Despite Andria’s lingering resentment toward my reappearance, even she did not have the gall to slam the barracks door behind me. If she had, it wouldn’t have mattered given the area was empty, but I appreciated the courtesy nonetheless. The streets were mostly as I remembered them, yet my mind needed a moment to adjust to the ruins before me, jarred by the sudden transition from homely garden patches and dorms to rotting husks.

  There was one difference: arrayed along the cobblestones from the door was a line of selenite crystals, each engraved with the rune for warding. They formed a border the coven must have used to reach the safety corridor that the others and I had set up. Whether they made it to the next walled ring like they planned, I wasn’t sure.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I stepped over the demarcation. I had expected ghouls to still be racing through the nearby gatehouse into the outer ring and beyond. However, instead of bare feet and claws slapping and scraping against cobble, it was quiet enough to hear melting snow drip from rooftop tiles. It wasn’t as if there was no evidence of their passing, since the leftover icy sludge coating the main street was covered in footprints.

  The prickling sensation on the back of my neck returned, and I spun around to catch the slider of the viewing window slamming shut. I chose to think Andria was worried for me as I moved towards the gatehouse.

  “I should have done this ages ago,” I muttered, eager to fill the eerie silence. I didn’t know if getting here would have been as easy a task a few days prior. Particularly because Darine said the elders had left only yesterday. Perhaps this was good timing, despite that being something I wasn’t usually guilty of.

  I peered into the dark tunnel of the gatehouse, finding it equally as empty. From my understanding of the layout of the runes we’d placed, the warding corridor should have funnelled the ghouls through here, with the lure runes beyond for bait. As the influence of the wards behind me faded, I salivated as the lure runes brushed against my consciousness. It didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten anything substantial today.

  I stepped over jagged stones and skipped under iron portcullises back into the light on the other side. After allowing my eyes to adjust, the mystery of where all the ghouls had gone was solved. A writhing mass of them appeared on the horizon in the broad central street of the capital, backed up all the way from the outer wall that was scarcely in view.

  The first of the lure runes was close by in the first row of houses. However, my attention had already been dragged ahead, and I scowled at the witches’ annoying ingenuity. The runes hadn’t been made equal. Stronger varieties, likely carved into their proper amplifying mineral, were placed further along. The ghouls didn’t seem interested in reaching the weaker, and by the time they arrived at the end of the growing intensity of the bait, there was a city full of mages before them.

  I climbed through the damaged wall of the store hiding the first rune, and dragged a stool over to reach up onto a dust-covered shelf. I hadn’t had a chance to study them before, as their creation was a new discovery to this coven. But I didn’t doubt that the small red garnet crystal I pulled down, featuring a carving of a cross between a jagged tooth and a birch leaf, was what I was looking for.

  My mind begged me to lick it, to see if it tasted of berries or blood. Was it expensive? Who would want it the most? Who could I get to pay the greatest sum?

  I shook my head at the last part, since I wasn’t concerned with hoarding roe.

  It was an insidious little thing, and beyond a cursory dab of my tongue on its dusty exterior, the compulsion didn’t take. I thought of shattering against the wall, but had a better idea and pocketed it. I jumped from the stool and climbed to the roof to carry on the search for the rest.

  On an adjacent rooftop were the wooden beams Ulia and I had travelled along when first coming to the capital—the ones placed by the expeditions that pressured the witches to relocate in the first place.

  More surefooted than back then, I flitted across them deeper into the outer district and closer to the mass of ghouls. The buildings out here were bulkier with fewer floors than the other sections, and were primarily made from wood and brown brick. I hadn’t thought much about it when I first passed through, thinking it similar enough to Drasda’s city area. However, having seen the taller inner structures, I wondered why they wouldn’t have wanted to fit more people inside the walls with more houses.

  Too expensive for too large an area? Weren’t there enough people to warrant it? No mages to build upwards?

