The rear door crashed open and filled with two of the four snakes who’d covered the alley. A quick glance told the story.

“They’re gone!” the one on the right called. He was dressed in a blue shirt stained with something black, maybe blood from the long cut on his cheek, maybe Horde sap for all Billos knew.

But his mind was working well enough now to know that things were turning bad.

The two snakes spread out and made room for the other two. All four drilled him with piercing glares, hands spread above the butts of their weapons.

“You’ll do,” Claude growled.

Billos faced him, every instinct now on razor’s edge. This was it, then. He’d failed in this one simple test because Darsal had betrayed him, and now instead of being the aggressor in an offensive posture, he was hopelessly surrounded by an enemy too overwhelming to even consider engaging directly.

But you are the chosen one, Billos. And you were chosen for a reason.

He spread his hands in a gesture of reconciliation and slowly stepped onto the boardwalk. “Okay, settle down. You want to lynch me? Fine. You can string me up and watch me twitch in the air.”

Billos walked directly toward them, ignoring the trembling in his legs. He didn’t know how much power waited between his fingers, or how much power Claude and the company of snakes who were poised to string him up had between theirs.

But he was about to find out.

“Why not make a sport of it, though?” he said.

The dark sky hung low overhead. Sand blew across the ground.

“Pete seems pretty eager to take me on. Let him. One-on-one. Better yet, I’ll take two of you on.”

Claude stared at him, no doubt taken off guard by such a bold suggestion. But he wasn’t agreeing.

“Five, then,” Billos said, halting ten feet from the man. “Put me in a circle with five men.”

“Let’s do him,” one of the throaters said, stepping up. He held a sharpened stake, roughly three feet in length, in each hand. “Let’s stick him.”

“Back off, Roland. He’s a trickster.”

“But only one trickster,” Billos said.

“We can take him, Dad,” Pete said.

Billos glanced behind the men and calmly took in the specifics of his predicament. His fingers tingled with anticipation. Oddly enough, he felt his fear slip away, replaced only with a thirst to see just how much power Black had lit in his hands.

The chosen one. It had a haunting sound.

“Pete’s right. This whole lynching party is a sham. I could take you all with a single sword!” Billos declared.

“Swords don’t do the trick here. The only way you win is to turn the girl over to us; that’s the way it goes.”

The. Chosen. One.