‘Run to Tobry, Rannilt!’ Tali roared, and sprang high.
Rannilt scurried between her legs. Tali hacked across and back, this time only severing shadows. A tentacular arm shot out past her, lengthening as it went.
‘Look out!’
She flicked a glance over her shoulder. Tobry had ducked the blow but his horse fell to the ground, its skull crushed. The shifter’s arm retracted for another blow. It could shatter him as easily.
But not her. It wanted her alive and that was her only advantage. Tali lunged and plunged the sword deep into the centre of the creature, twisting it where the heart and lungs of any normal beast would be.
Bone crunched, she felt tissue part beneath the point and almost-black blood gushed forth, but the creature did not flinch. The sword was stuck; she could not pull it free. Tali was backpedalling when an impossibly long arm curled around from the left, three bundles of flails snapped from the right and they all wrapped around her. The sword was ejected from the shifter like a bolt from a crossbow, whizzing past her ear. Its enchantments had done no good here.
The flail-arms tightened around her, binding her arms to her side. She had done just what it wanted her to do.
‘Cel-lar,’ said the shifter. ‘Take to mur-der cel-lar.’
It picked Tali up like an empty bag, tossed her over its shoulder and started down the hill, moving across the uneven ground as though supported on a raft of air. Its touch was hideous; she was sinking into it as though its skin was decayed, though there was hardness beneath, sometimes scaly, sometimes a claggy slime. She kicked feebly and dug deep, but could not summon any magery in her own defence.
Tobry was stumbling after them with Rix’s sword but the shifter was moving faster than he could. Tali could not see Rannilt anywhere. Had she been caught by one of those flails as she had run for safety?
‘Let her go, you stinking beast!’ shrilled Rannilt from the dark, ahead. ‘Or else.’
The shifter kept moving as if to roll directly over her, but as it reached the point from which she had spoken a ball of golden light flared so brilliantly that, for a second or two, it would have eclipsed the midday sun. A pure and perfect light that bathed Tali in a healing balm.
Though to the shifter it must have felt like venom, for it reared, shielding the region of its eyes and screeching like a sheet of metal being torn. Tali kicked but could not break free.
‘ Put her down!’ shrieked Rannilt, dancing up and down.
The light grew until the fluttering shadows surrounding the shifter were blown away, revealing a lanky creature within, bone and sinew that was almost fleshless, though no less menacing.
The glow ascended as though Rannilt had raised the globe over her head, then shot towards the horseshoe indentation on the shifter’s forehead, whoomph-whoomph, and struck. And stuck there.
The creature howled and flung up skeletal arms as the light brightened. It touched Tali like a bath of tingling bubbles, then she went tumbling down, down, to smack hard into the ground. Her healing charm snapped and the pain came shrieking back.
The shifter was swaying on its bony feet, evidently trying to transform, for parts of its body kept extending out to where the shadows had been, then freezing and retracting again as if, without filling in the shadows first, it was unable to change.
As Tali crawled away, her thigh so painful that she could only drag the leg, the shifter was whacking at the globe on its forehead, trying to knock it off. It kept flinching away from the light.
Rannilt tottered up, wobbly on her feet. Her skin was almost translucent. Taking Tali under the arms, she tried to drag her.
‘Hurry, oh hurry! I’m losin’ it. As soon as it goes out, the beast’s gonna attack.’
The golden glow did seem to be dwindling, the shadows returning and extending. There came a shrill whistle, an answering whinny, then Tobry was heaving Tali over his shoulder and running back to a gigantic horse, black as the inside of a skull and with rolling red eyes that went deep purple when the light from his elbrot passed across them.
‘Leather!’ said Tobry, stroking her muzzle. ‘Leather, old friend. If that’s your hoof mark inch-deep in the beast’s skull, you’ve done us some service.’
He heaved Tali across the front of the saddle like a bag of carrots, clambered up and lifted Rannilt after him.
‘Take this, child!’ he said, handing her the elbrot and whirling Leather around. ‘Hold it up until we’re on the Caulderon road.’
Rannilt held it as high as she could reach, the light illuminating the slope of the hill and the Seethings beyond that. As Tali looked the other way, the golden glow went out and the surrounding shadows strengthened. The shifter whacked the globe off his forehead and began to transform.
‘Go, Leather!’ said Tobry, and the horse bolted down the slope.
When Tali looked back, the shifter was lost among the scrub.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ sobbed Rannilt, throwing her thin arms around Tali and hugging her, accidentally whacking her sore ear with the elbrot. ‘I was so afraid. Horrid, smelly thing. But you saved me. I knew you’d come.’
‘You saved us all, Rannilt. You’re the cleverest girl in the world — ’
Tali had a sudden foreboding that Rannilt’s gift should have been concealed from the enemy. Leather crashed down into a dip, sending a jolt of pain through her. She gasped and closed her eyes. Endure it. You’ve got to endure it.
Tears … pain without end … the pressure of small hands on her thigh, and a gentle golden light that warmed her over and drove the pain down deep until she could barely feel it. Until she slept.
‘Facinore!’ she cried, snapping awake.
‘It’s far away,’ whispered Tobry. ‘Go back to sleep.’
The elbrot light was out and Leather was trotting along a smooth, hard surface. They must be on the road. Rannilt was asleep, her arms locked around Tali’s middle.
‘The shifter’s called a facinore,’ said Tali.
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘It came to me in my sleep. The wrythen must have called it that. What is a facinore? Is it man? Beast? Phantom?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Tobry, shivering a little. ‘But the word has an unpleasant ring to it.’
‘It won’t give up. He won’t let it.’
‘Nothing in Hightspall on two legs or four can catch Leather when she’s racing. Besides, it’ll never get through Caulderon’s guarded gates. Go to sleep now.’
She woke as Leather stopped. Tobry cursed and stood up in the stirrups, looking all around.
‘Wassamatta?’ said Tali, drowsily.
‘Lights! Right across the Seethings from east to west, as far as the edge of Lake Fumerous.’
‘Do you think it’s the enemy, looking for me?’
‘More than likely. And by the look of those lights, they’re heading directly for the city.’
‘To cut us off?’
‘And form a cordon of war we’ll find it impossible to creep through.’
He thumped down in the saddle and flicked the reins. Leather began to trot, then canter, then moved to a rocking, rolling gallop.
Tali held Rannilt more tightly. ‘How far is it?’
‘We just passed the five-mile post.’
‘Can we beat them to the gates?’
‘The back roads are good in Suthly County, out to our left, and they’ll make fast time there. But if anyone can outrun them, Leather can.’
‘Carrying the three of us?’
‘I doubt that we three together weigh more than Rix. Go, Leather, old girl. Run like the very wind or we’ll suffer the same fate as poor Beetle.’
Their speed, at full gallop, was so terrifying that it almost detached Tali from the pain of each jarring stride. Almost. She dared not close her eyes. If Leather struck a deep pothole and broke a leg they would hit the ground hard enough to smash every bone.