The decision was made for their delegation to proceed to House Veridian at dawn. In the meantime, Lady Hammerfell would head to House Drakenhart to recruit what members of her old raiding party and the elites who still held her in higher esteem than the Lord Draken’s son.

  “Odds are that the other Houses won’t listen to our request,” Lady Hammerfell had said as she stood in the front doorway. “But if we show up with the support of the dwarves, and especially if I can coax Aurian Crush to our side, then we stand a chance of changing their basic calculus.”

  Aurian Crush was Lady Hammerfell’s counterpart at House Drakenhart, the fifth highest ranked raider in all of Flutic. He’d been something of a mentor at first, but had come to see Brianna as an upstart rival, so she wasn’t sure she could sway him.

  “Regardless,” she’d said. “We show up with force, or we might as well not show up at all.”

  Sam and Nessa had returned with a salvaged carriage and team of horses, and disappeared into the stables round back to take care of them. Eadwolf was on the roof, keeping his perpetual lookout. Which left Harald on alert within, waiting, watching, almost itching for a group of Silver-ranked raiders to try their luck while Brianna was gone.

  Anna joined him in the front parlor where he’d chosen to keep watch over the lawn. A sole lantern hung one of the portico pillars outside, casting a faint golden radiance out over the grounds. Its radiance seemed to only emphasize the darkness beyond.

  “How are you holding up?” asked Harald as she entered the room, clad in the same outfit as before. “Find something that’ll will convince the rest of the city to kneel at your feet?”

  She mock glared at him as she joined him on the other end of the window seat. “Hardly. But I dusted off a gown that will suit. I don’t see how this plan will succeed. The Houses were precariously balanced before during Gorkin’s possession of the Crown. With everything knocked askew, and so much blood spilt, I don’t see how we’ll be able to put things to rights.”

  “Two of the old leaders are dead: Melisende and Lord Draken. We’ve Josse and the Draken kid to deal with, which is already a big change. And we really only need one or two to come over to convince the others to do the same.”

  Anna smiled. “You sound so confident. If only I’d known that House politics this simple all along.”

  Harald grinned. “Well, seeing as we’ve no choice, I’ve chosen confidence over despair. I notice you haven’t suggested a different course of action.”

  “Because other than hunkering down under Lady Hammerfell’s protection, I don’t see one.” She rested her chin on the base of her palm and stared into the darkness. “To think Vic of all people could have brought this to pass.”

  “Vic.” Harald looked outside as well. “There’s going to be an accounting. If he survives. If we survive. But…”

  He trailed off, eyes narrowing. Was that… movement? Lithe forms had leaped neatly over the great wall that fronted the avenue to land in the darkness amongst the bushes and shrubbery that lined the edge of the garden.

  “What is it?” asked Anna, sitting up as she noticed his sudden tension.

  “Anna, find Sam and Nessa. Flee the manor. Quickly.”

  She didn’t protest as some nobles might—instead she rose and ran lightly from the room.

  A glowing arrow burned a trail through the air as it sped from above to flash toward the figures. It was followed by another half-dozen in rapid order, and where they hit came a concussive boom as they detonated, sending showers of dirt and chunks of the back wall tumbling into the far avenue. The distant figures ran out wide, and Harald was able to make out details: great ram horns, form-hugging armor festooned with spikes and hooks, expanses of pale flesh, burning purple eyes.

  Oh shit.

  Harald rushed out of the parlor, down the great hall, threw the great deadbolt aside and yanked open the front door.

  Only to find the chaos from seconds before already abated. Six Handmaidens strolled toward him as if at a tea party, no longer harried by attacks from above. All were smiling, some demurely, others with overt wickedness, and their eyes burned the same haunting lavender. The moonlight gleamed on their articulated armor and bare flesh, and their cloaks rippled as they approached.

  Eadwolf? Harald heard sultry laughter from above, then a cruel titter, and his blood ran cold.

  He had to hold their attention while Sam and Nessa got Anna away. How powerful had Vic said the Handmaidens were? Powerful enough that even Brianna didn’t want to face them en masse.

  Now there were six of them closing on him, with who knew how many more up above.

  Harald made his way down the steps into the night air, summoning Chyron’s Scourge as he went, but forced himself to remain relaxed, to not show his beating desperation.

  Exero’s mote followed him, its light dim, and Harald thought he could sense the angel’s interest quicken.

  But something told him the Shattered Seraph wouldn’t intervene.

  Six Handmaidens.

  He summoned the Aureate Master, and felt his stats leap to dizzying height. But they only provided the illusion of lethality: even as he felt power and predatory grace enter his frame, as his reserves of stamina and his mental acuity sharpened, he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  He could tear through a hundred hobgoblins with ease. Could kill Thracos single-handed now. Had come so far, so fast.

