Another stand-off.

It was the last thing Blaymore wanted. He and the mage Sorrins were facing the demonically possessed Hax... a powerful being made of some indestructible living metal. The shadow within Hax's body was intent on using it to destroy everything it could get its hands on. Given the number of bystanders that had gathered to watch the spectacle, things were going to turn out very bloody if Blaymore didn't put a stop to it.

But the last two times that he and Hax had fought, Blaymore hadn't been able to defeat him. And it didn't look like the mage was going to be much help.

"Nothing I know of can destroy Hax," said Sorrins. "It'd take everything we have just to slow him down, or hurt him a little bit. Destroying him is... beyond what I can do."

"Nothing is indestructible," said Blaymore. "There must be a way."

"Are you certain you have do destroy him? Can't we lure the demon out somehow?"

"DEMON!?!" Hax bellowed. His silvery metallic form stormed towards them. His thundering footsteps left deep chasms in the ground. "You think me a DEMON!?! HA! Demons can be defeated. DEMONS are not eternal... but I AM!"

"What you ARE is a monster in a stolen body," said Blaymore. "You will be stopped."

"By YOU!?! AHAHAHAHAA! How're you gonna stop someone that can do THIS-"

Hax thrust one arm out to the side. The huge appendage stretched several yards until the enormous metal fist demolished the wooden wall of a building. It kept going... reaching into the dwelling toward the frightened couple that cowered inside.

Suddenly the couple vanished.

"Eh?" Hax scowled. "Where'd they go?"

BOOM!

Sorrin's lightning-bolt struck him in the chest... getting Hax's attention but doing absolutely no harm. A second bolt was right behind it, but instead of striking him, the magical energy expanded and formed a crackling net around Hax. The net of electricity drew tight across his skin. Any normal man would have died in agony... but all it did to Hax was track harmless black scorch-marks across his metal skin.

"You expect THIS to hold ME, mage?" Hax bellowed. Hax's facial features vanished as his body became formless. He flowed through the holes in the energy net like water... then reassembled himself on the outside.

The crackling net fell to ground behind him and vanished.

"Try again!"

"No need. Look around you."

Hax did. There wasn't a single bystander on the street. In the few seconds it had taken him to deal with Sorrins' magic, Blaymore had taken all of the bystanders out of harm's way. All the curious townsfolk felt was a violent, stinging gust of wind... and they suddenly found themselves on the other side of town. The street was deserted save for Hax, Sorrins, and Blaymore.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!" Hax screamed in rage.

"You know good and well what I did," said Blaymore. "You've done enough killing."

"Not NEARLY enough!"

Hax threw himself at Sorrins and Blaymore. Sorrins teleported himself four yards to the right while Blaymore simply stepped out of the way.

In mid air, Hax's body changed shape... becoming formless for a second, and then solidifying in a different shape. When he hit the ground, Hax was an enormous saber-toothed lion made of solid metal. With a smooth flank and powerful, bulging muscles, the creature looked like a sculpture come to life.

The creature turned towards Sorrins... and got a face-full of white-hot flame from the mage's fingers.

"RAAAAGH!" the beast burst through the inferno... his fine feline features half melted, but already sliding back into place. Sorrins backed away. Hax lunged, but Sorrins vanished as Blaymore yanked him out of the lion's reach just as the razor sharp teeth snapped shut.

"We can't keep running from him!" Sorrins gasped when Blaymore stopped moving. They were in the town square now, standing in the courtyard of large brick building that Blaymore HOPED was deserted.

"I've got an idea that might buy us some time..." Blaymore told Sorrins what he had in mind.

"Consider it done!" said Sorrins. The mage turned and cast a series of identical spells in rapid succession. The first struck Hax just as he was about to leap...

Hax's head disappeared.

The spells that followed teleported Hax's arms, legs,and half of his torso to different places in the street. Sorrins wished he could have teleported them to opposite ends of Iffrean, but his exertions to this point had left him too weak. He didn't know how much longer he could keep up such powerful magic.

When the buzz of the magic faded, Hax was no more. Instead, there were large chunks of metal scattered all over the street. Instantly the chunks began to melt like ice in a hot pan. The pools of liquid metal began to flow to flow towards each other.

"That didn't buy us as much time as I thought," said Blaymore. "We have to think of something. Acid! Acid will attack the metal itself... not the body as a whole..."

