The Lichspawn opened their mouths as one, thick black drool dripping, and surged like a school of sharks toward wounded prey. Their claws clicked and clacked as they charged and their howl filled her head with the sound of a hundred tormented souls burning with insatiable need.

There were too many of them.

She couldn't hope to kill more than one or two before they overwhelmed her. Before they dragged her down and tore her apart.

But she was blind to this. Blind to the shattered odds and the absolute certainty she was staring her own death in the face. Even though the Shadowed Halls loomed in the darkness of their eyes, all she could see was the blindfold of hate drawn across her sight.

The Bloody Nine were here.

In Spikewrist.

If they weren't dead, then they drew breath. And she wanted to ensure they drew no more.

So, legs splayed and arms akimbo, the elf stood her ground disconnected from her fear of the Lichspawn. Her fists tightened around her knives and her mouth drew back in a determined grimace.

Her eyes flicked over them, picking at their inhuman features illuminated in the sharp edges of light spilling from the surprised windows of the nearby inn.

Stealing a quick breath, the elf charged.

The guilt of Talek's fate which gnawed at her heart now exploded into fiery rage and the roar torn from her throat rose high above the howling Lichspawn. A Flaw in the Glass erupted into life, the green venomous glow lashing out from the blade and encircling her wrist.

The first Lichspawn to make it within reach had its neck almost completely severed as the enchanted blade slashed deep. Black blood sprayed over her arms, but she was oblivious to the sickly wetness.

She spun into a second, Fulci's Last Joke driving hard into its abdomen and tearing upward. She managed to keep grip on the slippery handle and wrenched it free amid flowers of gore.

Then choked back a scream as claws raked across her back. Speckled red snow beneath her feet told of fresh cuts.

Reacting on instinct and training, the elf wheeled and put all her power into a kick which sent her attacker flying into the charging path of a fresh wave of pale-skinned creatures.

They tumbled in an ungainly heap.

Still unaware of the futility of fighting, the elf struck hard and fast. Moving with murderous grace, she seemed to dance among them, their grasping hands unable to find her.

But not once did her grace appear nimble. There was too much power in her attacks. She chopped as though wielding axes, leaving a grotesque display of dismembered bodyparts in her wake.

She moved with glittering-eyed brutality and a vacant coldness that would have frozen them in fear if only they could feel such an emotion.

As it was, it wasn't until she pounced onto the back of one foul creature that she realised they weren't charging her anymore.

They were fleeing.

A Flaw in the Glass bit hard into the back of the Lichspawn's scrawny neck. She tore the glowing blade free. Screamed; “Talek! For Talek, you cursed motherfuckers!”

Stabbed the corpse again between the shoulders.

And again.

Tasted foul blood on her lips.

Her thoughts were a fragmented mess, and she forced herself to gather them quickly.

Wrenched her tear-stained face toward the retreating creatures and quivered to her feet as she caught sight of the black figure gliding through the chaotic scramble of bodies. Hooded and with a dark sword held low in its massive fist, the figure paused at their edge and eyed the grim remains strewn behind her.

“Impressive,” he said. His voice was so smooth her stomach turned at the sound. “You fight well, Child of Veil. Truly, you are everything she promised you would be.”

The elf's frown deepened as she wiped her blood-spattered face with the back of her wrist. Her gaze took in the tight line of Lichspawn gathering at his back. Their empty eyes studied her in the same way a wyrm might study a bug.

With disinterest.

Nonetheless, she felt frozen in place as their numbers increased. She directed her gaze toward the hooded man. “Where are they?”

“They?”

“Raste and his Bloody Nine motherfuckers of soon-to-be-fucking-dead. They came in here. I saw their tracks.”

The figure cocked its head and seemed to listen intently to something she couldn't hear. Nodded. “Ah, yes. You mean the riders. Is that why you entered the gates? You are pursuing these men?”

“I sure as fuck didn't come here for the beer,” she growled.

“Then you won't have long to wait. My friends will bring them this way for you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it amuses me,” he took another step forward, the sword almost forgotten in his hand. Yet, there was something in the way he held it that said if he remembered it, he could kill her with it. That all her training would mean nothing.

Despite the seeming ease with which she'd fended off the Lichspawn, she had no doubt this one was different.

A trickle of sweat slid down her brow and hovered on the edge of her vision. She didn't move. Her voice, when it came, was a dry rasp. “What do you want?”

The Lichspawn snapped their heads toward her as one and their voice froze the air. “The Darkness will fight again.”

The figure watched her take a step backward and looked to be smiling under his hood. “As my friends say,” he waved an arm toward them. “The Darkness must fight. It has not been at war for so long. Too long.”

