‘By the light!’ whispered Corlas.
‘I had a look in the other rooms,’ said Adra. ‘They’re just as bad. Many of the mages were in their beds. Did you hear that?’ She cocked her head sharply, braids swishing.
Corlas stood still. ‘No.’
Adra moved to the marbled arch at the opposite end of the chamber, drawing her sword. ‘I didn’t check all the rooms,’ she said. ‘Maybe someone’s still alive?’ She ducked through the archway.
‘Adra!’ shouted Corlas. He started to follow, but there came a clattering on the tiles outside and the gerent entered the chamber with six of his personal guards. Ateppa froze when he saw the scene, his face going almost as white as his hair.
‘Ah,’ he said.
From beyond the marbled arch came a stifled yelp and the sound of something smashing.
‘Adra!’ Corlas yelled, drawing his sword and moving to the archway.
‘Wait, commander!’ ordered the gerent, his soldiers fanning out beside him. ‘Do not separate!’
‘We already have,’ growled Corlas.
‘You will wait, commander!’
Adra stepped back into view, sheathing her sword. Her shoulder banged clumsily against the archway so that she half-lurched into the room. She straightened as she saw the gerent.
‘What was that noise?’ Corlas demanded.
‘Oh!’ she said, turning to him. She paused, seeming to consider something.
‘Penulm!’ growled Corlas, furious. ‘We heard a cry, and a crash!’
‘It was me,’ Adra said quickly. ‘It was so horrible in there, I gave a cry. I knocked over a vase.’
‘Don’t separate again!’ said Corlas.
Ateppa was still staring at the carnage. He bent to his knees and ran his finger through a smear of mud on the ground. ‘This has all the markings of a Mireform attack,’ he said slowly. ‘Everybody keep their weapons out.’
‘A Mireform, sir?’ asked Corlas.
‘A terrible creature,’ said the gerent, standing. ‘Rare and terrible. A shadow creature, hard to kill; they are shape-changers. Fetch more blades,’ he ordered one of his guards.
He approached Corlas as the remaining soldiers spread over the room. ‘I was in a patrol that ran close to the border,’ he said, loudly enough for all to hear. ‘We came across a monster such as I’ve never seen. It killed twelve of sixteen, and the four of us who lived were lucky to escape. It followed as we fled, changing its shape, taking on the faces of our fallen patrol, mocking us.
‘We returned later with mages who told us it had been a Mireform, a denizen of Swampwild far from home, on some errand for Raker most likely. They say Mireforms require a lot of power to control, but make powerful servants once tamed.’
Adra snorted, and Corlas gave her an odd look. Her face fell neutral.
‘Did the mages kill it?’ he asked.
‘We never found it again. They’re excellent at evading detection by magic, as you can see.’ Ateppa gestured around the room. ‘Making them perfect assassins for mages. Corlas,’ he continued more privately, ‘do you know what this means?’
‘I don’t like what I’m guessing.’
‘Without our mages we’re severely crippled, and that will be the point. Something is coming.’ He fingered his sword. ‘Might the mages on watch still be alive?’
‘I’ll go check!’ offered Adra eagerly.
Corlas hushed her, remembering what he had seen from the walls. A shred of red cloth flapping in the wind – the colour of a lightfist’s uniform. There were other things, too, amongst the rocks, and now he was sure the mages on watch had been the first to die, their bodies hurled from the parapets. He told the gerent what he’d seen and Ateppa raked fingers through his white hair.
‘Arkus,’ he swore. ‘No mages at all.’
More soldiers arrived and the gerent divided them quickly into groups to search the building. As they moved out of the meeting chamber, Adra remained.
‘Adra!’ said Corlas. ‘Attend us!’
She came reluctantly behind as they went further into the building. Each bedchamber was as gruesome as the last. Blood seeped from bloody beds. Dripping was the only sound besides footsteps. All the mages were dead.
‘Those in their beds,’ muttered Ateppa, ‘are not as cruelly dismembered as those two in the main chamber. I suspect the sleeping were killed first, swiftly and silently. Once everyone else was dead, those last two, sitting up late into the night, could really be enjoyed.’
Corlas didn’t hear, for he was staring in surprise at the floor. He went to tap his superior on the shoulder but Ateppa had moved away. Face down on the ground, partially hidden under the bed, was a head. A pool of fresh blood was engulfing the black braids that fanned out around it. Beside it lay the fragments of a vase.
A stifled yelp. A smash.
He looked up to see Adra watching him intently. A moment later her face split into the most malicious grin Corlas had ever seen.
They are shape-changers.
As the gerent brushed past her, Adra spun, raising her sword to plunge it into his back. Corlas yelled as he lunged, his own blade clattering against Adra’s just in time. She backed away, her eyes darting between them both. Then, slowly and deliberately, she dropped her sword. Her expression, however, was not one of surrender.
‘By Arkus!’ called Ateppa. ‘It’s her! Blades! To me!’
In a voice like a sinkhole sucking down slime, the Adra-thing spoke. ‘It was so horrible, I gave a cry!’ she mimicked mockingly. Then her grin widened until it elongated her entire head, deepening to reveal rows of fangs.
‘Hello, crow meat,’ it said.
Soldiers spilled into the bedchamber, surrounding the thing with swords as it backed into a corner. It threw its head back and gurgled, a brown tongue tipped with barbed spikes slopping from its maw. When the head came down again, most traces of Adra had disappeared.
‘It’s changing into its true shape!’ cried the gerent.
The creature’s shoulders broadened and its arms lengthened. Muddy-coloured patches bubbled to the surface of skin and armour. Silver claws, thin and flat like knives, slid out the ends of its fingers. Its eyeballs shrank to white pearls sunk into deep sockets. The human nose collapsed in on itself, inverting into gaping nostrils. The thing grew taller on thick, bendy legs that were out of proportion to its small abdomen. Its brown flesh was moist and lumpy, peppered with moss-like growths. Holes opened up all over its body to sprout green tendrils. It was like some hybrid of mud, plant and beast.
‘Kill it!’ shouted Ateppa.
With a wet laugh the Mireform tottered forward in a way that might have been comical were it not so terrifying. It swayed atop its bendy legs, shoulders rolling, tendrils whipping so fast they put a thrum in the air. The tongue lashed out at the nearest soldier, sinking a barbed spike into his eye. The man gave a spasmodic jerk as the spike hit his brain.
‘Attack!’ shouted the gerent. ‘Slice, don’t stab – hack it to pieces!’
The soldiers attacked, spurred on by their leader and the death of their comrade. With the creature in the corner, only four blades could attack it at once, but those behind didn’t have long to wait. Soldiers screamed as tendrils pushed into their bodies, or claws rent deep gashes, or the fearsome tongue spiked into hearts and minds. The second wave of blades advanced more warily, hanging back from the Mireform’s ranging attacks. It gurgled, and again the tongue shot out, but this time a soldier was waiting. The soldier cleaved the tongue in half and the creature howled. The severed tongue splattered as it hit the floor, spikes and all, into something like sticky swamp ooze. Muck sprayed from the flailing appendage as the creature sucked it back into its mouth.
Seeing the creature wounded encouraged the soldiers to press on, and they sliced at its murderous curling tendrils. Each time a piece was cut from the Mireform, it too fell apart into ooze. Swords quickly became coated in brown. A knife spun over the fighting soldiers and sank into the creature’s head, but this did not seem to bother it.