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The only thing,he thought bitterly, watching as the army charged.

“I am a dedicant priest of Tiber, a servant to all the pantheon, and may all the gods hear me as they hear their own—”

Then a barking howl split the air like a thunderbolt, and the horse flinched beneath him.

Across the field, the city gates buckled, rattled by something within. Something big and powerful, many somethings, all screaming like a pack of ghostly wolves.

With a swoop of terror, Charlie realized he was not far from the truth.

“By the gods,” he cursed.

The Companions and their army never faltered, the wall of bodies charging straight ahead. For the flames—and the monsters within them. The city gates crumbled, revealing hellish demons the likes of which he had only seen in godly manuscripts.

Flaming spines, ashen shadows.

“Hellhounds,” Charlie breathed.

The monsters leapt into the army without fear. Their bodies burned, the flames born of their fur, their too-long legs black as charcoal. Snow sizzled against their burning coats, sending up clouds of steam. Their eyes glowed like hot coals, their open jaws spitting waves of heat.

The manuscripts were nowhere near so fearsome as the real thing,Charlie thought dimly.

In the pages of the old church books, the hellhounds were sharp and small, burned and twisted. Not these lethal, loping wolves bigger than horses, with black fangs and ripping claws.

The manuscripts were wrong about something else too.

The hellhounds can die, Charlie realized, watching one crumble to ashes after a sweep of Domacridhan’s sword.

Something like hope, small and ugly as it was, reared up inside the fallen priest. Charlie held his breath, watching the Companions fight their way through the hounds into the burning city.

Leaving Charlie alone with the echoes.

It was torture to watch the empty gates, straining to see anything inside.

Have they found the Spindle?he wondered.Have the hounds gone to defend it? Is Taristan still here, or have we missed him again?

Is everyone going to die and leave the saving the realm business to me?

He shuddered at the last thought. Both for his own sake, and the world’s.

“Certainly not,” he said aloud.

His horse whickered in reply.

Charlie patted her neck. “Thank you for your confidence.”

Again, he eyed the city of Gidastern, a city of thousands reduced to a flaming graveyard. And perhaps a trap as well.

He bit his lip, worrying the skin between his teeth. If Taristan was there, as they suspected, what would become of the Companions? Of Corayne?

She is barely more than a child, with the world on her shoulders, Charliecursed to himself.And here I am, a grown man, waiting to see if she makes it out alive.

His cheeks flared with heat, and not from the flames. With all his heart, he wished he could have pulled her back from the battle. He winced, a knife of regret in his chest.

You never could have saved her from this.

Another noise rose from the city, a single guttural call. But it came from many mouths, both human and otherwordly. It sounded like a death bell. Charlie knew it too well. He heard the same thing at the temple in the foothills, rising from countless undead corpses.

The rest of the Spindle army is here, he realized with a jolt.The Ashlanders, Taristan’s own.