“Not much point whispering anymore,” Uthalion answered from behind as Ghaelya ran headlong into a thick mass of clinging shadow.
It stretched, cold and clammy, against her skin, filling her mouth with the bitter taste of stagnant water. The fibers stuck to her teeth and muffled her curses. She pushed and thrashed against the dark wall of shadows, blindly pressing through and shivering in the effort. Droning wings hovered overhead as buzzing whispers reached her through the morass, taunting her in a haunting, harsh tongue that made her struggle all the more to escape.
Breaking through with a gasping breath, she stumbled forward into Uthalion’s shoulder, and he wisely gripped her sword-arm until her sight returned. Lightning struck at the far end of the valley, tracing thin arcing spots across her sight, and she could see well enough to spot the approaching figure. Barely more than a short silhouette, it hung in the air on large black dragonfly wings and regarded her with blank white eyes.
She froze in that gaze, even as more of the things streaked overhead, swarming beneath the half-light of the growing storm front. The being emitted a wet, smacking sound as it drew back a thin arm, wielding a short spear of living shadow. Its stomach churned with a strange glistening undulation. Ghaelya’s grim fascination quickly became the calm simplicity of battle as the beast hurled its weapon.
She rolled out of its path, fluidly giving herself over to the coiled tempest of water that flowed through her spirit. Rising, she slashed at a darting wing, slicing through the tip like thick parchment. She grinned as the thing shrieked and faltered. She turned, reversing the stroke through its abdomen, unleashing a dark torrent of cold, gushing shadow that drifted away like smoke. She charged others that drew too near, still running blindly south. Her companions were close, but beyond the reach of her unrelenting blade.
Dark javelins of shadow thumped into the ground around them, one cutting across her shoulder before disappearing in a puff of acrid smelling mist. The things buzzed overhead, still trailing webs of shadow that Ghaelya ignored. She cut down another as she forced her way through its chilling net, rising and falling with the tide in her heart. Pulses of energy flowed from foot to fingertip and back again as she lent her will and blade to the drowning force of her spirit.
Lightning and thunder struck the valley again, close enough to knock the breath from her lungs and set her ears to ringing. Staggering back as the fluttering creatures faltered in the wake of the thunderbolt, she caught sight of a featureless face, covered in a thick black carapace. There was an alien intelligence in its pale stare, an expression that held no reasoning; but no desire to which she might relate, only a cold nothing.
Vaasurri was right. Seeing them didn’t help.
“Here!” Brindani’s strident shout reached her through the ringing thunder and flashing lightning. It cut through the constant drone of wings and drew her to him.
He held onto the edge of a wide crevice in the side of the valley wall and waved his long sword high. The blade reflected the flickering white light of the stormfront. Fibrous streamers of shadow drifted into her path, muffling Brindani’s shouts as she dived toward him, once again blind and trusting to her instincts. Claws scraped at her cheeks and back, and pulled at her armor as she fought to reach the dim hope of shelter. As her arm brushed against rock, hands grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the dark.
They held her sword down, and she swore at them, screaming a challenge and struggling to free herself.
“Stop it!” Brindani shouted as he shook her once more. She complied, pulling the sticky shadow from her eyes and trying to adjust her vision. A stone wall pressed against her back, smooth and cold, sending a shiver through her legs. A white flash illuminated the opalescent interior of the crevice, and brief rainbows of color swirled on the wall before the dark returned. Uthalion stood at the opening, slashing at anything that drew near, with Vaasurri close at his shoulder.
“Shaedlings,” the killoren said. “Though I’ve never seen them in such numbers.”
“No use counting them,” Uthalion muttered, straining as he beat back yet another of the shrieking creatures.
Thunder rumbled through the valley again. Buzzing wings drifted away, claws scratched at rocks high above the crevice as the shaedlings continued their whispering conversations, their language unknown and their intentions only guessed at. Uthalion glanced over his shoulder, keeping his sword forward. “Out of the stew pot and into the fire,” he said. “Any suggestions?”
“Bring back the sun,” Brindani said, his dark attempt at humor overshadowed by the haggard tone of his voice.
“Unless the gods owe you a favor, I don’t think it likely that they’ll be delivering another sunny day anytime soon,” Uthalion replied, brushing shadows like fine black dust from his blade that never reached the ground.
“How close are we to the southern end of the Wash?” Ghaelya asked, eager to escape the cramped crevice. A rushing sense of bloodlust still pumped through her body.
“Close enough to see it given enough light,” Uthalion answered. “But far enough to make getting there a steep gamble against mounting odds.”
“We should stack the odds in our favor then,” Brindani muttered from the back of the crevice. His gleaming eyes fixed on Uthalion as the man nodded slowly and sheathed his sword, kneeling in the dirt.
“How?” Ghaelya asked eyeing the human. “Prayer?”
“If it makes you feel better, by all means,” Uthalion replied, rummaging through his pack.
“We’re splitting up,” Brindani explained as he squeezed past her and Vaasurri to stand near the entrance by Uthalion. “Two of us south and two west.”
“Why? So we can die in different places?” she pressed angrily, taking breath to argue more against what seemed a foolish plan. But Vaasurri laid a hand on her arm.
“It’s another fool’s fire,” he explained calmly as Uthalion and Brindani whispered and pointed. “Only this time we may have to burn a couple of fools.”
Uthalion crept across the valley floor, following close behind the surefooted half-elf. He made a show of pausing and looking around every few strides, careful not to glance up too high, lest the shaedlings think his stealthy approach was anything more than an act. Their cruel fey nature demanded the illusion, drew them along like cats inspecting an injured mouse, watching and waiting until their prey was sure of escape. Brindani would stop at each flash of lightning, rush forward in the following thunder, and hold his hand out, palm up to signal a halt as he pretended to scan the path ahead.
Uthalion hid his grin at the half-elf’s exaggerated show, musing that any field captain worth his command would have had them both shot down immediately-and would have made the archers aim carefully, so as not to waste more than two arrows on such buffoons.
Despite all, it seemed that Brindani was doing well, not yet showing the more extreme signs of a silkroot addiction. But Uthalion knew it couldn’t last long. He wondered when Brindani’s other illusion, the one of health, would begin to crack and fall apart. Silkroot was not kind; he’d seen men try to tear out their own innards when the drug became too much for their meager purses to afford. It had seemed to him the worst kind of ignoble death for, what he considered, the least amount of reward.
Passing into the western valley, Brindani paused again, bringing Uthalion up short as he angled their path through the center of the deep brush on either side. Low trees and bushes waved in the wind, likely hiding dozens of bone-moth swarms waiting patiently for one lucky stroke of lightning to start the fires they thrived on each spring.
In one burst of lightning, Uthalion spied a spot of color just ahead, but darkness claimed the valley before he could identify what it had been. He kept a watch for it to appear again as he patted Brindani on the shoulder, signaling that they could abandon their show and appear comfortable, as if they’d slipped by the watch of the predators on their trail. They ignored the telltale scratch of claw on stone and buzzing whispers as they made their way further from the crevice where Ghaelya and Vaasurri waited.