The king is alarmingly coherent for this early in the morning. Considering the condition he was in last night, I’m kind of surprised he’s even alive. Decades of drinking himself into oblivion every day must have made him into a pro. I’m standing at attention as he announces my orders like he’s performing oratory onstage, “Our good friends to the south in Jerrig have requested our aid. Just beyond our border in the lowlands, some nefarious actor has risen an army of undead soldiers from their catacombs. The unholy platoon is plaguing the countryside and we, being the good neighbors that we are, will assist them in vanquishing this threat.”

  He acts like I don’t know they’re paying him to use us as mercenaries. I play along with the theatre game and ask in the most pretentious way I can, “How many do the undead count among their ranks?” This is how you talk when you’re in the Royal Throne Room.

  He starts to pace around, apparently tired of looking at me already. “They number several dozen. Perhaps as many as a hundred.”

  This will be the first time I’ve tried to kill something that’s already dead. But I love a new challenge. I assure the king, “You have my word. I will send these unholy creatures back to the netherrealm or I will die trying.”

  “Attaboy.” He pauses the conversation to have a horrendous coughing fit before collapsing into his throne to continue, “I suppose you will require the royal wizard to accompany you on this journey.” Fallow stands and bows to the king as I push my jaw forward and try my best to hide how much I loathe this particular wizard. The king goes on, “And a platoon of Valencia’s bravest. How many soldiers will you require for this mission? However many you need, they shall be provided.”

  I’m technically the only permanent member of the Beast Brigade. Which means I have to assemble a new crew for every mission. This part is always a negotiation. Our army is in the middle of a war in the north after all, and new recruits are always in high demand. There’s no way the king will let me take all the soldiers I want without a bit of haggling so I highball him. “Twenty.”

  “Done.”

  Shit. I should have asked for more. “My lieutenant, Pinchenko, was killed during our battle with the hydra. I will need a replacement. Someone from the nobility with the power of enchantment.”

  The king feigns sympathy, “Oh yes, I was informed of your loss. So sorry. Must have been quite difficult for you.”

  Not sure how to respond to that. “He uh…died doing what he loved.”

  One of Piper’s wretched cousins chimes in, “Having his face melted off by acid?” This one is Gabon, son of the king’s sister, Helene. He and his equally wretched brother, Tryph, are both taking a break from whatever dumbass board game they’re playing to laugh about my dead lieutenant and see how I’ll respond.

  Joke’s on them, I didn’t even like Pinchenko. “I request the Lady of Lorain to replace him. She is of noble blood and wields an enchanted axe. And…” My eyes creep toward Piper’s father, Prince Harikin, who’s slouched against his throne with one arm flung around its backrest. His long, dark hair is draped over his shoulders and I don’t think he could glare any harder if he tried. He might actually be trying to cast a spell on me, I don’t know. I clear my throat before returning my gaze to the king and finishing, “the lady, Princess Piperton, for she also has the power of enchantment and can wield—“

  The king waves his hand like he’s swatting at a fly. “Yes, yes, do us all a favor and bring my brother’s drink-addled daughter with you.” He’s certainly one to talk. His statement is followed by another attempt to hack out whatever’s lodged in his lungs. He eventually gives up and says through a throat-full of whatever it is, “Perhaps you could even teach her some manners while you’re there. A task which my brother has yet to accomplish. Just last month, you know what the little hellion did? She had apparently decided that she was bored of having only arrows to propel out of that bow of hers and started searching the castle to see what other objects she could use as projectiles. She was doing her experiment with a lit candelabra in the Great Hall when a priceless tapestry that was gifted to me from the king of Norwüd went up in flames. I nearly suffocated from the smoke. And I don’t think she could have been more amused by it! Just dreadful, that woman.” He’s right about Piper being amused. She couldn’t wait to tell me about it after it happened.

  Her father sits straight up in his throne to get an even better glare going as my feckless lower lip pulls itself into my mouth to hide in abject terror. Of all the families this woman could have.

  ***

  “Simply cutting their heads off won’t do any good! They have the gift of farsight and will only keep up the fight headless. You must remove all their limbs and bury them one by—GAAGGGH!” Looks like our cleric’s dead.

  I chop another one of the rotting bastards’ legs off and watch him or her or it go tumbling sideways as Piper yells out of the darkness behind me, “We are not burying all these assholes. Who the hell thought it’d be a good idea to bring a cleric to fight an army of zombies, anyway?”

  I take another one’s legs out from under it as I answer over my shoulder, “I thought he could…I don’t know, give us some insight I guess. About how to deal with the undead. Sorry, I didn’t expect him to do any actual fighting.”

  Piper lights one of the zombies up with a flaming arrow and then jogs over to me, pointing at the felled cleric and saying, “Well, now someone’s gonna have to explain why the Temple of Seraphine needs a new high priest.”

