Then a Kadoshim was coming at her and she was retreating, slashing with sword and knife, opening a wound across its thigh, a wrist, along the ribs, but it did not seem even to feel the injuries, let alone be slowed down. Blood seeped from the wounds, but slow and thick, not sheeting like she expected. Step by step she retreated, forced steadily out of the ring, towards Skald’s throne and away from the warriors who fought desperately to contain the warband that was forcing its way up and out of the tunnel. A sliver of fear worked its way into her belly as her defences became frantic and ragged. She felt her body weakening, her lungs burning as the Kadoshim pressed on, unrelenting, blow after blow merging into one seamless, constant attack. She blinked what she thought was sweat out of her eyes, but it was blood, a cut over her eye appearing that she hadn’t even felt and the blood wouldn’t stop flowing. The sliver of fear grew.

I may die here. How did Corban make fighting these things look so easy?

Then a warrior swept around her, black-clothed, wielding a curved sword, Akar. He spun around the Kadoshim, coming to a standstill with his back to them both, sword held out to his side in a two-handed grip, dripping black globs of blood. The Kadoshim staggered on a few steps and its head rolled to the side, then toppled to the ground with a thud, its body following a few moments later, mist like black ichor forming in the air, hissing its rage at the world and then evaporating.

Coralen nodded her thanks to Akar and then he was gone, a dozen Jehar moving with him, chopping into the tide of Kadoshim and Vin Thalun that were flowing from the tunnel.

She ripped a strip of cloth from her shirt and tied it around the cut on her forehead, took a moment to look about the room.

More warriors were still entering the chamber. She glimpsed the child-king’s shieldman, Tahir, leading scores of Isiltir’s red-cloaks in a charge down the steps at Nathair upon his draig.

The ring that had formed around the trapdoor was getting steadily pushed back, thinning and starting to fray as more enemy kept emerging from the tunnel, though the numbers of the fallen enemy seemed uncountable, piles of them stacked in an ever-widening circle.

We cannot hold them much longer.

Even as she watched, a break came in their circle and Kadoshim and Vin Thalun poured through it like a flood, spreading into the chamber, turning back to attack the defenders from behind.

Coralen looked about wildly, trying to find her friends in the chaos, having a mind to fight beside them if this was going to end the way she thought.

I wish I’d spoken to Ban. Please, Elyon, let him be safe. Let him live.