All but one of the theronts had escaped. But that was no concern, for the one that remained was the only one that mattered.

  The Warden and his men stood on a circular rise that surrounded the opening of the escape tunnel. The Warden had almost missed it, but when he failed to hear the screams of those concealed in the treehouse, and when he saw a piece of the trunk detach, revealing a hollow within, he knew. He was not a tracker in the traditional sense, but once upon a time he had been paid to find and kill theronts. He knew the signs in the soil of tunnels dug below ground. He knew the sounds of concealed movement, of whispered encouragement as his enemies made their bids for freedom.

  Now, they surrounded the mouth, and from it emerged a hulking bull-man. In the darkness of oncoming night, he seemed bigger somehow, mantled in a raiment of shadow, only the edges of him visible by the light of the burning oak tree, which shone like a yellow-white pillar in the twilight.

  The others guards, with the exception of Janus, all took steps back from the towering figure. Jubal snorted at them, casting his dull eyes about, realising he was surrounded. Your horns will look good upon the wall of my office, The Warden thought. He did not keep many trophies, but this pleasure he would allow himself. At last, the Ghost has been revealed. He is flesh and blood, after all.

  Jubal’s huge bow was slung over his back—it would be impossible for him to bring it to bear with any speed. Instead, his huge hands clenched into fists as large as the head of The Warden’s mace.

  The Warden stepped forward.

  “The Ghost of Northeld. At last, we meet face to face.”

  “Spare me your theatrics, Koron.”

  The Warden froze. He felt the blood surging through his veins. He saw before him, clearer even than any living scene, his mother. She bent over him, smiling. My little Lord, she said, sweetly. My little miracle. Then there was darkness, as though a shroud had been pulled down over the memory, a darkness so intense the Warden wanted to suddenly cry out, to scream. A curse on the gods! A curse on all gods! He shook himself.

  “That name has no meaning.”

  Jubal snorted. “One thing I have learned in hiding: you can change your name as much as you like. But you always remain what you are. And what you are is a coward.”

  The Warden laughed.

  “A coward? I am not the one who shoots men from hiding, so that they die never knowing their enemy’s face.” The Warden felt his voice thicken with rage. “128 men you killed. That is 128 crimes you must answer for.”

  Jubal’s nostrils flared, his face a living image of thunder.

  “And how many theronts did you slaughter, Warden? How many women and children did you put to the torch? And for what purpose? We did no harm. We served humanity.”

  “You served your own secret ends—many plans were found, plotting insurrection. But I will not debate politics with you.” The Warden unslung his mace. The other guards drew their swords. Jubal looked at each of them in turn and sneered.

  “The legendary Koron will not even fight me man to man,” Jubal taunted. “You have grown old and weak, like all your kind.”

  The Warden smiled darkly.

  “Fire long ago burned away the sin of pride. But the truth is: you are not a man. Take him!”

  One-eyed Janus was the first guard to move, experience lending his hand a swiftness that surpassed the energy of youth.

  He was also the first to die. Jubal caught his sword-hand at the wrist, stopping the blade. Jubal slammed his horn directly into the man’s single remaining eye. Janus screamed and then went limp, dead even before he hit the ground. The young boy, Tor, dropped his sword and fled. Wylf and Warick shared a look, then charged together. Jubal leant forward and slammed into them. Even though they wore armour, they were no match for his weight and momentum. They went sprawling to the ground. Jubal wrenched a sword out of Wylf’s hand and before he could scream brought it down on the exposed neck. Warick scrambled away, but Jubal withdrew his sword from Wylf and plunged it down into the narrow sliver between breastplate and pauldron, severing the spine, killing him instantly.

  “Well, it seems you shall get your one-on-one fight after all!” The Warden cried. This, in truth, is what he had wanted, to face his enemy in single combat, to prove ultimately that he was stronger. Jubal reacted swiftly, bringing his sword up to parry. But the mace was of Qi’shathian mould, and the Warden’s strength was hideous.

  The sword in Jubal’s hand shattered beneath the blow. Jubal roared, tossing the broken haft aside, and ran in to tackle the Warden. The Warden felt the crippling force of Jubal’s charge as the theront’s shoulder slammed into his armoured midriff. Horns raked across his breastplate. Jubal roared again, trying to apply more weight, to break the Warden’s stance, but long years of brutal warfare had made the Warden an oak. He dug in his heels, bent his knees, resisted the charge.

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  Jubal lifted him bodily off the ground. The bull-man was freakishly strong. The Warden knew now he was in grave danger. He brought his mace crashing down into the theront’s elbow joint. Jubal screamed as bone was unmade, shattering like clay pottery. The arm bent at a wretched angle and his grip came undone. The Warden fell, landing heavily on one knee. Jubal toppled back, clutching his ruined arm.

  The Warden rose, hefting the mace overhead. One more blow to the head would do it. One more blow would banish the Ghost, avenge his fallen comrades, make history right.

  “Hey!”

  The Warden wheeled.

