What Yngvarr thought of the gemstone’s influence and capabilities were irrelevant. The shadows had extended and never faltered, as the fog fell thereupon them all. The malice contained in the air itself, not only between Vragi and the Arn, but all around the blazing fire and the smoke that wisped up from it.

  Thither from just past the blonde-warrior arose, a twisted shadow that appeared for a moment no different from Yngvarr at the first.

  Over time, the shadow took on the shape of a helmeted figure, with a dark hauberk and greaves of hardened steel darker than the original appearance of Daegan’s sword. His cloak was as the smoke of the blaze and carried with it a coldness that had none of the warmth of the campfire that divided all the wanderers into from one another.

  In hand he carried a dark-steel blade, the likes of which she had seen but once, this though was not the worst part of the ice in her heart and bones that the shadow spread. For the sentiment was worsened tenfold or nigh on tenfold, but seconds later.

  Heart in her throat, just as it also stalled where it lay hidden behind her breast, Daegan could only stare as what appeared to be a dozen or so shadows twisted themselves and writhed from that of the first.

  They took up position all about the travelers, though they touched not the Great Mound. The nearest of them all to Daegan was two meters from Cormac, the farthest two stood to either side of Bardulf who continued to sleep, though he shivered as one frozen with the cold of winter.

  Not all of the dozen shadows were exactly the same in appearance. For they each bore a different crest, the one which stood thither behind Yngvarr bore, she could vaguely recall the same emblem of the skeletal hand, she had seen on his hauberk in Glasvhail.

  There was one who wore the emblem of a sword frozen in ice upon his hauberk. Another wore a horned kingfisher, another dark horse reared up, the fourth had a dark moon, the fifth carried the emblem of a broken scale.

  The sixth wraith had broken sword, the seventh a broken buckler that had been shattered in twain, the eighth was a warrior of dark thistle with the ninth carrying the proud emblem of a dark-drake.

  The tenth man had a dark war-hammer as all their emblems and hauberks were dark, with the eleventh shadow bearing a red-eyed boar which was one of the most dreadful emblems to look upon.

  The worst of them all and most prominent of them arose beyond him of the skeletal hand. He was taller than the rest; rising as high as seven feet-tall, upon his empty brow he wore a high dark crown whose tips were in the shape of garland-flowers, though they were jagged in appearance and cold to look upon.

  Set upon a war-helm that was as black and evil in appearance as the grown, his hauberk was trimmed with dark-gold just as his chainmail, cloak and greaves were. His hauberk bore no other emblem than that of faded garland flower. This shadow’s sword though was long, initially girded to his waist the pommel was in the shape of a crowned wyvern-head.

  Similar to the brow of a dragon, however the difference lay in the tusks by the maw of wyverns along with the crown-horns they wore upon their jagged brows.

  Such was the dread that washed over Daegan at the sight of this king of shadows, this monstrosity of a demon that she felt her throat close and a swoon nigh overtake her.

  The great pride and vanity that she had borne all her life, believing the name Forlarin to be a glorious thing that set her above all the other lasses of Glasvhail was forgotten then. She wished then for her father to be there, to take her into his arms and to tell her that all was well that the king-shadow who loomed before her was but a nightmare. One conjured forth from the depths of an overactive mind, which had had too much sleep and deer-meat.

  The nearest shadow, he of the skeletal hand drew nigh to Yngvarr, to the open-mouthed horror of Vragi and Daegan, his blade well in hand. It was with a swift motion that he hewed down the mighty Northern warrior, in one fell-swipe of his dark-silver sword.

  The large body fell headless thereupon the sward, by the fire. Cut down without a single act of defiance on his part, nor any further words of bravery or foul treachery to ever again fall from his thin, if thickly bearded lips.

  She had loathed him and though she was even more loathe to ever admit, it for the rest of her life. Daegan grieved his passing at once, for he had been friend to her friends Vragi and Bardulf.

  Not that mourning or pity was truly high on her mind, not with one of the shadows so near to Cormac and three of them looming over valorous Bardulf.

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  The shriek that was torn from her lips might otherwise have shamed her in its feminine terror and cowardice. It was what rescued her friends as she found her voice then.

  Startled by the noise, more of the wraiths drew their swords with Daegan finding then her courage. Or a little of it, for it was then that she reached over to pull the bewildered and newly awakened Cormac hither from the shadow who loomed over him.

  The blade that had thrust down into the earth below where he had been filled her with almost as much coldness as the air in the camp did then.

  Daegan took a little heart in the hsiss of frustration that emanated from the shadow that loomed before her, just as she did from the sight of Bardulf opening his eyes and leaping to his feet.

  As frightened as she, Cormac torch in hand was to move before she could so much as blink, only to thrust it against the face of the nearby wraith who might well have otherwise been his undoing. Both of their blood chilled though, when all that was pulled from the shadow was a hiss of laughter.