"I don't know if it would work. And even so, we'd need a lot of it... a lot more than I can summon with magic. And there's no place near here where we can GET that much."

"What about other mages?" said Blaymore. "Surely if we got enough magic together you can-"

"AHAHAHAAAAA!!!" Hax laughed. His human form was rising from the small lake of liquid metal. The pool grew smaller as more and more of it solidified into Hax's human shape. Finally, Hax stood before them once more.

"Go ahead and TRY to go for help!" Hax growled. "The SECOND you leave this town, I will slaughter every man, woman and child in it. I'll pound their bones into powder and blow it in your face when you get back!"

"Gods, he's right."

"And LOOK, here come the first volunteers!"

More townspeople had begun to gather. Some were returning from where Blaymore had taken them earlier, others were arriving for the first time.

But this time the crowd didn't come to watch.

"HE'S A MONSTER!" one man yelled.

"You should NEVER have come here," yelled another. "We were FOOLS to allow you to stay!"

"He's TURNED ON US!" A third man shouted. "KILL THE MONSTER! KILL THE MONSTER!"

Shouts of "KILL THE MONSTER" echoed through the crowd, growing louder and more forceful as more and more people took up the cause. Dozens of men and women shouted for the blood of the man that had been their protector. As individuals they would never have even thought of such a thing... but as a group, their courage... and foolishness... grew beyond their ability to contain it.

Hax watched them with a wide smile on his face.

Men drew swords and raised them high. Women picked up rocks and held them ready to throw.

"Are these people insane?" Blaymore hissed.

"Kill the STRANGER, Too! HE turned Hax against us! Kill them BOTH!"

"KILL THE MONSTER!"
"KILL THE MONSTER!"
"KILL THE MONSTER!"

"LOOK! Sorrins is IN on it, TOO!"

"TRAITOR!"

"KILL THE MONSTER!"
"KILL THE TRAITOR!"

"OOooooo!" Hax said in amusement. He turned to Blaymore. "Hey aren't these the same people who's lives you've been trying to save all this time? Hmmm... I believe the bards call that 'irony,' don't they?"

"NOOO!" A lone female voice shouted. It was Henna. She ran out into the square... being sure to maintain a safe distance from Hax... and stood before the gathering crowd. "Sorrins and the man in blue are trying to HELP! You're all in TERRIBLE DANGER! GO HOME!"

"We're in danger, all right! We're in danger because of THEM!"

"KILL THE MONSTERS!"
"KILL THE MONSTERS!"
"KILL THE MONSTERS!"

"GET THEM!"

"He'll slaughter them," said Blaymore. "We have to stop this!"

The crowd surged forward. Over fifty people rushed into the square toward Hax, who awaited them with open arms. Henna was directly in their path.

"GET HER" a woman shouted. A single stone arced through the air towards Henna's head. Others followed. Henna opened her mouth... and was suddenly across the square, away from the crowd and the stones.

Then a thick gray fog rose from the ground and swallowed the crowd. Screams and shouts pierced the sudden smokey cloak, but light did not. Men and women stumbled and bumped into each other within the darkness of Sorrins' spell. Half of the crowd turned and tried to go back the way they had come... which brought them into the path of those who were still charging. The surge of angry townsfolk became a chaotic mess...

"Oh well," said Hax. "If the sheep won't come to the slaughter, then the slaughter shall go to the sheep!"

Hax's hands became long sharp swords as he literally dove into the smoke. He swung right and left, his blades seeking flesh in the thick fog. A woman shrieked, and blood splattered those around her. The only thing they could see was a dark gray nothing... but the blood's warmth, and the gurgling *thud* that followed the scream told them what it was.

Someone else yelled something... but their words were cut short as a metal spike exploded from their throat. His blood spurted forth and covered the man next to him, who began screaming:

"HERE! HE'S OVER HERE!"

Swords... these wielded by mortals... sliced blindly to the right and left. Driven by fear and anger, men cut down their neighbors with wild abandon.... each thinking that THEY were killing the monster. The bloodied man who had screamed was sliced to pieces, and Hax hadn't even lain a hand on him.

Hax emerged from the smoke, laughing and skipping as he circled around and tried to attack from another side.

"BE AS STONE!"

Sorrin's spell enveloped Hax and played along his metal form. Nothing happened. Hax laughed.

