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Hi everybody. Sorry if this chapter feels a little drawn-out. I couldn't figure out a way to section it up well.

Suggestions and comments always welcome!

Chapter XII - Forest Above, Tunnel Below

Captain Summers shifted in the saddle, posting up with a flex of his aching legs to give his arse a second to regain some feeling. He used the momentary relief to look around at the ten armed and armored furs of the Guard, all dressed per his orders in brown rain cloaks that covered and concealed their Guard tabards beneath. The grizzled veteran snorted, knowing their band would hardly fool a child. Then again, their simple disguise might just fool the idiot mercenaries Casso liked to employ, at least long enough for them to escape if there were some form of trap waiting.

They had left two hours after midnight through one of the city's more-trafficked night-time gates. The good sergeant had waved them through with none the wiser, and quietly wished him luck as they departed. Summers hoped any luck they might have had been saved for after the rain, rather than washed away by it. The lack of roadblocks more than an hour's ride from the city worried him deeply, and his two lightly-armored scouts told him the furs at the barricades looked scared shitless, their officers grim, and their spirits squelched by the dumping rain.

After a second full hour cautiously riding their horses through the rapidly thickening forest, Summers made a silent paw motion, and led his guardsfurs back onto the mud-sodden road.

He quietly grumbled to himself, as he often did when on patrol, or at his desk, or eating, or even, according to his wife, while sleeping. It was, he figured, a guard fur's most sacred duty and right. At that moment, he grumbled about the damn rain and how it obscured his vision, ignoring the fact that lately he'd been experiencing blurriness at the edges of sight even on the brightest days.

Corporal Thistle, the same leopard who'd ridden messages for him earlier, gave his horse a tap to speed it, catching up with the captain while nimbly ducking low beneath fallen branches held in place by the thick forest of tall pines to either side of the road.

"Fine road they have here, sir."

Summers grunted sourly, and raised his glove-over-gauntlet paw to shield his eyes from the slanting, sheeting rain. It seemed to be growing heavier, if the ache in his old battle-wounds was any indicator.

"More a fifty league mud-slick than a road, Thistle. All the real roads run west from Amarthane, where the trade comes from. This way, trade's done by the river. Only reason there's road at all is the farm villages' grain tax."

The corporal nodded, sitting up in his saddle and craning his head to get a look around at the blanketing rain, feline ears twitching as the wind blew his hood back and left him to be instantly drenched. Sputtering, he gave the captain a sheepish look, while trying to get the hood back up in the driving gusts.

"Keep your head forward and down, corporal. Keep your eyes up. The hood'll keep rain out of em."

Thistle managed to get his hood pulled down, holding the reins with his teeth, and did as the veteran commander said without further questions. They rode on in silence, until reaching a weathered stone signpost that snaggled up from the soil like a broken tooth, its inscription barely visible.

"Gallow Tower, twenty leagues. Set up camp. We'll wait out the rain."

Overhead, the sky had turned the blue of frostbitten flesh, and ominous rumbles portended heavier deluge to come. The guardsfurs dismounted quickly, and moved to begin setting up the tents they'd brought along for the two day trip, quickly picking a raised spot along one side of the wagon-rut road, in the hopes of not being flooded out of their tents in the night.

Uneasy at the lack of road patrols, signs of warden activity, or even banditry he'd expect to see some trail of, Summers pitched his canvas tent quickly, and sat just inside its buttoned flap, using the space between buttons to look out on the road at the three guards who'd volunteered for the first watch.

His sword he left unsheathed, laid atop his bed roll as he sat on his camp stool and waited, either for the rain to slow or a threat to show itself.

Timid awoke to a searing pain in his forehead and eyes that made him groan and reach for his face, only to have his paws grabbed. He was pulled to a sit, and as his vision cleared from the blurriness of sleep, the pain began to ebb towards a tolerable agony, not unlike the time he had drunk too much sacramental wine with the temple elders at the harvest feast.

