Chris Wooding: Weavers of Saramyr

She plunged into the dark, wet world of the undergrowth, where every shadow was a hard face of wood and every wrong move promised a sudden end. Her ears rilled with the sinister hiss of branches as they waved under the onslaught from the sky, slapping her shoulders as she passed. She was riding one-handed, the other arm crooked around Lucia, the Heir-Empress's head jogging against her chest.

The ground suddenly dropped before her and her horse reacted before she did, turning to take the slope at the best angle it could. Kaiku held on for her life as her mount slid and slipped through the trees and rocks, and it seemed their luck could not hold, that every near-miss and narrow dodge brought them closer to the moment when they would collide with a tree and she would be broken like a twig doll.

And yet somehow the slope gave up before her horse did, and they bolted out into a narrow gully, with a stream running along its bottom. They pounded through the shallow water, throwing splash and spray up behind them. Kaiku knew they were beyond help now. There was no way the others could have followed her down here, much less find her again. She could only hope that the other shin-shin had suffered the same fate as the one Cailin had burned; but she dared not wait around to see. Whether it was her or her burden the shin-shin sought, she fled.

The walls of the gully seemed to narrow, and when the storm shrieked again she shrieked with it, for the sound was amplified and deafening along this corridor of rock. Her eyes were narrowed against the pounding rain, yet she seemed to be able to see almost nothing, and had no idea whether she was heading toward level ground or a cliff that would send her to her death.

It was the latter. Some instinct warned her, some part of her subconscious that recognised the change in turbulence of the stream ahead, and she reined her mount in hard enough to bruise its mouth. The stallion whinnied in pain, scrabbling to a halt. Kaiku leaned back in her saddle and held Lucia tight to avoid being tipped over the horse's neck, down the fatal plunge to moon-washed treetops below. Hooves skidded on wet stones, and Kaiku felt a sickening lurch as she realised that they might not stop in time; but then her mount found its purchase, and they came to rest inches from the precipice. Kaiku gazed out over the dark landscape, so far down, and her stomach churned at the thought of toppling through that endless space, the jagged rocks of the cliff wall rushing by, rains dashing against her face, hurtling towards the ground below…

With a rough tug, she pulled the stallion away, looking over her shoulder as she did so. Two of the shadow demons dropped from the treetops into the gully behind, their lantern-eyes trained unwaveringly upon the child in her arms.

'You will not have her!' Kaiku spat into the howling wind. Then her horse tugged left, against the reins, and she saw that the gully had crumbled enough at the cliff edge to form a ragged, unstable slope that they could use to clamber out. The horse wanted to try it, motivated by the terror of the things behind; but Kaiku knew better. Its hooves were not equipped for such uneven terrain. But her feet were.

She swung down off the horse and slung Lucia over her shoulder like a sack. Her arms and legs were aching, and the child needed better care than this, but she had no time to be gentle.

'You will not have her!' she screamed again, and the moonstorm keened in response. With that, she scrambled up the broken slope, inches from the precipice to her right. A thin film of water slipped and hurried past her feet, and twice she stumbled and had to put a hand down to keep her balance, but she gained the lip of the gully, and saw there were trees again, crowding up to the edge of the drop. Her lungs burning, she threw herself into the dark shelter of the branches; though she knew that from the shin-shin they provided no shelter at all.

Her breath came out in pants, her heart thudding in her ears, as she pushed though the dark, dripping netherworld of the trees. She could not outpace them like this; she could only hope to hide until daybreak or until help could arrive. A wild thought came to her. If she could find an ipi, like Asara had that first time she had met the shin-shin… but ipi dwelt only in the deep forests, and this was little more than a dense fringe of woodland.

You cannot hide. You cannot outrun them. Think!

Her mind flitted traitorously to her kana, the sleeping thing lurking within her that had caused her so much pain. Though she might have used it as a last resort, even knowing it had nearly killed Asara and may yet account for the death of the little girl that jounced and jerked against her shoulder, she knew she did not even have that option now. She had not rested enough since the last time it had burst free; there was nothing inside her to draw on. She had drained herself.

There would be no reprieve this time.

The trees gave up suddenly, discharging her on to a flat table of rain-battered rock that jutted out into the night sky. The three moons glared at her, arrayed directly ahead, their edges overlapping amidst a nest of churning cloud and jagged tines of purple lightning. Their luminescence reflected wetly on the cold stone at her feet. She staggered to a halt.

'No…' she whispered, but even from this distance it was possible to see that she had cornered herself. The table of rock ended in another precipice; she could see by the curve of its edge that it ran all the way round to either side of her. She had been fleeing along a steadily narrowing promontory, from which there was only one way out:.back the way she had come.

She heard the shin-shin wail from the trees behind, and whirled in terror. That was no option.

Frantically, she fled across the bare rock to its edge. Perhaps there was a way down, perhaps it was not as bad as it seemed, if there was even a lake or a river there then she might dare to jump…

But the precipice fell on to a jumble of rocks below, a maw of wet and broken teeth that waited hungrily.

She spun round, the limp form of Lucia still in her arms and wrapped in the sodden blanket, but she knew what she would see before she looked. The shin-shin were there, creeping out of the trees, three of them. The creature Asara shot had not stayed down, and they had escaped Cailin before she could inflict any further damage on them. They came prowling into the moonlight, their bodies slung low between their stilt-legs, yellow eyes glittering like burning jewels.

Kaiku clutched the child tight, feeling Lucia's small heart beat against her breast. The creatures had slowed, knowing their prey was helpless and at their mercy. Kaiku took a shuddering breath and looked over her shoulder at the fall behind her, the rain plunging past to plash on the stone far below.

Dying is not so bad, she thought, remembering her words to the Empress. But she had so much still to do. An oath unfulfilled, a new life to begin. She did not want to die here. Lucia stirred against her, whimpering.

'Shh,' she murmured, her eyes never leaving the steadily approaching demons. She found the lip of the precipice with her heel. 'I will not let them take you, Lucia.' The wind whipped and teased around her, pulling her, and she thought what it would be like never to feel such a wind again on her face, and wanted to cry. The shin-shin stiffened suddenly, frozen. They turned their heads to the sky, raising themselves up on their tapering limbs as if sniffing at the air. Kaiku watched them in mingled puzzlement and terror. What was this?

A gust of wind blew a sheet of rain across the rock table, and as it passed something seemed to glimmer within it. It was gone so fast that Kaiku doubted it had been there at all; but the shin-shin reacted, the focus of their gaze shifting to where the glimmer had been. One of them took a hesitant step back, uncertain.