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"No..." That was all Ander had time to say.

Banno lunged forward, jaws working, teeth snapping. The tines of the pitchfork scraped along the stairs, scratching three thick furrows into the wood.

Without stopping to think, Ander grabbed Hezzi and rolled him to the side, putting his back to Banno's impossible charge.

A filthy set of teeth clamped down on Ander's shoulder, exactly where Hezzi's head was just a moment ago. He could feel Banno's breath blasting by his cheek as he bit down and whipped his head from side to side, ripping his flesh open. Every violent jerk caused the tines of the pitchfork to momentarily rise off the steps and then slam down again, creating a frenzied tapping and scraping of iron against wood.

"Why aren't you dead!?" Ander screamed against the pain, trying to shield Hezzi as best he could. "Why can't you just leave us alone!?"

Because I can't die, the voice spoke up in Ander's mind. I am everything in this world, and everything in this world is me. I will eat, and eat, and eat, and eat, and I will never be satisfied. Your brother. Your mate. Your baby. I will devour them all.

"Nooo!" Ander twisted his body around, not knowing what he intended to do until he actually did it. His elbow struck Banno in the neck and it made a rather out of place sound, a kind of squelching sound. That's because the sound didn't actually come from Banno's neck, but from his chest. The impact had pushed his body down along the pitchfork's teeth. Ander could see where his flesh had previously reached as a thick red line just below the point where the iron split.

He pulled his arm back and struck again. This time the noise was even louder than before, and his upper body sunk closer to the steps with a wet crack. If the pitchfork's teeth had been straighter, he might have slid down all the way.

But despite being impaled, Banno was still tearing into Ander's shoulder, growling like a feral beast, slicing through skin and fur, ripping at the scars Dorin's teeth had left before him. He opened his jaws and his fangs pulled free of Ander's flesh with little resistance, connected by ropes of blood and drool. With a choked, gravely roar, he propelled himself closer on all fours like a crippled cockroach, blasting hot plumes of sour breath into Ander's face, going straight for his neck.

Ander lashed out and his forearm slid in beneath Banno's chin, stopping his jaws just a hair's breadth from his throat. Red maw and slimy teeth, they snapped shut again and again, steadily creeping closer.

"Aargh!" Ander pushed back with everything he had, but he simply didn't have much of a mechanical advantage in this position. With Banno practically right on top of him, the best he could hope for was to keep those teeth from slamming shut around his neck, and even that was doubtful. The problem wasn't that Banno was too strong or even that his reach was too great. The problem was that he was far too insane to know that he should already be dead.

Perhaps no longer capable of speech, Banno roared and barked, pushing against Ander's outstretched arms. Light glinted off the blood-slicked iron spikes sticking out of his chest, slowly dripping.

Ander knew he couldn't last like this. Fighting Banno strength against strength was a fool's way to die.

What he needed was more leverage.

Feeling like his meagre reserves of strength would run out at any second, Ander wound his good leg around Banno's back and pressed his foot against the pitchfork's handle, pushing it back exactly like a lever.

Banno's body began to arc backwards, but that didn't quell his insane thrashing in the least. He was still straining forward, so hard, in fact, that the iron tines were actually bending inside his body, gaping the puncture wounds ever wider, turning the slow dribble of blood into three separate streams.

If my foot slips now, or if Banno breaks free...

Banno certainly tried. He leaned forward like an animal straining against a leash, growling and snarling, thick scuds of brownish red foam dripping from his lips. When that didn't work and he realised his teeth were no longer an option, he raked his claws across Ander's chest, slashing diagonally.

The pain was sudden and fierce, twisting Ander's muscles into violent knots. Banno lurched closer, his insane roars filling the mill. He lashed out again, scraping his claws across Ander's chest from the other direction, creating a searing diamond pattern of fire in his flesh.

Ander's strength was leaving him just as surely as the blood was leaving his body. Banno was coming closer and closer, his lips peeling back into that hideous expression that was both a gleeful smile and a wild snarl.

If he kills me now, Hezzi will be next.

That thought alone forced Ander into desperate action. "Hezzi!" he called, fighting just to keep Banno at bay. "Hezzi, can you hear me!?"

The boy hadn't moved a muscle since Ander rolled him to the side. He was just lying there with his back to the railing. His shoulder was propped up against the edge of a step and his head hung in what looked like a very uncomfortable position, with his ear just barely grazing the wood. Blood was still seeping into his scarf and slowly dripping from the tassles, which had fused together into a mushy red lump that looked disconcertingly like raw meat.

"Hezzi! You have to climb higher! You hear me!? Crawl up! You have to get out of here!"

The boy's eyelids didn't so much as flutter, and with the way Banno was thrashing and flailing, striving to break through his meagre guard, Ander couldn't keep his head still long enough to tell if he was breathing.

