'How many?' I asked.
'Forty, maybe more. I think the whole town was turned into one of those things.'
'Stay here,' I commanded Sam and sprinted away without waiting for a reply.
I was almost at the end of the street, when two barren burst from a house and ran toward me. I picked them both up with a gust of wind and flung them back at the building. The impact and loud crack suggested it would be the last thing they ever did.
I rounded the corner and saw Chief Blacktail and Lieutenant Roberts, fighting side by side with daggers and swords, killing barren that got close, their men following suit. I was a hundred yards from them when Sergeant Roberts was knocked to the ground by a barren who leapt onto his back. Chief Blacktail killed the barren with an axe to the head and offered his hand to Sergeant Roberts who accepted and together they continued fighting.
Despite their camaraderie and superior numbers, they were fighting barren who felt no fear or pain. There were no such things as retreat or surrender. If it wasn't a killing stroke on the first blow, they might not get a second chance.
I readied a huge charge of magical energy, but as I was about to release it, the barren stopped attacking en masse and turned toward the opposite end of the street. The human fighters took the opportunity to dispatch many of their foes, but around a dozen barren had already started to make their way toward whatever it was they were waiting for.
'Get back,' I shouted, fearing that Sky had failed her job and the lich was about to make an appearance.
Chief Blacktail and Sergeant Roberts did as I asked and moved all of their men away from the now stationary barren, and back toward me. Some of the men had cuts and at least one had been rewarded for his efforts with a nasty gouge across the arm.
'How many did you lose?' I asked.
'Nine,' Sergeant Roberts said. 'Four were too wounded to continue and the other five died fighting.'
'Eight,' Chief Blacktail replied. 'Three of those are wounded.'
'Anyone got any bullets?' I asked.
'We're out,' Sergeant Roberts said. 'We sent the wounded back to the fort to get treated and prepare for the worst. We kept shooting the bastards, but they wouldn't stop coming.'
'Is this about to get worse?' Chief Blacktail asked.
I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what the answer was. The barren were milling around, all of them staring at the corner of the adjoining street.
I thought about having everyone attack the barren, but if the lich were to make an appearance the humans would be too close to retreat without suffering heavy casualties. 'I think we're about to find out,' I finally managed.
A man in a long, dark duster emerged from around the street corner and seemed to notice the barren.
I breathed a sigh of relief. 'Lower your weapons.'
Everyone obeyed my order without hesitation.
The wind blew the man's long white hair over his shoulders, and one of the barren decided that was the moment to strike. It howled something and sprinted toward the newcomer, whose response was to raise one hand out on front of him. The barren kept running for a second and then just fell to the ground, twitched twice and was still.
Several of the remaining barren sought their own opportunity and charged the man. This time he raised both hands and once more the barren stopped running and fell to the ground.
One barren climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and launched himself toward the stranger. The man didn't even move, he raised one hand, like before. But instead of dropping to the ground, the barren just stopped in mid-air, held by some invisible force, until the man clenched his hand in a fist and the barren exploded in a shower of blood.
All of the remaining barren remaining ran at the man, but none of them got within six feet of him. He waved one arm and they fell like downed trees, until only one remained. The man grabbed it by the throat as it ran toward him, lifting it off the ground until its feet were a few inches above the dirt and gravel.
'Vermin,' he said. 'Your master is dead.' He touched the snarling barren on the forehead with one finger, and the body went limp before being dropped back to earth, where it began to dissolve like its kin.
Despite my order to lower weapons, the fear and awe radiating off both the Crow and the soldiers was almost tangible. A measurable fog of thick terror, that hung in the air from what they'd just witnessed.
The man walked past them all and embraced me. 'It's good to see you,' he said.
'Hades,' I said with a smile. 'I didn't realise you would be here, it's good to see you, too.'
'I was in the area; a lich is not something to trifle with.' He turned back as Sky and six men followed in what had been his path-one of them helped to walk by another, his leg heavily bandaged.
'The lich had silver knives,' he said, almost anticipating any questions I had about what had happened. 'But he's no longer an issue.'
Sky helped the injured man sit on the ground and then came over, embracing me. 'I'm glad you're not hurt,' she said.
'I'm fine,' I said. 'Although, both Chief Blacktail and Sergeant Roberts lost men today.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' Hades said, turning to the two men. 'They were brave to fight against these things. Your men will be honoured tonight when we remember our fallen.'
'Thank you,' Sergeant Roberts said, sounding more than a little confused. 'What did you do back there?'
Hades glanced behind him. 'Oh,' he said as if only just aware that he might have done something out of the ordinary. 'I removed their souls.'
'Their souls?' Chief Blacktail asked.
'Everything has a soul, even the most evil deplorable beings on earth. They might not be technically alive, but everything needs a soul to be able to function. A barren's is just twisted and rotten. I removed them.'
'But one exploded,” Sergeant Roberts said.
'I used the energy I'd taken from absorbing the souls to put them all back into that one barren. The effect is quite spectacular.'
I left Hades to talk to the two confused men, and found Sky by herself, washing blood from her hands in a nearby water pump.
'Everyone survive?' I asked.
She nodded. 'I have something for you.' She reached into her coat and removed an old leather bound book. 'I assume this is what you're looking for here in Montana. I spoke to my father, and he agreed that you can have it.'
'Thank you,' I said, and then realised what the rest of Sky's words had been. 'Your father? Hades is your father?'
'I was adopted by him and Persephone a few centuries ago. I'm sorry that didn't come up before.' She smiled a wicked, sly grin.
'You do realise that having sex with Hades' daughter might not have been my greatest idea.'
'Good thing I didn't mention it at the time then,' she laughed, and walked off to talk to her father as a single shot rang out across the town.
I darted into the bar and found the sheriff knelt on the floor, his hands tied behind his back and his ankles tied together. Sam stood in front of him, his father's other revolver in his hand, a match to the one I'd taken off the sheriff earlier. A large bullet hole pierced the woodwork close to the sheriff's head.
'Sam, what are you doing?' I asked, taking great care to keep my voice calm and careful.
Sam's eyes were trained firmly on the sheriff. 'I'm doing what I need to do; what I have to do to make everything right.'
'He should die,' I agreed. 'He made a pact with an evil monster, and then when everyone else in town was being killed and turned into barren, he got to keep his life.'
I turned to the sheriff. 'You were useful to him, that's why he let you and your men live.'
The sheriff nodded. There appeared to be no fear in him, no concern that anything would happen to him. 'He needed someone who wasn't dead to help during the day.'
'He chose you, because you had power, and you convinced the rest of the town. You told people that the lich
