Dead men guarded the castle gate. They watched me approach with skull faces, the sockets of their eyes burning with witchlight. While they did not lower the pikes in their skeletal hands, the drawbridge remained raised as I stopped across the moat and ran my eyes over the battlements.

It was an impressive fortress. Not the largest I'd seen by far, but under the cold light of the Corpse Moon it looked a proper redoubt of dread, worthy of the heretical lord who waited within. The risen sentries watched me from every tower and window, their gazes as tangible to my senses as the moonlight.

The wind remained silent, so my red cloak hung limp to the trampled grass. I focused on the center of the castle, laced my breath with just enough aura to be heard even from afar, and spoke.

"I am here to accept the earl's challenge and deliver his doom. Open the way."

For a lasting minute there was just silence. I watched the guards from beneath the brim of my cowl, and they watched me. It struck me that they might just pelt me with arrows, but if I judged their master correctly…

And just when I thought I'd be ignored, heavy chains started to move and the drawbridge lowered to reveal the castle's tunnel. The portcullis lifted, opening the way.

I steeled myself and stepped forward.

More of the undead guards watched me as I moved through the castle's entry hall. While some wore the fresher garb of recently dead soldiery, some looked ancient and wore armor that'd seen action in long-ago wars. All bore the symbol of a curling sprig, the symbol of House Planter, but the newer ones also sported the image of a horned owl, the personal emblem of the current lord.

Eventually I passed through a doorway into the castle's audience chamber. It was expansive, more so than I would have guessed from the size of the keep. Lit by silver moonlight beaming through stained-glass windows and the orange flames of chandeliers above, the floor was a mosaic done in shades of blue and green.

I got a good look at the earldom's court. Most were undead, but not all. I focused my attention on the man who stood at the center of that ghoulish congregation.

The Earl of Strekke was not what I expected. For weeks I'd closed in on an ill-rumored scholar-warrior known both for his occult knowledge and martial aptitude alike. What I found was almost comical.

He'd fully arrayed himself in his accoutrements of war — a suit of armor fashioned into the likeness of an owl. The "eyes" of his helm — two circular depressions of darker metal with narrow slits in the center for the eyes beneath — seemed fixed in an expression of perplexed suspicion. Steel points meant to resemble the raised ears of a horned owl crowned the intricate helm.

The Owl of Strekke indeed. I'd not expected him to be so literal. Or so short. Perhaps it was the armor, but the man looked somewhat plump, the tall halberd in his gloved fist too tall for him.

"So!" The man's voice boomed through the hall, cracking off the walls in a boisterous volume inflected with a confident noblesse. "You are the infamous Headsman. Well, you're certainly a sight!"

Clad in a battered coat of iron chain mail black as pitch beneath a weathered red cloak with a pointed cowl, I suspected I was. Stepping forward, I inspected the scene more carefully before replying. An array of pale, ghost-eyed faces stared back at me. Many already displayed signs of rot, especially the soldiers, but some were more pristine in their reanimation. The newer ones also still bore marks of the plague that'd recently torn through this country. Men and women in the livery of servants stood beyond the uniformed guardsmen who ringed the central floor, their bloodless faces watching with the implacable stoicism of statues.

Even the earl's family watched, standing at the top of a short flight of steps before the throne. The earl's wife, recognizable by a noblewoman's funerary dress, clutched the shoulders of her son with near skeletal hands.

I focused on the boy. No older than twelve, he was one of only a handful in that room still among the living. I could see him trembling beneath his dead mother's grip even halfway across the chamber.

Just hold on. I directed the thought at him. I'll get you out of this.

I noted another figure who seemed to be among the living. A middle aged man dressed in charcoal gray robes like a mendicant, a rope belt tied about his waist. He watched me tentatively, a light in his eyes the rest of the ghoulish congregation didn't possess. The court clericon, I thought, or something like it.

I didn't have time to ponder that just then. Emery Planter stepped forward.

"I am glad to see you accepted my invitation, and did not feel the need to cleave through more of my subjects."

I'd been "cleaving" through his subjects for many days, trying to find a way into this castle or draw him out of it.

"I'll admit," I said, "I didn't expect you to just let me in."

The owl helm tilted. "I am no coward. If you wish to face me blade to blade, then I am happy to meet you! I hear you use an axe."

His voice came out slightly muffled through the helm, but something about the room's acoustics let me hear him clearly. It wasn't anything supernatural — it lacked the somewhat musical quality of aura.

"You have been given the Headsman's Doom, Emery Planter." I regarded him from beneath my cowl. "Let's be done with it."

I brushed aside my red cloak and revealed my axe. An uncarved branch of dark oak formed its handle, gnarled and covered in imperfections. The blade was a long crescent hooking back towards the branch, its metal a brassy alloy inlayed with bright patterns of gold.

