James Clemens - Shadowfall

“You propose going in on our own?” she said. “With no knowledge of what may lay in wait?”

“If we could only find the Godsword…” Tylar grumbled.

Yaellin spoke from the doorway. “I’ve searched everywhere for the weapon. It’s nowhere to be-”

Distant shouts silenced the man. All eyes turned to the door.

Yaellin swung to the spy hole. “It’s coming from down the stairs. I’ll check.” He lifted the bar and pulled the latch. He vanished in a whirl of cloak and shadow.

With the door cracked, the heavy tread of boots on stone echoed up from below. Surely it was the castillion guard. Orders were shouted to search every floor. This was no random search.

“We’ve been found,” Tylar said.

Kathryn slid free her sword. Others did the same. There was no escape up the tower. They’d have to fight their way to the streets.

Kathryn called up the power in her cloak, billowing darkness around her form. They had to get Tylar safely away… and the girl. The child could not be captured, returned to Chrism’s reach. With such a source of blood, the Godsword would be Chrism’s to wield. That must not happen.

Glancing over a shoulder, Kathryn spotted the girl crouched with her friend. She had a dagger in hand and a fierce set to her eyes.

Shadows suddenly shifted behind the girl’s shoulders.

Oh no…

Darkness fell across Dart, drawing her eye to the sunlit window nearby. She had left the window open after watching the flippercraft crash earlier. A naked shape crept over the sill, claws digging into stone, eyes glowing with grace. Smoke steamed its form.

An ilk-beast.

The creature leaped into the room-toward Laurelle, the closest to the window.

Dart screamed as the creature struck her friend, knocking her to the bed. Another pair of creatures filled the window, crawling in from either side, misshapen horrors. At the same time, windows shattered around the room. More ilk-beasts boiled in from all sides.

Dart lunged toward the nearest, the one tangled with Laurelle. Her friend kicked and bit, turning as feral as the creature that attacked her. But a swipe of claws ripped her robe and drew bloody furrows across her chest. Laurelle cried out.

Dart already had her cursed dagger in hand. She plunged it to the hilt in the monster’s back. It reared up, tearing the blade from Dart’s grasp. The beast struggled for the impaled dagger, writhing to reach it. It screamed, but all that came out was fire. Its body stiffened with pain, a statue of agony.

Laurelle kicked out at it from the bed. Her heel struck its form and it shattered to ash, blowing outward. A reek of charred flesh whelmed over them.

Dart joined Laurelle, dropping behind the edge of the bed, ducking almost under it.

Around the room, a dance of blades held the ilk-beasts in check. The castellan swirled in and out of shadow, dealing death with swift skill. The tall Wyr-mistress had a sword in each fist, lunging and stabbing in all directions, seeming to have eyes in the back of her head. Even the godslayer wielded a blade in one hand and a dagger in the other, his back to the bearded man who fought with a broken chair leg, sharp as a spear.

But more and more beasts crawled and scrambled into the chamber.

Dart blindly searched the hot ash pile for her dagger. Despite her terror, she dug with care. It would not do to prick her finger on its black tip.

“Make for the door!” Master Gerrod called to them. His bronze form had sprouted sharp blades at elbows and knees. He held the legion at bay from Dart’s corner.

Laurelle grabbed Dart’s arm. She pointed under the bed.

Dart abandoned her search and belly-crawled with Laurelle beneath the bed to its other side. They waited for a clear moment, then shoved across the open space to the next cot, diving beneath it and crawling toward the far door. They waited until the fighting ebbed away from the entry.

“Now,” Dart urged.

The two girls rolled out and to their feet. Hand in hand, they raced for the door and through it. The hallway echoed with the fighting, but it was thankfully empty. They fled down its length, realizing that the clash of swords grew louder again only as they neared the stairwell.

Their feet slowed.

More fighting ahead. Yaellin must be holding the stairs. The scrape of claw on stone drew their attention behind them. Laurelle let out a small whimper.

Climbing down the corridor, a lone ilk-beast had followed them into the hallway, a cat chasing two fleeing mice. On all fours, it was massively muscled, naked of all clothing. Its skin ran with black mottles. Its muzzled face held a fixed snarl, revealing daggered fangs. Fiery eyes stared at them.

Trapped between the two battles-stair and chamber-there was nowhere to run. Dart pawed her belted sheath. They had no weapons.

The beast let out a growl and stalked toward them.

Tylar stabbed a beast through the eye. From the bared breasts, it was once a woman. But her skin had hardened to scale, her fingers to bony claws. Oil cast the nails in a poisonous sheen. But the worst was her face: slitted eyes aglow with a yellowish flame, nostrils flared for scenting, jaws shaped like an adder, full of fangs.

With a grunt, Tylar yanked his blade free. The beast fell, convulsing on the stone floor. A hissing wail flowed forth. Even in death, the creature remained a monster, its human self burned away forever by corrupted Grace.

Tylar felt a mix of sorrow and fury. What could drive someone to yield all of themselves to such a defilement? He remembered Darjon’s shout. Myrillia will be free! He stepped over the dead body. She was certainly free now.

The battle raged. The air reeked of burst bowels and blood. The room echoed with wails and shrieks of the raving.

But Tylar dared not call forth his daemon. With fighting in such close quarters, friend as well as foe could find themselves brushed with the deadly touch of the naethryn. So he fought, Rogger on one side, Kathryn on the other. Gerrod and Eylan were another island of resistance across the room.

“Make for the door!” he yelled. “We’ll hold them off better in the hall!”

But his order was understood by the ilk-beasts, too. Though the men and woman had forsaken themselves to this fate, some semblance of human cognition remained. The pack of beasts surged toward the door, cutting off their retreat. The way was slammed shut.

More beasts clawed and crawled through the windows. Was there no end to Chrism’s slavering army? How many had given themselves to this false god?

With a grunt, Rogger went down on one knee, his shoulder ripped to shreds by a lash of claw, his stave knocked from his fingers.

Tylar used a backhanded blow with the hilt of his sword to crack the ilk-beast in the face. It fell back.

Rogger gained his feet. Kathryn passed him a dagger.

“We can’t hold them,” she said. “We’re being swamped.”

With each death, the floor grew slicker with blood, each step more treacherous. And it was not only the beasts’ blood that stained it. They all bore cuts and scrapes.

Tylar found his vision narrowing. Fear and fury had helped fuel his fight, but there were limits. He had lost too much blood earlier, had had too little time to recover. His heel slipped in a pool of blood. He fell into the arms of one of the beasts, a squat toadish man with bony spines growing from his skin. Tylar felt himself speared across arms and chest.

As he struggled to free himself, the creature suddenly jerked, spasmed, and released Tylar. He fell to Tylar’s toes, a dagger hilt protruding from the back of his neck, impaled to the brain.

Tylar matched gazes with Eylan. Even while fighting her own host of monsters, she had thrown the dagger with unerring accuracy, protecting her charge, doing her duty.