SHADOW BEASTS
The creatures circled around Karigan, wove in and out
of the trees. They watched her with unblinking green eyes. Had
these been her dancers? She could not see them fully, for their
dusky hides blended in with the forest, but she caught glimpses of
barrel-chested torsos and limber hindquarters. Gray, slavering
tongues hung from bear-trap jaws. She thought them wolflike, but
nothing was certain in Blackveil.
They slunk around
her, snuffling and snarling, sometimes closer, sometimes farther
away, always out of range of her staff. She swung it at a couple
that came closest and they leaped away growling. It was clear they
did not like the bonewood.
How long, she
wondered, would it keep them away?
With a glance back
at Yates, she saw the creatures creep close, retreating
halfheartedly when Yates swept his sword through the air. His face
was taut with concentration as if he listened for the slightest pad
of foot or exhalation.
Karigan backed
toward him. They must stand together. The beasts moved with her,
and beyond, dancers swirled in the vapor, green glowing through the
eyeholes of wolf masks.
She shook her head.
Not dancers, just more beasts, the play of dark and mist. Carefully
she inched back toward Yates, the shadows watching her intently,
eagerly.
“Must hold it
together,” she murmured to herself, but a battle raged in her mind
and she was no longer sure of what was real.
“Yates,” she said,
“I’m coming back.”
He did not reply,
but she saw from the corner of her eye the gleam of his saber as he
swept it at a fleet shadow.
When finally she
reached him, they stood back to back, the beasts swarming around
them.
“Are they real?”
Karigan wondered aloud.
Yates snorted. “I
felt one breathe on my neck.”
Karigan trembled
with the effort to just stand. She’d eaten and drunk too little
over the last couple days, and the lethargy pressed down on her
shoulders like a mountain of granite. She’d no hope of fighting the
creatures.
Dancers, dancers
careened around them; the flow of dresses, the spiraling motion,
the seesawing music.
She pressed her eyes
shut and gripped her staff hard, recovering just in time to rap the
skull of a beast that came close to tearing off Yates’ leg. It
receded with a thunderous growl.
Another charged
them, but swerved away from Karigan’s staff. The beasts pressed
hard to one side of them, but less so to the other. Karigan
wondered why. When she glanced over her shoulder, there stood the
tumbler. He beckoned her. Or maybe it was Lynx.
“Lynx!” Karigan
cried.
“Lynx? Is it him?”
Yates asked, his voice swelling with hope.
“Yes, yes it is
him.” Lynx was cloaked in the forest’s gloom, but it was
him.
“Hold onto my belt,”
Karigan said. “We’re going to him.”
Yates sheathed his
long knife, but held onto his saber, and with Karigan’s guidance,
clenched the back of her swordbelt. Leaving behind their lean-to
shelter and supplies, Karigan started toward the beckoning Lynx,
the shadow beasts parting before her, and rejoining the pack
behind. They followed, a seething, stalking mass.
“Lynx!” Karigan
cried again. He was not any closer, and she speeded her steps
causing Yates to stumble behind her.
“Are we almost
there?” he asked. “Are the others with him?”
“Alone,” Karigan
replied, pressing on. Why didn’t Lynx come to their aid? Where were
the others?
She jabbed her staff
at a beast that edged around beside them. She totally missed it,
but the creature returned whining back to the pack. Ahead, Lynx
appeared ever farther away. He turned, striding into the
distance.
“Lynx!”
Karigan strained
against Yates’ weight. They were going to lose Lynx, just like
before.
“Karigan,” said
Yates, “I can’t—”
“Pick up your feet,
just trust me!”
She hastened her
pace and Yates did his best to keep up. She ignored the pain of her
leg, defied the wall of fatigue, and the shadow beasts rolled and
crested like a wave pushing them ahead.
The distance between
them and Lynx widened more and more.
“No, no, no,”
Karigan muttered. “Not again!”
She sprinted. Yates
lost hold of her belt, and freed of his weight, she flew forward,
flew forward until she was caught in midair by . . .
nothing.
She tried to shake
her head, but could not move it, as if it was glued to the air. Her
whole body was stuck.
“Karigan?” Yates. He
was not far behind.
No, she wasn’t stuck
in the air. A net with sticky, mist-fine filaments held her. More
precisely, a web. Strung between trees,
it went for great length through the forest.
“No,” she
moaned.
She tried to pry her
limbs free, but could not. It was not the first time she’d been so
caught and a powerful dread descended on her. She panicked for a
time, struggling, trying to kick her legs free, Yates calling to
her. She was quickly overcome by exhaustion and hung there like a
discarded marionette, realizing that panic would not help free her.
She searched for Lynx, but when she found him in the distance, his
form evaporated. She’d been lured into a trap by illusion or a
hallucination. They’d been herded by the shadow beasts. Down the
length of the net were other prey, wound in web packets, some still
quivering with life. The beasts sniffed at one, tore into it, while
being careful not to get entangled themselves. She winced at the
squealing that came from the trapped creature. The beasts cleverly
stole prey from another predator, even drove the prey into the web
for an easy meal.
“Are you all right?”
she asked Yates.
“They’re all around
me,” he said, his voice desperate. “Can you help me?”
“No, Yates, I
can’t.” Beasts snuffled at her leg. She felt hot breaths against
her trousers.
Yates grunted and a
beast yiped. “Think I got one!”
Tears welled in
Karigan’s eyes. A broad muzzle pushed into her wounded leg, nipping
flesh, but another beast brushed against her and leaped on the
first followed by vigorous snarling and flying fur. They bumped
into the back of Karigan’s legs as they fought over her, their next
meal.
She could give in,
give in to the lethargy that was quickly overtaking her once again.
She thought of the funereal vision she’d seen in the looking mask
of the mourners surrounding the king in his bed. He was gone. What
did the rest matter?
Yates called to her,
his voice barely registering amid her despair. “I think they’re
leaving!”
“What?” She tried to
look around, listen, but could not detect the presence of the
shadow beasts. Why would they leave? As quickly as she’d fallen
into her despair, her hopes began to rise once again, until she
heard an immense something crashing
through the woods.
The shadow beasts
had left them alone because something worse was on its
way.