The village dissolved into chaos.

  Esharah stood at Mensikhana’s side, the two of them still projecting their memories into the heads of everyone nearby. They had to make the tribes understand that Sergrud was their true enemy. Had to convince them not to fight each other.

  It wasn’t working.

  Trying to steer the turmoil that broke out was like trying to guide a thunderstorm.

  “No! Stop! Please! We must fight together!” Mensikhana’s voice echoed through dozens of minds, still lost in the cacophony of bloodlust and fear.

  The Ragashars threw themselves into battle without hesitation. Tulun and the Hravast responded with equal violence, the singer’s vis-imbued voice echoing out to drive them to fury. Rocksmasher ogres surrounded Mensikhana in a tight perimeter, though a few stood with Sergrud and the former prisoners of Hellfrost lashing out.

  Within mere moments, however, any semblance of coherent sides to the conflict collapsed. Howls and screams roared out. Blood flowed.

  Open to everyone’s minds, Esharah felt it all. Blades sank into flesh. Rage boiled over into uncontrolled violence. Fangs pierced, claws ripped, weapons stabbed, and pain, so much pain tore into Esharah from a thousand wounds-

  Esharah tore herself away, retreating to the safety of her own mind. She staggered back, tripping over a fallen ogre with arrows piercing his massive chest.

  An iron grip caught her, one that burned at the touch.

  “Janaya?” Esharah jerked away from the woman’s scorching skin, steadying herself.

  Janaya’s eyes burned manically, hellfire threading along her snow-white hair and an earsplitting grin on her face, “The wicked will die today!”

  “So will everyone else,” Esharah hissed. “We have to stop them. They need to understand, to-”

  Janaya laughed, flames growing higher as the blood flowed. Esharah stepped away. There would be no help from her.

  The hulking form of Patz burst through the line of ogres, bald pate splattered with blood and ridged skin split open from a dozen wounds, already closing as skin stitched itself together.

  “Finally!” he screamed, eyes on Esharah. “Finally I get to break you-”

  Janaya lunged forward, sword stabbing into his chest and hellfire blasting into the wound. Patz screeched, flailing and trying to pull away. The sword wouldn’t move, caught on a rib.

  “Die, villain!” Janaya pushed the sword deeper.

  Patz clamped both hands down on the sword, pulling himself forward, “Hahaha! It burns! It burns, you bitch!”

  Caught off guard, Janaya staggered forward, right into Patz’ grip. The berserk man grabbed her by the side of the head, smashing her against the ground. Again. And again. Laughing all the while.

  Hellfire exploded out, sending Patz flying with a rush of air and heat knocking everyone around flat, Esharah included. Janaya stood, breathing heavily while hellfire seared the bloody head wound shut.

  Patz staggered up, groaning and jerking the sword from his chest. He threw the blade aside, staring at Janaya hungrily, “You...you’re the one Sergrud left pinned up on the wall on his spear!” More manic laughter, pure joy in those battle-mad eyes. “Gods! You’re perfect! I can kill you over and over and over again, and you’ll get back up!”

  Janaya shrieked, flames lashing out feet away from her body, “Scum! Wicked soul! The one to die today will be you!”

  “Then let’s kill each other!” Patz leaped forward. “Again, and again, and-”

  A giant, white-furred form swept in, stopping Patz mid-stride and lifting the man with a single hand.

  “Sorry, Janaya,” Logash cast aside a broken spear and hoisted the screaming, struggling, undying man up. “I have use of this one for a moment. I keep breaking weapons, but this man does not seem to break so easily.”

  Janaya’s eyes burned with hatred, but her shoulders slumped, and she spoke in a somewhat deflated voice, “...the instrument of judgment is not important, so long as the wicked are judged.”

  Logash nodded and swung the howling Patz like a club, smashing at a slavering, screaming canin approaching with spear raised.

  Esharah watched in stunned silence as Logash waded into the battle, flailing Patz about to crush any who approached. None dared get close, especially when Janaya took the other flank, her hellfire rushing out at any near.

  “Speaker!” One of the Rocksmashers gripped Mensikhana, hauling her to her feet.

  “It’s too much,” Mensikhana’s weak audible voice was barely heard over the carnage. “I can’t...stop it...oh gods, what have we done?”

  “The Ragashars would have done this eventually anyway,” Esharah taking Mensikhana’s other arm. “And Sergrud would always have fought. This just...hastened the process. Come on, we need to gather everyone we can! Join with me. We can’t stop this. But we can win it.”

