The chanting on the far bank quickened, then quickened further, keeping pace with Gwenna’s pulse. The other Urghul joined in, and it grew louder. Pikker John screamed, an awful, animal sound, and with his scream, the riders lashed their horses, crops rising and falling over and over, the body suspended between them writhing, his mouth a gaping howl lost on the storm of Urghul voices. In the midst of the chaos, Annick stepped up beside Gwenna, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

“I can stop it. One arrow.”

Gwenna hesitated, watching the horses strain, watching John’s body as it twisted and writhed. “No,” she said, swallowing the bile that came with the word. “They need to see this.”

The sniper turned those hard blue eyes on her.

“They’re not soldiers. It’s terrifying them.”

“They need to be terrified,” Gwenna hissed. “If we lose, if the Urghul take the town, this is waiting for all of them, and you won’t be there to end it with an arrow.” She turned away before Annick could argue with her further, vaulted atop the highest log in the barricade.

“This is what is coming,” she shouted at the crouching townsmen. “It is not a raid. It is not a skirmish. It is the entire Urghul nation, and if we don’t hold them here, they will offer up everyone you know to Meshkent just like they’re doing with Pikker John over there. This is what they do. This is how they worship. This is who they are. So pay fucking attention!”

She wasn’t sure anyone could hear her over the commotion on the far bank, but the message seemed to get through. One man just at her feet was retching into the mud, but most of the small force straightened up, staring at the horror unfolding in what had, until that morning, been a part of their home.

Pikker John must have been made of gristle and bone. Even after he lost the strength to scream, his body held together. Even when the shoulders popped from their sockets and the joints went horribly loose, the ligaments held. For what seemed like hours, the horses pulled on him, pulled, and pawed at the dirt, and snorted, and pulled some more, until all at once, with an awful lurch, an arm tore away. The Urghul shrieked in a kind of collective ecstasy as the one rider galloped down the bank, pumping his fist in the air as that grisly tail bumped along behind him.

The other riders eased off their horses, allowing what was left of Pikker John to settle back to earth, where, amazingly, he writhed until his life drained out of him with his blood. The Urghul unhitched him, dragged the corpse to the river, and tossed it in. Balendin raised his eyes, looking first at the prisoners cowering behind him, then across the river at Gwenna once more.