  I doubted I’d find the correct answer alone, but that didn’t stop my thoughts from straying as I collected the progressively larger and more thoroughly carved garnet crystals. I held out my arms while crossing another walkway and imagined the streets below filled with people. Hawking merchants, overflowing storefronts, bustling eateries, and roving gangs of guards. I had read about the more impoverished areas of cities and assumed this would suffice, so I envisioned a few hooded figures and grubby children on my make-believe street.

  Was that a fair label for the outer district? The houses were well-built, considering they were upright despite rotting wood and damage from ghouls or looters. Outside the limits of the remnants’ city, they used tents and leather tarps, but I still wouldn’t think it was as inhospitable as writings made those areas out to be. Did Drasda have a seedy element to it? I hadn’t exactly explored much outside the streets shadowed by the castle.

  My questions ceased when my leg fell through a tile, the cracked edges tearing through my pants and skin to snag on chainmail.

  I froze and braced my arms to the side, biting my tongue before it hurled obscenities to the wind and abuses at myself for the misstep. A piece of clay tile I dislodged slowly slid out of reach and over the roof’s edge. I squeezed my eyes shut as it crashed onto the cobble.

  When there wasn’t an uproar from the ghouls, I slowly extracted my leg and stood on less damaged tiling to examine the injury. I clapped my pockets to check the crystals were still there, let out a sigh of relief, then pressed a finger to a cut along my leg as if poking it would make it go away.

  With all the mana in the air, the cuts scabbed over at the visible pace of a slug. Though they didn’t stop bleeding until I traversed another street’s worth of houses, climbing about to collect the crystals more gingerly than before.

  The witches had used the same walkways and rooftops to deposit the crystals, so I simply had to slip inside to reach them. However, the structures were built according to the seemingly arbitrary tastes of citizens from different eras. Therefore, I had to change my approach and remove the cracked tiles, duck into skylights, and descend through entire buildings when the chimneys had been used.

  When my pockets bulged with red crystals, and before the cries of the ghouls got too close, I ran out onto the street. A few ghouls in the distance turned, more for the crystals than me, but quickly lost interest when jostled by others. I retreated to the gatehouse at a slow jog, glancing back while manoeuvring around the clutter, and upended my pockets onto the cobble beneath the inner wall's shadow.

  I rested to scratch at the patches of pink skin along my legs, caught my breath and began my run back to collect the next batch of runes. It was quicker to use the streets, though I wasn’t sure what the rush was for since I hadn’t finalised what I was going to do.

  Truthfully, I wanted the ghouls to be put to rest, and their mass exodus from the capital was the most efficient way to get it done. Hundreds were probably dying on the fields beyond, so those at the back could push forward a single step. There was a whole army group, aided by squads upon squads of knights trained for fighting more fearsome foes, outside to break the charge.

  Yis wouldn’t be happy with me going through with collecting the crystals. Faraya would hate it if I put her knights in unnecessary danger by doing nothing. Tometh would be furious if I let his city remain in danger for a second longer than it needed to be… Though the looters may be delighted with empty streets to rummage around in.

  Giving the healers a break so they could examine Yistopher would be nice, as head injuries in journals usually had a disclaimer along the lines of ‘patient may appear fine but pass in their sleep without a healer.’ I had a hard time deciding if the reasoning was selfish or not.

  In the end, I could withstand Yistopher’s displeasure, and more than avoiding injury for the soldiers outside, I wanted to reverse the events I’d helped enact.

  I closed in on the ghouls enough to worry about which direction my scent carried and the new crystals I’d gathered. I shielded my eyes from the late afternoon sun glinting off snow to spy taller heads of stringy and mangled hair sticking out from the crowd. They were the strongest of the ghouls, but luckily, I didn’t see any from the castle with my armour amongst them.

  It would be frightening, to say the least, if this were somehow still the initial phases of a plan. Was the coven going to empty the castle for their living quarters? To expel all the ghouls inside it this way?

  I pushed aside my hesitation. I needed to retrieve the crystals, so I climbed to the rooftops and crossed through the ghoul’s lines to reach the rest. They radiated a stronger appeal than those I’d already collected, and I removed my gauntlet to store the troublesome items inside, blocking mana from reaching them.

