The caravan raced down the dirt path, wheels turning so rapidly that their spokes were just a wooden blur in the noon sun. The horses' hooves kicking up showers of black soil as they ran. The driver of the lead coach snapped the reigns violently, roaring and shouting over the thunderous rattling of the wheels. The coach pulled away... the gap between it and the one that followed growing... peaking... and then narrowing again as the second coach matched and then exceeded the efforts of the first.

The third and largest of the coaches began to fall behind... not far, but enough.

Enough to form a buffer between the first two wagons and the horsemen that were coming down the path behind them.

There were two of them. One wore all black, with a cape that billowed ominously from his shoulders, as if he were dragging a piece of midnight behind him as he rode. He wore no hood or mask, but his face seemed to hide in the shadows like a thing that did not care for the light of day. All that could be seen of it were glimpses of pale skin, and the inky blackness of his hair, mustache and goatee. Every follicle was immaculately cut, despite the scarred ruggedness of the skin from which it sprang. He rode hard... leaning into the wind with both hands grasping the reigns of his black steed. A large stitched design adorned backs of his leather gloves... It was the symbol of the man himself: the sign of the noose.

Beside him rode a tall, brown-haired man, who's loose-fitting shirt flapped about his well-defined chest and arms like a flag wrapped around a statue. The man's face wavered precariously at a point somewhere between a stern frown and a faint, almost imperceptible smile. But no matter what emotion his eyes flashed... they remained fixed on the wagon before him as he rode. He carried no weapons and wore no armor. Not even so much as a dagger hung from his belt.

Two narrow horizontal slits opened in the wagon's rear. The sunlight caught the gleam of metal as two archers took aim at their pursuers.

"Ride close!" The dark rider barked. It was neither an order nor a request... and it seemed as though he was speaking more to himself than his companion. He raised his hand and gestured as the second rider glanced at him.

"No thanks, I brought my own."

As the archers let their arrows fly, the dark rider finished his spell. The arrows veered away from him and lost themselves in the trail behind him. The second rider reached for the ring on his right hand, his finger dancing across the large faceted ruby. The jewel flashed, and a faintly glittering shimmer unfolded in the air a mere inch from his skin. The deadly missiles bounced off of it, expending their momentum on his field instead of the rider's flesh.

More arrows followed. The two riders ignored them.

"Lets see if they can TAKE as well as they GIVE!" the second rider shouted. He brushed his bare fingers across the ring once more. There was a flash. His missile shield faded...

And then his right hand burst into flames!

"YAAAH!" Yexhill Thane roared as he thrust his hand forward... flaming fingers extended toward the wagon. A thick tendril of flame lashed out, cutting through the air like end of a cracked whip. When it hit, the tendril exploded into a splash of liquid fire that, for a brief moment, completely engulfed the rear third of the coach. The fire blazed for a few blinks of an eye, then vanished... revealing slightly scorched wood that glistened with the fire-resistant chemicals used to treat it. Thane... his hand returned to normal... frowned at his attack's failure.

"Waste of good magic..."

"Not quite," said the dark rider. "...the archers..."

"Yeah?" said Thane. He squinted at the slits in the coach. A bit of fire COULD have squeezed in through the arrow ports... and if someone were trying to use them at the time, they'd have gotten a nasty surprise. But Thane couldn't tell if that had happened or not. "How you figure that?"

"Pain," he replied, as if that were explanation enough. The dark rider reached for one of the crossbows hanging from his saddle. He grabbed it and swung it around before him, closing one eye and aiming at something he couldn't see. He fired. The speeding bolt left a trail of faint green light in its wake... light that pulsed from the tiny glyph etched onto its tip. The missile pierced the coach's hull... not by force, but by magic.... leaving the wood untouched, as if the bolt were a mere phantom, and the wood an illusion.

A tiny, barely audible cry arose from the coach. The cry was short. The dark rider quickly reloaded and fired again. The second phantom arrow shot soundlessly through the wood and struck its target within the couch. The thud of someone hitting the coach's wooden floor was lost in the roar of the wheels.

"...archers, no more," the dark rider said with a smile. He loaded another arrow, but did not fire.

