Chapter 6: Shadows

Pain. Pain lanced through her head like fire. It was all around her, emanating from the top of the ravine. She fell to her knees, squeezed her head in her hands, couldn't stop herself from letting out a scream. Mother grabbed her, wrapped her in her arms.

'Don't let it in,' Mother whispered in her ear. Her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears. 'You can keep it out. Close yourself. Keep yourself here. This is your anchor.' Mother put her hand on Liandra's chest, held it there for a moment, calming.

Liandra slowed her breathing, felt the pain ease. Her scream faded away, left her murmuring in her mother's lap.

She had never felt anything like it before. Whatever was at the top of the ravine, whatever Liandra was feeding off, it lived in pure, all-encompassing pain.

'Get it away,' Liandra spluttered. 'Please, Mother, make it go.'

'Oh, darling,' was all Mother could say.

'What do you mean Vallendred?' the captain asked. Liandra could just comprehend his words through the throbbing in her head.

'It doesn't matter now,' Mother said. She sniffed, wiped at her eyes. 'We need to run. We heed to get away from here.'

Mother took Liandra in her arms. Liandra pressed her head into her shoulder. She could feel mothers fear. It stung like needles jammed into her skull.

'What are those things?' Auric growled. He didn't seem to be asking anyone in particular.

'We have to go, Arlon,' Mother said. She looked at Stroud. 'We have to go. None of this will matter if those things get to us.'

The captain drew his sword, pointed it at Stroud. 'Situation has changed. Let him go and I won't run you through right now.'

 Stroud looked up at the blurry shapes at the top of the ravine. He sneered like a cornered wolf.

In Liandra's mind, they felt like shadows, dark blemishes of malice and slaughter. They lived to kill, hungered for it. That much was clear.

'Fine,' Stroud said. 'But I'm holding on to this.' He reached down to Beecham's scabbard, pulled the sword out, unwound the chain from his neck and kicked the soldier away. Beecham fell to his knees, clutched at his throat, gasping. McJames picked his own sword from the ground and helped Beecham to his feet.

'Just make sure you use it on them,' the captain said, gesturing up to the lip of the ravine.

'Unlock us and I might be able to.'

The captain considered, looked to Mother.

'Do it,' Mother said. She turned to Stroud. 'We must work together. If you cannot escape them, it will not matter if you escape your crimes.'

The captain pulled out the key, unlocked the prisoners. 'I hope you listen to her,' he said, as the shackles fell to the ground.

The shadows were moving now, climbing down the side of the ravine. Liandra could feel their pain drawing closer, could feel their murderous excitement grow. The throbbing in her head intensified. If she focused on the now, really centred herself, she could limit the amount of feeling coming in. Still, it was worse than anything she had ever experienced.

'Let's go. Behind me,' the captain said.

They jogged off, all of them, deeper into the ravine, through the unnatural darkness falling on them like mist, not knowing where they were going or what they were running from. The captain led the way, and the prisoners ran at the back. Father Fairwell's muttering had progressed into prayers that begged for mercy, for divine deliverance from evil.

Liandra jolted against Mother's shoulder as she carried her. The ground grew rockier, tilted upwards as the top of the ravine came down. They came to the edge where the ravine narrowed into a slope leading to the top.

The pain flared again, and they all came to a juddering halt. Liandra ground her teeth to keep from screaming once more.

'What is it? Why have we stopped?' Mother said.

'One of those things,' the captain said, 'it's up ahead. I can barely see it, but it's there, blocking the way.'

Liandra didn't need to see it. She could feel it. She managed to block most of the pain, but she still sensed its origin; a squat form, spread out on many legs like a bug, but the size of two or three men.

'I think it's coming at us,' the captain said. He waved his sword in front of his body, slicing at the air. 'Stay back, or get cut.'

Stroud pushed his way through the group to stand beside the captain. 'What the fuck is that? It moves, even when it's still. It's like staring into the sun, but…the opposite, dark.'

