Slayter grunted as his shoulder slammed against the ashen stone wall. He staggered down to one knee, his teeth clenched together and slammed his shield’s point into the dirty cobbles. This had once been a temple, damn Finde for being right. He should’ve listened, he knew he should have, but he knew better. Of course he did.

The ghostly creature shouldn’t have been so strong. Its claws shouldn’t have cleaved through stone with unnatural ease. Now the paladin’s ears were ringing from the consecutive blows he’d received moments after it had appeared, materialized from cowardly shadows without warning or declaration of intent.

Finde was tucked behind a column, frantic as she paged through one of her books, desperate to find something, anything to help. Whenever the ghost made to slash at her hiding place, Theo or Brandy would lunge in and attack, drawing its fury.

Finde rounded her corner ready to banish the spectre. A blinding light emanated from her raised hand to the dim ruin’s hall, but as Slayter’s eyes adjusted, it was impossible to ignore the brute’s imposing presence.

It was a savage and misshapen humanoid figure, twisted and pulled like taffy. Its limbs were long and gangly, each arm ending in three claws hooked like threshing sickles. The creature stood almost twice Theo’s height, though Slayter was sure it was only a head or two taller than himself. Its skin was muddy and mottled, a sludgy, putrid colour to match its thick musk; neither would be out of place in the bog closeby the ruins. The meat beneath its skin was bulbous in unnerving places, not unlike the trolls sometimes found up in the more remote mountains, yet its skin sagged in pleats and layered flaps. It had too many chins to count, and its breasts seemed to droop and blur into its paunch as it spun on Finde.

The monster lashed out with a plodding kick, toppling the scholar and her protective column in one go. Brandy dove, her warhammer slamming down on the monster’s foot. It howled in pain and as it flailed backward, kicking long-undisturbed dust into a cloud that filled the air. Slayter watched through a haze as Mother Dwarf caught the creature’s next kick in the belly, sending her smashing through several heaps of rotted wooden slats. She slid across the ruin’s floor and came to a stop against the wall opposite Slayter.

Something twinged at the paladin as he watched the creature slam its claws down into the rubble where Finde was attempting to crawl to safety. Something was different. Beneath its shoulder-length, stringy black hair, the creature’s eyes were blazing like two coals freshly plucked from the smith’s forge. The monster no longer wore the ruin’s shadows like a well-worn cloak. It bellowed, throwing its weight toward the blurring scythe that kept slashing at its legs.

“S’no ghost,” Slayter slurred to his comrades in arms, but they couldn’t hear him. The paladin grit his teeth as he tried to pull himself upright, failed, and crashed back down onto one knee. Cracked ribs, internal bleeding, probably more will reveal itself, Slayter thought as he frowned. He didn’t have time to die.

He was of the Order of the Dragon. His stalwart shield was the Great Dragon’s back, his greatscissors served as Its teeth. He survived by Its will, he knew that. It didn’t stop the shame from flooding his eyes, mixing with blood dripping from...from where?

His forehead gave a dull throb. He wasn’t sure whether he had received the gash from the beast’s initial onslaught or from his impact with the ruin’s rear wall.

Beyond him, the battle raged. His comrades were shouting. Mother Dwarf was calling to Slayter, but it all seemed so far away. Brandy kept calling to him, but the beast’s furious discordant bleating drowned her out, like a trombone.

The paladin’s vision swam. He pulled himself to his feet, supporting his broad body with his shield. There was a mighty crunch, and Slayter watched Theo’s scrawny form dance out of the way of the beast’s vicious claws. He was sweating and bloodied but still up on his feet, continually swinging his scythe in short sweeps at the creature’s legs. Slayter pushed his pain aside and stood, muttering under his breath a prayer he’d been taught long ago.

“Dinah knew the beast would take her, but still she stood.” He began to move forward. “Elera knew the beast would take him, but still he stood.”

His hand dipped towards the ground as he gained momentum, collecting his greatscissors from where they had been knocked aside.

“Loretha knew the beast would take her, but still she stood,” Slayter intoned, drawing close to the beast. A warmth filled him, driving away the haze, shoving the pain of his injuries elsewhere. His sight sharpened.

Finde was nowhere to be seen. He spotted Mother Dwarf struggling to pull herself up. Theo had circled around the hulking beast, trying to keep its attention focused. It didn’t quite work, and Slayter shouldered his shield as the beast’s claws bit against the tarnished metal, sparking as the sickle claws raked across his side, driving him back.

“There the sacrifices stood, ready for the beast to take them all in blood and bone.” Slayter skidded to a halt next to Brandy. Her breathing was shallow, her eyes unfocused.

“There they stood, but the Great Dragon bent Its head and blew flames into the rock.” Slayter hauled Brandy up; the paladin found the warmth he’d been holding inside of him and pushed it out into Mother Dwarf.

“It blew its fiery tongues into they who stood and their skin coursed with flames, and the beast could not touch them, and could not take them.”

Slayter felt Brandy inhale, her wounds knitting together.

“You’re not done with this life yet, Mother,” he grinned. She picked up her warhammer and returned him a shaky smile.

Theo cried out as his lanky foe managed to grab hold of him with both distended hands, catching his torso and lifting him into the air. It howled in triumph, head swinging down to bite off the stalker’s head, but its meal was interrupted when its left knee exploded.

Slayter blinked. One moment, Finde was nowhere to be seen; the next she was standing beside the hulk’s leg, bloody fist pointed at the disintegrated kneecap.

The creature toppled sideways, crashing into the dust and dirt of the ruins with a squelching, meaty thud. Its skull made a sickening crack as it met stone, like a summer melon cracked open on cobblestones, its insides soon to be swarming with ants and other carrion.

The creature’s final howl conjured cold sweat along Slayter’s neck, somehow more terrifying and haunting than the monster’s visceral attacks. At the back of his mind, Slayter knew with implacable certainty that the creature had been awoken by their investigation. Its waking savage fury had turned from bitter hunger to wild defence, and so it had fallen.

Slayter let out a barking laugh. Brandy shambled up beside him, once again straight-backed and aloft on her platform boots. Theo was extricating himself from the claws locked in a death grip around his torso. Finde was staring at the dismembered leg that still stood up straight, like a tall torch stuck in the ground: the top of the calf was charred and still smoking.

Slayter smiled as he strode forward to pick up his comrades. This was not the ghost he had been expecting, nor the fight for which they had prepared, but here they all stood, alive.

Slayter gave Theo a wolfish grin as he hoisted the stalker out of the tangle of claws. The paladin clapped Finde on the back and turned to his comrades.

“The beast won’t take us, eh?” Slayter couldn’t help but grin.