The blood stopped rising.

  The Archmage's staff swept upward in a single motion. Golden light erupted from its tip, spreading outward in a dome that encompassed the entire group—soldiers, Talons, Lord Caelum, all of them pressed together in a space barely thirty feet across.

  "EVERYONE INSIDE!" Velthan's voice cracked with urgency. "NOW!"

  The soldiers scrambled. Men who had been standing at the edges of the plaza sprinted toward the golden barrier, diving through its surface before it solidified. Eirik grabbed Kael—still dazed—and hauled him toward the dome.

  The barrier sealed behind them.

  Ninety-odd soldiers pressed together in a space meant for perhaps thirty. Eirik found himself wedged between Olaf and a Duke's guardsman, their armor scraping against each other with every breath.

  "Listen carefully." Velthan's voice dropped. "What comes next will test every one of you. The spirits that emerge will seek living hosts."

  He looked at each of them in turn.

  "You must not breathe. Not until I give the signal. If you exhale while they pass, they will find you. And you will be lost."

  "How long?" Ser Konrad's voice was tight.

  "As long as it takes."

  Eirik's stomach dropped.

  "On my mark." Velthan raised his staff. "Deep breath. Hold."

  The blood pool began to tremble.

  "NOW."

  Eirik filled his lungs.

  The pool exploded.

  Blood fountained upward in a geyser that reached fifty feet into the air before dispersing into crimson mist. And from that mist, they came.

  Hundreds poured from the pool. Some had the general shape of men and women, while others had abandoned any pretense of humanity: masses of reaching hands fused together at the wrists, torsos that split and split again into branches, faces that grew from backs and shoulders and thighs.

  One spirit drifted past the barrier, close enough that Eirik could see every detail.

  It has belly that bulged obscenely. Its mouth hung open, and from between its teeth, something small and pale protruded—fingers. Tiny fingers.

  Oh gods.

  The memories of Velthan's words crashed through Eirik's mind. They ate their horses. After that, they ate their leather. Eventually, they ate...

  He hadn't finished that sentence.

  They exchanged children.

  They traded their own children to others, so they wouldn't have to eat their own flesh and blood.

  His lungs burned.

  The spirits kept coming. Civilians, he realized—the people who had lived in this city.

  To his left, a Duke's guardsman made a sound. A tiny, involuntary whimper that escaped between pressed lips.

  The spirits descended.

  They flowed into him. Through his nostrils, his ears, his tear ducts. The guardsman's mouth opened in a silent scream as his eyes went white, then black, then his body dropped.

  But it didn't stay down.

  The thing that rose wore the guardsman's face, it turned toward the nearest soldier—

  Ser Konrad's blade took its head off before it could move.

  The body collapsed again. This time, it stayed down.

  Konrad's face was purple too, but his sword arm was steady. He pointed at the fallen corpse, then drew a finger across his throat. The message was clear: If you breathe, you die.

  Eirik's diaphragm spasmed against his will. He focused on counting. One. Two. Three. Anything to keep his mind from the burning in his chest.

  Around him, the spirits continued their exodus.

  Another guardsman fell. Then another. Each time, Konrad's blade ended them before they could rise.

  How long?

  The question pounded in everyone's skull.

  The last of the civilian spirits drifted past the barrier and rose into the sky. The pool's surface had stilled. For one blessed moment, nothing emerged.

  Velthan's hand dropped.

  "BREATHE."

  The sound that erupted from ninety chests. Men gasped and choked and wheezed, their bodies convulsing. Eirik doubled over, his hands on his knees, sucking air in great ragged gulps.

  "Thirty seconds." Velthan's voice was hoarse.

  Eirik forced himself upright. Around him, soldiers were in various states of collapse—sall of them breathing like men pulled from drowning.

  Kael had worked his way to Eirik's side. Olaf had cut his bonds during the chaos.

  "Brennan," Kael whispered. "He..."

  "I know."

  "He took my place."

  "Yes."

