Caim yelled as he knocked the knife from the soldier’s hand and slashed him across the face. The man held his face and screamed. Unmoved, Caim punched both knives through the soldier’s boiled leather shirt and spilled his steaming bowels onto the snowy ground. The killer collapsed beside Oak’s body, both of them curled up like sleeping children. Growling-at the soldier, at himself, at the gods perhaps-Caim turned away.
He found the road and hurried down its hard-packed snow-and-gravel surface. Cries rose to meet him. There was a sinister whoosh, followed by the wet crackle of shattering bones. He sprinted at full speed through the gloom, straight into the path of a galloping brown blur. Caim threw himself to the side and was spun partway around as the warhorse’s broad chest barreled into his legs. Something bright and lethal whistled past his head. As Caim regained his footing, the horseman wheeled his steed around and came back for another pass, a long cavalry sword held over his head. Caim leapt before the horseman could close, darting in low on the soldier’s left side. His suete cut deep into the meat of the soldier’s thigh. Intending to swing around to the other side, Caim ran around behind the animal.
Then he was airborne.
The breath rushed out of his lungs as he landed in a shallow ditch beside the road. Pain rippled across his left shoulder and down his ribs from the impact of the warhorse’s hooves. The horseman had turned and was closing again. Caim tried to lift himself up, but there was no time. His arm was stiff; his legs felt like boards of lumber. The soldier leaned over in the saddle, his sword raised to kill. Caim hissed between his teeth.
The shadows came from every direction, blocking out the horse and rider with their numbers. A high-pitched whinny sliced through the night air amid a thunder of stamping hooves and human screams.
Caim’s breath returned in shallow gasps as he climbed to his feet. A quick examination of his arm and torso revealed that nothing was broken, but he would sport some nasty bruises. He looked to his fallen enemy. The horse lay on its side. Tiny black holes riddled its sweat-flecked coat. The rider had thrown himself clear, but the shadows found him nonetheless. His armor-a shirt of mail-hung in tatters, riddled with similar holes. His empty eye sockets, leaking white fluid, stared up at nothing.
While Caim looked over the scene, cool touches enveloped his shoulder and side. He started to brush the flitting shadows away, but let them be as the pain leached away. Sensation returned to his hand. More shadows crawled on the ground, nipping at his feet, eager for blood. This preternatural darkness was unnerving, even for him, but he plowed ahead. Sounds of fighting echoed deeper in the gloom, and then-
Nothing. The breeze picked up, making eddies in the mist.
He came across the first body lying against the trunk of an ebonwood tree. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he recognized one of Liana’s women, but he couldn’t put a name to her face. She had died cradling a broken arm. Both her legs were broken, too. He found the second and third bodies facedown in the snow farther up the road. The fourth lay over a rock; blood drenched her chestnut hair from a massive head wound that had caved in half her skull. Caim marched past, fearing what he would find next. His stomach was clenched into a knot of aches. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let them -
Lightning flashed behind him, and the darkness lifted a trifle, enough to reveal a line of bodies arrayed across the road. Caim stopped as the thunder crashed in his ears. The women had stood firm, shoulder to shoulder, presenting a strong front to their enemy. Just like he had taught them.
A solitary figure stood on the road beyond them, tides of darkness swirling around his thick, armored frame.
The Beast.
The throbbing in Caim’s chest pounded against his breastbone as the armored giant looked up. A woman slumped at his feet. In one hand the Beast held up her head by a fistful of long blonde hair; in the other, a massive spiked ball hung on the end of a black link chain. Caim’s arms trembled as he looked into Liana’s glassy eyes. He was too late.