As the world returned to focus, he blinked blearily, eyes tearing from the throbbing, lancing heat that wriggled through them, to see what for a moment nearly stopped his heart. The monster's face was a ragged range of craggy skin that seemed to be peeling away, pale yellow and soaked through in places with scabrous old blood, all situated around a pair of blazing blue eyes lit from within by the fevered madness of the hungry dead.

The priest's mouth flew open to shriek, but to his horror no sound would come. His paws were in the creature's own clawed grasp, too powerful to pull away, and he thrashed, trying to heave himself bodily from the monstrosity in front of him, heart hammering hysterically in his chest.

It was moaning, warbling at him, wordless utterances only terrifying him more, as it pulled him in for the fatal bite.

Finally the shriek tore free of his throat, only to be muffled in the thing's chest. His face was pressed to a rough shirt, and as he sucked in more breath to try again, expecting fully to be bitten in the back of the neck at any moment, he noticed the lack of stench. This one smelled only of metal oil, horses, a bit of sweat, and something less unpleasant that was somewhere between roses and alkaline.

As his eyes became more important to him, the bite having failed to come, he noticed that the creature was female, and its smallish breasts were rising and falling. He noticed also that he could see a soft silvery-gold glow that seemed to come from somewhere under its rough-spun tunic. Startled, he looked up, and a salty tear landed on his cheek.

The eyes weren't blood-hungry. They were hurt, and hiding it behind a steely veneer ruined by the single drop of water shed from them. As his senses returned, and the terrible nightmare-state drained away, Timid put his arms around Cel's middle, and fought back the urge to sob with relief and apology. To have panicked at the simple sight of her poor, ravaged, bandaged face must have hurt her deeply, he thought, to make the stoic knight shed even a single tear.

"For a time," her voice came out soft, near a whisper, "I thought you would die."

She released him finally, after the brief tight embrace, and he blinked at her in confusion, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, as he simply shrugged and gave a sheepish grin.

"I...I'm sorry...Where are we?"

The knight hesitated a moment, as if something were on the tip of her tongue and refused to spill off, her mouth slightly open. Then she shook her head once, sharply, winced and touched her neck with a gloved paw, and closed her eyes. She looked better, he realized. Though still clearly injured, she was moving more flexibly, and as he gazed around the log-construction he had been sleeping in, realized there was nobody here to carry her.

"Sundertown. Your plan worked, father Timid."

He blushed again and lowered his head, hunching his shoulders into a second shrug, as he struggled with the embarrassment he always felt at being paid a compliment of which he felt undeserving.

"No I...You and Tomasj fought like demons...I just stood there useless..."

The light in her chest that he had thought merely part of his dream glimmered, and he furrowed his brows while staring at it. She seemed not to notice, and was tilting her head at him, as he stared towards her chest. Timid realized what he must look like, and blushed, covering his face with a paw.

"I...I'm sorry, I was...I thought I saw something..."

"Another vision?"

Her paw hesitantly reached for him, then stopped a few inches from his arm before quickly falling back. With a startled blink, he realized just how afraid she was to be touched. Her eyes were full of frustration, downcast, in a way that left a wrenched sensation in his chest. Abandoning his own nervousness, he reached out and took her paw, feeling Cel's muscles tense in the twitches of her fingers.

"M...Maybe. A glowing light in your chest. I...Its still there. The visions are usually like dreams that intrude and vanish..."

Her fingers laced into his paw, still clumsy from the healing cuts on her arms. Timid realized she was shaking, her paw trembling in his as she raised it, then pressed his paw to her chest just over her heart. Even through his own flesh, he saw the glow, as if it were superimposed on his eye, though as he turned his head experimentally, it stayed set firmly over her heart.

The light glimmered, and flowed up her arm, as he saw a similar light trail forming up his own. A fascination settled over him, trapping his eyes to the vision of light, as Cel tilted her head at him and wondered what the odd tingling was that she felt.

As the two glimmers of light were about to meet, the door to their quiet chamber slammed open, and by reflex both furs jerked away from one another, Cel to reach for her sword and Timid to reach for his crosier staff.

In the doorway, a smirking Tomasj stood with arms crossed over his chest, fully dressed and armored and looking like the cat who'd stolen the cream.

