I didn’t get to see where my arrow landed. My bow clattered to the stone as I dropped it to shield my face. I twisted to the side, but the steps left little option other than to fall away from the ghoul barreling towards me.

Its outstretched claws hit first, shoving me into the wall while failing to pierce the chain. My head smacked against the stone, and we plunged down the stairs in a mess of limbs and yells.

The hollow tower swirled as I tumbled end over end with the ghoul, bones hitting the edge of the stairs and skin scraping on the harsh surface. We veered off the edge, my stomach lurching as we fell, and a flash of pain ignited from my shoulder to cloud my body and mind.

I pushed off the stone with one hand and had to look over to see why I could only use a single arm. The other, which had taken the brunt of the fall, hung limply at my side. The ghoul rose unsteadily several steps away, shaking off the fall as if it were nothing, and noticed the arrow in its shoulder. It stayed on all fours, possessing the longer snout and wet nose of the hunter variants.

I begged my lungs to take in air as my legs flailed, trying to find a foothold to push further away while the more agile creature closed the distance.

“Don’t,” I wheezed through gritted teeth. The ghoul ignored me, the mental attack not taking effect. I lashed out with my boot, catching the end of its nose. Besides a shake of the head, the kick didn’t dissuade the predator. Another ghoul crunched down beside us, having fallen on its neck from the landing above.

We stared at the twitching body, my lungs finally accepting my wish to breathe again. I raised my good arm and threw a weak blast of air at the distracted ghoul, doing nothing more than blowing back its few strands of dark hair. Its head slowly swung back to stare down at me, unnatural needle-like teeth dripping with saliva.

Shoving the mana through my battered arm wasn’t working, but I tried again. I threw a set of air blades at it, but without my claws and the same lack of mana, the blades didn’t leave a scratch. I kept my hand outstretched, resorting to new magic as I raised my foot to threaten a kick.

Mana churned in my chest, the clash making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Sparks of lightning arched across my chainmail and ran down my arm as I failed to contain the creation fully. It wasn’t mana anymore, which made the magic easier to redirect along my wounded arm. A pale yellow arch shot across the small gap between us with a tac as it connected with the ghoul’s shoulder.

It was more surprised by the attack than hurt, an angry purple mark added next to the arrow. It lashed out at my leg with its claws. I drew back and kicked out with the other, our struggle devolving into an aimless mess of attacks and blocks as it tried to get around or through my thick leather boots. My mana still clashed with itself, charging another attack. I held it longer until the ghoul drew back into position to pounce.

A denser bolt coalesced from my pointed finger and hit the ghoul in the eye. The squishy organ popped, and the creature recoiled. The room smelt like the cleaning supplies we used at the inn and melting mana circuits. I didn’t have the command of the element I wanted since a portion of the shock struck my arm, but the yelping ghoul sounded like it took the brunt. The pain cleared my mind enough to admit I wasn’t killing the creature with a magic I knew very little about—a magic that could do more harm to me.

The ghoul gave a strangled cry as it charged. I didn’t have a good affinity with the stone we were on, my arms and clothes getting in the way. However, it was good enough to make a gap where the ghoul’s paw landed, tripping it. The ghoul’s chin slammed into the stone. It would have recovered easily enough, except my heel slammed down into its skull.

I couldn’t lift my leg high enough to inflict any real damage without it getting up before the next hit, so I struck again and again. When it stopped flailing, I leaned forward to stab it in the neck with an arrow that had fallen nearby.

Everything hurt, and someone was still shouting in the distance, a different voice now. I got up and gathered my bow and a few arrows, my useless arm swaying at my side. I limped through the showroom, ignoring my previous plan of deactivating the protective enchantments on an artefact of my liking and left through the broken glass doorway.

A dust cloud rose up from a few streets over, and the roar of a building collapsing cut through the shouting and screams. I couldn’t shoot, I couldn't run, and I couldn’t cast anything of use. I would only get in the way of the fighting, but I had to see what was happening. I went back inside, past the growing pool of black blood and crumpled ghoul, back up the precarious steps of the stone tower.

I struggled up the last step to the top of the tower and looked out over the outskirts. “Oh...”

A ghoul, more sturdy and tall than average, stood in the middle of an intersection, wearing a breastplate spread thinly to cover its bulk and a helmet with small horns protruding from the top. The exposed limbs were pin-cushioned with arrows. It held up its arms to fend off a torrent of flames from Tometh’s spell and took a spear of ice on the breastplate.

A snare of mana wrapped around its leg and faded as the ghoul greedily pulled in the spell’s mana. It flung an armoured torso it held towards the ice mage out of sight, blood spraying across the dirt road. A mixture of commands and cries for help came from across the street, arrows continuing to rain down from the surrounding windows.

