“You’ve got guts, sir.” Ace slapped Ned across the back.

Ned’s bad arm seized the goblin by his ear and tossed him into the bonehorn player. He hadn’t meant to do it, but his arm always got extra nasty when he drank. The patrons chuckled with much amusement. Ace dusted himself off and found a seat at the gravediggers’ table.

Ned swallowed another drink and wiped the sweat from his brow. The higher the fever, the better the stout. He ordered a steak, bloody rare. Nothing else agreed with a tall mug of doom stout.

A woman slid beside Ned. “So you’re our new commander.”

He glanced at her. She was pretty, not beautiful, with short, simple blond hair. She was vaguely familiar. Something about her stirred his animal lusts, and it was unusual for anything to stir his lusts so soon after rising from the dead. And a hearty stout never helped.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“No, sir.” She smiled. A dimple appeared on her left cheek. He knew her. He just couldn’t place where.

“Name’s Miriam, sir.” She ran her fingers up and down his bad arm. The limb warmed at her touch. “Can a lady buy you a drink?”

Across the room, Ralph dabbed at the blood on his chin. “Told’ja he was an asshole.”

“Yeah.” Ace puffed on his pipe with a grin. “I like him.”

Four

THE RED WOMAN HAD amassed a great many responsibilities over her years. Whereas men existed six or seven paltry decades, she just kept on living, gathering tasks like a shambling sludgebeast gathered flies until the poor creature must eventually smother under the weight of a billion insects. But the Red Woman didn’t smother easily, and when Never Dead Ned spoke of the peace of the grave, she understood more than she ever let on.

One of her tasks was the tending of a godling.