  It sounded akin to her ears, to the scrapping of metal against metal, or that of the last scream of some infant in the night. It was the most evil sound that her ears heard or were to ever hear ever afterwards.

  “Back Dae,” Cormac cried out with far more bravery than she, chin raised and eyes flashing with cerulean steel.

  The sword-stroke cut hewed down the torch’s head as surely, as the wraith’s brother had Yngvarr.

  On his feet in the next heartbeat, Wulfnoth surged forth, as the light must always do to resist the dark. His courage, his faith was as a rallying horn-cry in the darkness, as he rallied to his side and behind him the youths who had followed him thither from Glasvhail.

  The pendant of Scota held aloft, high and proud from about his thick-neck the jowl-faced druid thundered then in a voice as mighty as that wielded by Achaius in the battle of Baudré-en-Orvande. “Back! Back demon of the abyss, for behold the light of the gods!”

  Each of the wraiths that stood before him drew back, hisses of fright echoing from within them. Each one almost tripping over one another to put distance between him and them, their cowardice filled Daegan and her friends with such courage that they forgot about the fallen torch of Cormac.

  Before long others amongst them to defend themselves from the invaders; Bardulf sword in his right-hand, torch in the other sought to hew them down. Vragi and Ardwulf wielding pendants of Brigantia the Brittian variant of the Golden-Goddess along with their long-swords threw the wraiths back.

  Hope was born anew, unity restored among those who had left Glasvhail and the trio of Wolframs. They may yet, she thought to herself full of glee, survive this long night.

  Alas, ere long hope was crushed and unity broken by the king of the wraiths. From the ranks of his kindred he arose, taller and grander than the rest, unafraid of the holiness of the symbols of his enemies.

  With the rapidity of a viper, he caught Ardwulf’s blade in one fell gauntlet crushing and tearing the steel-sword to pieces with but one flick of his hand.

  His black sword domineering and cruel in appearance, was so utterly dark as to draw in all the light of the fire and torches taken up by Bardulf and Indulf, and offer up only unlight and further darkness.

  Steel well in hand, he cut wide open with one stroke the throat of gracious Vragi, crushing as he moved the pendant he had held with such unrelenting piety and goodness.

  Ardwulf a strangled cry on his lips sought to avenge him, but his pendant was crushed along with his wrist and hand. Long did he howl in pain, and many were the shards that broke from his sword. He sought to run the wraith through, wherefore his sword shattered upon meeting the kingly hauberk of the phantom-warrior.

  Bardulf sought to lend his aid but was driven back by the two lesser wraiths he had hitherto then striven against. His torch lost, alongside his sword by each one of the wraith’s next hewing blows of their steel-swords.

  It was then that Ardwulf was slain also, meeting his end bravely and nobly at the hands of the garland-crowned shadow. His corpse was torn in half, with the upper part falling upon the blaze which leapt free from all semblance of control. Bardulf leapt away to stand by his remaining friends, his eyes ablaze with malevolence for the wraiths. The last of his company sent to secure the Blood-Gem cut down before his very eyes.

  “Back everyone, we must keep the pyre between us,” Bardulf warned them, his voice hard and constricted with anger, loathing and pain.

  “Aye,” Indulf agreed.

  “We must pray,” Wulfnoth uttered his voice scratchy and pained, only for his next words to turn themselves into a sharp cry when the wraith before him darted left. Seeking to bar him passage to Indulf, the druid leant too heavily upon his injured leg whereupon he fell to his knee hand upon it, and tears of pain in his eyes.

  This was all the weakness needed for the wraiths to drive them back, until they were nearer to the Mound, surrounded with fire before them and wraiths all around them as the king and his two lesser-brothers moved to encircle them.

  “I-i-i-it appears that this could well be the end,” Trygve whimpered terror causing his throat to tighten, and his eyes to well up with tears as he fell back, behind Bardulf.

  Pulling Wulfnoth to safety alongside Cormac, just as the fallen kingfisher wraith slashed at his left leg. In this way he narrowly saved the druid, while Daegan swallowed and fell back also.

  “We- we shan’t lose hope yet,” Cormac stuttered as frightened as the rest of them. “Surely we can still save Wulfnoth and Dae.”

  “Worry not for me lad,” the cleric said faint with fear also, “If need be, see to your own lives.”

  “Never!” This time it was Indulf who showed the courage of his forefathers, by refusing to retreat from the danger that hung over them.

  “I would sooner fall also, than to abandon you brother,” Bardulf growled, swearing a mighty oath as he stood broken sword still in hand, and Vragi’s pendant in the other to, ward away the wraiths. “I swear that before I fall, I shall tear asunder that crown from the high-brow of these fell creatures of shadow!”

  The kingliest of the wraiths hissed with laughter, one that chilled once more the bones of all present, one that blew itself amongst them as the wind is prone to do. It chilled the bones, ended Wulfnoth’s half-stuttered prayers and blew out the flames of their torches as it did those in their hearts.