"BE AS MUD!" Sorrins tried again. This time his spell blasted the ground beneath Hax's feet, turning it into a large pool of muddy quicksand. Hax's incredibly heavy body sank with a loud

BLOOOOP!

and was gone.

"MUD TO STONE!" Sorrins shouted. The field of mud instantly became hard granite, sealing Hax below the ground.

Suddenly a howling wind arose, blowing the mage's fog away and revealing the panicking townspeople. Six of them lay dead. Three killed by Hax, and three more mistakenly dispatched by their own friends and neighbors. Two men were fighting vigorously, each one determined that the other... whom he could not see in the fog... was Hax. They continued swinging their swords and shields for several seconds before they realized who they were fighting.

"Huh?"

"What?"

The women who had not already fled, screamed at the sight of the bodies. Several fainted. Their husbands caught them and carried them away, but a good many people still remained.

"It's the MAGE'S fault!" one shouted.

The crowd turned on Sorrins, who was swooning from the efforts of his spellcasting. Henna was holding him up as best she could.

"Wait! He was trying to protect you!"

"He blinded us! He made us KILL each other!"

A single, large crack appeared in the granite patch that held Hax. No one seemed to notice it. Nor did anyone notice as dozens of smaller cracks branched off from the larger one and crisscrossed the stone...

The seven men charged, but they stopped in their tracks when a billowing cloud of blue smoke erupted from the ground in front of them. The smoke formed a column directly in their path, and then began to thicken and coalesce into the shape of a man...

...or was it a man.

His blue cloak billowed around him like a living creature, flapping in a wind that had died long ago. His face vanished in the darkness of his hood and cloak... a sharp, wicked darkness that quivered and strained to escape the cloak and swallow the townsfolk whole. Eyes like flaming coals peered out from that void. They pulsed an angry red as Blaymore beheld the cowering crowd. The assassin raised his hands... each one holding a crackling ball of blazing light. When he spoke, his voice was like thunder...

"APPROACH, FOOLS! FOR THE BLUE DEATH HAS COME TO SWALLOW YOUR SOULS!"

"...eep!..."

The crowd yelped and dispersed like a litter of frightened puppies. Men dropped their swords and shields and ran from the town square as fast as they could, screaming at the top of their lungs.

When the last fool was out of sight, Blaymore dismissed the illusions... the balls of light, the billowing darkness, the thundering voice... and smiled beneath his mask.

"I love doing that," he chuckled.

KRA-THOOM!

The granite block that held Hax suddenly burst open... ripped apart from below.

Hax erupted from the rock in a fountain of liquid metal. He solidified into his angry human form and howled in rage.

Henna screamed.

Sorrins groaned.

Blaymore vanished.

"You DARE imprison ME!" said Hax, his hands elongating into sharp blades once more. "I'm gonna RIP your arms off and BEAT you to death with 'em!"

Sorrins tried to summon the energy for a spell, but he had no idea what spell to cast. Would Hax allow himself to be imprisoned in the same way as last time? Sorrins didn't know.

"DO SOMETHING!" Henna screamed as Hax grew near.

Meanwhile, moving faster than anyone could see, Blaymore had reached the outskirts of town. He stopped and held the weapon he'd taken from the ground... a shield dropped by one of the fleeing townsman. It seemed sturdy enough. Blaymore held it before him and ran back the way he came, using the distance to gain as much speed as he could. He zoomed past houses and businesses... leaving such a powerful wind in his wake that it actually spun some people complete around before knocking them to the ground. In the blink of an eye he was back in the town square... running straight toward Hax. If he'd kept going... if Hax wasn't in the way... Blaymore could have gone on to travel miles in mere seconds. But at the last moment, Blaymore threw the shield and veered away to the left.

The shield flew like a cannonball... but with hundreds of times more momentum.

BOOM!

The flying shield struck Hax in the back and knocked him forward like a arrow. He slammed into... and nearly demolished... the town hall's west wall.

When the dust cleared, Hax was pulling himself free of the wall. He'd hit the wall face-first, and the front of his body was imbedded in the sturdy brick... just as the now-ruined shield was imbedded in his back!

"RRRRR!" he growled.

Two ideas hit Sorrins at once. He raised his hands and cast the spell, his hands moving in complex patterns as they manipulated the forces of nature the way a musician plays an instrument.