  But against the Handmaidens?

  Against the chosen lieutenants of Eclavistra herself?

  He could only pray to buy moments.

  The confidence of the approaching female demons was complete. Unhurried, their hips swaying seductively, they closed the net and came to a stop a dozen paces from him, a half-circle spread out across the drive and grass.

  Casually, hoping against hope they wouldn’t take offense, he summoned the Aetherlight Circlet about his brow, and felt his nimbleness and depths of energy double. Now at least he could take scant comfort in knowing the first ranged attack against him would be repelled.

  Strange. Their faces were flickering slightly, distorting with spasms of faint light that failed to hold. He caught brief fragments of different faces, expressions warmer, features less cruel, but these failed to hold. Their gazes were fixed on Exero’s mote, wary, watchful, uncertain.

  Was the Seraph helping him, or was this his own power allowing to see through their illusions?

  Harald summoned the Solace of Aurelum into an inside pocket and felt the dense golden ball pull upon the cloth. By the angels! His breath slowed as he felt himself somehow grow even more hale, as doughty as an old oak, unstoppable, with endless reserves of strength.

  “Welcome to Sonora Manor.” He pitched his voice to carry, tried for jocular bon homie. The three leaders who had stood beside Vic in the cathedral were absent. A small grace. “I’m afraid Lady Anna is unavailable to visitors. Perhaps you could return another time?”

  Light thuds caused him to glance back over his shoulder; Handmaidens had leaped lightly from the rooftop, two, four, no, another six.

  Twelve in all.

  They sauntered outward, perfecting the circle around him.

  Quickly, he summoned his stats, intent on checking the numbers.

  Str: 29

  Dex: 27

  Con: 37

  Ego: 32

  Pres: 13

  He’d never changed the Artifacts he’d carried into battle with Brauxis. And while he now had the Constitution of a Gold-ranked raider, his Presence was that of a regular man. No wonder the demons were smirking.

  They’d no idea what they were facing.

  But his Ego was impossibly high. No doubt why they’d failed to sway him with their powers. Just wait till he unveiled the Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant.

  A familiar Handmaiden laughed, amused no doubt by his polite dismissal, and she placed a clawed gauntlet on her ample hip. “Oh, I fear we’re all too accustomed to forcing our way into where we’re not wanted. But we’re never resented for long. Our company is just too enthralling.”

  “I know you.” Harald wagged a finger at her, trying his best to control the thrill his augmented stats imparted upon. “You were on the Avenue of Penitence.”

  It had to be her. The massive curling ram horns, the huge skull-pauldron on one shoulder, the white corset, the lavender tabard-skirt.

  The demoness pulled her gaze away from the mote and curtsied, pulling at an invisible skirt as she bowed her great horned head. “Elixethera at your service. I asked to lead this mission, as you so intrigued me last time. A strong man. So much promise. Such deep wounds.” She pouted. “Somebody was very mean to you when you were growing up. Was it daddy?”

  Harald grinned. “I bet you don’t call him that to his face.”

  Her pout spread into a grin. “One day I shall, perhaps, when he bends me over his knee. But for now, I’ve come with a message of peace and love. You see, there are ample rewards to bending knee. Pleasures such as you can’t imagine. And pain, if that’s your preference.”

  Her words echoed strangely in Harald’s mind, and lingered, their intent alluring, their suggestion potent. Impossibly so. Harald restrained the urge to scowl as he broke free of their power, thankful as ever for his impossibly high Ego.

  And thankful that she seemed willing to waste time talking.

  “My apologies,” said Harald and made himself smirk in what he hoped was an infuriating manner. “I’m already sworn to Vorakhar. Eclavistra will just have to get in line.”

  “Yes, you’re his little darling boy, aren’t you? But that need not be the case.” The first demon took a step forward. “Why not serve alongside your friend Vic? You could fight together. Swap masters. Lady Eclavistra is so much more rewarding.”

  Again, the words seemed to lash around him, muting his other thoughts, heightening the appeal of joining Vic, of surrounding himself with these beautiful demons, of enjoying their company, their attention…

  Images filled his mind. Their black-painted lips parting with desire, the tips of their talons trailing lines of fire across his flesh, their skin against his own, faces crowding around him, the sweet and heady savor of lust…

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  Again, Harald pushed the urges away, but this time it took greater effort. Were they coordinating this mental attack? He felt himself trapped like a fly in the center of a web, his mind straining to retain its clarity.

