A hand—a skeletal hand.

A greenish blue crackle of strange ground lightning blasted tracers across the field. In that light, Jarlaxle saw many more stones shifting, the ground churning.

I have found you, drow! the beast whispered in Jarlaxle’s thoughts. “Athrogate,” Jarlaxle called softly. “Awaken, good dwarf.” The dwarf snored, coughed, belched, and rolled to his side, his back to the drow.

Jarlaxle slipped a hand crossbow from the holster on his belt, expertly drawing back the string with his thumb as he moved. He focused on a particular type of bolt, blunted and heavy, and the magical pouch beside the holster dispensed it into his hand as he reached for it.

“Awaken, good dwarf,” the drow said again, never taking his gaze from the field. A skeletal arm grasped at the empty air near the low-leaning headstone.

When Athrogate did not reply, Jarlaxle leveled the hand crossbow and pulled the trigger.

“Hey, now, what’s the price o’ bacon!” the dwarf yelped as the bolt thumped him in the arse. He rolled over and scrambled like a tipped crab, but jumped to his feet. He began circling back and forth with short hops on bent legs, rubbing his wounded bum all the while.

“What do ye know, elf?” he asked at length.

“That you are indeed loud enough to wake the dead,” Jarlaxle replied, motioning over Athrogate’s shoulder toward the stone-strewn field. Athrogate leaped around.

“I see … dark,” he said. As he finished, not only did the moon break free of the clouds, but another strange lightning bolt arced over the field like a net of energy had been cast over it. In the flash, whole skeletons showed themselves, standing free of their graves and shambling toward the tree-lined ridge.

“Coming for us, I’m thinking!” Athrogate bellowed. “And they look a bit hungry. More than a bit! Bwahaha! Starved, I’d wager!”