He grabbed his smallest finger of his left hand.

Agee wan clyy nee wan dred ghawl.

He yanked and snapped the digit straight back. From the sharp pain of the tiny break, a tide of pain spread outward, growing and swelling, a trickle becoming a flood. The world spun, and out of the tempest of pain, it burnt a hole into this world. Cloth burnt to ash over the black handprint on his chest, freeing what lay beneath. Gloom flowed out from his body, and the naetherspawn swept into this world, taking shape and sculpting itself from the smoke.

Wings unfurled, and a snaking neck stretched, sprouting mane and muzzle. Both wyrm and wolf. Fiery eyes opened on his world.

As the naethryn filled the room, it drew off all of Tylar's strength and sturdiness of limb. His back was bent, joints callused, and his knee turned askew. He was no longer regent, no longer knighta"only a broken man again. Gnarled fingers brushed through the tether of smoke that linked to the naethryn.

It needed no guidance, this black dog of his. It knew his heart.

"Keep back!" Rogger warned their party. "One touch will kill. Burn the bones right out of your flesh."

Even the shadows heeded the thief's admonishment.

Like a wave receding across a beach, the darkness retreated out the doorway, taking Mirra with it. She was nowhere to be seen.

The naethryn hunched, wings high, head low. It bellowed, maw stretched wide, baring fangs of Gloom and tongue of black firea"but not a sound escaped it. Still, a mighty wind blasted outward. At the door, darkness shredded away under the force of the silent gale, ripped and scattered. The shadows emptied of any lurkers hidden within its folds, becoming lighter, weightless.

Rogger pulled Tylar straighter, supporting him under a thin shoulder. The thief was stronger than most imagined. "Let's go!" Rogger ordered and passed the Oldenbrook captain his torch. "Keep 'em high! Don't let any of the buggers near."

Krevana"burdened with the boy who still lolled in a half-daze across one shouldera"grabbed one of the fallen torches. There was still enough oil to ignite its end from his cohort's torch.

They stepped as a group toward the door.

Beyond the threshold, words reached them. "Kill the naethryn," Mirra ordered. "Then bring me the god's skullaand the head of the boy."

As the naethryn gathered its wind for another assault, Tylar sensed a shift in the shadows. Something approached the threshold. The daemon bellowed again, blowing back the thickening darkness yet again. But this time the retreating shadows revealed a form in the doorway, resolute against the assault.

A knight, his cloak billowing in the naethryn's wind.

One of the black ghawls.

The knight stepped forward, little intimidated by the wan firelight, emboldened by the horde at his back, the entire legion's power flowing into him, armoring him against the flames.

Tylar recognized the bloodless countenance under a fall of white hair.

"Perryla"

The knight lifted a sword carved of Gloom. As he shifted it higher, streaks of emerald flowed along its length, glinting with malevolence and poison.

"Kill the naethryn!" Mirra screamed from the darkness.

And her daemon obeyed.

Kathryn stood on the first landing with Argent. They had a view to the hall below that separated the tower from the Masterlevels. The yawning archway stood open.

At least for now.

Two knights manned the gate's greatwheel, ready to lower it at the warden's command. Another two knights stood with sledges, prepared to break the clutches on the chains and bring the barrier crashing down if necessary.

To either side, flames blazed from giant braziers. Wall torches spread outward down both hallways. Still, all the light offered little illumination of what lay below. The stairs spiraled away into the depths, dark and silent.

"They should've been back by now," Argent said.

"A little longer," she urged.

"A time was set. Longer and they are surely corrupted or dead."

She turned to Argent, ready to argue, ready to fight. She had no strength for it. Worry had worn her hollow.

Argent read something in her face. In turn, the steely sternness softened at the edges of his lips. "A moment more," he whispered and turned to face the same dark gate. "No longer."

Tylar faced Perryla"or rather the naethryn did. Two creatures born of Gloom. The Godsword had failed to kill the daemon earlier. Would Meeryn's naethryn fare any better?

"Stay back," Tylar warned those behind him.

Perryl stepped into the room, long of limb and somehow moving with an unnatural grace he had never shown in life. His sword carved a path through the air, leaving a smoking trail. A noxious miasma accompanied it, like the vapor from a bloated corpse.

Tylar's naethryn eyed his path, cocking its head one way, then the other, sizing upa"then striking with the speed of a serpent. It snapped at Perryl, but he was no longer there, a blur of shadow to the side.

The knight stabbed his sword.

The naethryn coiled back to avoid the point and struck out with an edge of wing. Perryl was clipped in the shoulder and spun away. Still, the blow did damage. The misty darkness on that side collapsed to mere cloth and bony arm.

Perryl backed, shook the limb, and the foggy darkness wrapped him up again. He circled wide, searching for a weakness. He took another step to the left. Then, faster than the human eye could follow, he ducked under a wing and thrust his sword toward the throat of the naethryn.

The naethryn reared back from the blade.

Perryl stumbled as he missed. His sword point dropped.

The naethryn lunged forward.

"No!" Tylar yelled. He had recognized the feint. He had taught Perryl the move, as all knights taught their squires. It was called Naethryn's Folly.

And so it proved to be.

As the beast snapped at the knight, Perryl turned heel and wrist, catching himself. The sword point jabbed up as the naethryn lunged down. At the last moment, perhaps heeding his yell, the creature hoved to the side. Instead of the blade driving square into the exposed throat, its edge sliced the left side.

Tylar felt it as a searing pain across his own ribs.

He gasped, his legs going loose under him. He thought Rogger would hold him up, but the thief was gone. His knees struck the stone floor. The naethryn reared up and back, wings spread wide, eyes fiery with pain.

