Shadow (6 page)

The ground shivered under stoneflesh giants' thundering feet as they marched back and forth, back and forth along the line where the Wall had stood. Something had changed in the great creatures as soon as there was no longer a shield between the two halves of Levaal. The giants no longer refused each other's presence in their own little district; rather, they walked back and forth in unbending tilting steps, coming so close to one another their smooth, rounded, basalt-grey chests almost touched. A sound came at such moments, perhaps speech, but it was indistinguishable from the rumbling of their feet slamming on the shivering ground.

And Eric heard
meaning
in the sounds, not translatable to human words and thoughts, conjuring in his mind the image of an avalanche being poured into a valley by enormous, careful hands, like a gardener funnelling water where it's needed.

That Eric understood the great creatures' speech, via the peculiar gift all Pilgrims shared when crossing into Levaal, did not thrill him as it might have before. Something had changed inside him but he couldn't tell what, nor what had provoked the change. He was exhausted and numb, but filled with a sense of riding the crest of an enormous, fast-moving wave, which was rising, rising, rising over the land and would do so for a good while yet, till it reached heights he could barely fathom and then crashed down, drowning him and everyone else. Drowning Siel and all these others nearby, who were in the wave just below him. All equally helpless, though none of them yet knew it …

As the great sheets of Wall slipped free and smashed down to reveal the foreign sky through a curtain of dust, and after the illusory giant had vanished – all the work of Vous's Arch Mage, some suggested – those two giants who had battled forgot their quarrel, turned about and marched away from each other, following the line until each came face to face with the next giant along. All along the east-west length of the breaking Wall, the stoneflesh giants did the same thing as its cracks raced out in miles-long webs.

People gathered near the Great Dividing Road's southernmost stretch. This was land not strictly claimed by any city, its villagers referred to in the two nearest cities with some disdain as Outcasts. They watched and waited, talking in half-amused murmurs about whatever idiot wizard had done all
this.
A group of them had begun campfires, as though their practical answer to the vast unknown events unfolding was to fill the air with the healthy familiar smell of smoke. They'd set several cauldrons boiling and now from each ladled out a rich-smelling broth. Siel – who had been watching the Wall come down with her hand in Eric's – went to them to beg food. The woman she'd approached tiredly scooped broth in two bowls her children had just drained and licked clean.

As Siel returned, a young mother nearby tried in vain to comfort two young children, who were determined not to be comforted. ‘Shh, shh. Shadow will come, Shadow will save us,' she said.

Eric had turned away but he turned back to them now. ‘What did you say?'

She did not hear him for the children's wailing and the rumble of a stoneflesh giant coming back into view from the east, seeming to move slowly but covering immense ground. Its closest neighbour appeared on the opposite horizon soon after.

Siel pushed a warm bowl into Eric's hand. Distracted, he dropped it across the ground. She hissed in annoyance and quickly ladled as much as she could of it back into the bowl.

‘Eat,' she said, ‘dirt or not. They don't like idiots here. Be more careful!'

Siel's words bounced neatly off his ears. ‘What did you say?' he called to the mother.

The mother glanced up at him, stood instinctively between her children and this stranger with a peculiar accent. ‘I said Shadow will save us. Old tales. What's it to you?'

‘Shadow. Who do you mean?'

‘He rides a drake!' one of the newly cheerful youngsters piped up eagerly. ‘A red drake. It's true! It's in stories.'

‘Eat!' Siel ordered, pulling Eric away by the arm. ‘Do you need me to spoon it into your mouth too?'

‘Did you hear them? That woman said Shadow will save them.' He began to say more but Siel made good on her offer and plunged the spoon into his mouth.

2

They watched the Wall's collapse for some while, waiting with the locals for a picture to emerge in the foreign sky. It didn't come and that sky stayed dark. Even when the lightstones brought about a cold day, there was to the south just a smoky red haze the eye did not penetrate deeply. Through it they caught glimpses of long shapes twisting. To Siel and Eric they looked like flying life forms, but with time the shapes seemed to melt into the redness around them. None crossed the boundary.

