22nd October 2026

A thread that did not hold

From the TEST: Old Haunts series

TEST: The Durnholde Challenge

From up there Hillsbrad looked like a quilt someone had left out in the rain: green squares, brown squares, a river stitched through the middle, and the black thumbprint of the old wars wherever a town had been. She came down over it in long, lazy turns, the way you come down the stairs into a party you are not sure you were invited to.

---

The ruins of Durnholde Keep were full of Horde recruits learning to be brave, and of five large elementals the Dark Lady had shut inside the walls for them to practise on. The paper in Blondage’s hand named all five: Zephyrus, Teracula, Bloodvenom, Infernus and D-1000.

“One of these is not like the others,” she said.

The challengers had been built for recruits half her age and a tenth of her trouble. Zephyrus blew at her, and she let him, because it was a nice evening and he seemed to need it. Teracula threw a rock. Infernus set fire to the grass and looked at her for approval. She dealt with each of them briskly and with good manners, the way a nurse deals with a ward at night, and at one point, out of pure professional reflex, she healed Bloodvenom halfway through hitting him and had to apologise to them both.

D-1000 asked her, in a flat metal voice, whether she was enjoying the challenge.

“Darling,” said Blondage, “I am exalted with forty factions. You are the challenge I give myself on a slow night.“

---

She folded the paper and put it back in her bag, answered at last. It had taken years. Most things worth doing do, and most of the rest are not worth doing at all.

---

More in the TEST: Old Haunts series

← Back to: TEST: Forty Friends and Nobody in Brill · Next: TEST: Where Evenings End →

---

What did you think?

Tell us what you made of this story. Your comment is read by the people who write and review the stories.

Last updated 23rd October 2026, 09:33