GNASHER WAS THE key. I knew it then, and I clutched to that thought for all I was worth. It was the first thing I thought when I gasped awake on the altar beside the white altar. Zeniel still knelt in graceful rest. Her stone features seemed worried to me. Perhaps she feared I would not succeed.

But I had no doubt. The Baron had given me what I needed.

I just needed the woman to work with me. She had attacked him, in her own way, and failed. Alone, we were too weak. Together we might overcome him.

It wasn’t a sword that would win this fight. That much I sensed immediately. The Baron was too large, too strong, to be done in by my own meager strength. At least not yet.

From the bowl I drew another thread of radiance, warming myself, shoring up my strength. I could feel there was less of it there, for the flow was more hesitant. I took as much as I thought I could bear to lose, if this went poorly, and no more. Then I set about the church, searching for a rope.

I found one slung to a cleat fixed to the wall. It was little more than yolk of iron, but it held up an old, rough rope that in turn supported a wooden chandelier. Like the church, it was fairly plain, but the stubs of dozens of large candles were fitted to the rim of the thing. I lowered it down slowly, and it came to rest behind the altar. The rope I cut free from the chandelier, pacing out its measure. It would be enough.

Something in me thrilled to the labor. The hunter, setting up his blind, the builder assembling his contraption. It wasn’t jus the Baron’s strength I had to remove from the equation. It was the wings, too.

I worked in the churchyard quickly, but warily. That blasted dog had a way of sneaking up on me, and I couldn’t afford that. I pushed over several of the gravestones beside the edge of the cliff. Dark waters roiled below among jagged-looking rocks. The drop was thirty, perhaps forty measures. It would have to do, I thought. I stacked the gravestones and tied the rope around them with as tight a knot as I could secure.

“Not very brave.” It was a haggard voice, as dry as it was ragged. I didn’t turn. I knew I wouldn’t see her, whoever she was.

“Does it have to be?”

She cackled. “No, it doesn’t. You’re fighting the devil. Or a lesser abomination, perhaps.”

“Did he kill your daughter?”

She was silent for a long time. I stared out over the cliff, over the serpentine belly of the dark river, towards the white-towered city high on the far wall. It felt like I’d never get there at this rate. How weak I was, how small. This place was so large it might have held the whole world!

“He burned my grandmother, and hanged my mother. I was but a child. I hid in the fields as his men took what they pleased, and broke what was left. The screaming,” she said, her voice trailing off into a low moan. “It is men who are the true devils.”

“He called you a witch,” I said.

“The Baron’s cruelty made me turn to the shadows. I sought the powers to slay him.”

“Did you?”

Again, the quiet. “I don’t remember. Do you remember much?”

“No,” I said. “Nothing.”

“Perhaps it is for the best.” I sensed she was trying to comfort me, but it did not ease my troubled heart. “I spoke to a girl. And a woman. Are you—?”

She interrupted with a dangerous edge. “Do you think you can kill him? Do not promise a witch that which you cannot deliver, Cinderborn. Dead I may be, but I know some curses yet.”

I nodded somberly. “I can do it. But I need your help.”

She agreed without question. She knew where to find the dog, too, for her ash had blown all across the hill. It was her body, in some way: this grim memory of a churchyard in Elarm. As I put the finishing touches on my contraption, I learned of her withering over long, isolated years, of her heartbreak at watching Elarm broken before her very eyes, and of the bitter pacts sealed by dark rites with powers she feared. And most of all, her thirst to water the earth with the Baron’s blood.

When at last it was done, a large noose hung from the blackened tree by the gate. I stood, looking at it. Praying to gods that could not hear me that my plan would work.

“A last thing,” I said to the breeze that stirred through the gravestones like a whisper through broken teeth. Ash shifted lazily. “Where is the dog?”

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THE HEAD HIT the stairs with a single, solid thump. Matted, mangy black fur ended in a radiant stump. Gnasher’s ugly, hateful eyes stared emptily out at the beach, and its mouth lolled open to bare fangs made for nothing but murder. My sword glowed, slick with the creature’s vile, stinking blood.

Out on the beach, his feet nearly in the lightless water, the Baron stiffened. He turned slowly, but I was already moving, running back up the churchyard. Heading for the gate.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Sangkva!” he screamed, and the force of his wrath shook the very hill. I heard the sweep of his wings as I tore through the gate. I turned, bringing my sword up into a careful guard.

He came down out of the dark above like a murderous bolt. I staggered under the force of his impact, but I kept my feet. I was prepared for this.

He stood at his full height, straightening his massive shoulders. His muscular frame was terrifying, for I knew he had the strength in one hand to crush the life out of me. His sword rose for a killing strike, even as his eyes flared like pools of bright blood. Black lips bared his ugly, twisted teeth, and the greasy furt hat lined his neck and shoulders seemed to stand on end. His wings flared behind him, as if eager to blow me away.

“You’re trapped here, too,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the hammering of my heart, or smell the sweat that made the hilt of my sword feel so slippery. He was near the tree, but not near enough.

