A tale of vengeance, true love, and cannibalism Being born undead can have its disadvantages, such as eternal youth and flawless beauty ---things most unsuitable for a witch. Hiding behind the guise of a grimy old crone, the witch is content living outside Fort Stalwart with her unlikely band of allies: a troll named Gwurm, an enchanted broom, and a demonic duck named Newt. She leads a simple life filled with spells, potions, and the occasional curse. So when a White Knight arrives at Fort Stalwart, the witch knows her days of peace are at an end. The Knight is just days in front of a horde of ravenous goblings, and Fort Stalwart lies right in the horde's path. But the goblings are just the first wave of danger, and soon the witch and the Knight must combine forces on a perilous quest to stop a mad sorcerer from destroying the world. Filled with menace, monsters, and magic, A Nameless Witch is a properly witchly read by the award-winning author of Gil's All Fright Diner and In the Company of Ogres . “Fans of Douglas Adams will happily sink their teeth into this combo platter of raunchy laughs and ectoplasmic ecstasy.” ― Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Gil's All Fright Diner “[A] laugh-out-loud comic fantasy that should appeal to fans of Terry Brooks's Landover novels.” ― Library Journal on Gil's All Fright Diner “Delightfully droll, this comic romp will be a crowd-pleaser.” ― Booklist on Gil's All Fright Diner “Can a vampire find true love with a ghost? Can a teenage witch open the gates of Hell? Anything can happen in A. Lee Martinez's wacky debut.” ― Charlaine Harris, bestselling author of Dead to the World “Martinez's follow-up to Gil's All Fright Diner is as joyfully fast paced and funny. In the Company of Ogres tweaks fantasy clichés most excellently.” ― Booklist “Martinez's broad humor should appeal to fans of the late Douglas Adams and other contemporary authors of comic fantasy.” ― Library Journal on In the Company of Ogres A. Lee Martinez is the acclaimed author of several science fiction and fantasy novel including Gil's All Fright Diner , which won the Alex Award, In the Company of Ogres, A Nameless Witch, The Automatic Detective, and Too Many Curses, among others. Martinez lives in Texas. A Nameless Witch By Martinez, A. Lee Tor Books Copyright © 2007 Martinez, A. Lee All right reserved. ISBN: 9780765315489 Chapter One  I was born dead. Or, to be more accurate, undead. Not that there is much difference between the two. It’s just a matter of degrees really. When I say undead, I do not mean vampyre, ghoul, or graveyard fiend. There are many versions of unlife. These are only the most common. My state was far less debilitating. Bright lights bothered me to some noticeable degree, and I preferred my meat undercooked. Once reaching adulthood, I’d become ageless. Most means of mortal harm could not truly hurt me, and I possessed a smattering of unusual gifts not known among the living. Yet all these advantages came at a high price. Exactly how I came to be born undead is a long, complicated story not really worth telling in detail. It involves my great-great-great-great-grandfather, a renowned hero of the realm, and his conflict with a dark wizard. This wizard, his name is lost to history so I just call him “Nasty Larry” for convenience’ sake, had raised an army of orcish zombies to ravage the land. Now everyone knows orcs are terrible things, and zombies aren’t much fun either. Mix the two together and you get an evil greater than the sum of its parts. Naturally, a legion of heroes was assembled, and the requisite last stand against doomsday was fought and won by a hairsbreadth. My great-great-great-great-grandfather slew Nasty Larry, cleaving his head from his shoulders with one sweep of a mighty broadsword. Nasty Larry’s head rolled to his slayer’s feet and pronounced a terrible curse, as decapitated wizard’s heads are prone to do. “With my dying breath, I curse thee and thy bloodline. From now until the end of time, the sixth child of every generation shall be made a gruesome abomination. A twisted, horrible thing that shall shun the light and dwell in miserable darkness.” That bit of business finished, Nasty Larry died. According to legend, he melted into a puddle, the sky turned black, and—if one could believe such tales—the land within a hundred miles turned to inhospitable swamp. That was the end of Nasty Larry’s small, yet noteworthy, influence on my life. I often wondered why my parents chose to have a sixth child, being forewarned as they were. They had many excuses. The most common being, “We lost count.” Second common, and far more acceptable in my opinion, was, “Well, none of our family had ever had six, and we thought it might not have taken.” Perfectly reasonable. Not all curses grab hold, and one couldn’t live one’s life fretting over every utterance of every bodiless head one ran across. Being undead was not all that horrible