Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

The air vibrated with an energy. Alwyn was sure he could hear a voice carried on it.

“An oath weapon!” Miss Red Owl shouted, running after Scolly. “Tyul is in there! Be careful!” Behind Alwyn, reins snapped and brindos brayed.

“Keep spread out! Inkermon, Hrem, watch the buildings!” Yimt ordered as he plunged through the brush with Alwyn right behind him.

As the entered the clearing, they saw three black-cloaked figures standing near a watering hole, a small rock-lined pond ten feet across. Each held a long, curved sword in its hand. A body lay facedown on the ground behind them. It was still sewn up in canvas sailcloth, but Alwyn knew it was Kester. A few feet away, Tyul Mountain Spring faced the figures with his dagger drawn. The voice Alwyn had heard was coming from Tyul’s weapon. Jurwan sat perched on Tyul’s shoulder, his tail bushed.

“Drop your weapons,” Yimt shouted, pointing his shatterbow at the nearest figure.

It motioned to the other two, which bent down and picked up the body. The first turned toward Yimt and raised its sword.

Scolly was furiously reloading his musket. “Kill them, kill them!”

“We’ve got this under control, everyone take a breath. Now,” Yimt said, taking a step closer to the mysterious figures, “drop your weapons and that body.”

Scolly slammed his ramrod down the barrel, cutting his hand on the bayonet. “Kill them! They don’t got no shadows!”

Alwyn glanced at the ground and realized Scolly was right.

Scolly paid Yimt’s orders no mind; he simply raised his musket, aimed, and fired with the ramrod still in the barrel. The ramrod and musket ball flew across the water and hit the first figure in the side of the head, tearing away the hood of its cloak.

A grinning skull with eyes of white fire stared back at them.

Yimt’s shatterbow fired at the same time as several muskets. A hail of musket balls pulverized the creature’s skull and two shatterbow darts blew the rest of it to pieces.

Alwyn didn’t join the attack. Bitter cold gripped his chest and his breath misted before him. He spun around to face the water as several beasts now surged out of the pond, their jaws of razor-sharp teeth snapping loudly. Water steamed off their scaly hides as they clambered onto the sand. Each appeared fifteen feet long, with a hide of scales gray-green in color. Their heads were long and pointed, like hinged wedges filled with flesh-rending teeth. They stayed just a few inches above the ground, scrabbling forward with four short, but very powerful legs splayed out to the sides. Great slashing scars covered their scales, as if they fought amongst themselves when there wasn’t something meatier to eat. Their eyes burned with white fire and their open maws held it like a foundry furnace.

Alwyn squeezed the trigger, his musket bucking in his hands. The musket ball punched a neat hole in the head of the closest creature, which sank back into the furiously bubbling water. A few of the pond monsters immediately began tearing chunks off the dead creature while the rest crawled forward. They opened their jaws wide, hide around their throats expanded, and they began convulsing. A moment later they spewed out pure white flame.

Shouts and screams echoed off the walls of the nearby buildings. With no time to reload, Alwyn called forth the frost fire, setting his bayonet aflame. He lunged forward to the water’s edge, skewering one of the beasts. White fire washed over Alwyn, the burning sensation he’d experienced on the island wracking him again.

His shadow was on fire.

“Get out of there, Ally!” Yimt shouted.

Alwyn ignored the order and waded into the water, stabbing down with his bayonet as more creatures emerged. He thrust again with his musket, piercing the jaws of one creature closed as it was about to spew more white fire. It tried to pull its jaws free, but Alwyn kept them pinned even as the white fire grew inside it. Finally, its neck tore apart violently as gouts of flame ripped through its scales and shot out across the water.

Black flame rose in response to the white, as each powerful fire roared higher and higher. The surface of the water began to alternate between boiling and freezing. Alwyn ignored everything except the creatures. He stabbed and burned until his mind went blank and all he was, all he would ever be, was a dispenser of death.

A third power tried to weave its way around Alwyn. He recognized Miss Tekoy’s magic and realized she was trying to protect him, but he didn’t need protection, not for this. He called up more of the frost fire and brushed her efforts aside.

A musket fired nearby, followed by the distinctive double blast of Yimt’s shatterbow. Water frothed around Alwyn until he could barely see, but he didn’t need to. He sensed where every creature was as his bayonet slashed down again and again, each time finding its mark. Still the white flame burned his shadow, and he felt the first threads of the Shadow Monarch’s grip part even as he burned. Yes. He could master this.

Another beast came at him. Alwyn threw aside his musket and dove forward, thrusting his right arm down the creature’s throat. Its teeth sank into his shoulder, but Alwyn didn’t care. He felt around with his hand until he grabbed something small and hard. It was bone, and it burned like the surface of the sun.

Alwyn squeezed as his whole body spasmed in pain, his vision going completely white. Somewhere impossibly deep inside Alwyn, the white fire seared through the black threads of the oath, burning away strands of it like cutting taut strings. More of the oath that bound Alwyn to the Iron Elves and the Shadow Monarch frayed and parted. The creature reared up in the water and tried to use the claws on its feet to tear at Alwyn, but its stubby legs made it impossible.

“He’s gone into the tunnel!”

Alwyn’s focus was broken and he looked up. Tyul was disappearing down the tunnel after the skeletons carrying Kester’s body. Miss Tekoy and several soldiers raced after the elf, though Alwyn couldn’t see who it was. More of the fire creatures lunged for the tunnel entrance, followed by the sound of Yimt’s shatterbow firing. There was a huge explosion and the tunnel entrance disappeared in a cloud of smoke, dust, and a blinding ball of white flame.

Alwyn stumbled and only barely kept himself upright. He brought his attention back to the creature he fought, and drew even more of the white fire into himself. The creature gave up trying to claw him and let itself fall back into the water, taking Alwyn down with it. As soon as they were submerged it began rolling about and thrashing, trying to twist Alwyn’s arm from his body.

The sound of the fighting grew muffled as Alwyn and the creature twisted and rolled under the water. Alwyn drew in a breath and water filled his lungs, only to vaporize in a flash. Muscles tore in Alwyn’s shoulder and a new, more understandable pain tried to render him unconscious, but still he held on.

The oath was breaking. The power of the white fire was cleansing him from the inside. That it also burned him until every nerve in his body quivered in pain was a price he was prepared to pay. Every twisted piece of the Shadow Monarch’s magic that was severed felt like claws raking his flesh from the inside. He knew he was close. One more squeeze would do it. Alwyn focused all his energy on his right hand and began to crush the bone in it. He was going to finally be fr-

Something hard and heavy hit him in the back of the head and color burst before his eyes as the muscles in his hands relaxed. He tried to regain his grip, but already he was being pulled up out of the water. Another musket fired and there was unintelligible shouting as he took a breath. He opened his eyes and realized his spectacles were gone. Water gurgled in his ears.