"I prefer a more personal touch, myself," said Thane. He rode ahead, approaching the coach unprotected. He stretched his hand out toward the hand-rails on the back-

A hatch on the coach's roof flew open and a tall man climbed out. Snarling, he drew his sword just as Thane grabbed the hand-rail with one hand... The other hand darted for his ring-

The guard's sword came down... and took a sturdy chunk out of the wagon's wood. Its intended target, Thane, had vanished; the highwayman's riderless horse was falling behind.

"Eh-?" the guard began. He leaned over and looked down at the wheels, expecting to see the highwayman hanging there-

-and suddenly he pitched forward, tumbling from the top of the wagon and hitting the ground face-first. His neck was the first thing to break... but it wouldn't be the last by the time his body came to a halt. Back on the wagon, the ghostly outline of a man appeared.... the smiling figure of Yexhill Thane quickly returned to full visibility.

Thane turned toward the hatch, then jerked to one side as the arrow shot out of it, narrowly missing his ear. Before the inept archer could load another missile, Thane dropped to one knee and thrust his hand into the dark opening.... he grasped the crossbow, snatched it out of the guard's grasp, and threw the weapon over the side. Then he hopped down into the coach feet-first... the heels of both boots coming down on the face of the man he'd just disarmed.

"AACK!" the guard spat as he swallowed several of his own teeth. There was very little room in the coach for combat, but Thane didn't let that stop him. He tagged the staggering guard with a backfist strike, then spun and launched his fist into another guard's jaw.

-CRACK-

Suddenly, there were two bright flashes of green... and both guards fell dead, joining the archers on the floor. They both had bolts protruding from their skulls. The dark rider was, of course, not inside the coach. His phantom arrows had come through the wall blindly... and perfectly...seeking their targets by means that Thane didn't care to consider.

"Dammit," Thane grumbled. "A man can't even have a good fight with that guy around..." Thane grabbed the single oil lamp that illuminated the coach's interior. He took it with him as he climbed out... then tossed it back down behind him. The lamp's globe shattered, and the burning wick sparked an inferno that quickly engulfed the four dead bodies... as well as everything else. The exterior of the coach was fire-resistant. The interior was not. A plume of black smoke that reeked of burning flesh billowed from the hatch. Thane caught a glimpse of the driver through the smoke, staring at him with a look of incredulous fear.

"I'd jump if I were you-" said Thane... then HE jumped. He landed not-too lightly on the dark-rider's horse, settling behind his partner with a grunt. He had to fight with the dark rider's cape just to keep it from slapping him in the face as they rode. The dark rider snapped the reigns and black stallion sped up, passing the smoking coach and veering in front of it an instant before the path closed in around them like a fist, becoming barely wide enough for the coach to fit through.

"Pardon me, friend," the dark rider said as he turned in the saddle... raising his crossbow. He pulled the trigger-

-thwack-

-a bolt shot past Thane's shoulder... and struck dead-center of the coach driver's forehead. The driver tumbled from his seat and vanished beneath the racing wheels of his own burning coach.

"No man escapes the Gallows," the dark rider said, turning his attention forward once more.

Ahead, the second coach was just a non-distinct shape in the distance. A shape with another, smaller shape standing on top of it. The figure raised his arms, and a fierce, crackling glow appeared between its outstretched fingers.

"Mage," said Thane. "You gonna save some fun for somebody else this time?"

"Plenty of graves to go around..." said Gallows. "No need for one man to try and fill them all." He continued riding hard... bearing down on the second couch as the mage extended his fingers toward them-

-THUNK-

came a sound behind the mage on the second coach. Something had dropped from the trees above! The mage turned and caught sight of a short, brown-haired man crouching between him and the driver. He only caught a glimpse, however, because the second he turned, the man threw something at him.

It only took an instant for the mage to realize that the fistful of powder that struck his face was actually powdered GLASS!

"AIEEEEE!!!"

The mage's nascent spell died at his fingertips as he staggered backwards, hands tearing at his bleeding eyes.... each touch driving the tiny glass shards deeper into his flesh.

