skeleton. “If we aren’t careful, these people might tear us bone to bone!”

  As had become obvious, Brad had not come alone. Stalking from just behind the treeline had been another dozen bandits.

  What actually happened was that the bandits ran into Axehand, who had been mentally called over by Jerry—and, while the skeleton wasn’t aggressive, his massive, hulking, axe-handed form was beyond horrifying, sparking panicked attacks from the bandits. Then, Axehand did what any good skeleton would do and slapped them with the tree trunk he’d been carrying, leading to the present scene.

  Jerry stood up and looked beyond the fence. It was pandemonium.

  A bunch of bandits ran around or lay dead like headless chickens, trying to escape the trunk-wielding maniac in their midst. Axehand simply stood there, swinging his branch in the air like he just didn’t care. At some point, he’d realized that these people were enemies of his Master, so his attacks carried a bit more oomph.

  Brad had backed away to the trees, holding his chest and dry heaving. Headless’s head lay where Brad used to stand, completely unable to move on its own and trying to bite any passing bandits. Headless’ body was similarly useless, flailing around behind the fence. In his haste to help, the zombie had forgotten the cardinal rule of fighting; never lose your head in the middle of battle.

  At that moment, the rest of the undead arrived in force.

  A bony foot stepped on the fence and Shorty flew above it, his bone jaw cackling madly and his finger blades glistening in the morning light. From the forest came Boboar, oinking in anger as it charged the bandits. Foxy was right behind him, ready to wreak havoc.

  Seeing his menagerie of undead about to go ballistic, Jerry almost felt bad for the poor bandits.

  “Hey, Boney,” he said, turning to the skeleton, “do you think we should—”

  A colossal bang from beyond the fence interrupted him. The tree trunk fell to the ground with a heavy thud as Axehand’s massive body sailed through the air, over Jerry’s head, and crashed against the tower’s wall.

  Jerry turned around in shock.

  In the middle of the bandits, where Axehand used to stand and joyfully play with his branch, now stood a bare-chested mountain of a man. Long, dark hair framed his bronze-colored, square face, accentuated by bright emerald eyes and a wide nose stronger than a bull’s. He must have been at least six, seven feet tall, easily towering over everyone else, and his hands were the size of shovels while his feet were bare—an insult to all shoemakers. As if his titanic stature wasn’t enough, dense muscles filled his chest and arms; truly a monster of a man.

  He was also unarmed, though an unnatural green light surrounded his hands and bare feet.

  Jerry’s mouth formed into an ‘o’. Magic?!

  Boney gasped. “Oh, no.”

  Boboar harrumphed, enraged at Axehand’s defeat, and charged straight at the newly arrived man. He did not dodge; instead, with the green light around his feet and right hand brightening, he extended said hand to meet Boboar’s charge. The double-boar rammed against the man’s open palm—and went perfectly still.

  With a loud, heart-wrenching sound, a crack ran down Boboar’s skull, and the skeletal animal stepped back in confusion. In its entire short life, nothing, no human, animal, or tree had ever stopped its charge.

  The man grinned. Behind him, Foxy moved to attack.

  Jerry’s heart clenched. This man would obliterate them, but these weren’t just undead; they were his friends!

  Fall back! he ordered mentally. As one, the undead immediately dropped what they were doing and sprinted toward the fence. It was only half-complete, but thankfully, the completed half was the one facing the bandits. Not that it would help much. Jerry suspected that maybe, possibly, Brad had been lying when he said they wanted no trouble.

  At Jerry’s command, all the undead returned; except for Shorty.

  Shorty, you see, was an odd one.

  Souls were intrinsically linked to the body they inhabited. They were bound in deep, esoteric ways, to the point where each was part of the other.

  When Jerry had removed Shorty’s torso prior to animating him, he’d also crippled a large part of his soul, leaving him with a couple of loose screws, for lack of a better analogy. He’d later caught on to that fact, but there was nothing he could do; it was the same reason why Axehand, who’d gone through a similar body-altering process, could only grunt instead of speak.

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  In Shorty’s case, what happened was that a part of his soul was missing, and missing souls instinctively sought to fill themselves. When Jerry enacted all those modifications on Shorty, the incomplete soul drew inspiration from its master’s actions and filled the gaping hole with battle lust. Of course, other things were lost in the process, including a measure of capacity for reason.

  All these culminated in the fact that, when Jerry commanded Shorty to return mid-battle, he did not heed the instruction. Not because he didn’t want to—undead could not disobey their master—but because he couldn’t comprehend the order’s contents. In his mind, retreat was not a concept.

  And so it was that, unlike all his brethren, Shorty alone charged forth. His bone jaw cackled in manic glee and his finger blades scraped against each other, producing shrill, harsh sounds. The enemy turned his head to stare at Shorty’s charge.

  “What is this supposed to be?” he said, snorting in amusement. Shorty jumped, ready for his blades to cut through flesh and bone. He reared a hand back.

