The old familiar cellar looked completely different illuminated by Tawna’s burning cape. On the way over, he’d followed behind her and gotten a good look at it. It was sewn with the same constellation pattern that her fate-catchers had used, but rather than embroidered on, it had been sewn into the pattern itself. The flame burned hot but slowly, slowly whittling away the edges of her cape, and ashes dripped onto the floor where she stood.

The rest of her dress was no less impressive. She wore a tight maxi dress, split at the sides, with form-fitting blue trousers underneath and surprisingly plain traveling boots. The fabric was purple highlighted in blue, and faintly reflective, almost like latex. The entire outfit thrummed with power, and his value sense told him that it would all cost nearly as much as a Potion of Healing.

The overall effect had a quality about it that sort of reminded him of something. It felt almost nostalgic, although he couldn’t remember quite from where.

“The first thing that you should know is that I don’t see everything. I am as a woman in a forest fire. What vision I have is blocked by smoke. I’m choking and see death in every direction. The best I can do is feel the heat of the flames and choose the path through the smallest fires, to the places that will burn my flesh the least.”

She declared it all with a complete lack of emotion, and something about that got his back up. This wasn’t the time for it, but he couldn’t help it. He said the words that had long been coming. “If that’s true, if you’re so blind, then why are you so confident in your cruelty? You treated me worse than I deserve, worse than you needed to. Some of the things you did, sure, maybe they were necessary. But the way you acted, what was the point of all that?”

“It’s because I see little that I have to commit fully to my actions. When the path to success is so narrow, and my grasp on it so inaccurate, how could I risk doing anything less than my utmost? And truth be told, I never liked you. You’re hiding something. Something only you and Hogg know. When I sew you into cloth, your outline is larger than the shape of your body. You are strange, and not what you appear to be. What thirteen-year-old talks like this? Answer me that, if you can.”

Brin clenched his teeth. This was going nowhere. “What did you come here to tell me?”

“I don’t know what will come, but I can feel the shape of the enemy. The foe, the spy, she is out there, directing the army. Do you know who she is?”

“I have a hunch,” said Brin.

“When she returns, to spy on the town, to take our measure, to bask in her inevitable victory, you must slay her.”

“I will,” Brin promised.

“Next, you must do everything in your power to ensure that the town holds out. Soon the undead will spend less time attacking the gates and more time attempting to tear down the walls. Repairing the places they break through will not be drastically different than what you’ve been doing with the gates. Defend the workers. Let me be clear: You can win this. There is an amount of time that is enough. I don’t know how long. Three days at least. A week at most. I don’t know by what method salvation will come, but it will come. You can survive this. The [Witch] will ask for the town’s surrender. Deny her. If you have Kevim’s ear, convince him that he must not surrender. I have already spoken to those in the Council who still listen to me.”

“What will you be doing?”

“I swore to reveal to you what I see in your fate, not my own. And yet, in the spirit of cooperation, I suppose I can tell you that I will fight. I will defend the last gate alone to give the Lantern-men rest. Simao is a danger; he grows stronger in undeath by the day. If he fights tomorrow, many will die. I will destroy him if I can. I will drive him away if not.”

“Is that cape protecting you from the curse? Why not give it to someone else, like Hogg?” asked Brin.

“It is, and I would, if Hogg were able to use it. One must be a [Weaver]. I believe you are familiar with an artifact with similar conditions.” Her eyes flicked down to the armband he wore. How did she even know about that?

“What else can you tell me?” asked Brin.

“Care for your life. If you die, we all die with you, I know not why. If you require a sanctuary, seek the snake pond. The undead leave that area alone for obvious reasons. And…” her eyes flicked to the side, and for a brief instant, he saw hesitation on her features. “I should go. They will break through the last gate soon, and if I am not there many will suffer.”

“What were you just about to say?” Brin demanded.

“I’ve told you enough. More than I needed to.”

“The problem with Oaths that are vague, is that you don’t know exactly what might break it. Someone once told me that if your sight is inaccurate, you can’t risk doing any less than your utmost, or something like that.”

Tawna scowled. “This is why I find you unbearable. Very well, have it your own way. You will lose someone. Happy? Someone who cares for you a great deal will certainly die. There you have it.”

Brin’s mouth went dry. “Hogg?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It need not be only one person. There, now I’ve done my utmost. I have seen nothing else in your fate.”

She swirled her flaming cape and stomped out of the cellar before he could respond. He followed her dumbly. For some reason he couldn’t keep up with her steps, she seemed to glide at the speed of a horse. It didn’t matter; he knew where she was going.

