“I’ll make trophies from their spines” She whispered hungrily, running her forked tongue over crimson lips, her spider-like hands shivering with excitement.--“I’ll wear their skulls to battle, I’ll chew up their eyes and their hearts and I’ll spit them at my enemies.”

Her fingers scuttled lightly over a corpse, turning the flesh black where they had grazed it, only to be slapped away. She hissed and bared her fangs but withdrew nonetheless, tongue still flickering like candlelight, and eyes like coals.

“Patience, Morrigan.” A voice purred in her ear. “What did I teach you about fear?”

Morrigan frowned and looked at her feet, shifting around uncomfortably.

“What. Did. I. Tell. You?” Her mentor repeated, this time squeezing Morrigan’s wrist for emphasis. She yelped, and then begrudgingly replied:

“Fear is nothing if it doesn’t target the heart, but only targets the mind.”

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“Good, and what sort of fear will this nonsense of ripping of spines and chewing of eyes bring?”

Morrigan hunched her shoulders. “Fear of the mind.”

“And what do we want?”

“Fear of the heart.”

“Excellent, so now be a good girl, and leave the corpses be. The Ravens will eat them, or they can rot. We have no use for them now— remember, dear. This is no longer a game— we are at war.”

Morrigan nodded, but, as the man turned away, the tip of his cape gently brushing her across the face, she reached her hand quickly towards one of the limp arms lying in a tangled, twisted heap among the others.

The hooded figure paused, then turned slowly, his empty eye sockets still managing to bear into her, brows furrowed--

“I saw that.”