“She wouldn’t,” Mrs. Copperpot looked dumbfounded. “She let ghouls into the castle? That is the most awful, ridiculous, never should happen thing I can imagine.”

“To me!” Strongheart stepped out the door, and the elves and dwarfs came running.

“Maybe a full hundred,” one of the elves reported.

“We have to stick together,” Noen said as he and Strongheart began to yell orders and set their warriors in battle formation.

The women paused at the door, except for Queen Ivy. She went to James with a word. “Let me have Seabass a minute.” James hardly knew what to say in the face of all that beauty. He held out the cat and was surprised Seabass went willingly to this stranger, though he supposed after a time in close quarters she was no longer a stranger. Ivy assured James when he saw Seabass go invisible. “Your kitty is fine and should be safe.”

“Can you make me invisible?” James asked, and Ivy let out a smile as Mrs. Copperpot grabbed James’ hand and pulled him to the door.

“What’s Wrong?” David asked his mama. She said nothing but turned first to lady Goldenvein.

“I am sure Deepdigger is fine.” She patted the goblin’s hand as she took the Lady’s arm.

Goldenvein nodded, stood, and looked like she might be holding back tears. “And your children,” she said. “I know you are worried about them.” Mama said nothing as the two women came out from behind the table, arm in arm, but David thought the look on his mother’s face was far more frightening than the goblin face.

“David,” Inaros called, and David went to him.

“We will have to fight our way back to the stairs as a unit,” Strongheart said, and he dressed his troops once more while he waited on the scouts he sent out.

Inaros willingly sacrificed his knees as he knelt to talk to David and more face to face with James. “Ghouls can make you see things that aren’t there. They say where there is one, there are ten, and where there are ten, there are a hundred.”

“A hundred ghouls?” David spouted, but he did try to keep his voice down.

“Maybe not. We don’t know. But you have to be careful about what you sense. They can fool your ears as easily as your eyes.” James looked up and Inaros caught the unasked question in the young man’s face. “I don’t know about touch and smell. I tried not to ever get that close to one, and I certainly never tasted one.” Inaros leaned on his cane to get back up. David helped him.

Two elves and two dwarfs showed up at the front and one of the elves spoke. “They are coming down the stairs and out from behind the piles of forgotten things. It looks like a whole compliment.”

“There aren’t that many,” one of the dwarfs objected. “We should make for the stairs.”

Noen smelled something. He scooped some dirt off the floor and tossed it at the dwarfs with a few words. One of the dwarf scouts revealed himself to be a seven foot, green creature with big, sharp teeth and claws. It did not live long. David and James watched, fascinated, while the ghoul deflated and shrank and seemed to melt until there was only a green and purple smudge left on the floor. Mama did not watch. She covered her eyes.

“Now, with care” Strongheart said, and they started to move. “Women and children keep to the middle.” That was not always possible as they had to navigate now and then around the support poles and the occasional pile of forgotten stuff. A few ghouls braved the elves and dwarfs that formed a circle around the women and children, but those ghouls were quickly shot down. The dwarfs had crossbows. The elves had regular bows, but they were uncanny marksmen.

Shy of the stairs, all of the torches in the room went out.

“Get down. Hit the dirt.” Noen and Strongheart yelled at the same time. A number of elves and dwarfs leaned over the women and children, and just in time. Some hundred arrows came in their direction. The elf armor and dwarf chain rejected most of them, but some took a hit and were wounded, a few badly.

“To cover!” Strongheart yelled. Noen did not yell. He already scurried behind a support beam. James David, Inaros and Mrs. Copperpot got behind a pile of forgotten stuff even as elf lights, little globes of pure light, began to rise toward the ceiling and the second volley of arrows came from the ghouls.

James saw the grin on David’s face, a poor imitation of Chris’ grin, but he also saw the wide, unblinking eyes so he knew it was a grin of fear, not happiness. James felt it, but distracted himself by examining the pile, curious as to what stuff might be forgotten. There were lots of clothes in that pile. James pulled out some broken guitar strings and one pick. He also pulled out a number of disposable butane lighters, a few of which still had some life in them. He stuck two working ones in his pocket and dug deeper beneath the clothes. He found a cheap plastic ring with a spider on top and slipped it on his finger.

 “I remember these. Halloween rings.” He held it up to his brother. “Hey, Davey. Look what I found.” David looked briefly, but his expression did not change much before he went right back to grinning and staring off into space. “Earth to Davey,” James mumbled.

“Mexican standoff,” Noen shouted from behind his pole.

“They stick their heads up and we can pick them off,” Strongheart shouted back, and James looked to the side because Strongheart crouched just on the other side of Mrs. Copperpot.

“They outnumber us,” Inaros leaned over and said to the elf Lord. “They can wait us out.”

“And how long can you keep those fairy globes aloft?” Noen shouted back.

Strongheart paused to stroke his chin. He felt surprised the ghouls were not already trying to attack the globes, magically. Maybe the ghouls knew the globes took energy which would become exhausted in time and they were content to conserve their own energy and wait things out. “You need to come here. Be prepared when the lights flash.” Strongheart yelled and lowered the globe he controlled to eye level. Several nearby elves saw what he did and lowered their globes as well. He waved to his men and gave some kind of signal. “One, two, three, go.” Strongheart yelled and all the globes at eye level flashed like photographer’s bulbs, guaranteed to give any watching ghouls a vision of spots and hopefully a headache.

Noen moved fast and arrived before the arrows started again. “We have to find a way to get to those stairs,” he said.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Strongheart quipped.

“I mentioned we needed an elevator in this tower,” Mrs. Copperpot said, grumpily. “Too bad no one listens to old ladies, no matter how well she cooks.”

“We listen good grandmother,” Noen said. “But right now, that is not helping.”

“James. David.”

James heard the voice and turned to look. It looked like his dad, standing off to the side, waving to him like he wanted him to go quietly in that direction.

David looked and shouted, “Dad!” He tried to get up, but James grabbed him and yelled at him.

“It isn’t Dad. It’s a ghoul.”

Normally, David would have broken James’ grip in no time, but this time, for some reason, James found more than enough strength to hold his brother back. Inaros noticed when David shouted. He squinted, and it did not seem to James that he was seeing James’ and David’s father. Mrs. Copperpot looked and said, “James, don’t be fooled.”

Strongheart looked and shot an arrow with the words, “God forgive me.”

Noen let lose a crossbow bolt and said, “Aye.”

David saw his father struck with both deadly projectiles and Dad reached a hand to his chest. He saw his father transform into a ghoul and begin to melt. David stopped struggling and put his head in his hands. James marveled at his own strength and looked again at the cheap plastic spider ring on his finger. He let his imagination run for a bit.

“They have compromised our flank,” Noen noted the obvious.

“What can we do?” Mrs. Copperpot asked, a bit of worry in her voice.

“Pray for a miracle,” Inaros responded. “That was what Captain Van Dyke always said.”