White light swallowed the world. The guardhouse disintegrated, torn into a spray of ripped limbs and stone.

  The light burned his retinas. The oversized arms from his powers wrapped around him and Elenya, squirming in his grasp. If she was screaming, he could not hear her. A continuous high pitch reverberated in his skull.

  “Hang on!” he shouted as flame repaired the damage to his eyes and ears.

  Using the two conjured arms like stilts while his regular claws clung to his comrade, he dashed across the ruins, climbing a wall in the crumbling battlement. The duo tumbled to the ground and the damaged arms shrank, disappearing into his back. His flame was growing dim.

  Elenya coughed and stood on unsteady legs. In front of them lay the gate that would have held the next attack. Now it had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble and cracked stone, entombing any survivors.

  “Are you good?” Wretch asked as Elenya lifted him off the ground by the back of his collar.

  Below them, the flood of hounds continued straight into the stronghold.

  “What in the Saint’s name was that?” Elenya asked.

  “Gulschaks,” Wretch said with a frown as he came to his feet.

  Another flash of light flared in the distance. A moment later, a boom shook the night air.

  “It was one of the workers from the mist. They killed our bloody company with Saint knows what.”

  Another series of lights flashed along the wall, faint screams of terror brushing against his mind. Below, something moved in the debris, half-transformed hounds in uniforms clawing free. A shiver ran down his spine.

  “Lunatics,” Elenya spat. “What do we do?”

  “The whole place is about to fall. Look how they turn,” Wretch said with a nod.

  The former soldiers who were still somewhat intact were in the middle of a gruesome transformation. He looked up at her. A few shallow cuts drew red lines across her exposed face and her foes had painted her armor dark red.

  “My flame’s low,” he said. “Even if we hold them here, it’s meaningless.”

  He looked over the broken stronghold.

  “The station is to the south, the infirmary to the east,” Wretch said through gritted teeth. “If they evacuated, Astrid could already be with Edmund at the train station.”

  “I can climb. You can’t,” he continued quickly, pressing the words out. “Let me check on the infirmary. I’ll meet you at the station.”

  But Elenya was not listening. Her eyes were fixed in the distance.

  “Elenya?” Wretch said.

  “I see armies,” she whispered. “And blood.”

  In a burst of light, her eyes lit with fire. A pulse of red flame shot from her body and Wretch covered his eyes as a wave of heat passed him, dissipating a few meters away into wisps of smoke.

  “War. I’m made for war,” she whispered.

  “Don’t listen to the voices. Focus on your wounds,” Wretch said, grabbing her even as her arm singed his palm.

  Gradually, she cooled, standing there with straining muscles while opening and closing her palm in a trance. Then her gaze traveled upward and a cruel grin grew on her lips.

  “Oh Ratty, now we are talking.”

  “Alright, I'd love to hear all about your new Blessing,” he said with a shake of his head. "But we don't have time."

  Elenya cracked her knuckles.

  “Let’s move. You get to the infirmary. I’ll meet Edmund at the station,” Elenya said as she put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be late.”

  Her eyes lit anew and flame flowed from her hand into him. In a moment, he went from one fifth to half.

  “I won’t.”

  They locked eyes as hounds poured into the courtyard below, the horde having pushed through both breached walls. Elenya patted his shoulder once more and burst into a run toward the next gate.

  Wretch sighed. “Don’t you dare die.” Then he vaulted over the wall, landing on a rooftop and bursting into a sprint across the collapsing fortress.

  After a few minutes, he scaled another battlement. From his vantage point, he saw soldiers and civilians streaming deeper into the fortress, chased by slaughter hounds. The stragglers screamed as the beasts caught them in alleys. He looked to another part of the outer wall, dogs climbing over it like water welling over the edge of an overfilled glass. All of it was lit by another volley of flaming rocks that turned the sky orange, arching downward and crashing into the city with a tremor.

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  They will be here soon, he thought with bared teeth.

  He ran along the abandoned defenses, passing a gorging hound tearing through the guts of a headless corpse. He was not foolish enough to think he could kill them all, nor could he save everyone.

  After twenty minutes, he climbed another ancient wall, charred and cracked. The rock was hot against his claws and his scales itched. They were hardy but did not allow perspiration, making the rest of his arms and neck sweat all the more.

  With one last effort, he pulled himself up the damaged wall.

  Ahead, a steam cannon ticked with faint wisps of water vapor leaking from the metal seams. Three men in uniforms crouched behind the twisting tubes and clunky metal. The one in the middle had a crossbow bolt jutting from his ribs.

  “It’s another hound!” one soldier called with wide eyes.

  Before Wretch could answer, the twang of a bowstring in the distance caught his attention. An arrow curved unnaturally through the night sky toward him. Wretch threw up a clawed hand, instantly sending flame to regenerate the flesh even before impact. The bolt sank deep into his hand, piercing it and stopping centimeters from his eye.

  Homing arrows? he thought.

  “I’m a human, you dimwit. A Blessed,” Wretch said, ripping the bolt free. “Where are they coming from?”

  The soldiers exhaled.

  “From on top of the church,” a clean-shaven young man in uniform said.

  “The infirmary,” Wretch growled.

  “You are all the reinforcements they sent?” one asked, clutching his ribs.

  “When did you get that order?” Wretch asked.

  “About twenty minutes ago.”

  “I am not the reinforcement. If they ever headed this way, they have probably turned and are in the midst of clawing their way toward the station.”

