Meical and Gar added their voices, then others, and slowly the milling, confused mess edged backwards, forming a ring about the trapdoor, leaving a space of ten or twenty paces.

And that will be our killing ground, Coralen snarled to herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet, eager now. Wish I had my wolven claws. Have to do it the old-fashioned way. With her left hand she drew a knife from her belt.

There were a few moments of silence, dust settling, armour creaking as everyone waited.

Then the trapdoor exploded in a deafening burst of wood and iron, a dust cloud billowing out to envelop them. The draig within the tunnel roared its fury and crashed into the chamber, shadowy figures swarming behind it.

Then all became chaos.

The draig ploughed a way through the ring, eviscerating a dozen men too foolish or too brave to leap out of its way, Nathair hacking from side to side with a longsword. A horde of enemy surged after the draig, breaking through the immediate ring and hurling themselves into the warriors who were gathering deeper into the chamber. Meical did not wait for the enemy but strode into the dust cloud behind the draig, one man sealing the gap against so many, his sword a dull gleam as he was obscured; moments later a shadow-demon screeching into existence in the air, and Coralen knew Meical had his first kill.

Gar ran in after him, bellowing, ‘TRUTH AND COURAGE!’ and Coralen followed, screaming at the top of her lungs, all those in the circle adding their voices and surging forwards.

Kadoshim were everywhere, but among and behind them emerged other warriors – ones clothed like the pirates they had stolen the ships from in Narvon, in kilts and vests of leather with short swords and bucklers. Coralen liked them; they were much easier to kill than the Kadoshim. In what felt like no time at all her sword and knife were slick with blood and half a dozen men were dead or dying in her wake.

The Kadoshim were shrieking like the demons they were, frenzied in their killing, and wherever they went the people of Drassil fell. A handful of paces ahead of Coralen Gar and Meical stood like an island against them; almost every other heartbeat a shadowdemon formed like a black marker above them.

A face surged out of the press at her, iron rings in an oily beard, an iron-bossed buckler punching at her face. She swayed to one side, slashed the arm behind the buckler with her sword, stepped in close and punched her knife into a belly, ripped sideways as she stepped away, giving the warrior a shove in the chest to send him stumbling backwards, leaving a trail of his intestines on the floor. Another warrior stabbed at her, blinked when she was no longer where he expected her to be, then choked on his own blood as she raked his throat with her knife.