A mounted knight tried to distract it by riding just out of reach but misjudged. The horse continued on, but their rider took a fist to the chest, the chainmail not fending off the bludgeoning attack.

The beast ignored the renewed rain of attacks meant to dissuade it from finishing off the knight but flinched at the iron broadheads scarcely piercing its skin. A knight charged and swung a sword at its heel while it was preoccupied with yanking out an arrow shaft, the iron barb not coming with it. The sword connected with its ankle and stayed in the thick hide. The knight stumbled, not expecting the sudden halt to their momentum.

The ghoul pulled the sword out by the blade and slammed the hilt down as the knight rolled away, now lying on their back, staring up at the towering monster. There was no rousing the person trapped inside the ghoul from this distance, and if it were from the castle, being closer wouldn’t matter. The dismounted knight rolled on the ground in agony while the sword user dodged another attack.

With nothing else I could do to help, I put my fingers together and whistled, putting every effort and spec of mana into replicating how Instructor Daniels drew our attention during training. I expected to momentarily grab the mana-sensitive creature’s attention, enough for the knights to get to safety, but the result was more noticeable.

The knights and ghoul turned towards the tower as the whistle echoed down the street. The first warning that I had made a foolish move was a sword flying end over end at my tower. I ducked back from the window despite it landing nowhere near. The ghoul ignored its previous opponent and took a shortcut through a nearby gazebo, thatch flying into the streets as it charged through the wooden support beams.

I cradled my arm, the fear of never moving it again more potent than the incoming danger. The landing shook, and dust showered down as the ghoul hit the tower. I leaned into the wall for stability and triple-checked no entrance was big enough for it to fit through.

I peered over the landing’s edge to see sunlight streaming through a crack in the wall with debris scattered all around. A muscular arm reached inside to pry open a space wide enough for the body to fit. I went back to the window to check how far away the knights were from dealing with the problem I’d borrowed from them.

They were still far away, helping up or dragging away their wounded while those still standing cautiously stepped over the collapsed gazebo.

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I wanted to sit and wait for them. However, the ghoul was dismantling the stone blocks and old binding quicker than I had hoped. The narrow stairs could be an obstacle, or perhaps the tower would come crashing down before that became an issue for it.

I took inspiration from the ghoul, lined up where he would be below me, and turned the old cement holding the blocks in place to dust.

Three overlapping blocks stacked on top of each other separated from the rest of the structure, and I rammed my good shoulder into them. They didn’t budge till I started pouring mana into them, slowly tipping them over the edge.

Amongst the thuds of them crashing to the ground, there was a clang.

I leaned through the gap to find the ghoul slumped over, its arm still in the hole and a dent in its helmet. The armour was already repairing itself, and the ghoul looked to be recovering. I loosed the next set of stones and tipped them over, nudging them to land closer to the stunned creature. Most missed, but I landed several blows and further dented its armour or bloodied its arms.

Another two columns of blocks went over the edge before the knights approached. I’d dropped most of the tower’s side onto the ghoul, yet it still moved, pushing the stone off it and stumbling to its feet to escape the downpour. The knights were wary as they closed in, shouting for me to escape.

The ghoul dodged the first spell, so it impacted the foundation. The explosion rattled the structure, and the stone hanging above my opening fell without support. A second spell shoved the ghoul back into the tower.

Roof tiles slid down like a train to smash across the debris below. The tower lurched, and I stumbled down the steps to get out before it buried me. A support beam fell onto the stairs ahead, breaking them off from the wall and cutting off my path. The top of the building tipped to the side I’d weakened like a felled tree trunk.

As the tower fell apart, I hunched down on a step with an arm over my head.

I couldn’t open my eyes from the dust, and despite the rumble of the collapse subsiding, I didn’t feel like I was buried under a mountain of rock.

The stone walls around me were gone. Sunlight shone in from all sides, and a cold breeze blew through unimpeded. I was stuck on a lone island part way up the tower, with the steps around me crumpled.

Spell after spell tied together outside, from stone to air and esoteric elements I didn’t recognise. I sensed the ghoul was dead and wanted to scream at them not to collapse the rest of my bloody tower, but my lungs were too full of dust, and I doubted they’d hear me over the impacts.

Tometh called an end to the bombardment; others asked if it was really dead. Boots climbed over the stone debris surrounding the tower, and hooves trotted into the street.

“Valeria?”

“Yes?” I croaked, wondering how long my lone step would survive.

“Are you okay?”

It was an easy answer, yet I still struggled to say it. “No.”

Tometh stepped through the gap the ghoul and spells had made and looked up to my perch. “Do you need help getting down?”

“That’s a really stupid question,” I mumbled. “Please.”

Tometh’s next spell made him largely weightless, and he kicked off the tower’s sides to zig-zag up to me. “What happened to your arm?”

