Obviously, I didn’t die. But I came closer to it that night than perhaps ever before. The darkthings just wouldn’t stop coming, swarms of them closing and coiling, smashing through to widen the holes in our defences and crunching past broken barricades. It was like a bee hive, with every drone as big as a halberdier.

  Gruin and I fought back to back, snarling and spitting as we swung one way and the other. I’d picked up a burning log by its cool end and was using it to compound my sword slashes, noting how the touch of fire seemed to hurt darkthings more than its sight. Gruin had simply wrapped a length of cloth around his own hammer and lit the head alight. Both had a similar effect.

  Several darkthings lay dead on the floor, twitching, groaning, making noises I didn’t think any living thing could make. Their blood oozed out, sizzling and eating into the dirt of the floor as if it were boiling water dumped on wax, and moment by moment we were forced closer to the bonfire centring the room.

  It had been twenty minutes. Twenty fucking minutes, not even a tenth of the night, and we were already backed close enough to the blaze that I could feel my skin throbbing from its heat. Something needed to change of course, but I could think of nothing that might save us.

  A darkthing closed faster than the others, electrifying my body with reflex and dragging my sword up before I even knew what was happening. Steel met meat, bit deep, the air hissed with hot blood and I watched another thing fall, only for the next to slip around behind it and catch a burning log in its face.

  It screamed, the first sound of pain I’d heard from the monsters, but I wasn’t left to take satisfaction from it before another darkthing leapt over the rest and landed on my shoulders. I felt teeth close on my collar, just barely missing the space where my chainmail ran out, and stumbled away with the monster still attached to me.

  Terror took me, of a more primal sort than I’d already felt. There’s something innate about touch that the other senses of humanity just don’t match, a terrible urgency to any tactile threat that overrides those gleaned from sight or sound.

  Which is to say, I panicked. And screamed.

  Though the darkthing was taller than me, it wasn’t all that heavy and probably weighed as much as most men did. I’d been made stronger by my months of training, hiking and suffering, and with my frame it was a simple thing to turn and dump the creature down hard against the ground.

  Against the fiery ground, where our bonfire was resting.

  Well, the darkthing didn’t like that one bit, nor did its friends. Firewood was scattered, still burning, in all directions as a wave of hot air hit me where displaced matter allowed it to escape from within. I stumbled away, eyes watering, and saw that I wasn’t alone in it.

  It turned out that, while darkthings were not nearly as affected by light and heat as the blackmists in which they thrived, the creatures didn’t like being actually on fire any more than humans did, and had about as much self-control as most animals. So when the burning wood spilled and rolled out, their attack actually halted.

  Mine didn’t, I was too scared and mad to even think about letting up. My sword took one of them right in the crown of its head and split the creature’s skull like firewood, spilling brain matter out to cook and sizzle on the burning ground. The others started recovering at that, and I felt my fatigue somehow bleeding away, a new strength pumping up through my limbs.

  Gruin seemed to be handling himself similarly well, seizing on the opening of spilled fire to swing away and dispatch two more of the darkthings. Both of us fought our way closer to the room’s centre, kicking wood out onto what was left of the fire and ensuring it remained large and fed.

  Darkthings screamed, so did we. The room was a howling mess of battle-shrieks and steel on flesh, claws raking against mail, against skin, pain and hate, spittle and blood. I don’t even remember the rest of what happened, it all sits in my mind like something obfuscated by thick fog. When the killing was done I’d been wounded, that much I knew. At two points my chainmail had surrendered against enemy violence and left me to be gashed below.

  Nothing life-threatening, though the wounds were more than just skin-deep too. I felt their sting as Gruin and I stood there; panting, wheezing, and still not quite believing that the rays of dawn we saw were real. Had it really been hours?

  “We’re alive.” Gruin said it like he was reporting the fact to me, as if I’d asked. I stared at him for a long second before realising the Grynkori was just as shocked as me.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen him in such a condition, and I was long past caring about the novelty of it. Yeah, fair enough, he was bloody shocked. After what we’d just seen that did exactly nothing to make me reassess my view of his unwavering bullheadedness. Emperor Norus himself would’ve been shocked, and if he wasn’t he was an idiot. Or insane, which, granted, I already knew about Norus.

  “It’ll be light soon,” I said suddenly. Both of us were speaking suddenly then, our minds rattled into thinking within terms of sudden bursts and slow vacancies. “That means the shelter will open up.”

  “Hm, it will,” I saw Gruin’s fatigue seem to disappear before my very eyes as he drew his hammer up. “So we’ll get a chance to flatten that bastard after all.”

