The village was a small and simple place. It had no wealth... no stockpiles of gold or iron. It was not a hub of travel or commerce. Its farms were sparse, and the men who worked them were thin and often hungry. The town had no military or strategic value. Its drafty buildings of wood and straw were neither an obstacle nor a threat to anyone who wished to pass them... and very few people did. It was two weeks travel to the nearest place worth traveling to, and most of the people in that place had never even heard of the tiny village of Shivelrain. If asked, even the wisest among them would twist their lips, scratch themselves, and admit with some embarrassment that they knew nothing of the town or its people.

But the Horde... the Horde knew.

It was a conquering march, but then there was no other kind for the Warlord's men. In the third expansion of K'Sano's kingdom in half a generation, the Horde marched four days out of their way just to find the little town... and erase it.

To say that the Horde destroyed Shivelrain was to know nothing of the Horde. True enough, the buildings and farms were torn apart, with no single stick of wood left nailed to any other, but that was the least of what the Horde had come to do. They descended on the town at night, snatching the sleeping townsfolk from their homes. Fathers and sons took up arms to defend their women, but they were subdued with a lazy swiftness that only an army well practiced in such things could achieve. Very few of the would-be defenders died in the assault. The Horde knew that there was very little sport to be had with corpses, so the men of Shivelrain lost hands and eyes... arms and legs and objects of manly pride... but not their lives. As morning approached, the captains divided the population among themselves... numbering and distributing them like common rations. There was much bartering and gambling between them... especially for the women... and all the while, the soldiers and their beasts marched around the town like a carousel of starving vultures.

At dawn, it was time for The Sport.

The Sport was a tradition among Hordesmen from the time before there WAS a Horde. It was said that the Warlord himself revived the practice as a way to frighten his enemies, harden the hearts and stomachs of his men, and to entertain himself. The object of it was simple. Under the leadership of their captains, each group of soldiers would compete to see who could visit the most abominable cruelties upon their allotment prisoners. And in the pursuit of cruelty, even the dimmest, most slow-minded soldier was a grand master of the art.

Special tools and devices were brought forth from their hiding places. Machines of sadistic entertainment were assembled from the wood and nails of the houses... to be used on the very people who slept within them only hours before. A chorus of screams rose to meet the day's first light... and The Sport was underway. Shivelrain became a literal circus of blood as soldiers tried to outdo one another in their cruelties. Men were hunted like animals... others were hunted BY animals. Broken weapons and rusty tools were thrust into quivering hands, and men were made to fight their own sons or brothers to the death. Those who refused were strapped to such monstrous creations as 'The Hollower' and 'The Bloody NetherKiss'... devices designed to subject a victim to as much and as many different kinds of pain as possible before killing him, with extra accolades earned by a spectacularly bloody or grotesque demise.

The Sport in Shivelrain saw the debut of a totally new creation: 'The Man-Peeler.' Each twist of its gears brought howls of raucous laughter from the soldiers.

But the machines were neither the beginning nor the end of The Sport. Men were set aflame, trampled, pulled apart by horses, impaled with instruments both blunt and sharp, staked to the ground and covered with hot coals...

...and all of this was done against the constant backdrop of screams from the women, who were being raped as secondary entertainment by soldiers who'd grown bored with blood and entrails.

When the soldiers ran out of men, they brought in the women... who were tied up and made to watch their own children play all manner of bloody games, with the losers being fed to the machines already dripping with blood and flesh. The creator of the 'Man-Peeler' had fashioned a set of extra-small gears for his device. The supply of children was soon exhausted, and so their mothers and sisters were brought in to entertain those soldiers who had not yet slaked their thirst for blood and carnage. Most of the women were simply raped to death, but some were stripped naked and set free... to be hunted like animals for the night's final recreation.

Knowing that they rode at noon the next day, the soldiers camped amid the bloody ruins of Shivelrain. Most rested, but some carried the festivities into the night, amusing themselves with women and children that they had hidden from their fellow Hordesmen. Dawn brought the destruction of what little remained of the town. The buildings were pulled down and trampled, the farms burned. The corpses of the townsfolk were fed to the warbeasts until even their legendary hunger was sated. Then the scorched farmland was torn up in massive pits, into which the remaining bodies were thrown... food for the scavengers that would inevitably follow. Not all of the women and children were dead, but the Hordesmen were eager for the march, and anything that moved or cried out was simply stabbed once and tossed onto the pile... where they soon vanished amid the rising mountain of torn and battered corpses.

The Horde marched onward... toward new battles and fresh towns. Most of the soldiers never knew the name of the town that they left behind. Those that did would forget it well before the next day. The name was not important... and it was even less important now that the place to which it had been attached was just a bloody smear on the landscape.

The last of the soldiers was barely out of sight when the first of the scavengers arrived. For days, beasts of all sizes feasted and fought each other over the fresh corpses, but soon the place where Shivelrain once sat began to buzz with an odor that even the carrion-eaters could not abide. The piles of corpses spawned generations of tiny, squirming, hungry things... things that carried even tinier, hungrier things in their buzzing bellies.

It was then... when the would-be plague still simmered in its infancy... that the first men came.

Dressed in flowing burgundy robes and bearing curved staves of carved ivory, the missionaries came silently into the ruined town. Their hoods were drawn back, and their bare heads already lowered in ernest prayer to the Rune God. Their High Priest... who had given his very name in sacrifice to the Rune Lord... marched defiantly into the stench that clung to the land before them like a thick fog. With a wave of his hand and a prayer from his lips, the stench lessened. The fog parted, and the full horror of Shivelrain was at last revealed to the holy men.

The strongest of them wept at the sight. The weakest swooned, sustaining themselves with prayers and the strong arms of their brothers.

The High Priest shook his head. He, too, wept.

"Why, master?" said the acolyte that accompanied him. The youth... a dark-skinned boy distinguished by both his size and his devotion... clung to the Priest's robe as if the burgundy cloth could give him strength. Whatever strength it yielded was not enough, and the boy buried his face in it rather than behold the ruined town any longer.

"Do not look away," said the Priest. He tugged gently at his robe, and the boy released it. "You need to see."

"Why...?"

"You forget the first and simplest of your lessons. To ignore evil... is to embrace it."

"I know," said the boy. "But why... why did they DO it?"

"Because they could," said the Priest. "Because there was no one here who could stop them."

"I would have stopped them!" said the boy, who's name was Malyk. He thrust out his jaw and clenched his teeth. "I would have!"

"You would not have been strong enough."

"But the Lord's power is-"

"-limited by the worthiness of he who wields it. That is why we pray and keep ourselves pure... our faith and our bodies must be strong if we are to perform the Lord's work. One day you will be strong enough. But for now, you can only pray and learn." The Priest gestured to the other missionaries, and they began to disperse themselves through the town. Soon, each of the mass graves was surrounded by robed figures who continued to weep and pray as their Priest took his place before the largest of the foul pits. The boy followed him dutifully.

"This place is unclean," the Priest said. He held out one hand with the palm pressed outward toward the pile of bodies before him-

Millions of flies buzzed angrily, as if they somehow knew what the presence of the High Priest meant.

"It must be cleansed, or a terrible sickness will spread. Many will die. The Warlord and his fiends may wish such a fate upon the people of this land, but there is a higher power that does not."

The Priest raised his gnarled white staff above his head and cast his eyes skyward. All around them, the other missionaries did the opposite: clasping their hands gently in front of them and lowering their faces.

"The Faithful and the Humble Have Gathered in This Place..." The Priest shouted in a voice that was neither angry or demanding... but still loud enough to be heard from one end of the ruined city to the other. "...With the Words of the One True God to Guide and Protect Us. Let Those Who are Pure of Heart and Strong of Faith Prepare.... For Only the Strong Can Receive His Blessing, and Wield His Power in His Holy Name..."

There was a pause... both physical and spiritual as the missionaries cleared their thoughts and entered a state of deep prayer. When the High Priest spoke again, his voice had taken on a resonating undertone that seemed to vibrate the very ground beneath his feet. He began with a holy scripture... a long passage which he recited from memory. His lips wove the words into a song-like cadence that strummed the air around him... a song with a slow, rolling beat that could not be heard, but could definitely be felt.

The scripture ended, but the Priest's song continued... the words now flowing from his heart instead of his memory. With flowery phrases of praise and supplication, he called upon the Lord of the Rune to send His power down among them.

Thunder began to rumble across the cloudless sky, seeming to spread outward from some invisible storm hovering directly above them. The High Priest lowered his staff slightly, then thrust it skyward again... ending his prayer with a shout. The young acolyte peeked at the sky through one cautiously opened eye... then quickly shut it when a loud BOOM nearly knocked him off of his feet. In that instant, the boy saw that the Priest's staff was glowing with fierce golden light, and that a curtain of matching brilliance was descending from the sky above the town. The boy shut his eye just as a bolt of energy stabbed downward, striking the heap of corpses to the east of the praying Priest. The bolt crackled through the mound, igniting the ground at the base of the pit and sending fingers of lightning radiating outward through the bodies.

Instantly, the mountain of death was ablaze. Fire erupted in a mighty column that engulfed pit and everything in it. Waves of heat washed over the praying missionaries, forcing them back several steps as...

