The fire was visible long before they reached the village.
At first, Grazim mistook the red glow beyond the hills for sunset. Then the wind changed, carrying smoke, burned timber, and something fouler from the valley below.
Wallowdale was burning.
The heroes increased their pace.
They had left the frozen court battered and exhausted, carrying Leonidas between them until he recovered enough strength to walk. The Shard of Everlasting Life remained hidden inside the Bag of Holding, wrapped in every layer of cloth they could spare.
Even concealed beyond ordinary space, Grazim imagined he could feel it.
A patient pulse.
A second heartbeat traveling with them.
They had crossed the Labyrinth of Wicked Souls, defeated Grom the Everlasting, and returned with the object that had threatened the village.
Yet the sight below made victory feel like a cruel joke.
Several buildings had collapsed. Flames consumed the northern palisade, and smoke drifted through the streets in black sheets. Villagers carried buckets between the well and the remaining fires while others pulled the wounded toward the stone meeting hall.
Something had attacked from the direction of the ruined city.
The evidence lay scattered beyond the broken wall.
Bodies unlike any creature the heroes had encountered littered the road—thin, gray things with too many joints, swollen corpses that had apparently continued moving after death, and black winged shapes reduced to ash.
Kaylor drew both swords.
“Are they still under attack?”
A horn sounded from the western fields.
Everyone turned.
A creature bounded from the smoke.
It moved on four legs, covered in red-brown fur, with a tail nearly as large as the rest of its body. It leapt over a burning fence, struck the ground, and rose onto its hind legs.
The creature stood almost as tall as Grazim.
Its fur was scorched along one side. A strip of leather had been tied across its chest, holding several knives, a coil of rope, and what appeared to be a wooden spoon.
Its dark eyes narrowed at the armed strangers.
Then it recognized Hexen.
“About time!”
The giant squirrel’s voice came quickly, each word tumbling over the next.
Hexen stopped.
“I am sorry?”
“You left. Everything was cold. Then it became less cold, which was good. Then things came out of the city, which was bad. Then the village caught fire, which was worse. Then I saved everyone.”
The squirrel placed both paws upon its hips.
“Mostly everyone.”
Hexen looked toward the wounded being carried through the streets.
“You are Fang.”
“Obviously.”
“How would that be obvious?” Nethnarel asked.
Fang pointed toward his mouth and displayed two enormous front teeth.
“Fangs.”
“You have teeth,” said Fendor.
“Very impressive teeth.”
“They are adequate.”
Fang glared at the elf.
“Do you bite trees apart?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps remain silent while experts discuss teeth.”
Fendor looked at the others.
“I dislike him.”
“He saved the village,” Hexen said.
“I can dislike him respectfully.”
Fang dropped back onto all fours and bounded toward the meeting hall.
“Come. Elira is alive. Marrick is alive. Several others are varying degrees of alive.”
The heroes followed.
The destruction became clearer as they entered Wallowdale. The attack had not been a raid for food, prisoners, or territory. The creatures had simply tried to kill everything they reached.
Claw marks crossed doors. Black residue stained the stone road. One house had been torn open from within, although no one could explain how the attacker had entered.
Villagers stopped when they saw the heroes.
Relief spread through them, but it was different from the reception after the liberation of the mines. Then, the people had looked upon the six strangers as rescuers.
Now they looked at them as though rescue had become their responsibility.
Grazim felt the weight of every gaze.
Elira Venn met them outside the meeting hall. A bandage covered one side of her head, and soot marked her face.
“You returned.”
“We said we would,” Grazim answered.
“Did you bring Grom his shard?”
“No.”
Elira’s expression tightened.
“Then the winter—”
“Grom is dead.”
The statement silenced everyone within hearing.
Even Fang stopped moving.
Kaylor continued.
“Lady Frost escaped. Dark Voice did not.”
Nethnarel’s pale hair shifted around her horns as she looked toward the burning houses.
The villagers could not know what that victory had cost. They could not know about the Herald dying beneath Grom’s axe or the evil object now hidden inside the heroes’ bag.
For the moment, they only heard that the giant who had threatened them would not return.
Some began to cheer.
The sound never fully formed.
A wounded man screamed inside the meeting hall.
Elira turned toward the door.
“Grom was not the only thing threatening us.”
She led them inside.
The meeting hall had become a place of beds, bandages, and blood. Tables had been pushed against the walls. The injured lay upon blankets across the floor while those still able to work moved among them.
