Hundreds of eyes blinked open all around us.

  The fog was gone. There was nowhere left to hide the Redcaps.

  They were everywhere… across churned grass and broken earth, crouched behind stones, perched in shrubs, daggers gleaming in every hand. Too many.

  For a heartbeat, the field held its breath.

  Then they came.

  Jerald swore and slammed his fists together. Light burst from him as he unleashed a blessing. A clear dome flared around us just as the first bodies hit it. The impact rang out sharp and brittle, like stone striking glass.

  Claws screamed across the surface. Redcaps slammed into the barrier from every side.

  They did not falter. They did not scatter.

  More poured in from the edges of the field, cresting low rises, scrambling over each other, climbing with daggers in hand.

  “Shit,” Jerald muttered.

  He turned in a slow circle, eyes sharp, scanning through the press of Redcaps. “Where is it?”

  His sword was gone. Mine felt wrong.

  The blade in my hand was no longer still, it felt too heavy. Dark purple blood smeared along it, thick and tar-like, where it had bitten into her flesh.

  So, I did hurt her.

  “Sean!”

  A body slammed into the barrier hard enough to rattle it. The dome shuddered. Jerald grabbed my arm.

  “Up,” he said. “Now.”

  My legs protested as I stumbled to my feet, the ground unsteady beneath me.

  “If we have any chance of getting out of this,” he went on, breath tight, eyes never leaving the throng, “we do it together. You hear me?”

  Before I could answer, the blade in my hand shivered.

  Then a wave of anger washed over me. “Feed!” the words slammed into my skull.

  Jerald’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, fingers digging in hard. “Sean! Focus!”

  I sucked in a breath that burned my chest and tried to still the sword. Whatever the Shepherd was, it had unearthed something dark in the blade. It fought back, heat and fury bleeding through the hilt and into my arm.

  “Calm down!” I shouted internally.

  “We need strength! Now!”

  I stared as the Hag blood began to move. It crawled along the blade, sliding along the metal until it struck the kinetic rune. The rune cracked. Splintered. Corrupted.

  Jerald saw it too. He took an involuntary step back.

  “What in the hell is that?” he demanded.

  I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

  The barrier shuddered again. This time it groaned, a deep, strained sound like something bending past its limit.

  “Damn it,” Jerald snapped. “It won’t hold much longer.” He pointed through the dome toward the faint glimmer of steel on the ground beyond the Redcaps. “As soon as it drops, I’m charging for that. You hear me? Run the other way. As far as you can!”

  “Through them?” I croaked.

  The corrupted contract rune burned, and the core runes opposite responded. They flared to life, their light infected and purple.

  In that instant, the world bled darker, the whites of everything around me washed violet as violent energy surged through the blade and into me.

  Then the barrier failed.

  The dome collapsed inward with a sound like breaking glass. The pressure vanished and the swarm surged.

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  “Feed!”

  I dug my boots into the mud as the runes along the blade detonated.

  I launched myself as the world slowed.

  The blade led, carving through teeth and claw. Redcaps split as I hit them, bodies bursting and tumbling like rain on stone. Blood filled the air in a fine mist, warm on my face, slick on my lips. I landed hard fifteen feet past their line, boots skidding, knees buckling under the force.

  They turned as one.

  In seconds they were on me again. Surrounding me. No space. No air.

  A thunderous boom rolled across the field as Jerald tore through a pack, his sword finally back in his hand. Every swing landed a death blow, the ground splitting beneath his feet with each attack. Redcaps flew apart in broken arcs of flesh and bone.

  He was far away.

  And that was exactly what I wanted.

  I lunged.

  The next Redcap barely registered before my blade split it open. Blood soaked the steel, and it drank. Claws raked my back. My blood burned. Spirits howled. The blade took everything it could reach.

  The blood only drove them mad.

  Redcaps screamed and surged, eyes glowing beneath their caps, daggers flashing. Steel struck my blade and vanished, eaten whole. Metal. Bone. Flesh. It all fed the same hunger.

  I looked up.

  Jerald stood a short distance away, drenched in blood. His chest hitched with every breath, shoulders rising and falling like he was dragging air through mud. Bodies lay piled around him, broken and twisted, the ground slick beneath his boots.

  And still they came.

  Redcaps crept in from every side, stepping over their own dead, knives low, eyes bright with hunger. The ring around him tightened, inch by inch, patient now. Waiting for the moment his arm dropped.

