The large bird stops above the cluster of trees that Shadow had been hiding in, and hovers in its spot. We watch, speechless, as it leans back in the air and beats its two wings forward. A heavy gust of wind rips through the trees; the trees bow backward, and the branches snap loudly.

I raise my cane as the giant crow casts its black, shining eyes toward the hilltop.

“Slow it down,” I tell William.

“Oh, thou invisible beings that dwell within all, slow the steps of all those before me.” He incants as he aims his clutched pendant skyward.

“Bombard my enemies, O’ thou servants of Gob, the magnomious.”

I incant as quickly as I can. I pull up more mana from my feet, and let it flow out the same way until I can wrap it around as many stones as they can find in the ground below larger than my curled fist. I release them all just as the waves of slowness neared.

The bird beats its wings and ascends. The waves float lazily by, and my stones sail in the distance, it turns on a dime, tucks its wings behind its back, and dives as fast as a bullet. As it neared the bottom of the dive, it turns again and extends its talons.

Monica darts forward; her steps finding purchase on the air.

“You that bind the All, guard me against those that would cause me harm.”

I cast a Repel on her before she meets with the creature’s extended talons. She dodges past them, however, and grabs hold of its leg. She pulls herself around and grabs hold of the feathers of the creature’s wings.

I raise my cane to help.

“No! Focus on protecting William and the hilltop. I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry!”

She tosses her other arm up and clutches a fistful of feathers and flesh. The bird screeches once again turns around on a dime and climbs higher and higher into the air; using its beak to peck back at the woman climbing up its giant wings. William’s eyes watch as it vanishes from view, and as Monica’s cutlass falls down to earth.

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William shakes his head and looks back to the horizon. The distant woods are laid low from the gust of wind. On the horizon were the marching silhouettes of countless Dogmen, rushing toward the hill. Why? What was their reason? It didn’t make sense from a strategic point of view. Was it a show of force? No. They wanted us dead, otherwise, they wouldn’t have brought this many with them. Perhaps it was as William said, and they were only very vengeful, or perhaps they knew that by killing us they’d weaken our world’s response significantly. With so few people chosen, and so many doors to close, the loss of three would be devastating.

Or...perhaps they knew something else? What if they knew that by killing humans in their doors they’d weaken the very existence of a god, or completely kill the spirits the person they kill is connected to? If that were the case, wouldn’t the doors be a kind of bait?

And their numbers must be infinitely vaster than we know. If this many creatures dwelled within a sub-30 door, then what about ones of higher levels? A 40? A 50? No wonder they had no qualms about losing a few lives to permanently cripple a world’s defense.

“...there’s a lot more than I thought,” William says as he walks over to the camera strapped to the top of the wall, and turns it on. “We don’t have to kill them all.” He wraps his pendant around his knuckles, “We just have to wait for Monica to be done with the bird, and then we retreat.”

"You have faith in her, then?"

"Of course I do. She's my sister." He responds with a smile; the chattering fear in his voice had chased away the monotony. "Besides, what other choice do we have?"

I nod. There has to be well over 500 of them, and only a 100-yard gap between the bottom of the hill and our little fort. The snaking path may have extended that by another 100 yards.

The dogmen's army stops before they reach the foot of the hill; about where the camp had been set up before. A pair of dogmen emerge from the still ranks dragging a chained prisoner with them: a gray catman with bright blue eyes about half of the dogmen’s size, like those that I had seen in the picture in the locket from my very first door.

A robed Dogman steps through the crowd and draws a dagger as the catman is forced to kneel.

“Are they....”

Before William could finish his thought the robed dogman drives the dagger through the top of the head of the catman at the point right between its ears. The catman’s body goes limp as its head nods down, and the robed dogman grabs hold of the hilt of the dagger to pull its head up as if to show us. The army stomps its feet and lets out loud howl after loud howl. The catman screams as it tries to pull free of the two dogmen that held its arms. How was it still alive? Perhaps that dagger was enchanted in such a manner as to not immediately kill whatever it stabbed.

Starting from the top of its head, where the dagger had first entered, the flesh and fur began to be burned away by some unknown magic. The catman thrashes and screams all the louder, only to be met with howling laughter and louder stomping.

“Sickening.”

I feel my stomach churn and an indescribable rage boil. I point my cane forward down the hill.

“I call upon Zeus; lord of Olympus, to lend me a bolt so that I might smite my enemy.”

That familiar energy flows through the crown of my head and shoots down my arm and out of the tip of the cane with such force that it knocks my arm back as a bolt of blue lightning shoots forward and slams into the chest of the dogman priest; still holding onto the hilt of the dagger.

The robed dogman’s body stiffens, as does the kneeling catman’s as the current passes through the former into the latter. As the robed one falls forward, the howling and stomping stop and there is a brief moment of stillness before a loud blast on a horn parts the ranks, and a line of archers emerge from the howling masses.