Leesil's new winged blades were so solid on his arms that he didn't have to think about them. They moved with his body and will. He'd agreed instantly when Wynn had told Magiere to go, for they each had a part to play in keeping the orb from Welstiel.

But at what price?

From the corner of his eye, he saw Sgaile sprawled on the floor, but he could do nothing to help. He had to keep the savage female and Chane at bay. Then Welstiel broke through and ran down the corridor as Osha grappled with a large monk wielding an iron rod.

Desperation drove Leesil to move faster as Chane tried to dodge around. The small woman with the knife threw herself at him. He couldn't turn and stop Chane.

Leesil stepped wide to the left, leaning low, and then shifted right, putting all his weight behind a swing. His right blade tip tore along the woman's waist, splitting her robe open.

Viscous black fluids spilled down her bared abdomen as shock filled her colorless eyes. She screeched and grasped her belly, trying to hold herself together. Leesil brought his left blade across and high when he shifted back to the left.

A heavy weight slammed into his back.

He toppled onto the gutted woman.

Leesil lost sight of the others in a tangle of cold bodies and limbs.

Wynn watched numbly as Chane fled down the passage. She barely even noticed the stocky undead he had thrown into Leesil's back.

So many times she had wondered where Chane was, if he was all right, and if he would finally stay far from Magiere. To see him in company with Welstiel… it was too much.

Wynn came to her senses.

Leesil twisted on the floor in the tangle of two vampires. Sgaile was down, and Chap was in trouble. Any one of them could die.

Wynn clambered to her feet with Magiere's old dagger in her hand as Leesil rammed his elbow back and up. The muscular undead with the iron bar lay atop him, back to back, and its snarl choked off in a grunt as the wing tip of Leesil's blade sank through into its ribs.

Osha tried to close on the muscular undead, his hooked bone knife now gripped in place of one stiletto. The undead rolled off Leesil to its feet and went straight at Osha.

Sgaile curled, trying to pull his knees under and get up. Beneath the warmth of spreading blood, pain spiked in his left shoulder and spread up his neck. He lifted his head, and saw Chap half-buckled beneath two undead, their teeth buried in his neck.

Sgaile cried out.

And then a tingling wave washed over him.

It was much like what he had felt when he fully opened his awareness of Spirit to the life of his people's land. This gift he had been born with, which his grandfather had wanted him to use to become Shaper, had once raised his startled awareness to a majay-hi like no other. He had stood upon a rooftop in Bela, with Leshil in the sight of his shortbow. Then his gaze had fallen upon on Chap for the first time.

As Sgaile kneeled on the chamber floor, the overwhelming sense of Spirit enveloped him.

It radiated from Chap's hunkered form.

Both undead clamped upon the majay-hi began to shudder, but Sgaile saw only death feeding upon what was sacred. He flattened one foot on the floor stones and dove as he stretched out his right hand.

His fingers closed on the younger undead's robe-waist. He tried to twist, pulling down and away as he fell, but the effort cost him. As he crashed to the floor and rolled, all he could do was hold tight.

He pulled the undead away more easily than expected.

Its shriek pierced Sgaile's ears as it tripped on him and fell. Sgaile rolled clear of its flailing limbs and snatched his hand away. He rose on his knees, looking for Chap.

The majay-hi stood braced on all fours.

But the silver-haired undead no longer clung to him. It lay upon the stone floor and began to convulse.

Chap slowly turned his head, torso heaving in strained breaths. His muzzle was nearly black, and his neck was matted in his own blood as he glared at the undead.

Sgaile's gaze fixed on dark lines spidering across the pale form's face and bare forearm.

Black fluids welled around its eyes and ran from its ears. The spidering lines ruptured into cracks that bled more viscous fluids. Steam rose from its wounds in the chamber's cold air, as if heat had suddenly filled this dead thing to bursting.

Then it went limp, as did the younger one. Both lay as still as corpses, steaming as if freshly dead in the frigid air.

Chap snarled once and snapped his jaws closed on the old undead's neck. He ripped and tore at it for an instant, then halted, looking expectantly at Sgaile.

Leshil and Magiere had spoken of how they hunted undead, and Sgaile knew what Chap wanted.

He pulled the tie holding Leshil's old blades to his back. As the bundle hit the floor, he ripped it open and gripped one winged blade.

Sgaile hacked down through the younger corpse's neck with all his weight. Chap released the old one, stepping back, and Sgaile took its head as well.

Leesil heard an angry grunt as the heavy vampire rolled off his back. Before he could twist and slash at its legs, the woman beneath him latched her hand about his throat.

Her mouth widened with lips pulled back from long fangs and sharpened teeth.

Leesil slammed his left blade point through her side.

Her head arched back, eyes clenching shut, but her grip on his neck didn't break. Leesil couldn't get any air.

He levered his blade through her torso, until the point ground through her to the stone floor. When he lurched upward, her arm snapped straight, and he raised the right blade and fell on her.

The blade's outside edge sank into her throat. Leesil shoved down hard.

Black fluids welled over his hand and forearm, and then his blade cracked through her neck bones. Her head rolled away to one side, and Leesil turned over, ripping her limp hand from his throat.

Leesil gasped in air-just as he looked up to see Wynn ram her dagger into the back of the stocky vampire grappling with Osha.

Wynn scrambled in as Osha caught the muscular undead's wrist.

He pulled the man's swing aside but barely avoided the iron bar. As he slashed the bone knife at the undead's throat, Wynn ducked in and rammed her dagger into its back.

The undead twisted sharply and jerked Wynn around by her grip on the hilt. A sharp crack sounded as something narrow and solid whipped down across her thigh.

Wynn's leg gave way, and she crumpled with a sharp whimper. She fell, and the dagger ripped downward a few inches.

Something rancid and oily spattered across her face.

Wynn tightened her grip, and the blade came out. She quickly turned over, pushing up with one hand. The dagger was coated in dripping black.

Osha slid down the wall near the passage.

Blood seeped from the side of his mouth below one clenched eye. Before Wynn could call to him, the large undead whipped around above her and raised its iron bar.

A long split ran from its throat down its upper chest. Osha's knife had struck true, but the undead did not even notice. Wynn shrank away, raising the dagger to shield herself.

A snarling howl echoed through the chamber.

The undead lifted its head and froze, staring beyond Wynn.

"Don't let it get out!" Leesil shouted from somewhere behind Wynn.

The muscular undead spun and bolted down the passage.

Magiere stepped out behind Li'kan into a landing hollow on the edge of a vast cavern.

The glowing orange light was strong in here, filling a space nearly as large as the underground plateau where the "burning" one had crawled from the fiery fissure. But the hot air was far more humid here. Vapors misted off the near and more distant walls, as if the snow and ice above seeped down through the earth to be eaten by the cavern's heat.