  Mensikhana closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then nodded. Their minds joined together.

  Esharah reached out, lent her strength to Mensikhana’s voice, pulled at hearts as Mensikhana’s words reached their minds.

  “Kvormskaja, to me! People of Frostwood, to me! Hravasts! Any who would fight against Sergrud’s cruel, doomed ambition and the Ragashar’s wanton violence! Join together! Do not let your people be slaughtered!”

  The call went out, and slowly, some responded. Rocksmashers gathered together in a semi-circle around the longhouse. Frostwood residents rushed from their homes, joining alongside them. The remnants of the Hravast, Tulun leading them, merged in with the rest.

  Tulun’s song changed. Not one of violence and death but of courage. Standing strong against their foes. Esharah’s heart beat with it. She stood beside Mensikhana as their followers rallied. Ready to face the violence of Sergrud and Gannuk together.

  But Sergrud wasn’t there.

  The battle paused as Ragashars looked around. Gannuk stood in the center of the carnage, covered in blood. His head moved from side to side, nose twitching as his ears swiveled.

  “Where is the bastard?” he growled. “Where’s Sergrud?”

  Esharah reached out to the perimeter, to the rest of the warriors from Hellfrost sent to rescue her, “Aven?”

  “I see him!” Aven replied. “Heading north. Shevi and I are-”

  Too far. The connection faded as they surpassed Esharah’s reach. On their own now.

  “Sergrud is gone!” Esharah called out, linking with Mensikhana to spread the message far. “The coward has fled. Just as he always has done when he thinks odds are against him. Fled and left all of you to die! To kill each other.”

  Gannuk laughed, “Of course. Sergrud flees, but we will catch him and devour him. But first,” Gannuk turned towards the assembled Rocksmashers, Hravasts, Frostwoods, “We have another feast. Ragashars! Kill them all! For Ghulagkh!”

  “Ghulagkh! Ghulagkh! Ghulagkh!” The Ragashars pounded their weapons against the earth as they chanted.

  “What is that?” Esharah asked.

  Mensikhana answered in the minds of all, “Ghulagkh is their god. Of blood, of slaughter, of war and death. They...they kill in his name, and they will not stop until their ‘blood feast’ has concluded.”

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  “Mine was called Grashakhar,” Logash said softly, eyes distant even as he tossed aside the limp, broken form of Patz in favor of a thick, long-handled warhammer offered by one of the Rocksmashers. “I too have killed in the name of a god’s demand. But it was my own rage, my own lust for blood that drove me, not piety. My god was only an excuse.”

  Janaya visibly shivered, flames writhing erratically, “Whether in the name of their god or their own bloodlust, they deserve judgment the same.”

  “They are the last to stand against us,” Mensikhana said. “I am...I am sorry, to have dragged you into this.”

  “No,” Logash shook his head. “No more running. They’re not just against us, but any chance of peace for Hellfrost. We must fight.”

  Hellfrost, Frostwood, Hravast, and Kvormskaja stood united. On the other side, a hundred ravening canin warriors. The sides clashed in a roar and scream of violence.

  * * *

  Gretchen staggered along between the houses at the edge of Frostwood, supporting Iskir. Damn Sergrud. Damn Esharah. Damn the Empire. Damn them all.

  “Hells,” Iskir gasped, one arm around her shoulder while the other tried to staunch the spear wound at his side. “The empire played us all like fools.”

  “Sergrud did just as much,” Gretchen hissed.

  “He’s empire too,” Iskir groaned, nearly collapsing before she could lean him up against a building for extra support. Gretchen took pride in being a strong woman, tall too. Iskir was a head taller. “It’s...it’s all the same isn’t it? Empire burns our villages, claps us in chains, then sets us fighting against each other. It’s...it’s everywhere. The empire is all there is, and there’s nothing we can do.”

  “Shut up,” Gretchen spat, “There’s a lot of damn things we can do, and we will. Staring with living. Come on. We’ll make our own path. Not the empire. Not following a damned voidtouched. Just move your feet.”

  Iskir chuckled and stepped forward with her help. They could make it. They really could. They’d survive this.

  Two figures waited just beyond the edge of town. West, where no proper road led out into the wilderness, only narrow paths between the trees tread by hunters. Two figures holding spears. Wally, the young canin just barely holding onto the trembling spear.

  And Katrin. Spear held loosely, pointed down. But ready. Eyes cold and merciless.

