A PALL HUNG over the Wolf’s camp. It was as dingy as I remembered, with its high timber fences and the squat, crumbling tower at the heart. Narrow fingers of gray smoke, underlit by the meager cookfires within, were the only signs of life. The gates were sealed, and no one was on the narrow road that led back into the heart of the Forest of the Children. It might have been abandoned.

Except.

Except I could feel that pulling, like the hand of fate at my back. Crouched in the undergrowth with Anaeel at my heels, I watched for what felt like hours. At some point, dim fires on the stalactites that hung far, far above us began to glimmer, as if waking from slumber. Long had it been since I noticed those lights. My eyes had been cast down, toward more pressing threats.

And beyond those lights, on the far wall of the cavern, lay Ulstassi. The white city on the cliff: my true aim. Harald was just an obstacle to be removed.

I stood and strode out of the weeds, the Ghoul-King’s black sword on my shoulder. Bloodfang hung on my back, roused and ready to be used.

I smell blood, it hummed into the back of my mind. Godsblood and men’s blood, seeped into the soil.

“More soon,” I said. I cast a glance over my shoulder. I could seen Anaeel’s eyes shining like a cat’s in the darkness. Hunched in shadow, I could make out the stump of her wings pressing up out of her back. Damaged and broken, yet still beautiful. And fierce. I had fed much of my radiance to the Bowl of Belit: certainly plenty to keep the stone curse at bay. She held the bowl carefully on her knees, but the dark blood hardly seemed to move.

“Walk boldly, Cinderborn,” Anaeel told me. “Meet strength with strength.”

“And fire with fire,” I said, nodding. It was good advice. An echo of something I had once heard. Although Anaeel had not the grace, or the kindness of her sister Zeniel, I could see the trust in her eyes. She trusted me to overcome the dark task that lay ahead. And I trusted her to pull me back, if I failed.

I left her there, far enough from the timber gates of the Wolf’s compound that she was unlikely to catch any unwanted attention, and stolled up to the wooden gates. I saw no sentries, so I raised my voice to a shout: “Open!”

Maddeningly, no one answered. I didn’t even hear the muted shuffle of feet on the ramparts. I repeated my command to no avail.

Well. That left me in a bind. The radiance was hot in my blood yet, a full glow brought on by consuming strength of the Ghoul-King and his minion priests. I knew I could use it to fire my own muscles, to find strength beyond my own. What I used here, though, I would lose. I would be a measure weaker when it came time to face Harald. To save Param, and stop the sickening madness that went on within those walls.

I thrust my shoulder into the door and pushed, testing the door myself. When it did not budge, I let a little radiance burn, driving my feet into the dead ground, and pushing for all I was worth. The door strained, but I could feel a crossbeam within it. I let it go and rested my forehead on the rough timbers. No good pushing. I could even Harald, or the Baron, could have made a difference.

No. Another approach was needed. I backed up and surveyed the walls. They were not well made, laid out haphazardly. The only attention to construction seemed to be that the timbers fit together. Walking about the compound, I found no gaps—nor did I hear anything from within.

But I did notice an area where the top of the rampart was lower. Low enough that maybe…

I backed up enough to give myself a running start. I admit, decrepit as I was, speed was not among my strengths. But I let the radiance glow, and felt the Cindermark on my chest warm as my blood began to run, singing with strength. I focused it downward, into my legs, and leanded into the sprint.

At the last second, I pushed, kicking free of the ground in a frenzied jump that sent me flailing through the air. For a second, I felt the sickening pit of free-fall, so much like the ever-present void of hellish isolation, until I collided full speed with the wall. The only thing that stopped me from toppling a dozen feed to the ground was my single free hand. It grasped the ragged upper corner of one of the timber boards. I dangled, barely holding on.

There was nothing to do about it. I threw the black greatsword over the top, praying I drew no more attention than necessary. Then I grabbed at the timber with my newly freed hand, and kicked my way up, finding purchase wherever I could with my hob-nailed boots. In a flash I was up and over. I rolled over the top of the wall and fell gracelessly onto the rampart walkway with a heavy, ugly thud.

Though my shoulders and arms ached fiercely, I forced myself up. I snatched up the ugly black sword into a low defensive guard, anticipating an attack.

But no attack came.

In fact, nothing moved in the camp at all. Between the wall and the inner stone wall that circled the squat tower, nothing moved but the drifting of cookfire smoke.

I knelt, feeling an instinct deeper than skin to get out of sight. Whatever that was, I didn’t question it. Crouching on the rampart behind some crates, I surveyed the Wolf’s camp. As my eyes adjusted to the smoky gloom, I began to notice odd shapes strewn around: bodies, stretched out and unmoving.

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Death was littered between the tents. Not just the bodies of men, but of creatures. Huge birds, their oily black feathers glistening in the low firelight, dried blood staining their razor-sharp beaks. I recognized them with a growing horror: the Deacon’s murderous crows. They lay in droves, stuck through with spear and sword, wings and heads as hacked and brutalized as the men that lay dead around them.

