The battle was not a quick thing.l It was fought bad forth across the meager vilge they’d bee so proud of until tonight, destroying it utterly, along with most of the residents. Eventually, most of those who weren’t trained warriors fled the battle with the beast. Leo didn’t think less of them for that. No matter what its ins were, it was a nightmare creation that average people could never be expected to fight.

  Ohe farmers and the tradesmen who hadn’t spent half their lives sparring and practig to fight the evils of the world left the battle to Leo and the men and women with light in their eyes, they should have been able to strike them down. Ihey outnumbered it a dozen to one; each of his brothers and sisters fought well, and most of their ons bore at least some small trace of the light.

  It wasn’t enough, though. Because each time one of them mao maim the creature, slig off a limb or blinding an eye, some new piece of a monstrosity would grow to repce it. One by ohe men and women he’d fought beside for most of his life died. Rin was devoured when the wound she rent into its side suddenly sprouted teeth that bit down on her arm and refused to let gie was drained dry, not by the mane of worms and leeches, but by the few that stayed attached to him and refused to burn away.

  That left Sam grieving, and her light fred as brightly as he’d ever seen on someoher than Brother Faerbar or himself. However, even that terrible bst of holy fmes was only enough to burn away the hair of its mangy coat, and every blister her fire raised hatched a dozen tiny rats that swarmed her and gnawed on her until there was nothi but bones.

  It was a horrible, brutal battle, aried his best to coordinate his attacks with those around him, but no matter what they did, they just weren’t fast enough or strong enough to sy this monstrosity. No one was, maybe not even him.

  O a time, the lights went out throughout the vilge. Eae hurt him more than any of the other minor wounds that had been inflicted on him to date. He’d been bloodied more than onow, but each time, the light burs way out of the rent in his flesh and healed it shut again. He’d experiehat before, otlefield, but never so powerfully as this moment, and he embraced the searing pain that apahe healing of each blow.

  Pain was better thah, especially if it was the death of someone else. The problem was that for all the effort and all the blows exged, they were doing nothing to it. The thing simply wouldn't die, and he cked the strength to do more than wound it. No matter how strong wielding that a

  At least ara is safe, he told himself. Since she didn’t have the time to don her mail, she wisely she stuck to her bow and used hit-and-run tactics to stay as far away from the battle as possible. Every new nce of light that skewered the monster was a remihat she was safe. In that way, her blows handed er than his. For all their light, this creature oozed power, and all they could do was burn it around the edges and then watch as it regrew again and again.

  It was no longer a wolf now and it was barely a rat. Instead, it was a mass of hideous tendrils dotted with mouths ah. Each wound became some neendage or mass as it healed as scar tissue built upon scar tissue until there was nothing but a hideous ass of evil. It wasn’t w, but what else could Leo do? His only choices were to fight and to not fight; there was no third option. All he could do was had ssh at the thing while the monster slowly ged into something more hideous.

  “When all the hts are extinguished, will you still fight, or will you see that there is ing me?” half a dozen mouths warbled, taunting him for his inability to end him.

  For a moment, Leo doubted himself. He held in his hand a magic sword of legends that could slice effortlessly through zombies, but its wielder wasn’t strong enough to take down a single beast. For just a moment, his light dimmed, but as the creature suddenly flicked its gaze away toward the st pair of glowing eyes on a nearby rooftop, Leo suddenly uood the true meaning of its words.

  It's going after her , he told himself, shocked by the realization. For the st few mihey’d been fighting around the well and the ruin of the building that they were trying to turn into the smithy, but now the thing was surging dowreet on an uain number of limbs toward his wife. Leo wasn’t about to let that happen and charged alongside it, taking advantage of the moment to slice off half a dozen limbs on the nearside, sending it careening to the ground.

  “You ot have her!” he roared, taking a blow from his blind side that sent him tumbling end over until he was stopped only by the timbers of a colpsed wall.

  “I have everything! The beast roared. “My hunger is infinite, and so long as there is no Lord of Light, then I will e the ey of the world!”

  “As long as I have this light, you shall not have hers,” he grunted as he rose to his feet.

  That was enough to make the misshapen flesh beast turn to face him with two of its four twisted heads.