Mother looked back over her shoulder, back the way they had come. 'No,' Liandra said quietly. 'I can feel them back there too. They're coming closer.'

'You have to kill it,' Mother said, turning once more to the captain. 'It's the only way to get out of here.'

'How?' the captain said.

'They still bleed, like anything else.'

'Alright.' There was a waver to the captain's voice. 'Everyone behind me. Boys, I need you to watch my back. If it gets me, just make sure you get it.'

The two young soldiers nodded nervously. They were afraid, unconfident. The only calm she sensed came from the old man, Auric. She focused on it, drew from it, and looked at him. He stood there, staring towards the slope, a look of concentration on his face.

'You're not afraid,' she said with realisation.

'No,' Auric said in his low gruff voice. 'I can see it.'

Confused, Liandra turned. And there it was, creeping down the slope towards the captain, its six, spiny legs spread wide. Its oddly human torso curved up from its insect body. Two limbs stuck out from a spidery face, shorter than each of its legs. They ended in razor sharp claws, hooked and serrated, long as Liandra's arms. She wasn't sure why she could see it all of a sudden, but she knew by the way the others glanced around they still couldn't.

'It's there.' Liandra pointed to the creature on the ramp. 'It's coming.'

The captain stepped forward, lifted his sword high, brought it down in a wide arc. And hit nothing. The creature didn't even move, didn't have to. It simply lashed out with its two claws, quick as a moth's wing. Cloth tore, skin ripped. The captain let out a surprised sound, spun where he stood. His uniform had ripped at the stomach, blood gushed down his waist and legs. Then, with a wet sound, a mass of red tubes fell to the dirt, still connected to the captain's insides. He spat blood as he fell to his knees. The creature's face limbs lashed out again, and the captain's head rolled off his shoulders, fell to the ground next to his guts.

The others gasped. Liandra's throat nearly closed up. It was the smell, the coppery smell of blood mixed with the foulness of the captain's spilled bowels. She dry-heaved, turned her head away from Mother.

'What the fuck?' McJames shrieked. To him, it must have simply looked like a blur, and the captain was in pieces. 'What the fuck? What the fuck?'

Beecham let out an odd little groan, turned back the way they had come and ran.

'Don't,' Liandra called after him. 'There's more back there.'

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The young soldier paid her little mind, not stopping to look behind as he dashed back into the ravine, leaving nothing but a terrified wail.

'The captain's dead. What do we do? The captain's dead. What do we do?' McJames repeated. He had his hands up by his head, sword-grip pressed against his temple. Liandra wasn't sure he knew his friend had even run off.

'Keep your sword in front of you, man,' Stroud said. 'A'fore you stab me.'

Liandra looked about herself. Panic had set in. Fairwell was on his knees in the dirt, palms pressed together and eyes closed in prayer. Even Mother was projecting dismay and sadness. She thought they were all going to die, Liandra knew. None of them had any hope.

She tapped into Auric's calm, once more. The old man wasn't sickened by the captain's corpse either, had probably seen much worse, so she fed off of that too. With her emotions centred, she wriggled from Mother's arms, and dashed for the captain's sword. 

'Liandra, no,' Mother called out, reaching to grab her by the hem of her travel clothes. 'Don't,' she said, but Liandra was already moving.

'I can see it. I can do something.' She wasn't sure what, but anything was better than watching that thing slice through them all.

'You can't,' Mother said.

Liandra ignored her. So often she had followed Mother's every order, her every rule, and she had been right to. Mother did know what was best, most of the time. But not now. Now it was fight or die.

She ran over to the captain's sword, tried to ignore the bleeding mass on the ground. She picked it up, the grip at least. The tip wouldn't come away from the ground. She added her other hand and heaved the blade up. It wobbled in her hands, like when a street performer balanced a broom on their forehead.

'Don't be stupid, girl,' Stroud said. 'You're going to get yourself killed.' He didn't try and stop her, though, just watched as he had before, flicking his head around, squinting at the thing in front of them.