  I found one in a kitchen full of torn-out guts as ghouls took turns clawing the crystal out of another’s stomach, and killed the more nimble who’d managed to scale the buildings for those hidden on the roof.

  Near the location of another, days-old stains of red blood and shreds of a grey frock gave me pause long enough to curse the name of every elder I knew. The witchling had died while placing the second-to-last crystal, dropping it under a heavy bathtub in their struggle. I collected it too after killing the ghouls inside.

  I knew the last of the crystals would be an issue before I even got close. Half the street refused to shuffle out of the gatehouse, choosing to cluster and revolve around its location. The situation only got worse as I carefully made my way over.

  As far as I could tell, it was beneath a newly collapsed building heavily swarmed by the ghouls. I peered over the edge onto the wreckage. A few ghouls noticed me before I flinched back, but the crystal or the next powerful spell cast over the wall less than fifty yards away regained their attention. There was no chance I was digging through the rubble for it; the ghouls hadn’t even managed with their numbers and strength.

  While being very careful and deliberate with my footing and handholds, I climbed in through the second-storey window of the building I was on. The few ghouls between me and the ground floor were too distracted to care when I stalked past or slit their throat. It was more challenging without the gauntlet I’d left on the roof with the crystals, but I managed not to spook the whole nest of them.

  I manoeuvred to the side facing the collapse, but it was also the most clogged since it was close to the crystal. I moved along the perimeter of a kitchenette, smelling the ghouls’ breath as I shuffled past behind them and into a pantry. I still wasn’t alone in the tiny storage room. I stepped around broken shelves and overturned baskets, out of sight from the kitchen. The ghoul inside was too distracted to care as it scratched at the wall.

  I grabbed the other occupant's throat from behind and yanked, pressing it into the wall so it didn’t fall into sight of the others.

  Its gurgled cries didn’t stir them either, and I let it collapse into the corner. I glanced out to confirm they were still enamoured with the bare stone wall, then looked back at the mess I’d made. I resisted the urge to sigh and nudged the pale body out of the way so I could gently close the door.

  I got down on my hands and knees inside the growing puddle of slick blood and loosened brick and wood skirting from the wall with minimal mana. It was slow work, but I didn’t know how much mana usage would break the ghouls from their revelry. When I made a wide enough opening near a cavity on the opposite side, I pulled off my helmet and tested whether my shoulders could fit.

  I hate tight spaces, I recited over and over again as I shimmied into the neighbour's pantry, through dented cans and clusters of mushrooms. The room was half-standing since it was in the corner, giving me space to sit if I kept my head low. I really hate tight spaces.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I broke off a segment of the lower half of a door hanging off its hinges and shoved a stone block out of my way. The dark crevice I created was narrow and shifting with the weight of ghouls climbing over the rubble above. Dust shook down from the collapsed stories balancing above me, coating my hair and sneaking into my nostrils with every breath. I was forced to hold in a sneeze the entire time.

  This is ridiculous. I lay on my back and used splintered beams to drag myself into the kitchen, going by the tiles. The crystal must have been dropped through a chimney into a locked room for the ghouls to have broken down walls to get to it. Or the foundations of the structure were simply weak to begin with. This is so stupid.

  My head hit something solid, and I twisted to make out the blockage in the dark. Cracks of light made it through the layers of rubble, but not enough to see by. If the layouts of this home and the last were the same, going by the matching rooms so far, I need to go left for the fireplace in the dining room. It helped my confidence that I could feel the crystal in the same direction.

  Wood cracked, and dust washed through my crawlspace. Nothing else shifted around me; the only harm was my heart leaping in my chest and having to snort dust from my nose.

  I squirmed and pried apart stone, wood panelling, and chimney bricks to inch closer to the crystal. The rubble shifted, fell on me, and poked me in the side, while I formed a scaffolding to hold it up. Chain links caught on snapped beams and jagged stone, breaking off several of them. The fireplace still stood, feeling like a dozen bricks tall, with faint sunlight streaming through the opening. The crystal was lodged above, somewhere along its length.

