Cinder died, dragged bodily from the barricade, thrashing and screaming until the brutal cult blades silenced her.

Every sinew in Cephia's body wanted to leap down into the fray to try and save the quillkin, but she knew if she did she would meet the same fate. She could only watch, shaking with helpless rage as the cultists hacked her loyal companion apart before her eyes. Tayge let out a scream of anguish, gutting another enemy and trying to scramble over the makeshift wall to get to her.

Sharder got a hold of him before he could make it, wrestling the foxkin back down into the dimming safety of their refuge. He struggled wildly against her until another guard leapt in to help, pinning Tayge in place until he went limp, bitter sobs shaking his body.

Cephia vented her fury on another robed warrior who came leaping up the barricade, jamming the spearpoint through his heart with a powerful thrust, killing him instantly. Before she could tear herself free again, though, a bolt whipped up out of the seething mass of cultists and hit her in the hip.

Letting out a screech of pain, she shook the corpse from her spear and tottered backwards. Swinging the spear one-pawed, she clobbered another cultist, using her free paw to tug the bolt loose. Her armour stopped it going too deep, but blood still pooled around the wound and she lost her balance, falling backward off the barricade and landing flat onto her back with a gasp.

"Boss!" Roave was at her side in an instant. In the gap she had been filling, another foe appeared, only to take an armbow bolt into their throat.

"I'm alright," she spat. "Help me up!"

"Ceph-,"

"DO IT!" she howled.

Roave didn't argue any further, hooking an arm under hers and helping her onto unsteady footpaws. Her left hip screamed with agony, but she stood up anyway, raising the spear again. Every piece of her ached. She'd lost whole chunks of her armour and had run out of bolts for her armbow. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she found herself with a brief, unwelcome moment to survey the carnage.

The surface of the dais was a sea of corpses. Broken cultist bodies lay among dead guards, slain designates, technicians and support staff. For the moment Anvaal and Hezif remained alive, thanks in no small part to Nassavick using his bulk as a literal shield, but most of the others had not been so lucky.

The bearkin's heavyset frame was a patchwork map of cuts, burns, scrapes and punctures, and he moved sluggishly, eyes bloodshot with battle rage. He manoeuvred once again to place his body between them and harm's way. Behind him Anvaal was panting heavily, clinging tight to a guard truncheon in both paws.

"Can you stand?" Roave asked, still clutching her arm.

"I think so." She waved him away. The other wolfkin released his hold uncertainly. Cephia put weight on her left side and had to strangle down a yowl of pain. Her leg trembled and she could feel blood leaking down her thigh.

But she stood. She sucked breath through clenched teeth, looking up to the section of barrier she'd been defending.

Tayge was there already. Sharder and the others couldn't contain him any longer, and he went bounding up to fill the gap, longclaw dagger in one paw and a wrench in the other. He lashed out, cracking the skull of a foe who tried to scale the barricade.

"Wanna meet the Fire?" Tayge screamed as he slammed the longclaw up to its hilt in a second cultist's chest. "C'mon then! I'll send every one o' you there myself!" He ripped his blade loose, still screaming out his challenge.

A creaking crash tore the air apart and Cephia's heart juddered as the entire section of the makeshift fort began to come apart under his paws. A dozen cult warriors dug boathooks into the benches from the outside and pulled hard. The blockade held for a few seconds, then the stacked benches finally gave way under the force. Wood splintered and shattered as the barricade collapsed in all directions, opening a gap several meters wide in their defences.

Tayge fell as it disintegrated beneath him. He slammed to the ground among the bodies, cursing and spitting, cutting the knee out from under a cultist who tried to step through the debris. A single armbow bolt whizzed through the space to drop another enemy.

Cephia lurched forward into an agonizing, lopsided run, cradling her spear in one paw, and she reached down to grab Tayge by the scruff of the neck with the other. Howling with effort, she wrenched him upright, before staggering backwards, hauling the berserk foxkin with her. They stumbled into line where Roave grabbed their comrade tight, holding him in place as the dust settled.

Bracing herself, Cephia stopped and turned, expecting a hoard of cultists to come piling through the breach in the next instant. Instead she found herself staring into an empty space. Her brow furrowed in confusion as beyond the dais cultists scurried into cover on the fringes of her vision.

Then Kendris strolled into sight. Up close the hynakin looked ever more barbaric than before, with a necklace of teeth hanging across his sinewy chest, his fur inked with a carpet of cult symbols. Around him his guards coalesced; she saw the felkin assassin among them, the killer's face impassive as she slid fresh throwing claws from her belt.

Cephia let a low growl shake the back of her throat when she saw Farler move up to flank the cult leader. She locked her eyes on him in a glare, still not quite believing what she was seeing.

"Hello, Cephia," he said quietly.

"How could you do this?" she spat. "Illando trusted you."

"He did. And I regret what has to happen here, believe me."

"I don't care what you regret." Cephia started to edge forward, but Roave caught her arm, holding her in place. She was shaking with anger. "If it is my last act in the world, you're going to die here today, traitor."

