The plaguespawn came into view a moment later, scuttling around a boulder. It was a big one, the size of a pony, with a mismatched collection of a dozen legs rising and falling on either side of its body in weird, synchronized waves. Like all plaguespawn, most of it consisted of yellow, splintered bones and ropy red muscle, the organic wreckage of several creatures stripped and repurposed by dhaka. Bits of its past prey remained intact—its head was a pair of goats’ heads partially fused together, mouth horribly extended, four horizontal-pupiled eyes blinking in unison.

It came straight at them, legs rising and falling. Gyre intercepted it, darting forward to deliver a slash across its snout that left a flap of wet flesh hanging loose, dripping dark blood. The creature came after him, goat teeth snapping, and he danced backward, slashing at it whenever it got too close.

Kit came in behind the thing, delivering a heavy downward cut to its rear with her longer, heavier blade. Three legs fell away from one side, twitching spastically on the ground, and the thing staggered off-balance. It screeched and chattered madly, trying to turn, but Gyre slammed his long knife into its throat, putting all his weight behind the blow. As it reared, trying to bite him, Kit reversed her saber and brought it straight down through the center of the creature’s body. Blood gushed from its underside, and all its legs twitched violently, then went limp.

“Nicely done,” Gyre said, putting his foot against the monster’s skull and pulling his knife free. Something crunched wetly under his boot.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Kit muttered. “At least up here they’re mostly goat. You wouldn’t believe how big they can get down in the tunnels with only bats and rats to eat.”

“Did you ever ask your friend Naumoriel why the ghouls created the plaguing things?”

“He claims they didn’t,” Kit said. “But trying to get straight answers out of a ghoul about the war is … challenging. You’ll see.” She wiped the blood off her saber on a cloth, then frowned at the rag and tossed it away. “Assuming we get there. And that they don’t kill us immediately when we do.”

“So many wonderful possibilities,” Gyre said.

A few more plaguespawn turned up before nightfall, but nothing nearly so large. The smallest of them could be crushed under a boot or dispatched with a kick, like twisted rats but with none of a rat’s natural intellect or caution. As far as Gyre knew, no one was quite sure where new plaguespawn came from, but the popular theory was that smaller monsters periodically budded from larger ones.