  But each moment was buying his friends time. This wasn’t going to end well, but if he could but delay these demons…

  “Well, you’re going to have to do a better job than that,” he said, pretending to relax. “Other than boring demon sex, what does she have to offer? Vorakhar has claimed a Throne, and this guy over here—” and Harald thumbed at the mote, “will tear my head off if I go haring after another demon.”

  “It seems mere words it seems won’t sway your mind.” Elixethera reached behind her back and drew out a heavy coiled whip, its black length gleaming as if wet and barbed with cruel hooks. “No matter. We don’t mind a little rough housing, either.”

  Time seemed to slow as all around him a dozen demons tensed as they went to attack.

  Harald engaged Abyssal Imperium.

  And the abyss answered his call. Heeding Eadwolf’s wisdom, he allowed the power to flow through him, to not think of it in terms of its composite parts, but as one unhallowed whole, a wellspring of the void, of the emptiness he now carried permanently in his soul.

  The air dimmed, grew thick and turgid, sounds muffled, distances skewed. Motes of void-glass appeared in the air and began to drift with lazy indifference. The energy of the abyss began to collect within him, to form the heartbeat, that potent pulse, that had so sickened and upset Eadwolf.

  But he wasn’t the only one with superlative powers. He could simultaneously sense the air growing charged with the Handmaiden’s own powers and auras, felt the crash of their will and lust and beguilement crash against his mind, seeking to sweep away his resistance, to force him to drop his sword and bend knee, to weep tears of bitter shame for having resisted the Handmaiden’s beauty, to—

  Harald ceased repressing the Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant.

  The platinum ring of cold power manifested in the air above his brow, and with and the air seemed to thunder as he projected his displeasure, his ire, his fury at the Handmaiden’s around him. Ambient dread filled the air, flooding the lawn like a tidal wave of black despair, repelling their focused mental attacks. It washed out over them all, causing their burgeoning grins to falter, their eyes widened as their delight at the prospect of battle was replaced with something utterly alien to them: fear.

  From his depths he summoned Shadowpaw even as he charged Elixethera. From the depths of his Cosmos he drew the great mastiff, who appeared off to one side, made massive and even more formidable by Harald’s newfound connection to the abyss.

  Shadowpaw lunged toward the closest demon, baying as he went, and his terrible howl caused the very air to feel jellied and cold with nauseating panic.

  Even as Harald rushed at the stunned demon, who had clearly not expected such vigorous resistance, Harald unveiled the last aspect of his might: he unclenched a spiritual fist, relaxed his mortal vigil, and allowed the Well of Starless Dominion to open like a baleful eye.

  Baleful hunger swept out across the battlefield.

  The desire to consume. To drain, to drink the very life force, the living essence of every living being around him filled the air, overlaying Imperium’s own distorting malice.

  Instantly he sensed the wounds appearing on the demons who were only now beginning to react around him. The floating motes of void-glass left razon-thin slashes of pure black across their alabaster skin as Imperium worked on degrading his foes, weakening them, weighing down on them, turning the very landscape and air against them.

  And with those first cuts, the cycle began.

  But this time, it felt different.

  From Eadwolf he’d received vitality. Hot, potent, and crimson in his mind, it had poured into the abyss and felt mortal and succulent.

  From the demons?

  He drew something new, something familiar, something inebriating and heady beyond compare.

  Their demonic essence.

  So familiar to his own.

  The very stuff of the abyss flowed through their bodies.

  Dark majesty fueled by the void, by Eclavistra’s power.

  Demonic energy.

  It was so much more potent than anything he’d drawn from Eadwolf.

  Exhilarated, Harald laughed and leaped, his Form changed body soaring through the air to crash down upon the Elixethera who rolled lithely away—or tried to. Imperium made her clumsy, Crown delayed her reactions, so that what should have been a smooth evasion was a rough dive to the side. Harald missed by a hair, then turned to block a whip that snaked out in an attempt to wrap around his neck.

  The whip curled around the Scourge, and the demon yanked, trying to tear it from Harald’s grasp—only for the Epic-ranked edge to slash the whip apart.

  A halo of black fishhooks appeared around the demons closest to him, even as the third lunged in for a grapple, her eyes burning like purple fire. Harald spun away, smashing the flat of his sword into her shoulder with such force that it should have sent her staggering—but it felt like hitting a tree. The blow that should have sent her staggering barely made her shift — for all his Constitution, he simply wasn't strong enough to move a Level 10 demon. Harald stumbled, decided to go with it and fell into a roll, coming up just in time to parry a wicked black sword that flashed toward his face.

  “Desist!” cried a Handmaiden, her black lips drawn back from perfect teeth in a snarl. “Stop fighting and know that you are beaten!”

