We'd been played. Every step of the way. From the moment we reached Avalon, that orange bastard had been leading us around by the nose. Sure, we killed the Wendigo. Even murked the pink idiot with superspeed. It didn't matter. Their plan went off without a hitch. Buttchug would be on earth in moments, if he wasn't here already.

I should've been pissed. Or terrified. Or something. Mostly I was just tired. So what if we were chumps? The guy could see the future. I'd seen what a prophet could do. With Finder backing us, we'd beaten the Grey Knight and escaped a goddamned cosmic horror. He hadn't even gotten involved directly. He'd changed our fates, the fate of the world, with nothing but a few well placed texts. The Orange Knight had stepped in directly. This Roderick I kept hearing about might have been the leader, but it was the Orange Knight who made the plans, and it had been him that had kicked our asses just now.

If we were going to win, the orange bastard had to die. The problem was, I didn't think we could kill him. How do you kill a man who can see the future? He knew what we were going to do before we did. It didn't help that he was a badass. He'd taken all four of us head on, and he'd come out on top. Or at least, kept us from killing him while he bought time. Hell, just leaving that stupid note had bought him an extra minute. That last thought jolted me into motion.

"Fuck! Go!" I didn't bother to elaborate, sprinting for the front of the keep for the second time today. God, I was tired of running. I didn't want to deal with this. I wanted to go home. Not that I had a home to go back to. Damn it.

The other Knights fell in behind me. We rounded the corner and I made straight for the gate. the gate was big. Twenty feet high. Solid wood. There were Revenants standing above it. I ignored them. They were somebody else's problem. My problem was the door. I drew Solais.

Movement caught my eye. It was the Revenants. Ignoring them had been a mistake. I looked up in time to see a halberd descending. One of the undead fucks had jumped off the wall. It was gonna slam the weapon down on me with all it's strength plus the force of a thirty foot drop.

I made a panicked swing. Solais went through the halberd like it wasn't there. Unfortunately, slicing the weapon in half didn't change it's trajectory. The head of the weapon still slammed into my skull. It just did so with less force than it would have. The helmet helped, but the impact nearly dropped me anyway. The Revenant crashed into me half a heartbeat later. It knocked me back, but by some miracle I stayed upright. I reset my footing and shoved the thing off me. I sensed a flicker of motion above me, but I didn't bother to look. I threw myself back, barely avoiding a hammer strike from a second falling Revenant.

I rolled away, careful not to cut myself in half with my own sword. The other Revenants were jumping down. I didn't take the time to count, but it looked like there were twenty or so. Mike knocked away one of the dead men who'd been rushing me. Gave me the time to get to my feet. I started swearing. We should have hit the gate first, instead of trying to sneak around. If I'd known we were going to have to fight every single dead villager anyway...

No. I couldn't thing that way. A pair of Revenants closed in. I waved Solais around like it was a magic wand, reducing the things into quivering chunks. It had been a solid plan. Not my fault they had a guy that could see the future. Besides, there was no time for recriminations. Seconds mattered. I hustled back to the gate, slicing and dicing anything that got in my way. The Red Knight followed, keeping the undead off my back.

The door covering the gate was solid. Over a foot thick. It didn't matter. A few swings of Solais and a section fell away. Plenty of room to walk through. Or at least it would have been, if the stupid slab of wood hadn't fallen up against the portcullis behind the door. With a frustrated growl I hacked it to pieces and kicked it out of the way.

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The portcullis was next. It was made of big metal bars. Iron, most likely. Solais severed them as effortlessly as it had severed everything else. Behind me, Mike plugged the opening to the door, keeping the Revenants out until William and Patrick could finish them off. It wouldn't take much longer, but I didn't have time to wait.

I turned invisible. Silent. It probably wouldn't do me any good, but it made me feel better. I stepped through the hole I'd made and into the Courtyard. There was a pile of loose dirt to my right. Probably how they'd snuffed the fire Mike had stuck to the Orange Prophet.

The courtyard was smaller than I'd expected. The keep had been a pretty big structure, squat and wide, but the courtyard itself was about half the size of a football field. Torches lined the walls, though it wasn't quite dark enough yet to need them. Nearly every inch of it had been covered with sigils and squiggly lines. The lines radiated out from a trio of circles in the courtyard's center. The circles overlapped each other, like a venn diagram. In the center of the diagram, on what appeared to be an old timey kitchen table, was the Lady in Tweed.

She was alive. I could tell that much. She was tied up like a Christmas turkey, and there was a gag in her mouth. I wasn't close enough to see her expression, but from the way she struggled against her bonds I assumed she was furious.

In the center of each circle was a Knight. A Brown Knight, a Purple Knight, and a Black Knight. They were kneeling, their swords sunk into the earth in front of them. They were silent. Still. Waiting. More importantly they weren't Orange.

"Like I said." the Voice spun me around. The Orange Prophet was leaning against the wall, about ten feet to the left. "You're too late."

I didn't bother with a retort. I rushed him, slashing wildly. The Orange Knight casually danced out of the way of the first two, then darted in and caught my wrist when I went for a third. "Don't be stupid." The prick hadn't even bothered to draw his sword.

I dropped the silence and invisibility. It hadn't been doing me any good, and I wanted to make sure the asshole could hear me. "I'm gonna fucking kill you," I spat.

"No you're not." He spoke with absolute certainty. "The ritual's done. Can't be stopped, now. We've only got a minute before the Devourer gets here. If we're fighting when he shows up, we all die."

"Might be worth it," Mike remarked, coming up behind me. "I'll come find you in hell."

"That's not where we'd go, dipshit." the Orange Knight told him. "He's the God of Hunger. Souls are his favorite food."

"Why are you telling us this?" Patrick asked the question. "Ain't you on his side?"

The Orange Knight shook his head. "I'm in this because Roderick had something I needed. I did a job for him, and the job's done. I'm not a believer."

That got the wheels turning in my head. "You didn't answer the question. Why are you telling us? What's the plan?"

"No plan," the Prophet admitted. He shook his head. "Can't see what happens next."

"Yeah," Mike's sword burst into flames. "Then how'd you know everyone dies if we fight you?"

"I didn't know shit," the Orange Bastard told him. "It was just the right thing to say." He pointed. "Doors open."

We all looked. The air rippled about ten feet past the venn diagram. A red line traced itself down to the ground. The line widened, revealing swirls of darkness and red light.

The Orange Knight drew his sword. He dropped down to one knee, and planted the blade in the ground in front of him. "Ten seconds. I'd be kneeling, if I were you."

I shared a look with the other Knights. I thought about trying to stab the bastard again. He'd probably see it coming. "Fuck it." I knelt next to the Prophet, and slid Solais into the dirt. "Element of surprise, right?"

The other three knelt. Mike had just enough time to whisper, "You're a dead man when this is over." Then the hole in reality finished opening. Red and black light bathed the courtyard in a hellish glare. A dark figure walked into view. It stood for a moment, taking in the view from the other side. It was bigger than a man, but not as big as the Wendigo had been. Eight feet, maybe nine. The thing held a spear as tall as he was.

The world stilled. The light breeze that had been rustling leaves since we arrived on the island died. Perfect, utter silence reined. It was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. It sped up, pounding in my ears. I realized I was holding my breath. Everyone was. The dark silhouette stepped through the rent in reality. The red and black lights faded, as the portal closed behind him. The God of Hunger had arrived.