"Sorry, chap" the short highwayman mocked. "But you're standing between me and a whole lot of gold, so... OFF YA GO!" The man grabbed one of the dozen or so knives from his belt and, with a snap of the wrist, buried it in the mage's throat. The mage tumbled off the back of the coach... bouncing several times once he hit the ground.

The highwayman immediately sent another blade spinning through the air... right into the driver's exposed back, just below the neck.

"ACK!" the driver slumped forward... twitched twice... and was still.

Instantly, the coach began to veer from side to side as the driver-less horses began to panic. But the path was narrow, and every move they made brought them dangerously close to the trees on either side.

"YAAAA!!" came a cry from within the coach. The roof-hatch opened, and a man's head appeared.

"'ello mate!" the highwayman greeted the snarling guard.

-CRACK-

The highwayman kicked the guard in the teeth. The guard fell back into the coach, and the highwaymen slammed the hatch closed. He snatched several knives from his belt and jammed the into the hatch's seam. The trapped guards hammered at the hatch. It would only hold them for a few seconds... but by then...

...the driver of the first coach never saw it coming. One instant, the way before him was clear... and the second, the horses were tumbling into a four-foot deep trench spanning the entire width of the path. The trap had been concealed with a leaf-covered tarp, and before the driver knew what was happening, his horses screaming in pain and protest as their legs broke and their falling bodies became entangled in the reigns.

"AAAAAAAAAAAA!!" The driver shouted in a half-scream, half-warning to the guards inside. The momentum of the coach carried it forward... right into the struggling horses. The driver's stomach clenched at the sounds of the dying animals being crushed... and then clenched harder as he realized that-

WHAM!

The coach's front wheels hit the lip of the trench and came to a sudden and excruciating halt. The driver screamed again... this time it was ALL scream... as he flew from his perch, flipped over several times in the air... and landed in the dirt some distance away. Dizzy and bleeding, he managed to sit up and see the bloody disaster that had become of the first coach... even as the sounds of the SECOND coach thundered toward it from behind.

"STOP!" the driver shouted. "STOP YOU FOOOOLLLS!"

Surely the second driver must SEE the danger... but NO! They were all going too fast... riding too fast and too close! There wasn't time for the second driver to stop! And the passage was too narrow to go around-

They were going to HIT!

"OH DEAR GODS IN HEAVEN!!!"

The impact drowned out all but the first few syllables of the driver's frantic cry. The second coach appeared behind the first... racing at full speed under the reigns of a man who was NOT the driver. The first pair of horses tried to jump ... but the reigns and weight of their brothers kept them earthbound on a reluctant course toward their mutual doom. The animals hesitated... trying to bolt or pull back at the last instant. But the second wagon was going too fast... it was already too late. The maniac at the reigns stood up... STOOD UP!... and laughed as the second wagon slammed into the first, with the poor animals sandwitched between them. The rear of the first wagon exploded in a spray of debris, but that was not the end. The insane driver of the second coach grasped the safety of an overhanging branch, yanking himself out of the carnage as the coach tilted over on its side and swung around-

One of the guards stumbled out of the first wagon... and barely darted to safety as the other coach slammed against the debris. The first wagon cracked open like an egg. The second buckled and began to fall apart as it slid to a halt, dragging portions of the first wagon along with it.

Finally, everything was still. Still, but not quiet. The air was filled with the cries of injured men and animals... and the occasional crack of wood as the debris shifted. The stunned survivors began pulling themselves out of the wreckage. The guards were battered and bloody... but they were still able to walk. And still able to draw their weapons when two armed men appeared either side of the path.

Both men where huge. The first was short but incredibly broad-shouldered... with a head full of flaming read hair. Two heavy scabbards formed an 'X' across his back, and the man drew both weapons as he charged. Directly across the wreckage from him, someone else... or someTHING else... came storming out of the trees. He was taller than the other... much taller..., with muscles bulging like boulders on his long arms. He looked like a savage... or some inhuman cross between a bear and a man. He clutched an iron hammer in his left hand... and a larger warhammer hung by a short chain from his belt.

There were eight guards remaining, and they immediately moved to intercept the robbers.

