He yelped and jumped backward, tangled his foot on his agolé’s train, and tripped.

Sir Baramon came to Qown’s defense immediately. The knight struck out with his sword, but he didn’t have the count’s demonic strength. He opened a long, shallow cut in the demon’s frozen flesh. The demon ignored the blow and swung at Brother Qown.

Brother Qown screamed.

The demon lashed out with curled fingers, and Sir Baramon pulled Brother Qown to the side. The knight struck again, this time hewing off an arm.

The corpse kept fighting, anyway. Of course.

Then its head rolled away from its shoulders. Count Janel stood behind the falling body, eyes looking like twin suns.

“That was the last,” she said. “Are you two all right?”

“Damn thing nicked my arm,” Sir Baramon said. “No worse than I’ve taken in a bout. I’m fine.”

“Let me look,” Brother Qown said.

“That can wait.” Sir Baramon told Brother Qown. “We have to make sure there’s no more.”

“Oh, I reckon there’s one for every frozen person,” Dorna said, brushing her hands against each other. “But they’re all trapped under ice, so as long as we don’t go and melt that, we’re safe as foals.” She stopped and gave Janel a hard look. “Now tell me. Tell me you ain’t gonna insist we unfreeze them.”

Janel’s expression was ugly. Behind her on the ground lay a rumple of homespun covering multiple corpses. Janel pointed to an azhock that stood far enough from the main town that it hadn’t been frozen and from which no dead had emerged. “Shelter there. Don’t come out until I return.”

“And then what?” Dorna didn’t tell her not to do it. She knew how well Janel would have listened.

“And then we keep going to Atrine. We’ll melt the snow the whole way there if we have to.”

Janel waited until the rest of them had taken shelter.

Then she began her deadly work.

18: DEMON FALLS

Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Jarith Milligreest was killed by Xaltorath

Brother Qown shut his book and gestured to Janel. “Your turn.”

The trip to our dominion’s capital was a dark one for many reasons, not least because of what we’d seen in Tiga Pass.

Ninavis leaned forward. “Wait, what happened next?”

Janel stared at her hands. “Nothing surprising. I thawed the village, dealt with the possessed, then we sheltered in that same azhock while I handled the demons in the Afterlife.” Heartbreak lurked in the matter-of-fact tone she used to describe the day’s events.