The way Shiyo said the word “dreadlord,” combined with the memories of the previous night, sent a chill down Benedict’s spine. How did a simple name make it so much worse?

  “I’ve never heard of one of those,” Lem said.

  “Neither have I,” Ordra agreed.

  “I’m not surprised,” Shiyo said, “dreadlords have never been seen south of the Cold Sea that I’ve heard. ‘Dreadlord' is a term referring to a monster that is linked to a Source. This makes it far more powerful than any others, like a monstrous version of a Wraith.”

  Everyone around them recoiled at the last sentence. Benedict kept a stern face as he remembered first the look on Rin’s face as he charged with his axe held high. If that’s how much people feared Wraiths, how much worse would a dreadlord be?

  Shiyo continued. “Because it’s not just one form of monster like a goblin or slime, you can never predict exactly what one is going to be like unless you scout ahead. Do you have a plan?”

  “We do,” the guard captain said. “We have worked on a strategy ever since we sent out the weapons request.”

  “Let us see this plan first, then,” Ordra said.

  The captain took them through the guardhouse and into a large room with the only present furniture being a table. Small carved figurines stood atop it in the center, illuminated by a light hanging from the ceiling. On the table was an engraved map of the local area, with the town in the center, marked by indentation representing its pentagonal wall. The figurines were expertly carved to resemble guards and monsters.

  “Quite the war room,” Benedict said as he looked around.

  The captain moved the figurines around the table to have the guards surrounding a single monster. “We find it most convenient when problems happen around Tilm, especially monster related. Here, we have worked on a trap. It’s a simple pit with spikes at the bottom created from what we could gather from local blacksmiths. We have a net covered with grass over it, so the monster shouldn’t be able to see it. The plan is to lure it near the pit so it will fall inside onto the spears. Given its size, we do not believe it would be able to escape easily, so while it was there, we blast it with the Artificers’ fire throwers, not letting up until it’s dead.”

  “Effective enough on most monsters,” Amalyn said.

  Shiyo stared at the display with a furrowed brow. “I can’t say if it would be on this one. Dreadlords are quite intelligent, so it might not fall for it. Do you have a backup plan?”

  “If it doesn’t fall into the pit, half of us would use heavy weapons in combination with the Artificers’,” the captain said. “We honestly don’t have any ideas beyond that.”

  “I traveled the North with a companion. They had three of them in the area, and we had to hunt them one by one as part of a group of fourteen. We scouted each one in turn for days, engaging and disengaging when we could until we knew what it was likely to do. Unless you have witnessed what it can do, we will need to scout first.”

  “Fortunately, we have some idea of that, already. Some of us went with adventurer parties and took notes.” The captain laid a book on the table. “It can’t—or won’t—climb our walls, so we have that. It moves faster than you would expect for its size. We’ve never seen it attack with more than four of its legs at a time. We asked for fire weapons so we can burn down the fur.”

  “Have you seen it use any powers at all?” Shiyo asked.

  “From its eye. It glows and flashes, then someone dies in fire.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not that we’ve seen.”

  Benedict walked over to the coffer full of fire throwers. “Nothing is an option because we don’t know what we’ve got yet. May I?”

  The captain gave Benedict a nod, and he drew one of the weapons out. It was lighter than he suspected, despite being made of steel and shaped like a small cannon. A short pole extended from the back of the cannon, with a crossbow-style trigger and switch on the pole. Next he drew out a small manual showing that the weapon’s purpose was to launch a stream of fire over fifty yards away. A switch on the side activated it while holding down the trigger would launch the fire and keep it going until the user released pressure. The latter half of the manual was dedicated to various warnings about its use, particularly around wood.

  “I will say that we didn’t know exactly what we were getting,” the captain said. “We just asked for fire weapons.”

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  “I need an archery range without any wood around the targets,” Benedict said.

  “Do you know how to use one of these?” Ordra asked.

  “I have a decent idea.”

  Benedict had only used a flamethrower one time; a birthday present from his parents. One tank of fuel equaled thirty seconds of literal firepower launched at a pile of sticks at the back of the range, sitting against a dirt mound. He wondered if Celica’s invention would feel similar.

  The captain led them out to the training yard. It was hemmed in with a stone wall on three sides, with nothing but dirt on the ground. One side contained fenced in sparring areas while the other contained the archery ranges. Other guards were training in the sparring areas, and they stopped to watch what Benedict was going to do.

  The archery range had a line marked on one side with a long board stuck in the ground. At the end, fifty yards away, stood a line of wood and canvas dummies. Benedict dropped to one knee and lifted the fire thrower up to his shoulder, holding it like he would a hunting rifle, but with the end of the pole under his armpit. A click of the lever sent light flashing for an instant around the barrel. It didn’t have a sighting system, so he kept the barrel as level as possible. A bright flash appeared at the end of the barrel when he squeezed the lever.

