A Threat of Shadows

by JA Andrews

  They had walked into a small clearing when Ayda spun toward the north and froze, her eyes boring through the trees. Alaric turned almost as fast, catching a snippet of a tune on the breeze. The others halted as well. The next gust of wind carried the sound of a whistled, jaunty tune.

  “That’s not Patlon,” Douglon said. “Dwarves don’t whistle stupid songs. Sounds more like an elf if you ask me.”

  Ayda ignored him, and Alaric motioned him to be quiet.

  Another breeze brought the whistling back to their ears. This time, a throbbing hum could be heard as well. A low purr moving on the air like a warm blanket, wrapping around the things it passed.

  “That’s lovely,” said Milly, pushing past Alaric and taking a step toward the trees.

  Alaric grabbed her arm, making the blisters on his palm scream.

  “Get her out of here!” Alaric commanded Brandson. “Caves! Are there caves nearby?”

  Milly pulled her arm away from Alaric in irritation.

  “Bear Stronghold’s not far,” Brandson said.

  The humming and whistling grew closer. Milly smiled and took another step.

  Alaric stepped in front of her and grabbed her by both arms, trying to hold on to her without hurting her, or his own hands, any more than he needed to. She shoved against him, glaring at Alaric, but he didn’t let go. “Take her,” he told Brandson.

  “Knock it off!” Brandson said stepping between the Keeper and Milly.

  “That is a borrey,” Alaric said. “Milly’s in grave danger.”

  “Just mischievous little sprites. No danger,” scoffed Douglon.

  “Borreys are all male,” Alaric said. “That humming you hear is a mating call. It will draw Milly in, she won’t be able to resist. They use women to reproduce.” Milly was trying to get past Brandson, her eyes fixed on the woods. “The woman does not survive the process.”

  Milly attempted one more step toward the noise, but Brandson grabbed her.

  “Get her to a protected place in the Stronghold,” Alaric instructed. “She won’t want to go. Get her there and keep her there however you can. And do it fast. Build a fire across the opening. A big one. Borreys hate fire.”

  Brandson nodded and began to pull Milly across the clearing.

  “Help him,” Alaric told Douglon. “You may need to carry her.”

  Douglon hesitated, glancing at Ayda.

  “I’m in no danger,” she said.

  “Go,” Alaric urged the dwarf. “Brandson will need your help. We’ll come find you. Take this.” Alaric pressed Gustav’s small bottle into Douglon’s hand. “It’s Gustav’s fire powder. Sprinkle a little on something then strike it with a stick or a stone. It will ignite.”

  Douglon took the bag and snorted. “This was how he started his ‘magical’ fires?”

  “A little bit goes a long way,” warned Alaric.

  Douglon flashed a wicked smile. “Will it kill the borrey?”

  “Probably not, they’re hard to kill. But it should hold it at bay. We’ll try to give you some time.”

  Douglon nodded and ran toward the edge of the clearing where Brandson stood tugging on Milly’s arm and pleading with her to follow him. The dwarf ran up, tossed Milly up onto his shoulder and darted off through the trees while she shrieked and pounded on his back. Brandson stared after them in shock.

  “Show me the way!” the dwarf bellowed as he ran. Brandson ran after them.

  Alaric nodded in approval, then turned back to Ayda.

  “And you are still here because…?”

  She was watching the woods in the direction of the whistling. “I don’t think I’m in any danger. I can help.”

  Alaric didn’t know if borreys took elves for mates. He stood beside her, facing the coming creature. The humming grew louder, and Ayda’s eyes glazed. She shifted toward the trees.

  “Ayda!” Alaric’s voice cracked like a whip. She blinked and looked at him. “You can’t be here. Run!”

  “Too late,” Ayda said, seeing a flicker of movement deep in the trees. She stepped back, her eyes wide.

  “I can’t protect you,” Alaric said, desperate. “If it takes control of you. You’ll fight me, too.”

  “I know,” she said, clenching her jaw against the hum. She turned and focused on Alaric. “I can change. Can you help me change back?”

  “I can help,” Alaric said. The whistling was getting louder. “But you don’t have time.”