A second thunderbolt struck another mound, and a second inferno blossomed around the dead. The flames burned with a supernatural heat, reducing the bodies to gray ash so quickly that it seemed more a magical transformation than a mere product of heat and fuel. Only one pit remained, and the High Priest presided over this one himself... his eyes pleading with the golden sky to unleash a third and final sign of the Rune Lord's might. He thrust his staff skyward-

Thunder boomed. Lightning stabbed down from the sky-

-and struck the High Priest squarely in his chest. The Priest's robes fluttered around him as he flew backward... sparks and smoke trailing from his body. He landed on his back several yards away, and he was already trying to stand when his acolyte caught up with him.

"Master!" the boy cried. The chest of the High Priest's robe was scorched black, but the flesh beneath seemed unharmed. The Priest coughed and clutched at his throat while cloudless thunder continued to rumble overhead. "What happened!"

"I have... been chastised..." the Priest sputtered.

"For what!?"

"I do not kno-" The Priest began. He stopped suddenly and looked down. Like all of the other missionaries, the Priest carried a small brown pouch on his belt. The pouch had come free when he landed, and now its contents... a collection of tiny tiles carved with symbols... lay strewn around him. A half dozen of the Rune Tiles lay in a jumble between him and the boy, and it was these that drew the Priest's attention. "...God Speaks!" The Priest pointed to the Holy Symbols.

The boy knew only a few of God's Words, but he recognized the Runes corresponding to "Life" and "Hidden" staring up at him from the dirt. He had no idea what the other symbols meant...

"No!" The High Priest gasped. He tore his eyes from the Holy Words and stared at the final pile of corpses... the only one that was not burning with the Rune Lord's purifying flames. "No!"

The Priest ran towards it, leaving his Runes, his staff, and the young acolyte behind.

It was a curious thing to see... such an old man moving so fast and with such purpose... and shouting with almost every step. He thrust both hands before his as he reached the edge of the pit-

"NO!" He bellowed. The pile of corpses shuddered as if stricken. A dozen of the mutilated bodies... those nearest the Priest... were thrown aside by some invisible force. The acolyte ran to intercept his master, but by then the Priest had jumped down into the unclean pit. Again, he thrust his hands out before him, sending corpses flying in several directions.

"Master!" the acolyte shouted.

The Priest ignored him and went forward toward the depths of the pit. The small mountain of corpses loomed over him like a foul giant. The Priest gestured angrily, and the giant recoiled. A violent shudder hurled bodies into the air and out to the sides, clearing a path for the Priest's sandaled feet. Those sandals moved urgently through the thick mat of filth left behind by the displaced corpses. The Priest ignored the flies and maggots swarming around him... his blazing eyes lay fixed on the heart of the foul mountain.

"NO!" He cried, drawing his arms back and thrusting them forward with as much power as his old body could summon.

There was no bolt of lightning or boom of thunder, but the mountain of bodies suddenly tore itself apart in a sudden but massive explosion. The High Priest's gesture blasted a quarter of the mountain away and sent the top of it sliding backward in an avalanche of corpses.

The Priest immediately rushed forward and began climbing and wading toward the now-exposed heart of the corpse-pit.

Behind him, the other missionaries had gathered around the pit's perimeter. Some started to climb down after their Priest, but when the smell and the maggots assaulted them, they quickly changed their minds and retreated.

The acolyte, however, pushed forward. Malyk drew strength from his master's example... strength enough to ignore the stench and the swarms of hungry things that squirmed around his toes. His youth gave him speed, and since he did not have to stop every few steps to clear a path for himself, he was now only a few steps behind the Priest.

The old man paused to find his way, and then climbed a short distance. His hands came down on the body of a woman, but instead of using it for a hand-hold to pull himself higher, he grasped her shoulders and tried to move her.

"Noooo..." The Priest was weeping when the acolyte reached him. The boy had never seen the old Priest... or any of the Rune Missionaries... cry before today.

"What IS it, master? What did the Words say?"

"My faith is spent-" The Priest said as he tugged on the woman's corpse. Malyk gave him a confused look, but then leaned down and placed his young hands on the dead woman's body.

"Then I shall lend you mine," said the boy.

"PULL!" The Priest shouted. Together, the old man and the boy rolled the woman's body away, revealing what lay beneath it.

The child could not have been more than two. He was naked, his pale skin clothed in layers of dried blood and wet filth... his black hair squirming with insects. The child's eyes were closed, and he appeared to be just another corpse. But when High Priest cried out, the child's eyes opened and stared up at them. Those eyes.. those tiny black orbs... burned across the young acolyte's soul like beams of concentrated fire. But instead of heat, it was horror that drove the acolyte back.

"...no!" The boy muttered. "No, it cannot BE!"

"WHYYY!" The High Priest wept as he dropped to his knees and plunged his arms into the squirming muck. He wrapped his arms around the child and pulled him free. The tiny body began to tremble. The Priest hugged the child to his chest, ignoring the maggots that were squirming into the folds of his burgundy robe. With eyes filled with tears and anger, the Priest turned his face skyward shouted at the heavens. "HOW COULD YOU PUNISH A CHILD LIKE THIS!!

"...master... what does this mean!?"

"WHYYYYYY!" The Priest's voice boiled with outrage. "WHYYYYYYYYYY!"

The final shout seemed to rob the old man of his strength. He pitched forward, catching himself with one folded arm while clutching the child with the other.

"...whyy..." He continued to weep, though now in only sobs and whispers. "...please tell me why..."

"Master?" The acolyte's hand appeared on the old man's bent shoulder. "Is... is this another miracle?"

"No," The Priest shrugged away. "It is a horror! An abomination! I cannot serve a God that does such things to children! I cannot... I cannot..."

"But it was the Horde," said acolyte. "It was men that did this... not our Lord."

The Priest's eyes slowly turned to behold his acolyte. The old man blinked... the acolyte did not.

"This is a test, yes?" said the acolyte.

"No," said the Priest. Then he nodded. "Yes."

"Did I pass?"

"It was not your test," said the old man. He extended his arm to the acolyte. "Help us up."

The acolyte caught the old man's wrist and hauled him to his feet. As he did, the boy in the Priest's arms coughed. It was a thick, unhealthy sound.

"He is sick," said the acolyte. "Will he live?"

"Our Lord did not bring him this far just to see him die now. But death has touched him. Death and pain... and horror. and madness. I can feel them hovering around them even now. They have all touched his soul, and left their marks upon it. See how he does not cry? The things he has seen... the things that death has shown him... and he does not cry or make a sound."

"Can his soul be... fixed?"

"It is not broken. It is what God made it."

"But why?"

The High Priest shook his head.

"We may never know why... and that is the lesson that I have failed. Our God does not have to share his plans with us, but we must have faith that there IS a plan... and there is a reason for all things. Even... even for this..."

Both men... for the acolyte was now a man in his Priest's eyes... looked at the baby's face. The child's eyes stared upward, but did not fix upon them. The child's gaze went past them... past the sky overhead and deep into the darkness beyond. Into the emptiness... looking past stars and planets... piercing time itself to finally peer...

...into the cold, blue eyes of December Chyrnomir.

"We are wasting time," said December. "What is your decision?"

Gallows broke his stunned silence. He turned away, shaking his head but speaking words that even he didn't believe he was saying.

"All right," said Gallows. "I'll do it."

---

The wind that blew across the streets of Bephal was neither cold nor hot, but it's touch brought shivers and gasps to the souls in its path. N'Doki inhaled deeply, drawing the dry and slightly fetid air into his lungs. His eyes... still swimming beneath the illusion if humanity... narrowed as the corners of his lips curled into a smile.

The gates were open. Power flowed around him in invisible swirls and gusts... the wind grew stronger as he surveyed the people on the streets. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do just yet, but whatever it was-

-It would be... Spectacular.

"Ahhhh..." he said, his smile widening.

He began with a simple flick of his fingertip. For an instant, his hand appeared shriveled and gnarled. The air suddenly stopped moving, and a crack of monstrous thunder split the sky above him. The sky darkened as thick clouds... not white or gray, but coal black... rolled inward from the four corners of the town. The clouds churned violently as things began to stir within them... things that were blacker than night itself, but had eyes that glowed and glistened like angry stars.

The necromancer raised his arms and arcs of orange lightning crackled back and forth between his fingertips. The clouds began to moan as the necromancer's power drew them closer... pulling them out of the sky and twisting them into the beginnings of a shape-

Fire erupted around the necromancer in a brilliant ball of sparks and flame. The orange lightning flickered out, and the dark sky snapped back to its former position as the necromancer's grip on it faltered. N'Doki recoiled from the blast, but took only a single step backward. With a wave of his clawed hand, the sent the hungry tongues of flame fluttering away like strips of cloth caught in a stiff breeze. His robe was untouched by the fire, but the garment was only an illusion. The skin beneath it was crisp and blackened in several large splotches.... several of them still hissed and bubbled from the heat.

N'Doki scowled into the rapidly dispersing crowed... his eyes finding the one figure that was not moving.

"Haven't you forgotten something?" said Jerimiah Trisk. Thick cords of fire wound their way across Casey D'Arcy's left arm like serpents. The boy's tiny fingers clenched into a fist. "Your master may have turned you loose upon this town, but I do not need December's permission to protect lives... especially from you."

"It is you who haf forgotten," said N'Doki. The necromancer's smile had devolved into a half-sneer. "Dis one t'inks dat he can challenge me again... so soon after his last humiliation? Heh."

"That was last time." Trisk stepped boldly toward N'Doki. "But unlike you, I don't live in the past... and I learn from my mistakes."

"Let us see how much you learn, eh?"