  “By the Saint,” one soldier muttered with a shudder.

  “Has the infirmary been evacuated?” Wretch asked.

  “It’s chaos down there. It was under control at first, but something climbed the wall and then scaled the church. Arrows started raining, people turned, then everything fell apart.”

  Wretch nodded, rolling his shoulders and stretching his legs.

  “Get to the station. Stay up on the walls if you can. I’ll check on the infirmary and deal with our sharpshooter friend.”

  He did not wait for a reply, jumping from the battlement onto a roof.

  A bolt whistled toward him. He reached to catch it, but at the last second it swerved and dug deep into his chest. A cough of blood escaped his throat.

  “You cheeky little bastard,” Wretch said with a grim smile. “How did you get in here?”

  He jumped from roof to roof as bolts rained down on him. Howls and screams rose from the streets below. Flaming projectiles from the trebuchets passed overhead, and finally he saw him. A hunched figure stood atop the clock tower, staring down with burning eyes and a masterwork crossbow in its paws.

  Another arrow sank into his back as he leapt onto the church’s roof, his claws scraping against the stone reliefs as he hauled himself higher, spiraling up the tower.

  With ragged breath and trembling arms, he paused near the top. Two arrows were lodged in his chest and he ripped them out, closing the wounds with a shred of power.

  It is you, isn’t it? he thought, heaving himself onto the platform. Gulner.

  He rolled to his feet.

  A hunched creature peeked down the other side, smaller than the others but just as twisted. A long snout and two thin arms ending in claws not unlike his own, one claw tapping against a masterwork crossbow.

  A former hunter.

  Wretch lunged. A squeak from his boot gave him away and Gulner swerved in a burst of speed.

  A bolt released with a click as Wretch regurgitated a spray of acid.

  The corrosive saliva splashed across the hound’s chest and a bolt slammed into Wretch’s stomach. Gulner flinched, but Wretch barreled forward, his claw and blade flashing.

  Gulner rolled away with a hunter’s practiced grace. Coming to its feet, something tugged at its leg.

  Wretch grinned. His tail had snared its ankle. The crossbow needed to be reloaded.

  He had him.

  The creature’s beady eyes met his and a click sounded from its crossbow.

  Wretch’s eyes went wide.

  It reloaded during the roll!

  The second bolt punched into his chest, sending a wave of agony through him. But his tail did not release. Wretch stepped closer, hot breath steaming through his sharp teeth in the cool air.

  Another bolt shot toward him. The Blinking Blade deflected it from the air. Gulner yelped, staggering backward. Wretch growled, skin squirming as he inspected the being he had once known. Unhuman, twisted rough flesh carrying a vague resemblance to the person it had once been. A flower of disgust bloomed inside him.

  A dozen human hands reached from beneath Wretch’s shirt.

  “Gulner,” he said in a raspy voice. “Come here.”

  The beady eyes shifted from fear to bestial anger. It lunged, throwing the crossbow against his blade and extending its claws. The Blinking Blade caught in the locking mechanism, but Wretch let it go. He had plenty of weapons.

  Human hands caught the hairy limbs, twisting joints with loud cracks. Wretch’s own claws ripped into Gulner with a hunger the former hunter could not reproduce.

  It howled in fear as Wretch’s teeth sank into its neck and a dozen human arms tore off its fingers.

  With a thud, Wretch pinned the creature to the ground. His jaws caught Gulner’s windpipe and he bit down. Cartilage crunched and blood gushed into his dry throat. With a tear, the throat ripped free.

  The creature gasped and gurgled, trying to pull away. It held out its palms in surrender, whimpering like a child and crawling backward.

  Wretch spat the windpipe onto the stone, Milley’s arms squirming back into his skin while the Blinking Blade burned back into his hand.

  “I’ll come back and kill the rest, Gulner. I promise.”

  It screamed in horror as Wretch drove the Blinking Blade into its skull. It quivered, then grew still.

  Wretch stood over it, wheezing. He leaned against a pillar, tearing bolts from his body one by one.

  “These creatures need to die,” he whispered. “All of them.”

  Something shook in the distance and he looked up. From the tower’s ledge, the fortress spread beneath him. The battlefield was a myriad of lights, each speck a soldier’s torch or an uncontrollable fire. It left the fortress glowing like a dying hearth.

  Screams rose to the beat of war drums, rolling toward the heart of the stronghold while dawn approached over the Scar Spines, watching the burning fortress singing with howls and death cries.

  “We need to move.”

  He ripped the glowing coal from Gulner’s chest and drew out its flame.

  His sixth kindle as a Fireling, the world beyond the walls had been generous indeed.

  Still, the hound cradled his weapon and the crossbow was as beautiful as he remembered, inlaid with brass and cogs for a reload mechanism, with an intricate sight of glass and metal. The surface was still polished. Had Gulner cared for it even after turning?

  He reached for it, ripping it from the clawed hands and information bloomed in his mind.

  Dalynja’s Sight.

  Expend flame to steady one’s aim and improve sight for a short moment.

  Induces a growing craving for the taste of eyes.

  He licked his lips and a figure walked from the shadows to stand in the light of his flame.

  “Perhaps I can find a use for you both,” he said, clipping the weapon to his belt and grabbing a few bolts soaked in red.

  A worn trapdoor led downward from the tower.

  “You better be alive, Astrid. Or I don’t think I could face the twins again.”