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to sleep, and meditate, for I had much to think upon. I had lived a hundred lifespans, and it happened so that I barely noticed the decline of my powers. It grinned at him from the shadows. Helmut grinned back, lips curled in a rictus of fear and longing. Shapes speared out of the darkness to either side of the Liche's throne; edges of boxes, a lectern, great leather-bound books clasped shut with bony locks. I have been waiting a long time for my heir, the skeleton stated in a silent voice which seemed as dry as the desert sands of Araby.
    "Yes." Helmut was surprised to hear his own voice, itself as dull as the rocks around him. "Yes," he repeated. How did you know? he asked. How did you know what I wanted? What I was afraid of? It seemed so right, to him, that he should be chosen. Heir to, to -
    The dominion. Dominion of Helmut Kerzer, necromancer. Yes, that was it.
    "I accept," he said, and although the corpse stayed seated in frozen splendour, a wind seemed to blow through the chamber. His candle guttered and died, but he didn't need it any more; Helmut saw with a clarity he had never known before. Behind the throne lay a flight of steps leading down, down to the rooms and abode and workshops of the Nameless One. Down to his new home. It had been waiting patiently for him, or for someone like him, for many centuries.
    A feverish exaltation coursed through Helmut's blood; there was much for him to do, much that would need preparing afresh. Knowledge to be gained, books to be read, unspecified tasks to be carried out. As he pushed eagerly past the throne, its skeletal ruler slumped with a brittle crackle of time: dust rose in final release. It would be years before Helmut came to understand the nature of the spell he had succumbed to, and by then it would be far too late to escape. For now he was blinded by the promise of dark things.
    First they came ashore; then they burned the fisherfolk's boats as they found them. Horst the Hairless was still there, bundling his nets for the morrow, and he remained there afterwards, albeit with half his brains in his lap and the flies buzzing huge and hungry around him. Ragnar One-Eye voiced a wordless, ululating battle-cry; hefting his axe, he led a stream of soldiers up the trail towards the village.
    "Forward and kill them!" he roared. "Take what you want and torch the rest. Leave none behind!" Succinct; and, more to the point, exactly what the men wanted to hear. The holy rage of the host was upon them, and they were in no mood for restraint. They charged towards the village in a stream of iron.
    Ahead of them, Klaus Kerzer heard Horst's death-cry and Ragnar's deep voice. Shocked into a slow run, he made for the village hall. "Foe! Fire! Murder!" he shouted raucously at the top of his lungs.
    As Klaus staggered up the track, one of the foemen hit him with a thrown dagger. Shock and pain seared through him, and he fell heavily. As he lay groaning in the dirt, the raider paused to finish him off; but, unexpectedly, Klaus caught the reaver in the hamstrings with a desperate sweep of the heirloom sword, and the man fell cursing to the ground. With a gasp, Klaus raised the aged sword again, but this time the younger and more experienced fighter was far too quick for him: the reaver stabbed the older man in the throat, and Klaus' life began to bubble away. The sword fell at his side.
    Klaus' yells, added to the mournful tolling of the bell, had brought the angry, frightened fisherfolk swarming out of their hovels. Some of them bore scythes and other farm implements of dubious vintage; one or two of the richer ones possessed genuine weapons, but none were armoured or trained, and collectively they were a pathetic match for the raiders.
    The villagers milled around in front of the hall, incapable of forming any sort of battle order. The local priest had turned out, but there was no sign of real authority; no lord or knight to muster a defence around himself. The berserkers laid in with a