Liandra didn't answer, just took a deep breath, stepped forward, tried to aim the point of the sword at the creature's chest. She stepped forward, ready to thrust. Something stopped her, pulled at her shoulder. It was a hand. Auric's hand. He pushed Liandra back towards the others, and she saw that he had a sword of his own in his hand, and McJames no longer did.

Auric didn't look back, just stepped towards the creature, the sword held out straight at his side. Again the creature's face limbs lashed out, but Auric tilted back, nimble for an older man. The razor claws must have missed his face by a hair's breadth. He brought the sword across his front, then slashed it past the creature's head. It's face limbs fell away, the stumps squirting green blood, and the thing let out a hideous shriek, like steel scraping against steel. Liandra covered her ears, as did the others, but the sound wormed its way inside her mind.

Auric brought the sword back to his hip, then rammed it forward into the creature's odd, curved chest. He buried the blade near up to the hilt, and a moment later, the shrieking stopped. The thing collapsed into a pile on the ground. Auric put his boot on it, and wrenched the sword back out. It was covered in the same green blood that had come out of its face-limbs.

'Is it dead?' Stroud said. 'Did you fuckin' kill it?'

Auric wiped the blade against the thing's body. 'It bleeds, just like anything else.'

'Let's get the fuck out of here,' McJames said, wiping tears from his face and stepping towards the exit to the ravine.

Auric put a hand on his chest, stopped him in his tracks. 'What about your friend?'

McJames slapped his hand away. 'Fuck him. I'm not going back there if there's more of those things. He made his choice.'

Auric grunted, but let the young soldier pass.

'Get the captain's medallion,' Mother said. 'We might need it still.'

'Right.'

McJames reached down to the captain's lifeless torso, reached under his shirt with a grimace. 'Sorry sir.' He stood back up, Vallendred's medallion hanging from his fist. 'I don't know about you lot, but I'm not sticking around to wait for another of those things to come around the corner.'

'He's right,' Mother said. 'We should go.'

'You don't need to convince me,' Stroud said, climbing up to the edge of the ravine.

Auric turned to him as he passed. 'Keep them safe.'

'Why? What are you doing?'

'Someone has to go back for the other lad.'

Stroud frowned. 'No, they don't. They really don't. Especially not you. He's probably already dead, as you will be if you go back there.'

Auric sniffed. 'Maybe. Still feel like I have to try.'

Auric walked over to Liandra, took the sword still dangling in her hands, then gave McJames his own back. 'Get them somewhere safe. I guess you're ranking officer now.'

'You're not serious. How am I supposed to fight those things? I can barely see them.'

Auric was already walking back into the ravine. 'If you go now, hopefully you won't have to.'

Liandra reached out, grabbed Auric as he passed. 'Listen for me, if you can't find us. I'll be calling.'

Auric nodded. 'I won't be far behind.' And he stomped off.

Mother had her hand again, was pulling her up out of the ravine. They followed Stroud, McJames and Fairwell onto the grasslands once again. It was then that she noticed how remarkably calm the priest was. Throughout the terror, he had simply prayed. She supposed his faith really was powerful.

They ran, Liandra keeping up as best she could. The path to Whitehall wound up and down, over the plains and through little woods. After a little while, the unnatural darkness faded away, and the sun shone through patchy skies. They stopped in the woods near a stream that ran over the path, and caught their breath.

'Does that mean we've outrun 'em?' McJames said, panting with hands on knees, looking up towards skies returned to normal.

'I wouldn't count on it,' Stroud said. 'But maybe. Ask her.' Stroud tilted his head at Mother. 'She knows something about them. Back in that gully, you said it were Vallendred, said he had found you. What was that all about?'

'Not now. I'll tell you what I know, but we need to get somewhere safe first.'

'Excuse me,' Fairwell said.

They all turned towards the priest.

'Is that a house down there?' He pointed down the stream to where it widened. A couple hundred metres from where they stood it looked as if someone had built a cabin on the water bank.

'As good a place as any,' Stroud said, beckoning the others to follow. 'Let's go see if anyone's home.'

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