  Kael said nothing more.

  Ten seconds.

  Eirik's breath was starting to steady.

  Around them, the barrier flickered and pulsed. Velthan stood at its center, his staff planted in the ground.

  The pool began to tremble again.

  "STOP."

  Velthan's hand shot up.

  Eirik filled his lungs.

  The second wave emerged.

  They came in formation.

  And on every breastplate—the Black Dragon.

  The General's army.

  The first rank consisted of spearmen, their weapons leveled in a perfect phalanx formation. They marched in lockstep, followed by the swordsmen, their blades drawn.

  But these were not whole men.

  One spearman was missing everything below the waist—his torso floated above the ground, his weapon held steady despite the absence of any legs to brace against. A swordsman to his left had no head; the Black Dragon sigil on his chest was the only identifier. Another had been cleaved diagonally from shoulder to hip, his two halves marching in parallel.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Cavalry emerged next.

  The leading horseman had been impaled through the chest—the spear still protruded from his back. Yet they rode in perfect wedge formation. They were followed by chariots and skirmishers—lightly armored spirits who darted between the formations with supernatural speed.

  And at the rear, the heavy infantry.

  They were giants.

  These spirits stood a head taller than any living man with massive weapons. Great axes and war hammers and swords that would have required two men to lift in life. They moved slowly.

  A guardsman to Eirik's right made a strangled sound.

  His eyes bulged. His lips were turning blue as his body desperately sought oxygen that wasn't coming.

  The nearest spirit warrior turned.

  The ghostly sword passed through the barrier as if it wasn't there. The guardsmandidn't scream—he didn't have the breath for it.

  Konrad couldn't reach him in time.

  Eirik's vision was tunneling, darkness creeping in from the edges. His lungs felt like they were being squeezed in a vice.

  The spirit army continued its march.

  Thousands of them now. They filled the plaza, they climbed the walls, they rose into the sky in endless columns of pale light. The Black Dragon banner floated at their head, carried by a standard-bearer whose face had been burned away, leaving only bone beneath.

  They had earned their rest. But rest had been denied them.

  The ritual—the sacrifices—had torn them from whatever peace they might have found. Now they marched again, to... what?

  Where are they going?

  The last of the spirit warriors passed through the plaza.

  Cavalry, infantry, chariots, archers—all of them rose into the darkening sky.

  Then they were gone.

  Velthan's hand dropped.

  "BREATHE."

  Eirik collapsed.

  His knees hit the stone floor as his body convulsed, desperate for air. Around him, men were doing the same—some falling completely, others catching themselves on walls or each other. The sound of gasping and retching filled the plaza.

  If there's another wave, he thought dimly, I won't survive it.

  He wasn't alone in that assessment. Looking around, he could see soldiers pushed past their breaking point. Some were crying silently.

  "Look."

  The Archmage's staff pointed skyward.

  Eirik forced his head to tilt back.

  The sky had changed.

  What had been the sickly green of the cursed atmosphere was now something else entirely. Clouds spiraled in a vast vortex overhead. They were spinning around a central point directly above the Sunless City.

  The eye of a storm.

  The Thaw Blizzard.

  Within those swirling clouds, Eirik could see the spirits they had just witnessed.

  "The formation radius," he breathed. "How far does it extend?"

  Velthan's eyes were fixed on the sky. "The historical accounts suggest the General commanded over ten thousand soldiers at the height of his power. If even a fraction of them answered the call..."

  "We're looking at an army that could blanket the entire northern territory," Eirik finished.

  "Indeed." The Archmage's voice carried a note of triumph. "And soon, that army will march again—under our command."

  "Where are they going?"

  "No telling." The Archmage's eyes never left the sky. "The ritual has awakened them, but their purpose remains unchanged. They march to defend the North against whatever threatens it."

  "The Skarls?"

  "Perhaps." Velthan lowered his staff. "Regardless, our path is now—"

  The blood pool trembled. This was violent—a churning, bubbling agitation that sent crimson waves slopping over the basin's edge.