  Her words hammered against his mind, then curled around his thoughts with insidious intent, seeking to undo his resistance.

  For a moment Harald sagged, but then the Crown burned away the command. But it was a lethal moment of hesitation.

  Demons were closing in all around him, unhurried, delighted, laughing and calling out insults.

  A dozen.

  For all his power, all his might, for all that the Well was steadily draining them of their vitality even as Imperium warped and slashed them, he knew himself out matched.

  Ah well.

  Everyone had to die one day.

  Harald grinned and clenched his jaw, willing the very air to consume the hissing demon.

  Darkness closed about her, a sudden cloud of ruin filled with slashing blades, and she screamed even as she threw herself aside.

  But Harald could sense the dozen wounds he’d opened in her flesh. Black smoke fled from the cuts toward him, an inrush of demonic vitality that fed the Well, which augmented him in turn, and then cycled out to imbue Shadowpaw.

  And all the while the void-motes slashed and cut and razor-touched the demons who closed around him. Each cut gave the Well more purchase, and more power that flowed into him.

  The demons circled him, their confidence now tinged with a hint of wariness—the wolf pup could nip, it seemed—but little did they know. His energy had built up to a sufficient mass; with a grin he released the first pulse of nauseating might.

  It tolled forth like the boom of a great bell, rolling over the lawn and washing over the demons. They flinched, blinked, faltered, and he could only imagine the spike of nausea and vertigo they’d felt for a second.

  And it would keep coming.

  But they had their own dark magic at play. Even as they recovered from the pulse, he realized that they were beginning to weave around him in circles, their actions growing ever more frenzied. Some power that augmented their martial skill, a dance? He could sense their growing ecstasy, their delight in battle—and how they were moving quicker for it, forming an ever-shifting ring of blades and whips and floating barbs.

  Exero had floated above the fray, easily lost against the starlit sky, a single, disinterested mote.

  No ranged attacks yet. Which was good, and also a waste of an Artifact. Harald turned in place, Scourge raised before him, trying to decide where to strike, knowing that each moment not only put Anna farther away, but allowed the Well to drain the demons further.

  And somewhere the Fallen Angel wept. Because their essence felt good.

  Time to battle.

  Harald focused his anger on the closest demon, and the darkness coalesced around her, a thousand blades manifesting to slash and cut and pry her body apart. The demon screamed in shock and fury, and every gash that was torn open sent more demonic vitality into his Well. Not hesitating, Harald dove at her, a hundred hooks catching on his shadowed flesh and scoring thin cuts in his skin despite his shadow-fortified defenses, and he brought the Scourge down in a great overhead slash.

  The demons hadn’t yet figured out how potent his blade was. Thought, perhaps, it was Masterwork level, or something equally suitable to a Level 9 raider.

  The Scourge rippled as it cut through multiple dimensions, sheared the wounded demon’s arm off at the wrist as she raised her black glass blade to parry, and then clove straight into her chest.

  Which burst into great crystalline chunks of black gore, her chest rupturing, her scream shrill and panicked then cut off as she fell to the ground, undone.

  A great flood of energy poured into the Well, but even as Harald captured her vitality, he reached out and snagged something else. A wisp of elusive essence, something only Dungeon monsters possessed, her very spirit, her core.

  He snagged it, grasped it tight, and yanked it down into his Cosmos. Even as he stumbled, turned, and raised the Scourge once more, he felt the Handmaiden coalesce within his depths, and instantly summoned her right back.

  She materialized by his side, her flesh blackened and smooth as jet, her eyes twin limpid pools of oil, her hair now pure shadowed black as it fell down her armored back.

  A Shadow Handmaiden.

  Oh, but she was powerful. He didn’t have time to examine her properly, but already the Well was pouring fell energies into her, augmenting her further, and she raised her black blade in salute as she fell in beside him, turning to face her former sisters.

  “You dare?” Elixethera ceased her dance to glare at him, outraged, her lavender eyes bulging. “To our sister? You dare enslave…?”

  As one the other ten Handmaidens screamed in horror and rage, and charged.

  Shadowpaw lunged from somewhere, from nowhere, and plowed into two of them, maw turned sideways to clamp onto a shoulder even as the Shadow Handmaiden laughed and flung herself into the oncoming tide.

  Harald laughed and followed after.

  It was a nightmare. It reminded him nothing so much of being overwhelmed by the army of Terror Birds on the 21st Level, when all had descended into madness. His mind was buffeted by countless psychic attacks, horns slashed and dug into his shadow-armored flesh, he swung the Scourge about frantically in an attempt to keep the worst of the attackers at bay, willing Imperium’s carnivorous clouds to manifest as pulse after pulse flooded out from him.