Hexen knelt beside the nearest wounded woman.
Three black punctures marked her leg. The flesh around them had turned gray.
“What did this?”
“No one knows,” Elira said. “The first creatures came from the city two nights ago. Small groups at first. Then more.”
“Undead?” Grazim asked.
“Some. Others were alive, or appeared to be.”
“And the soldiers?” Kaylor asked.
Elira looked away.
“We sent six to investigate the old road. None returned. Marrick took four more the following morning.”
“Where is he?”
“He returned alone.”
Marrick lay near the rear of the hall.
The former prisoner looked older than when they had freed him from the mines. One arm was bound against his chest, and cuts crossed his face. He forced himself upright as the party approached.
“The city is awake,” he said.
Grazim crouched beside him.
“Cities do not wake.”
“This one did.”
Marrick swallowed.
“We went through the canyon. It is still the only safe entrance. The walls beyond it were quiet. Nothing moved in the streets.”
“Then what attacked you?” Isamu asked.
“The ground.”
No one spoke.
Marrick continued.
“It opened beneath us. Men came out—or things wearing men. There were hundreds below the streets. Maybe thousands.”
His eyes moved toward the floor.
“They pulled Toman down first. We heard him screaming beneath us as we ran.”
“Where did they come from?” Kaylor asked.
“The center of the city, I think. There is something above the old temple. A storm of light and dust. It has been there since the attacks began.”
Elira folded her arms.
“Every patrol we send disappears. Every night, more creatures reach the village.”
“Then stop sending patrols,” Grazim said.
“We cannot wait behind these walls while they burn us out.”
“You will not have to.”
The words came from Kaylor.
The dragonborn stood near the hall’s entrance, blue-and-gray armor still scarred from the battle in the frozen court. The dragon upon his shield had been damaged, but not erased.
“We will enter the city.”
Elira looked at the blood covering their equipment.
“You can barely stand.”
“Then we will stand briefly and efficiently,” Fendor said.
Fang scampered onto a table.
“I am coming.”
“No,” said Hexen.
“I know the city.”
“No.”
“I saved your village.”
“It is not my village.”
“Then I saved someone else’s village while you were gone. That is even more impressive.”
Hexen looked at Grazim.
Grazim looked at Kaylor.
Kaylor studied the giant squirrel.
“Can you fight?”
Fang drew two knives from his leather harness.
They were ordinary eating knives.
One still had butter upon it.
Nethnarel leaned closer.
“Terrifying.”
“I also bite.”
Fendor sighed.
“We have established that.”
Hexen placed one hand on Fang’s shoulder.
“You will stay here.”
Fang tried to pull away, but Hexen held him.
“There are wounded people who cannot defend themselves,” the druid continued. “If more creatures come from the city while we are gone, they will need you.”
Fang looked around the hall.
Several children were watching him.
His tail lowered.
“That is a very inconvenient argument.”
“I know.”
“I would be more useful with you.”
“Probably.”
Fang blinked.
“You agree?”
“Yes. But they need you more.”
The giant squirrel stared at Hexen for a long moment.
Then he sheathed his knives.
“Fine. But if you all die, I will tell everyone it was because you refused the aid of Fang.”
“Make certain you mention the teeth,” Fendor said.
“I will describe them in detail.”
Before leaving, Hexen did what he could for the village.
He stepped outside and knelt in a patch of earth untouched by the fires. Much of the grass had died beneath Grom’s winter, but roots remained below the surface.
Hexen placed both palms upon the ground.
He closed his eyes.
The others watched as small green shoots emerged between his fingers. They spread outward, forming a low circle of leaves around him. White flowers opened. The flowers became clusters of red berries.
The first growth yielded only a handful.
Hexen gathered them and began again.
Each use of the magic cost him. His shoulders sagged. Sweat ran down his face despite the cold air.
Still he continued.
By midday, baskets stood around him.
The berries were small, but each contained enough nourishment to sustain a person through an entire day. They would not rebuild homes or replace the food destroyed in the fires, but they would prevent hunger while the village recovered.
Elira lifted one from a basket.
“This will feed someone for a day?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the gathered villagers.
“There are more than a hundred of us.”
Hexen examined the remaining baskets.
“Then divide them carefully.”
“You have given us enough for everyone.”
“For today.”
He tried to stand and nearly fell.
Isamu caught his arm.
Hexen nodded his thanks.
Fang approached with a wooden cup filled with water.
“You look terrible.”