  "What—" Velthan spun, his staff raised. "There shouldn't be—"

  Something emerged.

  It rose from the blood in a cascade of gore, hauling itself over the basin's lip. The fingers ended not in nails but in something like hooves—black and cloven and dripping.

  The head came next.

  A pig's head, certainly—the snout was unmistakable. But the skull had been cracked open at some point, and what grew from within were masses of tissue bulged through the fractures, pulsing with each heartbeat. Eyes—at least a dozen—studded the tumor-flesh at random intervals, each one a different size and color.

  The body followed.

  It was bloated beyond any natural proportion. Four legs, each one ending in a different appendage—two hooves, a claw, and a human foot swollen to three times normal size.

  When it finished, it stood perhaps eight feet tall at the shoulder.

  "FORM RANKS!" Ser Konrad's voice cracked across the plaza. "DEFENSIVE POSITIONS!"

  The soldiers scrambled. After the horrors of the spirit exodus, they moved on instinct alone—shields up, weapons drawn, forming a ragged semicircle around the abomination.

  Velthan's face had gone pale.

  "This is impossible," the Archmage whispered. "The blood was pure. Northern blood, freely given. There should be nothing—no corruption, no taint—"

  The creature's many eyes fixed on the Archmage.

  It squealed.

  The sound was indescribable—a pig's scream layered over a human's wail that bypassed the ears entirely and scraped directly against the soul. Several soldiers dropped their weapons to clutch their heads.

  "SILENCE IT!" Caelum drew his blade. "BATTLE POS—"

  "We cannot fight on two fronts," Velthan hissed. "The spirits must not be drawn back. Whatever this... this thing is, we deal with it quietly."

  The pig-creature charged.

  It moved faster than something that size had any right to move—covering twenty feet in a heartbeat.

  Caelum met it head-on.

  His blade sang through the air, trailing crystals of frozen moisture. The strike connected with the creature's shoulder, carving a furrow through corrupted flesh.

  The creature barely noticed.

  One massive arm swept sideways. Caelum blocked—but the impact sent him skidding backward. Ice formed across his body in a defensive shell, cracking and reforming as the creature pressed its assault.

  "Impressive," Eirik muttered.

  Even weakened by whatever withdrawal was eating at him, Caelum was holding his ground against an abomination that should have crushed a normal man instantly. The Duke's son parried a strike that would have taken his head off, countered with a thrust that punched through the creature's gut, and twisted away from a retaliatory swing that shattered a nearby pillar.

  But he wasn't winning.

  "Archmage!" Caelum's voice was strained. "I require assistance!"

  Velthan raised his staff.

  Golden light erupted—it flowed outward, washing over the assembled soldiers. Eirik felt it pass through him: a tingling warmth that settled into his muscles and bones.

  "WHAT—" one of the Duke's guardsmen gasped.

  Behind him, a figure had appeared.

  A projection of golden light, three times the guardsman's size, mimicking his every movement. When the soldier raised his sword, the projection raised a blade as well. When he stepped forward, the giant shadow stepped with him.

  Across the plaza, eighty soldiers suddenly became eighty giants.

  "ATTACK!" Velthan commanded. "Together! Overwhelm it!"

  The charge was chaos.

  Eighty soldiers, each trailing a projection three times their size, converged on the pig-creature. The creature squealed and thrashed, suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks.

  "TALONS!" Eirik shouted. "WITH ME!"

  His men surged forward—but Eirik's positioning was deliberate. He angled them toward the creature's flank, where the fighting was thinnest.

  Where they could look busy without actually engaging.

  "Loose formation!" Eirik called. "Ranged support! Don't close with it!"

  The Duke's soldiers were too busy hacking at the abomination. Caelum was locked in close combat. Velthan stood at the center of his golden web, feeding power to the projections.

  Now.

  Eirik fell back from the fighting, finding Olaf amid the chaos.