The huge iron blade slowed. “Trapped?” he snarled.

“You don’t go into the water. You can’t even fly across it, can you? Trapped here, with only the city to look at!”

“Silence!” he raged.

“Cursed,” I shouted. I shifted aside, and he followed, foot for foot. Pace for pace. His eyes burned with murder, but I didn’t let my fear show. “You’re cursed to this little place. A king of nothing!”

“You speak of that which you do not know, little worm! A hundred times have I feasted on your, blood, Sangkva, and a thousand times more! I will gorge myself on your soul until only a glimmer remains, Cinderborn, and that I will keep in my fist, to squeeze and mock when I see fit!”

“She got you. The witch.”

“I killed her! Burned her at the stake! Bound her with chains of starlight!”

“And she trapped you, too. You aren’t the Baron of Elarm. You’re a prisoner is a doorless cell! There is no escape for you!”

It shrieked and raged at me, chopping with the huge sword. I dove out of the way, under the flailing attacks and forced him to come a little closer to the tree. It shifted with a rising wind.

“Does the truth burn, demon?” I sneered, throwing myself flat under another strike. He wheeled and tried to stomp, but I thrust myself aside—barely. I couldn’t play this game much longer without being smashed or cut to pieces. Yet I thrilled to it; my blood sang. I felt alive again, even as he bared down on me.

“Worm! Arrogant insect! I should have thrown you into the pit when first you awakened!”

The wind suddenly drove, whipping ashes up into the Baron’s eyes. It screamed with all the outrage of the old witch, buffeting the abomination and driving him back a step. He roared and threw his sword aside, trying to rub the ashes out. The noose, caught up in the wind, settled over his head, but the rope caught on one of his horns.

I lunged in, sensing how perilous it was. I slashed with my sword, laying open his leg in a cut as long as my hand. Radiance burst out, and the baron swatted blindly. He caught me in the chest, sending me flying. I hit the ground five or six paces away.

“You hanged my mother!” the voiceless witch shrieked. “You butchered all the boys in Baniken!”

“Rebels!” he answered with a fiery snarl. “Thieves! Elarm was mine!”

No time to be stunned. I blinked through the sudden pain, the wheeling confusion, and rolled to the side. THe noose was around his neck, but he hadn’t noticed it yet. He was half-tied up in the rope, too: in his staggering outrage, he’d managed to catch it on his horns and wing.

I wasted no more time. I ran for the stacked headstones, tied all together with the rope. This was it.

A branch I’d pulled from the burned tree lay under the stack. A simple lever; I could only pray that it didn’t break as I hauled upwards, tipping the stones over the edge. I threw a glance over my shoulder, to be sure of what I was doing. An ash-laced wind was circling him now, blinding him, but the Baron fought, clawing at the wind. He struck the tree, and the witch cried out in pain and alarm. It began to tip, broken by the might of his blow.

I hauled with all the strength in my body, and then some. I poured the warmth of the radiance in my blood into that, forcing the stack of stones up and over. All the world faded, shut out in that singular, proving moment.

It tipped slowly, and then vanished all at once, dropping out of sight. There was the snaking whisper of the rope being jerked across the ground, running taught in an instant. The Baron was jerked to the side, clean off his feet. One wing flapped, but the other was smashed to his body. He clawed and screamed like a wildcat as he was dragged toward the cliff. In his wake, I heard the shrill, insane laughter of the ashen witch.

“No!” he roared, but it was futile. The Baron flashed past me, and over the edge. I watched as he plummeted after the toppled headstones. A hand clawed upwards, perhaps for the very gods he had once turned his back on. Then he struck the jagged rocks below, and the dark waters swallowed him.

Fearing he would break his bonds and escape somehow, I backed up, keeping my sword raised, holding my breath.

A thread of light rose like a wisp of smoke. It surged into my Cindermark, so much fire that at first, I felt like I might burst. I gasped, clutching my chest, expecting it to be smoldering. But it wasn’t, and the shock of the warmth began to fade. The knotwork, vining petal above the Cindermark was steaming slightly.

I dropped the sword and ran for the blackened burnt tree. The Baron had knocked it aside, and it lay in pieces where the scorched wood had simply given way. Beside it lay the Baron’s huge iron sword.

I knelt, filled with a sudden grief. Or perhaps just the shock at having survived. A wave of cold washed over me, and I bowed my head. I caught sight of something silver glimmering there among the black broken spars of the tree: a sphere of dull mercury.

“A gift for keeping your word,” she said. “I hit it in my heart for many, many years.”

I brushed soot away from the silver tear and picked it up carefully. “Thank you,” I said. It lay in my palms, as light as a feather. With every tremble of my shoulders and hands, the surface rippled.

Distantly, I caught another scrap of the old woman’s voice: “The Baron’s dead.” It had a mirth to it, almost child-like.

“They took his head,” I answered.

“Ah,” she said, sadness filling her fading voice. “You remembered. Thank you, Cinderborn. Thank you for letting my ashes rest.”