Shadow Dance

by A. E. Pennymaker

  I stopped talking and peeled another ancuicui leaf, offering it to Arramy, fully aware of how very different our stories were. "How did you wind up in the navy?"

  He sucked on the ancuicui pulp, then scratched absently at the three-day stubble on his chin. "I think my mother needed rent money. The Coalition was drumming for volunteers, offering an enlistment bonus for signing up. It was only a silver half-mark, but it meant Ma and the boys could have a roof over their heads for another month, and the wages for a seaman's apprentice were more than I could make down the mine. I was always tall for my age, and the recruiting officer must have been nearsighted. I walked in, said I was twenty, and he handed me my service papers."

  His choice of words had me tilting my head to look at him. "How old were you?"

  "Fifteen," he said, sending another pebble into the fire. "And if you tell the enlistment bureau, I'll deny having ever met you."

  I had no trouble believing the man had been breaking the rules all the way back...When? My curiosity got the best of me. "So how long have you served?"

  "Would have been twenty years next spring," he said dryly.

  Ahah! He's roughly... thirty-five... My cheeks went warm as that thought was followed immediately by: Huh. He really is younger than he looks... And he has been in the navy since I was four. Five. I'll say five... What am I doing?

  "I was going to retire," he went on, a rueful grin tugging at his mouth. "Claim all my prize money. Live in my cottage on Laggosh. Chase the neighbor's children out of my yard... Get a dog..."

  A chuckle found its way out in spite of my best efforts to hold it in. The image of Arramy puttering about a seaside cottage in a quaint island town was too hard to wrap my mind around. How would he be able to resist blowing something up?

  "What?" Arramy asked, his grin growing.

  I shot a quick sideways glance at him, still picturing that cottage: masts on the roof, sails billowing from the windows... A big, silver hound sitting at full attention on the porch... Arramy planting cannon balls in strict lines in the kitchen garden... Maybe there would be a Mrs. Arramy, and they would patrol their extremely tidy boat-shaped yard, brandishing short swords at innocent passersby... "Nothing," I said. My voice came out funny and I cleared my throat.

  Arramy narrowed his eyes to a suspicious squint, then closed them all the way and tipped his head back against the tree again.

  Worry jerked at me. His face was haggard, and there was a sheen to his skin in spite of the chill stealing through the evening air.

  His throat bobbed, and he shifted his weight. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

  I looked away. "No. My mother died when I was six and my father never remarried... You have brothers?"

  He nodded slightly. Then his brows lowered, and lines appeared at the corners of his mouth. "Three. They..." He stopped, a muscle flickering in his jaw. "It's just me and the youngest, now." He took a breath, then grunted as he shifted his weight a second time. "You... ah... You went to school?"

  "Kingsbridge," I whispered. "I finished with honors in language studies."

  He stopped moving and gave me a wry once over, as if to say he had already guessed as much. "What were you going to do with that?"

  "Travel," I muttered. "See the world."

  That actually made him laugh, which then made him wince as he rasped out, "Well, I'd say you've seen it." He pressed his hand to his side and ground his teeth, then swore under his breath and sagged against the tree. "Your turn."

  My eyes stung as I watched him. He had always seemed too strong and stubborn to die, but even a strong man eventually runs out of time. The pang of worry I had been carrying around promptly sickened to a heavy ball of dread in the pit of my stomach.

  With a jerk, I turned to the fire, dragging in a shuddering breath. "Um! Is there... Is there anyone... special waiting for you back home?" I managed to ask. Then I sat there, telling myself I wanted him to say 'yes' so I could stick this strange new reaction to him in a bin marked Irrelevant.

  "Once."

  My heart pitched, first because that wasn't exactly a 'yes,' and second because it wasn't a 'no' either, and my stupid brain had already supplied a picture of him kissing a tall, willowy girl, those lean fingers threading through her hair. Blonde. She would have been blonde, and absurdly pretty. Jealousy? Really? I shoved that helpful image back where it had come from, rested my elbow on my knee, supported my chin on my palm, and looked at him.

  He was watching me from beneath half-closed lids.

  I raised my eyebrows. Then helpfully pointed out, "You can't just say that. You have to tell."

  He glanced out at the clearing. It was faint, but I caught a spark of emotion in those quicksilver eyes before he shuttered it up behind a stony wall. "It's not the sort of thing I usually... talk about..." his words trailed off, his gaze sharpening on something in the shadows beyond the firelight.

  "What is it?" I blurted, looking in that direction. "Did you see something?"

  "No." His voice was firm, but his expression didn't change, and there was a new tension in his muscles.

  "You saw something."

  He shook his head and sat up a little straighter. "Nai, kid. What about you? Do you have someone waiting for you?"