The boy's right arm snapped forward and a column of fire shot across the street toward the necromancer. N'Doki gave the flames a bored glance. Shadows leapt up around him and formed a shield between him and the flames-

But instead of exhausting itself on the black barrier, the single column of fire split into a dozen tendrils that curled around it, stabbing toward at N'Doki from several directions The barrier moved with them, expanding and eventually surrounding the necromancer in a perfect sphere of darkness. Trisk's flames lapped at the shield, but the shadows rebuffed them, sipping thirstily at their heat whenever they drew too close.

For a moment, the necromancer seemed trapped... enveloped first by a shell of his own dark magic, and then second by swirling rings of flame that would consume him the instant he lowered his defenses.

But suddenly the black sphere shrank to half its size... and then exploded outward, transforming into a black pyramid that sliced into the fiery rings as it grew. The flames writhed and vanished into the expanding darkness. The pyramid then split along its seems and unfolded.

Jerimiah Trisk sent a furious bolt of flame into the heart of the darkness, incinerating-

-absolutely nothing. The pyramid was empty.

Trisk turned-

-and orange lightning slammed into Casey D'Arcy's body, lifting him up into the air and throwing him to the ground. The necromancer's power tore at his skin... rotting his flesh as it tried to burn its way deeper.

N'Doki stepped forward boldly, one hand continuing to unleash arcs of hungry, festering energy while the other began to gesture. Once again, the black clouds above began to descend-

Trisk contorted in pain. Three massive rings of flame exploded from his writhing body, each radiating outward at a different speed. The attack came so quickly that N'Doki didn't have time to react. The first arc of flame caught him across the abdomen, searing his flesh all the way to the bone.

"AAAAAAHHHHGG!" The necromancer howled. He ended his attack and turned away, but the second wave of heat sliced across his chest, nearly severing his arm. N'Doki thrust his uninjured arm before him, gesturing furiously. Shadows converged around his fist, then and struck out at the third arc of flame. The roiling explosion of darkness and heat threw N'Doki off of his feet. He landed on his back, clutching his sizzling gut with his burnt hand while, before him, Jerimiah Trisk slowly got to his feet.

"Dis one," N'Doki hissed. "Iss beginning to annoy me."

---

"I don't like this." Hemingway Shaw peered through the dirty window and scowled at the scene outside. Everything had been calm a few seconds ago, but now the streets were erupting in panic as everyone who could still move was doing so as fast as they could... once again seeking shelter from hostile forces that sought to destroy them. All hell was breaking loose... again... but with N'Doki involved, the expression was likely to be more literal than figurative. The necromancer had twice tried to summon 'something' from the dark clouds overhead, only to be stopped by Jerimiah Trisk both times. Now both men were fighting... one trying to lay waste to Bephal and the other attempting to stop him. "I don't like this at all."

"You don't have to like it," said Yexhill Thane. Thane and Harrison Blackshear had made themselves comfortable in the shop of a leathersmith. Hars was stretched across a table, and Thane had found an old crate to sit on, taking the load off of his bleeding feet. Both men were tending their wounds and paying only slight attention to the fireworks outside. "Just be glad you're not out there IN it."

"Maybe I should be!" Hemingway snapped.

"And maybe yer not half as smart as ye think ye are," Hars replied.

Hemingway turned away from the window, still scowling.

"You can't just let this happen, Hars!"

"I can and I am. Looks like this thing is finally coming to an end, and I'm thankin' every god I can name that... for ONCE... were not caught in the middle of it."

"Hars-"

"We've been beaten. Battered. Tossed around, sliced, slashed, frozen and what else? Oh yeah, we even DIED for these people. What the hell ELSE do you want us to do, eh? We killed their monster for 'em, but now they don't wanna clean up their own mess."

"If by that you mean killing innocent people, then-"

"Innocent people who're gonna turn around and bite 'em in the neck the first chance they get. We're talkin about a plague here, Shaw. Just 'cause you stamped out the source don't mean the danger's over. You heard December... just one of those folks can start this whole bloody thing all over again."

"Most plagues can be cured without killing everyone-"

"Most, but not all. Sometimes, it's best not to take those kinda risks. Trust me on this, Shaw... I've lived through this kinda thing before. Just be glad somebody else is handling the dirty work this time."

"Dirty work? N'Doki is going to kill the entire town... infected or not!"

Harrison shrugged and went back to examining his wounds.

"How can you just SIT there while that happens!"

"Because December has a plan, and I've seen what happens to people who get in the way of December's plans. Sometimes it ain't even safe ta watch." Hars nodded at the window. "...if ya get my meaning."

"His plan is to turn his own monster loose on the town," said Hemingway. "If we let that happen, then everything we've done to help them will have been for nothing! Thane-"

"Thane is sittin' right here on this box until this is over. This ain't our fight any more, Shaw. But what if it WAS our fight, eh? If you had seen what that bastard Filkus did to those children... you'd be out there cracking 'innocent' skulls right now to keep that from happening to anyone else's babies."

"That's NONSENSE-"

"You don't have children," said Thane. "That's why its nonsense. Don't you go taking this the wrong way, Shaw, but if we was out there and you were standin between me and one of those infected bastards... I don't care who it was... then I'd have to kill ya. I swear to the gods, I would. So don't you come to me with this guilt about innocent folks."

"I thought you were locked up because you DIDN'T want to kill, Thane" said Shaw.

"You thought wrong," Thane replied. "I don't let other people choose my enemies for me. The king didn't like my philosophy, so they took my family away and tried to torture me to death. But none of that has anything to do with what's going on out there, so keep it out of your mouth."

"And that thing on your back?" said Hars. "It kills you if you don't fight, doesn't it?"

"Good guess."

"So why aren't you out there fighting?"

"If I was, you wouldn't like the side I'd be fighting on."

"This is outrageous!" said Shaw. He marched over to the door.

"Goin' outside, lad?" said Hars.

"I'm going where I can make a difference!"

"The only difference you'll make is whether you survive this mess or not," said Hars. "But I'm not gonna stop ya. Go on out there if ya want."

Shaw pushed the door open. Screams and smoke drifted in from the street outside.

"You two are just going to sit here?" said Shaw. "Sit here and let this go on?"

"Yup."

"Yeah."

"Fine." Shaw stormed out, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him.

---

"I don't understand what's happening." said Emerson Shaw. The thief hovered expectantly around December and Gallows, who had spent the last few minutes whispering to each other in the sitting room of the abandoned house.

Gallows looked worried.

That by itself was enough to make Emerson Shaw nervous.

"I'll do it," Gallows said for the second time. The first time was apparently only to convince himself, but now December was nodding.

That made Emerson even more nervous.

"It is not for you to understand, Mr. Shaw," December said... acknowledging Emerson's presence in the room for the first time since the crimelord had led them into the house.

"But you wanted me here-"

"Indeed I did. Mr. Gallows..."

December pointed to the floor in front of him. Gallows sat down and crossed his legs. December joined him, assuming an identical position and sliding his large body forward until his knees were less than an inch from the assassin's. Gallows looked up at him.

"How did you know?" the assassin asked. "About the Horde..."

"I am December," came the reply. Those three words explained everything.

"Well there's something else you ought to know. Not about me, about-"

"You are stalling, Mr. Gallows."

"I-" Gallows lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I am, aren't I."

"Mr. Shaw? Come here."

"Oh, are you going to explain how this involves me, now?

"It does not involve you at all."

"Then why-"

"It does, however, involve your dagger."

"My... what?"

"Your dagger." December held out his hand. "Now."

"You want my-"

"Yes. Quickly."

Emerson drew his enchanted blade and then walked over and placed it in December's hand. December's pale fingers closed around the handle.

"I'm getting that back, right?" said Shaw.

"Possibly."

"Hey, that's mine! I found it-"

"Do you see that corner over there, Mr. Shaw?" December gestured to the far corner of the room.

"Yeah?"

"Go and stand in it."

"There's no reason for you to talk to me like a child you know! I may be short-"

"What we are about to attempt is quite delicate. Keep watch. If anyone attempts to disturb us... no matter who it is... kill them. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." Emerson backed away. He did so not to comply with December's orders, but because of the look of serious intensity radiating from December's face. And the matching stare beaming at him from Gallows' dark eyes. If there were ever two people in the world that Emerson did NOT want to trifle with, then both of them were sitting right in front of him... waiting for him to leave. "Okaayyyy..." Emerson backed himself into a corner, and stayed there.

"I... I don't want to go back there," Gallows said as December turned to him. "There's got to be another way-"

"That tremble in your voice. Is that fear?"

Gallows didn't answer.

"Are you afraid?"

There was a pause. Gallows stared into the small patch of floor between him and December. Then, he whispered.

"...terrified."

"Excellent." December flipped Shaw's dagger around so that he was holding it by the blade. He extended his arm, offering the weapon to the man sitting across from him. When the assassin reached for it, December placed the blade in Gallows' hand and closed his own around the man's wrist.

"Fear, we can use," December said.

Gallows' hand began to tremble.

"Fear will be our weapon... but not alone. To it, we must add power. Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll-"

December's grip tightened on the assassin's wrist. He pulled Gallows' arm forward and plunged the dagger's golden blade into his own forearm. The sharp blade bit deep into his flesh.

December stiffened; deep blue blood poured from the wound. Gallows gasped as the enchanted weapon pulsed in his reluctant grasp. The jolt of power... drawn out of December's bleeding arm and pumped directly into him... struck like a falling boulder. His entire body clenched and shuddered. Gallows growled as he tried to contain what the blade was giving him... but he couldn't. The power was too much... too fast...