"Oh what is this then? The mountain girl wants it from the scrawny priest? Or is the cat a tail-lifter for men with no cocks?"

The light trail vanished, as Timid stammered, hunting for an answer less embarrassing than what the wolf seemed to think he saw. Cel, meanwhile, gripped the edge of Timid's erstwhile bed and used it to push herself upright. She take a pair of limping steps towards the wolf, and then heaved the empty chamber pot she'd grabbed with her off paw, as if it were full, at his face.

The wolf cursed and dodged back through the doorway, as Timid's stammering turned into sudden laughter, when he realized the pot was completely empty, scrubbed clean as the day it was made. Cel snorted in amused derision and tossed the pot to the wolf, just before Van stepped between them.

His gear was different, Timid noticed. Though the green and brown rough cloak was still in place, and his studded armor beneath, the fox's bow was longer, and wrapped in cloth where it was strapped to his back. Through a frog on his belt hung a battle axe, a black wood and leather sheathe tied to its head, the grip a leaf pattern engraved and age-buffed walnut wrapped with a few bands of fine steel chain that looked to be imbedded solidly for traction.

"We have a way to get into Amarthane City before the horde arrives, but we'll have to leave now. Unless the visions tell you something different, father Timid."

The priest was a housecat, but felt like a mouse, as all three sets of deadly eyes turned to him. He couldn't afford to shrink from this, he knew. They were looking to him for leadership. Or, rather, to his visions, but the fact was they trusted him to tell them what must be done. To guide their fates.

The weight of it settled on him, and he felt momentarily as if there were no air to breathe, a pressure pushing it out of his lungs as he wondered if, indeed, the dreams were real - and if they were real, what their purpose was.

"It...Even if the dreams guided me away from Amarthane, we have a responsibility to the people."

Cel nodded once, firmly, and he saw the pride kindling in her eyes, behind the pain she'd worn since they met. Van merely turned and strode away, waving for the companions to follow.

"Good. If you hadn't chosen this path, I'd've gone without you."

The wolf snorted as he threw the pot past them all into the room with a clang. He muttered to himself, taking up the rear.

"Fucking cunt lowlanders...Going to get us killed..."

With a grunt of exertion, Van yanked the swollen wood hatch free of the old barn floor, shedding rotted hay and the dust of ten years' abandonment as the rope over his shoulder creaked and rusty hinges groaned. Beneath, darkness yawned wide, what should have been a root cellar under an old barn instead holding solid granite stairs cut into the living rock by hands long since gone from the world.

Timid shuffled his footpaws, looking at the dusty cobwebbed tunnel, and swallowed trepidation only to have it rear up his throat again at the memory of his near-death in the last subterranean tunnel he'd had the displeasure of using. He rubbed at his wrist, running his fingertips over where he'd very nearly been bitten, then looked up in startlement when Cel put a paw to his shoulder and placed her weight on him while trying the first step.

She didn't grunt in pain, though he could see the muscles bunching under her bandages along her jawline, and could hear the grinding of teeth as her bad knee made descent an agony.

"No lights down there. The earth spirits are already angry, if they get mad enough they'll steal our breath and kill us. Got it?"

Van's words made Timid's heart flop in his chest like a dying fish, and with wide eyes he looked back at the warden.

"A-are you insane?! What if the dead are in the tunnels?! How will we fight them?"

The hysteria in Timid's voice billowed from his gut, a tightness that threatened to send him running for the outdoors so he could catch the breath his lungs seemed unable to draw. Tomasj's sudden, mocking laughter cut through it like a knife, the very sound annoying enough to make Timid's terror melt into aggravation as he glared in the wolf's direction.

"The little high priest is afraid of the dark? Hahahaa! We have already fought the dead, in waters we could not see through! In a crypt! And you're afraid of a little tunnel?"

The wolf was doubled up laughing, and Timid felt the insides of his ears go red, as his fists balled and he glared his most hateful stare at the witch hunter. The paw on his shoulder tightened, as Cel seemed about to speak on his behalf. Seizing the initiative and his dignity, Timid spoke.