  “Of course I do. You’ve restored an elf before?”

  When would he have had the chance to restore an elf from a tree back to their elfin form? “No. But I understand the process.”

  “Understand the process?”

  “You’d be doing the hard part, right? I just have to anchor you with an image to help you snap back to…”—he waved his hand at her—”…this. But you’re out of time. I saw Prince Elryn change into a tree, and it took almost five minutes. The elves thought that was fast. I can’t hold the borrey off that long.”

  Ayda looked at Alaric sharply. “You were at the Tree of Hope when Elryn changed?” The humming grew still louder, and Ayda slapped her hands over her ears. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and hummed loudly, drowning out the sound of the borrey. She reached her arms up and took a deep breath in. Closing her eyes, she breathed out. Her feet and toes lengthened, followed by her arms and fingers. Her toes wriggled down into the earth, splitting into roots digging into the dirt. Her legs and torso thickened into a trunk. Her hair flowed along her branches and burst into bright green leaves. By the end of the breath, she had transformed into a slender, silvery tree. Only her face, an oddly tree-like face, remained. It had taken mere seconds. Alaric stared at her dumbfounded.

  “An elf, Keeper,” she said to him, her voice barely audible. “Help me change back to an elf.”

  He looked blankly at her for a heartbeat. “Can elves change into anything else?”

  “No,” she answered, and the tree mouth twitched into a small smile as her face hardened and faded into the trunk.

  There was a rustling at the edge of the clearing, and a short young man with wide-set green eyes stepped out of the trees. The creature might have been mistaken for a human except that its sandy hair did not cover the top of its ears, each of which split into two sharp points. The throbbing hum was louder now, emanating from inside the creature. The thing stopped whistling and took a deep breath, smelling the air. A wide smile spread across its face, revealing pointed teeth. Its eyes lit on Alaric, then scanned the rest of the clearing.

  “Good morning,” the borrey greeted him.

  “Good morning,” Alaric responded, leaning against the Ayda tree. In his pocket, his fingers began tracing protective runes, concentrating on the magic and trying not to be distracted by the borrey.

  “Beautiful day.” The creature continued speaking pleasantly even as a small crease of annoyance appeared between its eyebrows. It began walking around the clearing peering into the surrounding trees. “I thought I heard you speaking with a woman as I approached. Have you no companion?”

  Alaric looked around the empty clearing. “Just me and the trees.”

  The borrey turned toward Alaric, its face hungry. Its eyes fell on the Ayda tree. It looked at the silver trunk with its bright green leaves, and its brow furrowed. The creature walked closer. “Do you often talk to trees?”

  “Well, not all trees. Whisperwillows are silly, and oaks think too highly of themselves, but some trees are interesting.”

  The borrey moved within inches of the Ayda tree. Alaric continued to lean against the tree, but his fingers quickened their tracing of protective runes. The energy burned his fingertips and flowed across his blisters like scalding water. The borrey breathed in, its nose brushing the bark of the tree. Then its eyes flashed open and it drew back. Alaric pushed away from the tree quickly as the borrey shot him a look of fury from eyes that were now seething red.

  “I wonder what happens to the elf if you kill the tree?” The borrey flexed
its hands, and sharp claws flashed out. With a snarl, it stabbed toward the base of the trunk.

  Alaric made no move, but an inch from the trunk, the claws deflected as though they’d hit an invisible wall.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Alaric said. “I’m fond of this tree.”

  The borrey stepped back, eyeing the Keeper. “Not bad,” it said, moving forward again and breathing the scent of the tree. This time, the claws flicked out, not at Ayda but straight at Alaric’s gut. When they reached his shirt, they twisted to the side again.

  “You cannot stop me.” The borrey fixed him with a chilling look. “You cannot hurt me. I will wear you down, destroy you, and then deal with the elf.”

  The creature closed its eyes and took a deep breath, drawing itself up. Alaric braced himself for an attack, but the creature’s eyes snapped open.

  “Ahhhh,” the borrey sighed, relaxing. “You are protecting more than the elf.” It lifted its head and smelled again. “A human woman… young…. close.”