The brick wall shimmered and became intangible. Hax was free... but only for an instant. Sorrins restored the wall to its former shape and then returned it to its tangible form. It looked as if the wall had swallowed Hax whole.

"How long will that hold him," said Blaymore.

"A few minutes perhaps. Maybe less. Probably less."

"THEN what will we do?" said Henna.

"I had an idea... something you said about acid."

"You know where we can get some?"

"No, but there may be something better... something that will attack him on the molecular level, like acid."

"What's a mole ecular?" Henna asked.

Cracks began appearing in the wall.

"There is a force of nature... related to lightning but not nearly as destructive... at least not normally. The blacksmith and I had been experimenting with it. We've been working on-"

The cracks in the wall widened.

"No time for you to explain it," said Blaymore "Where are your notes?"

"A book in my laborato-"

By the time Sorrins had finished the sentence, Blaymore was already in the mage's lab. The mage's notes were in a large book sitting on his desk. Blaymore read it.

It would have taken an ordinary man several days at the least, but Blaymore finished it in under a second. The supernaturally fast movement of his hands snapped the binding and reduced half of the pages to shreds, but Blaymore got what he came for. He re-read the section quickly:

"...fieldcreatedbyachangingelectriccurrent.Thereforitis
theorheticallypossibletoamplifytheforceofasmallmagically
inducedfieldusinglargeamountsofmetalwireandasourceofrapidmotion.
Unfortunatelythepotentialislimitedinactualattemptsbythe
extremeratesofspeedrequriedtocreateandsustain..."

Blaymore tore out a ten-page section of the book and took it with him. When he left, the remainder of the book burst into flame... ignited from the friction. He had been in the mage's study for slightly less than three seconds.

Less than a second after he left the mage's study, Blaymore arrived at the blacksmith's shop. Ben, the town blacksmith, was dead... Blaymore had to leap over what was left of him back at Sorrins' house. Whatever assistants and apprentices Ben had were nowhere to be seen. Ben's shop held only the huge anvil, the furnace, several tons of raw metal,in the form of iron bars, and dozens of swords, shields, and pieces of armor in various stages of completion. In the very rear of the shop were some chains, several large coils of thick wire, some gears, and some oddly-shaped pieces of metal. Blaymore recognized them from the mage's notes as the remnants of a failed experiment. Blaymore inspected them and compared them to the notes. He had to restore this thing, but some pieces were missing and others needed some work.

No problem.

Blaymore found the blacksmith's heat-resistant gloves and got to work. It would take far too long to heat up the furnace, so Blaymore generated his own heat with friction. He rubbed metal rods together at high speed until the contact points glowed red hot. He kept rubbing until they became pliable... then he quickly bent them into the correct shape and immersed them in one of the many troughs of water nearby. Blaymore created a crank, some shafts for the gears, and some other missing pieces from the collection.

He finished 14 seconds after he began. Then he gathered as much of the equipment as he could and transported it to the town square-

"I thought you said it would HOLD him for a while!" Henna screamed.

Hax was breaking free. The wall was riddled with cracks... and more appeared with every passing second.

"I don't think our friend is going to be here in time," said Sorrins. He took a step back, and nearly tripped over the hunk of metal that mysteriously appeared behind him.

KraaaaK!

One crack widened into a huge hole....

More metal and pieces of equipment appeared... deposited by someone moving too fast to be seen...

Sorrins grabbed some pieces and began assembling the contraption... only to have the pieces snatched out of his hand by someone who could do the job thousands of times faster than the mage.

There, in the middle of the courtyard... something began to take shape from the hunks of metal. It had a large, squat body with a huge crank sticking out of it. Exposed gears connected the crank with a wide metal bar sitting inside a wire coil. Crude cables connected the coils to two long metal spikes that stuck out like the prongs of a giant pitchfork. The spikes sat four yards apart and pointed at the spot on the wall where Hax was emerging. They hung there like the mandibles of some giant insect about to clamp down on its prey...

"...aaAAAAAA!!!!" Hax's head appeared, followed shortly by the rest of him. "Do NOT try that again!"

Blaymore finally finished.

"Sorrins, NOW!"

Sorrins turned away from Hax and cast a spell on the machine. Specifically on the large metal bar at the machine's core. There was no visual effect, but neither Sorrins' nor Blaymore had been expecting one.

