Running to where his aunt lay, Astrid close behind him, Lann heard the shield maiden cry out. Turning his head in the direction of her voice, he watched as she pulled her hand back and prepared to throw something in the direction of the portal, from which monsters continued to pour. The severed piece of the asghoul’s antler flew out in a high arc, landing in the pulsing blackness of the opening. And as it did, he felt the world pinch back in on itself, snapping shut the terrible breach as if incensed that it had been so violated. No more of the vile creatures could enter now, but more than enough had already managed to cross over.

Lann sobbed as he neared the dying body of his aunt. Blood poured from the dreadful wounds she’d suffered, her clothes already soaked through with the stuff. His head was filled with a tumult of sound: the screeching, gibbering, moaning cacophony of the monstrous horde was matched by the Dreadblade’s screams as it demanded to be about its work. Over and above all this was his own bellowed cry of anguish as he threw his head back and cursed the gods.

Then Astrid was there. Falling to her knees beside his aunt, she looked first at Lann and then at the horrifying host massed behind him.

‘Go!’ she said, her eyes already full of tears. ‘I am with her. Go and do what you must!’

With one last look at Fleya, he turned towards that terrifying horde. Then, driven by rage and grief, he snatched up the sword and ran into it.

To anyone watching that day, it would have appeared that the boy and the dark blade he wielded were a force of nature. Wild, vicious and merciless, they set about the malevolent mass of creatures. Slashing and stabbing, cutting and hacking left and right, they were as relentless as they were ruthless. Limbs were severed, terrible wounds opened up, and blood flowed in torrents from the shrieking, howling things that had dared to come through the portal. Many ran or flew away before this onslaught, seeking to get as far away from the black blade as they could. Others tried to resist, and these were the first to fall, scythed down by the young man and his sword.

The Dreadblade sang in his hand and head. It drank deep that day, doing what it was forged to do. Wild with the bloodlust, Lann had no idea how long the slaughter went on for; time no longer had any meaning to the boy or the blade as they stabbed and slashed and cut. Everything was death and destruction.

When the killing was finally over, the blade fell silent, and both sword and wielder collapsed to the ground amidst the dead.

*    *    *