Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

“Nay,” Raven replied, “an we might be trapped within and besieged, or the vessel crushed and us thereby.”

Stoddard nodded an acknowledgment; Pel, who had been heading for the door of the ship without realizing it, stopped dead in his tracks.

A better means of escape occurred to him. “Elani,” he called, “can you get us out of here? Open a portal?”

Amy had gotten to her feet, as well, and was standing close beside the little wizard; she added her own voice, saying, “Please, Elani?”

The sorceress shook her head. “We’ve not the time,” she said.

“Look!” one of the soldiers called, pointing upward.

Something big and black was moving, up above the trees, blocking the sunlight and plunging them into shadow. Pel, watching it, thought it resembled a blimp passing overhead. Did Shadow use airships?

“All right, men,” Lieutenant Dibbs called, “form up, two lines, helmets on, weapons ready.”

“No,” Raven shouted, “flee! Take shelter, wherever you may!”

“These are my men …” Dibbs began.

“Sir,” a soldier said, cutting him off, “our blasters don’t work here.”

Dibbs froze for a second, then said, “Damn. All right, then, we’ll take cover-but in proper order. We aren’t running away. Shelby, you take that end, and the rest of you form up, we’ll move over there, under the starboard vane.”

“Lieutenant…” another man began.

“Move!”

For a moment, no one spoke; leaves rustled, boots stamped, as everyone did what he or she thought best to prepare for an assault. A faint humming that reminded Pel of distant insects came from somewhere overhead, and he realized it came from that dark shape.

Pel remembered his previous visit to Shadow’s realm, and the horrific fight near the forester’s hut on Stormcrack lands, the fight where Spaceman First Class Cartwright had died; there, Shadow’s creatures had burst up through the ground and come showering out of the trees from every direction. There was no safe place. The only chance to survive was flight.

He considered turning to run now, dashing off into the forest at random, but that, he realized, might just take him into the jaws of some slimy black monstrosity.

Besides, if he died, perhaps he would be reunited with Nancy and Rachel. If he died bravely, went down fighting, didn’t he deserve to join them, wherever they were? Maybe if he died here he would wake up safely back home on Earth, in his own bed, alive and well.

But there was no point in being stupid, in making it easy for Shadow. He headed for Valadrakul and Susan; Valadrakul had his spells, Susan her revolver.

“’Tisn’t seeking us,” Elani said abruptly, breaking the silence.

“Is’t not?” Raven asked, startled. Pel saw that the nobleman had found a broken limb among the debris that the ship had brought down, and was holding it in his right hand like a club. His bandaged left hand was empty.

“Nay. ’Tis come to study the portal that brought us hither.”

Pel started to relax, then realized what that could mean. “It’ll find us soon enough, then,” he said.

“An it flies not on through, into Empire, aye,” Elani agreed.

“Mistress Thorpe,” Raven called, “can you send word, warn those who remain at Base One?”

“Of course, sir,” Prossie replied. “But I can’t promise they’ll pay any attention.”

Raven muttered a word Pel didn’t catch. It sounded like an archaic obscenity.

“The flying creature is at yon portal,” Elani announced, pointing upward.

“Goes it through?” Raven called.

Pel looked about, and saw that the party had collected into three groups-and one individual.

One group consisted of Elani, Amy, and Ted, clustered at the base of a large tree of undistinguished species; another was composed of himself, Susan, Valadrakul, Stoddard, and Prossie Thorpe, standing by the side of the downed ship; and the third was made up of Lieutenant Dibbs and his fourteen men, gathered under the ship’s stubby wing, farther astern. Raven stood alone, on an upthrust root of a gigantic oak, swinging his makeshift club stiffly and watching the leaves overhead.

And Colonel Carson’s body lay in the open part of the little clearing between the ship and the trees, near the center of the uneven quadrilateral formed by the survivors. Pel turned away, and found himself looking at the dead officer’s troops.

Dibbs had his men arranged in two rows of seven, one line facing forward, the other aft, with himself at the outer end; all of them were crouching, as the fin provided slightly less than six feet of headroom. Some, Pel saw, were clutching their blasters by the barrels; others were searching the ground for sticks or rocks.

“Are there any other weapons aboard the ship?” Pel called to the lieutenant, shifting back to the rear of his own cluster.

Dibbs shook his head.

“Nay,” Elani cried. “It turns away! It senses us!”

A dozen faces turned upward.

And a moment later, a dozen assorted black-winged horrors plunged down through the green leaves, claws outstretched, fanged mouths agape.

Valadrakul gestured, and the foremost hellbeast exploded in golden fire. Pel ducked instinctively as football-sized gobbets of black slime spattered across the ground and the side of the ship. Another flash he guessed to be Elani’s doing.

The other hellbeasts came on without slowing, and before Pel could raise his head one of them struck him on the shoulders and spun him around, slamming him against the hull. Dazed, he could see nothing but purple paint on smooth metal as sharp claws or teeth-he couldn’t tell which-chewed at the back of his head.

Then there came a brilliant yellow flash, and Pel could feel things sliding down his back, across his buttocks and down the back of his legs.

People were screaming, he could hear them, and there were other noises, gnashings and scratchings and gurglings. He heard a loud popping, and realized that it was the sound of a gunshot-Susan had fired her pistol. Another flash sent spots dancing before his eyes.

He remembered the other fight against Shadow’s creatures. That had been different; they had come up from beneath the ground, rather than down from the sky, and then hundreds more had come in from all sides, from the surrounding forest. There had been no warning at all, and the group there had been somewhat different-Cahn and his crew were there instead of Dibbs and his squad, the little people had still been alive, Nancy and Rachel were there. There had been no ship, but a woodshed with a magical portal in it, and the party, hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched, had fled through the portal.

This time, there was no portal-unless one of the wizards could open one, and that seemed unlikely, in the midst of battle, without any previous preparation. Pel knew nothing about how the portals worked, but he remembered that Elani had needed several minutes to open one.

If they faced those limitless hordes again, the hundreds of horrible things that had come leaping out of the forest, they were surely all as good as dead. A few might escape into the surrounding forest, but what would become of them then? They would be lost, to starve or be picked off one by one by Shadow’s creatures.

Maybe, Pel thought, it was almost over. Maybe, in a few minutes, he would be joining Nancy and Rachel-either in death, or waking up again safely back home on Earth.

Unsteadily, shielding his face with one arm and bracing himself against the ship with the other, Pel turned.

Twisted fragments of monster were strewn everywhere, horribly out of place in the bright midday sun-some like the remains of a gigantic burst black balloon, some like black jelly, some like charred driftwood or burned roasts, all dark and harsh against the gentler colors of the forest. Valadrakul stood amid the debris, systematically targeting the survivors-a fifth exploded as it gnawed on someone, one of the group that had stood to the side, Amy and Ted and Elani. All three of them were down, lying on the ground with hellbeasts atop them. As Pel watched, something in that heap flashed white, but the monsters continued their assault. Whatever magic Elani had attempted had not worked.