A flash of brilliant white light surrounds the paladin, Kaetla, dissolving a
handful of nightwalkers and causing the rest to hesitate a moment. After
forcing the Whitecloaks to withdraw from the southern gate, they'd split their
forces. They were simply a distraction, after all. One team went west, and her
team moved east.

But they weren't engaged by Whitecloaks, as they expected. What they found was
a scene of carnage. Hundreds of the misguided lightwalkers' corpses lay strewn
about the southeastern watchtower. They'd retreated from the north, leaving a
grotesque trail of bodies, and made a final stand here. It was not like Freg to
let his men slaughter like this.

Then, night had fallen, and the truth materialized from the darkness.

She raises her shield, deflecting acid-dripping fangs as the attack resumes. To
her left, a mighty battlecry is called, and a massive two-handed hammer falls,
crushing a nightwalker into oblivion. To her right, her faithful companion, a
dog nearly four feet tall at the shoulders, tears into another nightwalker with
savage ferocity. Red lightning splits the sky overhead.

A hundred yards behind her, archers loose arrows from the watchtower. Four days
of fighting, and they've only pressed forward a hundred yards. The ground runs
slick with blood.