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the blade dancing in the dimmed light of Azyrin’s sword. A wight lunging for Azyrin’s back as he crouched over his wife took one of my arrows in the face, the steel broadhead crunching through its husk of a nose and smashing into whatever passed for its brain.
    Makha’s normally fair skin had taken on a bluish pallor that almost matched her half-winter-orc husband’s coloring and frost coated her normally fiery red hair. Azyrin used a knife to slice through her armor, warm golden light spilling from his hands as he chanted under his breath.
    “Anytime now, sprite,” Drake said, ducking the swipe of a wight’s claw.
    The wight opened its hideous mouth and white mist gathered around its ugly teeth. I loosed any arrow that flew right through the open mouth, severing its spinal cord. The creature collapsed into ash before it could breathe all over Drake whatever was wrecking Makha’s armor.
    “Thanks.” Drake didn’t spare a glance but resumed slicing up the next wight. I could see five more on the steps above, slowed only by the narrowness of the stairway. At the bottom, one engaged Drake while I turned another to ash with two rapid shots that punched through the weakened, aging armor and into its dry chest.
    “Got it!” Rahiel exclaimed. A swirling ball of blue flame, hot enough to immediately raise sweat on my skin and force me to squint, shot toward the choke point at the base of the steps. The ball had begun about the size of my head, but it rapidly expanded as it moved across the room so that by the time it hit the first wights on the steps, it completely obscured the stairs from sight.
    The wights died in a sizzling hiss. Rahiel guided Bill forward with her legs, the blue crystal wand extended and a feral grin on her face. She cleared the steps and Drake and I fell in behind her, ready for any wights or other dangers that might escape her fire.
    We passed the second floor landing and I noted a door off to one side. A wight had tried to crawl into the slightly more open space off the steps but it couldn’t escape my arrows. I paused only long enough to snatch the arrow out of the pile of dust.
    The stairs ended a story above, at a landing four or five paces wide that led to a huge, heavy iron door which stood slightly ajar. Rahiel’s spell fizzled out here, but there weren’t any wights left, just ashes and a lingering scent of charred leather and dust in our wake.
    “Makha,” the pixie-goblin said, sagging in exhaustion over Bill’s pink mane.
    We turned away from the door and made our way back down. I picked up my fallen arrows on our way, clutching them in a nervous fist.
    “Stop babying me, dolt.” Makha’s words brought a sigh of relief from all of us and Drake and I exchanged a small smile. If she was swearing, she was probably all right.
    Her color had returned, and her red braid was merely damp instead of frosted. Her armor lay in ruins around her though, only her greaves undamaged from the wight’s spell. Her gambeson was sweat stained, but the brown quilted material seemed intact. She smiled at us and pushed Azyrin away, getting to her feet unaided.
    “I’m fine, which is more than can be said for my armor.” Makha kicked the shattered pile of metal with one booted foot. The remains of her breastplate, or perhaps her helm, whined and fractured further. She let loose a string of curses in three languages that made even Drake raise his eyebrows.
    “Didn’t know you could do that with an orc, cooking oil, and ten mice,” he murmured.
    “When we get to a proper city, you can find a whore and see for yourself,” Makha said with a glare. “Oh, buggers and buckets. It’s going to be an age before I can commission armor. There goes the damn nest egg. Again.”
    “It’s all right, love,” Azyrin murmured in Orcish. “We will get our farm in due time.”
    Makha grunted and retrieved her shield, her movements still stiff. “Enchantments seem to have held.” She hefted the shield with a