"No..." Gallows pulled back, but December's grasp held him firm. "No, let me... NO! PLEASE! I can't- I CAN'T!-"

Gallows' protests halted... his voice caught in his throat, and his eyes clouded over with a glowing blue haze. The assassin's mouth hung silently open for a moment.

And then he filled the house with a blood curdling scream.

---

"THERE you are!"

Floyd's senses still reeled from the attack at the infirmary, but his eyes and ears had recovered more than enough to hear the hushed scrambling on the rooftop behind him, and see the human figure duck back out of sight as he turned toward the sound.

Floyd D'Arcy stood before a two-story building that used to be both home and livelihood to the local seamstress, but Gertrude Wilks probably wasn't the person that he'd just seen hiding on the roof. Gertrude had been sucked into a hole in the ground earlier that morning.

"Francesca!" Floyd approached the wall and looked up. He shouted again. "Francesca, is that you!?"

The frightened whimper from above was definitely feminine.

"FRANCESCA!" Floyd barked.

"Go away!" Francesca shouted back. From the voice, Floyd could tell that she had moved all the way to the other side of the roof. Floyd walked along the wall until he was below her. He started to shout again, but he decided against it. The poor girl was obviously terrified... yelling at her wasn't going to make her any less so. Instead, he looked for a way to join her on the roof. Zombies and monsters and earthquakes had weakened just about every inch of the place. Floyd had no idea how his daughter had gotten up there, but if she'd climbed up then she was the luckiest woman alive.

"Francesca?" Floyd called... using a softer, gentler voice. "Francesca would ya come down please? It's me... it's papa..."

Her reply was a scream. Not just any scream, but a terrified wail... followed by the uncomfortable sound of the rooftop creaking as Francesca scrambled away from him.

"Francesca?" Floyd followed the sounds.

"Leave me alone!" she shrieked.

"Francesca how did U get up there?"

"You can't come up here! He said I'd be safe up here.... so you can't come! You can't get me!!!"

Floyd looked around, sighed, and grabbed the upper edge of one of the windows. He placed his foot on the window trim and tried to pull himself up... but his muscles lacked the strength.

And the window lacked the sturdiness to hold him. The damaged wood broke with a loud CRACK. Floyd fell painfully to the ground, grunting as he landed on his back.

There was more creaking and scrambling from the rooftop. Floyd caught a glimpse of Francesca peering down at him, but the instant his eyes met hers, she shrieked and pulled away.

"Francesca, wait!" Floyd got to his feet and reached up... as if his arm could somehow extend all the way to the edge of the roof. Even if it could, the wood didn't look sturdy enough to hold him. "You have to come down from there, its dangerous-"

No sooner did the words leave Floyd's mouth than the sky overhead turned pitch black. Someone shouted... someone other than Francesca or him.

The clouds began to swirl ominously... unnaturally... and then more shouts and screams of panic joined the first.

"Oh, don't tell me it's happening again.... Francesca!"

There was no response from above. The black sky had probably sent the poor woman huddling in whatever corner she could find.

"I have to get up there..." Floyd looked around, peering through the windows and examining the adjacent buildings. If he was a younger, braver man, he might have been able to climb up one of them and jump-

-no, even a younger braver man wouldn't have pulled that off, and he certainly wasn't either of those.

"How the hell did she get up there?"

Floyd peered through the window and looked at the mess inside. The stairway had been demolished.

"Francesca PLEASE come down! It's dangerous-"

"Damn right its dangerous!"

The street had been deserted a second ago, but now there were people running past Floyd... some of them screaming, but most simply trying to get somewhere else very quickly. The person who'd spoken was Roy, the local veterinarian... now official town healer. He was one of the people who'd been running the fastest... until he'd spotted Floyd.

"This whole town's going to hell!"

"What's happening?"

"December's trying to kill everyone, that's what!"

"December? No, you're mistaken-"

"They killed that thing under the ground, but December says it infected a bunch of people... and now they're gonna turn evil and start killing people. So he wants to kill 'em all instead! Trisk tried to stop 'em, and now he and one of December's folks is fighting back there with magic I never seen before!"

"...the sky..." said Floyd, looking up. "This is bad."

"I know," said Roy. "Especially since I'm one of the infected!"

"What?" Floyd's eyes narrowed. He stepped back, looking suspiciously at the healer. "You're what?"

"Don't go lookin' at me like that, Floyd... I'm fine and normal, just like everybody else! But now I got people wanting to KILL me for something I ain't even done yet!"

"Yet?" said Floyd.

"eh?"

"You said 'yet'... like you knew you WERE going to do something."

"Oh, not you TOO, Floyd! C'mon, this is ME!"

"You're right... you're right, this is crazy. But I can't think about that right now; Francesca's up on the roof and I can't get her down."

"Well how'd she get UP there?" Roy asked, looking up. "This thing looks like it could fall any time!"

"I don't know how, but she's not listening to reason. She's had little episodes like this before... where she says crazy things... but this is worse than any of them. I've got to get her down, Roy!"

"I'll help you." Roy went to the nearest window and grabbed the shutter-

"DON'T!"

The wooden shutter came free in Roy's hand.

"I wouldn't risk climbing it. The stairs inside are gone and I don't know how to get my daughter down!"

"Calm down..." Roy looked around. He smiled. "There!"

Roy pointed to the building across the street. It was a carpenter's shop. The zombies had made a mess out of it... and out of the people who'd been hiding in it... but they had left the building mostly intact.

Barely visible through the shattered window was a large ladder.

"I'll get it!" Roy darted across the street.

"Francesca, hold on... we're coming up to get you!" Floyd trotted after Roy, and caught up with him just a he was dragging the ladder out of the store.

"This'll almost reach to the roof, I think," Roy grunted. Floyd grabbed the other end and they carried it back to the seamstress's shop. They leaned it against the wall...

...where it fell far short of the roof.

"Almost," said Roy.

"Not even almost."

"If I climb to the top I think I can reach the roof-"

"And fall on your ass once you try to pull yourself up."

"You see a better way up there?"

"Yeah. I'll go."

"Floyd, no offense, but you're-"

"An old man? Right. That means I got a lot less to loose if I fall and break my neck. Besides, she's MY daughter. And I'm lighter and my arms are longer than yours."

"Floyd I'd never forgive myself it something-"

"Shut up and hold the ladder."

Floyd grabbed the ladder and started up. He'd gone only a few rungs when he paused and looked down. Roy was staring up at him... steadying the ladder just like Floyd had asked him to.

So what was that Roy had said about being infected?

"Change your mind?" said Roy. "Want me to go up?"

"No," Floyd said suddenly. "I uhh... just make sure you hold it steady."

"Like a rock, old man. But I'd rather ye not take all day... there ARE people down here trying to kill me, after all."

"Right..." said Floyd. He climbed another step... looked down again... and then decided that he was being silly. He and Roy weren't friends, but he knew the man by reputation. He was one of nicest men in Bephal... certainly Floyd could trust him to hold a ladder and not do anything... evil. "... hurry. Right."

Floyd climbed up as far as he could. The edge of the roof was just above him. Floyd reached up to grab it... then lowered his arm and looked down. Roy was still down there. The ladder was pretty steady on its own, but if Roy were to do something drastic... like push it over, for instance...

"...uhhh..." Floyd stalled. But then he realized that the sooner he got on the roof, the sooner he could stop worrying about what Roy may or may not do. He reached up... stretching his arm as far as it could go. He grabbed the edge of the roof and gave it a yank. The wood creaked, but nothing came loose. He pulled again, this time putting his full weight on it.

More creaking... It wasn't going to hold him.

Floyd shifted his weight back onto the ladder. Maybe if he moved over a bit-

Roy muttered something below him. Floyd looked down, but as he did, he heard Roy's voice unleash a horrible scream.

"ROY!?" Floyd shouted.

Roy had taken his hands off the ladder and was grabbing his head... pulling at his own hair.

"NO! NOOOOOO!!!!" Roy shrieked.

"Roy, what's happening!"

"MAKE IT STOOPPP!" Roy yanked out a handful of his hair, shrieking as the bloody plug tore free of his scalp. "FLOYD! FLOYD! MAKE IT STOOOOPPPPP!"

Aghast, Floyd stood motionless on the ladder as Roy shrieked and howled like a man who'd suddenly gone insane.

"ARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!" Roy bellowed. The healer dug his fingernails into the skin of his face and began tearing at his cheeks. "CRAWLING! THINGS ARE CRAWLING ON ME, FLOYD! GET 'EM OFF! GET 'EM OFFFF!"

Roy looked up at Floyd.

"Oh my gods..." Floyd gasped.

Roy's face.... his eyes... his EYES!

It was like looking into hell.

"FLOYD!" Tears of pain and terror rolled down Roy's bloody cheeks. "Floyd, please! PLEASE!!!"

"I-... I-"

Floyd was frozen on the ladder. He wanted to go down and help Roy, but... but what if whatever it was was contagious!? What if Roy went crazy and killed him? What if..."

"MAGGOTS!!! FLIES AND MAGGOTS... they’re INSIDE ME!"

Having finally dug away enough of his skin get a proper grasp, Roy's fingers sank into the flesh of his face and began to pull...

"Make them STOooNRAAAAAAAIIIIEEEEEE!"

"ROY!!"