"THIEVES!" one guard shouted... blood streaming from a cut along his cheek. "PROTECT THE SHIPMENT!" He was limping slightly as he charged the man with the swords, his own weapon swinging heartily as he attacked. But the red-haired swordsman was stronger, faster, and more skilled than he looked. His swords became gleaming blurs as they lashed out, twirling in complex patterns as he met the guards. He cut the first guard down with a terrible double-slice across the chest. The second two men had sense enough to coordinate their attacks, keeping their opponent busy... and themselves alive. But it was quickly apparent that the swordsman didn't care that he was outnumbered. In fact, he seemed to be relishing the challenge. Blow after powerful blow bounced off of the guard's swords so fast that it was as if attacks were RAINING down upon them. The guards backed away in surprise, only to find themselves actually PURSUED by the red-haired madman. Offense became defense as the guards struggled to find some new tactic. They found nothing but the flash of metal and the *clang* of their weapons being battered under the relentless assault.

Meanwhile, three other guards were valiantly rushing to defend the cargo from the walking mountain of muscle and iron. As they approached, the highwayman raised his hammer, drew it back behind his head, and flung it... arms bulging from the sheer power of his throw. One of the guards wore a leather breastplate... a breastplate that did absolutely nothing against the hurtling hunk of metal that struck him squarely in the upper chest. His ribs shattered like glass, and the flying hammer knocked him back several feet before his bleeding corpse touched the ground.

The captain of the guards, Garret, swung his longsword at the barbarian's head.

The highwayman's hand brushed his belt, and came away with his second weapon... a short-handled war-hammer that he barely got up in time to block Garrets' deadly blow.

The guard's sword drew sparks as it glanced off of the thug's iron hammer.

Before the captain could strike again, the highwayman's meaty arm twisted and came round in a sudden arc. Had the captain's reflexes not been what they were, the man would have taken his head off.

"O-HOO!" Garret said with a wicked smile. "So you know how to USE that thing, eh? Very well... CARSON, help the others! THIS barbarian is MINE!!!"

The other guard ran off to join the fight against the red-haired swordsman while Garret and the huge warrior filled the path with the sounds of iron and combat.

The final two guards, archers from the first wagon, were frantically searching the wreckage.

"GOT IT!" one of them said as he yanked a crossbow from underneath a plank. He'd already found his quiver of bolts. He was about to load one of the missiles when the sound of hoof beats caused both archers to look up-

"GET DOWN!" the other archer shouted. Neither had time to do more than flinch before a massive black stallion leapt over the lowest point of the wreckage... soaring over their heads.

"TO BATTLE!! YAAAAAA!!" Yexhill Thane roared. The instant the horse's hooves touched the ground, he threw himself from the animal and ran... literally RAN... for nearest guard, while Gallows turned the horse back the way he'd just come and trotted slowly toward the stunned archers as if he were about to ask them for directions.

"Ah, hell-" said the man with the crossbow. He finished loading his missile, and then heard something hit the ground behind him. He spun... and saw nothing. But he heard giggling! Behind him! He spun again...

...no one there. But he thought he heard footsteps. Or were they echoes of his own?

He turned one way, then suddenly twisted the other direction. He THOUGHT he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He spun around yet AGAIN...

...nobody there.

"DAMMIT!"

"Give it up, mate," said a voice behind him.

The archer turned... and there he was! A short brown-haired man who...

...who had already thrown a knife at the archer's throat. The blade sank deep... cleaving the archer's windpipe right down the middle, unleashing a fountain of blood coursing down into his lungs. Hacking and coughing, the archer managed to fire his bow before collapsing. The short highwayman was already dodging by the time the bolt left the crossbow. He performed a perfect back flip, allowing the speeding missile to zip harmlessly past him.

The second archer found his already-loaded bow amid the wreckage. He'd almost landed on top of it when he leapt out of the horse's way. When he rose, the bow was in his hand.

The archer froze. The dark rider, dressed in all black, sitting atop his black horse with his black cape fluttering behind him in the slight breeze, black gloves gripping the reigns... stared at him with black eyes.

"Well?" said Gallows. The suddenness of his voice was like a shout in an abandoned graveyard. "Aren't you going to shoot me?"

The archer ran.