  Bricks had fallen inside the chimney when it collapsed, and I shifted around to make room for them as I pulled each one out. With every removal, more sunlight and fresh air spilt in until a figure blocked both out with his bulk and stench. The ghoul tipped over to reach inside with both arms.

  Broken bricks tumbled into my space as I dislodged a load-bearing one. The ghoul shoved its whole body into the opening, getting stuck at the waist. I shoved my arm inside, twisting and straining for the crystal. Neither of us could reach it, but the ghoul was closer to the smoke shelf where it must have gotten stuck. More creatures noticed, and their footsteps sent shudders through the ruins.

  I liked to think I was smarter than a ghoul, even in the worst of times. And with brick burying one of my legs, soot in my lungs, and the weight of a hundred men ready to crush me, this was by far the worst of times. I took a second to breathe as deeply as I dared in the swirling dust and stopped behaving just as it did.

  I held open my palm, closed my eyes, and visualised the piece of imbued garnet. Like the first magic I’d learnt from a chickadee levitating a seed to crack, I floated the crystal over to my palm. With ghouls draining the mana, the lure runes' incessant call for attention, and being trapped under a few yards of rubble, I wasn’t sure it was working until the cool stone touched my palm.

  It was large enough that I couldn’t close a fist around it. I pulled my arm out of the fireplace and extracted my legs.

  Going backwards down my tiny passage was worse than going forwards, but there was no room to turn. The ghouls shifted above me, tracking the movement of the crystal and disturbing the precariously balanced rubble. Something clipped my ear, and a heavy beam fell over my back. It chased the air from my lungs while the weight of it pinned me to the floor.

  Without considering anything but removing it, I shoved mana towards the task. It felt like lifting a whole house, but I lightened the load enough to scramble from beneath it. Pieces of clay, stone and wood slid over each other and fell around me in the shifting death trap I’d willingly crawled into.

  I elbowed and kicked my way back into the pantry. The ghouls had already realised the new, much easier pathway towards the crystal. The first ghoul to ram into the pantry door tore it from the hinges. I was still on my knees. In a panic, I threw the object of their desire across the floor into the kitchenette. It ricocheted off the skirting and stove, every head turning to watch it slowly spin to a stop.

  When the ghoul who had broken down the door turned to go after it, I grabbed my helmet and ran out. One kicked the crystal out of the diving clutches of another, and I watched it bounce across kitchen tiles from the peripheries of the fray.

  The mana inside was still familiar from when I first acquired it. I dragged it into my outstretched hand through a sea of kicking limbs and darted around the corner to the stairs as the ghouls looked up at me in unison.

  I was out the window and on the rooftop before they made it up the stairs. I almost left behind my gauntlet and barely caught my footing as I spun around to grab it. With my gauntlet in one hand and the crystal clutched in the other, I ran along the thin ridge as fast as possible.

  The house I escaped sounded as if it had collapsed to join its neighbour. The tide of ghouls in the streets on either side shifted toward me instead of the gatehouse. My skin prickled beneath the stare of a thousand mindless and hungry monstrosities.

  But the mages and their spells were still a better prize.

  I poured mana into my gauntlet and helmet, unintentionally feeding the crystals’ runes as well. Garnet fragments flew from the sleeve of my gauntlet when the foundational magic carvings couldn’t keep up with the over-engineered piece of steel. More of the lesser crystals shattered, and I stopped before the one in my bare palm also fragmented. I also didn’t need more attention since those ahead were already trying to climb up to intercept.

  Blasts of wind threw them from the rooftop and brought even more attention.

  I outran the ghouls as they stopped, most content to let me come to them, then confused when I ran past above their heads.

