We brought Vulture into the central pavilion tent and sat down at the table with Mouse. It took than we thought to bring her up to speed on recent events but she listened to our whole tale and took notes as she went.

"And that," I said. "Pretty much takes us to now. Wraith is still out there somewhere and we could use any help we can get."

Vulture nodded and pulled a pipe carved from bone from inside her robes. She stuff the bowl full of dried leaves and lit it with a spell. "Right. And in this whole convoluted tale, I fail to see what the Phoenix Roost can do for you."

The three of us shared a look, waiting for her to laugh or let us in on the joke. Silence settled over the table like the first snow of winter and stayed there until we were frozen.

"You're serious?" I asked.

"Parsnip, if you really are the last full Guildswoman of Tower Four, then it is up to you to lead your Guild Hall. It is up to you to lead. Did your master not tell you that?"

I frowned. "No... She didn't have time to tell me much of anything about leading a Guild Hall."

"Why am I not surprised," said Vulture. "It is a true miracle that the Tower stood as long as it did. It may well end up for the best that those fools were culled from the order. If the wounded and sick can't keep up with the herd, they die. It is the way of things. I don't see why we should be any different."

"You take that back," I said through gritted teeth.

Vulture laughed in my face. "No. You're a full member of the Guild. Stand on your own damned feet. Don't expect me to coddle you."

"So you can't help us?" asked Mouse, bringing us back on topic.

"Even if I could," said Vulture. "I'm not sure I want to. As I said, this is not a problem for the Phoenix Roost. Wraith is not threatening any of the lands under our protection. There is no one paying us to get rid of him, if he exists at all."

"If he exists?" I snapped. "What proof do you need? There are legions of corpses in his wake. Entire villages burned."

"And I have seen none of them for myself," said Vulture. "Furthermore, if this Wraith is the same one that I know, the same Wraith that trained Hawk, then I have no reason at all to help you."

"Why not?" asked Quin.

"Because I will not help avenge a murderer and a traitor. I was there at Hawk's trial and she deserved everything that happened to her."

Rage hammered through me like a shot from a trebuchet smashing a fortress wall. I shout to me feet and Quin leapt up to meet me, holding me back and gently pushing me back into my seat.

Mouse was the only one of us who was keeping their cool. "Could you explain that for us?" he asked. "I feel like we're missing some important context."

"Full Guild member don't get sent to the Tower without reason," said Vulture. "Wraith was Hawk's master, and she murdered him."

"That's not possible," I said.

"Delude yourself if you wish," said Vulture. "I was there doing some additional training at the Blackstone and Hawk, along with some failing wizard, pulled a bad Quest. It's happened to all of us. You get a card, and things don't go to plan, civilian casualties. I'm sure you've been there and you know the Guild isn't pleased when a job goes sour. And rightly so, failed jobs don't fill the coffers with gold."

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. "Not to mention the deaths."

Vulture waved a dismissive hand towards me. "Yes, yes, very sad, but peasants die all the time. It's not like it's something to dwell on."

Quin sat a little straighter and balled their hands into fists. "And the gold is?"

"Of course it is," said Vulture. "You can't feed yourself on dead peasants." She paused and a sick smile spread across her pinched features. "Well, I suppose you can, but only if there isn't anything better to eat."

She laughed at her own joke.

We didn't.

Even Mouse was starting to lose patience. He stared across the table like he was looking at a reeking compost heap. "Please," he said. "After this failed job, what happened?"

Vulture shrugged. "After that things get messy. Hawk and her idiot friends lost their minds, they started going on and on about how Wraith had set them up, and how he wanted those villagers killed. All of it nonsense if you ask me. Wraith always had a good head on his shoulders and a keen sense for what would make the Guild extra coin. It's not something he would order. Hawk couldn't take it and clearly cracked under the strain. She started telling the most unbelievable stories about how Wraith was experimenting on the bodies, raising the dead. You would have to be a true idiot to believe it. The only ones who went along with her stories were her friends, the fool wizard and some idiot warrior I can't remember the name of. They plotted and planned for weeks and cut Wraith's throat in his sleep. I wanted her executed but there was some disagreement and she was exiled to the Tower instead."

I rolled my eyes. "This is such bullshit."

