The morning of the assault came in a frenzy of activity. Rangers and ordinary warriors scurried back and forth through the tunnels of the village, preparing their weapons and gathering their squads. I waited with the rest of the Council at the chosen mustering ground of the main village entrance and fielded questions from the various leaders as they made the strength of the Erin-Vulur ready to fight. The priests I now commanded were in fine form during all of this, helping to organize and coordinate the muster. Most of them wore maces at their waists or carried spears. They would not be joining us in the fight. Instead, they would be ensuring the safety of the noncombatants of the tribe, ensuring that no horrible threat could circle behind us and exterminate the heart of the Erin-Vulur. We were going to do this right. We were going to go out there, hit the Dark One wearing Barbas' face, and then we were going to save this world. But there was one order of business that had to be dealt with before we left.

Vassa fell heavily to his knees before me, shaking in the cold and spitting curses between his chattering teeth. I waved for the priests escorting to leave him there, and they backed away, leaving him shivering on the ice before me.

"Vassa Atralad. You stand accused before your people of conspiring with the Dark Ones, and assisting them in their campaign to scour the Erinye from this world. You brought one of the foul Children of the Eater King into the village, and in doing so, you exposed all of the Erin-Vulur to danger. You have used the honorable position given to you to advance the cause and support the efforts of the great enemy of your people, and so I name you Traitor before all of these witnesses. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Vassa tried to rise and spit in my face, but I froze his tongue in his mouth with a minor effort of will. He fell to the ice, strangling on his own tongue, on his own spit, asphyxiating for the second and final time at my feet. I wouldn’t be letting him go this time. I looked over at Perwik, who nodded grimly. “Your last words are noted,” said the Master of the Rangers, ignoring the struggles of the former High Priest of the Erin Vulur.

"Bring me the next one," I ordered, and the priests dragged Lot before me, kicking the dying Vassa out of the way as they came. In the week since Lot had been unseated, the former Elder Stormcaller had lost a lot of weight. He had only been eating when forced, and his eyes had gone dead. When the priests released him, he slumped to the ground before me and refused to meet my eyes. "Lot Ekenad," I addressed to him, not softening my tone one iota. Somewhere to my right, Vassa's struggles were slowing. "You are accused of failure in your duties as Elder, and of betrayal of the trust of your people. You tried and failed to kill me. You are not being judged for the attempt on my life- after all, the Great Mother herself proclaimed that no outsider should be allowed to come to her world except for her express decree."

I stepped forward and seized the old mage by the chin, forcing him to look at me. “You are being judged for failing to seek the counsel of the Great Mother in the matter, as you were taught. You cannot be judged too harshly for this failing since your predecessors had long since forgotten the location of Ravanur's temple. In the absence of word from the Great Mother, your duty stood the same as it had for generations. Kill the interloper. But you failed. And not only did you fail to kill me, but you betrayed one of your own, accused him of the crime of corruption, and tried to murder him." Lot's empty eyes might have been focused on me, but I couldn't tell. With the blank, empty black stare of a Stormcaller, his eyes could have been anywhere. Even so, I thought I felt them meet mine. I let go of him, and he slumped back to the ice. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Lot didn’t say anything. He sat like a deflated balloon, slumped to his knees. He didn’t even try to speak. I frowned. What was wrong with him? I reached out with my senses and concentrated on him. Beside me, Volistad and Nissikul were doing the same. I realized it in a moment of frozen horror. Lot didn’t have a heartbeat. The corpse lurched up off the ground in a spasm of blind violence, leaping towards me with claws outstretched for my throat. I reacted without thinking, stepping forward and meeting the lunge with my fist, putting my whole weight and strength into a strike to the dead man’s chin. His jaw broke like thin ice, and he soared away from me in a tangle of limbs, tumbling for several meters before sprawling out on the ice. I clenched and unclenched my fingers. Not bad.

Nissikul was already moving forward, a black hammer forming in her hands. The former Elder’s corpse twisted and lurched to its feet with an insect’s unnerving grace, but it didn’t get another chance to attack before Nissi came in swinging. Her hammer crushed Lot’s skull and sprayed gore all across the onlookers in our gathered army, slamming the withered old body to the ground with punishing force. She should have seen it coming. The headless body burst, suddenly, the ribs springing wide open like a trap and releasing a wriggling, metallic insect that promptly sprang for her face. She was off balance and was unable to dodge, and with her one arm caught up holding the hammer, she wasn’t able to stop the Eater’s Spawn from latching onto her face. It pierced her flesh with its needle-point legs and immediately started trying to force its way into Nissikul’s mouth. Volistad and I surged forward, but just then, at least fifty other Erinye standing amidst our army burst into frenzied violence and attacked everyone around them.

The whole scene erupted into chaos. Volistad, still screaming for his sister, was borne away by the crush of the panicking crowd. I tried to push toward where I had last seen Nissi, but even with my incredible new strength, I couldn't force my way through a crowd of panicked frenzied warriors. All around me, more and more Erinye went dead in the eyes and began tearing apart everyone around them. It was a complete bedlam. It was a bloodbath. We were all going to die. I had to find Volistad. I had to find Nissi. I had to-

Elder Perwik hit me from the right and bore me to the ground, snapping furiously at my face with his fangs. I got an arm between his body and mine and forced the snapping jaws away from my face. With such a close look at the inside of his mouth, I noticed something that I hadn't seen before. Perwik didn't have a mouth full of ursine fangs, like any of the other Erinye. His teeth were sharp, to be sure, but instead of an orderly collection of carnivore's fangs, his mouth was filled with a double row of razor teeth, like those of a piranha. His breath was foul and reeked of old blood as he shrieked a horrible, high-pitched cry into my face. I reeled back before the insane attack, trying to get a grip on my sword. Perwik gave me a wide demon's smile and tried to snap at my throat again. Forget the sword, said a voice inside my skull, and I reached up with my mind to the waiting storm lying dormant in the clouds. It was always there. It just needed a reason to serve. I gave it that reason.

Lightning blasted down, striking Elder Perwik and flinging him away from me. He shrieked again, the sound so very unlike the roar of an Erinye. His eyes bored into mine as the electricity seared through his body, and I saw it. He was fully awake- fully aware. He wasn't a puppet corpse or a temporary vessel like Kotikedd. He had not been corrupted. He had never been Erinye. And his spawn were all around me. "You!" I screamed. “What are you?”

The monster before me didn’t answer, but I didn’t need him to. He didn’t shed his Erinye shape so much as he unfolded. I looked upon a segmented, metallic monster as tall as a man, with a terrifyingly human face and a wide shark's mouth. His armored body was covered in hundreds of little tendrils, and even as I watched, the world seemed to warp around him in a wave as a shudder passed through that forest of little appendages. From his brow grew a neat circle of curling horns, so distinct in their pattern that I no longer had any doubt of exactly what he was. I was standing face to face with the Eater King.