  "With me," he muttered. "Quietly."

  "Commander? What are ye planning?"

  Eirik put a hand over Olaf's ear, muttering something. The big man's eyes widened—then narrowed with sudden understanding.

  For a moment, Olaf just stared at him.

  Then a grin split his bearded face.

  "Aye, Commander." The words came out in a growl. "Frost's teats, I've been waiting for this. Sick to death of playing the old mage's games. What do ye need?"

  "Gather the Talons. Spread the word—on my signal, we fire upward."

  Olaf's grin faltered. "Upward? But that'll—"

  "Yes." Eirik's voice was ice.

  Understanding bloomed in Olaf's eyes.

  "Ye bastard."

  "Move."

  Olaf melted into the chaos, finding each Talon in turn. A word here, a gesture there. Within thirty seconds, nine men had repositioned themselves—spread across the plaza's edge, bows drawn, arrows nocked.

  All aimed at the sky.

  Eirik reached into his storage ring.

  The Skill Enhancement Crystal materialized in his palm—a fist-sized gem that pulsed with inner light.

  The rainy day had arrived.

  [SKILL ENHANCEMENT CRYSTAL]

  [SELECT SKILL TO ENHANCE] [AVAILABLE: SWORDSMANSHIP (C-), ARCHERY (C-)...]

  Archery.

  [CONFIRM ENHANCEMENT: ARCHERY C- → A?]

  [Y/N]

  Yes.

  Heat flooded his arm. His fingers, which had always been adequate with a bow, suddenly felt different.

  He drew an arrow from his quiver.

  Nocked it.

  Drew.

  He aimed straight up.

  "TALONS!" His voice cut through the chaos. "LOOSE!"

  Nine arrows flew.

  They rose into the sky like a flock of startled birds—climbing, climbing, climbing toward the swirling vortex of spectral soldiers.

  The first arrow passed through a cavalry formation.

  The spirits noticed.

  Ghostly heads turned. Hundreds, then thousands. The entire army, which had been content to swirl in its holding pattern, suddenly focused on the plaza below.

  On the living.

  "WHAT—" Velthan's head snapped up. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

  Caelum's scream was more primal.

  "TRAITOR!" The Duke's son disengaged from the pig-creature, ice forming around his hands. "GUARDS! EXECUTE HIM! EXECUTE THEM ALL!"

  But the guards were busy.

  The pig-creature, no longer pressured by Caelum's assault, had found new targets. It crashed into a formation of enhanced soldiers, scattering them like ninepins.

  And above—

  The spirits were descending.

  "OLAF!" Eirik was already running. "THE POOL! NOW!"

  The big man didn't hesitate. He grabbed the nearest Talon—Jory—and bodily hurled him toward the blood pool. Then he was running himself.

  Eirik saw Kael sprinting alongside him. Silas. The others. Nine men, all converging on the crimson basin.

  "STOP THEM!" Caelum's voice cracked with fury. "KONRAD! STOP—"

  Konrad tried.

  The old knight broke from the defensive formation, his blade raised. But Olaf was there—interposing his massive body between the knight and the fleeing Talons.

  "Out of my way, you—"

  Olaf's axe came around in a vicious arc. Konrad parried, but the impact drove him back a step. Then another.

  "GO!" Olaf roared over his shoulder. "I'LL HOLD THE SOD!"

  Eirik reached the pool's edge.

  The blood had settled since the creature's emergence. He couldn't see anything but crimson.

  But if there's going to be a portal, he thought, this must be it.

  Behind him, the spirits were streaming down from the sky like a waterfall of pale light. Caelum was screaming orders that no one could hear over the din.

  "TALONS!" Eirik's voice carried across the plaza. "ON ME!"

  And he jumped.

  The blood was warm.

  It closed over his head instantly—thicker than water, heavier. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't—

  First, crimson.

  The world inverted. Up became down. The warm blood turned cold, then colder still. Eirik felt himself falling.

  Then, darkness.