Floyd turned away from the horror unfolding below him... but the image of Roy trying to peel off his own face.... trying an SUCCEEDING... was burned into his eyes like a hot brand.

Roy's shriek rose to a crescendo, and then the world began to spin.

Floyd looked down again. Roy had taken off running... running and waving his bloody fists like red streamers... and in doing so he had knocked the ladder off balance.

Floyd grabbed the edge of the roof just in time. The ladder fell away, leaving him dangling by his fingertips. Floyd heard the ladder hit the ground below him... and he still heard Roy screaming.

But the scream was too loud...

...and it was coming from too many places.

Whatever had suddenly driven Roy insane apparently wasn't satisfied with just him-

-because it was happening all over town.
---

Thick bolts of flame... a mixture of natural and hellfire... erupted from Casey's thin fingertips. Each dagger-sized projectile sizzled through the air between the boy and N'Doki, who was still down from Trisk's earlier attack. N'Doki spat a word of power, and a shadow peeled away from the ground and darted before him. The shadow erupted in a pillar of fire as five of the daggers struck it in the chest, tearing it apart. Another shadow immediately rose up behind it. The next volley of flames quickly burnt it to nothing, but a second and a third defender had already positioned themselves before their master.

Growling, Casey sent darts and daggers of pure hellfire into what was now a wall of living shadows... dark souls that N'Doki had commanded to defend him.

"Coward!" Trisk spat. The boy's eyes dripped fire onto the ground at his feet. "Only a coward would hide behind the damned! But that's what you do, isn't it? You hide and you cower... manipulating others into doing your bidding while you watch from a safe distance! How safe do you feel NOW!!"

A roiling onslaught of hellfire tore through a dozen souls on its way to N'Doki. Lightning leapt from the necromancer's gnarled fingertips. The fireball exploded, sending shards of flame into several nearby buildings.

"So diss one t'inks he knows something of N'Doki, eh?" the necromancer said as he rose. Power still fluttered around him, but he made no visible effort to use it.

"I know you, monster... Hell knows you. The damned whisper your name. Some fear you... but I do not."

N'Doki chuckled.

"I don't, because I know what you are." Casey D'Arcy's lips curled into a deep sneer of disgust.

"And what is it you t'ink you know, child? What do you t'ink N'Doki is..."

"A slave!" Trisk spat. "A slave... still whipped and beaten by men who are long dead. A slave to the so-called gods you serve! A slave to your own power and hatred..."

Whatever answer N'Doki had been expecting... this was not it. The necromancer scowled through the shadows and flames, his clawed fingers folding into fists

"Some may fear your power, but your power is a lie. In truth you are a weak and pitiful plaything.... owned and controlled by forces that don't even respect you. And why should they? You aren't even a real man! You're some kind of... creation! Something they stitched together from bits of leftover rage-"

"ENOUGH!"

N'Doki raised one hand to the sky. Orange lightning crackled overhead-

-and the ground split open beneath Casey D'Arcy. Out of the yawning chasm sprang a monstrous snake with the head of a man... and the face of the necromancer. Trisk shot skyward to avoid being swallowed whole, but the creature rose after him. The monstrous jaws unhinged, opening impossibly wide as the necromancer's face overtook Trisk, and then slamming shut as-

A ball of flame erupted around Trisk, flying outward in all directions. The creature's head exploded, and the remaining pieces rained down as chunks of ash and burnt flesh. D'Arcy hung in the air like a small star, pointing one slender finger at the necromancer.

"You are quick to unleash your horrors on the weak and powerless... but your magics don't fare so well against those with power of their own!"

N'Doki smiled. Then he opened his mouth and belched forth a cloud of stinging flies-

D'Arcy sent a fireball hurtling toward him. The ball of flame struck N'Doki, instantly turning his shriveled flesh to ash...

...but the flies still buzzed angrily, forming a thick cloud that took on the shape of the necromancer's grinning face.

"We've done this before," Trisk growled.

"And you lost!" the cloud of flies buzzed.

"Perhaps... but unlike you-"

Casey stretched his arms out to either side. Tendrils of flame flew from his fingertips, and as he swung his hands before him, the tendrils wove themselves into two giant, fiery fists that slammed together, catching the entire cloud of flies between them.... obliterating it in an explosion of thunder and flame.

"-I learn from my mistakes!"

---

Hemingway Shaw had to dodge two thunderbolts and a fireball just to get across the street. Angry magic rained down around him as the mages fought... both seemingly oblivious to the town around them. Shaw expected that from N'Doki, but Trisk's fireballs had already ignited three buildings... one of which was full of people. Now the streets were full again, as those not wise enough to vacate the area before the fighting started, darted from their hiding places and tried to get as far away as possible.

Shaw didn't know what he was going to do when he left Thane and Hars, but he knew he had to do something. Stopping the combat between Trisk and N'Doki seemed like a good idea... and if he had known a little more about N'Doki then he would have done so. But he doubted that hitting the necromancer across the back of the skull with a hammer was going to do much good. Besides, with Trisk keeping N'Doki busy, Shaw had an opportunity that he hadn't seen before.

He had to get these people out of here.

An evacuation. If someone could help him gather most of the 'infected' together, he would personally escort them to-

-he had no idea where. But he'd think of something. He always thought of something.

But first he had to find them.

Shaw darted along the street to a building that he'd seen a few people go into earlier. One of those people had been Grigory Roff... the new 'mayor' of Bephal. That building wasn't on fire... yet... so there was a good chance that Roff and the others might still be hiding inside-

"NOBODY TOUCH ME OR I SWEAR I'LL SLIT HIS THROAT!"

Hemingway stopped running as two figures emerged from the doorway he'd been heading for. One of them was Grigory Roff... but the mayor didn't seem to be in much of a position to help anyone at the moment. The second figure was a woman. She was bruised and bloody... her clothing torn almost to shreds. She had the mayor in a perfect choke-hold, with a shiny new dagger pressed tight to his throat. She backed out of the building, dragging the terrified Roff in front of her.

"NOBODY'S GONNA KILL ME FOR NOTHING!" The woman shouted at the crowd that gathered in the doorway. She hadn't noticed Shaw yet. When he'd seen the knife, he'd quickly stepped out of her peripheral vision and moved behind her. "Everybody Stay Back!"

"Nobody's gonna hurt ya!" one of the men in the crowd shouted back at her. "We're trying to help you!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT!" the woman howled.

Grigory Roff chocked and whined... but did nothing else. Roff wasn't a big man, but he was bigger than the woman. He could've freed himself with no problem if it weren't for the knife at his throat.

"I'm getting out of this town and nobody's gonna stop me!"

Hemingway's hand drifted to his hammer, but he didn't want to use the weapon. This woman wanted the same thing he did... she was just going about it the wrong way. He moved toward her.

The people in the doorway spotted him, and Shaw hoped they were smart enough not to shout out to him.

As it turned out, they didn't have to.

The woman saw the direction of their stares... they weren't looking at her any more, but at something behind her. She twisted around to see what was behind her-

About six people bolted from the doorway, intending to take the woman by surprise while she was looking at Shaw.

They were fools if they thought they could make it before she slit Roff's throat.

But luck... or something else... was favoring fools that day.

They were halfway to the woman. She heard their steps.... Shaw saw her hand tighten on the knife, and heard Roff scream as she cut him-

-but then the woman's eyes widened. Her body jerked as if she'd been struck. She gasped... and then screamed.

This was no ordinary scream. This was something else.... something unholy and terrifying. Shaw felt the bolt of fear shoot down his spine as the sound reached his ears. The woman's eyes met his. Her face was filled with a fear and madness that Shaw had never seen on a human being before.... like she was looking into hell. Or was IN hell, looking out!

Shaw saw those eyes and froze.

The people running up behind the woman faltered. One stumbled. A couple stopped running and looked around, trying to see what could possibly be causing that SOUND to come from the poor woman's throat.

Grigory Roff was the only one unaffected. His neck was already bleeding, and when the woman's grip and balance changed, he saw the opportunity he needed. He slipped out of her grasp-

-and immediately stumbled on a rock and fell at the woman's feet.

"UNGH!" Roff rolled onto his back and looked up. The woman's gaze shifted from Shaw to Roff. Her scream finally exhausted the air in her lungs and she went silent.

"...help me..." her voice was a squeak. Her face was wet with the tears pouring from her unblinking eyes. "...my gods, what's happening to me!"

There was a pause that seemed to last forever... and then the woman began to shudder and convulse, as if trying to pull away from something that was all around her.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!" She shrieked. "MAKE IT STOP!!!!"

The woman looked around frantically, and then her eyes caught sight of the knife in her hands.

Grigory Roff was on his feet the very next instant. The woman had just placed the point of the dagger to her own chest when Roff sprang. His hand caught her wrist-

-and then the others reached them, surrounding them both.

Shaw couldn't see the woman's eyes any more. He could move again.

He ran up to them, listening to the frantic cries of:

"Get the Knife! Get the Knife!" as seven grown men wrestled one lone woman to the ground. They had to fight her to do it, and the woman had knocked one man unconscious before she went down. She screamed every inch of the way.

"What's happening to her!" Shaw shouted. Roff fought his way out of the crowd... he was holding the knife that had nearly slit his throat.

"I don't know!" Roff turned to him. The mayor looked desperate. Confused and desperate. "She just went crazy in there... and then... and then even CRAZIER out here!"

Roff wasn't going to be any help. Shaw leaned over the woman, who was being forcibly held down. She squirmed like a cornered animal... but her eyes were human. Fear like that didn't exist in any animal that Shaw knew.