"Enough," Kendris cut in, almost gentle in his interruption. "You have fought well, wolf. You have my respect, and because of that, I will make this swift."

He took a step forward; cult warriors pressed in behind him, longing for the kill.

This was it. They were all going to die.

With bitterness clawing at her insides, Cephia limped into place at the front of the group, spear in one paw, dagger in the other. The last dregs of her command formed up behind her to plug the breach in the barricade; Tayge to her right, two rivulets of tears cutting thin lines through the grime on his face, while Roave took the right, wielding a dock hammer he'd liberated from a slain foe.

Easing into her fighting stance, Cephia stared Kendris down for the last time.

"Do not despair," Kendris rasped. "The Fire will embrace you."

And he smiled. The mongrel bastard smiled. It was a warped, evil thing that made her fur prickle and the skin beneath it crawl. He didn't care that scores of his followers had painted this chamber with their blood – he basked in it. Every soul sent to the Fire was just one step on the road to the world this maniac wanted to bring forth.

Kendris raised his axe, a sickening grin creeping across his face. His mouth opened to give the final order.

"KENDRIS!"

A bellow from the depths of the Fire itself cut him off, tearing out across the chamber and rising to fill the vast space from floor to rafter. Every single soul in the chamber stopped moving, as though they'd been hit with an electric shock. The hynakin's face twisted with confusion. His lips drew back in an involuntary snarl.

Suddenly she knew why.

She knew that voice.

Kendris turned. Heads turned with him, looking up towards the southern facing entrance of the Conclave chamber. Cephia followed their gazes, a spark of pure hope kindling in her breast for the first time since the attack had begun. She looked up, praying to the Peace that she wasn't imagining things.

Illando stood at the top of the stairway, as real and solid as the spear in her paw. He was like the wrath of the city made manifest, his enforcer armour shining with splatters of fresh blood, a spiked club hanging his side. Behind him rank upon rank of enforcers stalked through the doorway.

She'd never seen so many of them in one place. The wolves of Wildhearth spread out into the chamber in a great dark wave, awash with weapons from the enforcer armoury; heavy armbows, long-handled axes, an array of clubs, maces and blades, all of them darkened with blood. Illando took two steps forward as his troops formed up, Gensher's looming form to his left, and Noelle to his right.

She raised her spear. The diamond blade glinted in the light of the Conclave chamber, catching Illando's eye. His gaze flickered from Kendris to her, and she saw his eyes widen, his chest swelling with recognition. Even from here she could sense the boiling cauldron of emotions as rage and relief vied for dominance.

Cephia knew which one would win. She knew which one she wanted to win.

The flicker of indecision didn't last. Illando's face hardened again; his gaze shifted back to Kendris, then to Farler standing close by. The flash of murder in his eyes was impossible to unsee. His lips twitched; his canines flashed for an instant.

"End of the line, Kendris," Illando snarled, taking another step down the stairway.

For the first time she felt uncertainty ripple through the cult ranks. Low murmurs of surprise rose from the robed figures and they tried to reform their line to face this new threat, some of the more confident among them shoving their surprised comrades into place. Her nose twitched with the scent of something unexpected: fear. So far all their moves had been carried out with cold, calculating savagery, but this?
They hadn't been expecting this.

"Sorry, I forgot," Illando continued, his muzzle splitting in a grim smile. "I was supposed to die out in Drambower, wasn't I? Maybe you should have stuck around to finish the job."

Kendris bared his teeth, glancing around and seeing the growing uncertainty among his forces. Faces turned to him for reassurance.

"A mistake I will rectify now," he grated, glaring up at the wolfkin. "You are too late. Your High Alpha is dead. I own your Conclave."

"Not yet you don't," Anvaal yelled from behind her. "Not while loyal kin live and breathe!"

Kendris shot a furious look over his shoulder, before whipping back around to face Illando. She could see his paw strangling the grip of his axe, the muscles on the hynakin's back beginning to bulge with the tension, like a coiled spring. He snarled something in the strange cult language, a throat gouging chant that made her stomach turn.

"Brut! Barra! Fierra! Scarratta!" Kendris began moving among his followers raising his axe and barking out the words with increasing volume. Over and over again he yelled it, and quickly the cultists took up his words.

"Brut! Barra! Fierra! Scarratta! Brut! Barra! Fierra! Scarratta!"

The chant rose like thunder. Weapons clashed on shields, footpaws stamped and the whole chamber reverberated with the noise. Weaving back and forth through the cult ranks, Kendris nodded in satisfaction. The scent of fear began to fade as fresh zeal gripped the cultists in a frenzy. The hynakin turned, pointing his axe at the enforcers.

"Let us finish this, wolf," he roared.

In response, Illando raised his spiked club, his face twisted with unfettered hatred as he stared down at the cult leader. She could feel the wolves straining to be unleashed, ready to come rushing down those stairs and rip Kendris and his followers to pieces. Illando threw back his head, and unleashed a long, undulating howl that made her blood pound with fresh adrenaline. A call to the hunt; a call to war.

The enforcers charged.