There were those with empty sockets, lit only by twin balls of phosphorescent fire; those with abdomens lined with compound eyes; and those whose mouths flicked forked tongues.
She recognized some of the monsters that still retained human features.
They were the people who had died when she was a child. People she had only ever seen in portraits from the festival rites. People whose names her father had taught her one by one as he pointed to their tombstones.
But far more were strangers to her. Ancestors whose names had been worn away by wind and rain, their tombstones now illegible. They were older than her great-grandfather, so old she couldn't even place them in her lineage, so old they predated Eira Village itself.
They all lunged forward.
But the sword light was too fast.
It darted and weaved through the monsters' encirclement, every slash unleashing a storm of blood and gore.