"NOW! TURN THE MACHINE AS FAST AS YOU-"

Sorrin's didn't finish. Hax's arm... suddenly two yards long... grabbed the mage by the neck and lifted him up off of the ground.

"NO!" Henna attacked the metal appendage with her fists.

"WAIT YER TURN, BITCH!" Hax backhanded Henna and sent her tumbling away. "Now mage, Remember what I said about your arms?" Hax grabbed the mage's left arm with his other hand.

A loud metallic screech filled the air as the newly-constructed machine began to move. Blaymore leaned all of his weight into turning the crank... which turned the gears... which rotated the magnetic bar inside the huge coil of wire. Meanwhile, another set of gears moved a strange set of metal rings back and forth inside the machine.

Sparks flew... not from the moving parts, but from the wire coil and the cables that connected it to the huge spikes. A deep hum filled the air, but it was lost in the protesting of the gears as Blaymore turned them faster and faster

..and faster...

"Huh?" Hax twitched, and a frown came to his face. Why did he twitch... he didn't MEAN to. What was that tingling feeling?

...and faster...

The metallic whine of the machine seemed to fade away as it's pitch grew too high for human ears to hear. All over town, dogs began to howl.

...and faster...

Lightning leapt from the wire coils. The giant metal spikes quivered in the air.

"What the hell..."

Hax dropped Sorrins and turned to the machine.

"What're you doin' over there, ya blue FREAK! No silly machine can hurt...ungh.. what...huh?"

...and faster...

A violent convulsion wracked Hax.

"UNGH!HEEY!"

...and faster...

Hax fell forward and slid across the ground toward the machine... dragged by some unseen force. He planted his fingers in the ground and halted himself...

...and faster...

The ground tore loose under his grip and Hax was in motion once more. His metal body slid toward the machine, but mysteriously halted when he reached the twin spikes. Hax stood up between the spikes. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was:

"aaaaAAAAAaaAAAaaaAAA-"

The shadow within Hax suddenly had no control over Hax's body. The metal had a mind of its own... and it refused to move. It was as if some force had clamped down on him.

Blaymore kept turning faster...

Now the force holding Hax began to pull him in opposite directions... toward the metal spikes on each side of him. Hax tried to hold himself together, but his body would not respond. The magnetic field generated by the machine had latched onto him. It pulled the molecules of his body in opposite directions. Hax wasn't simply being pulled in two directions... the very substance of his body was separating... each one particle felt its own irresistible force that Hax could not overcome.

"ARRRRRR!!!!"

It pulled harder.

"RRRrrr...."

By now, Blaymore was just a blue haze in front of the machine. He turned the crank faster. The machine pumped out more amps of electricity, which in turned created a stronger magnetic field.

Hax grew silent. His mouth hung open, and then it widened beyond all sense of proportion. The lips curled backwards and swallowed his entire head... then his entire body turned inside out and collapsed upon itself. The resulting metal blob began to bubble... and then it stretched out of shape like putty in a child's hand. It assumed thousands of different shapes as the magnetism tore it apart...

Sorrins got to his feet and felt a pull at waist as the magnetism latched onto his belt buckle. He undid the belt and it flew through the air. It hit one of the metal spikes and stuck there.

Blaymore kept turning. The machine was working, but how much farther would he have to go? What would be the end result... would it destroy Hax?

"FASTER!" Sorrins yelled. "FASTER FASTER FASTER!"

Blaymore obliged. The machine shuddered violently as he poured more speed into it.

Sorrins raised his hands and cast a spell of durability... using his magic to keep the machine from flying apart. The violent shudders subsided, and Blaymore increased the speed.

The thing-that-was-Hax was hanging in the air now... suspended by the force from the machine. The twisting hunk of metal spun back and forth on a thousand different axes. Ridges and spikes erupted from the tumultuous surface, only to be swallowed again and instant later.

For an instant... just for an instant... a face appeared. Hax's face...

"FASTER!" the face screamed, as if the mere effort of speaking was torture... "YOU'VE... YOU'VE...GOT TO...DESTROY ME!... DESTROYYY MEEEEeeee!"

"HAX!" said Sorrins.

The face vanished, torn apart by the magnetic storm raging across Hax's body.

Blaymore's speed was doubling every five seconds now.

More bolts of lightning erupted... this time they weren't from the machine at all.

