In a way, fighting the Rot felt like sparring with his old master-at-arms, in that there was no way to predict where the madly swinging branches would strike next. But really, it wasn’t like fighting a human at all – twigs could snap at the soldiers from every direction, and vines covered the immediate surroundings of where the trunk touched the wall like tripwires. At least one unlucky soldier fell and was dragged off the parapet before he even had time to scream. David couldn’t see what happened to him afterwards, and he was a little glad about that.

Unlike the trunk and larger limbs, the smaller branches moved as fast as coiled snakes. David cursed and barely parried another thrust, which forced him to back away. Already, there was a deserted half-circle around the trunk. The silvertip of his spear was barely enough to block the next thrust, and for hurting the giant, it was entirely useless.

David wished he had a shield instead – it would have been equally useless in hurting the Rot, but better for blocking, which might have allowed him to use his torch more effectively.

The Rot had clearly realized that the torches posed the bigger danger, too. David yelled in surprise when the next volley of spindly fingers snapped towards him, and rather than trying to gore him, they wrapped around his torch and ripped it out of his hand – not just his, either. For a second, the decaying tree looked like some grotesque candelabra. The torches flared once, then guttered, and extinguished as soon as they touched the dark cloud shrouding the human sacrifices. As if they had been dropped in water.

“Shit,” David whispered.

An avalanche of creepers was already scrambling over the crest onto the now almost dark section of the parapet. Fenn at his side barked sharply, a sound that quickly turned into a whinny as the tide threatened to overwhelm even the elder. David swung his spear, half-blind, and once again struggling to move at all. There was a ringing in his ears and someone was screaming – it might have been him.

There was light in the shadows, though, literal light: Calder was racing their way, and behind him came Oli, Daisy, Henry, and Marc, the latter limping as fast as his bad leg allowed and swinging a torch in each hand. He was bringing up the rear, David realized, Calder the front, while the other three kids were handing out new torches from the baskets they carried as fast as they could.

“The Morgulon’s taken to the western wall!” Marc screamed, face white and terrified and gleeful. “Lady deLande said to tell you!”

“Thanks,” David gave back. “Find a supply officer and ask for axes! Bring them here, if there are any! Shields, too!”

He was glad to see the kids weren’t actively fighting. He should never have told George Louis to drag them into this mess, but it was too late for that.

“Rally to the wolves!” he yelled, hoping that the soldiers could even hear him.

He glanced after the kids, to make sure they would get off the walls all right. The Rot used his distraction, and a whip-fast bramble stabbed a man right next to him, backhanding David across the chest hard enough that he almost tumbled down into the courtyard. He hit his head, too. Before he could stagger back onto his feet, vines wrapped around his arms and dragged him towards the closest Rot-tree. Long thorns pierced his leather jacket.

The pull on his limbs abruptly cut off, and someone grabbed him by the collar instead, dragging him to his feet.

“No sleeping on the job, old man!” Nathan yelled at him. He had neither a torch nor a spear, but instead a long, mean-looking cutlass with a serrated edge like a saw. He swatted the next volley of twigs down, somehow managed to step on them, and cut them off, as if he had done so all his life.

“Focus, brother!” he yelled when he noticed David’s staring. “This ugly bastard really needs a hair-cut!”

David nodded and blocked a bramble-vine, which was reaching to trip up Nathan, with his torch. If they didn’t get some explosives fast, a haircut was all the harm they would inflict on the monster in front of them. For the moment, it looked like they were at least holding their own, but werewolves and humans would tire. The Rot did not.

He was so focused on the fight, he almost burned Marc, who had snuck up on him.

“Axes!” the kid screamed excitedly.

David cursed and shouldered him out of the way of a larger branch. The Rot had to be able to smell the werewolves, or something.

“Good job,” he gasped. “Now get clear!”

Somebody grabbed the axe Marc was offering. David spun around and saw Alvin, who hefted the tool nervously. The kid walked right to the edge of the deserted half circle around the place where the tree touched the walls. Before David could figure out what he planned, the young werewolf charged forwards, right at the huge trunk.

“That crazy –“

David didn’t get any further, because Nathan had already jumped after the kid, right into the most deadly thicket of branches. David cursed and ran in after them.

“Aren’t generals supposed to stay somewhere safe?”

Nathan had the gall to grin at him as he slashed with his cutlass in wild arcs to protect himself and Alvin, who was already taking the axe to the trunk.

David dropped his spear, which was useless in this jungle, and pulled his silver knife instead. He wished it was longer.

