GETTING TO THE river was not so easy. Beyond the church lay a ruin-dotted hill. Ugly stones with corners and angles that could only have been fashioned by the hands of men jutted up from the coal-black slope like jagged teeth, though I could see no sane pattern to them. It was as if some madman had simply built to build, stacking stones to escape the devil. To cover the build a fortress that encased the whole hill.

Time had rendered splinters of whatever dream had passed here. The walls sagged in the middle, where they had not toppled entirely. The stubs of towers slouched over sheer drops to lower runs of the slope, and not a beam or buttress still stood of whatever roof might have once covered the hill. Only the church seemed intact. The rest was sinking back into the hill, or buried in piles of dull soot that gathered in deep drifts.

I caught a sense of the scale of this place. In the dark depths of the pit where I had awakened, I had only the fleeting glimpse of the winged horrors sweeping up into the blind sky above, but that was distant, muddled by my own confusion. Now I was awake, and girt with an iron sword, and the hard certainty of a purpose: reach the dark river. Cross it.

But beyond the church, beyond the decrepit hill, yawned a cavern that might have swallowed worlds. It was dark, but lines of glaring, livid magma traced tearful paths down the black walls of the cavern. They pooled in great sludging heaps that sloughed off to deeper parts still. Dark forms flitted through the dark air, carried aloft on stinking, sulfurous currents. The hill itself was part of a run of such slopes, and behind the church I glimpsed the titanic curve of a cavern wall. I leaned back to take it in, but it was impossible. The scale simply dwarfed my mortal comprehension. Up it went, and up. Far beyond, in some join cloaked in darkness, the wall became the ceiling. Great fangs of stone hung from the dark, and among these played twinkling yellow lights. I wondered if they were stars at first, but remembered then the anguish of this place. I clutched my heart with a hiss, betrayed at the false wonder.

Those were lights. Torches, or lanterns or some such. Things lived among the stalactites.

On the far side of the cavern, opposite where I now stood—a trek of many leagues, I marked—a city was built halfway up the wall. In the rippling distance, I could just make out towers of white stone there. I had no name for it, but seeing it, I knew it was that would be my destination. If there were answers to be had, it must be there.

I pushed through the cemetery that surrounded the church. Hundreds of gravestones ringed the old sanctuary, jutting up like jagged teeth in a broken grin. They were stained a dingy yellow by fathoms of time I could not guess, and though I paused to look at a few, I found no names I understood.

A great, warped tree stood by the gate. It was the first such thing I’d seen, but it was certainly no beauty. It was scorched black, and bore not a leaf or blossom. It looked to have been dead a very long time, though the tree still remembered some of its strength. Rope hung from the largest of its boughs: three in all, drifting in a hot and humid breeze.

I was nearly to the gate when I heard a voice. It was a small voice, a girl’s, singing a strange song:

The Baron’s dead

They took his head!

Iron and wing,

Some rope to bring!

I whirled, pointing the sword in the direction the voice had come. “Who speaks?”

“No one has a name here.” The voice shifted, and I turned to follow it.

“Show yourself! I have no interest in games.”

“Did the angel send you down to fight the Baron?”

I growled. “Come out, damn you!”

“You cannot see me?” The girl’s voice giggled. “I suppose no one has seen me in a very long time. I hid, long ago. So long, I’ve forgotten what that’s like.”

“What?”

“To be seen. I don’t know how, anymore.”

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I lowered the sword. This was nonsense. “Stay hidden, then. Who is the Baron?”

“You’ll see.” That made me grit my teeth. She clearly found that funny, and though her chiding giggles circled me, I could not see her, no matter how quickly I spun. “He might remember me. I remember him!”

I grit my teeth and left the voice, and the blackened tree, behind.

Climbing down the hill was simple enough. The flagstones that set the path were disrupted and uneven, but not entirely buried. They had that slick, organic look of a beetle’s carapace that I’d seen in the warrens below the church. I took them one at a time, eyes forward but ready for danger.

It was that innate caution that saved me. A low snarl was all the warning I got before a wolf leaped at me from behind a gravestone. I caught a flash of black fur and yellow fang as I wheeled, tearing my sword free, but a moment too late. It knocked the blade out of my hand and sent me stumbling. I caught myself on a gravestone, even as the beast leaped again. I threw myself to the ground and away from its ripping fangs. It slavered and snapped at me, but I scuttled away and snatched up my sword.

