Then, as the two things closed on him, eyes narrowed to bloody pinpoints and inhuman voices skirling in cold joy, something black whirled through the air and struck the nearest of the skrikers in the back. For a moment Barrick thought it was Skurn trying to help, but then the creature that had been hit straightened up and let out a weird hoooo of pain or surprise and Barrick saw that small black waves were lapping at its robes—black flames.
The second skriker had frozen in surprise, as if they were not used to being resisted. Barrick leaped forward and grabbed at it with both hands. Despite its seeming fragility it resisted him with surprising strength, but before it pulled free he was able to force it back just far enough to bring it into contact with its hooting, flapping companion. A moment later a blaze of shadow ran up its sleeves and onto its hood.
The first skriker was completely engulfed in dark flames, not singing any more, its voice a discordant, almost inaudible shriek. The waves of cold that came from it were too painful for Barrick to approach so he turned to the second one and waded into the chill, slashing away with his sword over and over until he felt the cloth ripping beneath his blows, great shreds of it coming away and tangling his blade. Now his foe was covered in black flames as well, its wordless voice shrilling louder and louder in what sounded much like fear, until it abruptly lost shape and fell away before him. For a moment Barrick grasped at several dark tendrils of something as slick and runny as melting suet, then the blackness flowed away into the ground and was gone and he held only empty, rotting robes that fell apart and ran through his fingers as dust.
He turned in time to see the other skriker thrashing for an instant in a haze of flickering, leaping darkness, then it fell in on itself with a huge pop and fizzle of ice-cold sparks and was gone, leaving nothing but a smoldering pile of clothes that dwindled away in a last flutter of shadow. But for the charred stump of its handle, the torch itself had entirely burned away.
For long moments Barrick could only stare, unsure of what had happened, dazed and aching. Then Raemon Beck stepped toward him out of the shadows of the trees, looking almost shamefaced.
“I… I went and got one of the darklights. I threw it.”
Barrick let out his breath and sat down heavily. “You most certainly did.”
He would have liked nothing better at that moment than to curl up and sleep, but it seemed unlikely they could burn away two of the city’s guardians without anyone noticing. In truth, he realized, they might only have moments before more of the hideous things came. Groaning, Barrick struggled back onto his feet and led the reluctant Beck toward the massive stone wall and whatever lay beyond it.
They made their way cautiously through the wild tangle, following the wall until they found an arched gateway. The gate itself lay on the ground in lengths of rotted timber salted with bits of rusted metaclass="underline" there was nothing to keep them out.
To Barrick’s surprise, the courtyard beyond the gate was nothing but an overgrown field of grass like a sward around a manor house, although this greenery had not known the teeth of any grazing animals for some time—it was almost knee high, dotted with wild shrubs and netted with black creepers like veins beneath a man’s skin. At the far end of this courtyard stood a wall with another archway and another collapsed gate.
“Let me go first and see what’s here,” Barrick said.
He had taken a few steps across the greensward when something grabbed at his ankles. He cursed and yanked his boot free, but when he put it down something clutched him again. The grass itself was twining around him, its blades probing the air like the lightning tongues of serpents, wrapping him in long stalks that continued to twist and climb up his legs.
“Stay back!” he called to Beck. “The grass—it lives!”
He hacked desperately at the stems, but for all the damage Qu’arus’ sword did to them it might have been made of parchment. Some strands of grass now reached up to snatch at his hand as if it were trying to pull the weapon from his grasp. Behind him he could hear Beck shouting but could not make out what the man was saying.
The grass blades that had curled around his legs began to tug him downward, contracting like strips of drying animal hide. Barrick knew that if they pulled him to the sward he would never get up again. He was still slashing but still accomplishing nothing—a few of the strands parted, but for every one he cut two more seized him.
Then, just at his moment of greatest despair, an idea came to him.
Barrick shucked off the gray cloak he had appropriated and threw it out full length on the grass before him, then fell onto it, twisting as he did so, to land on his back in the middle of the garment. He could feel the grass squirming like clutching fingers beneath the cloth but the strands could not reach him through the heavy wool, which was pressed down by the weight of his body. Momentarily protected, he began to saw away at the grass imprisoning his feet. Hard, breathless work finally released him. For several moments he could only lie panting like a shipwrecked sailor, his cloak a raft on an angry green sea; then, when he had a little of his strength back, Barrick began to crawl like a caterpillar across the length of the lawn. He moved the cloak with him, always keeping the heavy garment between him and the predatory grass. When he reached the far end and clambered off into the archway he took a swift look through it to make sure nothing else lay in wait for him there, then turned and threw the wadded cloak back to Beck. The cloak trick learned, Beck took less time to cross the greensward than Barrick had.
At last they huddled side by side in the archway, looking into the next courtyard. It was full of low-lying mist, but when Barrick looked closer he saw that the mist floated above a shallow pool of water that filled the courtyard as the other had been filled by grass.
“You will not try to walk through it, will you, my lord? ” asked Beck.
Barrick shook his head. “I don’t know what else we can do. But you don’t have to come—I told you that.”
The other man groaned. “What, turn back? After helping murder two of the Lonely Ones?”
“Ah, yes. That was clever,” Barrick said as he threw his cloak back over his shoulders. “Burning them with their own darklight torch.”
“No ‘clever’ about it, sire. I ran to grab something to fight with. The darklight was the first thing I saw.”
For a moment Barrick almost felt warmth toward the man, even something like kinship, but that was a weakness he could no longer afford. He turned to examine the waiting pool.
The mist curled lazily above the water, but now he could see that it hid a row of cracked, ancient stones that rose just above the surface and led toward yet another arched gate at the far end. It was plain that they were stepping stones, but just as plain to Barrick that even so, crossing would likely not be as easy as it looked. He stepped out onto the first stone and waited an anxious moment for something to happen. When nothing did, he stepped to the next, sword gripped tight in his hand, eyes roving across the water for whatever fearsome creature might strike at him from the deceptively placid shallows. Still no menace emerged, so Barrick stepped forward again and Raemon Beck slowly followed him.
It was only as he reached the halfway point, beginning to hope that whatever might have once inhabited the pool was gone, that Barrick began to feel a weakness in his lower body, as though his legs were grain sacks and something had gnawed a hole in them. When he looked down he saw that the thin mist above the pool had thickened around his ankles and calves, foggy tendrils moving in a way that seemed to have little to do with any air currents he could feel. As he stared, and as the feeling of weakness began to spread, he thought he could see shapes in the mist, grotesquely deformed faces and clutching fingers. Everywhere the mists touched him he was getting cold. He took another step but his legs had grown so weak that he tottered and almost fell. He looked back helplessly at Beck, who was swaying under the same attack.