Day 15 of Midwinter, Sunset

  Cruachan, Midlands

  Annwn

  As the sound of the cracking stone pillars rippled around us and dust filled the air, we ran deeper into Cruachan. I still carried the unconscious Deichtine and Sétanta under my arms. My shoulders had begun to burn from the weight of carrying their bodies, and worse, the pain in my lungs and ribs had grown agonizing. Every breath hurt.

  I continued to run, mentally cataloging our limited options. Only seven members of the fianna remained. We could go back outside to face the Bánánach, but I had no illusions about our odds of surviving that battle.

  We could choose to remain in the long entryway of the temple, where we’d likely be crushed by falling stones. Faint cracks were starting to become visible on the walls around us.

  The temple that had stood for countless moon cycles was collapsing. Why now? Was it the weight of the small company of changelings that now littered the entrance? Could the auras of the deathly spirits chasing us be having some strange effect on the structure?

  There was a third possibility that I didn’t like…that the evil resting in the temple had awakened and was herding us closer to its cruel source. The possibility of that faceless and nameless evil consumed my thoughts as we descended deeper into the ancient structure.

  “Lord,” a voice called out behind me. A heavy thump followed, the sound of a body hitting the floor. I turned toward it, squinting into the dim corridor. Behind us, one of the women from the rear of the group now lay motionless on the ground. The man who had spoken lifted a long, glowing stick—once a piece of firewood, now our only source of light—casting a faint glow over the scene.

  “She was gravely injured by the creatures before we entered.” His voice was shaking.

  Another man knelt beside the woman. He looked up gravely and his eyes met mine. He shook his head.

  "We must go,” I said. Adjusting my grip on Deichtine and Sétanta, I turned away from the fallen woman and continued to move deeper into the bowels of the temple. It wasn’t lost on me that eventually, the woman would turn into one of the Abhartach. We didn’t have time to burn her body.

  I thought back, once again, to my time on The Stern Beauty. Morias had explained to Bren what happened to the bodies of those killed by the Bánánach.

  “They go by different names in different places. Sometimes they are the Dearg Due.” Though Dearg Due was one of the names used for a female Abhartach, both male and female victims of the Bánánach all eventually awoke to become mindless blood drinkers.

  They were supernaturally strong and fast, with heightened senses and teeth and claws that exuded a toxin that prevented their victims’ wounds from healing. The beasts awoke completely feral, with a primal instinct that was sometimes their undoing. Despite exhibiting greater strength, the undead bodies themselves were actually weaker than they were in life.

  I had heard nightmarish stories of Abhartach breaking down doors to reach a victim, only to emerge with broken and unusable arms on the other side. In their mindless hunger, the Abhartach would literally destroy their own bodies. Abhartach would never stop coming, unless their heads were separated from their bodies, or they were burned to ash.

  The light of the man’s firewood flickered; it wouldn’t last much longer. I motioned to a shape against the wall behind him. The shreds of fabric looked to be the remains of a tapestry from an earlier time. The man picked it up and wrapped it carefully around his partially burning wood stick. The old fabric ignited, lighting up the corridor around us.

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  In its light, I could see that almost all the remaining fianna members were bleeding from multiple wounds. Many of them had an ashen gray hue to their skin, which appeared even more sickly in the light of our makeshift torch.

  “We must get farther away from the entrance,” I said.

  At the rear, a man and a woman whispered. At my sharp look, they took a step away from the rest of the group. The man spoke up, refusing to meet my eyes. “We will remain here.” He gestured at the woman, who leaned heavily on his arm. “Her leg…I must bandage it.” Now that I looked, I could see the woman’s thigh was drenched in red.

  I shook my head. “No. We need to stick together.”

  “I can’t farthing walk,” the woman yelled out, her voice cracking. She released the man’s arm and sank to the stone floor, leaning her back on the corridor wall. He crouched next to her and began quickly bandaging her wound.

  “I will stay with them,” offered another man.

  Our tactical retreat was beginning to fall apart. The members of the group were either too injured or too scared to go on. They didn’t know me or trust me to keep them safe.

  I looked back at the body of the fallen woman and set Deichtine and Sétanta gently on the ground. They weren’t going to like this part.

  I drew Vowkeeper. The fianna collectively took a step away from me, but I ignored them.

  “If we are to make our stand here, we must remove the head of our fallen.”

  Eyes shocked, the four fianna members left standing in the center of the corridor instinctively shifted to be between me and the dead woman. No one said anything, but the message was clear. They would not allow me to defile the body of their friend.

  I considered the group. Except for the man with the torch, everyone had grabbed a weapon when the Bánánach attacked. Despite this, if they attacked me, I wagered I still had the upper hand. Father had insisted on my training beginning at a young age, and I had a nearly unmatched level of experience. Not only could I fight with any blade or bludgeoning weapon, but I could parry and defend against more skilled and more numerous opponents.

  Even so, I knew that turning on one another would only leave us more vulnerable. I lowered my blade with deliberate care and exhaled, weighing our options. Heading outside was impossible—the Bánánach would tear us apart. Splitting into smaller groups would make us easy prey. And if we stayed where we were…

  A scream came from the injured woman resting against the wall. The dead woman had risen and her jagged teeth were locked onto the neck of the man who held the torch. He gurgled in her newly clawed arms.

  Utter chaos erupted from the remaining fianna. The three other men in the center of the hallway turned to attack the newly risen Abhartach suddenly in their midst.

  The man who had been bandaging the injured woman jerked to his feet just in time to have his neck opened by the Abhartach’s claws. His hands scrabbled at his throat, trying to stop the blood geysering from what I could see was a deadly wound. The Abhartach’s first victim had already slumped to the ground.

  The woman with the injured leg screamed and drove her sword upward into the creature's body. The monster impaled itself further on the blade as it lunged at her, sinking its teeth into her face. She began screaming, the sound muffled as blood from her ruined face ran into her mouth.

  The blades of the surviving fianna sliced and stabbed at the creature as it continued to feast on the screaming woman. The three men had already cut off one leg and one arm at the elbow. Finally, one of the men swung wildly into the neck of the creature. Fortunately, the body of the Abhartach fell away from the neck where it had been attached in life. Unfortunately, the head of the creature stayed attached to the living woman who now had the blade of the man sticking halfway out of her neck. The killing blow had also doomed her.

  An eerie quiet filled the hallway. It had been only seconds, but three more of the fianna lay dead. Before me, one of the men sobbed. The torch, still lit, was resting on the floor where blood was threatening to extinguish it.

  “Pick up the torch,” I commanded, my voice harsh. One of the men looked at me, then just as quickly scrambled to pick up the torch. I don’t know what he saw in my face, but it must have been as terrible as the gruesome scene around us.

  I felt completely devoid of emotion, in that calm place where my military training could take over. I knew the three men who had dispatched the Abhartach might think me cold or callous, but the truth was it was my desire to live that governed my actions. I had to survive in order to protect Deichtine and Sétanta.

  This time, I would not be swayed. “Turn away if you cannot stomach what must be done.”

  Without a word, the men stepped aside, avoiding my eyes but allowing me passage to the bodies of the dead. I steeled myself and lifted Vowkeeper.

  And that is when the ceiling collapsed and buried us alive.

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