Smiling, Gallows reached for his belt and drew a miniature crossbow. He took aim at the fleeing archer's back.

"Wisdom has snatched many men from the grave..." said Gallows. He pulled the trigger. The tiny weapon jerked in his hand, spitting a tiny metal-tipped missile the size a dart. A short distance away, the archer yelped and collapsed.

"...but not you."

A short distance away, Yexhill Thane ducked to allow the guard's sword to miss its intended target: his throat. But Thane turned the duck into an attack, kicking out with one foot and tripping the swordsman at the instant the man's balance was at its weakest.

The guard fell, but rolled away as Thane's foot came down at his neck. Both men were upright in an instant. The guard slashed. Thane spun away from the attack and assumed a bare-handed fighting stance: feet shoulder-width apart, body turned to the side... arms raised, hands loose and ready.

The guard gave him a bewildered look. SURELY this fool did not intend to fight un-armed!?

"Any time you're ready," Thane taunted. He he shifted his balance back and forth between his feet, rocking slightly in his stance.

"HA!"

The guard raised his sword, but instead of a clumsy downward slash, he twirled and cut a precise a diagonal line through the air where Thane's chest had been a second ago. Yexhill's elbow caught the guard on the right temple, knocking him off balance once again. The guard stumbled. Yexhill went in for the kill... but just then, someone ran past him and leapt onto the guard's back... knocking him to the swordsman ground. Both men went down in a flailing tangle of arms and legs... with the new attacker weaving his limbs in and around the guard's, pinning the man down with his face pressed firmly into the dirt.

"DAMMIT, Emerson!" Thane shouted angrily. "He was mine! Go get your own!"

"I heard gold jingling in this one's pockets!" said the short, brown-haired man, who now had the swordsman in a complex choke-hold that looked equally painful for both parties. The guard was the only one turning blue, however. One of Emerson's hands was wrist-deep in the guard's pocket. "GIMME THAT!"

The guard coughed weakly and went limp in Emerson's arms... and legs.

"Ooops," said Emerson. "Sorry, mate. But hey, you won't be needin THIS any more-" Emerson pocketed the man's coin-purse.

"Damn you, Emerson," Thane grumbled.

Though outnumbered two to one, the red-haired rogue had barely broken a sweat. The guards, however, were dripping with exertion and gasping for air. The highwayman had them on the run, driving them back and forth across the path. The guards broke from each other and attacked the man from opposite sides, but the highwayman's swords moved as if each had eyes and a mind of its own. From the front... the sides... the back... there was just no taking him.

"Mind if I play through?" Thane shouted as he tackled one of the guards from behind. Both men rolled to their feet; The guard slashed at Thane, not seeming to care that his new opponent was unarmed. He attacked with a flurry of sword-strikes... all of which Thane managed to dodge.

"This isn't a GAME, Yexhill," the red-haired swordsman barked.

"Never said it was," Thane replied calmly as he wove his way through the guard's attacks until... getting closer and closer.... Finally he grabbed the guard's wrist, arresting his attack in mid-strike. Thane's knee shot upward into the guard's crotch. Twice. The guard coughed the contents of his lungs into Thane's face. Thane stunned him with a spinning back-fist strike. The man staggered backward, his sword dangling limply from his fingers. Thane hit him with a front-snap kick to the chin. The kick shattered the man's jaw... and it lifted his head, setting him up for the spinning side-kick that crushed his throat.

The man dropped... and a second later, the other guard fell on top of him... with one of the red-haired swordsman's blades protruding from his chest.

And a second after THAT, Emerson was there to pick their pockets.

"That all of 'em?" said Thane.

"Almost," said Harrison.

On the other side of wrecked coaches, Garret was discovering that the huge barbarian was every bit as skilled with the war-hammer as Garret himself was with the longsword. Garret had barely managed to nick the man... giving him a few surface wounds while his own arms felt like sandbags nailed to his shoulders. The barbarian had yet to actually hit him, however. The simple act of BLOCKING the man's humongous hammer left Garret's muscles sore and his joints screaming in pain.