All the way over, Brin found himself counting the names of people who cared about him a great deal. Hogg. Marksi. Bruna? All of Davi’s family might count. Davi. Zilly, probably. Myra. Perris. Chamylla, and Ademir. Why was this list so long? Dared he hope that he had a secret admirer that he didn’t know? That was the problem with people that cared about him. He couldn’t help but care about them in return.

When Brin got to the gate, the undead were already visible through the broken gate, and already tearing down the last pieces. A line of armored defenders stood ready to push them back. Davi struck up a song on his lute that felt like grim determination. Tawna tapped his shoulder and leaned down to whisper something in his ear. Her tight dress and close proximity made him blush, but he clenched his jaw, averted his eyes, and began to play whatever she’d just requested.

It was a boisterous, triumphant song. Tawna sashayed past the line of sturdy defenders, then stopped in front of them and put a hand on her hip. She examined the nails on her other hand, acting like she was bored.

The undead had broken enough of the gate that a few could get through, but they hung back, waiting until they had it all down so as many as possible could charge at once. Tawna tapped her foot impatiently, giving no sign of fear at all.

Suddenly, the music swelled, Tawna took a step forward, her burning cape flapping behind her. All at once, Brin remembered what her outfit reminded him of.

It looked exactly like a superhero costume.

She hit the undead like a rock against the tide, exploding into their ranks, flinging them in every direction. It looked like a bomb had gone off, and Brin’s brain struggled to keep up with what he was seeing. Had Tawna somehow learned to destroy things with her mind? Then he realized; it was the clothes. Their tight black clothes betrayed them.

As Tawna met their lines, she picked up the nearest of them by the hem of their shirts and flung them in the air. The clothes on many swirled and tightened, and then literally twisted their heads clean off. The momentum of the undead halted abruptly, and then reversed. The enemy fled.

Defenders rushed in to take advantage of the clear gate, and workers jumped into action behind them.

Past them all, Tawna leapt. She flew, gliding in the air, carried by her own clothes, and then slammed down into the bulk of the retreating army. A wave of threads burst out of her, thinning her dress. Though each of the threads were so small as to be transparent from this distance, all of them together formed a chaotic cloud.

Tawna’s threads stopped weapons in their path and slid around armor like snakes, then cut like razors, strong as steel. The undead fell to the ground in pieces, but their clothes writhed and churned, joining Tawna’s magic.

She moved her hands in complicated gestures as she worked, muttering in the Language. As she worked death, she spun slowly in place to give herself a view of the battlefield, though her threads lost none of their dexterity even when they were behind her. Her Mental Control must be ridiculous. Too bad Mental Control didn’t mean Attitude Control or Tawna would actually be a decent person.

An armored undead managed to burst through her weaves, and she jumped into a flying roundhouse kick that shattered its breastplate and turned its blood to mist.

She stopped, but only because all of the undead near her were destroyed. She turned back towards the city, and spoke. Her voice carried much further than it had any right to. “Come, my daughter. Come and witness me. Witness the pinnacle of your Class.”

Brin spotted Myra in the crowd. She gulped, but stepped forward. Brin fell in next to her, and together they walked through the gate to stand right behind the front line of defenders, who as of yet, hadn’t seen any action during this battle. All the undead were focused on Tawna.

Tawna watched her daughter approach, and satisfied, turned her attention back to the undead.

At first, Brin thought that there might not be that much left to see. The first charge had been decimated, and the undead remaining were staying far away, out of Tawna’s range.

Then he saw movement in the forest. A white figure carrying a blacksteel sword. A naked undead. More followed, a whole unit of them. Fifty naked undead appeared from the treeline.

“Oh gross,” said Brin, feeling his face scrunch up involuntarily. He looked over to Myra, who’d reflexively pinched her eyes shut. She visibly had to force them open, to do what her mother had said and witness.

Before the undead reached, a group of undead archers levied their bows and took aim. Brin felt a jolt of alarm, thinking they must be outside Tawna’s range, but she waved a hand and all their bowstrings snapped.

Then the naked undead reached her. Spears of threads, woven together on the fly into spikes, erupted from the ground, skewering unarmored flesh. Flapping cloth, made from the clothes of other undead, landed on the charging soldiers and bore them to the ground. Threads lashed out, cutting down the rest.

Brin heard a roar from the forest, and then saw light. Another group of undead appeared. These ones were naked as well, and in addition to their blacksteel weapons, they bore torches.

Tawna sent a few tentative lashes against them, but she flinched as the torches burned any that got close.

Encouraged, the undead charged. From behind them, the undead Simao stepped forward, his armor sparkling in the fading daylight. He’d replaced his enchanted warhammer with a standard blacksteel one, but looked no less dangerous.