  Alaric tensed, and the borrey’s lips curled into a grin.

  “How will you protect the human when you are here?” Light glinted off pointed teeth as the borrey flashed a smile. Then it turned, dropping to all fours, and raced off after Milly.

  Chapter 18

  Alaric sprinted through the woods after the borrey already out of sight ahead of him. The ground kept rising and his lungs burned. He was never going to catch the creature.

  Even if the others had managed to find a safe place to put Milly, what were they going to do against the borrey? Its skin looked human, but was tough as boiled leather. Douglon’s axe might hurt it, if he could hit it. But the borrey’s reflexes would outmatch the dwarf.

  The other problem was that if they ran the borrey off from Milly, it could still return to Ayda. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that damaging the tree would damage Ayda.

  No, the borrey would have to be chased off for good. When a borrey found itself in life-threatening danger, it transported itself back to the place of its birth, ice caves in the far north.

  Unfortunately, there was a good chance that he, Brandson, and Douglon would not be able to produce that level of threat. By the time Alaric reached Bear Stronghold, he was going to be exhausted. Even if he could think of a spell to use, it was going to be hard to find the strength. He couldn’t just trap the creature. They were too close to Kordan’s Blight. The borrey would ultimately get free and just pick a new victim in the village. Somehow, he was going to have to generate a legitimate threat.

  Early in Alaric’s years at the Keepers’ Stronghold, they had covered the topic of borreys. Alaric remembered how dissatisfied Keeper Gerone had been.

  “Is the transport willful or instinctual?” he had asked. “We do not know. There is too much we do not know! We need to send someone to study them. But borreys never make it high enough on the list of dangers to warrant any attention.

  “They are not dangerous to the public at large, but I’m afraid that for the unfortunate woman whom the borrey captures, it is always fatal.

  “Borreys are rare and only mate every twelve years, but still… If you find yourself defending such a woman, my only advice for you is fire. Lots of fire.”

  First a dragon. Now a borrey. What was it about this group that drew exceptionally dangerous trouble?

  If Douglon had managed to get a fire lit and Alaric was close enough, he could make it burn brighter. The flame Ayda had solidified into a necklace hung from his neck and glinted in the sun. This was a bad time for her to be unavailable.

  Alaric swore for the hundredth time and pushed farther up the hill. He finally reached the edge of the trees. Above him, stretching out in both directions was a rocky cliff face. Sitting partway up the cliff was a stout wall enclosing two towers. There was a narrow arch cut into the wall, and the borrey crouched in front of it. Douglon stood before the doorway, swinging his axe with Brandson off to the side.

  There was no fire anywhere. Alaric ran toward the path that wound up to the Stronghold. He rounded the first turn as an enormous explosion rocked the ground, shaking the Stronghold and knocking him to his knees. Alaric’s palms slammed against the ground, and his blisters burst. He gasped in pain.

  An inhuman shriek of rage echoed off the rocks, and Alaric saw the silhouette of the borrey cringing back from an enormous wall of flames. Behind Brandson, a section of the Stronghold wall cracked and crashed down in a cloud of dust and rock. Alaric shoved himself back up and ran closer. The borrey was on a small ledge in front of the entrance. On either side of the ledge, the ground dropped off steeply. Douglon and Brandson had chosen a good place. The borrey howled at the wall of flame in front of him.

  “What troubles you?” bellowed Douglon over the fire. “Afraid you’ll burn your pretty hair?”

  The borrey snarled and dropped to all fours as it paced.

  That fire wouldn’t last long on the rocky ledge. Once the fire powder burned up, there would be no fuel to keep it going. Already, the flames were shrinking. If Alaric could get closer, he could add more energy to the fire, make it bigger.

  “Come, pretty boy,” Douglon called, “come meet my axe. Do you fear a little fire? Like a common dog?”

  The borrey hissed, its long claws reflecting the firelight. The flames between Douglon and the creature sank lower.

  The borrey crept closer.

  From the edge of the wall of fire, Brandson started throwing stones. The borrey paused to glare at him, but every stone flew wide of the creature. Douglon shouted at it again, drawing its attention back to him. The flames were shrinking quickly. In a matter of moments, the borrey would leap across them.

