During the winter of the year, RETARIUS travels to Africa to investigate the rebel Malaros the Corinthian. He gets permission from SEVERUS SECUNDUS to land behind the rebel lines, and discovers an army of zombies hiding in the shadow of a tree. They aren't hiding from the Romans; they are hiding from the sun. Retarius' Belgae kill them one by one, after defeating the mortal who was tasked to convey the army of zombies here.
Apparently they walk all night then lie up under shelter until the next night, each zombie horde being led by a single minion of Malaros. The minion, under questioning, admits that Malaros is Molasar, the undead sorceror we encountered under the Temple of Elemental Evil, and again in the Frozen North. He was last seen eaten by a colossal purple worm, but apparently, someone COULD survive that fate, irrespective of what it seemed at the time.
Retarius and company travel by boat to the origin of the zombie trail, where they discover an ancient, ruined temple in the desert, guarded by many zombies. Fortunately, as the zombies attack, a Roman legion arrives! Yes, JUNIUS received a letter from SEVERUS SECUNDUS, and brought the entire Legio XX to Africa, and just in the nick of time!
The boss here, we're told, is LAZLO, a wight from Molasar's homeland of Dacia. VESUVIUS takes Lazlo on face-to-face, and does all right, but Lazlo has a whole acre of skeletons and Frankensteinian abominations to throw at him. Eventually Vesuvius has to retreat.
The army defeats the zombies. ROSA flies over the temple, distributing holy salt, and seeing Lazlo, takes him out with a sun-bead arrow in the face. But inside the temple, a deeper darkness is stirring, rising like an ashy fume to cover the temple's interior.
As BJERN is transformed into a fire bear, RETARIUS and EDELWEISS rush the temple from the other side. They enter, where Edelweiss' glowing sword reveals a winged man in leather coat, armed with a cast-iron skull and a book of dead names -- Molasar himself!
"We meet again, play-soldier!" Molasar ought to have said.
"Yes, for the last time, dead man," Retarius should have responded.
And then the blades are flying! Molasar cuts Retarius, a little, but Edelweiss shield-slams him back over an ancient altar. Retarius pins Molasar's bat-wing to the stone, and even Molasar's eruption of black doom magic doesn't stop his nemeses.
Molasar rolls, ripping his own wing off, and faces his foes, now with a sword in each hand. Edelweiss and Retarius have each cut him seriously, but he seems not to mind.
And all around the temple, the ground shudders, collapsing into sinkholes from which purple worms snake hungrily into the world above!
"The worm did not kill me ... but I did learn a few things," Molasar says.
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