She was terrified. Absolutely terrified.

"What's happening?" Shaw asked her, knowing that she was beyond a coherent answer. "Can you hear me? What-"

"MAKE IT STOP!" the woman screamed.

"Make WHAT stop?"

"I... I don't KNOW! Just MAKE IT STOP!"

"She's insane!" one of the men cried. He looked up at Shaw. "She's one of them infected ones. December was right... she's snapped and gone crazy!"

"No, December was NOT right!" Shaw retorted. "Something's happened to her. Something caused this-"

Another scream.

Shaw looked over his shoulder and saw a man running across the street. He was peeling off his own face.... with his bare hands.

Not far behind him, another man was trying to run while pulling off his clothes. He fell and, once he'd gotten his clothes off, decided that it wasn't enough. The skin had to go, too.

"Oh my gods..." Shaw whispered. "What's happening to these people?"

Someone jumped out of a second-floor window.

Someone else sprinted naked across Shaw's field of vision... directly INTO the nearest burning building.

"It's true," said Roff. "...those... those are the infected people. They've all gone mad!"

"No..." Shaw scowled around at the madness erupting around him. "Something's doing this. But what? What could..."

The screams seemed to coalesce in Hemingway Shaw's mind... merging to become something else. A thought. A word. A name.

Shaw's jaw clenched tight. He spat the hated syllables like venom:

"...December!"

---

"Something bad's happening out there..." Emerson Shaw mumbled as he peered out the window. "And when I say bad... I mean worse than usual for this town." He glanced expectantly at December and Gallows, neither of whom had said a coherent word since December had stabbed himself with Shaw's knife. Gallows had screamed once, but now the assassin's mouth was shut tight. His eyes were closed as well, and his entire face was contorted by the strain of some unseen effort. The assassin's breaths had been deep and regular, but as seconds ticked by in silence they became shallow and chaotic... almost desperate. Sweat plastered his black hair onto his pale brow, and occasionally rolled down his face in giant beads.

Gallows swallowed. His eyes jerked back and forth beneath their lids.

Across from him, December stared calmly at the assassin's face while blue blood continued to drain from the wound in his arm. Emerson's golden blade still protruded from the meat of December's forearm. The dagger hummed and pulsed as it drank of December's life force and fed it into the gloved hand that clutched loosely at the handle.

They sat like this for almost a minute... a minute that seemed like an hour.

Finally, the assassin's lips began to tremble. The trembling became faint words-

"I... I can't do this-" Gallows released the dagger, but December's fingers slipped over his and squeezed them back onto the blade.

"You can. You will."

"...too much pain... too much..."

"Pain is your weapon. Use it."

"I can't-"

"You Are. They are feeling your pain even now... your terror... your madness. But this is not enough! You are holding back, but now is not the time for mercy! You must go deeper! You must give them MORE!"

Gallows shook his head slowly.

"...no more...I can't... I can't-"

"Yes! The sword is in your hand. You have the strength to wield it. What you lack, is the will. You must feed it... your anger... your hatred... draw them from the depths where you have hidden them... feed upon them and grow strong!"

"I can't!" Gallows gasped. He squirmed, trying to pull away. December held him still. "I don't... I'm not like you! I'm not like you or N'Doki or Zade..."

December's expression deepened into a determined frown. He beheld Gallows as if looking upon him for the first time.

"Yes..." said December, his voice low and ominous. "There is no wrath in your soul... no burning vengeance to drive you... no fury to fuel your will. Whatever has replaced these is not strong enough for our needs."

"I tried..."

"But fear not." December changed his grip, grasping Gallows' forearm with his left hand while reaching out with his right. "If there is not rage enough in your own soul..."

"What are you doing?"

"Then you must borrow some of mine."

December's cold fingers grasped the assassin's face. Gallows inhaled sharply, drawing his head back and gasping as his eyes snapped open. Trembling, Gallows stared blankly at the palm of December's hand.

"Feel it!" December growled.

"No!"

"Yes! You are an empath... FEEL what is within me now!"

The assassin's body shook, and then grew ominously still.

"...you... you loved her so much-"

"DEEPER!" December ordered.

"Hey!" Emerson Shaw protested from the other side of the room. "Hey, what are you doing to Gallows!"

"STAY OUT OF THIS, MR. SHAW!"

Gallows squeaked. His eyes shut tight, but then flew open again almost instantly. He drew a quick, deep breath... and another... and another. Tears joined the cold sweat streaking down the assassin's face as he began to weep.

"...they took her... took her from you..."

"We do not need grief! What we seek is deeper!"

Gallows stopped breathing. His eyes suddenly turned pitch black, and his hand grasped the knife protruding from December's arm. It grasped the weapon tight, twisting the weapon back and forth in the wound as the beginnings of a sound boiled in the assassin's throat. It was horrible sound... a growl... a roar of raw, unadulterated fury.

"YES!" December shouted.

The assassin's face twisted and contorted as the rage boiled up within him.

"You have found my strength!" said December. "Now drink DEEP!"

"...kill you all..." Gallows growled. "You #^*@&! Bastards! I'LL SLAUGHTER YOU IN YOUR BEDS! I'LL TEAR OUT YOUR HEARTS AND SHATTER THEM BEFORE YOUR EYES! You'll PAY for what you've done! EVERY ONE OF YOU!! I WILL KILL YOU ALL!"

"NOW DO IT!" December ordered. "Make them all PAY!!"

"ALLL OF YOU!!!!" Gallows screamed. "DIE!!"

---

"ARRRRRRRRGH!" Casey slapped his hand to the back of his neck. Beneath his palm, something sharp sliced into his skin and burrowed into is flesh. Trisk felt the tiny insect bore down into his shoulder, and then forward to his chest... and then up into his throat.

Casey's scream of pain ceased instantly as the thing lodged itself in his windpipe, chocking him.

"NNMK!" The boy clawed at his throat... pinching and slapping and coughing, trying to unseat the single insect that had escaped his fiery fists.

N'Doki would not budge.

Casey hovered in the air for a moment, and then spun out of control as his power faltered. He descended... rose... and then descended again, purposely throwing himself onto the ground below.

He landed on his chest. The impact caused the remaining air in his lungs to explode out through his mouth-

-carrying the offending insect with it.

As soon as it was clear of Casey's lips, the wasp threw off a cloud of swirling shadows that billowed out around it and contracted back into the necromancer's true form.

Trisk rolled to his feet and pointed-

N'Doki reached for the boy's throat. The necromancer was a full three yards away, but N'Doki's arm extended the remaining distance and clamped tightly around Trisk's neck. The arm then retracted to normal length, dragging the boy along with it.

"So what haf we learned from DIS mistake, eh boy?"

Trisk's eyes were already glowing. When N'Doki's other hand... tipped with dark claws... slashed toward the boy's face, Trisk looked at it-

The necromancer's hand burst into flames.

N'Doki hissed. His grip on D'Arcy's throat tightened. D'Arcy's eyes looked into his, but instead of burning in their sockets, the necromancer's eyes glowed a deep wicked orange. Power crackled from somewhere beyond the dark orbs and forced the young mage's burning gaze back toward its wielder.

The skin around Casey's eyes began to blister.

Trisk grabbed N'Doki's arm with both hands. The necromancer's flesh sizzled at the boy's touch-

-but Casey's fingers... and his throat... began to shrivel from the necromancer's foul magics.

Trisk summoned more energy. The flames erupted around Trisk's hands, burning through N'Doki's flesh all the way to the blackening bone. The necromancer's face bubbled as Trisk sent waves of heat pouring into him. N'Doki's grasp on Trisk's throat weakened. Trisk twisted free, and both mages stumbled away from each other.

N'Doki's face and torso still sizzled. Smoke rose from the burnt skin and crisp black flesh.

Trisk's hands and his throat were covered with weeping sores... sores that were still spreading even after he'd broken from the necromancer's grasp. He ignored them. He thrust his hands skyward and fire began to circulate between them.

N'Doki laughed.

"You laugh at your own defeat, monster!"

"Nooo..." smoke accompanied N'Doki's words. Even his lungs had been scorched. "I laugh at de fool who does not know a distraction when he sees it."

"Y-" Whatever Trisk was about to say never made it past his lips.

Screaming.

Who... who was screaming?

Trisk looked around at the insanity that had sprung up around them while they fought. Trisk's own magic had set half of the surrounding buildings ablaze, but the smoke, crackle and hiss of burning homes and businesses couldn't disguise the madness on the streets. Something else was happening besides the fire.... something hideous. About a dozen men and women were sprinting in random directions, pulling at their clothing and tearing at their own flesh with fingers, knives, and whatever implements they could find. Several of the afflicted had already collapsed, but most continued to howl and mutilate themselves as Trisk watched. Their squeals of agony and terror were like sirens wailing in his ears. Trisk winced and tried to turn away from the sound, but its was coming from every corner of the city... all around him.

"What is this?" He gasped. Trisk expanded his senses into the ether, attempting to find the source of the madness. His mind touched something... The brief instant of contact sent a bolt of panic down Trisk's spine... panic and pain... and the most absolute, mind-warping terror he had ever experienced. He felt things crawling across his flesh... flies buzzing in his hair, and maggots swarming and feasting under his skin. He heard the squeak of a machine, and felt his flesh tighten around the hooks that secured him to it. The hooks began to pull... then spin...