"All right then. You go first, Tomasj. Unless you're afraid?"

Tomasj smirked, and ran a finger along the brim of his broad hat as he stood in some manner of strange salute.

"Very well, Father Tim, the lost sheep will lead the flock of wolves tonight."

With a gleeful skip, the wolf was past them and down the steps at a bound, as Timid blinked and looked towards Van.

"Whatever your people gave him for his lungs, it seems to have worked..."

Van cleared his throat and shrugged, looking down into the dark as Tomasj called back to them.

"It's safe, little children. Not even wet!"

His words echoed, bouncing in ways that reminded Timid that his stomach was churning, and that he wanted nothing to do with being underground ever again. Still, he steeled himself, as Cel squeezed his shoulder and spoke, while Van was descending.

"When we walk, stay just in front of me. I will keep my arm on you, so you are not alone."

He blushed, but nodded his head, meeting her bright blue eyes with his own simple dull browns. Timid could see the tension around them, and realized she wasn't looking forward to being underground again either. He chastised himself mentally for thinking himself the only one with a fear of the deep black enclosed places.

With a nod, he moved in front of her, and they stepped down into the dark.

The worst part, he thought, was the inability to even see one's self. He couldn't tell where his footpaws were going to fall, couldn't tell if the shin he'd bruised on a rock was bleeding or not, couldn't tell if there were walls unless he reached out and touched them. Couldn't tell if the lights dancing in his vision were real, some sign of sickness, or just his imagination.

Despite that, and the nagging sense of panic that roiled in his chest, the arm around his chest felt good. Though he could feel her nervousness in the pulsing tension of her armored limb, and though she might have bruised him with the tightness of the embrace in a few more frightening moments when the walls had disappeared into the vast emptiness they walked through, he knew his presence was helping her as much as hers was helping him.

Ahead of them, Tomasj hit something with a dull thud, and growled, hopping up and down and rubbing at his shin before entering a tirade of beating whatever it was with kicks.

Van, of them all, seemed the calmest. He simply stood there, as Tomasj cursed and flailed, halfway between the two in the rear and the one in front, stoic and stolid. As Timid stared towards him, he suddenly realized a thing so strange it made him forget the blackness.

He could see the fox, or at least something glimmering where he knew the fox to be. A glittery off-golden light, like beams of sun motes dancing through forest green, that hung at about where he guessed chest level to be. Then, bobbing as the fox began to walk again, about a pouch-full of verdant lights that shimmered and lit nothing around them, hanging about where his belt bag should be.

Timid rubbed his face with a paw, scrubbing at his eyes in case it was just something on them. When he lowered his fingers, the lights were still there, bouncing along like lanterns illuminating nothing. As he looked on, he saw more of the strange will o' wisps; where he presumed Tomasj's belt holster to be, a softly pulsing purple, formless, seemed to have attached to the flesh of his hip, veins of sickly light running into his flesh like a tumor. Where he guessed Tomasj's heart to be, a weak scarlet throb of light pulsed along feebly, entwined with veining the color of rotten eggplant.

He looked down, then, to get his eyes away from the horrid sense of pain he felt from that source, and was nearly blinded by the blazing beacon glowing from his own chest. Timid flinched, covering his eyes with both paws, only to see the light shining through them unabated. Cel's arm around his chest squeezed gently, and she spoke softly.

"Are you all right, Timid?"

He swallowed, trying to think of how to describe what he saw, and whether to describe it at all for fear of sounding a mad-fur. Trust, he chastised himself, is sometimes best doled out sparingly, even as he spoke the truth to her.

"I see...Lights. Like...Like veins, only carrying light instead of blood."

Timid felt her stiffen slightly, and winced, expecting harsh words or even to be let go or pushed. Instead, he felt her breath across his ear as she whispered to him in the echoing darkness.

"Do you see hearts? Beating hearts full of light?"

He wordlessly nodded, shocked, wondering if she could see them as well.

"Then you are blessed, father. My people call them 'Sarellas'. It means 'Life stars.' Only shaman can see them. They're supposed to be the source of all inner magics. They reflect the soul of those who bear them, and give great energy."

