James West - Lady Of Regret

“You can, or you cannot. Which is it?”

“So many turns,” Horge whispered, closing his eyes in concentration, one finger sketching a winding path in the air before his nose. “Aye!” he said, nodding eagerly. “ I know the way.” He took a bundle off a nearby table, shook it out to reveal a cloak of coarse dark hair, and wrapped it around his shoulders. “Follow me.”

“What of this lot?” Loro asked, gesturing to the downed shadowkin. Many of those who had been groaning had gone still, eyes glazed over, waxen skin pale next to the blood pooling around them. Some still writhed and groaned, but not much longer, Rathe guessed.

“Leave them. If our luck holds, Tulfa will find the flesh of his kindred as palatable as ours.”

Loro’s face blanched. “It’s a foul blasphemy, folk eating folk.”

At the moment, Rathe was beyond counting blasphemies. “Lead on,” he instructed Horge.

Face ashen, swallowing compulsively as he scanned the dead, Horge did as bidden.

Relief flooded Rathe when the river’s mossy scent tickled his nose. It seemed hours had passed since the trio set out from the kitchen. They would have been mounted and gone long before, but the hunters of Deepreach seemed to be everywhere. More, they were driven by Tulfa’s wild cries of, “Meat on the bone!” and “Yes! Yes! Hunt them down, and we shall feast!”

Whenever the trio heard that voice, or the squeals of hungry shadowkin, they quickly lost themselves down unfamiliar passageways. Horge always brought them back to the first corridor, through which Rathe and Loro had traveled to the great hall.

Now Rathe heard the river’s rush, saw a dim rectangle of lesser darkness. The way out. He touched Horge’s shoulder, and the man flinched violently, squeaked in terror. “Better let me lead from here,” Rathe said, wondering if the scrawny fellow had become jumpy after falling into the hands of the shadowkin, or if it was a particular trait. He guessed both.

Loro searched Horge’s face. “Are you without a proper steed, friend?”

“I have a beast of burden. I do hope these monsters did not get Samba, and that he remains where I tied him. I had gone fishing, you see, when Tulfa captured me, and-”

“Which way?” Rathe asked, arresting the man’s explanation.

Horge thought about it, a finger again tracing the air before his face. “That way,” he said, pointing in the direction Rathe and Loro had been going before Tulfa showed himself.

“You can ride with Rathe,” Loro said quickly, patting his round slab of belly. “This much man-flesh does not favor two riders to a saddle.”

“Let’s go,” Rathe said, seeing the way Loro’s nose wrinkled at Horge’s unpleasant scent, and regretting that he had not spoken first.

After gathering their gear and saddles at the entrance, they moved into the mist-shrouded night. Their horses looked up from grazing, ears pricked and alert. It seemed a monstrous blessing that shadowkin had no love for meat that did not cover the bones of men. That aside, Rathe decided to take all blessings that came to him, and gave silent thanks to the Cerrikothian god of war, Ahnok.

While he and Loro saddled their mounts, Horge danced nervously to one side of the entrance, pausing frequently to cock his head and listen.

Rathe was slipping his toe into the stirrup, when the sound of claws scratching stone drew his eye upward. His blood went cold. Scores of shadowkin were climbing over the rails of the walkways above. Where the twisted folk scurried and scuttled on the ground, they moved with eerie grace in scaling surfaces that would hinder spiders.

“Go!” Rathe called, leaping into the saddle.

Loro kicked his horse into a bounding leap down the stairs to the roadway. Rathe reached for Horge, but the scrawny fellow had vanished. “Horge!”

Only the shadowkin answered, mad squeals merging with the river’s throaty rumble.

“He’s gone!” Loro shouted below, his horse dancing a circle.

Rathe gave another second to searching for Horge, but there was no sign of the little man. Shadowkin began leaping down and scampering near. Rathe’s sword slashed, and the nearest foe toppled back, missing a few fingers.

“ Horge! ”

No answer. With a curse, Rathe joined Loro, and they sped away.

“They’re after us,” Loro warned.

Rathe glanced back. The freakish folk streaked like wolves on the hunt, closing the gap. His gray snorted in fear, began fighting the bit. Rathe almost lost his seat, but clutched the pommel and righted himself. He had no sooner settled back, when a pillar supporting one of the city’s many footbridges forced him to saw hard at the reins. Trumpeting, the gray swept by the column, so close Rathe had to tuck his shoulder to avoid collision.

A leering face framed by streaming hair appeared at his stirrup. Rathe hacked his sword downward. The shadowkin fell away with garbled scream. Another took the place of the first. Yellowed claws swiped at the gray’s belly, setting it to bucking wildly. Rathe swung, and the clutching hand became a bloody stump. The second shadowkin stumbled, fell into a bouncing roll, and was gone.

Rathe dug in his heels, and the gray focused on escape. Up ahead, cloak fluttering like the wing of a bat, Loro leaned over his red’s neck, swatting the horse’s rump with the flat of his blade. The big steed surged forward, steel-shod hooves throwing sparks over cobbles. They raced under another footbridge. A moment later, they flashed beneath another.

With the gray now striving to catch the red, Rathe risked another look behind. The shadowkin had fallen back, but showed no indication of tiring. Facing forward, he saw Deepreach stretching into moonlit fog. There was no telling how far they must go before escaping the city.

Rathe’s gray veered to avoid another leaning pillar. Far up ahead, a line of darkness, half the height of a man, blocked the roadway. After a few more strides, the darkness resolved into fallen pillar.

Loro began to pull back on the reins, but Rathe called, “Jump it!”

“Not at this pace!”

“We have no choice!”

The nearer they came, the more daunting the pillar seemed. Rathe kicked the gray to greater speed. The blowing horses leaped together. Soaring through a tattered streamer of mist, the gray’s rear hooves struck the pillar’s curved surface. The big red made the jump clean. They hit the roadway on the far side, hooves clattering loudly. Without breaking stride, the horses galloped on, necks stretching, manes flying.

It was not enough. The relentless shadowkin were gaining. Rathe had to end the chase.

He drew rein. The gray dropped its hindquarters and slid to a halt. While Loro rushed off into the milky gloom, Rathe spun his mount.

Leaping shapes plunged closer. Hungry calls pebbled his flesh, and he almost abandoned his plan. But he had to try, or run until the shadowkin ran them down.

“Come on, boy,” he urged, patting the gray’s neck. The horse tossed his head and whinnied. He was no fierce destrier, such as those Rathe had ridden when he commanded the Ghosts of Ahnok, but he gamely went where Rathe directed him.

Rathe reined in at a pillar rising crookedly to the base of the footbridge overhead. With its neighbor toppled into a heap of rubble, this pillar served as the bridge’s last support on this side of the river.

He forced the gray’s shoulder against the column’s cracked base. The horse shied at a deep grinding noise. “No time to be skittish,” Rathe said gently, guiding the gray back against the pillar. Ahead, Loro’s voice drifted back through the fastness of Deepreach. Behind, the shadowkin closed swiftly.

“Last chance,” Rathe chided the horse. With a shout, he put boots to the horse’s flanks. The gray strained against the pillar. Rathe felt the grinding of stone in his teeth, as the immeasurable weight of the bridge pressed down on the weakened support.