Death. Dozens... hundreds... all of them bloody and horrific. Trisk couldn't count them all as they rushed past his thoughts. Trisk instantly pulled his mind back, and knew that the only reason he was able to do so was because this madness had not been meant for him. It was a psychic attack of the highest order... some twisted and powerful mind was beaming this abomination directly into the minds of the afflicted. Merely brushing up against it had left Trisk stunned and revolted, but to the intended targets... to those who could not break away or shut out the ghastly onslaught... the flood of madness was enough to snap their minds like dry twigs-

"Forgetting some'ting?" N'Doki said-

-just before the bolt of arcane energy transfixed Jerimiah Trisk like a crackling pitchfork thrust into a pile of hay. Trisk saw a flash of light-

-and then Casey D'Arcy was once again in control of his own body.

He used that control to run screaming from the necromancer's presence while the circus of insanity continued to unfold. N'Doki watched the spectacle, smiling.

---

Floyd D'Arcy felt something twist in his back when he swung his leg up onto the roof. Desperation had given him the strength and dexterity to perform the maneuver, but he knew he'd be paying for it tomorrow. Still clinging to the failing strip of wood at the edge of the rooftop, Floyd managed to pull himself up and shift enough of his weight from the decaying ledge to keep it from giving way.

"Help me!" he cried. He looked around and spotted Francesca. She was at the opposite end of the roof, staring at him as if he were something significantly less than human. "Francesca! Pull me up!"

Francesca didn't move.

"nnnNGH!" Floyd hauled himself higher. Something underneath him snapped. In another age-defying burst of strength, Floyd threw himself up onto the slightly angled rooftop. "UNGH!"

Floyd rolled onto his back and took a deep breath. It felt good. He took another.

Then he remembered why he was up there.

"Francesca..." Floyd groaned. He was no longer worried about paying for his exertions the next day... his back and shoulders were already knotting painfully. He got to his feet and walked slowly toward his daughter. "I don't know how we're going to get down from here... and with what's going on in this town maybe it'll be best if we didn't."

"GET AWAY!" Francesca shrieked.

"Francesca, you stop that nonsense right now! I MEAN IT!"

The woman's eyes seemed to tremble in their sockets. She took a step back... and she was already dangerously close to the edge.

"NO!" Floyd snapped. "NO, DON'T!"

Francesca glanced behind her and, perhaps for the first time, realized where she was. She looked back at her father, who was holding out his hand.

"Come toward me, girl... step away from that edge or you'll fall."

Francesca shook her head.

"Girl..." Floyd took another step toward her.

Francesca slid one foot back a few inches.

"Francesca, what are you doing!?" Floyd rushed to grab her-

Francesca's eyes widened in fear as she took another step away from him... and discovered that there was nothing to step back on. Her mouth opened to scream...

Floyd D'Arcy grabbed his daughter's wrist. For an instant, she stood poised on the very edge of the roof. The wood beneath her feet cracked. Floyd pulled her away from the edge.

But Francesca pulled back! She tried to jerk her arm out of his grasp as the roof continued to give way below her.

"What are you-" Floyd grabbed her forearm tightly. Francesca reached out and racked her fingernails across the back of his hand, tearing at his skin. "AARRGH! DAMMIT!"

"Let me go!" the woman demanded.

"I'm trying to SAVE YOUR LIFE!"

"You're not going to touch me again!! I'll die before I let you!"

Floyd's efforts to pull Francesca away from the edge suddenly paused. He still held his daughter's wrist and forearm, but the force behind his grasp instantly dwindled away to almost nothing. Floyd's eyes narrowed.

"Francesca, what are you talking about?" he said sternly. But there was a hint of darkness in his voice.

"I'm not crazy any more!" Francesca spat. "All those women... the rapes and the murders... it wasn't Dorath; It was YOU!"

"Girl, you don't know what you're saying."

"That's why mom killed herself! She knew the truth and she couldn't-!

"Francesca, I know this has been a hard day, but I want you to think very carefully about what you're saying-"

"And that night in the shed... I went to see Dorath but you... you followed me and you... you... Father, how COULD YOU!"

"You need to calm down, girl... all this excitement has got your memory all jumbled up. I was there in that shed, but it was Dorath Chesterson who was-"

"No it WASN'T! Dorath tried to SAVE me... FROM YOU! But then you told everyone that he raped me! But it wasn't him... it was YOU! YOU attacked me in the shed! YOU raped all those women! YOU... YOU'RE Casey's father!"

Floyd's face grew cold.

"You're confused."

"And you've been telling people I was crazy all these years in case I remembered the truth... but I'm NOT CRAZY! I'M NOT! I remember it all!"

"No," said Floyd. "You don't, because I didn't do any of that."

"You TORTURED poor Dorath and told everyone he was a monster, but it was YOU! YOU were the monster! You STILL ARE! I remember it ALL, father! I remember EVERYTHING! All those times you went out! The bloody clothes you made me wash for you! The... the... the way you LOOKED at me when... when you were..."

"You're sick and confused, Francesca. You don't know what you're saying-"

"YOU'RE the one that's sick! You RAPED me!"

"Shhhhhh, calm down. Let's not go shouting that at the top of your voice, shall we?"

"I'm going to tell EVERYONE-"

"No," Floyd said coldly. His grip tightened on Francesca's wrist and he began pulling her toward him again. "You're not.

"Don't TOUCH me!"

"You know I love you, Francesca. You know I'd die for you.... I wouldn't be up here on this roof if that wasn't true."

"HELLP! Somebody Help Me!"

"But the truth is, I'm an old man with not much life left in me anyway. I've wasted most of that life doing some.... unfortunate things. Things I regret. I have to admit that for a few years I was... not... not entirely in control of my manly urges. I hurt a few people. Women. And Dorath, too. I did some things that you might be confused about. I wouldn't expect a woman to understand. Your mother didn't... but she kept herself quiet because she loved me. You're right, Francesca. I was a monster. I didn't even realize it until after I turned my lusts after my own daughter. After that, I realized... I knew that it had to stop. And it did. I changed, that night, Francesca. I became a new man... a man who left all of that foolishness behind and... and started fresh."

"But you LIED! You lied to ME and everyone and... and you killed Dorath! Dorath was my FRIEND!! He loved me!"

"Someone had to take the fall, Francesca. Someone had to be caught and punished for those horrible things. Dorath was... he... it was an unfortunate choice, but really the only one that could be made."

"He was INNOCENT!"

"Of THOSE things, yes... but is anyone really innocent? I know he was your friend, but there were things about that boy that you were too young to understand. He... he was better off dead."

"You MONSTER!"

"Not any more. I put all of that behind me, and now I... well I risked my life to come up here and save you, didn't I? Would a monster do that? I love you, Francesca. I love you and... and I'm sorry. There... is that what you wanted? Me to apologize? Well you have it. Now stop all that shouting and-"

"Let go of me!"

"Francesca-"

"I'm going to tell everyone what you did!"

Floyd sighed.

"I told you before, Francesca... I would give my life for you."

"I don't WANT it!"

"But one thing I won't give up... one thing I won't sacrifice... is that part of me that goes on living here in Bephal when I'm gone. My name. This town is full of monsters and I'm not going to have my name scribbled onto the end of that list because of the ramblings of a confused, possibly suicidal woman. That, I won't do. So..."

Floyd pulled harder on his daughter's arm. Predictably, she pulled back-

-and Floyd let go.

Francesca stood perched on the edge of the roof, arms wheeling in circles as she tried to catch her balance.

"You're so much like your mother," said Floyd as Francesca toppled backward. "She didn't really commit suicide either."

Francesca's eyes and mouth widened into perfect circles of surprise... and then she was gone.

It wasn't a long way to the ground, but Francesca screamed the entire distance. Floyd placed her odds of survival at about 50 percent. But even if she didn't break her neck in the fall, her injuries... hopefully a nice bloody head wound... would keep anyone from taking her ramblings seriously for a while.

Floyd leaned over the edge of the roof and looked down. He expected to see Francesca's broken body sprawled at the base of the house, but instead he saw his daughter floating a few feet from the ground... clutched in the arms of a hazy, almost transparent figure. The figure below lay Francesca gently on the ground, and then looked up.

Dorath Chesterson did not look happy.

In fact, the spirit of the innocent man that Floyd had tortured to death years ago looked downright angry.

Floyd gasped, quickly backing away from the roof's edge. Any thoughts of finding a way back down to the ground... or peeking over the edge to take another look... vanished. Instead, Floyd retreated to the center of the rooftop and looked around frantically, as if waiting for something to crawl up behind him snatch him away.

But for all his turns and nervous glances, Floyd missed the fleeting, almost-human shadow that leapt silently from the seamstress's rooftop and onto an adjoining building, where it scrambled down a wall and scurried into the alley.

---

Raw power and unstoppable rage surged through Gallows' body like twin floods. Gallows was drowning in emotion... not the blinding, mixed chaos of a large crowd, but the roaring fury of a single, powerful mind. The intensity of what December... and now, Gallows... felt was incredible. The sudden rush of pain and fury nearly sent the experienced empath into shock. December's emotions rose up inside him like a starving beast let loose upon his soul. Jaws of raging hatred clamped onto the assassin's faltering will, compressing his scattered thoughts and fusing them into a single, burning objective.

Gallows shuddered as the fury seized him... used him... strengthened him. He couldn't stop it even if he wanted to.

And he didn't want to.