She licked her lips. Wondered where the spellslinger had gotten to. Maybe he'd run off. She couldn't blame him for that. “Fuck it, then,” she spat, shifting into a crouch. “You want a fight? Fine. Let's fight.”

“They come,” the figure said, unmoved by her stance.

And hooves thundered as nine horsemen burst into the street from a narrow alley. Their horses screamed as they wheeled to a panicked halt between the dark figure and the elf, their path blocked in every direction.

“Raste,” she hissed. “You red-haired cocksucker! I should've killed you years ago!”

“You!” His eyes widened in shock. He took in her appearance and shook his head.

“A raghead,” Fenis choked out. “She's a fucking raghead!”

“Shit, Raste,” Neckless scowled, shifting in his saddle. “You said they wouldn't send anyone.”

Raste worked his jaw before gasping through his disbelief; “Nysta? No way. No fucking way. They'd never take you! Never!”

“That's her?” Fenis paled. “That's the bitch he was talking about? You said she was just a whore!”

“It's a trick, I tell you,” Raste tugged hard on his restless mount. “Can’t you see? A fucking trick meant to scare us! Well, I ain’t scared of you! You hear me?”

“These demons. They with you, raghead?” Tubal asked, his gaze skipping over the Lichspawn. Of them all, he was the only one who seemed to take her appearance in stride. “You make a pact with devils?”

She shook her head, her splintered gaze never leaving Raste’s face. “They ain't with me. But I'll kill them too, if I have to. Just want you fellers. You owe me your painful screaming deaths. Wouldn't want you to be in debt to me too long. So I aim to make you pay up. Right now.”

“Raste?” Doket struggled with his horse, the fear in his voice making it shrill. “What do we do?”

“We can't fight all of them,” Torak kept his eyes on the ring of Lichspawn. His sword glittered darkly. “Grim's asshole, there's got to be hundreds of the bastards.”

Nysta was the first to move.

Determined, she walked toward the Bloody Nine, back rigid and head high. A Flaw in the Glass hummed in her hand. She'd known she'd catch them eventually, but in truth she'd not expected to find them so soon.

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Revenge was so close she felt she would burst.

It seemed too good to be true.

A thin cord strummed down her spine, chilling her to the core. There were nine of them. And a hundred Lichspawn. There was no hope.

She was going to fail.

The fear flooded her mind before shrieks of defiance melted it in waves which carried Talek's soft eyes. Staring at her.

Filling her with strength.

“For you, Talek,” she breathed. “I’ll kill them all for you.”

And every step was easier than the last as she walked into the mouth of what she figured was her certain death.

“She's coming!” Doket shrieked. “Raste! She’s coming!”

“Shut the fuck up!” the red-haired elf lashed out with his sword. The flat of the blade slapped against the young elf's chest. Doket gave a cry and cringed back in his saddle as Raste turned his gaze back to her. “Nysta! Look around. You're trapped in here with us. These demons won't let you go either.”

“Don't care,” she said. “Just want you dead, Raste. Don't much give a shit if I live or die after that. You already killed the one thing I lived for, remember?”

Tubal looked eager to fight and rose in his saddle. “Only one of her, Raste. Reckon I can take her if you can keep the devils off my ass.”

“Don't be stupid,” Raste scowled. “There’s too many. We can’t fight them all.”

The Twins shared the same confused expression, their voices mingling as they spoke as one. “What's stopping them now? Maybe they're not interested in us?”

“You are nothing to us,” the hooded figure confirmed easily.

“It's her they want,” Doket blurted. Hope made him grin madly. “Look at them! They're not even looking our way! They want her!”

Nysta paused in her stride and saw it was true. The eyes of every Lichspawn tracked her with an eeriness that made her skin crawl. But she felt no malice in their attention.

Only a cold sense of expectation.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully. The hooded man's stance was easy. Almost casual. He gave the impression they wouldn't stop her achieving her goal. Why, she couldn't say, but whatever his reasons were, she figured he'd keep the creatures off her back for the time it would take to kill Raste.

At least, it's what her gut told her.

She watched the red-hared elf as he studied the ring of black-eyed beings. Slowly, his expression eased, but there was still enough wariness in his mind to keep him looking cautious.

“Could be,” he said at last. “What do you reckon, Nysta? Reckon they’ll even try to stop us leaving?”

She took another step toward him.

No one else moved.

She took another.