“I became a bear, fought a frost giant, crossed two mountains, and fed a village.”
“I fought three bat-things, carried two children out of a burning house, and bit a corpse.”
Hexen drank the water.
“Then we both had difficult days.”
Fang considered that.
“Mine was probably harder.”
“Probably.”
The heroes left Wallowdale before the sun had crossed the center of the sky.
Leonidas accompanied them.
He had recovered from the frost giant’s blow, although his movements remained stiff. He carried a sword and shield, but after what they had seen in the frozen court, the heroes knew he possessed other power as well.
Exactly what he was—or why he had been among Grom’s servants—remained unanswered.
They had not yet found time to ask.
The road to the ruined city passed through fields burned black by the recent attacks. Nothing moved among the farms. No birds crossed the smoke-filled sky.
The canyon appeared ahead as a narrow break between two walls of dark rock.
It was the only visible entrance.
The city’s outer walls had collapsed centuries earlier, but cliffs and unstable ground surrounded most of the ruins. Any other route would require flight or hours of dangerous climbing.
They entered the canyon in single file.
Isamu led.
He moved without disturbing the loose stones beneath his boots, stopping often to examine scratches, prints, and patches of dark fluid along the rock.
“There were soldiers here,” he said.
“How long ago?” Grazim asked.
“Two days.”
Marrick’s patrol.
Isamu continued farther.
“Something followed them out.”
Fendor examined the cliff walls.
“Something large?”
“Many small things.”
“That is worse.”
Nethnarel walked near the center of the group. The flames that sometimes flickered around her horns had not returned since the battle with Dark Voice.
Her magic remained, but it felt changed.
Not weaker.
Closer.
She could sense possibilities gathering whenever she reached for it. The pink bubbles, impossible objects, bursts of fire, and other manifestations of chaos no longer seemed entirely random.
They felt like fragments of a language she had once spoken fluently.
A language that might still decide to kill her while she relearned it.
Kaylor noticed her distraction.
“Do you sense something?”
“I always sense something.”
“Something useful?”
“That is less common.”
She looked toward the Bag of Holding at Grazim’s side.
“The shard is quiet.”
Grazim did not find that comforting.
“Can you feel it?”
“No. That is the problem.”
They emerged from the canyon.
The ruined city spread before them.
It had once been enormous.
Broken towers rose above fields of collapsed stone. Streets extended between roofless buildings, many wide enough for carts to travel six abreast. Statues stood upon shattered plazas, their heads removed or weathered beyond recognition.
Everything was gray.
Not merely the stone.
Dust covered the streets, the walls, the bones, and even the few dead trees growing through the ruins. The city looked as though color itself had abandoned it.
Far to the south, something moved above the central district.
A column of magic twisted above an ancient temple.
From that distance, it resembled smoke lit from within by blue and violet lightning. The disturbance reached into the sky and spread outward in faint, turning bands.
Fendor studied it.
“That seems unhealthy.”
“It is likely the source,” Kaylor said.
“Sources are often unhealthy.”
The road before them split.
One route followed the remains of a broad avenue directly toward the temple. Another curved southeast through a district of low stone structures.
The direct route was exposed.
The southeast road offered cover.
They chose cover.
For nearly an hour, the city remained silent.
They passed abandoned carts, dry fountains, and buildings whose doors stood open. In several places, tables remained set inside ruined homes. Plates, cups, and rusted utensils waited beneath centuries of dust.
There were no bodies.
Not at first.
Then Isamu found a hand protruding from beneath a collapsed wall.
The flesh was not ancient.
It belonged to one of Marrick’s missing soldiers.
Grazim helped move the stone.
There was no body attached.
The hand had been torn away at the wrist.
They found the rest of the patrol in pieces along the next street.
Kaylor knelt beside one corpse.
The man’s armor had been pulled open. Something had removed the organs beneath it but left the surrounding flesh almost untouched.
Hexen looked toward the buildings.
“Scavengers?”
“No,” Grazim said. “Scavengers eat.”
Whatever had killed the soldiers had collected.
They continued.
The new opening in the earth appeared near the remains of a market square.
It had not been there when the city fell.
Broken stone leaned inward around an enormous fissure. The opening resembled a mouth forced through the street, with jagged slabs forming teeth around a dark throat.
Fresh soil and fragments of buried masonry had been thrown across the surrounding buildings.
Isamu crouched near the edge.
“This happened recently.”
“How recently?” asked Leonidas.
“The ground is still settling.”
