«Until they rip out that wall too.»

«Don't give them ideas,» I growled. «Now we'll just back away.»

For our first two steps backward, the wights did nothing – just fixed their burning gaze on us with a palpable intensity. At our third step, one wight hissed; immediately, all the others took up the sound, a harsh rush of breath cutting across the midnight wind.

«Time for a strategic withdrawal?» Yasmin suggested.

«I'd prefer to run like a son-of-an-orc.»

So we ran, an army of undead at our heels.

«Out the back!» I shouted to the others as Yasmin and I hurtled into the kitchen.

«What's the problem?» Hezekiah asked, his voice thick with sleep.

A wight stuck its head through the door. Yasmin cut it off.

«Oh, them again,» Hezekiah said. He heaved Wheezle into his arms, and nudged a yawning Zeerith with his foot. «Time for us to go.»

«Perhaps,» said the naga, «I should stay and fight. If I have magic…»

I looked down at her sleek body, now coated in a flouring of the white dust that layered the whole kitchen. «The magic's gone,» I told her. «Wheezle will explain on your way out.»

Two more wights charged at the door. I took left, Yasmin took right, all the while yelling to our companions, «Run!»

Then there was no time to think about anything but the undead surging toward us like a hissing ocean.

Within seconds, we had six wight carcasses piled in front of the door – enough to form a rampart that kept the other monsters at a disadvantage. They still shuffled forward, trying to push down the wall of bodies and shove their way inside; but with a flurry of jabbing and stabbing, Yasmin and I held the line against them.

Minutes passed: long, tiring minutes of constant fighting. I didn't know if wights felt fatigue, but I was on the verge of exhaustion. My swordplay had turned sloppy… and my mind was clear enough to recognize the degradation in technique, without being able to sharpen up. Claws whisked by my face, coming close enough to tear at my jacket; and the smell of rotting flesh filled the kitchen, biling my stomach with nausea.

«Maybe…» Yasmin panted, «we should try… to escape after all.»

«You think… you can move enough… to run?»

«No.»

Her reply was almost drowned out by the hissing of wights. They could smell victory.

«Yasmin…» I began. «If we're going to die… let me just say —»

«Don't!» she cried. «You'll break my heart.»

I closed my mouth and found enough strength to lop off the arm of a wight reaching for me. The amputated stump spurted red dust; the arm, dropping like a dead-weight, continued to clench its fingers, futilely trying to grab at something. «I know how you feel,» I told the fallen hand.

Yasmin's mouth turned up in a small grin. «Sentimental berk,» she said, trying to hide the smile. Then she tucked a toe under the cut-off arm and kicked it back into the scrum of undead…

…which for some reason had eased off their mob action at the kitchen door. Indeed, they were snarling up a storm of hisses, but not aimed at us – every wight had turned to face the street, and some were already shuffling in that direction, brandishing their claws in a ready-for-business way.

«What now?» Yasmin whispered.

«Now the wights try to kill whoever's coming down the street, while we sneak out the back.»

«But if it's Miriam and her friend out there —»

«They have a fair chance of outrunning the wights,» I interrupted, «while we have no hope of fighting through thirty undead to help them. Let us hie ourselves hence, good woman, before the monsters remember we're here.»

Yasmin didn't look happy about leaving the fight before all the enemy was dead – typical Doomguard – but I nudged her gently toward the door and eventually she started moving. Part of her resistance may have been simple fatigue; she could barely keep her swordpoint off the floor.

We both held our weapons at weary ready as we backed into the garden and the chill Plague-Mort night. Frost was beginning to whiten on the grass, making it easy to see the slithering trail from Zeerith crossing the yard. I wondered how she would react to the cool weather… if she hibernated like other cold-blooded animals. For the time being, however, she was clearly moving fast and strong; I couldn't guess how she climbed over the garden wall, but the marks in the frost showed she had succeeded without fuss.

Yasmin and I weren't fresh enough to scale the wall so easily – it was six feet of solid brick, topped by a row of spikes – but we found enough footholds to clamber over awkwardly and lower ourselves down the other side. Hezekiah was waiting for us, a beaming smile on his homely face. «You made it!» he cried. «Did you kill all the wights?»

Yasmin gave a snort of a laugh. «They let us go,» she told him. «Something else grabbed their atten —»

The wall stood between us and the house, but we could still see a sudden flare of crimson light dazzle the sky. A moment later came the muffled of an explosion. After our experiences of the past week, I had no trouble recognizing a fireball blast… landing, I would guess, in the midst of the wights who filled the house's living room.

«What was that?» Hezekiah gulped, eyes wide.

«Someone must be fighting the wights,» Yasmin replied. «Maybe the Hounds have finally shown up.»

«Can the Hounds shoot fireballs?» Hezekiah asked.

«They can now,» a new voice said.

Miriam stepped from the shadows, accompanied by a gray-skinned woman in her mid-twenties: a striking beauty with high cheek bones and glossy red hair, the kind a man would be happy to bed if he could figure out how to work around the scaly wings that sprouted from her back. The wings were tiny in comparison to the rest of the woman, less than two feet high, with an equally short span; but I had no doubt they could carry her far and fast if the need arose. The Planes are like that – out here, even the most vestigial wings can fly.

«This is the guide I told you about,» Miriam said, gesturing toward the winged woman. «Her name's November.»

«And what race are you?» Hezekiah piped up cheerfully.

His question was greeted with frosty silence from November, and embarrassed shuffling of feet from the rest of us. Finally, November said in a chilly voice, «There are some things you don't ask strangers, unless you like floating face down in the nearest sewage pond.»

«I was just trying to learn,» he protested. «How will I learn if I don't ask?»

November's eyes narrowed. «The multiverse does not care whether or not you learn. The multiverse does not care whether or not you live. Only people care, and precious few of them. Do you hear me?»

Hezekiah gulped. «Okay. Sorry.»

«Apology accepted,» November answered evenly. «And because I know you will make a nuisance of yourself, constantly staring and wondering what I am, I shall tell you I was born the child of a human man and a hell-spawned succubus. Some like to call my kind alu-fiends, but I do not want to hear that word cross your lips. You will call me an alu; my father raised me to suppress the fiendish aspects of my soul, and his spirit would grieve if I were forced to kill you over mere terminology.»

«Alu,» Hezekiah nodded. «A good old alu. Got it.»

He continued bobbing his head like a berk until a scowl from November stopped him.

On the other side of the wall, another explosion raked the sky, followed by a cracking of timbers. Any second, I thought I'd hear the entire house collapse; but the carpenters of Plague-Mort had clearly surpassed themselves in building the place. After two fireballs, an army of wights, and the earlier invasion by Hounds, the house remained standing – on fire now, but still mostly upright.