Paul Kemp: Realms of War

"Awaken! Awaken!"

Before she had taken five steps she tripped on an exposed root and fell. The impact knocked the breath from her, and her warning died in a painful wheeze. The wind picked up still more, a gale that tore leaves and limbs from trees, and it carried on its currents hateful moans that made Varra's bones ache.

Screams erupted from the camp-one, another, another. Lights flared to life in the watchmen's hands-Denthim's sunrods. Varra half-crawled, half-ran back to the edge of the forest.

The wind sent a fog of dirt and dust through the camp. She made out dark, roughly humanoid-shaped figures with eyes like burning coals whirling in the wind, whipping through the camp, a storm of clotted forms. There were three living shadows for every person in the caravan.

The shadows, perhaps attracted to the light, swarmed the watchmen with sunrods. Dozens of forms whipped around the men, blotting out the light, reaching into and through the watchmen's flesh with cold, black arms. In moments all of the watchmen were dead, all of the sunrods extinguished.

Children cried. Women and men shouted, screamed. Varra could barely hear them above the moans of the shadows, above the wail of the wind. The shadows flitted through the camp, reaching out for warm flesh. And where they touched, they killed.

The camp devolved into chaos. People scrambled from their wagons, panicked and desperate. Horses and mules bucked and kicked against their tethers. Shadows swarmed the site, moaning, killing.

Varra heard Denthim shouting orders. He stood near his wagon, holding the bridle of his panicked mule, even as the creature sought to break free of its yoke.

"Here," he shouted. "Here!"

Others took up his call, and a pocket of fighting men and women-sheltering the children, elderly, and those who could not fight for themselves-formed a rough line and hurried toward Denthim.

A dozen corpses dotted the plain. Shadows wheeled everywhere.

Varra knew no one would escape, not unless the shadows could be drawn off.

She acted before she thought. Sheltered behind the bole of a tree, she struck one of her sunrods on the trunk and it burst into light. She hurled it into the forest away from her.

A dozen pairs of red eyes turned from the attack and darted for the light. Varra ran farther back into the forest and struck another sunrod, casting it in the opposite direction of the first. The shadows' moans chased after it.

Varra ran deeper into the trees and ducked behind a tree, breathing heavily. She poked out her head to see that the shadows had already extinguished the first light. As she watched, they squelched the second. She had not delayed them long. She could still hear shouts from the campsite.

She held the last sunrod in her hand, stared at it, considered, her heart bouncing around in her breast.

She made up her mind, closed her eyes, and struck it on the tree.

"Here!" she shouted. "Here I am!"

She held the sunrod aloft and ran for her life into the forest.

Bone-chilling moans chased her into the trees. The sounds from the beleaguered camp faded. She heard only her own breathing, only the threats on the wind, the moans of the shadows.

She resolved to hold onto the rod until she had gotten far from the camp.

Sweat dripped into her eyes, felt cool on her skin. Limbs slapped her face, snagged her cloak. She stumbled once, twice, and little exclamations of terror escaped her lips. Fatigue and terror drained her strength. She threw her legs one in front of the other but felt as if she had sacks hanging from her belt sash. The shadows were drawing nearer. The air grew chill, the moans more pronounced.

She could not go on. Casting the sunrod as far from her as she could, she staggered off in the other direction. She didn't make it far before she sagged against a tree and tried to catch her breath. She heard the shadows moaning behind her, around her, but dared not peek out.

A hand closed over her mouth, and panic caused her to utter a muffled scream. She went limp; her body had no strength left with which to fight.

"Quiet," said a voice, and she recognized it as that of the dark man from the caravan. He removed his hand from her mouth.

She could not understand his presence, but fear caused her mind to work slowly.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered at last.

"Fiddling around the edges."

He grinned, the smile of a madman, and touched his hand to her belly. A stabbing pain wracked her abdomen. She screamed, doubled over. The shadows heard and answered her scream with moans.

"Who is she speaking to?" one of Brennus's homunculi said and cocked its head.

The other homunculus leaned forward and peered into the face of the scrying cube. "I thought I saw someone."

Brennus cast several divinations in rapid succession to determine if Erevis Cale, perhaps invisible and warded, had come to Varra's aid. He had not. But for the shadows, she was alone.

"She speaks to herself," Brennus answered. "She is terrified.

And she may have just lost her child to the strain."

Rivalen waited for moonset, then pulled the shadows around him and flew into the cool night air high above Selgaunt. The city stretched out below him, its torchlit thoroughfares like glowing snakes. The Elzimmer River looked like a black gash in the plain, a jagged, open wound. A few ships floated in the harbor.

Rivalen looked northeast, toward Ordulin, toward the Shadowstorm. He could not see it but knew it was there, summoned by Volumvax the Mad.

Shar had not chosen him, and his dreams had died in the darkness of her secrets. He looked into the moonless sky and shouted his rage into the void.

Varra, still gasping from the memory of pain, said, "What did you do?"

The man nodded at her belly. "Mind that child."

Varra stared, dumbfounded. "Child?"

"Yes, child. Worry over it later. Go now. They are coming."

But Varra was too stunned to move. She was with child? How could she not have known? How could he, a stranger to her, have known? She stared into his handsome face.

"Who are you?"

The moment she asked the question, she felt a nervous flutter in her stomach, fear that he might answer her truthfully.

He looked down, smiling, and poked a finger through a hole in his leather jerkin. "Interesting question." He sighed and looked up. "I am an actor. And we have a mutual acquain shy;tance. Let us leave it there."

The shadows moaned, and she felt the cold of their coming.

"Come with me," she said. "We can hide."

He shook his head. "I must leave this place. But you cannot come with me." He pointed over her shoulder. "There is safety there. Trust me. Do you?"

From his expression, she thought much depended on her answer. She nodded, and he smiled. There was sadness in it.

"Then run. Now."

She looked around the tree, and the shadows saw her. Their red eyes flared, and a dozen black forms streaked at her. She looked back at the man, and he wasn't there. She had no time to think about where he'd gone. She turned and pelted through the underbrush, cracking tree limbs, stum shy;bling, cursing, but never stopping. The thought of her child, Erevis's child, pushed her. She felt the shadows on her heels, moaning, reaching with cold fingers to drain the life from her flesh and that of her child. They were right behind her, closing, haunting her steps.

She burst through the trees and into a meadow of flowers. She did not slow. The shadows moaned, the sound right behind her. She heard the tinkling of distant bells and thought herself going mad.

"Where? Where?"

Tears mixed with sweat on her face. She had trusted the dark man, but he was a liar. There was no safety, only flowers and death. Her legs gave out and she fell amid the blooms. A shower of silvery pollen floated into the night air.