V

Yoreno unsheathed his sword as he stopped short to meet the screaming guard’s wild stare. “In here!” he said, pointing.

Yoreno went into the room and found a body. It was a castle guardsman, dead on the floor, his cape half covering his bloody corpse. His neck was a ruin.

Next to the dead man was another guardsman, kneeling on the carpet as he looked at the corpse. “Godsdammit!” he muttered. “It’s Sir Moryss.”

“The Lieutenant?” Yoreno asked.

The guard nodded.

“When did this happen?” Cypia exclaimed.

Yoreno whirled on the guard at the door. “Go for help! Quick!” The man nodded and ran out into the hall. Yoreno touched the pooling blood. “It’s pretty slick. This happened moments ago.”

The guard lifted his chin and looked straight into Yoreno’s eyes. And then he smiled. Yoreno frowned. What in the name of the—

That look was demonic.

“Get back!” Cypia commanded.

Yoreno jumped away from the guard as he unsheathed his sword and slashed forward. He managed to doge the attack as Cypia called out a magic incantation that swept the air in the room out toward the guardsman.

He was hit by the magical force and flew through the air, hitting the wall, along with the body and most of the furniture. Glass shattered and paper lifted into the air.

The guardsman snarled something unintelligible and a blur shot past Yoreno. Whatever it was, it missed him and he rushed to the end of the room and brought his sword down in an overhanded arc, but the blade was stopped when the guardsmen blocked with his own sword.

Yoreno back-stepped and attacked the guard with short successive lunges, the point of his blade coming in multiple times with deadly strikes.

His opponent dodged them all, snarling each time the blade missed his face or his chest. Yoreno tried a sweeping arc of his blade, but the man lunged into his space and caught his cross guard with his gloved hand and then kneed him in the chest.

Yoreno fell back on the bloody carpet and was almost sliced down his center, saving himself only because he was able to roll out of the way.

When he caught sight of the guard again, he hadn’t moved, wasn’t moving to attack him. He snarled, tongue coming out of his mouth farther than was normally possible for any human, its redness caressing his now sharp teeth.

“YOU!” Yoreno screamed in accusation.

The guard—the man who had shape shifted into the guard—laughed. Then he jumped over Cypia’s fallen form and sprinted out of the room.

Only then did Yoreno realize she was down.

“Cypia!” he screamed, scrambling to his knees. He scrabbled over to her to find her convulsing as blood gouted from her neck between her fingers. Yoreno pushed his hand against the wound to help stem the hot flow. “Gods,” he cried. “Hang on—I’ll—I’ll get—SOMEBODY HELP!”

“Yo—Yoreno,” she gasped, her body shaking violently.

“Don’t talk. SOMBODY HELP ME!”

Looking down on her, he realized her blood had pooled deeply into the carpet. Yoreno leaned over Cypia, her eyes unmoving and her body completely still.

Gods, no…

She was dead.

Heavy footsteps stamped down the hall and into the room. He didn’t even look up to see who it was as at least half a dozen men in their armor crowded into the room.

“Yoreno!”

It was Dantera.

He looked up, his stinging eyes meeting hers. “I couldn’t—“

She sunk to her knees in front of Cypia, her light skin reddening as she looked at him with eyes filled with murder.

“He was trying to kill me,” Yoreno said. “But he missed and hit—hit Cypia.”

Dantera put a hand on his shoulder. “You did everything you could.”

Yoreno said nothing.

After a time, the room was becoming crowded. Dantera, leaning close to Yoreno, said, “We must know what happened. Yoreno… we must know.”

Nodding, he stood.

Dantera put her hand on his shoulder again and walked him out of the room, away from the madness and the blood that had been left behind.