All around me the sounds of groans and chattering teeth echoed off the stone walls, filling the castle's great hall. This should have been the safest place to hold them off: the biggest enclosed area in Fortuna's School for the Magically-Gifted provided plenty of room for the four of us to maneuver while putting down the zombie horde that invaded the school grounds. Instead the zombies continued pouring into the room, more dead bodies than I thought possible.
"Every time we put one down, another replaces it. They just keep coming," said Liza as she released a wave of electricity that seized the muscles of a handful of zombies, stopping them in their tracks.
Falko brought his axe down onto the skull of one, and torched another with flames from his free hand. "It just means we're in for a long night," he said with a smirk. I couldn't help but admire his optimism, no matter how misplaced it may be in our situation. I crushed the skull of another zombie with my staff when Falko called out to me. "Hey Henry, can your healing magic help us out at all against these zombies? You know, healing magic vs necromancy."
I shook my head. "That's not how it works. There's other types of light magic that could work directly against zombies but not what I'm in training for."
"What if you, I don't know, try bringing them back to life or something?" said Isabella as she froze the ground in front of her. The zombies directly in front of her lost their footing and slipped, more than one cracking a skull open on the floor.
"Oh, you mean necromancy, the magic being used to try to kill us? I'm training as a Healer. The best I could do would be to heal you all but I'll need some time and space. I could heal the zombies we're fighting but that seems counter-intuitive to our mission."
"Sounds like you're pretty useless right now," retorted Falko, pushing me aside and bathing a dozen or so zombies in fire.
I stumbled a bit but luckily stayed atop the table which I'd been standing. Swinging my staff, I knocked a zombie aside, though not hard enough to put it down for good. "We need to figure out a new strategy," I said.
"We could try the Detect Dark Magic spell? If we can find the necromancer resurrecting the zombies, we can break the curse," suggested Liza, changing tactics and sending a bolt of lightning through the head of an approaching zombie, and whatever else happened to be behind it.
"There's not enough time to set up the spell, or concentrate long enough to track the necromancer. Not with these zombies all over the place," I replied, placing two hands on Isabella and healing the scratch on her leg.
"We could run, find someplace to hide until The Council arrives with reinforcements, or at least full wizards," said Isabella, waving a hand and flinging a wide arc of ice knives through the air. A couple of them found the skulls of decayed bodies. One of them drove itself into the chest of a teacher, newly resurrected into a mindless zombie.
"We already locked the rest of the school into the dorms and classrooms. If we can't keep the necromancer's attention, then he'll just send the horde to breaking down doors. We stay and fight," said Falko letting out another stream of fire.
"Both!" I shouted, pushing a zombie into Falko's flames. "We could do both! Hide and fight. I just need to find a particular hidden room in the castle. The upperclass healers talk about it, the Gambit. It's a secret weapon used against an overwhelming enemy in relentless pursuit of killing your party. It's how we'll get out of this." I grabbed Falko by the cloak and gave it a tug, hoping if I could get him on-board the other two would follow. I got about twenty feet before risking a look back, but sure enough, all three were running right behind me.
We sprinted out of the great hall and wove our way through the castle corridors and hallways, the undead pursuing right behind us. The other three did their best to slow them down or pick them off when they got the chance. Meanwhile, I scanned each path looking for the right hallway. We needed the Gambit, we couldn't keep running nor could we stop to fight. Even if we found someplace to hole-up and strike from a protected location, they'd eventually overrun us, especially in this enclosed castle. What we needed was the Gambit. And, we needed bait.
Finally I got to a corridor that looked promising. This will have to do, I thought. I stood at the turn, motioning Isabella and Liza around the corner. "It's one of those bricks in the wall at the end of the corridor. Find the ones that move and we can re-arrange them to access the secret room." They'd gotten about halfway down the hall when Falko turned the corner, bringing up the rear.
I grabbed Falko with both hands, letting my staff clatter to the stone floor, and twisted him around. His back hit the wall hard, all that momentum knocking some of the wind out of his lungs. A knee driven up between his legs knocked out the rest. With two hands on his head, I slammed the side of it against the cold-stone wall. I pulled a short, thick pin from a pocket in my cloak and jabbed it through his earlobe. Though I'd already prepared for it, I still needed to catch myself from instinctively numbing the pain I was feeling between my legs. It isn't my pain, I thought touching the pin's twin in my own ear. I threw Falko to the ground about ten feet into the corridor. Retrieving my staff, I ran down to the dead-end.
"Turn around! Turn around now!" I shouted shoving passed the other two and putting my back against the wall.
"Where's Falko?" asked Isabella, turning to see Falko lying on the floor.
"What about the secret passageway, and the Gambit?" asked Liza, looking from me to the wall.
I shook my head to both of their answers. "There is no passageway. I needed a dead-end into which we could funnel the zombies. As for Falko, he can't join us since he's our bait. The Gambit isn't a weapon, you understand, it's a strategy. This is the Gambit."
"That's insane," said Isabella, taking a step towards Falko before I grabbed her by the wrist. "We have to help him."
I shook my head. "As I said, this is our only option." Pointing to the twin of the pin I'd stuck in Falko in my own ear, I said, "I've linked us. Any pain, injury, wound he feels, I'll feel too. I can heal myself but I'm not good enough to do it under intense pressure. As long as we're bound, I'll know exactly how he's hurt and can keep him alive, healing him from here through the link."
"And Falko is the bait. Live bait," said Liza looking at me with grim understanding in her eyes as the first of the zombies came around the corner. I just nodded. Liza pushed me back to the wall and pulled Isabella with her. "Come on, we're on guard duty."
Isabella didn't go quietly though, pulling back against Liza. "And you just chose Falko because he told you that you're useless? Or is it just because he's a guy?"
I nodded. "Yeah, because he's a guy. I'm just a 2nd year, and the Gambit is about healing speed. I won't need to focus on the differences in anatomy." Also, not wanting to say it aloud, but I didn't think I'd be able to concentrate as well hearing Isabella or Liza's screams versus Falko's. And there would be a lot of screaming based on what I'd already seen the zombies do to my classmates.
"If you could also do your best not to hit Falko, that would make my job a little easier," I said as the other two positioned themselves just ahead of me and to either side of the corridor. I lay myself on the floor, arms and legs spread, putting all of my focus into feeling Falko's body. It would happen anytime now. I took a deep breath and focused on healing the concussion, and, unfortunately for Falko, for what was to come.
"Here they come," I heard Liza say as the sound of crackling energy filled my ears and I felt my own hair as well as Falko's stand on end. The temperature dropped and a shiver went through my spine as Isabella also readied her power. No going back now, I thought, bracing myself for the phantom pain while Falko groggily awoke.
Pressure as hands tightened on Falko's wrist startled me, but I ignored it. That would simply leave bruises, and numbing Falko's pain would defeat the purpose of all this. Besides, in a second things were going to get much worse. Instead I put focus into suppressing Falko's access to his fire magics. I could feel his confusion as he reached for his power but found it unobtainable. My muscles seized as a sudden dose of electricity got dumped into Falko's body but again it wasn't a concern. Then it truly began and I went to work.
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