James Clemens - Shadowfall

Dart remembered her dream of a few nights back. She had been chased then, as a babe, carried away by the old headmistress of the Conclave. Why?

Yaellin kept behind, urging them onward through bower and glade. The myrrwood seemed without end. Dart risked a glance over her shoulder. She saw nothing but a flowing wall of shadow.

He’s keeping us hidden with his billowing cloak.

Ahead, Pupp raced through the wood, passing ghostly through bush and scrub without a rustle. Dart watched him bump against a bole of the myrrwood and bounce off of it. The trunk was solid to him, like the blood roots below.

She had no time for this mystery and chased after him. His glow helped light her path.

They passed crumbled walls, a moss-covered well, a tiny wooden arbor fallen to ruin. And still the wood continued onward. Grown from a single seed, sown with Chrism’s own blood, the myrrwood’s branches had stretched for four thousand years.

Would they ever escape its shadow?

As they ran, Dart noted the trunks grew thicker. They were not heading back toward the castillion, toward light and people, but deeper into the heart of the myrrwood.

“Where…?” Dart gasped.

“To the back wall of the Eldergarden,” Yaellin answered. “And over. We must reach the city.”

As if hearing their words, a keening shriek erupted to the left. A large form crashed toward them.

“Behind me!” Yaellin called.

Dart twisted. Laurelle froze. With her hand gripping Laurelle’s, Dart tugged her friend back around. Shadows swept over and past them. Pupp wheeled around and raced toward them.

Dart dropped to her knees, sheltered by a bole of the myrrwood.

A dark shape flung itself into their path. Eyes glowing crimson, it ran on all fours, fingers and toes twisted into razored claws. A row of bony spikes pierced through the skin of its arched back. It howled at Yaellin, its jaws hinging its entire head, and leaped at the man.

Yaellin’s cloak sailed to a branch overhead, a flow of living shadow. Snagging purchase, Yaellin flew upward. The beast passed below him, snapping and spitting. With a hiss and a slash, it whirled.

But Yaellin had already dropped beside it. He struck out with his fist-no, not just a fist. He held a dagger with a shining black blade. He struck the ilk-beast in the side, then rolled backward. A lick of fire chased him, like a splash of blood, from the beast.

The creature reared up, claws extended-then collapsed into ash, faintly ruddy, like wood embers from a dying fire.

Yaellin waved to them with his dagger. “Hurry…”

Dart knew the weapon he had employed: the cursed blade from Jacinta. Dart was now glad Yaellin had stolen it. She and Laurelle fled to his side, and the chase continued.

But the pause to dispatch the lone beast had cost them. The howls had drawn closer.

“I… I can’t go on,” Laurelle moaned. Her feet began to trip.

Yaellin was there, scooping her up in arm and cloak. He reached for Dart with the other.

“I can still run,” she said, not wishing to burden Yaellin. Besides, she had the wind for this. She had been running her entire life.

She turned to flee, Pupp at her side.

They dodged around boles as wide as carriage carts. The scent of myrrh grew stifling, trapped under the dense leafy canopy where wind, rain, and sunshine never reached. The underbrush turned skeletal, thorny, with strange red berries aglow in the gloom. Through the upper branches, luminescent butterflits of azure and crimson fluttered lazily, hanging and gliding in the too-still air.

Ahead a wall appeared, lit by the ruddy glow of Pupp’s molten form.

Dart hurried ahead, sensing salvation. What had terrified her before-the empty streets of Chrismferry at night-now seemed a welcome place. At least their pursuers seemed to fall back, losing their track, or maybe they had come upon the smoldering ashes of their fellow beast and now proceeded with more caution.

Either way, they had to find a way over the wall.

Pupp had stopped ahead. Over the millennia, a thick deadfall had blown against the wall, tangled and dark in the night.

“Caution,” Yaellin warned behind her, farther back than she expected.

“Where can we cross the wall?” Dart asked. The deadfall looked treacherous and unstable.

“It’s no wall, Dart.” Yaellin hurried to her, his voice dropped to the barest whisper.

Her foot crunched through brittle twigs and branches as she joined Pupp. She saw Yaellin was right. What she had thought was wall was instead a tree of such immensity that the curve of its trunk could not be easily discerned, appearing more like a wall of smooth, gray bark.

“Quiet now,” Yaellin whispered. “Around to the left. Keep out of the bones.”

Dart frowned, then saw where Yaellin pointed. She stumbled back with a strangled cry, crackling a mouse’s rib cage under her heel. She gaped toward the tree. The snarl of deadfall showed itself to be bones, piled and broken: slender leg bones of deer, cracked skulls of rabbits, ribs of giant woodland slothkins, ivory horns of lothicorns.

“The true heart of the myrrwood,” Yaellin intoned. “The one trunk from which all else spread.”

“The Heartwood,” Dart said, remembering the stories told. She stared around her. Here was Lord Chrism’s private sanctuary, a forbidden, sacred place. None but the god was allowed to enter. Even the sun hid its face from this soil. “What happened?”

“Corruption… like with the men and women.”

They circled its bole, keeping wide of the ring of bones. As they ran, a soft skittering sounded. A skull of a slothkin rose from the pile, lifted by a writhing root. Its empty eye sockets bloomed with a sickly yellow flame.

Yaellin guided them to the side, skirting bushes and trunks. “It wakes.”

More skulls rose, igniting with fire. Riding roots, they pushed out of the pile and snaked outward. Piled bones toppled with a hollow wooden sound as the roots quested into the surrounding wood.

They ran, keeping hidden.

Movement to Dart’s left drew her eye. A cracked skull of a deer, still antlered, teetered up from a beach of bone. It swung around, meeting her gaze. She found the blaze in the sockets fixing to her.

Her feet slowed.

A trilling filled her head, sweet and high. The wood grew darker at the edges. The skull and eyes glowed brighter. Words grew in her head, speaking with her own voice: come, sleep, rest, come…

Fingers gripped her chin and turned her face. “No,” Yaellin said. He had placed Laurelle down. “Don’t look.”

She nodded, but still felt drawn to glance over. Her feet drifted her back toward the deadfall. Motion snaked throughout the pile. Bones skittered and rolled. New fires lit the night as more eyes opened, a dance of fireflits.

Pretty…

She turned to see-but a sweep of darkness dropped like a curtain across the sight.

“No,” Yaellin repeated behind her. “Only a little farther.”

Laurelle stumbled up to her, her face bled of all color.

A shape leaped before them. Both girls yelped, falling into each other’s arms. But it was only a dwarf deerling, no taller than Dart’s waist. Its ears quivered. It stopped on tiny hooves, blind to the three of them, then bounded forward, toward the deadfall.

Dart glanced after it.

It landed, knee deep in the bone pile. The treacherous footing stumbled its perch. It fell forward. Only then did it seem to note where it was. Its head snapped up, neck taut, a confused bleat escaping.

Then a snarl of roots tangled up out of the bones. It lifted the deerling high and swamped over its body. The animal fought, but the roots penetrated flesh as easily as water. A sharp wail squealed forth, but it ended in one heartbeat as yellow flames sprouted from the deerling’s mouth and nose. More fires spat out from its ears and rear quarters.