Perryl moved under its guard, going for its exposed belly.

But Rogger had slid under the right wing of the naethryn. Glass glinted in both hands. He threw one, then the other. Snowballs made of crystal. Repostilaries. Small vessels full of humours.

Perryl, focused on the fight, had failed to note the thief.

The globes smasheda"one at Perryl's toes, splashing his legs, the other full on the chest, drenching him.

Rogger rolled to the side, circling back.

Perryl's legs staggered, stiffening. The cloak that billowed with Gloom and shadow turned to cloth, tangling the knight further. Perryl wrenched away, barely avoiding the jaws of the naethryn.

Again Tylar caught a glimpse beneath the flowing cloak: of naked, translucent skin, beneath which something squirmed and kneaded, writhing under the surface. Then Perryl dove into the waiting darkness at the door, seeking refuge and escape.

Rogger returned to Tylar's side and hauled him to his feet. His left side still burnt, but he found enough strength to stand and stumble alongside him.

"Now!" Tylar said. "Before they regroup."

Obeying the desire in his heart, the naethryn drove through the door ahead of them, clearing a path. They followed, encircled by flames. But the legion appeared in full rout.

As they fled, his beast lunged out into the shadows and yanked something squirming in its jaws, like a waterstrider spearing a fish. The naethryn shook its catch and tossed it far down a side hall with a flip of its snaking neck. A keening scream marked its flight.

Tylar glanced to Rogger. "You saved us back there."

"Actually, you did."

Tylar frowned at the thief.

"Those were repostilaries of your own saliva. Delia gave them to me before we headed down. Thought we might be able to use them."

"Whya"?" Then Tylar understood. Each humour had its own effect on Grace. Saliva weakened an aspect.

"Wasn't sure it would work against Dark Grace, but apparently Grace is Grace. Figured it might dull him, knock his legs out from him."

It certainly had. If Perryl had finished his blowafollowed through with Naethryn's Follya Tylar rubbed the fiery slash across his ribs.

Before they knew it, they had reached the stairs.

Tylar reversed their roles. "Burn a path up!" he ordered the others.

He followed behind, leaning on Rogger. Below, the naethryn filled the lower stairs. It nabbed another shape out of the shadows and flung it back down the stairs.

Still, Tylar knew it hadn't been Perryl. He could almost sense the ghawl's malevolent attention, a burning hatred. Was there anything of his former friend left in that husk?

Round and round, they climbed up toward the warmth and flames above. Light again bathed around them.

A shout rose ahead. It came from the Oldenbrook captain. "They're closing the gate!"

Krevan bellowed. "Wait! We're coming!"

Tylar limped around a turn of the spiral. He watched the flaming eye of the gateway slowly winking shut.

They all began to shout.

The lowering eyelid stopped. They hurried forward, but Rogger slowed Tylar's step.

"Perhaps you'd best rein in your dog first. Not the time to be piling out of the cellars tethered to a smoking daemon."

Tylar nodded. He patted his cloak.

"Here," Rogger said and passed him one of his daggers.

Tylar took it, sliced his palm, and allowed the blood to well. It was the only way to recall the naethryn once it had been set free. With his own blood. He reached the red palm to the smoky link between him and the naethryn.

It knew his intent and glanced back. Fiery eyes met his. Then Tylar's bloody fingers closed on the tether of Gloom. With his touch, a fine scintillation washed out, cascading over the naethryn, erasing featuresa"then all collapsed back toward him.

Tylar braced for the mule-kick of its impact. Still, it struck with more force than he had expected. This was the second time in one night he had summoned the beast. He prayed it would be the last. He welcomed the return of his hale form. After a year, what had once felt familiara"his broken bodya"now felt foreign, like the life of another man.

And that troubled him.

The hobbled form was his true form. What he wore the rest of the year had been the illusion, born of Grace to hold the naethryn. Releasing the beast only reminded him of the truth.

It was foolish to forget it.

The force struck his chest and knocked him back a full step. His arms cartwheeled and his legs tripped on the stairs. He stumbled to keep uprighta"and with limbs now straight and hale again, he succeeded, leaning one palm against the wall to stead himself.

As he lowered his arm, a twinge of pain flashed in his hand. He lifted it before his face. The smallest finger remained bent at a crooked angle. He had snapped the digit to free the demon. Always in the past, once he returned the naethryn to its roost, all would heal.

He stared at his palm. As usual, even the cut had vanished, as though it had never happened.

Rogger noted the broken finger. "That's troublinga"

Tylar lowered his arm. He'd worry about it later. The others had already cleared the gateway.

"Tylar?" a voice called. Kathryn stood framed by the fires. "Is everything all right?"

He climbed back up into the warmth and brightness. Still, as his hand throbbed, he feared he carried a part of the darkness out with him.

Ducking under the half-lowered gate, he joined Kathryn.

"Lock it down," he ordered.

The knights again wheeled the massive wyrmwood barrier into place. The heat of the hall, flames all around, should have warmed him. But they didn't. It was not over.

A shout erupted down the hall.

All eyes swung to a pair of knights guarding the far gate, the one that led to the outer bailey of Stormwatch tower.

Even from here, Tylar noted ice and frost sweeping across the inner surface of the gate. Timbers cracked with echoing pops.

The two knights on guard at the gate retreateda"but not fast enough.

The entire barrier blew away in an explosion of frozen wood and brittled iron. An ice fog rolled into the hall. Torches on either side of the hallway flickered, then died.

Through the fog, a shape formed, stepping out atop a sheen of ice that flooded across the stone. She stopped and stood naked to the world, rimed in frost.