  Brilliant red and gold flames flowed in a thin stream from the barrel like a jet, looking more like lava than the gasoline mixture of a normal flamethrower. The weapon bucked in his hands from the recoil. He kept it under control and swept the stream across the three dummies, setting them ablaze instantly, then he swept it back, turning them to ash. When he released the trigger, the flames calmed.

  Benedict deactivated the weapon and set the pole’s butt on the ground. “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite like that.”

  “How did the artificers imagine such a weapon?” Kirion asked.

  Ordra pulled Kirion away by his cloak. “You’re not getting one.”

  “It’s simple, fundamentally,” Benedict said. “Fire is destructive, and sometimes you may need to set something on fire that’s way over there.”

  “Everyone believed we were getting wands,” the captain said. “Throrm, get that coffer out here. We need to practice now.”

  Practice they did. Benedict showed them one by one how to use the fire throwers. The guards brought out more dummies to be incinerated. It continued for hours while Ordra and the captain went to the war room to improve the plan. He took Kirion with him.

  “Does Kirion have a strange relationship with fire?” Benedict asked Amalyn as flames blasted from the guards’ fire throwers.

  “Let’s just say he prefers fire as a weapon,” Amalyn replied. “You’ll probably see when we kill the thing.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Shiyo said.

  Not quite as dangerous as the fire throwers were, Benedict thought.

  After nightfall, when most had gone to the taverns to wind down or to their own rooms and homes to relax, Shiyo stood on the wall, leaning on a merlon and hugging herself. Benedict walked to her and followed her gaze out to the dark landscape. A gentle breeze came directly into their faces.

  “The man whose sword you carry… it killed him,” Shiyo said.

  “What?” Benedict asked.

  “My partner in the North. He was the first man who didn’t recoil in horror when he found out what I am. The third dreadlord was a beast with wings and two heads coming out of its back. I stumbled during the battle, and it came for me. He jumped in front of the attack and died before he hit the ground. After that… I lost all composure and used Morighana’s power. His coffer was all I could get before the rest of the party attacked me.”

  “Is that why you were alone when I met you?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to become that attached to someone again.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Is he the reason you know what happens when you sleep with someone as a Wraith?”

  Her only answer was a nod.

  “We’ve got a good crew and a plan. We can do this,” Benedict said.

  “We need to for these people,” Shiyo said. “I fear they haven’t seen everything it can do.”

  “If we go all out with Morighana’s power, could we kill it on our own?”

  “We can’t even find the thing.”

  “It knows when we sense it. Does that mean it knows where we are when we see it?”

  Shiyo held a finger to his mouth. “No. It’s too risky. Part of me is perfectly willing to go all out against it alone, but what if we die out there regardless? I beat two dreadlords without Morighana’s power. I can do it again.”

  Benedict frowned, worry lines deepening around his eyes. “You sound confident. But you don’t look it.”

  Shiyo let out a shaky laugh, barely more than a breath. “Every dreadlord is frightening, even when you know everything it can do. After this, you won’t be the same, believe me.”

  The night pressed in harder. Benedict glanced out over the fields, starlit grasses swaying in the breeze. For the first time he could remember, he feared the dawn.

  “You think tomorrow will be worse than the ones you faced?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Shiyo admitted. “This is the first outside the North. There must be a reason it was able to escape across the Cold Sea, and I’m afraid its strength is it.”

  Benedict shivered, though the air wasn’t cold. “And if it is?”

  “If I have to use Morighana’s power, please don’t do so with me.” Her gaze shifted toward him. “I was hoping to leave you with a good party in Noctim, but I think we found a better one in Ordra. He and Amalyn will be excellent companions.”

  “What about Kirion?”

  “Every party needs a strange one, right?”

  “I guess you’re right.” Benedict clapped his hand onto her shoulder. “But it won’t come to that. We’ll finish it off and continue our journey together.”

  Shiyo betrayed a subtle smile and looked away. “I wonder if you’re right, Benedict.”

  The breeze faltered and the tall grass below the wall stilled. For a moment, even the crickets fell silent, and the hush stretched for what felt like an eternity. Then the sounds of night returned.

  Benedict searched the dark horizon. “I haven’t tried to sense anything.”

  “I felt it, too,” Shiyo said.

  “Maybe, when this one is dead, we should figure out how to stop the dreadlords from appearing.”

  “We’d have better success making the moons disappear.”

  It didn’t matter, Benedict decided. Morighana wanted him to deal with the Monstrous Scourge. The dreadlords were obviously part of it, and they were far too dangerous to be left to their own devices. A chill came over him as he continued surveying the horizon.