  “Katrin,” Gretchen whispered the name she’d spoken a hundred times before, in moments only the two of them had shared. Her heart beat fast. Her hands felt sweaty. She couldn’t breathe. Katrin hadn’t gone with her. But the thought of raising a weapon against her...

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Gretchen whispered.

  Katrin’s gaze didn’t soften, “Then surrender.”

  “Never,” Gretchen said. “You know they’d kill me as a ‘traitor’. Iskir too.”

  “You are traitors,” Wally whispered, spear still wavering.

  Gretchen spat into the snow. “A traitor, because I refuse to fight for a monster. A traitor because I won’t bend the knee to an empire that slaughtered my family and put me in chains. We’re leaving, Katrin. We can find something outside the empire. We’ll build something new, somewhere far from here.”

  Katrin said nothing. Only stared back.

  Gretchen looked into the eyes of the woman she’d once thought she loved, “Come with us, Katrin. We...we can have something. Away from it all. Away from all the violence, and blood, and the godsdamned-”

  A black form swooped down. Gretchen gasped and struck, but she missed. The black form descended-

  And landed in her hair, pulling and chattering, “Kuspa! Paskansjoja! Tukhe kuko, lika-hwora!”

  “Ow!” Gretchen swatted Vili’s form away as the spirit continued yanking at her braids. “Stop that!”

  “Takke!” Katrin commanded.

  The shadow spirit bit her ear, then swooped away as Katrin called her off. Perched on Katrin’s shoulder, the spirit leaned in and whispered a word, “Tappa.”

  Gretchen had never understood most of the spirit’s language. Katrin had never taught her, and Vili always seemed to treat Gretchen as an annoyance at best — the attitude of a child jealous over its mother. Or a pet over its owner. This word, though, Grethen did know.

  Kill.

  A chill ran over her, and not for the first time, Gretchen wondered which of the woman and the spirit was truly the master.

  “You broke your oaths,” Wally said.

  “I never swore it,” Iskir growled. “While the rest of you licked Aven’s boots and swore your oaths, I never promised anything to the empire. Only that I’d fight monsters. The empire are the monsters. All them them. You want to fight for that, Wally?”

  Wally said nothing.

  Gretchen stepped forward, “Well, Katrin? Are you going to kill me? Just...forget about everything we shared?”

  “No,” Katrin shook her head. “I...will not kill you.”

  Wally gasped and turned to stare at Katrin, “B-but-”

  “You won’t either,” Katrin looked back at Wally. “We see how you waver. You don’t want to fight.”

  “I...” Wally’s spear lowered. “I don’t.”

  “Come with us, then,” Gretchen urged.

  “Come on, Wally,” Iskir said. “Ko’jan died fighting against the empire. You think he’d want us to carry on serving them?”

  Wally looked to Katrin.

  “The choice is not mine,” Katrin stepped aside. “I have already made my choice. I fight against the void. We fight alongside Aven.”

  “Is that your choice?” Gretchen asked, jerking her head towards the hovering spirit. “Or is it that thing’s?”

  “’Ting!’” Vili’s voice echoed, indignant. “En al ‘ting’, alla Vili, kuspa!”

  “Our desires are one,” Katrin said, no trace of regret, no trace of longing. Gods, had their time meant so little? “We are one. You never understood that.”

  No, Gretchen never did. How could she? Katrin never even tried to explain just what in the hells the bounded spirit was to her.

  Wally glanced to Katrin. Then to Iskir. The spear fell from his hands. He ran to Iskir’s side, supporting the larger canin with Gretchen’s help.

  “Let’s go,” Wally said. “We...we can leave the empire behind us. We’ll...we’ll make something better.”

  Iskir chuckled weakly and patted the smaller boy’s shoulder, “Yeah...maybe we will.”

  Katrin didn’t move. Didn’t stop them as Gretchen helped Wally to haul Iskir along. As the three of them left Frostwood. As they stepped onto the small path between the trees. As the village disappeared from their view behind them. Even as Katrin disappeared from her sight.

  * * *

  In the melee, Teja saw Sergrud break free. Saw him run through a half dozen Ragashars on his way north. In the carnage, everyone else lost sight of him. Except the voidtouched and canin runner on that side, waiting to spring the trap. It was a natural place for Sergrud to run. Back into the wilderness that Sergrud had made home in the past five years. A hunted animal retreated to its den. And for all Sergrud’s bluster, for all he tried to be the predator, he was really prey.

