There was no time to ask questions. Snatching up the dead man's axe, Soterius lifted the heavy blade and went running at full speed toward the attackers that were driving Pell and Andras back to back. With a wild cry he swung the blade, cleaving one of the madmen practically in two. Tadrie seemed to have snapped from his trance, dropping his sword and grabbing a sledgehammer from one of the dead men. He swung the hammer in wide swaths, closing on Pell's attacker. Soterius could see that tears glistened on the farmer's face and he could hear Tadrie murmuring a prayer for the dead. Andras and Soterius made a frontal strike, rushing at the ragtag fighter with a ferocity that matched his own madness and striking with sword and axe. Tadrie's hammer fell from behind, taking off the back of the man's head.

"I want one of them alive!" Soterius knew as he said it that he was asking a lot from his own men, who, having neatly routed the Margolan troops, were barely holding their own against these berserker fighters. Three of the madmen were still standing, and Soterius could only count half a dozen of his own men on their feet. The trampled snow was red with blood, and bodies littered the space between the hillside and the forest.

There was a rush of air beside him, and a blur of motion. Soterius glimpsed Mikhail as the vayash moru struck at one of the madmen attacking Sahila and another fighter. Soterius jerked his head, and Pell and Andras fell behind him at a run, stopping only for Pell to snatch up the axe from the dead madman's hands.

Sahila swung his heavy two-handed sword in wide swaths, trying to keep his distance from the madman who was advancing, completely heedless of the blade. As they grew closer it was apparent that Sahila's companion was badly wounded, but he attempted to back up Sahila nonetheless. Soterius watched in horror as Sahila's blade connected with the advancing fighter, severing his arm at the shoulder. Still the madman came on, with no hint in his expression that the pain even registered. Soterius, Pell, and Andras charged from behind. Soterius let his axe fly when he came into range. The heavy weapon spun handle over blade, until it hit with a sickening thud in the middle of the madman's back. The big man dropped to his knees without a sound, and fell face-forward into the snow.

To his left, Soterius saw Mikhail engage another of the madmen, while across the way, Tadrie and one of the other refugee fighters were holding their own against the last of the attackers, keeping him at bay until a third refugee hurled a large rock at the madman's head. The madman fell and lay still.

Soterius looked around. From the position of the moon, barely a candlemark had passed since they attacked the Margolan soldiers. "Check the bodies!" he shouted. "Don't leave any of our own!" Grimly, the men still on their feet began to check the fallen, dispatching one or two of the badly wounded Margolan soldiers who had not yet died with a merciful sword strike.

One of the fighters was already calming the horses, and after carefully checking the box that was still hitched to the harness, he waved for his fellows to begin the grim work of bringing the dead and those too badly wounded to walk into the wagon.

"A little assistance, if you please." Mikhail did not even sound winded, although he pinned the last of the berserker fighters in his grip. Soterius, Pell, and Tabb ran to help him, grabbing rope from the soldiers' packs. They trussed up the struggling madman from shoulders to ankles, taking no chances. The man struggled and bucked with his full might, but where Soterius should have expected a captured soldier to curse them and spew profanities the berserker raged incoherently. Up close, the madness in the captured man's eyes was even more disturbing, as if his humanity had been stripped away, leaving something feral in its place. Soterius noted as they bound the man that the prisoner was badly wounded, with deep gashes that would have disabled a normal soldier.

"Let's get them to the healers," Soterius sighed, wiping the blood off his hands in the snow. Mikhail lifted the trussed-up madman with immortal ease; the wagon shuddered when Mikhail dropped his cargo in. Pell counted as they loaded bodies and wounded men into the wagon, while Sahila took roll among the surviving fighters. Three of their own were dead. Three more, including Tadrie, were too badly wounded to walk back to camp.

"Let's get that arm bound before you need the wagon, too." Mikhail stood next to him, with strips of cloth Soterius bet the vayash moru had torn from one of the dead men's shirts. As usual, he had not heard his friend approach. Soterius let Mikhail bind up his arm, just now becoming aware of how much it throbbed, and that he could no longer feel his feet in the bitter cold.

"We lost too many," Soterius sighed, looking over the bloody snow.

"They fought well against the regular soldiers," Mikhail observed. "But what came out of that wagon—we didn't train for that."

"What were they?" Soterius did not expect an answer.

"Ashtenerath." It was Tadrie who spoke, from where he sat huddled in the back of the wagon-box, as Pell did his best to dress the farmer's wounds. Soterius frowned, recognizing the term from old tales.

"Awakened dead?" Soterius replied, meeting Mikhail's gaze. "Those are just stories told to scare children."

"Not necessarily," Mikhail said quietly.

"That man... was my brother-in-law," Tadrie said haltingly, shivering with the cold. Andras stripped cloaks from the dead soldiers and distributed them among the wounded and survivors. "He was taken by Margolan troops six months ago. We thought he was dead. Better for him if he had been," Tadrie said, still obviously shaken by the encounter. "The Lady forgive me. I had no choice but to kill him, although I don't know how to tell my wife." He shook his head. "Then again, that... thing... wasn't really him, at least, not in his right mind."

"What do you mean, 'not necessarily?'" Soterius looked from Tadrie to Mikhail. Pell finished binding up Tadrie's wounds and stepped back, closing up the wagon doors for the slow trip back to the refugee camp. Soterius and Mikhail, two of the least wounded, led the group. Andras guided the horses with Tabb as guard, and Sahila and Pell brought up the rear.

"During the Mage War, the Obsidian King was able to reanimate corpses on the battlefield," Mikhail said as they walked. "I didn't see it myself, thank Istra, but I knew men who saw it first-hand. Such fighters were of little use other than to terrify their comrades."

"So such a thing is possible?" Soterius remembered the story Carroway had told him, about the vengeful woman's ghost who had tried to possess Carina as Tris and the others were fleeing toward Principality. And while Soterius knew that Carroway was often given to exaggeration to make a tale better, the bard had sworn to him that in this case, the truth needed no embellishment. In Carroway's recounting, Tris had fought the dead woman's ghost for control of Carina's body. In throwing clear the vengeful spirit, he had accidentally cast it back into the woman's corpse, momentarily reanimating her until Vahanian struck her down with a sword.

Mikhail nodded. "But I don't think that's what we fought tonight. The man I captured was alive. Although... there was something that didn't feel right. I suspect that we're dealing with blood magic."

"Prince Martris is a Summoner," Andras said from behind him. "Perhaps he could raise us a whole army from the dead."

Mikhail turned. "I don't doubt that Tris is strong enough to do just that. But no Summoner who serves the Light would do so, on peril of his own soul."

"But we need everything we can get to defeat Jared!" Andras argued.

Soterius shook his head. "I think I know what Mikhail means. And it's the same reason Bricen forbade his troops to torture, even when we fought the Nargi, and even when we knew they tortured our captives. Bricen knew that you can't use the means of the enemy without becoming them. Tris wouldn't do it—and I won't ask him to."