“I-I can’t move it,” I said, carefully cradling the appendage.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking over the other scrapes and bruises that marred my skin. “I should have never let you handle clearing buildings on your own.

I gave him a blank look and held back the tears behind my eyes. “I can’t move my arm. It’s not healing.”

He slid an arm under my knees and behind my back. “Let’s get you down first.”

I agonised over never being able to use my arm again. He wasn’t saying anything about it as we floated down, and I worried that meant there wasn’t a solution. My healing should have partially mended the problem by now. If that hadn’t worked, I had little hope for the mages here mending it.

Tometh placed me on my feet and took hold of my limp arm. “Okay 3…2…”

“What are you—”

Pop

A scream died in my throat as my arm went fuzzy, and the tears leaked out. I let out a long whine to expunge the cry, desperate to keep my arm still and not aggravate the fuzzy feeling.

“Dislocated, not something a spell is useful for. What happened?”

I touched the gash across my cheek from the ghoul in the bathroom and tested my ankle. Both hurt, but since my arm wasn’t permanently useless, I was less bothered by the state I was in. “I was fine up until the fighting outside distracted me. Is everyone okay—besides?”

“No… we lost two others last I saw.”

I stepped over blocks of stone while holding onto Tometh’s shoulder, through the gap and over the rubble covering the ghoul. Only its head was left exposed. Chewkls tugged off its helmet by the horns, making a face at the trail of black bile connecting the inside to the caved-in skull. She took it in her casting hand and dropped the helmet as if it had bitten her. “It's got a damn siphon curse on it.”

I raised an eyebrow and picked it up, stopping my mana from slipping out to feed its insatiable hunger. The helmet had been spread thin, and the twisted horns reduced to free up more metal for the size it needed to grow to, but I was sure it resembled a kudu since it reminded me of Alister’s mask.

“Same as your gauntlet?” Tometh asked.

“Mhm.”

“It’s not cursed Chewkls, just an outdated enchantment. See if you can get the chest plate.”

A captain I didn’t recognise came running up from the direction of the initial fight. She glanced behind her at every other step to check the streets around us. “Tometh, I need help collecting my people’s bodies and bringing the wounded back to the gates. Can you escort us?”

“We can.”

Over half of the female captain’s team was in bad shape. The knight who had taken a punch to the chest was slumped in a saddle with someone holding him up while they rode. Two bodies were strung over another, with the ripped torso and legs kept in a white sack quickly turning red. None of Tometh’s team looked injured, but Sennal and Chewkl’s horses were missing.

We doubled up on the remaining horses, Tometh giving me a hand to sit behind him. I kept the helmet in my lap, carefully keeping its gross contents contained until I could clean it out. We rode past where the fighting had been fiercest. The dirt street had been muddied by ice and water spells and darkened by blood splatters from the knights and ghouls. Deep gashes cut through the path, and homes were left open to the elements or in crumpled piles of rubble.

“What happened?” I asked quietly to avoid worsening the distraught looks on the knights around us.

Tometh shook his head. “Their squad was in disarray trying to fend it off when we arrived to help. They were ambushed or didn't realise what they were hunting until too late… Was the one that had your gauntlet as strong?”

“Stronger, maybe? But it had a hole in its chest from fighting another ghoul, so I can’t compare.”

The squad that stayed behind quickly opened the gate when we approached. Their shouts alerted the entire neighbourhood that something horrible had happened. People watched from the windows and gathered in the street to see the dead and injured being helped off the horses and brought inside for the healers. Sennal helped me down so I didn’t aggravate my ankle by jumping, but I was sure we would be riding back to our gate soon.

Several ghouls had been attracted by our quick ride back to the city and pressed against the gate. They were quickly dispatched but deepened the looks of concern of the inhabitants. The deaths of their knights at the hands of the horrors otherwise contained to the capital weren’t something they were accustomed to. Mercenary teams and looters occasionally disappeared inside the walls, but the remnant knights hardly lost personnel outside large expeditions.

“Are you coming with us to report to headquarters?” Tometh asked.

I turned around to check if the other captain was nearby. “You’re asking me?”

“Yes, you’ve fought these inner variants twice now. I’m sure you’re more qualified to answer the questions they will ask.”

“I don’t feel like answering questions, and I told you and the commander everything I knew already.”

“More importance will be placed on your testimony now that it's confirmed they’re real and they’re here. I’m not sure how our gates will hold up to an attack from one of them.”

I mumbled to myself about people needing to believe me but took his hand to get back on the horse. “Okay, but you’re explaining to the building owner that I had nothing to do with its destruction. It was fine before one of you hit it with a spell.”

“Right, the roof collapse had nothing to do with your creative use of the stone walls as ammunition?”