I have to get him out of here somehow. I have to -

Crushing pain erupted in Ander's thigh, just above the knee. It was a pain he had become well acquainted with over the course of this hellish night; dozens of stabbing puncture wounds on either side of his leg, burrowing deep.

Unable to reach his neck, Banno had deigned to bite down on his leg, tearing through his pants like paper. Ander could feel torrents of his own blood running down his leg, soaking his fur and creating a wet, sliding layer between leather and skin.

His first instinct was to pull back, to get away at all costs, but he couldn't remove his foot from the pitchfork's handle, otherwise he and Hezzi were both as good as dead.

Banno shook his head from side to side. Tattered strips of bloody leather flew from his teeth and fluttered down the steps like dead moths.

Ander could barely hear himself screaming over the animalistic grunts and crunching noises coming from Banno's mouth. He couldn't keep going like this. He had reached his limits long ago. He had to put a stop to this right now, or else it wouldn't matter. None of it would matter. His hopes, his dreams, his promises, his friends, his family, everything and everyone he had fought and bled for...

He would lose them all.

"No!" Ander bit down on his tongue, knowing full well how badly this would hurt, and kicked out with his bad leg as hard as he possibly could, driving his broken foot directly into Banno's chest, right above the pitchfork's teeth.

Pain tore through Ander's body from two different directions. One was Banno's teeth being forcefully ripped from his thigh, the other was his foot bending back against Banno's chest.

Banno slid down several steps, hacking and coughing blood, while Ander writhed in agony, clutching his gushing legs. Breathing heavily, sucking air through gritted teeth, Ander opened his eye and, through the sweaty tangles of his hair, he saw what Banno had been reduced to.

He was down on all fours, vomiting blood onto the stairs. The wooden handle was sticking out of his back like a scorpion's tail, waving forward and back with every blood-spewing convulsion.

Like a scorpion. Yes, that's exactly what Banno was. A black creature that liked to hide in the cool shadows under rocks and decomposing logs. A cruel, soulless killer with dead eyes that lived only to poison its victims and tear then limb from limb.

How do you fight a scorpion? How do you defeat a creature filled with so much venom?

You grab it by the tail.

Pushing off with his good foot, Ander launched himself down the stairs with a primal scream, reaching for the handle growing out of Banno's back, intending to grab and twist it, or even just plough into it with all his weight. Either of those would work, he was sure of it.

But Banno, caught in a permanent state of bloodlust far greater than anything any Wolf had ever experienced, did not shy away from Ander's attack. He rose up, his solitary eye flashing in the dark, and they both crashed into each other head on.

Ander grabbed two fistfuls of black fur and kept going, using every bit of momentum he had to push the monster back, grinding his teeth together in an attempt to ignore the pain bursting through his broken ankle with every step. Banno was downhill, and he only had one arm to push back with. This might be the only time Ander would ever be in a position where he could push directly against Banno's sheer brute strength and come out on top, and he intended to use this opportunity to the fullest. If he could knock Banno down, if he could force the monster to fall onto the handle protruding from his back, it might just be enough to finally end this, to send him straight to whatever inconceivable hell he deserved.

But Banno didn't fall. Even overcome with blind rage, he took one step back for every step Ander pushed forward, compensating for speed and strength as well as the decline of the stairs, not missing a single step, moving with a careful balance not even Nilia could have replicated.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and, now on level ground, all of Ander's little advantages melted away and Banno's insane strength came back into play. Even with only one arm, Ander didn't think he could win an all-out pushing contest against this beast.

As if to confirm this thought, they both came to a slow, grinding halt. For a moment their strength was balanced, and then Ander began to feel the power behind Banno's grip. Ander tried to compensate, but his good foot simply scraped along the floorboards. It was like trying to push against the mountain itself.

It was like trying to fight the Cora.

And now Banno was pushing back, leaning forward, driving his claws deep into the clefts already cut into Ander's chest for a better onehanded grip. He had no choice but to take a step back, or otherwise risk the consequences of exposing his face to those teeth.

This thing he was fighting against. This hulking, gasping, roaring, blood-snuffling thing. There was no trace of the old Banno left in it. That Banno had been a cunning creature of pure evil, a monster who knew how to blend in, how to make plans, how to bide his time, how to charm and ultimately manipulate. That Banno had been driven by life, had been fascinated by it, obsessed with it. That Banno had been a Wolf. An evil Wolf, to be sure, but still a Wolf. That Banno had been his brother.

But this Banno... this was no longer the 'Flavour of Death'. This was the monster where his soul was supposed to have been, the core around which the shell of 'Banno' had formed over the years. It was incapable of thought and understanding. It had no restraint, no remorse, no sorrow, no pain. It was a mindless corpse. Dead flesh infused with the desire to eat... and eat... and eat...