“Stop,” Raste said. “Stay where you are. Listen to me. Just for a fucking second, listen. Looks to me these demons are after you, not us. Looks like we're in a position to help you. If it's worth our while. Or we could just ride right past you and out the gate. Leave you here. Fact, that's what I'm thinking we should do. I'll wager these bastards couldn't stop our horses. They couldn't pull us off before, so I don't reckon they'll pull us off here. We got mounts trained to go through armies bigger than this. And we’re better equipped. So, we know we can ride right over them. Wouldn't slow us for more than a second. Only thing that stops me from leaving you here right now is we didn't want to kill Talek. Didn't mean to. Want you to know that.”

“Liar.” She bared her teeth and felt the handles of her blades dig into the palms of her hands. Her eyes felt hot.

“Believe what you like,” the red-haired elf said with a shrug. “I told you what I wanted to. So, now what? Maybe you can kill one of us on our way out. Maybe two, if you're good. Which I don't reckon you are. But the rest of us will be out of here like a shot and you'll be stuck behind as demon food. Think about it. Use that fucking brain and think for once in your pathetic life. We can make a deal.”

“If I might interrupt?” The dark figure sounded amused. “I said you were nothing to us. Not that my friends wouldn't kill you. You will die here, Children of Veil. All of you. My friends will tear you apart. They hunger. You will feed them.”

“Shit!” Doket shrieked, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets. His horse jostled against Raste's, unsettled by the Lichspawn and its rider's fear. “Raste!”

“Let's get the fuck out of here,” Torak hefted his sword. Panic made his voice shrill. “Come on, Raste. We'll run right over them. It'll be just like the Gates of Anders Hove!”

“Ain't no full moon tonight,” Nysta waved A Flaw in the Glass at the Lichspawn. “Reckon these subspecies won't be as much of a pushover as they’re acting.”

Raste's eyes were pinned by hers. “Please, Nysta. This ain't the place. Or the time.”

“You're wrong, Raste. Wrong about everything.” She rolled her shoulders and prepared to make her move. “This is the place. And the time.”

“Then die, you fucking whore! Die like the alley slut you are.” He kicked his heels viciously into the horse's ribs. “Bloody Nine! We ride!”

“We ride!” Their voices chorused as one and acted like a switch any fear they’d felt to grim determination.

The hooded figure made a small motion with his sword and the Lichspawn swarmed the riders like an army of rats. Their claws clicked and clacked. Their mouths drew back into savage snarls.

Eyes blacker than the darkest corners of the Shadowed Halls, the Lichspawn sought the comfort of fresh meat.

“They're coming!” Doket screamed.

As he was closest, Torak screamed as Fulci's Last Joke spun swift through the air and plunged into his left eye.

The angle had been difficult.

Made more difficult by his sudden attempt to wheel his horse toward the gates. The blade punched into his eye and glanced outward, the point smashing out through the side of his skull rather than spitting into his brain as she'd hoped.

Flecks of bone mingled unseen with his blood on the ground.

One of the Twins wrestled with Torak's horse to bring it under control.

The other sent a wrathful glance at her.

But she'd already moved and was desperately trying to squeeze through the narrowing spaces between swarming Lichspawn, brutally cutting down those unfortunate enough to jostle in front of her.

Tubal, eager at first to charge her, found himself struggling to keep a wave of Lichspawn from overwhelming his steed. His massive axe responded in glittering arcs.

Heads rolled in near-comical excess with each sweeping strike and black blood sprayed thickly to the street. He wore a manic expression, his gaze constantly seeking her out and his mouth constantly spilled curses like a swarm of bees.

Snorting, his horse struck out with its forelegs, obeying instincts weathered by years of training and experience in battle.

Her gaze nailed to Raste, Nysta stabbed through a surge of Lichspawn who appeared to ignore her presence. Bamboo Bones left her hand like a steel wasp. Aimed at Raste's torso, the blade sheared through air in search of the red-haired elf's blood.

Triumph scorched her heart as the blade left her fingers. She felt its accuracy to be true and could almost taste the sodden impact as it burrowed home.

But Fenis, forced to kick his heels hard into his mount to avoid being cornered, was sent lurching through the raking claws of a dozen Lichspawn. He swung a heavy mace, tearing the face clean off one creature even as his mount bounded forward with a terrified squeal.

The young elf barely registered the glittering steel as he crossed its path.

The small blade should have skimmed off the dwarfen mail he wore loosely under his vest, but the angle of his arm as he eagerly raised the mace for another shot at a snapping head exposed his armpit and it was there that Bamboo Bones buried itself.

He choked a cry and doubled over in his saddle, clutching the gushing wound.

Nysta bit a curse at missing her target and leapt onto the back of a wounded Lichspawn, using it as a springboard to launch herself into the air at Raste's horse.

He lashed out with his sword, hatred burning in his eyes.

The sword chewed into the light wyrmskin of her jacket. The cut was shallow, but even were it mortal, she still wouldn't have changed her attack. As it was, she didn't feel it.