  Whether the runner and voidtouched could handle Sergrud...that was a different matter. Well, if Sergrud died, that was well and good. If not, he’d freeze in the wilderness or live to be a thorn in the empire’s side a bit longer. Either way, it was time for Teja to leave. Sergrud’s rule had fallen.

  Wreathed in shadows, no one saw her slip away east.

  No one except the strange red-headed boy waiting at that entrance.

  The boy grinned, looking right at Teja, somehow seeing her through the veil of shadows as she crept.

  “Now, there’s the one I’ve been wanting to see,” he rose to his feet, twirling his staff, sole visible eye glinting underneath the mop of bushy red hair.

  Teja didn’t wait to hear what the boy had to say. He was here with the empire. That was enough. She slipped an arrow from hip-quiver to string and launched it in the same breath.

  The boy’s feet didn’t move. He simply swayed, head tilting, and the arrow buzzed past his neck.

  “Careful, there!” he chuckled. “You might hurt someone!”

  Teja ran, sprinting out past the edge of the buildings and towards the palisade, launching another arrow as she did so. This time, the boy did move. He spun aside as if dancing.

  But the spin meant that his sole eye wasn’t looking at Teja for a split second. She reached out with her vis, seizing the night shadows and curling them around her in their comforting embrace. Hidden from sight as she reached the half-finished palisade and crouched down.

  “Now, that’s not fair!” the boy called, trotting to a halt. His grin faded as he scanned the area, turning his staff in slow circles as he searched for her. “Huh, you’re good at hiding, ain’t ya? Here kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  Silently, Teja crept out. Beyond the palisade, eyes still on the searching boy. He didn’t see her. Good.

  The boy sighed and knelt down, picking up a stone off the ground. He brought the stone up to his lips and kissed it. Held it up to the sky. He spun. Round and round. Arm holding the stone up high. What on earth-

  Hand released stone. The stone whizzed through the air. Right at her. But there was still time to dodge-

  Teja’s foot hit a tree root. She stumbled, and in the brief stumble, the stone slammed into the side of her head.

  Her vision flickered black. Hells. Knife. She could get out her knife before the boy reached her-

  A staff pinned Teja’s wrist to the ground.

  “There now.” The boy grinned down at her, head blotting out the moon. “Now, we can have a proper conversation. Name’s Sunshine! And you’re Teja, yeah?”

  Teja froze. The boy looked no older than twenty, if even that. But he barely seemed to be trying, and the staff pinned her hand to the ground, the other holding the knife immobile, as if they’d been clamped down in a vice.

  The red-haired youth was dangerous. Strong.

  “What do you want?” Teja snarled.

  “It’s almost the festival of joy!” the boy said. “I came to Hellfrost bringing gifts. For those worthy. ‘Course one’s reserved for Aven, but you...you might be worthy too.” The grin broadened. “Let’s take a look, shall we?”

  The boy’s free hand reached up to the bandages around his head. The clothes pulled away, and Teja stared into his Eye.

  White, iris, pupil, and all. White. But the pupil swirled, a miasmic mist that roiled. Inhuman. The mists swirled in Teja’s vision.

  Swirled, and looked into her soul.

  The mist pulsed, “Oh, you’ve definitely still got a part in this story. What part...well, that depends.”

  “Depends...on what?” Teja asked.

  From the ragged cloak, the boy called Sunshine pulled out a vial filled with black liquid. Black and roiling, as if straining to get out of its container, “Depends on your answer.” Sunshine said. “Now, I’m given to understand you’re not the most patriotic of the empire’s citizens.”

  “I was no citizen,” Teja hissed. “I was a slave.”

  Sunshine waved a dismissive hand, “Citizen. Slave. What’s the difference, when it comes to the Empire? Anyhow, I reckon you’d need some mighty fine temptation to lure you back into the empire’s clutches, so how about I make you a ludicrously generous offer?” The vial swayed in front of her. The black liquid swirled within the vial, as if straining to reach Teja.

  Teja said nothing.

  “’Now what’s the offer, sir Sunshine?’” the boy asked in a high-pitched mocking voice. “Well, I’m glad you asked, dear Teja! I come not with one, but with three offers! First, your life! What could be more than that?” He paused. “Not a rhetorical question, by the way, but that’s a tricky one, so we’ll wait until you’ve had some good long thought to answer. Second, power!” he jiggled the vial again. “And last...a job! Or, dare I say, a family. Now, what say you?”

  Teja considered. The boy was mad as hells. And a danger. And there was something in the vial. Teja knew. Knew it was calling to her.

  Teja chose.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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