Tawna let her waves of thread fall, and pulled a new thread out of a patch on her belt. It was golden, only barely visible as golden glints here and there. She whipped it at the undead, and it took off a torch-bearing arm. Her next strike was blocked by a sword, and the next. Now that the undead only had one thread to watch out for, they were able to stop it.

Tawna started to slowly step back, casting her eyes around, then she saw what she was looking for. The largest weapon on the battlefield was a huge warhammer that a giant had left on the field two days before when Prefit Elmon struck it down. Tawna picked it up with the golden thread, and then whipped it around, striking one of the undead and smashing it flat.

The undead charged in a sprint, no doubt trying to overwhelm her. Despite its overwhelming power, she only had one weapon.

Suddenly, more weapons rose into the air. These ones Tawna flung at the oncoming undead, releasing them before her ordinary threads could get close enough to the torches to burn.

Meanwhile, her giant warhammer went to work with impunity, smashing the undead to pieces and breaking apart their formation. The advancing group looked like it would fall before it got to her.

Then Simao struck, and his ordinary blacksteel warhammer shattered Tawna’s giant one. She whipped the bar back and flung it at him again, but Simao slapped it down with contemptuous ease.

An arrow hit Tawna. It struck the dress, not penetrating it, but the distraction cost her precious seconds. Three of the naked undead reached her at once. She broke one in half with a quick front kick and slapped the second hard enough to pull his rotting face off his skull, but the third stabbed her square on with a spear. She fell, revealing a speartip slick with blood.

Myra gasped, and Brin grabbed her arm to stop her from running into the fight.

Tawna quickly leapt to her feet and punched. Her shirtsleeve followed the movement and stabbed a hole in the undead’s chest.

Then she ran back, arms over her face to block more incoming arrows. The undead archers whose strings she’d snapped had quickly restrung their bows. They looked strange, the pull was too tight. Could they have restrung with metal cords?

Tawna didn’t snap them again. Instead, she flung the weapons of the fallen in their direction. The archers broke and ran for cover.

That left the naked undead wide open, and there were still at least twenty in their group, along with Simao.

Maybe in life, Simao would’ve been honorable and faced Tawna in single combat. In death, he had no honor, and paused for a moment so that all twenty could circle her and attack at once.

Tawna used that brief moment to pull a mana potion from her belt and chug it down. She dropped it, swaying a bit.

Right as the undead reached her, she slammed both arms into the ground. Fabric and thread burst around her like a volcano. Every bit of thread she’d stolen from the undead, and much of the thread of her dress, all of it slammed into the undead. No precision or mastery here, just overwhelming power. It pulled and twisted, snapping bones and breaking monsters in pieces. Simao swiped left and right, struggling against the onslaught. The thread around his throat pulled him backwards and for a moment it looked like he would fall, but then he dropped his hammer and tore it away. He retreated, breaking free.

He was the only one that did. The rest of the undead succumbed, and the archers retreated into the forest. Tawna sank to her knees, panting. For a moment, it looked like Simao was considering returning to finish her off. He shrugged, brushed off his shoulder pauldron, then turned and retreated into the forest.

The town let up a mighty cheer. Davi’s song reached a fever pitch, and despite himself, Brin got caught up in the mood as well. This was undeniably a good thing. Tawna might honestly be the strongest person in town after Hogg, and she was still in the fight. After today, the undead would adjust their tactics to counter her, but even so they couldn't shut her down completely.

Hammon’s Bog really had a chance here.

Myra screamed.

Brin saw her on the ground, moving towards the forest. She grabbed at the ground, scraping the mud with her fingernails, but nothing could stop her from flying away from the town. No, not flying. Brin saw a glint of gold around her ankle. She was being dragged.

Zilly rushed past, heading towards Myra in a full sprint, but a [Farmer] on the front line had already turned around and saw her coming. He dropped his spear and shield and grabbed her out of the air with steely arms. She struggled, but the man didn't loosen his grip. “It's already over. Look!”

The gate repair was finished, and the defenders were already starting to move back inside.

“But Myra!” Zilly shouted, still struggling.

Tawna gave up the pretense, and started to pull with her arms as well as her magic. She pulled the tiny golden thread arm over arm, dragging Myra towards her at full speed.

Myra’s scream died down to confused gasping as she saw that her destination was her mother. She opened her mouth to ask a question, and a gag quickly flew into it. Tawna spun her around and around wrapping her up. Soon, Myra was completely cocooned. Tawna put her daughter on her back, and then ran.

“What’s she doing?” he heard someone ask.

Realization hit Brin like a brain freeze hangover. He clutched his head against the bright, painful anger. “Aw, damnit! She took Myra and split! She’s leaving us all to die!”