Брендон Сандерсон: Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell

“What happens if they don’t step on it?” William Ann asked.

“Then we move it to another place on the road and try again,” Silence said.

“That could shed blood, you realize.”

Silence didn’t reply. If the trap was triggered by a footfall, the shades wouldn’t see Silence as the one causing it. They’d come first for the one who triggered the trap. But if blood was drawn, they would enrage. Soon after, it wouldn’t matter who had caused it. All would be in danger.

“We have hours of darkness left,” Silence said. “Cover your glowpaste.”

William Ann nodded, hastily putting the cover on her jar. Silence inspected her trap again, then took William Ann by the shoulder and pulled her to the side of the roadway. The underbrush was thicker there, as the road tended to wind through breaks in the canopy. People sought out places in the Forests where they could see the sky.

The bounty hunters came along eventually. Silent, illuminated by a jar of glowpaste each. Fortfolk didn’t talk at night. They passed the trap, which Silence had placed on the narrowest section of roadway. She held her breath, watching the horses pass, step after step missing the lump that marked the board. William Ann covered her ears, hunkering down.

A hoof hit the trap. Nothing happened. Silence released an annoyed breath. What would she do if the firestarter was broken? Could she find another way to—

The explosion struck her, the wave of force shaking her body. Shades vanished in a blink, green eyes snapping open. Horses reared and whinnied, men and women yelling.

Silence shook off her stupefaction, grabbing William Ann by the shoulder and pulling her out of hiding. Her trap had worked better than she’d assumed; the burning rag had allowed the horse who had triggered the trap to take a few steps before the blast hit. No blood, just a lot of surprised horses and confused people. The little keg of gunpowder hadn’t done as much damage as she’d anticipated—the stories of what gunpowder could do were often as fanciful as stories of the Homeland—but the sound had been incredible.

Silence’s ears rang as she fought through the confused fortfolk, finding what she’d hoped to see. Chesterton’s corpse lay on the ground, dumped from saddleback by a bucking horse and a frayed rope. She grabbed the corpse under the arms and William Ann took the legs. They moved sideways into the Forests.

“Idiots!” Red bellowed from amid the confusion. “Stop her! It—”

He cut off as shades swarmed the roadway, descending upon the men. Red had managed to keep his horse under control, but now he had to dance it back from the shades. Enraged, they had turned pure black, though the blast of light and fire had obviously left them dazed. They fluttered about, like moths at a flame. Green eyes. A small blessing. If those turned red…

One bounty hunter, standing on the road and spinning about, was struck. His back arched, black-veined tendrils crisscrossing his skin. He dropped to his knees, screaming as the flesh of his face shrank around his skull.

Silence turned away. William Ann watched the fallen man with a horrified expression.

“Slowly, child,” Silence said in what she hoped was a comforting voice. She hardly felt comforting. “Carefully. We can move away from them. William Ann. Look at me.”

The girl turned to look at her.

“Hold my eyes. Move. That’s right. Remember, the shades will go to the source of the fire first. They are confused, stunned. They can’t smell fire like they do blood, and they’ll look from it to the nearest rapid motion. Slowly, easily. Let the scrambling fortfolk distract them.”

The two of them eased into the Forests with excruciating deliberateness. In the face of so much chaos, so much danger, their pace felt like a crawl. Red organized a resistance. Fire-crazed shades could be fought, destroyed, with silver. More and more would come, but if the bounty hunters were clever and lucky, they’d be able to destroy those nearby and then move slowly away from the source of the fire. They could hide, survive. Maybe.

Unless one of them accidentally drew blood.

Silence and William Ann stepped through a field of mushrooms that glowed like the skulls of rats and broke silently beneath their feet. Luck was not completely with them, for as the shades shook off their disorientation from the explosion, a pair of them on the outskirts turned and struck out toward the fleeing women.

William Ann gasped. Silence deliberately set down Chesterton’s shoulders, then took out her knife. “Keep going,” she whispered. “Pull him away. Slowly, girl. Slowly. ”

“I won’t leave you!”

“I will catch up,” Silence said. “You aren’t ready for this.”

She didn’t look to see if William Ann obeyed, for the shades—figures of jet black streaking across the white-knobbed ground—were upon her. Strength was meaningless against shades. They had no real substance. Only two things mattered: your speed and not letting yourself be frightened.

Shades were dangerous, but so long as you had silver, you could fight. Many a man died because he ran, drawing even more shades, rather than standing his ground.

Silence swung at the shades as they reached her. You want my daughter, hellbound? she thought with a snarl. You should have tried for the fortfolk instead.

She swept her knife through the first shade, as Grandmother had taught. Never creep back and cower before shades. You’re Forescout blood. You claim the Forests. You are their creature as much as any other. As am I…

Her knife passed through the shade with a slight tugging feeling, creating a shower of bright white sparks that sprayed out of the shade. The shade pulled back, its black tendrils writhing about one another.

Silence spun on the other. The pitch sky let her see only the thing’s eyes, a horrid green, as it reached for her. She lunged.

Its spectral hands were upon her, the icy cold of its fingers gripping her arm below the elbow. She could feel it. Shade fingers had substance; they could grab you, hold you back. Only silver warded them away. Only with silver could you fight.

She rammed her arm in farther. Sparks shot out its back, spraying like a bucket of washwater. Silence gasped at the horrid, icy pain. Her knife slipped from fingers she could no longer feel. She lurched forward, falling to her knees as the second shade fell backward, then began spinning about in a mad spiral. The first one flopped on the ground like a dying fish, trying to rise, its top half falling over.

The cold of her arm was so bitter . She stared at the wounded arm, watching the flesh of her hand wither upon itself, pulling in toward the bone.

She heard weeping.

You stand there, Silence. Grandmother’s voice. Memories of the first time she’d killed a shade. You do as I say. No tears! Forescouts don’t cry. Forescouts DON’T CRY.

She had learned to hate her that day. Ten years old, with her little knife, shivering and weeping in the night as her grandmother had enclosed her and a drifting shade in a ring of silver dust.

Grandmother had run around the perimeter, enraging it with motion. While Silence was trapped in there. With death.

The only way to learn is to do, Silence. And you’ll learn, one way or another!

“Mother!” William Ann said.

Silence blinked, coming out of the memory as her daughter dumped silver dust on the exposed arm. The withering stopped as William Ann, choking against her thick tears, dumped the entire pouch of emergency silver over the hand. The metal reversed the withering, and the skin turned pink again, the blackness melting away in sparks of white.

Too much, Silence thought. William Ann had used all of the silver dust in her haste, far more than one wound needed. It was difficult to summon any anger, for feeling flooded back into her hand and the icy cold retreated.