But the fight went on. The near-giant swung his heavy weapon with all the speed and accuracy of a rapier. Garret's sword had the advantage of a longer reach, but a war-hammer hit a lot harder than a sword. Especially when the hammer was wielded by someone with arms like tree trunks.

K-KLANG!

Another of Garret's blows was deflected with ease. Garret backed away for a moment... to give his arm a chance to recover. The hammer blocked almost as hard as it hit.

"So tell me who I have the pleasure of killing this day!?" said Garret. His opponent's only answer was a scowl. Garret lunged... then slashed. The barbarian blocked both.

"Can't speak, eh?" said Garret. "Probably don't even HAVE a name... ignorant bastard." He danced backward, then reversed direction... slashing and hacking at the enormous man with a series of rapid attacks. No heavy HAMMER could move fast enough to block them all. But the barbarian's hammer did. Not only did the man block them all, but he managed a swing that nearly knocked Garret's head from his shoulders. Garret spun away from the attack, slashing at the exposed arm... and realizing too late that it was a trap. The barbarian twisted at the waist, his arm coming around an underhanded throw... the hammer flew from his fist like a cannonball. Garret's sword drew another harmless line across the barbarian's arm... but the highwayman's giant hammer shattered his shoulder... sending him AND his sword flying in opposing directions. Garret felt the force of the blow spinning him around, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground.

His sword was not far away. He reached for it... just as an enormous boot came down on his neck.

"ACK!"

"The name," said the huge man with the voice of an irate philosopher. "Is Hemingway Shaw. Who is the ignorant bastard NOW, knave..."

"I-"

When the hammer came down, Garret never even felt it. Or anything else. Ever again.

Hemingway used the captain's shirt to wipe the blood from his hammer. When he was done, the others were standing in a circle around him. Emerson. Yexhill Thane. Gallows. And their leader, Harrison Blackshear. Hars was tapping his boot impatiently, bulging arms folded across his broad chest.

"Took ya long enough," said Harrison.

"He was a good fighter," Hemingway replied. He shrugged... giving his shoulders the appearance of several large bear cubs wrestling on either side of his neck

"Ye'll have to learn to take 'em out quicker than that, lads," said Harrison. "ALL of ye will! Good as ye all are, there are plenty of ways to be better. I've lost too many man because of not taking this business seriously!"

"And SPEAKING of business..." Emerson chirped. He had snuck over to the wreckage of the second carriage and was sorting through the debris. "Care to give me a hand with this, big brother?"

Hemingway grunted. He finished cleaning his hammer and joined Emerson at the wreckage. The two men were an odd pair... Emerson was barely over five feet tall, while Hemingway was well over seven feet. Emerson's hair was brown, while Hemingway's was dirty blonde. Yet their facial features bore an undeniable resemblance.

"Move before you hurt yourself-" Hemingway shoved the little man out of the way. Then he and Harrison lifted a section of the coach and tossed it aside... revealing the treasure that lay beneath.

Two wooden chests, banded with iron and each bearing a massive padlock.

Emerson reached for one of the chests.

"Hold a minute," said Harrison. He grabbed the little man's wrist. "What are ye fergettin' lad?"

"Oh, right." Emerson drew back his hand... rubbing his wrist from where Harrison had grabbed it. "What?"

Harrison dug through his own pockets until he found a small glass eyepiece. He fit it over his left eye and carefully examined each chest, searching for the tell-tale signs of magical traps

"It's clear," he said as he stood up.

CLANG!

Hemingway's hammer knocked the iron padlock off of the first chest. He swung again-

CLANG!

-and the second lock hit the ground.

Emerson yanked the first chest open. It was filled to overflowing with gold coins.

Emerson swooned, and his eyes took on a glassy, dazed look.

"Ya sure don't see that kinda money working in the circus, that's for sure."

"The root of all evil," Hemingway mused.

"Yeah," said Emerson with a smirk. "Well... I'd rather be evil than poor. Right Thane?"

Thane nodded vigorously. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, his smile faded.

Hemingway opened the second chest. There were several five-pound burlap sacks inside it. Harrison knelt down and pierced one of the sacks with his knife.

The knife came away coated with a fine white powder.

