The Fire Festival was a welcome chance to relax. The torches had little protective cages around them this year. Rather than let the party get too safe, someone had insisted on making floating lanterns for decoration, like tiny hot air balloons lifted by candles. They were pretty, but Vonn stood ready with as many buckets of water as he could gather.

With the year's farm work done all of Shieldpoint slowed down. There was maintenance to do, though, and the river traffic never completely stopped despite floating ice. Vonn and company joined in with dancing on the snow-dusted ground.

During daylight Birb held another demo of her airboat. To the locals it wasn't much different from the versions with a wicker basket or a flat platform, and she hadn't tried installing the jet device yet. But it was still a novelty and a few people got to fly for the first time. The bird girl beamed and made new friends.

Even the Bonefire Guild attended the party. They mostly kept to themselves, but with the ongoing troubles out west they were making themselves a bigger presence in Shieldpoint, both to keep watch and to socialize. The result was that oddly somber men smelling of ether were drinking and talking with dockworkers and barrel-makers and farmers. The necromancers had brought cookies.

Vonn chatted with them about the engines made from monster guts. Weirdly, they were enthused about the concept. One man said, "What if we used our magic to squeeze such a thing like a bellows?"

"Well, you'd need to do it over and over, several times a second. You can't make a dead heart beat, or can you?"

"Not that fast," said one of the more experienced guys. "It might be possible to keep a creature alive with an undead heart, but how would it survive having that put in?"

"Have you tried making a muscle twitch with a lightning spell? I would think that a metal wire could carry the zap into a preserved limb." An Earth scientist named Galvani had done an unnerving experiment with frog legs, probably helping to inspire the story of Frankenstein.

The Necromancer said, "We've tried lightning, yes. Some of our more advanced techniques combine that with other energy. As for using wires, we've been helping out in the west with that trick of directing Mana through metal. Not a completely new idea, but that's a bold application of it."

"I had been wondering about the Woven," Vonn said, changing the subject. "Why aren't there more of them, if they're so useful? I'd think your group would be the perfect people to work on that."

"The Duke won't let us!" said a young acolyte who'd had more drinks than Vonn. "He was happy to use them in the war, but only after the Kobolds screwed around."

One of his older fellows nudged him to quiet him. "It's a sore subject with us. The exact procedure for making them is the Duke's secret."

Vonn said, "All these secrets. We do best when the techniques are in the open. If you're interested in the bellows concept I can build something sturdy that you can move more slowly than my engines. Could be good for irrigation or something. Oh, I'd been meaning to talk with you about plows again."

A Vulin girl grinned up at Vonn and took his hand. "Always business with you! Come and join me for a round." It was Inkpaw the printer girl, and showed such enthusiasm he couldn't say no. Vonn gave the necromancers an apologetic smile and got dragged off.

A new dance had started. They spun and hopped around the village green and managed not to catch their tails on fire. Having enhanced Agility even made him seem competent at it. Fun, but Dad had been mentioning the girl's skill and looks lately and he did not understand Vonn well enough. He needed somebody older. After the dance he excused himself to get another muffin, and Inkpaw came along to chat about the print shop. He was genuinely excited about that; the printers were bringing in money and helping to find all the faults with his press technology. Which meant adding to the to-do pile, but oh well.

Vonn was trying to figure out how to disengage from Inkpaw gently when thunder boomed in the distance. The sky was cloudy but the two moons shined nearly full. Vonn hoped there'd be no rain.

The party went on but people were checking the sky now. Vonn was saying something about lightning rods when a creature flew toward them, first appearing like a bat but then revealing itself as bigger, misshapen, and diving toward the crowd.

Like most people he was stunned. An old soldier was the first to say, "Scatter, idiots! Alarm!"

Dad ran for the Reeve's house where the alarm bell was. The Reeve himself snapped out of silence in time to stand up with his crutch and shout a warning, too.

The monster was wolf-sized, winged and bloated, and it pounced on a Kobold kid who'd been looking the wrong way. They tumbled on the snowy ground. Vonn ran closer and stopped, bristling, at the sight of weird snapping jaws and black eyes. He was unarmed.

Tazo ran up and had the same reaction, but shook her head and said, "Spell!" She held out her hands to try casting something and Vonn turned toward her to help.

Kotta and several others were faster. A man had grabbed one of the torches and thrust it at the beast, shouting, "Let him go!" Kotta had been wearing a knife and got in a slash. Two Humans flung rocks expertly and nailed the monster. From all this assault it reeled, struggling to get free of the boy it had just bitten. Its jaws dripped with blood and its eyes hardly reflected the moonlight.

The pinned kid flailed uselessly and it was hard now to avoid hitting him too. Kotta and others yanked him free while the beast flapped claw-edged wings at them. In a flurry of violence the melee group rushed in and beat the creature to death even as the village alarm bell rang.

Tazo carefully released the burning spell she'd been preparing, letting the red-glowing Mana ripple away. "What was that?"

Kotta said, "The dungeon has come to us!"