Lawrence Watt-Evans - In the Empire of Shadow

The wings were still tangled in the surrounding trees, tearing their way through; Prossie glimpsed at least four sets of claws, rather than the two that an ordinary bat would have. And the monster’s shadow covered Christopher, the narrow clearing where the ship had fallen, and a broad stretch of forest to either side.

There was simply no way such a creature could exist in any sane universe.

But then Prossie reminded herself that she was not in a sane universe-she was in Shadow’s realm, in Faerie, where magic ruled and science was powerless.

Regardless of what universe it was, there was still only one sensible reaction to such a monster, and that was to run. The thing might be able to smash its way through the forest, but judging by how slowly it was making its way down to the ship it would not be able to do it with any speed; she ought, she thought, to be able to escape it easily, even in her weak, wounded condition.

She forced herself up onto her feet, bracing herself against the tree she had sat beneath, and was about to flee when Carrie’s mental voice called to her.

“Prossie, they want you to continue the mission, to go on to Shadow’s fortress.”

Prossie stumbled, and looked up at the monster overhead.

She hadn’t been transmitting, there was no way that Carrie could have known what was going on here, but still, the message seemed so irrelevant as to be ridiculous. A dozen dead monstrosities were scattered across the landscape, she was bleeding from a dozen cuts, Elani had been killed, and a nightmare with a quarter-mile wingspan was fighting its way down through the forest, trying to get at them-who cared what a couple of pompous idiots back at Base One wanted? She turned to run.

As she turned, she glimpsed Valadrakul as he flung his spell at the gigantic creature; eldritch energy flashed upward from his raised hands, and sparks flickered across the monster’s belly-but that was all. Nothing exploded; no tattered bits of black monster-flesh fell.

A faint whiff of something unpleasant reached her nose as she ran, but Prossie could not tell whether that meant Valadrakul’s attack had singed the thing slightly, or whether it was the monster’s natural aroma.

Prossie glanced back over her shoulder, and saw Susan point her pistol at the thing. The lawyer looked at the weapon in her hand, then up at the descending horror; she let out a quick bark of laughter, then dropped the gun in her handbag, turned, and ran, following Prossie.

Most of the others were scattering now, as well, and Prossie could only see a few of them; the rest had vanished behind the trees. Valadrakul was standing his ground, chanting; Ted Deranian was lying where he had fallen, watching everything, not moving; but all the others were departing or already gone, at paces ranging from a slow, backward-facing, step-by-step retreat to a full-tilt heedless run.

Prossie’s own pace was somewhere in between; she was moving at a brisk trot, but watching where she was going and glancing back every so often. She didn’t need any more scrapes or scratches, and she didn’t want to leave a trail of her own blood for any of Shadow’s creatures to follow. Right now, she really didn’t want to think about the fight against Shadow itself, or what was happening back at Base One, or long-term plans of any kind; she just wanted to get away, to stay alive and in one piece.

* * * *

Amy had panicked. When she had seen that thing coming down through the trees, had seen its shadow block out the sun, had been showered with twigs and leaves as it broke past the treetops, she had frozen for an instant, and then she had screamed, and she had turned and run.

It was all too much, Colonel Carson’s death, and the hellbeasts, and Elani falling on top of her and dying there, and then that gigantic horror appearing overhead. She had gotten used to the relatively sane and normal life at Base One, and this succession of shocks had broken her nerve temporarily.

But only temporarily; as she stumbled across the uneven floor of the forest she was slowed by the irregular footing, by mounting nausea, and by a wave of guilt.

She knew better. Running away didn’t solve anything, that’s what the counselors and therapists all said. A person must face her fears. The others were still back there, fighting that thing.

She forced herself to stop and turn around.

For a moment, as she stood sweaty and panting, her gashed arm throbbing, she couldn’t see the monster or the ship, only trees-she had covered more ground than she had thought. In her unthinking panic it had seemed as if the creature was right behind her, just inches away; that it was not seemed somehow miraculous.

And then an entirely new sort of panic set in-she was alone, lost in the forest, wounded, with no one to help her and no chance at all of finding her way home. For an instant, from sheer terror, she stopped breathing.

And when the sound of her own breath stopped, she could hear the sounds from the ship-wood breaking, people shouting. She followed them with her gaze, and spotted first the hellbeast’s shadow, then the spaceship, and finally the creature itself.

It was at that moment that Valadrakul flung his new spell; Amy could see it spilling upward from a tiny figure she had not realized was there until the orange plume of fiery magic burst forth.

The scene was so distant that it didn’t seem entirely real; framed between two tree-trunks, it was like a tableau, like some sort of outdoor drama staged for her amusement. The spell was a special effect, something midway between smoke and flame, vividly painted across the image but not entirely convincing It wove upward through the air, into the monster’s open mouth, moving not with the speed of fire, nor the slow grace of smoke, but like the ascending trail of a skyrocket on the Fourth of July.

And then it entered the creature’s mouth, and something exploded, and for a moment light and smoke seemed to obscure everything; Amy had a glimpse of what looked like glowing green crystals where the creature’s eyes should be.

The sound of the explosion reached her, a dull thud that echoed and re-echoed through the forest; she blinked, and when her eyes were open again the monster was falling down through the air, covering the spaceship and the wizard in a lumpy black shroud.

Amy blinked again.

The wizard-that was Valadrakul.

The other wizard, Elani, was dead; with a shock, Amy realized that she still had Elani’s blood on her, in her hair and on her borrowed T-shirt, smeared down her right arm and across the back of her hand.

Elani, the wizard who had agreed to send them home to Earth, was dead.

And Valadrakul, buried under the dying monster, was the only other wizard in the group.

“No!” Amy shrieked. “No, no, no!” Her feet seemed to move of their own accord, and she found herself running back toward the clearing, the ship, and the monster just as desperately as she had fled a moment before.

* * * *

Upon first spotting the hellbeast above, Raven had known instantly that this gigantic manifestation of Shadow’s malice could only be fought with magic; his makeshift club could be of no effect against a beast the size of a castle.

This was Valadrakul’s fight, then. Elani was fallen, and her skills had never lain in the area of combat, in any case.

“An I can serve,” Raven called, “you need but speak!”

Valadrakul ignored him-and quite rightly.

A woman screamed, and Raven heard running feet. For his own part, he bethought him that a cautious retreat might be advised, lest he be struck down by the monster’s struggles, all unintended. He began pacing slowly back, away from the wizard and the arena.

The first spell was launched, to no effect, but that troubled Raven not a whit; Valadrakul was but trying out his foe, using against it the spell that had sufficed to destroy the lesser beasts. Raven had seen wizards do the same upon many a previous occasion.