“I’ve kept you alive for nearly a decade hunting werewolves! You really think I’ll let all that effort go to waste just because the Rot’s growing a little big this year?”

He should have known better than to try and banter during a fight. As a reward, he was nearly knocked over by a branch, thick as his arm, that swept the parapet and smashed into his shins. He buried his knife in it and brought the torch down, too. The branch squirmed and tried to retreat.

Behind him and Nathan, Alvin swung his axe with all his might, ignoring the danger surrounding him. On his third swing, the whole wall shook.

Yeah, the bloody thing had felt that, finally. David smiled grimly. Now Alvin just needed to do it another thousand times.

They should have a crew of navvies here, those guys were good at taking down trees.

“Fire in the hole!”

Or they could do that. David ducked instinctively at the call, wondering where exactly the explosives had been placed. Not too close to the walls, right? The cannon crews surely knew what they were doing? Right?

He had maybe two seconds to worry about it after the warning and to cover his ears, and then multiple explosions shook the Rot-monster.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

They weren’t as big as David had expected and they didn’t hurt the Rot as much as he had hoped. Rather, they didn’t kill the giants – one huge branch came crashing down in front of Alvin, and the tree actually backed away from the castle.

A group of soldiers pressed forwards, to bombard the ugly devils with a flurry of hastily assembled grenades. Mostly bottles, as far as David could see, filled with black powder and closed with a stopper with a rudimentary fuse.

If they ever had to repeat this, they’d need to prepare with several rings of larger bombs at strategic places, far away from the actual fortifications...

But they first had to do it once before they could make plans for a second time. The Rot-giants recovered quite quickly, their strikes even more vicious now that they had been hurt. But they were losing, little by little. Every time an explosion damaged one of them, there were at least a dozen men with axes ready to rush in and cut them down further. The long cutlasses worked well, too, especially when wielded by a werewolf.

Maybe that was why the Rot was so desperate to kill them.

David saw the single, lightning-fast strike from out of the shadows that still surrounded the treetop of the nearest monster, saw it racing towards Alvin with his axe. He turned to yell a warning but knew he would be too slow.

Nathan wasn’t, the bastard.

David could only stand there and watch as his brother shouldered the young werewolf out of the way a fraction of a second before the Rot struck, missing the boy and instead piercing Nathan’s chest like a needle going through silk. Alvin barely managed to wrap his arms around him before Nathan toppled over the edge and broke his neck. The young werewolf let him down gently, looking around with a dazed expression. David hurried over and kneeled down next to him, pressing a hand onto the ugly wound. At once, blood started leaking out from under his fingers.

And the Rot was still attacking them.

David grabbed Nathan’s cutlass and caught the next bramble on the steel, slashing madly with his silver knife. When the Rot finally gave him time to look back towards Nathan, Andrew had already slung him over his shoulders.

“You stay here,” Andrew yelled. “Finish this. I’ve got him!”

David nodded silently. He wanted to run after them, but Andrew was right: They needed to finish this, even if the Rot was nearly defeated.

Morgulon on her own had cleared half of the southern wall, by the looks of it. Finally, the line was too stretched and at noon, with the sun standing highest, the strange mire surrounding the sacrifices finally vanished. The last remaining human sacrifices and what remained of the swarm of smaller shapes turned tail.

David looked around in a daze when the last of the fog lifted. In the sunlight, the carnage looked unreal somehow. Some soldiers cheered, but most of them just stood there, looking as lost as David felt.

There wasn’t a single man on the walls uninjured. David stumbled around until he found Alvin again, who was helping carry a badly wounded Bernadette inside, still in her wolf form. David wanted to go with them, to make sure that they were treated like the other soldiers, she and the rest of the werewolves, but before he made it to the keep, somebody called his name.

“Lord Feleke.”

George Louis stood behind him, leading a horse.

“What?” David hissed.

“A commendable effort,” the duke said. “I’m sure the werewolf will be fine. There is still urgent business left. Mount up. The High Inquisitor is making a break for the shore.”

David closed his eyes. He considered punching George Louis, but he knew from experience that it wouldn’t help, so after a second, he accepted the reins of his gelding from the stable boy who was staring wide-eyed at Bernadette, who had been skewered at least a half dozen times and was still, somehow, alive.

Fifty soldiers on horseback – all the cavalry they had – and Calder followed the duke out of the gate. David hoped that the one elder would be enough, as they raced towards where the Valoise had left their longboats.

“See if they’ll burn. If not, push them into the water,” George Louis ordered his soldiers, as soon as they got there. “Be quick.”