  Unfortunately, Shorty’s greatest strength in battle was his intimidation factor, and this man was not at all intimidated. A rough hand grabbed Shorty’s skull midair while his limbs flailed wildly, striking and failing to penetrate the man’s skin. Raising the other hand, the man grabbed Shorty’s waist. Then, pulling in two directions, he tore Shorty’s short spine apart, holding the skeleton’s head and shoulders in one arm and his legs in the other.

  He let the bones drop, and they did, flopping motionless on the ground. Jerry stared. Nothing moved.

  “How amusing.” The man laughed savagely, his voice deep and wild. “Is this the limit of necromancy, I wonder? Or are you just weak?”

  Behind the fence, Jerry gazed at Shorty’s remains. He could probably reanimate him later, but watching one of his dear skeletons get ripped apart filled him with gloom. Moreover, reanimating Shorty wouldn’t bring back his memories. He would be reborn, but he would not be the same. Some things had been lost forever.

  Jerry sighed. He shook his head.

  “No idea,” he responded. “I’m pretty new to this necromancy thing.”

  Next to him, Boboar and Axehand stood side by side, both cracked to a degree but still willing to fight. The axe-handed skeleton even seemed to want to attack the giant again, his empty eyes staring over unmovingly. Getting knocked away this easily had left him feeling sour, Jerry could sense that much. Apparently, Axehand was a proud one.

  Over on the bandits’ side, the fighting had stopped. They simply stood behind the ridiculously strong man, tending to their wounded and ignoring their dead. Brad walked to the man’s side, remaining one step behind.

  “I can tell,” the man responded, pointedly staring at Jerry’s undead. “Necromancers are supposed to control entire hordes of undead, but all you have is a farmstand's worth. Are you trying to make the enemy die of laughter?”

  His entire body screamed with gory violence, and yet his words were calm, spoken as a pure observation, not an insult. It was as if he barely constrained his violent side, masking it behind a layer of refined elegance. It struck Jerry as weird, like a tiger wearing a mustache. A tiger that could crush you in seconds if it wanted to.

  “Are you a wizard, too?” he asked curiously. If the man wanted to talk instead of kicking Jerry’s ass, then Jerry wouldn’t mind.

  “I’m a biomancer. Well, kind of.”

  He raised his hands, green specks of light rising from each of them. “More like an earth spirit, but that’s beside the point. Can I come in?” he asked, looking up and raising a brow. “I wouldn’t mind some tea.”

  “Master,” Boney whispered quickly, “I suggest you run. Let us slow him down. That man is Jericho the Green, the leader of the Greenskin bandits. He’s invincible!”

  “Hmm.”

  Jerry considered it for a moment. Escaping would doom his undead friends, while Jericho seemed polite. Why not treat him to some tea? There was just one problem.

  “I’m afraid you won’t like my tea,” he responded. “It’s quite strong.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “Alright, then, be my guest. Boney, fetch us some tea, please.”

  Jericho smiled.

  “Master!” Boney hissed. “He wants to kill you!”

  “Death is no big deal, Boney; you should know that. Calm down. And besides, he seems quite friendly; I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “Master!”

  Sighing, Jerry turned back to the bandit leader. “Hey, are you going to kill me?”

  Jericho raised a brow in amusement. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “See?” Jerry regarded Boney, who seemed positively flummoxed. “It’s fine. Now go; the tea won’t brew itself.”

  Meanwhile, Jericho turned to Brad, who skulked behind him. “So much for proving yourself, Brad,” he said calmly, yet this calmness hid mercilessness. “You have failed, and I will decide on your punishment later. Wait here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The bandit shivered, but to his credit, did not whine. Perhaps whining in front of Jericho was unwise.

  The giant man walked forward, reaching Jerry’s black fence and politely stepping through the door. The skeletons all stood still, Axehand brimming with the desire to fight, but Jerry’s will kept them from acting up.

  “These are all fairly unique,” Jericho commented, inspecting the undead like items on a shop window. Foxy, Boboar, Headless, and Axehand all stared back, while Boney had left to prepare the tea.

  “Yeah, they’re all pretty nice,” Jerry said with pride.

  “Are the humanoids all mine?” the bandit leader asked, pointing at Axehand. “That one feels like Lom.”

  “Was he the one wielding twin axes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, yes.”

  “I see.”

  Jerry looked at the undead again. “Yes, they’re all yours, or at least they used to be—now, they belong to nobody but themselves. I do have a few spare bodies in my basement if you want to take them back. I mean, it would make me sad, but you can.”

  “Hmm.” Jericho cupped his chin. “I don’t particularly care. If I do kill you, I will have my subordinates carry them all the way back. It will be a fitting punishment for losing to a few skeletons and a bodiless head.”

  “It’s technically a headless body, but sure. Tea?”

  “Tea.” Jericho nodded and stepped inside the tower, his head almost bumping against the door’s top. Jerry followed.