  Brandson was still throwing rocks. The blacksmith had never looked so incompetent. The stones would not have done the borrey any real harm, but Brandson had thrown a half dozen already, and each had sailed over the creature’s head, landing an arm span behind him.

  “Where’s your aim, boy?” Douglon shouted, taking a step back toward the wall.

  Brandson swore and scrambled about for another rock.

  Alaric reached the ledge behind the borrey. He started to gather some energy to add to the fire. He could see nothing living around him, though, and he himself was exhausted. He was too far from the borrey to steal any of his. He began drawing from his own energy when Brandson threw a rock in a high arc toward the Keeper.

  “Alaric! Get back! The powder!” Brandson pointed to Alaric’s feet.

  Alaric looked down an instant before the stone landed and saw the sparkle of fire powder. He dove behind the nearest boulder.

  There was a deafening explosion when Brandson’s stone hit the fire powder. Alaric lay there stunned, the world strangely muffled and a dizzying pressure in his ears. He shook his head to clear it and scrambled to his knees. Leaning around the boulder, he saw an arc of flames behind the borrey trapping it in a cage of fire. Alaric’s hearing began to return, and he heard the borrey scream in rage as it spun around, finding itself encircled in flame. It stepped forward, hissing and spitting at Brandson.

  Tucked in behind the boulder with Alaric was a stand of brown scrub brush. It was alive, barely, but that was something. Alaric drew the vitalle from the scrub brush and pushed it toward the fire. His hands seared as though they were in the flames themselves, but Alaric forced himself to focus on the fire, pulling every last bit of energy from the scrub brush. The flames rose higher and brighter. Douglon and Brandson stepped back and shielded their faces.

  The next moment, lines of fire powder leading in toward the borrey ignited and streams of flame shot toward it. Alaric poured all the energy he could find into the fire, his outstretched hands clenched as the pain seared through them.

  The borrey turned, cringing away from the fire. It raised its head and let out a piercing shriek. One last pile of fire powder ignited right next to the borrey and it screamed again. Looking around frantically, it raised its hands to the sky and let out a howl. The flame f
lickered brightly for a second, then a thunderous clap reverberated through the air. Alaric felt the boom deep in his chest.

  The borrey was gone.

  Alaric cut off the flow of energy, and the ring of fire weakened. Through the flames, Brandson peered at him. Alaric lifted his hand slightly in a wave.

  Brandson threw his arms into the air and let out a shout. Douglon bellowed something and pounded Brandson on the back.

  When the flames died out, Brandson crossed over the blackened lines on the ground to clap Alaric on the shoulder.

  “Don’t know where the rotten beast went,” Douglon said with a wicked grin, “but we sure pissed it off.”

  Brandson looked around. “Where did it go? Where’s the rest of the powder?”

  Alaric shook his head, “No need for that. You two have managed to pull off the only solution to a Borrey attack. You sent it scurrying back home, far, far away.”

  Brandson grinned.

  “In that case, well done us.” Douglon glanced at the black scorch marks then at Alaric. “Thanks for the help with the flames.”

  Alaric nodded. A line of puss and blood ran out from under one of his bandages. “It’s a good thing the flames didn’t need anymore help.”

  Douglon looked down the slope, “Where’s the elf?”

  “She’s… waiting down in the valley. Where’s Milly?”

  Brandson cleared his throat and his eyes flicked toward the tower. “Uh, she wouldn’t stay inside, so…”

  “We had to tie her to a post.” Douglon shook his head. “For a little thing, she put up a good fight.”

  “She was pretty mad.” Brandson pulled up his sleeve, showing long, red scratches running up to his elbow. “I guess we should go untie her,” he said, not moving.

  Douglon grunted and looked through the arch in the wall, not moving, either.

  Alaric heaved himself up. “She’ll be fine now that the borrey’s gone.”

  Alaric followed the others into the Stronghold. The air inside the wall was thick with dust, and their feet crunched on loose rock spilled across the courtyard from the collapsed wall. A shriek and sounds of a scuffle came from inside the leftmost tower.