  “Did you not feel that way about the rest of your friends?” it chuckled darkly. “They were worth sacrifig, but she is not? It was all in vain. I have eaten the world, and I shall feast on it again.”

  Those words hit Leo like a punch to the gut. If he couldn’t bring this monstrosity when all of them had fought together, uhen how could he hope to do it on his own?

  “You have beeed before, too,” Leo stood, unwilling to admit defeat. He had no idea how he would win; he only khat he had to, and with each step forward, that certainty deepehe only way it was getting to ara was over his mangled corpse. “Every name you’ve listed is a hat has destroyed you utterly. You will add my o that list.”

  The creature hissed. “I don’t even know your name! You are not worth remembering!”

  “I’m not,” Leo agreed. “But once upon a time, I was worth saving, and so was every person you slew tonight.”

  He started hag at the thing again, but this time it was different. Even now, the fireflies were stirring around him. That’s when he knew he wasn’t alone.

  In the light of his sword, the souls of the dead flickered and stirred around him, slowly ing to life. The details were vague, but o a time, he reized them as his sin brothers and sisters, not that he’d ever had any doubt.

  For a few seds, they joined him otlefield as a storm of swirling swords along with disembodied arms and legs. Then, o a time, they began te with him.

  With each absorption, there was a fsh nition at whom the spirit had been in life before their power flowed into him, making his light burn that much more brightly. Sam. Rin. Jamin. Tara. One by ohe ghosts of everyone he’d ever fought beside merged with him, lending him their st bit of strength. His sword was barely reizable now. Indeed, it wasn’t even visible. It ilr of holy fire, and it charred the flesh of the beast that it was fag.

  “No!” it bellowed out of a dozen mouths. “I was supposed to smother you in the cradle before you gained your strength!”

  Leo ighose words and tio hack away. He’d never beeallest of his siblings, but right now, he felt like a giant. He was overflowing with a lifetime of other people’s souls, and for the first time iire fight, he felt strohahing he was fag.

  Unfortunately, he had no idea how long this would st, so he pressed the attack as hard as he could. There was no subtlety now nor any attempt to dodge or parry blows. He trusted the bzing aura around him to handle most of the defense and for the light to heal the wounds of any attacks that made it through that indest storm before they could sy him.

  Now, he threw every st ounce of his strength into defeating this beast ond for all. He attacked; it was a berserk fury that was as much fire as it was force. Well, light, at least. The holy light that surged around him did nothing to harm the ruined buildings or even ara, who glowed very lightly in her ht as she looked on i even made the flowers blossom, and the weeds grow. To the screaming monstrosity of flesh that he faced, though, he might as well have been a bos questiacles turo ash before they ever got close to him, as he hacked it apart a piece at a time, and the thing was stantly fissioning now into rats, worms, and other stranger animals in an attempt to escape him.

  Some of them did. He had no doubt that was the case. He had no way to stop them. All he could do was keep fighting the ruin that was the main body and hope that would be enough.

  It was disgusting work, but as he reached the core of it, he found the things bck heart pounding away. “Noooo!” the creature screamed through its remaining mouths.

  Leo didn’t eveate. He just thrust his sword deep into the thing, annihiting both of them in a burst of terrible energy. One moment, the silvered sword was a bzing pilr of light in his hands, and the , it was annihited as it celed out against the terrible well of darkhat it had found in the ter of that monstrosity.

  Leo was tossed backward like a rag doll by the force of the explosion, and debris went spraying in all dires, but none of it beloo his oppo. Instead, where that terrible bst wave struck it, it simply ceased to exist. One moment, it ile of postute body parts, and the , it had simply vanished as if it had never existed.

  Leo rose to his feet once more quickly, only to find that he had nothing to fight. He’d won. That took a moment to sink in. However, as soon as it did, he looked to ara to make sure that she was okay. Once he saw that she was, he finally released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and looked at his hands.

  Leo was still glowing so violently that his flesh was almost invisible pared to the storm that his aura had bee. While he did that, ara finally rose and ran toward him but stopped partway, shielding her eyes. “Leo?! Are you in there, Leo? What happeo you?”

  Leo wasn’t sure. He didn’t kher, to be perfectly ho, but he hoped like hell that it would stop sooner rather than ter.