  The muscles in my legs burned, and my lungs tightened to hack up soot and dust, but I didn’t have the option of rest as I ran through the capital. The layered screeches and stampeding footsteps were enough motivation to keep going. I tipped my gauntlet over and held it upside down by the finger to empty it of runes. A few of the crystals were still intact and slowed the stronger ghouls who had kept up alongside me.

  I made the mana in my armour settle back to normal for the capital as I closed in on where I had dropped the last haul of runes. Hot breath blew back in my face from the too-small breathing space in my helmet. I didn’t look back for fear of falling as I threw the larger crystal towards the inner gatehouse and ducked behind a chimney. The stampede stormed past me, even those who had managed to get on the rooftop.

  My chest heaved as the front runners fought over the garnet. The never-ending mob rushed past, and I peeked around the chimney. I hadn’t planned this part too well, considering I wanted to return to the abbey. But I didn’t think I would have made it if I had to run any further, let alone climb down and bang on the door for the girls to open it.

  I was in the middle of an expanding sea of ghouls clamouring for the crystals. Some at the edges wandered away, not remembering why they were there. My rooftop was mostly clear since I was no longer interesting to them, and better yet, the way out of the capital was empty.

  Faraya

  The trenches along the unrecognisable centre divide of the fortification lines had turned into gullies of black blood and mounds over which bodies were strewn. It sloshed out the sides as pale monstrosities fell in after the meaty thunk of an arrow, a cracked skull from a slingshot, or torn to ribbons by the hailstorm of spells.

  Not a single spike or watchtower remained upright, pushed over and sunken into the muddied ground. There wasn’t a blade of grass in sight, and the logs laid down for pathways were quickly lost. We stayed away from the muck, vandalising most of the homes which formed the rudimentary bulwark around the city by taking down the walls on the top floor overlooking the battlefield.

  “Last spell,” called a knight beside me. She formed a mana bolt, which our doctrine had put far too much emphasis on. The haze of mana shot out from above her palm and veered to lodge into a sprinting ghoul leaping from corpse to corpse like stepping stones. Before it hit, the projectile began to break down from the creature's pull on the ambient mana. It struck with less lethality, but the ghoul was still laid out for an arrow shot to the head. The spell was still our best ranged and efficient means of attack for the long slog this would be. “I’m out.”

  The drained knight crouched away from the gap in the stone, replaced by another with half of his reserves replenished. The newcomer received a clap on the back, and the number of kills to beat was whispered in his ear. There was a glance in my direction as I stared out over the field, but there were some things I chose not to hear.

  The crater Valeria was responsible for was full, not of blood like the trenches, but of bodies. An elite ran over it, the hill of corpses somehow easier to traverse than the mud. I didn’t need to point out the taller, more muscular creature as arrows fell all around it. The newcomer turned his forming spell towards it, but I adjusted his wrist back to the sidelines.

  “It has half the mages and archers looking at it already.”

  “Understood, ma’am. Sorry.”

  A dragon’s gut worth of flame billowed toward the elite, injured but still running. It didn’t care that burns couldn't be healed like the rest of us. Why would it?

  It caught light and kept sprinting until a ballista bolt pinned it to the ground ten yards back.

  “No fire!” shouted ten different voices from my order of knights. I had meant to add my own, but didn’t waste my words. The remnants didn’t have the same breadth of knowledge and command of spellcraft my knights did, but they were willing to go to lengths they weren’t. They stepped forward to meet the elites in close combat and used spells we would only employ in controlled coordination.

  Thundering hooves drew my attention to the army’s cavalry diving into the fight along the fields on our flanks. They weren’t mages, but there were fewer ghouls, and they could handle the pikes better than any under my command. They escorted a volunteer detachment trying to get close to the wall and block the entrance from the side—a slow and futile attempt while ghouls still spewed from the gates.

  More time and effort of our mages was wasted trying to get the trebuchets to work.

  Their captains had argued for an aggressive push. The generals and I overruled them, the size of our forces adding weight and finality to the objection. That didn’t stop the rems from trying. Too many slipped or were dragged into the mud and had to be rescued. One got an arrow to the back from our own troops.