Beneath his helm the earl's eyes widened. "Ah! There it is. That's Hithlenic bronze, if I'm not mistaken. Faerie Steel."

I showed him Faen Orgis, the Doomsman's Arm, then strode forward. Without another word, the necromancer moved to meet me. The layered plates of his armor clanked and clicked with every step. My coat of iron rings produced a softer rattle.

The undead guards all lifted their polearms in unison, lowered them, and stepped forward to close us into a ring of skull faces and sharp steel. No escape. I focused on the earl as my hand tightened on the axe's handle, the rough wood grating against my calloused fingers.

Emery began to rotate the halberd over his head. Air started to swish around it, producing an audible hum.

As we closed the halberd slashed through the air, its barbed hook seeking my neck. He was faster than I'd expected. I batted it aside, lunged forward, and then retreated again as the polearm stabbed at my ankles. A feint, perfectly executed.

He was good.

"What's the matter, Headsman?" The Owl of Strekke mocked me. "Not used to your victims fighting back?"

Now aware of his speed, I became more cautious. The earl seemed to dance despite the weight of his armor with an acrobat's grace as he and I circled one another, his halberd tracing mocking figure eights as he goaded me to press him.

I realized he wasn't just baiting me, but also pushing. When one of the dead soldiers almost took me through the back of my neck with a pike, I cursed and had to push forward against the nobleman's reach.

"Ho hoo!" The Earl laughed, shuffled forward, and then drove his weapon toward my midriff in a move that twisted his entire body. His armor, well made, allowed a full range of unrestricted motion. My armor took the blow, metal grinding against metal with a dull shriek, but it didn't stop me from losing my breath. I stumbled back, gasping for air.

Damn it. Now he knew.

"What's this?" Emery backed away, his eyes squinting within the slits of his helm to match the expression the visor seemed to be making. Honestly it resembled the face of a toad more than an owl, but I didn't have much time for artistic criticism just then.

"What's this?" The earl repeated, his brassy voice muffled by the helm. "Are you not the Headsman of Seydis, the one they call Blackbough!?"

I was exhausted. I'd been fighting for days already without sleep, chased through the hills by tireless riders who didn't need to rest, what breaks I'd found ruined by beastly phantoms released by the necromancer to hound me. He'd been ready, and his offer for a duel wasn't quite so gallant as it might seem.

"I thought you would provide me a challenge!" The earl lamented. "I went to all this trouble for you — sent out my knights, dusted off my armor, even invited you into my home to settle this man to man! And this is all you can do? I guess the rumors about you were drivel. And you took out old Orson? Perhaps not! Ho hoo!"

He had a bizarre laugh, like the hooting of an owl. It had to be an intentional affect, with that stupid armor. He even had his pauldrons shaped into an approximation of feathered wings.

I was losing to this man.

My gaze slid past my opponent to the figures standing before the ornate chairs where the earl and his lady would sit while holding court. I locked eyes with the boy there, frozen in the undead grip of his reanimated mother. His pale face stared back, his limbs stiffened with fear as though he too were dead. But he still very much lived.

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Did I see pleading in his eyes? Even hope?

I turned my full attention back on my opponent. Too much to ask that he fit the stereotype of a necromancer, I supposed — a dangerous but physically weak madman hiding away in a dungeon or tower, vulnerable once one broke through his ghoulish minions.

No, Emery Planter was a member of the peerage, a lord of an Urnic House and a warrior born and bred. As we fought, his halberd found more than chain mail. At this rate, he'd bleed me to death.

Perhaps sensing my growing weariness, the Earl pressed me harder. He drove me back to the edge of the ring of wights. I had to plant my feet and fend off his sweeping slashes and jabs in order to prevent myself from being impaled by the spears bristling at my back. The nobleman had the reach on me with his weapon and the distinct advantage garnered by his armor.

It had been foolish of me to fight him like this. Cocky. I'd believed I could win despite the handicaps, that once he was in my reach it would be good as done. My last target for execution hadn't been a soldier, and I'd expected something like that last to be waiting for me.

The Earl brought his polearm up high overhead, the steel mittens encasing his hands shifting with surprising dexterity, before cleaving down with his weapon's small blade. It descended like the bird of prey the knight meant to resemble, air whistling as it parted.

Cursing, I brought my left hand up and shaped my aura into a shield. In a flash of gold and gust of wind, a gently curved, intricately shaped barrier of amber light appeared several inches before my closed fist. The halberd slammed into it, causing pale plumes of flame to scatter like the sparks from an anvil.

"Ho hoo!" The Earl chuckled and stepped back, prodding at the shield as I gasped for breath, already sweating with the effort of maintaining it. "That's a pretty thing. Is that your Art?"

It was, but not my own. The aureshield was one of several techniques inherited from the Alder Table, a phantom manifestation of knights from bygone days imprinted into my aura. It wasn't my only technique.