Calder backed away a good ten yards at those words, which surprised David after the werewolf had spent the whole night and a half day fighting right next to the flames.

The soldiers decided that both was better than one, setting fire to the boats and then pushing them into the waves before the flames got too big. Calder muscled the one that wouldn’t take fire a good twenty yards out, where the ground abruptly dropped. David blinked tiredly against the glare of the sun on the waves.

His sense of time was completely shot. How was it noon already? They’d fought in the darkness for hours, how was the light suddenly this bright?

Just as Calder came swimming back, one of the soldiers who were holding the horses of the men torching the boats, started shouting a warning.

The High Inquisitor had come into view from out of the trees. He still had soldiers with him, more than the duke’s troop had, but they were all on foot.

“Calder, stay back. Don’t fight, unless they somehow bring the Rot forward,” George Louis ordered calmly. “The rest of you, get back in the saddle and spread out. Be ready for anything, this snake is still venomous.”

The riders had just gotten into a line, quite stretched out, as the duke had ordered, when the Valoisian soldiers stopped and began shooting, and the foremost one of the priests raised his hands.

David cursed. He didn’t even hear George Louis’s order to charge; he was already driving his gelding forward, into the first salve of bullets, when it started raining fire. Why were they fighting priests of the sun in broad daylight? He’d have to ask George about that later.

Maybe he’d have to start praying to the moon, David thought, as he pulled the sword George Louis had gifted him from its scabbard. That was probably just as pointless as praying to Mithras, though, and where did that thought even come from?

He felt strangely detached from the whole fight as his gelding trampled the first soldier, who was desperately trying to reload, and ran another through with his sword. The rest of the cavalry was right behind him.

Should he have waited for George Louis’s order to charge? Not that it mattered now. Eighty men on foot didn’t stand a chance against fifty men on horseback, not even with two dozen priests in their back. Priests were useless in close combat.

Another soldier tried to bar his way as David slowed and turned his gelding, looking for the High Inquisitor. David stabbed him, too. He hardly heard the screaming. When he looked around, he saw everything as if through thick glass – it was still raining fire, but the flames looked blurry, just like the men running all around, riderless horses, screaming priests – none of it seemed real. All the sounds were somehow muffled as if there was wool in his ears. Further away, Calder was in the water, David noticed. George Louis had retreated up a dune, just a few hundred yards, but he might as well have been a million miles away.

There was d’Evier. The High Inquisitor pointed at him when David spurred his horse, and a globe of fire shot at his face like the bullet from a gun. David felt it sear his back when he ducked underneath, but the pain was distant, too, just like everything else.

D’Evier screamed something at him, waving his hands. David couldn’t tell if it was some kind of incantation, a curse, or just the screaming of a man who was starting to realize that he would die in a moment, and he didn’t intend to wait and find out.

There should have been fanfares, music, choirs of angels singing. There should have been something other than the wet sound of steel meeting flesh when he impaled the greatest enemy of Loegrion on his sword. But all there was, was the sound of horses snorting and the wounded screaming, the blood rushing in his ears, and the wind blowing in from the sea.

The High Inquisitor went down to his knees, staring at the hole in his chest as if he couldn’t quite grasp what had happened. His jaws were still moving, and after a few seconds, he stared up at David, still with that same look of surprise. His lips curled in anger, and somehow, the priest managed to raise one hand.

David swung his blade again, ramming it through d’Evier’s throat. He didn’t know what the bastard might do with his dying breath, but he was sure it wouldn’t be good for his own health.

There was a sudden, strong smell of rotten eggs, which was carried away quickly by the stiff breeze coming from the ocean. David inhaled eagerly. The cold, salty air was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

The High Inquisitor fought to take a rattling breath, but then he fell forward, onto his face. The wet sand crunched once as he spasmed, and then, a moment later and all around, there was the softer sound of guns and knees hitting the ground as even the remaining Uronian guard surrendered.

David’s gelding bucked under him when George Louis’s men started cheering, and he struggled to stay in the saddle. Wouldn’t that have been just perfect, if he had fallen off his horse at that very moment.

But he reigned in his mount and jumped out of the saddle, to wipe his blade on the silk of the High Inquisitor’s robes.

He was going to sleep for a week once this was over, he promised himself, while the soldiers started to yell his name. George Louis came riding over, too, smiling benevolently. He watched on as his men kept repeating “Feleke!” over and over again.

“Excellent work, gentlemen,” George Louis finally said. “We’ll take the High Inquisitor’s body, and our own fallen, and return to the castle. I promised d’Evier a wet grave, and I intend to keep my word.”