And then something drifted out at them from the mists, all too human in shape for his comfort. Tarrant said nothing, but urged him forward with a touch, and Damien obeyed silently, his stomach a tight knot of dread. They walked like you did with a mad dog, slowly, pretending not to notice its presence, while all the while your heart was pounding, and sweat was running down your face. The figure had come closer now, close enough to investigate, and it took everything Damien had not to turn and look at it. Were there other figures by its side, or was that only his fear making him see things? Or Calesta’s power, turned against them at last? Damn it, if this place didn’t give him a heart attack all by itself, waiting for the enemy to strike at them might just do it.
He was moving forward, watching the strange figure out of the corner of his eye, when suddenly Tarrant grabbed his arm and jerked him back. He felt cold air rush up against his face, and as he looked down he could see that there was no ground in front of him, not by a good fifty or sixty feet. He had almost walked right into it.
“God,” he whispered.
Tarrant had turned to face their pursuer. His body was rigid with tension, which Damien found less than reassuring. With a last glance down at the chasm by his feet, Damien turned as well, and dared to look at the thing that had been following them. At first it seemed no more than a shadow, and then, as he gazed upon it, it took on form and substance. A man’s head, gashed from nose to jaw. A man’s throat, rubbed raw by rope. A man’s body—
“My God,” he choked out, turning away.
A man’s body gutted open, intestines streaming down its legs like worms, heart twisting between the jagged shards of a shattered rib cage. He felt sickness welling up inside him and didn’t know if he could hold it in. Was it better to vomit away from a ghost, or right on top of it?
"Go." Tarrant’s voice was no more than a whisper, but the power it bound made the figure’s surface ripple like water. The Hunter put a hand to his sword and drew it out ever so slightly. The coldfire didn’t blaze with its normal brilliance, but curled about his hand and wrist like tendrils of glowing smoke. “You have no business with us. Leave us alone, or ...” He pulled the sword free another inch, to illustrate his intention.
The creature stared at them, and for a moment Damien was certain that it was going to move toward them. But then, with a snarl, it moved back a step. And another. Fading into the mist before their eyes, until its outline could no longer be seen.
Damien allowed himself the first deep breath in several long minutes. “A shadow?”
The Hunter nodded.
“Is it gone?”
“As much as such things ever are, in this place.”
“You could have destroyed it, right?”
The sword snapped shut. The veiled gaze of the Hunter was cold and uncomforting. “Let’s hope I don’t have to try.” He took a step closer to the precipice, and Damien dared the same. A river had cut into the plain before them, etching out a canyon that twisted back in hairpin turns on either side. Water glistened blackly at its bottom, and thick clouds of mist clung to its walls that all but obscured its details.
“The land is filled with these,” Tarrant told him. “They make the plain into a veritable maze, and one wrong turn can leave a man trapped.”
Until sunrise, Damien thought. That would be long enough, where Tarrant was concerned. “You said you’ve been to Shaitan before.”
“Not by this route. From the tunnel that exits under my keep, which leads to much simpler ground. Not through this.” He shook his head tightly, his frustration obvious. “I had hoped the canyons would be visible from above, so that I could sketch out a path for us before we descended. But the view-as you saw—was hardly that useful.”
“So what now?”
He gazed out into the distance, narrowing his eyes as one might gazing into a bright light. “I can make out some of its pattern from here. Enough to guide us, perhaps.”
Perhaps. How long was the day this time of year, ten hours, eleven? Not long enough to pick their way through a maze of this complexity. Damien looked up toward Shaitan’s light in the distance-not so very far from them, but a world away for all that they could get to it—and then down into the depths again. “What about crossing it?” he asked. “I know it’s a climb, but we’ve got the supplies for it, and even that seems preferable to trying to walk around it.”
In answer the Hunter pointed down into the darkness. It took Damien a minute to figure out what he was pointing at, and then several minutes longer to make out what it was. When he did, he cursed softly.
Bones lay scattered across the floor of the narrow canyon, the skeletons of three men clearly visible. Shreds of fabric and flesh still clung to their upper portions, but their legs had been stripped and polished until nothing remained but lengths of bone as white as snow. Serpents of mist writhed in and out of the joints as Damien watched, like maggots on fresh meat.
He tried to think, at last ventured, “Acid?”
Tarrant nodded. “Shaitan’s breath is venomous, and so is her blood. Or so the legend says. They should have listened to it.”
“Is all the water here like that?”
He nodded. “It’s leached out of the ash-clouds by rain, so that the very earth is soaked with it. That’s why so few things live here ... so few natural things, that is.”
“Shit.”
A faint smile flickered across the Hunter’s face. “Aptly put, Vryce. As usual.” He looked both ways along the length of the canyon, then nodded toward the left. “Shall we?”
“If you tell me we’ve got something better to go on than guesswork,” Damien challenged. “Otherwise we’d be better off looking for that tunnel of yours, and heading to Shaitan from there.”
“My Vision will afford us some guidance, at least for the nearer obstacles.” In illustration of which he reached out a gloved hand towards Damien, and the channel that bound them flared to life; Damien could see with his own eyes how the currents of the earth-fae followed the lips of the canyon, their patterns reflected in the mist-clouds overhead. “As you see.” In the distance it was just possible to see a place where the canyon turned, perhaps giving access to the plain beyond. “And the path is no easier to my tunnel from here, I regret. Either way, the real risk . ..”
He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to. Either way, Calesta’s what we have to worry about. He can make us see canyons that aren’t there, or run from shadows that don’t exist, or even make us walk over the edge of a chasm, thinking it solid ground.... But no, Karril had said he would protect them from a move like that. If only their ally would expand his beneficence to encompass lesser strategies!
They set as good a pace they could along the rocky earth, moving sometimes by the light of the lantern and sometimes, when the mist cleared from overhead and the clouds were obliging, by the blood-colored fire of Shaitan. Ghostlike shapes wisped in and out of life on all sides of them, and occasionally Tarrant would lead Damien out of the range of one that was becoming too solid for comfort. Shadows, he called them. Reflections of the dead. Damien saw one whose head had been severed, and another whose ghostly blood flowed where its arms and legs should have been. Most of them seemed confused rather than dangerous, as befit spirits whose minds contained but one single moment of consciousness, but some were clearly hostile to living men, and while they had no interest in Tarrant, it was clear they considered Damien fair game. More than once the Hunter had to bluff them back, and one time, when a wretched creature with its skull split open proved itself determined to vent its undead wrath on Damien, Tarrant pulled his sword wholly free and let the coldfire blaze. The result was like a block of ice slamming into Damien’s gut, that left him dazed and gasping and very nearly toppled him over into the canyon beside him.