"Dust," he said, frowning. His words oozed disgust with every syllable. He flung the addictive, mind-altering powder off of his blade and slammed the trunk closed. "The last of Gabrial Brinks' empire."

"You know," said Emerson. "That stuff there is worth five times the gold in the other chest. We could-"

"We could earn ourselves a cold death, that's what we COULD do," Harrison snapped. "This is the boss's property now. The gold is ours to keep; but not this. Not the Dust."

"Gold is a lot simpler anyway," said Emerson. "We'll be neck-deep in ALE and WOMEN before the night's done!"

"Assuming were done here, of course," said Thane. "The guards are all dead..."

"There's one more thing. The most important thing, as far as we're concerned..." Harrison said quietly as he stood and looked around. He frowned. "Where'd the other driver go?"

"There..."

Gallows appeared at Harrison's side. He pointed to the trees just beyond the wreckage. Everyone followed the line of his extended finger, but nobody saw a thing. Not a scrap of cloth. Not a drop of blood on the leaves.

"Hiding behind that bush," Gallows whispered. "He's hurt." Gallows drew his miniature crossbow. "Shall I-?"

The driver answered for him.

"No, no!" the man squealed. He half crawled, half-fell out of the bushes and knelt in the dirt with both hands raised above his head. "Please don't kill me!"

"Kill?" said Harrison as the group highwaymen surrounded the trembling figure. "No, my friend... you've got a job to do."

"I do?"

"Yes," said Harrison. "You're gonna crawl back to wherever ye came from... or wherever ye were headed, I don't care which. And when ye get there, you're gonna deliver a message for us."

"S-sure!" the driver. "A-anything you want! A message? Sure! uhh... to who?"

"Everybody," Hemingway boomed.

"Everybody you see," said Harrison. "Everybody you meet."

"Somebody passes you on the street... you're gonna tell 'em," Thane added.

"T-tell 'em what?"

"That we're back!" said Emerson. "You tell 'em! You tell 'em that the Night's Bloom is BACK!!!"

---

[Bephal]

It started as nothing.

It was not a thing that existed.... not something that could be felt or touched, seen or sensed. It was an echo... a ripple... a shadow...

It was all of these things, and yet it was none of them. For how can there be an echo without a sound... or a ripple without water... or a shadow without substance?

There cannot. And yet... there was.

Silence clung to the old graveyard like a mother embracing the corpse of a child.

The first lonely black shape appeared from the east, wings flapping silently in the moonlight as it traversed the graveyard... then reversed its course to fly over again.. More of the dark birds appeared. Crows and ravens. Bats. Owls. They came singly and in pairs...then entire flocks... all drawn by something that they could not comprehend... some echo that they could not hear. Not a single bird uttered a single cry as they circled the headstones, leaving the silence unbroken.

The unheard echo grew louder. The unfelt ripple became a wave. The unseen shadow darkened.

The rats and the vermin came... scurrying out of their holes and scrambling over the stones like a flood of fur and filth. Their paws trampled the thousands of insects and earthworms that wiggled out of the dusty soil. Above them, the birds continued to circle. Predator and prey ignored each other as the graveyard came to silent, eerie life.

The echo became a sigh. The ripple became a tide... an insistent tugging at the fabric of reality. And the shadow? The shadow fell across the graveyard, a grasping hand reaching for life that had gathered there.

And when its fingers touched the soil, the graveyard gasped.

The birds fell from the sky.

Every bat and every crow. Every raven and every owl. All at once they dropped from the darkness like feathered stones, their bodies bouncing off the motionless corpses of the rats... and rattling the lifeless carapaces of the insects. When the dozens of avian corpses struck, the sound was like the single beating of a tremendous heart.... the heart of some enormous and sinister thing that had been long buried, but was now thumping its way back from whatever oblivion had failed to keep it subdued. Its heart was the thud of bodies hitting the ground. And its first breath was the gasp that had literally sucked the life from them... not extinguishing their light, but absorbing it. Devouring it.

Feeding on it...

...and growing stronger from the meal.

The Sacrifices Had Been Made.

There was a crackle, and then a deep shudder as the fabric of reality buckled... folded... and then tore.

The graveyard sighed.