Timid's brow furrowed, and he looked back down at himself. The Finder's Star was blinding-bright, like staring into the sun, and he turned his eyes away after a moment that left glittering after-images burned into his eyes. Pulling the Star aside, he gazed down and saw his own glowing inner light. It was silvery-gold, soft as if it were a banked fire, and a shimmer of near-invisible white light stretched from it to the Finder's Star.

Cel spoke again, and for the first time he thought he might have caught just the tiniest nascent touch of joy in her voice.

"No wonder my wounds are healing...I should have died from infections alone."

'No wonder,' he thought, and then laughed softly aloud.

"No wonder, Cel? I'd say it's a wonderful miracle indeed."

He gripped the Finder's Star in his paw, and lifted it up, pressing his lips to it in silent gratitude.

Corporal Thistle, his long rosetted leopard tail puffed behind him and flagging side to side like a damaged sail, threw open the flap to Captain Summer's tent.

"Captain, bandits on the road!"

Summer grunted, sitting upright from the short nap he'd been able to take, muttering.

"Gods damnit, we don't have time for this shit...Are you sure they're bandits?"

In moments, he rushed from the front of the tent, shifting his tabard to hide the mail hauberk he wore. The rain was falling in soaking waves as Thistle moved up alongside him, speaking swiftly.

"Durik spotted them perhaps half a league away towards the Gallows Tower. Said there's a dozen of them, look like they're running right towards us. He saw them off some poor farmer and take his horse."

Captain Summer frowned, and without glancing at his subordinate began pointing.

"Get three with bows up on that hillock overlooking the road, horses tied nearby in case they need to join us. I want you there, on horse, ready to rush. The rest will be with me along the roadside. If the bandits attack us, you ambush them with arrows as we charge. Remember not to fire into the melee, or you'll hit our own as much as theirs, understand?"

The leopard bobbed his head, his wide eyes betraying what the captain had already guessed. Thistle was a good fur, un-bribable, reliable, brave, but he was not at all battle-hardened. Summer shook his head as the young corporal sprinted off, quickly and quietly getting the guards moved as ordered. 'At least,' Summer thought as he rubbed his brow and strode towards the remaining guard furs, 'the boy isn't as stupid as I was at his age.'

His furs were quick and well-trained, even if out of their element. The forest was a looming place full of shadows and approaches, not at all like the claustrophobic streets of Amarthane that channeled even the most fleet of foes to either use the streets or the rooftops. Fortunately, he had scouts that knew which way the enemy came from. As the first of the filthy bandit scum became visible as a silhouette running pell-mell through the rainy fog, Summer and his contingent crouched among the trees of the roadside, spears and maces in paw, ready to ambush the road vermin that preyed so often on the poorest grain carts and farming folk. For his own part, Summer didn't like to use shields, and had left his on the horse. His right paw gripped the nobleman's sword his grandfather had bequeathed him.

The captain strongly considered letting the bandits pass. Their self-appointed mission was to find out what was going on in the direction of the Gallows Tower. Then again, he figured, these road slime were clearly fleeing something, and were less likely to lie than Casso's hired mercenaries.

He gave a paw signal to the warriors around him, and stood as the panting bandit was approaching their position. The fur was a ragged, mangy creature, rain-soaked with a bald half-tail and one ear, carrying a rusty axe on its belt and an equally rusted trio of knives in a bandolier across its chest.

As he raised his left paw to halt the running bandit, it squealed out a chittering cry of panic and warning, and hurled a dagger towards the captain with fear-borne strength. Summer's left arm shifted, deflecting the spinning dagger with his steel vambrace. The captain took two steps into the charging rat's run before bringing his armored knee up into its gut. An explosion of wind and supper hit his breastplate as the creature folded over his knee, and he brought the pommel of his grandfather's sword down on the fool thing's skull, laying it out flat in the mud as his men rushed to his side, shields raised as he'd trained them.

A pair of buzzing noises whizzed overhead, and in the mist someone shrieked and fell heavily into the squelching mud. Then a mass of dark shapes charged them out of the darkness, howling in rage and panic that carried well even in the thunder of heavy rainfall.