This time I was ready. When it leaped for me, I let instinct guide my hands. I stepped and thrust, plunging the iron deep into the wolf’s heart. It gnashed its teeth and ripped at me, but the sword was a wall of unyielding iron. Its bulk dragged the sword to the ground, and it gave a final kick.

A little light leaked out of it and sifted toward me.

Not a wolf, I saw. Something like a wolf, but a mockery. I remembered the strange, almost ethereal nobility of the mountain wolves, shifting like ghosts under autumn boughs and through snowy fields. This thing was barbaric, brutal. Its head was a low wedge, its muzzle short and broad. The shoulders were muscular, almost manlike in their breadth. Worst was its coat. Oily black, it was ragged, with scaly bald patches where mange had eaten away at the thing’s skin. White maggots writhed in open wounds, and then the smell hit me.

I reeled back, slinging my arm over my nose. “Gods above,” I cursed. Better to put that thing behind me, surely.

And then I saw what was waiting for me at the river.

I stopped on the last stretch of stairs, sword still in my fist, and though it shames me to admit it, I considered retreat. The serenity of Zeniel’s light was infinitely better than the repugnant butcher stalking up and down the stony shore by the dark waters.

It stopped and raised its tall, heavy head. Black horns jutted from its crude brow, and curled back around its head like some mockery of a crown. Red eyes glowed in deep sockets like baleful little embers. Its black lips drew down into a slavering sneer, and its nostrils flared as it took in great wet breaths.

“Sangkva,” it breathed, and that sneer became a ghoulish grin.

It turned to me. I swallowed, realizing that I’d lost the element of surprise. If I’d ever have it. Huge leather wings flared out to either side, and suddenly I got a true sense of how much larger it was. It dwarfed me, easily two and a half times as tall, and bound all in heavy corded muscle. A warrior, no doubt, bred for war and killing. Bred to wield the massive iron sword it now thrust out at me in naked challenge.

“You come to stand before the Baron of Elarm? You come to pay your blood tithe? Perhaps I was right to spare you at the pit!”

Whatever that meant, I didn’t like the sound of it. I drew my own sword, and said, “I came to kill you.” A fire was rising in me, a fierce, blinding fury at this thing’s repugnant arrogance. It was a torturer, a butcher, and it relished the pain it brought others.

The Baron laughed at my courage. And then heleaped into the air.

I was prepared for that. I knew he could fly. I dove to the side, rolling out of the way as the demon came down feet first, smashing the stones where I’d stood but a moment before.

“Sangkva! Let me drink your fire, little Cinderborn! The Baron has a great thirst.”

I ignored the Baron’s taunting and circled him. Big as he was, I was faster. I darted in and lashed out with my sword, aiming the slash at his leg.

I realized my mistake too late. The demon had lumbered purposely. That huge iron blade licked out and smashed my own. It broke on the instant, exploding into shards that flew up into my face. I shut my eyes as a wave of white fire lashed at my face. When I tried to open them, but I couldn’t; I was blind.

Laughter followed my wheeling, clumsy steps. I had to get away! Had to escape!

A hard corner of unforgiving stone caught my ankle, and I went down flailing. More pain, my knees and elbows.

“So little fire in you Cinderborn,” the demon rumbled, coming to stand over me. “Not like the ones who came before you. Little men, little dreams.”

I tried to wriggle back, but the Baron caught me by the ankle with fingers strong as iron, and dragged me back. I could feel his breath on my face, though I could not see him.

“Ah, you are a word of art, Sangkva! Your suffering, illumined by radiance.” The Baron sounded almost adoring, though his words were twisted and serpentine. “Your new death a constellation of blood. What will the next one be?”

“Silence, abomination!” I raged. I struck blindly with my sword, slashing at where the sound came from. It caught the edge of a horn, I think, but the demon snarled and drew back. “By the name of Beor, chief of the gods—!”

“He has no power here,” the Baron said, his thunderous voice silencing mine. “And the river calls.” I heard his blade whistle as it parted the air, and then—