I didn't see any reason to tell an enemy that, though. I shifted into a stance, holding the head of my axe back behind my waist in preparation for a swing. I kept the magical barrier up, the aureshield and my stance reminiscent of an ancient hoplite.

"I never managed to awaken a Soul Art of my own," the earl said musingly, twirling his halberd in thoughtful circles before him in an effort to goad me to attack. "I understand it is quite taxing to use them. Let us test it, shall we?"

He advanced with the speed and ferocity of a viper, nearly startling me into retreat. The halberd slashed at my shield again, causing more golden sparks to fly. Again the knight-necromancer attacked, stabbing with his versatile weapon's spearhead. I didn't step back or stumble — my own will formed the barrier, and it would remain fixed in place unless I chose to move it. Unlike a normal shield, the force of those attacks didn't carry through to me.

That isn't to say the shield was an infallible defense.

The earl struck again, and this time the amber barrier cracked. The webbing fractures began to eat across the subtly glowing construct like a cancer, bits flecking away to dissipate like the mirage it resembled. I'd already grown cold with the effort of maintaining it. I suppressed a shiver as the warmth of my spirit, my very life, poured out into the aegis. Against magic and magical creatures the aureshield could be nearly impervious. Against more mundane attacks it was little better than glass.

So when the earl noted this and lunged forward in a savage attack — not at me, but in an attempt to shatter my Art and let me suffer the backlash of a broken construct — I dismissed the shield and sidestepped the thrust. The Earl stumbled forward, off balance, and I took my axe in two hands and chopped with a quick, economical movement that nonetheless carried tremendous force behind it.

The earl's right vambrace crumpled beneath my axe's blade. The bone beneath broke. The necromancer let out a sharp cry and fell to one knee, stunned by pain. Before he could recover, I slammed a boot down on his weapon to pin it to the floor and swung again, catching him in the side of his ridiculous helm with an echoing clang!

The lord went to the ground hard, losing his hold on the halberd. I kicked it away and glared around at the onlookers, believing that to be the moment they would all attack at once.

They didn't. The faces, the dead ones and the few still living, watched in grim silence. The castle's lady watched through a nearly opaque veil, the ghostly white eyes beneath the only visible aspect of her face. Her son looked ready to weep, or perhaps vomit. Would they use him as a hostage now?

Would it stop me? My mind flashed back to a novice priest I'd refused to kill earlier that year. I'd frozen then, and it nearly cost me my life and forced me to kill several others.

Putting it from my mind, I turned my attention back to Emery. He dazedly got to his knees. The stylized visor of his helm had deformed, the sharp beak beneath the "eyes" bent to one side so it almost looked like a childish drawing of what it meant to resemble. Blood had begun to drip out of the holes made for breathing. I'd broken his nose.

"Emery Planter," I said while catching my breath. "You abused the souls of the dead for your own ends. You spat on the authority of the Lords of Draubard and blasphemed against the Onsolain while waging unsanctioned war against your fellow humans. Your days of conspiring with Recusants and terrorizing innocents are over. It's time to—"

The doom was not as polished or eloquent as the one I'd used on Leonis Chancer, ended prematurely when the earl's tinny voice emerged from the damaged mask of his helm. "What? That's not at all true!"

I paused, more frustrated at being interrupted than taken aback. Lord Emery started getting to his feet, then collapsed again. He let out a muffled cry and cradled his broken wrist.

Footsteps pattered across the cold floor of the castle hall. I tensed and turned, expecting one of the wights to rush me.

It was the earl's wife. Clad in the same gown she'd likely worn at her funeral, concealed by dark veils and billowing skirts, she moved with quiet speed to her widower's side and knelt there, clutching at one of his pauldrons. Her son remained with other attendants near the throne, frozen and pale.

Emery used his one good hand to work at the catch at his helm. He managed to get the visor up, revealing a round, aged face with thick whiskers and bristling eyebrows all gone to gray. "I did all of this to protect my lands. Kill me on behalf of your masters if you will, Headsman, I have earned my tenure in Hell. But do not falsify my charges! I have called up spirits from the Underworld, yes, and bound them into flesh, bone, and stone as the great necromancers of old. But I have not allied myself with Recusants, nor have I oppressed my subjects!"

I glanced around at the pale eyed guards, trying to make the gesture one of amazement. Emery scowled. "I will not justify myself to you, assassin. Take my head. You have bested me, and I will honor the terms of our engagement. But I will not be slandered."

Nobles. I wanted to spit. On the brink of death, after months of black magic and horror, he would spend his last moments worried about whether I insulted him.

I'd had enough of this. I began to advance, taking my axe in both hands.

"No."

The word came as a dry whisper, the sound of a late autumn wind through dead branches. I paused and turned to the undead noblewoman. She had spoken. The dead face beneath the veil turned to me, eyes nearly shining through the barrier of cloth.