  But he was saved as much by the Crown of the Abyssal Tyrant as his martial skills—wherever he turned his glare, wherever he placed his attention, Handmaiden’s hesitated, drew back, eyes widening at the force of his will.

  Sword clashed, women screamed, but despite his best efforts blow after blow landed on him, their edges dulled by his hardened shadow body, which strove time and again to block and repel the wicked edges.

  But he was one man against six or eight at a time, and the Handmaiden’s fought with seamless fluidity, laughing now as they pressed him, enjoying themselves again as they knocked him from side to side, and then he felt his newly recruited Shadow Handmaiden disappear, her head clean shorn off.

  Shadowpaw bayed.

  Harald strove to keep to his feet. He felt no pain, only rising fury. He swung, connected with a hip, burst it open into chunks of black crystal, and more essence flooded into the Well.

  The tide was turning against the demons. They were toying with him, but that was taking a toll. All the while void-motes were slashing them open, nausea and the Crown’s authority making them indecisive, off-balance, and slow. With each passing moment more of their strength flooded into Harald, and it was this unholy bond that now kept him on his feet, long after he should have crashed to his knees in exhaustion and weakness.

  Something took out his foot from beneath him just as he stepped back, and Harald crashed to the turf. He went to roll but a blade punched into the grass just beside his face, so he reversed direction and a second did the same, pinning in place.

  Elixethera loomed above him, her face scored with razor cross-hatchings that leaked black blood. “Let me show you what you’ve been missing,” she hissed, and fell upon him full-long.

  Harald tried to raise the Scourge but was too slow. The Handmaiden fell upon him like a lover, thrust her thigh between his own, plunged her taloned hands into his hair, and then skewered his soul.

  His spine responded.

  He felt his back wrench as his very bones sought to dislodge themselves and burst free of his flesh.

  No pain.

  Never any pain.

  But the sensation of wrongness was terrifying.

  Harald tried to throw Elixethera off, who was laughing now and leaning down to lick his cheek, but a third blade slid over his throat, trapping him in place.

  Again, his spine undulated, and he felt his shadow body strain to maintain its integrity.

  “What’s the matter, Harald?” one of the demons cried. “Not man enough for her?”

  “Thrust back, big boy! Enjoy the moment!”

  “It’ll be your last!”

  Harald wrenched his mind back into a place of control, forced the fear and rage away, and went to summon Imperium about Elixethera when the world turned white.

  A great dome of pure light flooded upward in a stream to curve overhead and arch back down, surrounding them all in holy radiance.

  The demons screeched in horror and pain, and Elixethera reared back, one arm upflung to shield her eyes.

  Harald scrambled to one side as healing energy played over his body in blue glimmers. It felt like a warm caress, a loving touch, and wounds and cuts and scrapes began to heal over.

  Sam’s Starlight Bastion.

  Sam’s Warden’s Pulse.

  Which meant - damn it!

  Gratitude mingled with anger. They’d chosen to come back for him. They’d chosen to die with him. The warmth of Sam’s presence mingled with his refusal to let her be harmed.

  But what could he do?

  Harald scrambled to his feet as the Handmaiden’s drew back. There were only ten of them now—he’d killed one, and either Shadowpaw or the Shadow Handmaiden had killed another.

  But several of them were badly wounded, mauled by teeth or slashed by a keen edge, or even nursing body parts that had been crystalized and brutalized by the Scourge.

  And there—Sam approached, arm upraised, Nessa by her side. Both looked shaken, eyes wide as they stared at the demons who drew back from Sam’s holy energy, both clearly aware of how desperately outmatched they still were.

  “Enough,” called Sam. “In the name of the Fallen Angel, I command you to leave this place or be extinguished.”

  Sam’s Beacon of Hope buoyed Harald’s spirits, and he slowly fell back toward them, fighting to catch his breath, his steps a limp from his wrenched back.

  “The angel-whore shows herself,” laughed Elixethera. “Good. We’ll not kill you but drag you back down to Eclavistra herself. Oh, she loves playing with innocents like you. She can make it last for weeks. Weeks that feel like years.”

  “That’s where I know you from,” said Nessa, snapping her fingers. “You remind me of Sabatha. She thought the world of herself but could only charge a Silver Crescent from her customers. The johns said she just wouldn’t shut up.”

  Elixethera’s lips carved themselves into a silent snarl. “Well then. I’ll personally take care of you.” Then she laughed. “Handmaidens? Enough playing. It’s time to get to work.”

  She straightened and pointed at the trio with her whip. “Tear them apart.”