Summer felt the guards around him tense and brace for the hit, but the enemy was on them too quickly, the damnable rain having made judging the distances impossible. In an instant, their defensive wall was sundered into a swirling chaos of frantic duels and vicious gang-ups.

He ducked low, a heavy two-handed axe sweeping over his head to imbed in the shield next to him, and then jabbed his longsword forward with both paws, punching the blade through it's wielder's barrel chest.

With a startled look, the bear choked out a confused gurgle of blood, then was away as Summer kicked the thing in the gut to clear his weapon. To his left, one of his boys screamed as a heavy sledge crushed his metal shield and shattered his arm with a sickening crunch, and Summer narrowly missed being skewered on a spear, parrying its point high with the tip of his sword and striding forward under its wielder's guard.

His left paw snapped up like a bird-hunting snake, grabbing the spear's haft, yanking as his right lashed out, poking the bandit under the chin and releasing a fountain of blood. The captain whirled, then, and smashed another foe in the side of the head, sending it spinning off its feet as he looked for guards in trouble or some leader he could crush to end the swirling brawl.

Out of the mist and melee, he heard a furious snarl and the sound of squealing metal, as a shadowy form two heads taller than himself batted one of his soldiers aside like a backhanded child. Summer grunted, and strode through the melee, not slowing as he slapped an incoming dagger thrust aside and sliced the balding hare wielding it across the forehead, sending it reeling away to be smashed down by one of his mace furs.

Three more arrows whistled overhead, then two more, as Captain Summer rushed his foe, roaring out a wordless challenge that made the enormous, burly, foully ugly mountain lion whirl, lashing out with a great two-handed sword swing that would have decapitated a tiger standing at its full height.

Summer was far more well-seasoned than to be taken in such a way, and ducked low beneath the swing, not bothering trying to parry it. He rushed forward, a building roar ripping from his throat as he slammed a shoulder into the bigger fur's side. It's balance ruined, the mountain lion tried to step back to give itself space, only to find it had been outmaneuvered, and pitched backwards into the roadside ditch with a roar of surprise and a splattering splash of watery mud.

The captain strode forward into the mud hole, ignoring the numbness in his arm, and delivered a savage kick to the cougar's crotch, ignoring its scream of pain as he slapped the creature across its filth-streaming face with the flat of his sword. To his credit, the massive highwayfur kept grip on his greatsword, though he curled up in fetal position in the muck, grabbing at his bruised testicles.

"Call off your men or you're dead!"

The cougar yelped out, voice strained with pain from his squashed balls, words shouted out between wheezing breaths far too labored to be explained by the short fight, however fierce.

"Enough! Mercy! No time! Please!"

Summer backed up a step, and made to see if the fighting had stopped, when a chilling noise, long-since drilled into memory by his time in the Guard and the army before, blared out over the pounding of the rain. Three blasts of a horn - brassy, deep, long enough to carry for miles - coming from Thistle's position, told him something was very, very wrong.

Two long strides took him to the top of the berm, and a quick motion of footpaws turned him away from his men to look up the road. There, in the screening rain, he saw shadows moving up the path, and squinted trying to get their numbers.

Three more loud blasts blew, and arrows zipped overhead into the mob, as Summer turned and rushed back towards his men, sliding to a crouch in order to help up one who was still gasping and grabbing at his hammer-shattered arm. What he had seen was, without doubt in his mind, some sort of bandit army.

The furs around him had stopped fighting, and he could hear the groans of wounded or dying fighters, as the bandits suddenly went from furious, frenzied, desperate fighting to begging for mercy, throwing their weapons aside, pleading to be allowed to pass, whether in chains or not.

Like a curtain drawn at a theatrical show, the rain slowly parted. Captain Summer blinked once, then twice, at what he saw.

Looming from the shadows, he first saw arms, paws flesh-stripped to claw-like bones, as if they'd been peeled by a torturer's knife. As a wall, the fleshy monstrosity poured towards him, inexorable like a flooding river, and as the wall of the dead came it groaned, thousands of tormented toneless voices joined together in a horrid wail that chilled the steely veteran's spine, and drove spikes of ice into his soul.

