Borscht’s chittering intensified, his six legs scrabbling on the grimy floorboards as he launched himself at the nearest elongating darkness, spitting a gob of corrosive green acid that hissed as it vanished into the gloom without effect. Then, from the corners of the room, from behind the discarded flour sacks and the skeletal remains of the grinding mechanism, shapes began to coalesce. Gaunt, desiccated figures rose from the floorboards, clad in the tattered, rime-crusted uniforms of Sable Vanguard hunters. Their eyes were hollow pits flickering with an internal gleam like dying embers. “Revenants,” Dragomir muttered beside me, voice raspy with fever. He drew the shortsword concealed under his cloak. “They’re dead, Zivana. Just husks on strings.” Milena, already in the rafters, had her rifle braced. The first dead hunter, a hulking brute dragging a broken axe, staggered toward us with jerky strides. Milena’s rifle barked, an explosive crack ripping through the mill. The corpse’s head, what little flesh remained, disintegrated in a shower of icy dust and shredded fabric, but the body kept coming, stumbling for another two steps before collapsing into a splintered heap. “They’re brittle,” Milena called down, her voice tight. “Aim for the head. Explosive rounds only. And don’t let them touch you.” Another three figures materialized, converging from different angles. One, a spindly woman with a snapped spear, moved with unnatural speed. Dragomir was already moving, his shortsword a dark blur. He spun, catching the woman’s spear-arm with his blade, slicing through the petrified muscle and bone. Her arm fell, clattering, but her body still lunged, clawing with its remaining hand. Dragomir kicked her back, then brought his sword down on her skull, crushing it with a sickening crunch. He swayed slightly, the effort clearly taxing his poisoned body. “You okay?” I yelled over the groans of the advancing horde. His fever-flushed face was beaded with sweat, his eyes focused, but a tremor ran through his frame. “Fine,” he grunted, though his voice was rough. “Just… keep them off me.” I didn’t have to be told twice. Borscht, hissing like an angry viper, was already engaging a smaller, dog-like creature that had been a scout. He darted around it, spitting acid that sizzled on its icy fur, melting patches of it into steaming puddles before the beast disintegrated into black ash. My own daggers, usually so reliable, felt like toothpicks against the petrified skin of the attackers. I ducked under a swinging fist from a broad-shouldered man, feeling the rush of air as it whistled past my ear. I drove my dagger into his knee, hoping to disable him, but it just scraped off the petrified bone with a grating shriek. The hides were tougher than boiled leather. “They’re not just cold!” I shouted, yanking my blade free. “Their flesh is like obsidian!” Milena’s rifle boomed again, taking down another two of the advancing figures. “Then target the joints!” she commanded, her voice edged with urgency. “Or the core, if they have one!” A massive, towering figure clad in the plate armor of a veteran Vanguard captain lumbered into view. Its crushed helmet framed a desiccated face with glowing voids for sockets. It carried a broad executioner's blade that dragged along the planks, carving deep furrows in the pine. “That’s the captain from the Volkar Pass garrison!” Dragomir said, his gaze locking on the crest. The plated revenant lifted the heavy blade, a dry rattling rasp echoing from its hollow chest, and swung in a vicious arc aimed directly at Dragomir. He moved, but slower than before, his poisoned body protesting. He managed to parry, his shortsword ringing against the frozen steel, but the impact jarred every joint in our shared link. I gasped, a sharp pain radiating from my own arm. Dragomir stumbled back, gritting his teeth. I saw it then, the beast’s intention. It wasn’t just swarming us; it was targeting Dragomir, trying to whittle him down. And he was getting weaker. I couldn’t let that happen. Not now. My gaze flicked up. Above us, a wide wooden balcony circled the interior of the mill, leading to the machinery on the second floor. A reckless notion struck me. I needed leverage to pull him clear. “Dragomir!” I screamed, a plan forming. “Get ready!” He didn’t question it. He just met my eyes, a fierce, unwavering look that spoke volumes. The armored revenant raised the steel again, hollow sockets fixed on Dragomir. I sprinted, scrambling up a precarious stack of old grain barrels and onto a rickety wooden ladder, ignoring the splintering wood under my boots. I scaled it with frantic speed, reaching the balcony just as the massive captain started his downward cleave toward Dragomir. “NOW!” I yelled, and with a leap of faith, I launched myself off the high balcony, straight into the open air. The drop was easily fifteen feet, a height that would shatter bones. But I wasn’t aiming for the floor. I plunged, feeling the wind whip past my face. Below, Dragomir, seeing me fall, instinctively reacted. Dragomir's face flashed with sudden panic as his gaze tracked my drop. The Soul-Tether, sensing the rapidly increasing distance between us, flared with blinding white light. A violent, unseen force caught Dragomir. He cried out, a sound of surprise and pain, as he was flung backward across the room. The captain's blade sliced through empty air where Dragomir had stood a heartbeat before. Dragomir flew, a human projectile, pulled by the magical bond. He slammed into me mid-air, a jarring impact that knocked the air from my lungs. We hit the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and curses, a mess of shared pain and adrenaline. His body, warm and solid, was pressed against mine, his arm awkwardly pinned beneath my waist, my legs twisted with his. My head hit his shoulder with a dull thud, and his rough breathing mingled with my own ragged gasps. For a beat, we just lay there, the shuffling boots of the dead muffled beneath our gasps. His dark eyes locked onto mine, feverish and startled, pupils dilated in the gloom. Pinned together on the dusty floorboards, the tight squeeze of our tether left no space between his ribs and mine. Then, a piercing shriek cut through the dry scraping of the dead. It was Milena. Her explosive rounds had momentarily kept the larger corpses at bay, but she had been focused on the ground. A pool of ink detached from the ceiling beams, coalescing into an oily tendril. It lashed out, a prehensile tentacle of pure darkness, coiling around Milena’s leg. She fired a desperate, point-blank shot, but the shadow seemed to absorb it, tightening its grip. She shouted as the tendril hoisted her off the platform. Her rifle clattered to the floor, useless. The shadow-tentacle dragged her, struggling and screaming, through a gap in the splintered wall, into the pitch-black sprawl of the Volgari woods. Dragomir coughed, a wet, rattling sound. His grip on me tightened, then slackened. The fever was pulling him under again. I had to move. Now. But where? Flee with my dying partner, or risk everything to save my former rival from the very beast that haunted my nightmares?

The Shadow Siege