"It's alright." The earl patted his reanimated wife's withered hand. "It's alright, beloved. We knew this may be the price of our little rebellion, eh?"

I frowned at his words. I knew the undead, in any variety, were never mindless puppets even under the geas of a necromancer. They were spirits, the remnants of will and memory created when mortal flesh expired and left an impression of itself behind, burned like a scorch mark into reality. A necromancer could bind these shadow souls to something physical, then compel them through ritual or leverage, the manner of the manipulation varying wildly. More often than not a poor or incautious necromancer was killed or even enslaved by the very beings they sought to use.

The dead are dangerous. There was a reason the Church was strict in regulating it, besides the moral implications.

Putting such thoughts out of my mind I advanced, preparing myself for the killing blow. The veiled wight stood and stepped between me and her necromantic master, perhaps compelled by some lingering echo of her feelings from life or by his will. Likely both.

I couldn't say. I would have cut her down — she was already dead, and it would release her soul to return to her own kinds' lands — but I felt something then. A tension in the air. The undead guards didn't move, didn't so much as blink, but I felt their attentions fix on me more sharply than they had before, almost as though they were all waking at once from a half-sleep.

Frustrated and a bit disturbed, I shoved the wight out of the way. She wasn't any heavier than she'd been alive, perhaps much less so, and she went to the ground in a sprawl of fine silks. I tensed, but no attack came.

I stood above the earl, who glared at me defiantly.

"I have honored the terms of our duel," the nobleman said, spitting blood. It was running down his broken nose in bubbling gushes, and his teeth were red as he bared them at me. "Now I ask you recall some modicum of honor. Spare my family. They have done you no wrong."

I hadn't been tasked with destroying the restless souls here, only killing their master. I had no plans to purge this place, knowing there were other powers responsible for corralling the dead. But he didn't need to know that.

"Once you're dead," I said, "they'll return to their realm. The Law of Draubard—"

"Dictates that the dead must leave the lands of the living once the conditions of their errantry are fulfilled or face reprisal from their own, yes I know."

The earl spat bloody phlegm onto the beautifully carved stone of his great hall. "But these had no conditions on their return. I only opened the door. They are escapees. They will be punished if you send them back. So please."

He took a ragged breath, the fight having done worse to him in his old age than he'd let on while masked. "Please let them be."

I stared at the man, dumbfounded. Of all the stupid, irresponsible, dangerous things he might have done, calling up the dead with no stipulations had to be among the most severely foolish. I glanced nervously around at the desiccated faces watching me, sensing again that dire attention from before. The soldiers clutched their weapons with purpose, watching me with an eerie, perfect stillness.

Nothing would stop them from tearing me to pieces. Not the earl, not the enigmatic laws of the Underworld, not anything.

I turned back to Emery. "You're a goring idiot," I said.

The earl laughed his weird laugh again, though it seemed half-hearted. "Yes. But I don't owe you my story, butcher. Be done with it. I'll face my punishment soon."

I glanced again at the man's reanimated wife. She still knelt on the floor where I'd shoved her, skirts spread around as though she were rising from an island of fine silks. Her eyes were on her husband, not on me.

Maybe I should have heard the man's story. Maybe, in another life, we might have even been allies. I thought many times on that night later, unsure if I made the right choice. Perhaps I would have made a different one later, as the man I would eventually become.

But I was the Headsman then, and had my duty. Emery Planter, the necromancer, the Recusant, had endangered many lives regardless of his reasons. His ghoulish court was a mockery, I believed.

I made many excuses, then and later. But in that moment, I just didn't want to believe I had a choice. So I killed him.

It happened without much drama. I took my stance above him and slightly to the side, just as I'd done at the cathedral in Vinhithe. Just as that faraway executioner in a rain soaked square had executed the knight whose name I'd never learned.

The earl removed his helmet and bared his neck obligingly. My axe came down. Cutting off someone's head isn't easy. Even a good blade can foul on bone. But I am no ordinary warrior, and my blessings and elven bronze did their work. It was clean and quick as I could make it.

The head rolled to a stop next to the kneeling lady. She picked up her husband's head, cradling it with near skeletal hands in her lap, even adjusting his gray hair. Then, without a word, the dead woman looked to her son.

I followed her gaze and saw the boy staring at the decapitated corpse of his mad father. His pale, haggard face twisted with some emotion I couldn't name. Mixed grief and relief, I thought. The nightmare had ended.

I would have to drive the dead out, perhaps take him out of here if I couldn't fight them all. No clue what I'd do after. I hadn't realized I'd decided to save the boy until that moment.

He looked at the corpse of his predecessor for a long moment. He glanced at the monk standing near his side, who seemed to nod. The young lord took a deep breath, a calm settling over his shoulders.

Then he turned eyes hardened with rage and grief on me. "Kill him."

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