"Hawk was always quite a story teller. I'm not surprised you think that way."

"I think this way because it's the truth," I said.

"Plus," said Mouse. "We've fought Wraith and his legions. Whatever he was working on back then, he succeeded and took his knowledge with him into Imperial territory. As far as we can tell, he's raised entire armies of soldiers from the Imperial catacombs."

Vulture took a long drag on her pipe and blew a smoke ring in Mouse's face. "And you're sure of this? You've seen the catacombs? You've checked your facts? You should have passed some Imperial ruins on the way here. It wouldn't have been too far out of your way."

Mouse grumbled and dropped his gaze to the battered table top. "No. We didn't check."

"The standards at the Tower have clearly fallen farther than I thought. It's amazing you can even call yourselves member of the Guild."

"It's amazing that you can," I said. "I thought the Guild was supposed to help people."

Vulture sneered down at all of us. "Oh you're one of those are you?"

I stood. Quin didn't hold me back this time. "One of what?"

"One of those sentimental bleeding hearts, like the penniless fools in Ren's Hollow and some of the layabout wizards in the Blackstone. Not real heroes."

"We're three times the Heroes you'll ever be," I said.

Vulture stood slowly and untied the belt holder her robes shut. She shrugged out of the robe and let it fall to the ground. Underneath she wore a metal breastplate, pauldrons, breeches, and leather boots. Her arms were unarmored and she spread them wide, making sure I could read all of the Guild markings she had earned.

"If you want to press the issue," she said. "I would be more than happy to put you in your place."

I pulled of my own robe and pushed up the sleeves of my dress, mirroring her stance. My markings looked pitiful in comparison. Vultures arms told a story of bandit raids and defeating great beasts. Mine told a story of someone who had barely completed their basic training. One of us was a real hero, the other little more than a common thug.

And I was willing to stake my life on which was which.

"If you want to take this outside, then let's go."

She laughed again, and motioned towards the door. "If you need a beating to drive the lesson home then I am more than willing to lend a hand."

We stepped outside and found the village gathered in the center of town. They were all listening to a small man in robes like the midnight sky who was flanked by two soldiers whose features were entirely hidden by great helms and plate armour. It looked like my fist fight would have to wait.

"Mouse, Quin!" I shouted back into the tent. "Get our weapons! Now!"

I ran to the edge of the crowd and found Quin's grandfather trying to peer over the shoulders of the people in front of him.

"Grandfather," I said. "You need to get all of these people out of here. Now."

"Is there trouble?" he asked.

"More than you know. Please, is there a safe place nearby? Somewhere you would go to wait out a storm?"

"We could go to the old ruins. It's mostly safe. Although, I'm not quite sure why?"

At the front of the crowd someone disagreed with Wraith. It was the last mistake they made. I heard the dull thud of an axe biting flesh and someone screamed. The crowd scattered.

"That's why," I said. "Move! We'll buy you time."

The dead legionaires swung wildly into the crowd. Men and women fell like wheat at harvest time and Wraith stepped into the heart of the chaos, chanting a spell as he walked. The dead got back up.

I turned to give Vulture a cold stare. "Believe us now?"

She shook her head. "This isn't possible. No. Magic can't do that."

Wraith laughed. "It can. I'm quite practiced at the art now. Soon I'll have all of the power I need to forge the world anew. I will-"

Quin sprinted up behind the warlock, sword held high and cleaved him nearly in two with an overhand blow.

"No more speeches, you son of a bitch," Quin snarled. They ripped the sword free and kicked Wraith dying body to the ground. The wizard fell and the two soldiers he had brought with him dropped like puppets whose strings had been cut.

"Hit him again," I shouted. "He's not getting back up this time."

Quin nodded. They planted the tip of their sword at the base of Wraith's skull. They rammed the blade down through the warlock's neck and twisted. I heard vertebrae seperate with snap.

Blades of ice skated across the inside of my skull. Wraith's laughed echoed inside my head.

Quin wavered, holding the side of their head.

"Again," I said. "He's not done."

Quin wrenched the blade free.

Wraith laughed again.

Mouse stepped up next to me and pushed my quiver and bow into my hands. He hefted his staff and sang a spell. A circle of blazing orange runes appeared in the air around the tip of the staff.