  I took a step toward him.

  Jerald snapped his head around. “No!” he barked, voice raw. “Stay back!”

  Another Redcap lunged and he turned to meet it, parrying on instinct rather than strength. Jerald caught the blow, but it drove him a half step back.

  He didn’t look at me again.

  He couldn’t afford to.

  Light exploded outward as he launched into the air. His fist glowed white-hot as he came down and drove the blessing into the ground.

  The field shook.

  A wave of white fire ripped through the earth, vaporising everything within twenty yards. Redcaps vanished in screaming flashes of ash.

  I threw up an arm to shield my eyes. The glare was gone almost as soon as it came. When it faded, the creatures nearest were shrieking, scattering into the fields beyond.

  Jerald dropped to one knee.

  He leaned on his sword, breath ragged, shoulders shaking as the cost of the blessing crashed into him all at once.

  Still, he wasn’t done.

  Not yet.

  And the field was far from empty.

  The Redcaps regrouped and lunged for Jerald’s left. He swung, but the motion lacked its earlier snap. The blade cut air. The creature skipped aside with a shrill laugh and came back low, knife flashing.

  Jerald barely caught it.

  Steel rang as he parried, the impact jarring his arm. He staggered a half step and shoved the redcap back with the flat of his blade. It skidded through the mud, shrieking, still very much alive.

  “Go!” the sword snarled inside my head.

  My teeth ground together hard enough to hurt.

  I ran for Jerald, cutting a path through flying knives.

  Every step dragged like wading through resistance. Redcaps rushed to meet me, drawn by the blood, the noise, the blade itself. I did not slow. I cut through them, each strike tearing something free.

  I reached Jerald’s side just as another Redcap leapt for his throat.

  My blade took it midair.

  The creature burst apart and I planted my boots beside Jerald, our shoulders brushing as I raised the sword again.

  Jerald didn’t look at me. He tore a knife from his shoulder, then his side and shoved a hand into his rune pouch and tipped back three vials in quick succession. Red. Blue. Clear. He swallowed them whole.

  His spine snapped straighter with a sharp inhale, breath dragging back into his lungs like it hurt. Colour crept back into his face, but the shake in his hand did not stop.

  We bought ourselves a second.

  Just enough to breathe.

  I followed his lead and tore open my own pouch, downing what was left without tasting it. Heat flared along my back as the worst of the cuts knitted closed, skin pulling tight and sore. The ache stayed. The energy didn’t return with it. Whatever the blade had taken, it had not given back.

  The Redcaps stopped rushing us head-on. Instead, they fanned out, skirting the edges of our vision, probing for gaps. A thrown knife flashed toward me. I barely caught it on the flat of the blade. It struck and exploded in a shower of ash.

  “You good, kid?”

  Whatever had carried me through the first surge was gone. “Barely.”

  “Alright,” Jerald said hoarsely. “Then we move.”

  We started for the hill fort.

  The ground we left behind barely looked like a field anymore. Grass had vanished beneath torn limbs and shredded bodies. Caps drifted in widening slicks of mud and blood, their colour bleeding into everything.

  Jerald moved beside me, and even without looking I could tell how close he was to empty.

  My legs burned. The blade felt heavier with every step, its earlier pressure gone, replaced by a dead weight that pulled at my shoulders.

  The violet haze that had bled into the world was fading.

  Breath tore out of us as we pushed uphill, legs burning, lungs screaming. The Redcaps followed for a time, their shrieks fading behind us, then stopping altogether. Whether they lost interest or lost their nerve, neither of us looked back to check.

  The climb to the top was brutal.

  By the time we hauled ourselves over the last rise, both of us were bent double, sucking in air. Jerald’s right eye had swelled shut, purple and angry. Cuts lined his arms and shoulders, too many to count. The mud caked into my hair had washed away, replaced by streaks of matted blood.

  Then we collapsed.

  I hit the ground on my back and stared up at the sky, chest heaving. Jerald landed beside me a second later, sword clattering from his grip. Clouds rolled overhead, heavy and low, already starting to weep.

  For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

  The blade in my hand was quiet again. No hunger. No pressure. Just weight.

  “Sean,” Jerald said at last.

  He turned his head slowly; eyes fixed on the sword. The purple light had faded, the metal settling back into something almost normal.

  He swallowed.

  “What the hell is that thing?”