The power flowing from Emerson Shaw's enchanted blade had already made him stronger than he'd ever been. True to its nature, the knife had used December's life force to make Gallows more of what he already was. The assassin's empathic talent became stronger... so strong that it was no longer true empathy, but something else. Something that men didn't have a name for yet. Gallows' mind radiated outward from the empty building and covered the entire town in a thick blanket of thought. It had taken all of the assassin's will to contain the effect... to limit it only to those who bore the taint of the creature's evil. But he had done it. One by one, Gallows collected their minds and brought them into his own.

And then, he showed them.

The Sport.

It was a horror like none that Gallows had ever seen. An abominable spectacle of blood and torture that was more than any sane mind could grasp. Gallows had seen it all... and now he was showing it to the people of Bephal.

The flashes of physical sensation... sounds and images... glimpses of things worse than death... were not what Gallows was after. What he had to give them was worse still, for the Horde's bloody rampage did not make Gallows an empath. The assassin had been born with the gift, and when everyone around him was being tortured to death for sport, that 'gift' brought all of their emotions... the terror, the anguish, the fear... and even death itself... flooding into the child's brain. He felt it all.

Now THEY were feeling it.

Gallows pushed the emotions into their minds. They rejected it, but he pushed harder, driving the horror past their conscious and unconscious blocks... driving it deep into their thoughts... deeper... .

One by one, he felt their minds shatter like fine glass.

But that was not enough. It was not what December wanted... it was not what Bephal and every town around it NEEDED...

Gallows didn't have the mental strength to push any harder. But December...

Gallows fed on December's rage and felt the power it contained. He felt his will solidifying as his own emotions moved to match the source of his new strength. His heart quickened. His mind lashed out with a sharp and vicious force... the force of anger. The force of outrage. The force of vengeance.

Suddenly the entire affair became more than something December had asked him to do. More than something that had to be done to ensure the safety of Bephal. It became... personal.

He had to kill them. They didn't merely have to die... This wasn't about death. It was about revenge. HE had to kill THEM. They had hurt him. They had ripped out the last piece of goodness left in his world, and for that they had to PAY! They were monsters, and those among them that he could not control, must be killed. Slaughtered.

Like animals.

It would have been impossible before... but now, with this power...

Gallows sharpened the sensations that he was feeding into the tainted townspeople. He peeled back the blunt edges of his earlier attack to expose its fierce core: A spike of concentrated death... the final moments of hundreds of lives condensed into a single thought. One by one, Gallows singled out the individual minds caught in his web, and wielded his new weapon with a swift and efficient stroke... an assassin's stroke. The first mind withered in his mental grasp, but he plunged his weapon deeper... past the shattered thoughts... past the writhing emotions and whirling storm of insanity and into the very soul.

Dozens of people were screaming in the streets outside...

One of them stopped.

An instant later, another voice fell silent. And then another. And another.

The insanity outside quickly faded as, one by one, its participants went limp and dropped to the ground... dead.

The assassin's mind chewed through the infected townspeople like a machine. In seconds there was nothing left to feed to it... but he engine continued to churn. Gallows tried to pull back, but he couldn't. His mind lashed out, searching for more targets even though it knew that there were none to find. He couldn't stop. Gallows had no more power to stop it now than he had had when he'd first tasted December's rage... for that was the nature of his new power source. That was how men like N'Doki and December could stay so powerful after so many years. The rage that drove them never lessened or dissipated. It never stopped, but instead kept building... growing... destroying...

The beast's taint had been destroyed, but there were more out there who needed the assassin's touch. Yes...

Gallows reached out to Floyd D'Arcy's mind-

"No..." Gallows moaned. "...enough..."

But it was NOT enough. It would never BE enough...

"I Will Not Become You!" Gallows declared. His face twisted with the effort it took to pull the rage-fueled power back into himself. It could not be stopped by will alone, but it COULD be stopped...

Gallows inhaled sharply as he turned his weapon on himself, feeding the power back into the mind that struggled to control it. This would end the only way that it could...

---

December's eyes were open, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Summoning as much emotion as he could without turning the man across from him into a block of ice took supreme effort and concentration... so much so that December didn't realize what was happening until Gallows collapsed. The assassin's hand slipped away from the enchanted dagger, and before December could react, Gallows fell to one side, striking his head on the wooden floor.

"W-What happened!?" Emerson squeaked. The thief's words rose from his lips in tiny white clouds. The temperature in the room was well below freezing...

...but there were no such clouds rising from Gallows

"What happened!?" Shaw repeated. He darted to the assassins side and placed his nimble fingers against the assassin's throat, just under the jaw. A second later, the fingers moved to a different spot... and then another, seeking any sign of a pulse.

Finally, Emerson withdrew his hand and, still kneeling at the assassin's side... turned to December.

"He... he's dead..." Emerson said, clearly not believing the words that were coming from his own mouth. "Gallows is dead."

December nodded slowly.

Then he stood. Emerson Shaw's enchanted dagger dangled from December's forearm. December pulled the weapon free and dropped it.

The golden knife shattered when it hit the floor.

Emerson didn't even notice it.

"Didn't you hear me?" he said. "I said-"

"I heard you, Mr. Shaw." December grasped his own arm and squeezed, applying pressure to the wound. "It is most unfortunate. But not entirely unexpected."

"Wh..." Emerson glanced at the corpse on the floor beside him. "What!? Not unexpected!? Did you tell HIM that!? What did you DO to him!?!"

"I-"

The door opened with such force that it banged loudly against the wall... in complete defiance of its own hinges, one of which snapped under the strain. Hemingway Shaw stormed into the room.

"YOU!" he roared, pointing his massive hammer at December. "WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE DOING, YOU'RE GOING TO STOP-"

"He killed Gallows!" Emerson pointed. His brother's verbal attack halted in mid-sentence.

"-what?"

"He... he's dead!"

"How!?"

"I don't know! He just... he just DIED!""

"How long?" Hemingway asked as he rushed to his brother's side.

"Just a few seconds ago!"

"Move!" Hemingway barked. Emerson backed away as his larger brother knelt beside Gallows and felt for a pulse.

"I did that already!"

Hemingway straightened Gallows' body on the floor and then placed both his of his hands on the assassin's chest. He interlaced his fingers and pushed down onto the dead man's torso. He followed the single thrust with several more. Hemingway's lips moved silently as he counted to four... then he tried again to find a pulse.

"What did you do to him?" said Hemingway.

"This is his own doing." December replied.

"Right..." Hemingway tilted the assassin's head back and pulled his lips apart, opening his mouth. "...he just up and decided to commit suicide, is that it?"

Hemingway pinched Gallows' nostrils shut and placed his mouth over his open lips-

"HEY!" Emerson protested. "HEY! You're kissing him!"

Gallows' chest rose and fell as Hemingway blew a breath of air into his lungs.

"I don't think Gallows would like you abusing his corpse like that! And if there's one ghost you don't want mad at you-"

"Hopefully there won't BE a ghost," Hemingway said as he took his mouth away from Gallows' and returned his hands to the dead man's chest. He pushed down on the man's heart four more times, and breathed another breath into his lungs.

"Umm, what is this supposed to accomplish? Other than make me very uncomfortable..."

"It's like magic... only it isn't," Hemingway replied. He pushed down on the assassin's chest. "I've seen it work before. Once."

"May I be of assistance?" said December.

"Oh, so you CARE now?" Hemingway spat. He covered Gallows' mouth with his own and breathed. "Can you tell me what happened so I'll know if I'm wasting my time?"

"He was using my knife," said Emerson. "He broke THAT, too!"

"And what was he using it to DO?" Hemingway growled. He felt for a pulse, then shook his head. His hands returned to Gallows chest.

"He was doing what needed to be done. As I am sure you have already witnessed."

"You mean GALLOWS was causing that... that abomination outside!?"

"Yes."

"With help from YOU and my brother... who should have KNOWN better!" Hemingway placed his mouth over the assassin's once again. He breathed. Gallows' chest rose and fell... and then rose again.

The sudden inhalation snatched the remaining air right out of Hemingway Shaw's lungs. Gasping, Shaw pushed himself back as the assassin's eyes opened. For several seconds, Gallows seemed to stare at something above him... something beyond the ceiling... beyond the sky itself... Then he blinked, and his sight returned to the room immediately around him.

"...I saw..." he said weakly. "...I... saw..."

"Are you all right?" said Hemingway. "Are you hurt?"

Gallows shut his eyes and squinted, as if trying to force a memory out of his head. Then he looked at December.

"...is it done?"

"You tell me," December replied.

Gallows thought for a moment... then nodded.

"Yes. They're all..."

"Dead?" said Hemingway. "Is that the word you're looking for? 'Dead'? You two just couldn't accept that there just MIGHT have been another way-"

"This discussion is irrelevant now, Mr. Shaw," said December. "The immediate threat to Bephal... and Montfort... is over. All that remains is proper disposal of the bodies. You are free to consider your 'other options' at your leisure... as a theoretical exercise"

"I can't believe you!" said Shaw. "I just... I cannot BELIEVE that you just killed-"

"I have killed many more people in my life than these few. Most for reasons far less than the protection of innocent lives."

"Which makes you as much of a monster as that thing under the ground!"

"On the contrary, Mr. Shaw.... I am MORE of a monster. And that is why we were brought here."

"What?" Hemingway said. "What are you saying... that you KNEW-?"

"What I am saying is what you have all wanted me to say since we arrived: That our task here is done... that we can finally go home."

[To Be Continued]