"Let me try," he said. "Quin you might want to back off."

Quin staggered back, still holding their head and sat heavily in the sand. Blood dripped down from their nose.

Mouse loosed the spell and a stream of golden fire as wide as my arm slammed into the wizard's corpse. Wraith disintegrated under the blast and drifted away as a cloud of smoke and ash on the wind.

I fell to my knees in the sand and couldn't stop myself from smiling despite the stench of burnt flesh hanging in the air.

It was over. After everything it was finally over.

"We can still beat the shit out of each other if you like, Vulture, but I think we can go our separate ways. It's over. We can pack up and never see each other again." I laughed. "It's over."

I stood and pulled Mouse into a hug. I squeezed him so tight he made his Parsnip you're killing me noise and then let him go.

"That was incredible, Mouse!" I said. "I can't believe it."

"I think," said Vulture. "I'm going to take you up on that 'go our separate deal.' If this is the kind of bullshit you're dragging the Phoenix Roost into, I want no part of it unless you're paying me a heap of money."

I didn't even turn to look at her. "Fine, fine. Leave."

The smoke that was left of Wraith clung to the air and settled over the center of town like a low hanging fog. It was stuck, and no amount of desert wind or us trying to fan it away could make it move.

Quin stood with their hands on their hips, staring at the cloud. "Just couldn't leave peaceful could he? Had to ruin something on his way out."

Mouse nodded. "We sent the people here away right? I don't think I want anyone messing with this until I can figure out what it is. Too bad the Roost is packed full of greedy idiots. We certainly could have used their library."

Vulture was driving back up the dunes and heading out of town as fast as she could.

"I can get her back here," I said. "She's still within shouting distance."

Mouse shook his head. "Don't bother. If you weren't going to fight her, then I was. If she was back I don't think I could keep my composure."

Quin laughed. "If you weren't going to beat her, and Snip wasn't going to, then I was ... again. Probably best to let her go or else we'll give ourselves a bad name."

"What do you mean, again?" I asked.

"Grateful as I am for her introducing me to the Guild, when I was fourteen I snapped. Couldn't put up with her ideas anymore. We fought. I got sent to the Tower."

"Well, I'm thankful for that," I said.

We all took a collective step back towards the central tent so Mouse could return to his research pile. A familiar oily voice filled my head.

"Fools," said Wraith. "Fools, fools, fools." His voice faded for a moment and then came back as an unintelligible mix of gibbering and screaming.

The sound was like a dagger being driven through my forehead.

"You don't know," Wraith continued. "You don't know that I am something beyond death and time. This one can't die. Can't, can't, can't die. Won't die. Refuses it." The screaming came again and had all three of us rolling on the ground clutching at our ears.

"The dragon of death won't eat Wraith," he said when he had control of himself again. "Won't take Wraith no matter how much it hurts him. I am its master no matter how much it burns."

Wraith screamed again but this time the pain disappeared. I lay still in the sand for a long while, panting. When I stood up the smoke at the center of town was churning and piecing itself back together.

For a brief moment Wraith stood before us, dark and translucent like a living shadow, and then he fell to his kness, arching his back and screaming in silent agony. The shadow image flickered. Distorted. Grew.

There was a crack of thunder, a wet tearing like flesh ripping. The smoke devoured the corpses of Wraith's legionaires, and the wizards form came apart and congealed again.

When the black smoke settled, we weren't looking at Wraith anymore. The thing standing before us was a six winged horror made of rotting flesh and blackened bone. The beast strecthed it's long, serpentine neck and snarled at us. Two voices screamed in unison, sounds mixing together so any meaning was lost in the noise.

"Wraith," said the horror. "You were but a puppet. A tool that no longer have a use for."

Wraith's voice whispered on the wind, just beyond the point of hearing.

"You've done your job. The veil thinned and now here I am. Rest, now, Wraith. Your part is done."

I swallowed hard and crawled back towards the tent on my hands and knees.

"So Mouse," I whispered. "Got any spells for killing whatever a dragon of death is?"

Mouse shook his head. "Not a one. I'm open to other ideas."

"How about running?" said Quin.

I nooded. "Running works for me."