  A severed hand is crawling up my leg like a spider. I yank it off and toss it aside as a mob of corpses slovenly devours the cleric’s brain right out of his skull. I point at the sorry sight as I tell Piper, “Look, he’s distracting them for us.” Actually, it’s pretty damn distracting for me as well. The two of us gawk as I think aloud, “Wow, they are really getting in there, aren’t they.”

  “Uh-huh…” They’ve opened up the priest’s gullet and are working their way through his innards when Piper says, “Hey, I guess he just didn’t have the stomach for this sort of thing. Right? Because he doesn’t have a—”

  “I get it.” I grab her shoulder to turn her around and we both run toward the treeline. As we pick up speed, I cup both hands around my mouth and yell, “Wizard Fallow! Tell me you know some spell that will dispatch of these creatures.”

  His voice emerges from the trees, “Dear Captain, I’m afraid these souls can no longer return to the realm from whence they came. Believe it or not, it is actually easier to raise the dead than it is to put the souls back to rest. They are no longer welcome in that realm.”

  “He just makes this shit up doesn’t he?” Piper nods. “What about you? You know any enchantments that could help?”

  “Against the undead?! All I can do is light a little fire. Maybe make a flower bloom. Sending souls back to the netherrealm is not part of my skillset.”

  “Well, whatever, we’ll just keep cutting their arms and legs off til they can’t fight anymore.”

  Tabitha’s voice wafts over the glen, “Uh…laddies!” Piper and I turn toward her as she bisects one of the zombies with her axe, head to groin. The two halves fall to either side as she runs between them and motions with her weapon toward the ground, “I already killed this bloke once. He didn’t go to the nether-region.”

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  “It’s ‘nether-’…never mind.” The momentary distraction provided by our dearly departed cleric seems to have ended. The throng of zombies feasting on him is getting up and taking notice of our party. Piper and I make our way to Tabitha as I yell, “Of course you already killed him. He was dead before you got here. They’re all dead. We just need to incapacitate them.”

  She slices another one in half, this time across its midsection. “No, I mean I already cut that one down. Took both legs and his head off. I recognize the yarns he was wearin’. Bastard musta found hisself a new head, new legs. Made a whole new body from the spare parts.”

  Fuck. I look around and realize all the severed limbs aren’t just wandering aimlessly along the ground. They’re looking for other parts to reassemble back into full bodies again. Piper lets her arms drop to her sides as she growls, “UNNGH, how do we get rid of them then?”

  I sheathe the Kingsblade and put both hands on my hips as another one of our soldiers is swarmed by zombies and dragged to the ground. “I uh…well.”

  Fallow has sidled up next to me. Not sure why he’s chosen now to come out of his hidey-hole but I’ll take any advice I can get. Unfortunately, all he has to say is, “Yes, pray tell, O most capable of captains. What do you propose we do?”

  Useless as always.

  I let out a long sigh and let my lips flap like a horse before saying, “Did anyone bring any shovels?”

  ***

  Burying a hundred zombies would be bad enough. But we’re not burying a hundred zombies. We’re burying pieces of a hundred zombies. Countless limbs and heads and torsos. And each one needs to be deep enough that it can’t crawl out of the ground and far enough away from every other buried limb that it can’t burrow through the dirt and reform into a full zombie underground. Call me paranoid but I wouldn’t put anything past these rotting shitheads.

  We worked all through the night and now the sun is high over Jerrig. Sweat is beading on my skin and making my hand slip along the handle of my shovel. Piper throws hers to the ground as she curses at the sky, “Goddamnit!…It’s too…too goddamn hot!”

  I take a break from digging and make my way over to her, kicking a crawling forearm along the way. Piper’s got her eyes closed and she’s swaying side to side. I put a hand on her shoulder only for her to knock it right back off again. “Get your sweaty hand off me. It’s too hot for that. Look at you, you’re literally dripping!”

  She’s right. Sweat is falling off my face just standing here. “Well, it beats hanging around the castle though, right?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head. “I don’t know, I might prefer the castle over this.”

  I feel another glob of sweat drip off the end of my nose and fall to the ground. Piper snorts out a laugh when she sees it. I’ve always liked that little chortle of hers. It means she’s really laughing when she makes that sound. She points at my nose and says, “You’re making it rain. You might actually be a wizard.”

  She gets a laugh out of me with that one. And gives me an idea. “Fallow!” The wizard emerges from his shaded perch under a nearby oak to amble toward us, sidestepping limbs and grunting soldiers as he goes.

  “Yes, Captain? Surely you don’t mean for this old man to strain himself in the heat by having him dig.”