A sound emerged from below.
Many voices whispered together.
The words were indistinct at first.
Then the chorus grew louder.
“Brains.”
Nethnarel looked into the darkness.
“Did it say—”
“Brains,” the voices repeated.
Fendor drew an arrow.
“At least its intentions are clear.”
The thing climbed from the maw.
It had once been human only in the broadest possible sense.
A swollen sack of pale flesh rose from the fissure, supported by limbs pressed together beneath it. Faces stretched across its surface. Some were dead. Others moved, mouths opening and closing as though the people trapped within remained aware.
Arms protruded at irregular angles.
Fingers clawed against the creature’s own skin.
Behind the translucent surface, entire corpses shifted and pressed outward.
The behemoth dragged itself into the street.
Every mouth screamed.
“BRAINS!”
Grazim stepped forward and raised his holy symbol.
The divine light came more quickly than before.
Golden radiance struck the creature.
The dead faces recoiled. Several mouths closed. The behemoth shuddered and began to pull backward toward the fissure.
For one moment, Grazim believed the command had worked.
Then the corpses inside turned against one another.
Hands seized faces. Teeth bit flesh. The mass dragged itself forward again, resisting the holy compulsion through the sheer number of dead wills trapped within it.
“It is too many creatures joined together,” Grazim said.
Nethnarel extended one hand.
“Then perhaps we should separate them.”
Fire gathered around her fingers.
The fireball struck the behemoth directly.
Flame rolled across its swollen body. The outer layer blackened and split, filling the street with the smell of burned meat.
The creature kept coming.
When the flames cleared, dozens of hands reached through the ruptured flesh.
Nethnarel stared at it.
“That usually works better.”
Hexen summoned the wolves.
They appeared between the ruined buildings, gray bodies emerging from green light. The pack rushed the behemoth, tearing into the limbs that supported it.
Kaylor followed.
His first sword opened the creature from shoulder to hip.
His second cut through the arm reaching for his throat.
Black fluid poured from the wounds.
Isamu moved along the creature’s side, striking every joint and exposed skull he could reach. Each blow broke bone, but the surrounding flesh simply drew the shattered pieces back inside.
Fendor’s arrows entered mouths and eyes.
Leonidas held the open street, destroying individual corpses when they separated from the mass.
The creature fell onto the wolves.
Several vanished beneath it.
Hexen roared and charged.
His body expanded into the form of the cave bear.
He struck the behemoth hard enough to roll it onto one side. The surviving wolves attacked the exposed underside.
The swollen flesh began to collapse.
“We have it!” Kaylor shouted.
Nethnarel reached for another spell.
The magic came too quickly.
A sphere of chaotic energy formed between her hands, changing color with each heartbeat—blue, red, yellow, violet, then something that was not a color the mortal eye should have understood.
She released it.
The bolt struck the creature.
For an instant, nothing happened.
Then a shadow appeared across the street.
Everyone looked upward.
An enormous object fell from the empty sky.
It had no clear shape. It resembled a slab cut from the foundation of some impossibly large fortress—black stone, square-edged, and wider than the behemoth beneath it.
The object crushed the undead mass against the street.
The impact shook nearby buildings.
Dust erupted across the square.
When it cleared, little remained of the creature except black fluid spreading from beneath the impossible stone.
The wolves stared at it.
Kaylor slowly lowered his swords.
Fendor looked at Nethnarel.
“Planned?”
“Completely.”
“What is it?”
“I planned the result, not the object.”
A wet cracking sound came from the fissure.
Nethnarel turned toward the others.
“Something else is coming!”
Pink bubbles emerged from her mouth.
They floated around her horns, glimmering in the gray light.
Nethnarel stopped.
She tried again.
More bubbles.
Fendor watched them drift past his face.
“Your warning lacks urgency.”
Nethnarel made a gesture that communicated urgency quite clearly.
The second behemoth forced its way from the maw.
It was smaller than the first, but more unstable. Its swollen surface tore as it climbed, releasing individual zombies onto the street.
The creatures fell, rose, and ran.
The behemoth opened a wide mouth across the center of its body.
Black bile sprayed outward.
Kaylor raised his shield.
The liquid struck the dragon emblem and hissed. Metal darkened beneath it.
“Do not let that touch you!”
The zombies spread around them.
Isamu intercepted three before they reached Nethnarel. His hands, feet, and the edge of his weapon moved in a blur. Knees broke. Necks snapped. One corpse flew backward into the fissure.