“Gods above,” I swore, wondering what had happened here.

Battle, snarled Bloodfang. Slaughter and mayhem. The currency of Hell. We linger at our peril!

That was probably true, but it did not budge me. I waited until I was certain that nothing was stirring below, and only then crept toward a ladder I spied along the rampart. That let me down to the ground, and from there I moved as steathily as I could toward the gate.

This place stinks of fresh blood, Bloodfang snarled. This letting was recent. Hours, perhaps.

Several of the dead were gathered about the foot of the gate, along with one of the crow-demons. It was nearly the size of a horse, I thought, with a wing span three times my own height. Its head was a sleed, murderous thing. Its claws were longer than my fingers, and finely made for shredding flesh.

I set the Ghoul-King’s sword aside and got to work dragging the bodies out of the way. The violence was frank and awful; the Wolf’s footmen had fought to the last breath. Yet, there was a spark of radiance in them yet. Not dead, then. But nearly so.

“Will they return?” I asked, my voice an alien sound amongst the harsh silence.

The wheel turns, grinding until the last sparks go out. They are not Cinderborn, though. Long will they lie decaying and dormant. Strike them now, the wolf said, and you can seize what little remains.

I stared at the man I had just dragged aside. His wiry beard hid a mouth shattered beyond use. His nose had withered, and one of his eyes was torn out. The good eye stared sightlessly at the dark ceiling far above. Helpless. Lost. His soul drifting somewhere out there in the dark, circling the abyss.

In the end, I chose not to. I did not abhor death, or the dealing of it. But it seemed uncouth to send them to the abyss without cause. Perhaps it would have been the merciful thing to do—to deliver them to the great sleep of oblivion—but I had no conflict with Harald’s gathered men.

Their suffering rests at your feet, then, Bloodfang murmured as I moved to the crossbeam that barred the camp’s gate.

“So be it,” I said. What was one more sin on my brow? Was I not already in Hell? Were my gods not dead, and all I knew turned to bitter ash?

The crossbeam was little more than a tree trimmed to fit in its broad brackets. Moving it was nearly out of the question—without the warmth and life of radiance. I let it burn, driving my heels once again into the ground, and felt with grim satisfaction the creak and protest of the wood as it rose slowly. I gave a last push and felt the beam come free. It crashed to the ground with nothing like subtlety, so loud and heavy it shivered the very ground.

Nothing moved. The outer camp was well and truly dead, I thought, hauling at the gate until I had it open enough to pass through easily.

That left the inner camp. I moved tent by tent, unwilling to drop my vigilance. But even closer to the stone curtain wall, all I found were the bloody signs of battle. I could not tell whether the defenders had won or lost; crows and men lay sprawled about everywhere I looked.

I froze when I caught sight of a tent smoldering where a crow had fallen into it, knocking the whole thing into one of the cookfires. One man was sitting beside the crow, another man’s helmeted head in his lap. He rocked over the head, though I did not know where the rest of the body was. He did not see me as I passed by.

The stone gate lay open. I moved up to it with surprise and suspicion. Peering through, I saw more death: crows and swordsmen. Arrows jutted up from the ground like deadly sprouts, and the soil was a slick churn for all the blood it had taken.

A weak, mewling whine came from the foot of the tower. Through the gloom I saw a figure crouched over one of the crows. The crow kicked lamely, one wing half-rising in a defensive flap. But the fight had left it; it was little more than a death-throe.

“Debaucher,” I heard, the voice thin and deathly weak. “King of curs! I curse you!”

I recognized that voice with a shock. The Deacon. The smug, twisted lord of the crows that lay all around me. He was trapped under Harald’s greater bulk. Harald the Wolf raised his huge head, throwing it back to laugh at the sky. It was a terrible, mocking sound. Radiance smeared his feral features. Then his maw plunged back town to the Deacon’s throat.

The crow-thing gave a final kick, and died under the terrible snapping of the Wolf’s jaws.

My heart hammered in my veins. The radiance I held rose to the challenge before me, warming my veins.

“Harald!” I cried, stepping through the gate. “I have come to challenge you!”

I saw his back tense in recognition. Then, slowly, the Wolf stood, tossing the dead Deacon aside. Eight feet I marked, perhaps more, of pure muscle. He wore only a ragged pair of trousers, baring his chest and the three glaring Cindermarks that mapped his chest. Three, I thought. Three mortal wounds.

“Ah, little brother,” Harald said. “You return so soon? And radiant! Good!” he bellowed. “I have a god’s thirst!”

Blasphemer! Bloodfang raged into the back of my mind. Perhaps the words escaped my teeth, for Harald’s eyes narrowed.

“Blasphemer?” he said, holding his hands out wide. The light of his Cindermarks painted the muscles in garish oranges. “This is no place for gods or truth. Only blood and strength!”

I hefted the Ghoul-King’s ugly sword. “You’re a mad dog,” I said. “And I’ve come to put you down.”

Harald crouched, a grin splitting his brutal features. His eyes glowed with the radiance he held, as bright as a wildfire.

“You want my head? Come and take it.”