  Piper puts her hands on her hips and gives me a furrowed brow. I tell the wizard, “God knows you’re not gonna do any actual work, Fallow. But this heat! You have plenty of sky up there to work with. Form a raincloud and cool us off.”

  He bows and brings his staff in front of his head. “As you wish.” A few muttering seconds later, I hear a rumble of thunder and the sky starts to darken. A breeze ruffles my hair and the soldiers all release a collective sigh, leaning against their shovels or collapsing onto their backsides to revel in the rapidly decreasing temperature.

  Piper lets out a delighted squeal when the first drops of rain land on her face. The sound alone is almost too adorable to bear, but then she has to go and add to my torment by bouncing up and down on her heels while holding her tongue out to catch the raindrops in her mouth. Sometimes the things she does make my eyes very nearly dampen with affection. Good thing it’s raining.

  And then we dig. All. God. Damn. Day. And all goddamn day the next day. But Fallow keeps it cool enough to work in relative comfort, and the country folk have stepped up to help along with providing the shovels. Some from villages as far as ten miles away. Over the two days of killing and digging and re-killing it becomes a regular community event out here. Jovial even, by the end of the second day. Tabitha is regaling a bronze-skinned maiden with tales of her bravery as the two work side by side. And I don’t just mean that her skin is the color of bronze. I mean she’s literally made of bronze. It’s honestly quite stunning. Even Fallow seems to be having a good time, making color spark from his hands in front of a garrison of giddy children under that old oak tree of his. It actually makes me smile to see it.

  When I turn back around, Piper is holding a severed zombie head in front of her own. She’s gripping it by its hair with one hand and using her other hand to pull up and down on its beard to move its jaw, ventriloquizing it as she says, “I’m going for a new look! What do you think? Still want to have a big smooch?” Then she makes kissy sounds while pursing the unholy creature’s lips together with her fingers. The still-conscious head looks very agitated by the disrespectful treatment.

  I shove the head aside and Piper lets it fall to the ground, revealing the widest grin I’ve seen on her yet. This woman will be the death of me, I swear. There are times when it takes real restraint to keep from snatching her up off the ground and swinging her around in my arms. We both stand there smiling at each other for a second until the perfect moment we’re having is interrupted by a stampede of hoofs across the stone path leading into the glen. Six on horseback and one riderless horse in the middle, with the flag of Valencia flapping in the breeze from a pole held by the man in the lead. My soldiers, the country folk, and all the traveling townspeople are immediately aware of their presence. Everyone stops working to stare.

  The horses trample a few rotting limbs before halting in front of Piper and me. As soon as they’ve stopped, a man with a severe mustache and an even more severe expression introduces himself, “Princess Piperton, I am Admiral Richter. I have been dispatched with an urgent communication. I must speak to you in private.” He’s got a big red feather sticking out of the top of his helmet that’s definitely not standard-issue. He must really be someone important for no one to have told him how ridiculous it looks.

  Piper shoots a wary glance my way before crossing her arms and declaring, “Just tell me now. That’s an order.”

  He bows his head and respectfully states, “With all due respect, Your Highness, my orders come from the royal steward. And the steward orders discretion.”

  I tell her, “It’s alright. You go on ahead.”

  Richter addresses me next, “Are you Captain Darion Halstead?” I nod. “This concerns you as well. Where can we speak?”

  A few minutes later, we’ve commandeered a horse stable at the edge of the glen and the princess and I are both waiting to hear this urgent news of his. Piper is already distracted, giggling and cooing at a young colt as she runs her fingers through its mane. Richter explains, “King Leopold is dead. Your father, Prince Harikin, will ascend the throne in three days. You are to return immediately to begin preparations for his coronation.”

  Piper is still petting the horse but she isn’t giggling anymore. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this sad. I’ve seen her cry before. Many times. But this seems different. Like every bit of hope and optimism she ever had was just drained out of her.

  I ask the admiral, “How? How’d he die?”

  “Lungs gave out. Couldn’t take a breath by the end of it. That’s between us.”

  I motion back toward the glen. “But what about the work here? Our job’s not finished.”

  The admiral huffs, “Then finish it. I am only here to retrieve Princess Piperton and inform you of your new post in the King’s Royal Army. Upon your return you are to report to Commander Garrington to be given your new assignment. The Royal…Beast Brigade is officially disbanded.” He has to spit out the name of our group to get the taste off his tongue.

  Piper creases her brow at me, pleading with her eyes for me to do something, anything. But I know my place. She’s proper royalty now. And I’m being reduced to a common soldier. Surely punishment from her father for putting her in danger all these years by taking her on these adventures with me. Richter clears his throat and hurries her along, “Your Highness, we haven’t any time to waste. We must go.”

  She’s still looking at me. And all I can bring myself to say is, “Safe travels…Your Highness.”