Horror-struck for but a moment, he stared wide-eyed and unbelieving, and realized the outstretched paws were not a wall, but an army. Thousands of what he could only think of as things, in a tight-packed roiling column of death and decay, wending up the road and out of sight, and among them moved shapes far larger and more horrid, shapes smaller, faster, skittering between the legs of the shambling mass, and overhead, despite thunder and rain that should have driven them to ground, clouds of black-winged ravens cawing and laughing and flying in patterns too complex for the mind's eye to guess.

From the bowel of the horde, a blurring shape shot like an arrow, spatters of thinning rain dancing off its flesh as it flew at the captain, claws outstretched and mouth open in a shatter-toothed, spine-tingling, ear-splitting screech. The monstrosity crashed into his instinctually-raised vambrace as the veteran staggered back and to the side, only barely having deflected its immense force, and reeling even from the glancing hit as the thing rolled in the mud and lunged for his legs.

"To horse!" he roared at the top of his lungs, leaping back and to the side, taking an off-balance swipe that clipped the rotting cadaverous beast's shoulder and sent necrotic flesh flying. In response to his attack, it bared hooked, blackened teeth, as it crouched down like a rabid feral wolf just out of his sword reach. Behind it, the shambling continent of death roiled forward and he knew his end was near if he could not break free and get to horse.

"Retreat! Warn the garrison!"

The thing lunged again, swinging high and hard for his head. Summer ducked again, and brought his sword up for a thrust towards the thing's eyes, but it was inhumanly fast and bone-crushingly strong, turning the feinting swipe into a downward slash that sliced a bloody furrow in his scalp before the captain's tigrish-fast instincts swept his grandfather's blade across and severed the wrist as he stumbled away from the thing.

Its eyes met his, and locked. They were black as night, like boiled tar mixed with speckles of putrid rotten-cabbage brown and green, and a red-brown the color of cholera shits, and in their depths was a searing, laughing, screaming, tormented, hungry, horrible consciousness. He struggled to pull his eyes away, to move his footpaws, as the horde came on.

His muscles were locked, cramped hard as steel, stealing breath and movement both.

All he cold move were his thoughts.

Damn it all. The idiot rioters were right.

The first thought he had as his limbs obeyed him again is that one of his furs had disobeyed orders. The burly bear, bleeding from a wound to his throat from a bandit knife, roared out in a blood and spittle-filled battle rage and smashed into the monster with his shield, blasting the thing from its feet and breaking the eye lock it had with the captain.

Gasping for breath, Summer's knees buckled, vision swimming as air rushed back into his body when he hadn't even realized he'd been smothering a moment before. Behind him, he heard the whinnying of horses, the yelling of furs desperate to escape, the blaring of that signal horn calling 'retreat retreat retreat!' with its trio of brassy roars.

In front of him, he watched the bear take claws across the face and into his throat, and yet not stop a moment, his eyes flashing in fury as he swung again and again on the indomitable, ferocious monster. The captain ignored his creaking old knees and levered himself to a stand. He refused to let another die in his place.

As he lurched forward, still panting for lost breath, unsure he could even reach the monster before its shambling army overran him, he watched with eyes widened in amazement as his subordinate, a lazy but loyal sort named Tolly, wrapped his muscle-slabbed arms around the thing's middle and lifted it up, squeezing it in a crushing embrace that had it squealing and flailing and slicing his face and neck apart with its claws.

Three arrows whistled in, thudding into the thing's chest, throat, and forehead, and finally the damnable thing fell, dragging Tolly with it as the swarm dove onto them in a pile of scrabbling, clawing, gore-covered limbs.

"Damn it!"

He spat in fury, and very nearly charged to his death, all in the vain hope of saving his fallen comrade. But he saw, in that shambling mass of destruction, that to die saving a dead man would be to fail. He saluted, once, with a raise of his sword, then turned and ran, roaring at the straggling fighters in front of him.

"To horse you fools! Double if you have to! Leave no fur behind!"