Opening the chests revealed, to our surprise, that the one protected by the necromantic spell was bigger on the inside. Chests of holding were not unheard of, naturally. And having what would essentially be the temple’s most secure vault in the high priest’s room made sense. The contents of the two chests combined was all that we were expecting, and more.

  Most of the loot was nonmagical, but extremely valuable, to say nothing of the coins themselves. It seemed that the high priestess did indeed use these chests as the temple’s treasury. We eagerly emptied it, of course, but the magic items were what truly caught our eyes.

  The Wrathbow, like the other artifacts we had encountered scoffed at my attempts to identify its properties. The bow was carved from a silver-white piece of wood that looked almost as though it were moonlight in physical form, with a spectral string of silver light. We tossed it into Frostmane’s bag, since we clearly couldn’t use the thing.

  To say I was jumping at the chance to get my hands on this beauty would be a rather severe understatement. After all, I was a servant of Auril, in my way. I didn’t doubt that I would, eventually, be facing foes with more fire than sense. I thought that it would be good to have a suitable weapon to beat that sense into them when they tried using fire against me.

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  Siora, on the other hand, immediately grabbed the ring. Which was fair enough, since one of the rings she wore only allowed her to open locks. And, if we were being honest, she was already extremely skilled in picking locks, to the point where the ring was not all that useful to her any more.

  However, that beauty? Well, it could cover for a lot of her weaknesses. Few things reacted well to getting smacked with a big old ball of magical fuck you. Even the wraith we had just fought would have felt it, if she could hit the thing.

  With the coin divided, the loot stashed away, and a couple of us sporting shiny new items, the time had come to face the final challenge. Or, what we hoped would be the final challenge. None of us said that part out loud, though I knew they were all thinking it, same as me. Saying it, though, would be like daring Beshaba, Goddess of Misfortune, to do her worst. And we did not want that.

  Filing out of the High Priestess’s chambers, we made our way back along the balcony, until we got to a silver mirror mounted upon the railing. From here, it was easy to see how the coalesced moonlight from the catacombs below hit a crystal in the ceiling above, and split into two parts, one striking this mirror, and one upon the other side. Now that we didn’t have other things on our mind, I took a closer look at the mirror itself.

  The mirror looked to be mounted in a simple curved frame set upon a solid base, with a couple visible gears. Adjusting the mirror up and down seemed to be easy enough, and could be done by hand, but the gears would not turn by me just pushing on the frame. Instead, it looked like a crank would need to be turned to swing the mirror into position. And next to the crank was a keyhole.

  I glanced over the side again, careful not to let my head cross the boundary of the railing accidentally. (Getting stuck in time was not on my agenda.) The three werewolves were slightly separated from each other. The obvious leader, a warrior-type carrying a flaming bastard sword, was almost at the altar. Next to him was a female, so that had to be the priestess, his wife. A little removed on the other side was another male, carrying a truly massive greataxe, that looked as though it would be oversized, even for a giant! That had to be the barbarian.

  I took a breath, and said, “All right. Last chance for tactics. This is the big fight, so don’t hold anything back. Siora, Vestele, take one shot at controlling the barbarian, before he can rage. After that, focus on the priestess, with whatever you can muster.”

  When the sisters nodded, I turned to Frostmane. “Frostmane, if they manage to get the barbarian down, you take on the priestess, and help them get her out of the fight, however you can. If they can’t, I need you to find some way to keep the barbarian busy. Call him names, get him to chase you, do whatever. Just keep him away from the twins.”

  The white wolf chuffed. “Easy enough. I might even be able to goad him into fighting me as a wolf, which would remove some of his abilities. At least he wouldn’t be able to use that axe against me. These werewolves like to fight in their hybrid forms, so they might not be as used to fighting like a wolf.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was a plan, all the same. “Good call. See if you can taunt the bastard, if you can, then.”

  Siora’s eyes narrowed at me. “And what will you be doing?”

  I took a breath, and said, “I’ll be fighting the leader. He’s going to have the toughest defenses, so he’ll be the one my new sword will make the most difference on. Either way, I’ll be focusing on trying to stay alive long enough for the rest of you to come and save me.”

  Vestele shook her head. “It is too risky, but I don’t see any other option. If we had some way to separate them, that would make everything worlds easier, but we don’t have anything like that. Not that could cover the entire space, at least.”

  Siora cleared her throat as she looked down at the scene below. “I can make shadows conjure up a wall of ice, separating them into two groups. It will only stretch from column to column, so they could get around it, but that should at least allow us to fuck with them a little.”

  I nodded. “All right, that’s a good start. Do you or Vestele have anything else you can do to tip the odds in our favor before the fight?”

  Vestele nodded. “Before the fight, I can use a Mass Aid spell. That will give us a bit of a boost to our attacks, and a little extra health. Once the fight starts, I can offer a Prayer to the Queen, and that will further aid our attacks, while potentially weakening our enemies.”

  Siora chimed in, as well. “Just before the fighting starts, I can hit you with a Greater Invisibility spell, Mel. It won’t last long, but it will give you a better chance against the Huntlord. I have a Mirror Image spell I can put on myself beforehand, and, sometime after the ice wall is up, I can throw my Legion of Sentinels down. That could work to keep the priestess from running around if she tries to get away from people.”

  “I’ll gladly take all the help I can get.” I looked back at the mirrors. “I think we can aim this mirror first, and then go around to the other side, cast the spells with longer durations, and then have Frostmane and Vestele go downstairs, so they are ready to attack as soon as possible. Siora will cast her spell on me just before I aim the last mirror, and then we will both fly down to take care of our responsibilities once things inside the field start moving.”

  I paused, and then said, “Anyone have anything to add before we start messing with the mirrors?” All three of my friends shook their heads.

  I took a breath. “All right, we have a plan. It is a desperate, foolish, damn near suicidal plan, but it is a plan, and the best we can do. But if we pull this off? We are going to be legends. Let’s do it.”

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