  My mana sat at a fifth of the usual reserves, but it would be up to at least four times that once we finish the rotation up here. More arrows were being brought in by the barrel and more assembled by the settlers in the city centre’s grounds. It had only been a few hours since the town's initial liberation, but I was making plans for us to sleep and eat in our fortifications for a few days. The number of ghouls left inside was unreliable, but the best estimate still had too many zeros on the end.

  Oh, the inhabitants had clapped and cheered when we stormed through the streets, and heavy cavalry trampled their occupiers. But now we were their occupiers, ruining their lovely homes with our muddy boots and tactical modifications.

  I was about to call for a swap for the next knight in rotation when the dark tunnel of the gatehouse tossed out a few sporadic and unenthused ghouls. The passageway, which had unleashed tens of thousands of creatures over the days, had seemingly dried up. A few idiots began to cheer, but were quickly hushed. I clicked my tongue at the knights in my building as one asked if it was over already.

  “Hold,” I said, emitting a pulse to the same effect. More pulses went up as the spells that would interfere with them ceased. Quivers were restocked, bladers relieved, and mana recouped with marginally effective breathing exercises. A few more stragglers rushed out, taken down by well-aimed arrows.

  A less cautious mage than I, Commander Tometh if I remember correctly, started approaching the entrance. My idiot subordinate, Leonarda, joined him. “Remind me never to approve his leave again.”

  There was a muffled snort and a few acknowledgements to what they hoped was a joke. I hadn’t decided yet.

  There was movement in the tunnel as another ghoul approached. The two men readied their weapons, and bow strings pulled taut as it climbed over the wall of bodies collecting at the mouth. They tensed as an antlered helmet emerged, but I sighed when my magnification spell noticed pink flesh and stained Drasdan green sleeves.

  I waited for Yistopher to follow after the girl, but she was alone. “One of you, go find our esteemed former commander, so I may hang him from the rafters… Go!”

  Valeria was filthy, hands and body covered in what looked like ash, with half her chainmail falling off to reveal rips in the cloth below. Climbing over piles of corpses and her boots sinking into deep black puddles only worsened her sorry state. The two men rushed over and offered a hand as she detoured around the crater after her leg fell into the corpse pile.

  I reined in my annoyance. Valeria was here because we were happy to use her help. She wasn’t one of mine to deal with, but I sometimes forgot to adjust my expectations of authority over her. My fondness for control made a decent foundation for leadership, but it was awful for children and pets, both of which I tended to avoid.

  After a few seconds of conversation, the Commander turned and raised a sword to the sky. The cheer quickly spread, the city behind erupting after a moment's delay to register why we would be in good spirits. The cavalry raised their pikes, but returned to guarding the flanks from the ghouls still in the field. A few braved the mud to join their returning champion back to the town.

  I stood to stretch my back, dismissing those inside to join their comrades elsewhere. Valeria didn’t act as if Yisopher was dead, so I decided to let her enjoy the moment of adoration and not reprimand her as harshly as I had planned for the signed document fiasco. I’d let the duke handle that when I dragged her back home.

  It was mainly the Remnants walking up to join her and Leonarda. I couldn’t reconcile the eager yet bumbling young girl from the castle to how they talked of her here, the female knight with the old antlered helmet.

  She’d helped take down elites, run intelligence-sharing and scouting missions in the dead of night across the infested town, and now this.

  I caught Leonarda’s eye and motioned him to block the tunnel with hand signals. He clapped Valeria on the back and dragged away the group huddled around the clearly uncomfortable girl to help with sealing the passage.

  Despite lacking patience, discipline, and basic worldly knowledge, the girl was undeniably effective at bludgeoning problems into submission. If I could transmute her pure stealth into a trained knight, I would so in a heartbeat. The creatures they would be able to take down, the targets they could bag without notice, and the espionage activities no one could ever dream of completing filled my imagination.

  But no, I had a duke’s adoptive daughter with a penchant for jeopardising her life every other hour and a knack for causing crises if left unsupervised for mere minutes.