  The dagger flashed before he could react. He felt it slide easily between the plates of his armour, then through flesh. The pain was exquisitely concentrated. Black fire seemed to coruscate out from the entry-point of the blade, filling up his whole body. He let out a groan, staggered back. The mace fell from his grip.

  He blinked.

  Telos stood before him. The prisoner. But his face was a bulbous mass of poison-swelling. This formidable appearance was contrasted by the look of sheer surprise on his face. There was blood on his hands, but no weapon. The knife is still inside you. The Warden gritted his teeth, reached down and clutched the daimonbone dagger.

  “Shit,” Telos said. “Oh shit. I stabbed someone.”

  “Finish him!” Jubal cried. “For the love of the gods, don’t give him a second chance.”

  The Warden heard these things through a veil, as though pain had wrapped him in the cerements of the grave, had buried him before he was truly dead. They were far off voices, far off concerns. The only thing that was real was the pain in his belly, the rupture in the continuity of his being.

  As the blood ran over his hands, he saw again his mother. She smiled. She called him, My Lord. And then she lay on the bed. He must have been only three years old, so young, yet old enough to know what death looked like. The cut in her belly from the failed cesarian seemed a wound in reality itself, the gaping orifice of some hungry god who had devoured all hope. His brother had killed his mother. His father had sent the baby away—knowing he would never be able to forgive him. My brother should have been called Koronzon. My brother brought Death into our lives.

  The Warden gripped the dagger and pulled it free. Telos stepped back. Jubal was on his feet, still clutching his shattered arm. He looked pale, covered in blood and sweat. I can still end this. The Warden gritted his teeth, staggered toward them.

  “Kill him now!” Jubal cried.

  Telos swallowed.

  You can’t kill me, The Warden thought. My work is not yet done.

  And then a shrieking sound, as though hell itself had been opened, and from the cave-mouth there came rushing a horror that belonged to the Daimonic Age.

  The Tunnel Spider.

  The monster was wounded—but its wounds only seemed to have enraged it further. It hurtled on scuttling legs towards Telos... but The Warden was in its path. And bleeding. The huge arachnid leapt on him and the Warden let out a scream as its sickening weight crushed the air from his lungs and pinned him to the ground. The knife went flying from his hand. Its mandibles snapped down on his breastplate, screeching as their sharp points scraped on the metal, hooked underneath, began to try and peel him open as though he were no more than a mollusc.

  “Away!” he heard Telos say. The thief and the theront were fleeing. The Warden screamed again, this time in rage. The spider bit down and the pressure was so excruciating darkness swarmed his vision. He turned and began to batter at the spider with his bare hands. It howled. Venom spat from its maw and hissed as it began to melt a stone near his head. He gripped one of its thrashing legs and ripped it clean from the socket. He was badly hurt, but the death-surge of adrenaline—the Dremtalon—had made him the Wargod incarnate.

  The spider moved to bite his neck and he held up his arm in defence. Its huge jaws crumpled his steel-wrought vambrace and pierced to flesh. He felt the pulse, pulse of poison disgorged into his veins and he went dizzy. He saw its bleeding eyesockets where someone had wounded it, saw the arrow sticking out of its grotesque head. He gripped the arrow with his free hand, forced it deeper. A twitch passed through the spider’s body that brought his gorge into his mouth. He pushed harder, deeper. The thing twitched again. Its mandibles worried his arm until the pain was blinding, but he did not need to see, because he could feel the raven-feathered arrow-haft in his grip, could feel it driving deeper to the core. One more! He thrust and the thing instantly fell, collapsing without life.

  He lay there a few moments, consciousness coming and going like flame in the wind. He could feel the burning in his arm as the poison did its grisly work. The poison must not spread, he thought. It must not spread.

  He dragged himself out from under the corpse. He tore the vambrace off his forearm and beheld the swelling skin, the mottle of necrotic venom that would soon render him a walking corpse. The veins in his arm were turning black. He did not have much time.

  He scrambled to the daimonbone dagger, pressed the point into his forearm just below the elbow. Oh gods, he thought. Oh gods. He did not believe in them—hated them with a passion rivalled only by the greatest poets. Do not call on them. Call on yourself. Call on your own power.

  He closed his eyes, tried to press the knife in. But courage failed him. He sobbed. Tears flowed down his face, the first tears he had cried since the day his mother had died. There were many beatings after that, many screams too, but no tears.

  The fire of his heart had burned them all away.

  But now the tears fell.

  “KORON!” he screamed, driving the knife-point into his arm. Blood gushed. The pain made him swoon. He hacked and hacked and peeled. Red matter spilled from the horridly wide gash in easy spools, like a badly sewn garment unravelling. I cut too deep, too much. The venom gushed out of the crude incision—along with so much blood. Slabs of him were missing. The jagged wreck of his forearm seemed unreal, a prop from some gruesome stage-production.

  Then he rose and ran, ran as fast as bloodloss and failing consciousness would allow, running in the direction of the pillar of flame rising from the burning oak. There was a bush set alight by the spreading fire. He knelt by it and inserted his ruined arm into the fire.

  He screamed as the wound was cauterised.

  At last, his willpower crumbled, and he fell into darkness.