The Beast let go of her hair. Caim was running before Liana’s face landed in the bloody mire. He charged past the women, their features streaked with blood. A rattle of metal links preceded the approach of whirling death. Caim’s spine quivered as he dived under the ball-and-chain’s long arc. He got in close and attacked with all the savagery and loathing he held inside. The Beast was even more formidable up close, an eidolon of metal and darkness. Caim lunged, and both knives struck the ridged midsection of the black breastplate. Jarring tremors ran through the hilts as their points rebounded without penetrating, numbing his hands. Caim caught a glimpse of a black steel-clad fist rising toward him a fraction of a heartbeat before it crashed against his temple. Lights burst in front of his eyes as he staggered back. The chain nicked the top of his head as it passed and knocked him off balance. He put out a hand to catch his fall. Move! The next pass won’t miss.
Caim heaved himself sideways and scrambled to his feet. The whirl of the spiked ball hissed behind him. He spun around and hurled his right-hand knife. The charred blade turned end over end and shattered against the Beast’s breastplate in a hail of shrapnel. Caim reached up, and the black sword leapt into his hand. In that moment everything came into perfect clarity, the darkness transformed into a palette of vibrant shades. Pulsating sigils were etched into the Beast’s armor, including a battlemented tower in the center of the breastplate. Tendrils of shadow curled from his helmet’s visor.
Caim followed the sword’s lead and felt the point bite into the joint between the Beast’s hip faulds and the cuisse protecting the thigh. Dark blood trickled from the gap as he twisted the blade, but his foe paid it no mind, bringing his weapon around in an overhand swing. Caim dropped to one knee. The impact of the spiked ball shook the ground behind him. Pulled by the sword, he lunged, but the Beast turned faster than Caim anticipated and smacked him in the chest with the back of an armored fist. Caim rolled with the punch and managed to keep his feet under him. He braced himself for another attack, but the Beast stepped back with a flock of shadows flitting around him. With another step, he was gone.
Caim squinted as he rubbed his chest. A hole had opened in the darkness. It collapsed as soon as the Beast passed through, but Caim could see streamers of shadow left behind. He looked back. Liana lay a couple yards from his feet. Beyond her limp body, the compound was engulfed in an inferno. A file of men ran out of the gate, heading for the ridge, while some waited on the road. Caim made up his mind.
He leapt.
As he jumped, he pulled at the space in front of him, and a dark hole appeared in the air. He had time for a quick breath before he tumbled through the gateway.
He fell onto a patch of sharp rocks. As he stumbled over the jagged surfaces, Caim heard a sinister whine and threw himself flat. He dropped his knife as the hard edges of a dozen stones jabbed into him. The spiked ball passed inches from his head.
The buzzing in the back of his skull returned, more insistent than before. Caim reached for the fallen suete and rolled away a split heartbeat before the rock in front of him shattered in his face. As he found his footing, he got a glimpse of where they stood, on a narrow section of ground surrounded by plunging slopes on every side. A hilltop. Aside from the scree of broken rocks he had just vacated, there were perhaps a dozen square paces of ground here, and the Beast stood at the center, chain whirling over his head. Clever. There’s nowhere for me to run, but what if I’m not trying to get away?
Caim rushed in before his better sense could intervene. The black sword vibrated so fast in his hand he could hear its plaintive whine. It wanted blood, and so did he.
The Beast shifted the trajectory of the spiked ball downward, but the reaction was a hair too slow. Caim got inside the arc an instant before the sphere came around. The Beast leaned away from the sword’s black point, but it had been just a feint to get in closer. Caim ripped upward with the suete. Its point punched through the mail under his opponent’s armpit. Caim expected a groan-something-but the giant made no sound as he knocked Caim back with a forearm smash. Caim set his feet and crouched, sword extended in defense, but all he saw was a huge armored back as the Beast passed through another inky gateway.
With more caution than the last time, Caim made his own portal and stepped through.
Somehow he got turned upside down and landed hard on his stomach. The ground felt like smooth, solid stone under several inches of frozen snow, but when he pushed up with his hands and legs, his feet slipped out from under him, dragging away streaks of snow to reveal a dark sheet of ice. He rolled away an instant before the spiked orb came down and the ice exploded.
Shedding slivers of frost as he stood up, Caim called to the shadows. They swarmed around him, flittering but