She snatched at his shirt, trying to drag him off the horse.

Tried to slash him with A Flaw in the Glass.

Missed.

He reared high in the saddle with a snarl. His elbow smashed into her cheek and he raised his sword. With no room to swing the blade, he used the pommel and pain exploded across her shoulder.

Suddenly desperate, he pounded at her again and again, his free hand shoving her in the face. “Get the fuck off me, you fucking whore!”

Wearing the blows, the elf swung her hips, trying to lift one leg high enough to jam her foot between his ankle and stirrup. What she wanted was enough leverage to make an effective attack.

Her boot scraped against the horse's ribs.

She felt another impact, this time glancing off bone. Wincing, she realised she couldn't hold much longer and made one last attempt to stab him.

The blade lunged at his guts.

Might have cut him open, too.

But from behind, Neckless aimed a kick at her head. His heel connected hard and sent her lunge veering past his belly and striking air. The shock of impact made her arch her back in pain. The fingers holding his shirt slipped.

She tasted blood.

Neckless kicked her again, a giggle rippling over his lips.

Raste's shirt ripped, the sound clear in her ears. In fact, it seemed the only thing she heard. And with it, her heart ripped in her chest.

The elf screamed as she her lost her battle to cling to him. It was a scream torn from the depths of her soul, clawing at the air as desperately as she clawed at Raste.

At his saddle.

The stirrup.

And then the earth.

She tumbled among the mindless Lichspawn. Their bare feet were all around her. Could smell their rancid bodies and felt the thud of a hoof pounding into the snow only an inch from her head.

Out of breath, her head snapped up. Eyes narrowed to slits. Speckled red spots danced across her vision like falling stars. Wished the surging rage which was eating her like acid could be spat at the fleeing horsemen. She rolled.

Coughed.

Shot to her feet despite knowing they were out of reach for now. Knife clenched in her fist so hard she could feel the war between her knuckles and the handle to see which would crack first.

“I'll find you!” she spat, her voice rising to a shriek. “Raste! You hear me? I swear to you. If I have to chase you to the gates of the Shadowed Halls, I'll have your head! Your fucking head!”

“Then I'll see you at the Halls, you stubborn bitch,” Raste called back over his shoulder as the Nine swept through the line of Lichspawn and galloped madly toward the gate. “But I reckon you'll get there first, so enjoy the long fucking wait!”

Blood ran thick down the back of her neck and she wobbled drunkenly before steadying her gait. As their mounts carried the Bloody Nine beyond the gates, she staggered after them with a determined set of her jaw.

An echo of their shared laughter remained as they left her to her grim fate.

The Lichspawn stopped their chase at the gate and watched the fleeing horsemen for a few heartbeats. There was a tiredness about the way they moved, as though exhaustion crept through their corrupted bodies.

If they cared that the Bloody Nine had escaped them, it didn't show.

Slowly, an ocean of black eyes turned toward her.

Feeling the sickening taste of defeat freeze the boiling rage in her belly into a sharp ball of ice, she faced the impassive gaze of the assembled Lichspawn blocking her escape from the cursed town.

“Reckon you should know I ain't on the menu,” she hissed. The emotions blitzing through her body were unable to split the fine line where rage and fear were separated. Her voice emerged through dry mouth like chips of a shattered blade. “So, get the fuck out of my way.”

“The men you sought have escaped you,” the dark figure said softly. “Forget them, Child of Veil. They are nothing to you now.”

A Flaw in the Glass flashed. The closest creature dropped, a hole in its ribs spurting black blood. The others watched silently as another shuffled in to fill the breach.

It'd been a futile gesture on her part and she knew it. But frustration crackled across her shoulders like electricity. “Out of my fucking way, I said!”

The Lichspawn didn't move.

The hooded figure slid up behind her as a cold wind coiled around her heart like a frozen wyrm.

Then her nose wrinkled as an awful stench quickly filled the air. Thick and acidic, it burned her nostrils.

The elf's eyes flared brightly.

The Lichspawn lifted their heads to the air as though listening to a distant tune.

She cocked her head and spoke to the hooded figure without glancing back at him. “You know what they say? You can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Seems the Bloody Nine thought it was too hot in here. Maybe they figure they've escaped my blades. But they won't get far. Reckon it's too late for you fellers, though,” she threw herself to the ground as a thick wall of purple flame blasted through the gates, consuming all Lichspawn in its path.

Looked up, her eyes reflecting the dancing flame. Spitting dirt, she felt the roar of magefire as it rolled like a volcanic wave to crash against a nearby home. Her lips formed a cruel smile. “'Cause now we're cookin'.”