Grom and Bill followed Newt through the city, though the raven shaped creature’s aid was hardly needed. Ellen’s steed left behind it a carnage of frightened horses and fleeing people. The majority of the chaos was caused by the reaction the less… tentacly horses had to the summon beast. While Grom had begun to notice the strange sensations Ellen’s new summons caused, none of that was at work on the people of the city.

  The cause of the chaos was far more obvious. They were simply terrified of stampeding horses.

  Bill easily outpaced Grom but had to slow when the raven didn’t stay ahead of him, it waiting for Grom to catch up before flying ahead to its next perch.

  “Run faster!” Bill yelled.

  “Why don’t you run slower?” Grom shouted back.

  It wasn’t that he was out of shape that he lagged behind, it was simply a matter of—well—shape, Bill was over six feet tall and had legs proportional to that height, while Grom was just under four.

  Eventually the raven departed from the main thoroughfare, leading them down a sloped side street down to the river that ran through the city. Here the tracks of the steed could be seen in the mud along its bank, each imprint a different shade as the tentacles that made it up writhed between contact.

  The trail led down to a large opening sewer opening in the bank, the metals bars where Ellen’s steed waited. The raven flew right past it and into the sewer, Grom and Bill following behind. The confined tunnel was just tall enough for Bill to run with a stoop, and light from the storm drains periodically provided just enough light for him to navigate by.

  The first thing Grom noticed, sucking in deep ragged breaths as he was, was the stench. The sewer was certainly functioning, and as he ran he sloshed through ankle high filth. Bill’s added height didn’t protect him from the smell, but what it did do was make the stray splashes of sewage far less likely to splash into his mouth.

  “Get behind me ya clod!” Grom yelled after a brief moment of retching.

  After only two short bends they found Ellen, waiting nervously behind for them.

  She ushered them to keep coming and once there she shushed them, putting her finger over her lips. Grom and Bill looked past her to see the tunnel opened to a chamber lit with blood red light from a ring of candles and the light of the drains from the two other tunnels that lead to it. Around the ring stood four hooded figures, and in the center towered an enormous six-legged mosquito shaped being. It hovered in place on its buzzing wings, clearly confined to the place, and once they noticed the sight, they recognized words over the shout.

  “Take us as an offering to seal our covenant!” one of the speakers shouted.

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  Grom and Bill reached for their weapons, but Ellen gestured for them to stop.

  “Wait!” she said. “They can’t hear us. I cast a spell.”

  “Then why did you shush us?” Bill asked.

  “Because you idiots were really loud and I’m trying to listen!” she shouted at him.

  “Why are we waiting?” Bill demanded.

  “Because those cultists are about to let that devil kill them,” she explained. “Who knows what magic they know. I’d rather only have to fight the one.”

  Bill looked aghast at the idea, while Grom nodded along, seeing the sense in the suggestion.

  Only then did Grom notice that Ellen didn’t stand in the filth like them, instead sitting with her feet a few inches above it on her magic broom.

  “Why didn’t you use that to fly here?” Grom asked her, pointing. “That steed left quite the mess.”

  “It’s rude to ask a wizard over their spell choices,” Ellen said, turning away to watch the ritual.

  “You just made that up,” Grom said, looking to Bill for his nod of agreement.

  “You forgot you had it didn’t ya?” Grom said.

  “Maybe,” Ellen said. “Now quiet.”

  As they talked the cultists each spoke the same offering, and once they were all done, they stepped into the ring, It wasted no time stabbing its long proboscis into their hearts. Within seconds each human was left a wrinkled mass on the floor, and it moved onto the next. Once the last had fallen, it began looking for an exit to the room only for a mote of flame struck it in the face, exploding and engulfing the entire chamber.

  Grom muttered a prayer before even the flames cleared and the trio braced for the mosquito devil to charge them. But it never did.

  When the fire had gone, they saw the demon struggling to get free of two burning cultists clutching to its wings, preventing it from flying away. Ellen sent bolts of magic into the demon as Bill let out a battle cry and ran in.

  He didn’t slow as he neared the demon, only pulling his axe back and swinging as he expected to run through it. To the shock of Ellen and Grom—and likely Bill as well—the blade flared to light with a brilliant white-gold glow. Bill’s war cry grew louder, and he cleaved through the first zombie clinging to the nearest pair of insectile wings.

  The axe continued through, cutting through the smallest of its legs and embedding itself in the chest of the zombie in the rear.

  “Damned fool!” Grom yelled.

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