Fendor retreated onto a fallen wall, firing downward.
Each arrow removed one attacker.
Hexen’s wolves fought in the street while the cave bear tore open the behemoth’s side.
Grazim called forth the remembered warriors.
Golden shapes appeared around him, armed in the styles of kingdoms long vanished. They moved through the zombies, radiant weapons burning away the corruption holding the corpses upright.
The behemoth continued vomiting darkness.
Leonidas stepped into the open.
He had lost his shield somewhere during the fight. His sword hung at his side, forgotten.
Dark power gathered around both hands.
It was not the same darkness Dark Voice had commanded. This energy carried no cold and no whispering emptiness. It was force given shape, black at the center and violet along the edges.
Leonidas thrust one hand forward.
The first blast struck the behemoth and tore a hole through its body.
He fired again.
The second entered the same wound.
The creature burst apart.
Corpses, black fluid, and strips of ruined flesh filled the street.
The remaining zombies collapsed.
For several breaths, no one moved.
Then the earth beneath the maw began to tremble.
A hand reached over the edge.
Then another.
Then twenty.
The darkness below filled with faces.
They rose together—not as one creature, but as an advancing mass of corpses pressing upward through the fissure.
A sea of dead.
The heroes could not fight them individually.
There were too many.
The first ranks spilled into the street.
More climbed over them.
Hexen returned to his human form.
“We collapse the opening.”
“With what?” Kaylor asked.
Hexen looked toward Nethnarel.
She attempted to answer.
A cluster of pink bubbles drifted from her lips.
Hexen pointed toward the ground, then made a breaking motion with both hands.
Nethnarel understood.
She placed both palms upon the street.
Wild magic entered the earth.
The first tremor cracked the stones around her fingers.
The second passed beneath the fissure.
The city groaned.
At the same moment, Hexen raised both arms.
Water appeared above the market square.
It did not fall as rain.
A wave formed in the dry air—an immense wall of dark water suspended between the ruined buildings.
The corpses continued climbing.
Hexen brought his hands down.
The tidal wave struck.
Water swept the front ranks back into the fissure. Bodies collided, broke, and vanished beneath the flood.
Nethnarel released the earth tremor.
The street split.
Walls collapsed inward. Ancient foundations folded into the opening. The impossible stone summoned by her earlier spell tipped from the shattered street and fell into the maw.
The wave forced more corpses beneath it.
The ground closed.
Stone, mud, bones, and water crashed together until the fissure vanished beneath a sunken field of rubble.
One final hand protruded between the stones.
It clawed at the air.
Grazim struck it with his hammer.
The hand became still.
Silence returned to the ruined city.
Nethnarel stood.
She opened her mouth experimentally.
One pink bubble emerged.
“Almost,” Fendor said.
She glared at him.
The magical effect faded several minutes later.
Her first restored words were not suitable for the old songs.
They continued south.
The column above the central temple had grown larger.
Dust spiraled around it now, filling several streets with a turning wall of brown and gray. Broken tiles, splintered wood, and fragments of bone moved within the winds.
Leonidas stopped behind the remains of a stone house.
“That is a haboob.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“A what?”
“A wall of dust driven by violent wind.”
Nethnarel studied the swirling mass.
“Haboob sounds less threatening.”
Something flew within it.
At first, Fendor mistook the shapes for debris. Then one turned against the current and beat its wings.
Humanoid bodies circled inside the storm.
Their arms ended in long claws. Leathery wings extended from their backs, and pale fangs flashed whenever the dust thinned around them.
Movement crossed the street below.
Smaller whirlwinds ran between the ruins.
Each possessed the vague shape of a hound—a head, four legs, and a twisting body made entirely from dust.
The creatures remained inside the storm.
They had not yet noticed the heroes watching from behind the broken houses.
Far beyond them, the ancient temple waited beneath the column of magic.
The direct path passed through the haboob.
Kaylor examined the flying creatures.
Hexen watched the dust hounds.
Fendor counted the shapes he could see.
“There are many.”
“How many?” Grazim asked.
“Enough that I stopped counting.”
Nethnarel looked back toward the buried maw.
Behind them waited a city filled with the dead.
Before them turned a living storm filled with monsters.
She smiled faintly.
“At least the village is no longer cold.”
The dust wall shifted.
One of the winged creatures stopped circling.
Its head turned toward the ruins where the heroes stood.
Then another turned.
And another.
Within the roaring wind, pale mouths opened.
The haboob had seen them.