They were from Hax.

Blue-green arcs of magical power burst from the spinning metal. The magic that animated Hax could not longer reside within his body... the tortured metal could no longer hold it... so the energy leapt forth in a dazzling display of crackling power, literally ripped from Hax by the machine's magnetic field.

A new sound pierced the air. A wail of such incredible pain that Sorrins and Henna... and even Blaymore couldn't help but scream as it touched their ears.

A darkness appeared around the spinning metal... a darkness barely visible through the torrent of sparks that sprayed in all directions. The darkness seeped out into the air and formed a shape. A horrible shape.

The shadow screamed as its host died, forcing it out into the air... out into the sun.

Sunlight beamed down on it... ripping it to shreds. It reached out for Sorrins. It DOVE for the mage like a fish desperately seeking the ocean.

"AAAA!" Sorrins threw up his hands and cast one last spell. Flames sprayed from his fingertips and bathed the shadow as it descended towards him. And with the flames came light...

"SKKREEEEEEEEEEeeeeeee....."

The light ate away at the shadow like acid. Still, it tried to reach the mage... but its arms were gone. As was its head. And its legs. The last bits of the thing sizzled in the light like strips of bacon. Then they, too were gone.

Not one second later, a sharp pain pierced Sorrin's skull.

"ARRRGH!" The mage fell to his knees, the image of the shadow still etched on his mind. His head felt like it was going to explode...

Blaymore leapt away from the still-spinning machine and pressed the memory stone to Sorrin's head.

The stone flashed, and the pain vanished... along with all knowledge of everything that had happened for the past twenty-four hours.

Now the race was on. Tired though he was, Blaymore now had to erase the memories of the entire town before the shadow could return through some unsuspecting citizen. His next stop was Henna. After her, he raced through the town, searching out every last person. Quickly and methodically, he moved from building to building, street to street. He searched every room in every house... in every closet and under every bed. In every basement and pantry. In every dark corner. Under every table and behind every door. If something could be moved, Blaymore moved it to see what lay beyond. If something could not be moved, he simply turned himself intangible and ran through it. He searched Everything. Everywhere. Whenever he found someone, he paused just long enough for the memory stone to do its work, then he moved on. He moved through the town like a gust of blue wind. Over a hundred people... every man, woman and child.... all felt his touch.

And when he was done, he searched the entire town again just to be sure. During the second trip, Blaymore took care of the physical evidence. He disassembled Sorrin's magnetism machine and returned the parts to the blacksmith's shop. He stole a shovel and dug a large pit just beyond the fields... and that's where he put the bodies. The entire town guard was decimated. Citizen's slaughtered. Blood and pieces of bodies strewn about from the shadow's rage. It all went into the pit. All of it... except for one thing.

The entire affair took just under three minutes.

When it was over, Blaymore stood at the top of a hill just outside of town... and collapsed. The fatigue was too much. Turning the machine, and then the search of the town had taken its toll. Blaymore lay motionless for a time... motionless save for the rapid rising and falling of his chest. He was worn out. He barely won the fight to stay conscious, and even so he was too tired to move for almost an hour.

Finally he stood...

... and searched the town for a third time. He found nothing. No trace of the shadow's presence. Only a lot of very confused people.

Everyone thought that it was yesterday, and they would continue thinking that for some time. Eventually, as the disappearances and mysterious injuries came to light, they might realize that an entire day had been taken from them. They would try to find out what happened. They would turn to Sorrins, who by then would have found the strange note among the few belongings that survived the mysterious fire at his house. The note was short, but it would give Sorrins enough reason to come up with some convincing lie to put their curiosity at rest. The note would read:

"A great evil has assaulted your town. To remember it is to summon it again. Know that it is YOUR magic, Sorrins, that saved them all. Seek not the details, for they will doom you. In the shop of the blacksmith will be a strange hunk of twisted metal that will not be listed on any manifest. The metal is for a statue to the warrior Hax, who fell in battle against the evil. Use this metal, and no other... and do not attempt to discover its origins. Now you must destroy this note and tell no one of its contents. If ever the town of Vincewold needs a swift and mighty warrior, travel to Montfort and seek out the Blue Death that protects its streets."

Blaymore hoped... no, he PRAYED that would be enough. He watch the townsfolk for a while longer, then turned his face toward Montfort.

In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

[To Be Continued]