The crumbling wall should have formed enormous mounds, piling up right where the giants marched. But within an hour of falling, each piece would melt away. Eric saw faint little trails like gas leaking from some of the closer fist-sized chunks. Some bound magic which had made the Wall or held it together was returning to the air.

During the night, the clash of magic in the sky (which had put the folk magician Loup into a panic and sent him fleeing) had caused sparks and flashes far above them. Lashing webs fast as lightning whipped through the clouds, reddish colours blending with the earthier hues of magic that his eye had come to accept as natural. The new magic did not mix well, congealing into little pockets carried along in the wind, till they were flung out of sight.

Then it all finished. The skies calmed. Or so it seemed.

Curled up asleep, Siel looked entirely different from the warrior whom Eric felt (with some guilt and deflation) his survival now depended on. Her head was across his knee making it numb with pins and needles but he didn't want to move it. The locals had found her a strange sight with her darker than usual skin, her bow, curved knife, and long braids like two more hanging weapons, her male companion apparently unarmed. Of course they didn't know about his gun.

More local people had come through the day to watch. All eyes were on the stoneflesh giants. No record or rumour of their present behaviour existed. It seemed to Eric the giants were patrolling. Had their task always been to wait for this day? Who or what had given them this task?

Back in Earth (or Otherworld, whichever it should really be called) to ask such questions brought answers.
Asking
made sense, even if no answers came. Such questions as ‘From where comes day and night?' Not in this place. Here, day and night just
were.
Was it the same with the stoneflesh giants?

Siel woke, yawned. ‘Your turn. Sleep.'

‘I'm well, thanks for asking,' he said.

She ignored him and offered her thigh as a pillow. He lay back in the earthy scent of perfume she'd made from tree sap and berries, and was asleep in seconds despite the rumble of stoneflesh feet and the shivering ground.

3

Siel watched the foreign sky, stroking Eric's hair, hardly aware that she did so. She watched the people who'd gathered around them, wondering why none of them fled. Perhaps they felt their doom was so certain there was no point in fear. It was a far cry from the panicked stampede as they'd fled Elvury, the city aflame and overrun by those demon beasts called Tormentors. She half expected to see a mass of the creatures pour across the boundary at any moment. If they did, she would not wait for a slow death at their hands. Her knife would do the job faster.

But no Tormentors came – nor did anything else. An hour or two went by. Some of the people turned and moved away, and then, inexplicably, there was sudden urgency in them. They abandoned cauldrons and other belongings in the rush to flee. Very soon Siel and Eric were alone in the grassy field by the roadside, alone but for the stoneflesh giants who marched in and out of view.

She woke Eric after letting him sleep an hour more. The possibility of food in the bottom of those abandoned cauldrons was too much for her. Though none of the villagers had returned, the thieves who sometimes roamed this country's trade routes would be drawn to the cauldrons, and they were vicious.

The Pilgrim yawned, rubbed his eyes and stared dazedly at the distant sky. Much more of it was exposed now, for most of the Wall had come down. But the reddish haze replacing it was impenetrable to their eyes. Things still twisted in it like hands making shapes behind a curtain. It hurt to watch for long.

There was not much in the cauldrons after all, but with some very determined scraping Siel got a full bowl of the most flavoursome parts of congealed broth. She ate her share and passed the bowl to Eric, against incredible temptation to have it all. He'd not have noticed; his eyes were glazed and distant. ‘Don't drop it this time,' she said.

He ate without speaking then just kept staring around dreamily. ‘What's wrong?' she said, annoyed with him. He had hardened a bit since she'd met him, but there was still too much soft and vulnerable about him. Now, while they were alone, was not a time to be weak.

‘I don't know why I'm here, Siel,' he finally answered. ‘I don't know who I am.'

Helpful,
she thought. Otherworld Prince indeed.