It was not some metaphoric non-sound... but an ACTUAL noise, that of ACTUAL wind rustling the leaves of the long-dead trees. The wind whistled outward from the glowing orange speck hovering above a particularly ancient circle of tombstones. The gust radiated from it in all directions, bringing with it the stench of things not yet born, yet already rotting. The eerie rustle of the leaves increased... then stopped as the ill wind paused... then rose again as the wind continued, flowing now in the opposite direction: sucking INTO the widening aperture.

The spark of light became a glowing ball, not of energy or matter... but of the absence of both. It was a jagged hole sucking air into itself just as its birth had sucked in the life of the animals whose fur and feathers now danced in the stiffening breeze...

...and then it stopped.

Silence was, for a moment, almost tangible in the stale, motionless air. But then the sudden roar of the wind exploded into existence. The portal was exhaling once again... blowing its fetid breath out across the grass, dislodging small pebbles from the graves... and then larger ones...and then causing some of the tombstones themselves to lean like crooked teeth in a diseased jaw.

And so it continued: Inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale... Each cycle of breath pushed the boundaries of the portal wider. Wider. Wider... It grew like a cancer in the graveyard... an infestation of reality itself... gulping in the air with ever-more powerful gasps, and then belching out a hot, rotting stench as its lips grew wider... and wider...

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

Though it had began in empty space, it was now large enough to touch the ground and stretch its upper edge past the height of a man. Its shape elongated into a warped ellipse ringed with undulating ridges of otherworldly energy.

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

Layer after layer of energy unfolded from within... stretching outward like a flower with petals of orange fire... but with a heart of deep, foul blackness that lay somewhere beyond reality. The portal crackled as shapes both dark and brilliant skipped across its putrid heart. The blackness sucked them in greedily. Hungrily.

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

The rings of energy fluttered with chaotic violence as the abhorrent black bulb at their core began to grow. The petals of the flower were dying. The fruit was now taking shape.

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

A sound tore free of the crackling flower's dark throat. It was not a single sound, but an unholy progression that began with a low moaning...

The moan of a dying man's last breath.

Then followed a gasp... and a rumbling grunt that became a growl...

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

...a growl that rose into a roar, not of some animal, but the unmistakable roar of such tortured anger that it could only belong to a man.

Or to something that had once BEEN a man.

But the sound soon transcended even that...

...inhale... exhale... inhale... exhale...

Headstones cracked as the roar became a bleeding screech of superhuman fury... and then a dozen screeches... a thousand....

The sound spilled out of the graveyard and blanketed the town. Grown men sat bolt upright in their beds and trembled in horror at the thing... the unholy thing that was SCREAMING at them from some place beyond knowing.

But the women.... they knew. They heard the sound, and they knew. Unconsciously and consciously, their souls clenched tight at the knowledge. What was it? From where had it come? These they could not answer, even to themselves... but they DID know that the thing they heard was the unmistakable scream of something being born.

And in the graveyard, the black womb contracted like a giant heart. The headstones SHATTERED at the scream that followed. Then the womb burst open, expelling its contents out into the world. The thing that did not yet have a shape oozed down the black canal from where it had been, to where it now would be. It came into the world screaming... screaming in fury. Screaming in pain. Screaming in triumph over the dark hell that had failed to hold it. Screaming in loathing at the very REASON for its own existence. It screamed its warning of woe to all who would hear... and to that which it had come to destroy. For, shapeless though it was, it had purpose... a hungry and insatiable purpose that sent it lurching off into the night as soon as its cry of birth was done...

And behind it, the slitherings of a dark afterbirth spilled out onto the soil and quickly vanished into the rotting graves below. The last of its bubbling filth faded along with the remnants of the flower/portal/womb. Reality... still wounded and bleeding from the birth... snapped painfully back into place with a single, massive shudder that could be felt as far away as...

---

[Montfort]

Not far beneath another cemetery, in another place, the dark figure peered into the cauldron with glowing eyes. The reflections of far-away events stared back up at him...

"It is time," N'Doki said to himself. He reached one clawed finger into the cauldron and stirred the contents, dispelling the image before his magic could be noticed. Noticed and then traced back to him. "It has come."

[To Be Continued]