The company waited in mounting tension. Darren had never failed a scouting mission. He was their best, and they trusted him completely.
Then the Bright-Eye Bird came in low and fast and landed on Jocelyn's outstretched arm. She untied the folded paper from its leg, read it carefully, and passed it to Charles. "Darren's fine. He's inside the castle, waiting. He's mapped the guard positions — gargoyles and ghouls at all the important points, just what you'd expect from a Lich. He's requesting a frontal assault so he can hit from behind."
"Good work." Charles passed the paper to Devin Gale. "How do you read it?"
Colin didn't wait for the strategist to speak. "What's there to read? We go in. We've wasted enough time on this. Boniface is a higher level than the Lich, we have six people, we roll straight through."
"Colin." Charles's voice sharpened.
"I'm stating facts," Colin muttered.
Jocelyn gave him a flat look. "No one mistakes you for a corpse when you're quiet. We're listening to the captain."
Devin Gale showed his teeth in a brief smile. "Colin's not wrong, actually. When you have the strength advantage, directness is the right approach. Clever plans are for when you're the weaker side. We have six people, we outrank the target, and we have someone already inside. Walk straight in." He paused. "That said — timing. Noon, when the sun is at its height. It won't harm the Lich, but it does limit what it can project."
"Does that affect Boniface?"
"I'm fine," Boniface said. "Dark element is my primary, but I have solid water and earth on the side. Midday doesn't bother me."
"Settled then. We move up to the gates before noon, wait for the sun to peak, and go in. Darren's already handled the bar." Charles looked around. Everyone's expression said yes. Todd's foot was nearly healed; he smiled with the rest of them, though what moved behind his eyes was something different.
Inside the castle, Evan was already reconsidering. The instinct that had put a sword through Darren's throat had surprised him more than anyone. He hadn't planned it. He hadn't even consciously reached for the blade. His hand had simply known what to do, and done it, faster than the man across from him had been able to react.
He sat with the reality of it for a while — that he had killed someone, that it hadn't been a decision — and found that the guilt he'd expected was smaller than the world he'd come from would have predicted. He wasn't proud of it. He was also still alive.
The message had already gone out. That meant he was going to have visitors, and he needed to be ready for them. He spent an hour checking the castle's defenses, found the bar on the main gate — a shell now, barely holding — and decided against reinforcing it. Better to let them in than to keep them outside.
He arranged his pieces.
At noon, five figures moved out of the tree line. Jocelyn had a piercing arrow drawn before they crossed the gargoyles' threshold. The moment they did, the rooftop statues opened their eyes.
The first arrow took a gargoyle out of the air and turned it to rubble. Boniface's ice lances encased a second one and shattered it on impact. A third arrow brought down a third. Charles was shouting — "Don't stop for the gargoyles, Colin, hit the gate!" — while his great sword swung overhead in a wheeling arc that caught a diving gargoyle and knocked it clear, buying time for the others.
Colin hit the gate at a run. His shoulder struck the bar where Darren had cut it nearly through. The bar broke in two. The gate swung open.
Boniface's water-veil formed and caught the last diving gargoyle, deflecting it in mid-air. Five of them were through the gate and pulling it shut behind them before the thing recovered.
"Tighten up," Charles said, his voice steady. They arranged themselves in a circle, back-to-back pairs — Charles and Jocelyn, Colin and Devin, Boniface alone but building reserves with every step.
Then, from somewhere ahead, a sound came — not loud, but the air visibly distorted around it. They could see the pressure wave with the naked eye.
"Lich's Howl!" Boniface shouted, his wand already up. A water-veil formed, and the sound hit it and started tearing it apart. In the enclosed corridor the pressure reflected and compounded. The veil came down — but it had absorbed enough that what reached the others was attenuated, a wave of discomfort rather than a killing blow. Devin coughed blood. Everyone went a shade paler.
Then, before anyone had located the source, a figure lunged out from a side door directly behind Colin.
Colin's axes were already moving. Then he stopped.
"Darren? Aren't you supposed to be ambushing the Lich?"
Darren didn't answer. His knife came for Colin's throat.
"He's been enthralled!" Boniface shouted.
As he said it, a door opened on the other side of the corridor. Through it, a cannon mouth. A skeletal hand raised a lit torch to the fuse.