Amo counted seven Watch soldiers, plus Nymir and a half-masked man that Amo had picked out as the spymaster of the garrison. Amo counted themself, Sgathaich, and Sethian Skin against them. But a second later, Amo had to amend that count. Not just because two green-adorned soldiers wailed enough for twice as many men as they grasped at their heads and kicked in futility against the darkness that had ensnared them, but because of the thing that had caught them. The limbs that emerged from behind the wallpanels were long, rigid, sparsely-furred, and each unfurling from a dozen knobby joints like huge spider legs strung end to end. The sharp ends of the limbs impaled the men through their cheeks, jaws, and shoulders, seeming to deliberately avoid vital areas. This thing – this creature – wanted them alive and aware as it lifted them up, as more limbs emerged from the concealed places where fine red and purple silk were hung. It passed them from one limb to the next, baring their writhing, struggling bodies to the center of the ceiling where wood opened like scales to reveal some shadowy briar of pincers and fangs that bit down, piercing armor and skin and bone.

This hungry creature that had gone uncounted until that moment: Amo knew right away what it was. Sethian Skin had already spoken of it at length. Its name was Maniaque, and it wanted these men alive while it at them. After just a moment, it dropped one of the men dead in the center of the room, headless, empty of fluid, marrow sucked from bone.

“Amo!” Sethian Skin shouted. “Quickly! The Maniaque’s not one to take its time with its meals!”

Paling, Amo looked up at the hat that hid the dark man’s face. “But I…” As much as Amo wanted to strip the metal from these trespassers, Amo was distracting by the cutting pain of the metal manacles on their own wrists.

Sethian Skin’s head tilted. Beneath his head, his lips scowled deeply. “I told you not to bring metal here, Amo. If you end up dead, you’ve broken our bargain. I’ll have to seek someone to inherit your penalties. Maybe her.” He pointed to Sgathaich.

The very tall woman half-turned and looked down at Amo. “You made a deal with the Sethian Skin? Amo, you know better than that!”

A few of the Watch soldiers let out fearful shouts and gave into their prey instinct. One vainly tried to hide under a table, easily snatched out by one of the dozens of great limbs reaching from the walls. He spun and struggled in the lamplight, pulling a knife from his belt, but the Maniaque saw this and encircled him so tightly with a limb that the man’s arms snapped against his ribs.

Another Watch soldier spun to the door. But day had risen, and the door was not meant to be open during the day. When he opened the door, the city was not there. Whatever he saw made him stagger back and collapse. The door swung shut. He lay still. The Maniaque’s limbs stabbed him through a leg to pick him up, but he didn’t react. He was already dead. The Maniaque tossed him aside in disappointment.

Their numbers down by half, the soldiers shot a few crossbow bolts into the open wallpanels or swung swords at the reaching limbs; the Maniaque offered not even a groan or a drop of ichor in return. In the center of it all, Nymir stood paralyzed in terror until he caught sight of Amo in the corner of his eyes. He stared, wide eyes empty, as Sgathaich turned Amo around and prised her long fingers against the manacles on Amo’s arms. Finalizing Amo’s escape, Nymir thought. Finalizing that Amo of all people will outlive me. Panic, paranoia, and bitterness collided inside Nymir’s hurt, and he spat the word, “Cabal.” Then, bellowing, “A cabal! A cabal of dark sorcery! An evil I missed til now, I’ll not let it stand! I’ll not let it outlive me!”

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Amo looked up at the shout, quickly straightened and shouldered Sgathaich out of the way before Nymir dove with an outstretched dagger. Barely avoiding the blade themself, Amo staggered away and shouted through their teeth. “Nymir, you fuck. Put that knife down and get all your metal off or this place will kill you!”

“Or maybe this ends when I kill you!” Nymir lunged at Amo again, so focused on them that he’d ignored Sgathaich.

It was easy for the woman to lift one taloned foot, grab Nymir’s head, and slam him hard against the floor. As she leaned her significant weight on the man, she said, “Listen to my dear Amo. They’re trying to save you, which is better than you deserve.”

* * *

Steel-Eyes Mirian had seen enough horrors in his lifetime that he’d developed a completely separate set of instincts to deal with them. From the fonts of boiling blood in the mountains of Redwatch, to rogue necromancies in the crypts of Arin, to the brain-eating parasites of the deepest woods of the Laines, to body-collecting cannibals in the Aldalneld Writhe: Steel-Eyes Mirian, spymaster of Gray Watch, had survived unthinkable things. It had changed him. His name, yes – with leather masking the right side of his head, they now called him Half-Face – but also his mind. He’d learned the first step in surviving the unthinkable is to quietly recede and discern the rules. While the Watch soldiers screamed and died, Half-Face Mirian had heard the man in black speak of metal and earth, and had watched the opened door shock a man dead.

Kneeling amid the fine clothes that circled the room, Mirian divested himself of armor and gear, emptied his pockets, and hesitated before removing the half-mask. Its metal buckles would cost him his life, but his fingers trembled when he tried to take it off. Shameful cowardice: he had to face his scars, but what the Helldancer had done to him was still so…

When he took the mask off and the air touched his wounds, the feeling of fire on his face returned. The otherworldly pain seared through his very bones, making him feel skeletal. But he focused on the pain, tried to turn it into strength, to make it sharpen him.

If that defector Nymir weren’t such a fool, he might’ve grown into a formidable person. He had the right idea – this ends when you kill the right person – but it wasn’t the southlander spy that needed to die. It was the man in black who should die first. Clearly an unnatural creature, he’d share the weaknesses of his place of power. Mirian stay concealed behind the hung clothes as he moved around the room, letting the sound of wailing and struggle conceal his approach. When he was near enough, he darted out toward one of his fallen soldiers, intent on the dead man’s weapons. The tall beast and the spy were busy with Nymir.

The man in black marked Mirian’s movement, turned and tracked him with a killer instinct. This must be an ancient creature that knew a hunter when it saw one, a being with horrible power all its own. With his one eye, Mirian could watch either the man in black or the weapons he reached for. Glimpsing only the begging of a horrible, hideous movement across the dark man’s body and outstretched arm, Mirian fixed his eye on the weapon he sought: a crossbow and an iron bolt. He fell on it in a roll, nocking the bolt as he landed prone and took aim.

His eye went wide at the sight of unfurling flesh. This man in black was not a man at all. The shape of the creature unwove like a dense shroud from the bones it wore, a polished skeleton that wilted limply. A strange envelope of black meat opened up to show uncountable needles and bright red veins inside. Meanwhile, above it, the ceiling had opened to dozens of clattering, furred knuckles, like a hundred thousand-limbed insects laid across the rafters, while beneath it the bird-like woman pinned Nymir and the southland spy strained their wrists to the point of breaking in a bid to escape their manacles at all costs.