  While that was not exactly wrong, it was also not what I’d been getting at at all. Then again, Gruin might summarily execute me for cowardice if he knew what I’d really been thinking.

  “Or, we can make him think we’re dead,” I pointed out. “We didn’t even believe we’d survive the blackmists tonight, do you think he will?”

  Gruin looked thoughtful at that.

  “You’re saying we can…what, exactly?”

  I’d been halfway to suggesting we leg it, but realised there was approximately zero chance of the Grynkori agreeing to do that now. I thought fast.

  “Take out a few more of his men if they’re sent to investigate this house, or wait for him to head back to his own and attack him there. Actually, that latter option is the best, there’s no chance he’ll bring a lot of help along with what he has in the basement.”

  We didn’t take long to decide on that as our next course of action, and once day was fully out the bastard elder didn’t take long to move as we’d hoped. Gruin and I circled through the town at its outskirts well ahead of time, crawling our way into his house and hiding right beyond sight of the hidden entrance to his basement.

  I’d figured, given what he’d done to trap us outside the night before, that he was probably expecting Gruin and I to hide in his own home due to its size and the security of its basement. Admittedly, we’d given that idea a lot of thought. The fact that there was a darkthing chained up down there, and that Arig hadn’t come with a score of thugs now, told me it would’ve been a bad idea. He wasn’t even considering the idea that we’d survived here, just wanted to check the place.

  Gruin and I waited until he was deeper inside, heading down through the false wardrobe and into his basement, before we made our move. I sprinted after the elder, moving along the ground at full speed and then leaping into the air when I was still two yards back from him. He turned just in time to catch both my heels against his chest, transferring the bulk of my momentum in that one kick and throwing him back down the stairs to land hard at the bottom.

  It was, I admit, somewhat hasty, and I actually worried I’d killed the evil fuck by mistake.

  But he lived, fortunately. I think I did break his back though because his legs remained very still while the rest of him was twitching around. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t feel bad about that either. Arsehole.

  Gruin certainly didn’t, storming his way down the stairs to promptly grab the elder by his head and lift him bodily off the ground. Elderly fists struck the Grynkori’s head and neck, bouncing off like the beating of a child, and it was only when Gruin started squeezing both sides of his temple rather hard that I felt the need to get involved.

  I didn’t think Gruin was capable of crushing a man’s skull, but I also didn’t know that he couldn’t, and we still had questions for this bastard before sending him on to explain himself to God.

  “What the fuck are you doing with that darkthing in your basement?” I snapped, slapping him as I aimed my question for good measure. It got the conversation moving.

  “You’re too late!” he hissed, spit rolling down his chin as lips parted and breath shot out in great waves, “nothing you can do now will make the slightest difference! I don’t know if you’re with the church or the King, but—”

  I hit him, hard. I’d long since gotten past my fist hurting on other men’s faces, and compared to punching Gruin this old fuck’s skin and bones were like a pillow.

  “What is it?”

  As a general rule, beating the shit out of people isn’t a great way to get information from them. Putting aside that it makes them more likely to forget details, people will just lie to get out of the pain, even if they don’t actually know anything. I must’ve lucked out that day, though, because I got some decent answers through it.

  Or at least coherent ones, sort of. We listened to Arig while he babbled out his plans, then started hauling the fucker down into the basement. It was harder than I’d like to admit, both of us were still sore and tired from our heavy fighting and Gruin in particular had been wounded bad.

  Still, we got him into the darkthing chamber and I was given the satisfaction of watching Gruin freeze up as he laid eyes on the thing. Even after our night of fighting, it cut a fearsome sight. Larger than the darkthings we’d killed, and looking far more animated. Something told me this was a greater beast than the minor things we’d been assaulted by.

  It was also where Arig had been getting his oil from. He’d been feeding this thing livestock, keeping it sheltered and rested, and, while it remained bound by chains, extracting that mystery-fluid that burned so well and bright. This was why the village could stave off blackmists so easily, and this was why he was wealthier than some merchants while living here.

  “Monster,” Gruin spat. I turned and found he was heaving, trembling. But not with rage. The Grynkori’s limbs seemed to be dragging down beneath him, his body hunching over as he rested more and more of its weight against the haft of his hammer. Though we’d bound his wounds as best we could, the bandages were clearly wet with blood and I could only imagine how much he needed every ounce of strength that had drained into them.

  “I’m gonna rid the world of this filth,” the Grynkori growled. I didn’t know what he was talking about, couldn’t imagine him ridding anything of anything, but Gruin amazed me by standing upright and hauling his massive hammer fully over his head.

  Then he fell over.

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