Turgar came to another stake, but didn’t slow this time. He saw more queer skeletons, and more scattered gold, but kept climbing. Something heavy landed on his back, and clawed at his face from behind. He felt the handle of the torch being wrenched from his teeth, and then a horrible shriek tore at his ears.

The weight came off his back. The torch jiggled, but then was released. Turgar craned his neck around to look down behind him.

A bizarre form writhed in the flame shadows, skewered on Javo’s sword. Before Turgar could get a good look, Javo saw the creature more clearly than he cared to and shook it off his sword the way he might fling mud from a stick. The shrieking trailed off as the creature plummeted, hopefully to its death.

Krag cursed as another creature latched onto his leg. He grabbed hold of its head and tore it off, then smashed its skull against the rocky cliff and let it drop.

“Are you hurt?” Turgar called below.

“Just climb!” Javo said. “Find another ledge so we may face these fiends with steel!”

They passed another stake through a link. The chain vibrated.

More creatures came at them, growing more fierce with each attack. Skeletons and gold grew thicker as they ascended, though they paid little attention now.

They passed another stake. The chain quivered.

Turgar reached a ledge and, sinewy arms pulsing with the strength of great springs, vaulted up to land on its bone-covered surface. Immediately, several of the ghastly beasts latched onto him at once. Sharp claws and fangs sunk into leather and flesh. He transferred the torch from mouth to hand just as a creature grabbed for it again. His other gloved hand drew his single-edged sword and swung it at the swarm of foul terror trying to rip his flesh asunder.

Javo hoisted himself up, followed by Krag, and fell upon the vile beasts. Javo cleaved them in twain with his double-edged longsword, while Krag used bare hands to snap, break, and crush until Turgar was free of them.

“Triangle!” Javo barked.

The three warriors faced outward in three directions, their backs toward each other. Javo pulled the heart-shaped shield off his back with his free hand, and thrust his forearm through the straps. Krag also had a shield — a huge round one — strapped to his back, but he left it there, reaching underneath it instead. He pulled out the great two-handed axe, which he normally wielded in one huge fist. As he sometimes did when the odds against them were considerable, his other hand pulled out his warhammer.

Visor slamming down into place, Javo’s helmet swiveled to the side toward his friend. “Your bow, Turgar! Quickly!”

The desert warrior, descendant of generations of proud horse-archers, realized his friend was right —the fiends were far enough at bay now that he could sheath his sword and use arrows to keep them there. He was, perhaps, better than average in melee combat, but unsurpassed with ranged weapons.

In a few heartbeats Turgar had his first arrow nocked, the torch transferred to Javo, who held it with his shield hand.

One creature landed, facing their triangle. Then another. Then three more. Then five. Five more. Nine. Thirteen. They kept landing until they formed a solid, grotesque wall surrounding the warriors.

They advanced, the circle tightening.

The creatures walked on something like the hind legs of goats, but with monkey feet. Long, spindly arms snaked out from their shoulders, with hands like a bird’s talons. Vein-webbed membranes, in multiple layers, extended out from each side of their backs like women’s fans, buzzing so fast as to blur when in flight, collapsing and folding against their sides upon landing. Their heads resembled the heads of lizards. Also reptilian was their skin, and of a strange dark green that seemed to absorb light more than reflect it. Their eyes were thin, horizontal slits in bulging, scaled sockets.

The fiends appeared furious, their gruesome eyes darting first to the glowing torch, then to the humans, then back to the light. In unison their mouths opened, forked tongues slithering. But instead of a collective hiss or another shriek, what came out was a rhythmic, monotonous chant.

The words of the chant were unknown to the three warriors, but so powerful and intoxicating that their lips moved involuntarily to duplicate the sound.

Krag’s yell began as a low growl, then built into a savage bellow, drowning out the chant. Turgar blinked his eyes and let his arrow fly. It pierced a reptilian head, right between the eyes. The fiend fell over backwards, shrieking. Before it hit the ground, he nocked another arrow, drew and let fly. When his third arrow found its mark, the chanting stopped.

The fiends charged at full speed.

“Come to me!” growled Krag. “My steel thirsts for your vermin blood!”

He longed to meet them headlong in a berserker’s rush. His nervousness about the eerie darkness and fear of possible magic was gone. These creatures, hideous and unnatural though they were, could be touched; therefore they could be slain. He willed his feet to stay planted, lest he leave the back of one of his comrades exposed. When the wave of attackers came within range of his gigantic arms, both his weapons swung downward.

The warhammer crashed into a fiend’s head, splintering skullbone, pulping the brain, which squirted out its tiny ears. The great axe split another from shoulder to crotch. Another fiend, intending to bite into his flesh, instead shattered its teeth on a suddenly blocking hammer head, while the axe cut through the midsection of two more attackers.

Turgar could shoot arrows at an incredible rate, and at this range even a novice archer couldn’t miss. But there were so many fiends pressing in so quickly, one

closed with him even as he launched a shaft into another. He kicked it hard in the belly and cried, “Left!”

The three warriors shuffled leftward and the triangle rotated. Javo’s sword swung over from the side and chopped the head off the fiend attacking Turgar.

Javo used both edges of his blade efficiently. He lashed left and right with short killing strokes. His accuracy was machine-like, and he used just exactly enough energy to fell each attacker. He only thrust with the sharp point at the rare instants when a single foe faced him. He sometimes used his shield as a weapon, but mainly kept the fiends at bay with it while they grabbed for the torch, until Krag’s warhammer crushed them or his own sword was free to hack them down.

As skillful as Turgar was with the bow, was Javo with sword and shield. As skilled as both of them were with their weapons, was Krag savage and unstoppable.

Every time a fiend fell dead, it seemed another landed on the ledge to replace it.

Turgar felt the bundle of arrows thinning in his quiver. It alarmed him that his shafts were running out, but his enemies were not.

Suddenly, the mist swirled as if caught in a tornado. A tremendous roar echoed off the side of the mountain and into the night. An animal roar, like a lion, only louder.