Where to go? In any direction there'd be a village sooner or later. Many of those who'd fled Aligned cities had settled in these parts, good people who treasured freedom as only those who'd felt its loss could. The highways branching off the Great Dividing Road would take them to cities, if they wished.

She threw her dagger spinning in the air, letting it decide their course. It landed pointing north-east. Fine. ‘This way,' she said, setting off.

Eric hadn't come with her. He'd lingered to stare at something in the field beyond, where there was the beginning of a small wood. She followed his gaze. A lone figure stood at the edge of the trees, watching them. She had time only to see that the figure's clothes were dark before it was gone, vanished in a blink of her eyes. Instinctively she reached for an arrow before remembering that bastard Sharfy had mangled her bow before they'd fled Elvury.

Eric still stared. ‘There he is,' he said.

Something in his manner was disquieting. She shivered, wondering if she were even safe turning her back on
him,
let alone safe from whatever else was out here. She'd have preferred him preoccupied with lust like he'd been in the haunted woods.

It would be easy enough to abandon him …

But whatever leadership remained of the Mayors' Command would sorely want him. And his weapon, which could slay Invia with such ease. She had no intention of killing him and taking the weapon, but it was a possibility she was aware of.

‘This way,' she said. ‘Keep your gun ready.'

4

The rumbling of stoneflesh feet was now part of the background, so that in spite of it there seemed an eerie quiet. They'd ventured directly east from the Great Dividing Road, Siel checking behind them for any sight of the stranger. Eric had not yet spoken.

She said, ‘When we saw the man back there. You said, there he is, or similar words.'

‘I said that?'

‘Yes. What did you mean?'

He was a while answering. ‘Don't know.'

‘Nor I. But you were not surprised by the sight of him. Or were you? Did you know him?'

Eric gave a funny laugh. ‘Actually this will sound strange. But it almost seemed … I meant there
I
was. I don't know. Guess I'm just tired.'

She didn't ask him to elaborate, for his answer worried her.

The foot-worn path branched off. There was a village not far along but a look at the tracks said many feet had just come through here. She crouched down, waiting for happenstance magic to show her something. There was no guarantee it would, but it was the right time in her cycle to see things. Willing it to happen encouraged but did not guarantee a vision.

Waiting, waiting – aha! A glimpse of rough men hurrying by, hunting dogs with them, running down the slope along the path. Weapons out like they expected a fight. They appeared and vanished in a second, a lonely second of the past thrust forward (or had it cast her back? She could never tell). The men may have been there a thousand years back or just yesterday. Or minutes ago.

There were no clear dog tracks here but she decided not to risk it; another village waited a few miles ahead and she could hopefully forage enough edible roots to keep them going. For the hundredth time she cursed Sharfy's name for breaking her bow and depriving them of the chance to hunt.

The abandoned countryside did not tell her much. They should have come across at least the occasional wagon train or traveller. Abandoned crop fields balmed her concerns about food. From these they ate and stuffed their packs with vegetables.

She was eyeing off the tall stalks of a distant cornfield as possible shelter for the night when a group of dark shapes emerged over the rise to their left. There were twenty of them, some with tall walking sticks. One had a flail. What she didn't yet know was whether they were real or a glimpse from the past. ‘Do you see them?' she said.

Eric nodded and pulled out the small black Otherworld weapon. ‘I may not have bullets left for all of them. But after the first goes down, the rest will run.'

But can he actually bring himself to kill a person? she wondered. Even one who threatens us? The mad fool did not kill Kiown.

Siel grabbed Eric and dragged him with her behind one of the thorny bushes scattered over the plain, without much hope they'd be hidden by its thin leafless branches.

‘We see you, sister,' came a mournful call, sure enough. ‘We see you! Don't run, don't hide. No need, no need!'

‘We've peace!' said another. ‘To this green land we bring it!'

Siel stood in full view with her knife in hand. ‘I should have known by the garments,' she said.

‘Known what?' said Eric, standing beside her.

‘They are Nightmare cultists. It's been long since I met any. We are probably safe. They don't often sacrifice.'