  He was lying. I wasn't sure if I should be insulted that he thought I couldn't handle the truth, or if I should just go along with it because he was trying to keep me from being frightened. I didn't want to seem like a scared, rattlebrained ninny, so I just answered his question while searching the clearing. "No. Not in a romantic capacity."

  "Huh."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing," he said vaguely. "Ever get close?"

  I nodded. "Oh yes. I fell in love with a farmer from Aylebridge. It was a torrid affair. Made the gossip column in three counties. His parents wanted him to wed a milking maid from Lennerth, but he wouldn't have anyone but me. We were going to elope to Inkeros but... Tragedy has kept us apart."

  "Sounds like the plot to The Plainsland Queen."

  In spite of the terror looming in the dark as night fell and the shadows deepened, I almost burst out laughing. "So you've read Roven's novellas too."

  "Who, me? Never. Like I said. You don't have to jump into the sewer to —"

  "Know it stinks," I finished with him. "Right... Is it still there?"

  Arramy glanced at me, taking my measure. Then, quietly, he said, "Just keep talking. We'll be fine."

  ~~~

  Kraish: (craysh) a traditional Altyran dwelling often found among the indigenous northern tribes still living in the Obyr mountains; a roundhouse made of logs set upright in the ground and caulked with mud, clay, or rope soaked in tar. The peaked roof is thatched or shingled, depending on the availability of the necessary resources.

  15. Another Way to Die

  29th of Nima

  That first, faint light of dawn was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I sat there in the stillness, my arms around my knees, and watched as the sky lightened from ink to grey to rose, and then, at last, to orange and gold as the bright edge of the sun came peeking over the hills across the river.

  I took a long, deep breath, savoring the scent of woodsmoke and dew-soaked grass. We were still alive.

  Ever so slowly, the sun reached out its molten fingers to trace the leaves above us before finally sneaking down through the branches to caress the hut. I swallowed, unable to look away as Arramy felt the light on his face, stirred, and opened his eyes, ice-grey bright against the dark shadow-smudges beneath them.

  I knew better than to think he had actually been sleeping.

  With a grunt, he sat forward and grabbed one of the spear-staves he had made during the night. Then he ground his teeth and got up. He stood very still, jaw knotted, then turned and held out his hand.

  We had survived, and now it was time to go. Grim, I placed my fingers in his and let him pull me to my feet. My aching, fiery feet that were attached to my aching, fiery legs, which were att
ached to the aching fire in my spine. I was a rusty hinge bent in half for far too long, then pried apart without warning. Everything hurt.

  Arramy handed me the other spear-stave, and I took it with a nod of thanks. I didn't have any idea how to use it as anything but a walking stick, but the heft of it in my palm was reassuring. We kicked dirt over the fire pit, snuffing what was left of the blaze we had spent all night tending, then we headed for the river.

  That awful, ominous silence came sliding right along behind us.

  ~~~

  Arramy swayed, and I staggered, his weight nearly sending me to my knees. With an involuntary sob, I caught our sideways momentum with my staff and kept my legs straight, pain shooting up my shins and down my back as I strained to keep us both from toppling over.

  "You need to rest," I rasped once I had us stable.

  "Can't," Arramy grunted.

  I glared up at him. He was pushing himself too hard and his body was paying for it, his movements clumsy and slow, his eyes glassy with fever, perspiration beading on his skin. He wouldn't stop, though, not even for a minute. I wanted to scream at him, make him listen to me and just sit down, but he was right. It would only take longer to reach the plantation if we stopped, and he was running out of time. I swallowed, my brain helpfully supplying the observation that if he kept going like this, he might collapse and die before we got there.

  Whatever was in my father's papers, no matter how important it was, it didn't hold a candle to the thought of that stubborn, infuriating man lying cold and alone beneath the trees, those fierce eyes staring up at nothing. While something ate him.

  We were still being followed. No. We were being hunted. Even I could sense it now. The entire forest was looking on with bated breath, waiting. The silence beneath the trees had grown heavy with it, and the urge to run was perched between my shoulders, making my heart skitter in my chest.

  My vision swam and I swiped angrily at my cheek. Then I adjusted Arramy's arm, leaning tighter against him. "Well... just so we're clear, if you fall, I'm not going to bother picking you up this time," I ground out between clenched teeth, my tone harsher than intended. Then I braced myself with my spear-staff and started forward, trying not to stumble over the mossy rocks we were climbing.

  Arramy had insisted it would be faster to go straight up the steep boulder-strewn ridge that apparently lay between us and the plantation. I figured it was about as dumb a way to die as any, bouncing off stones and tree-trunks till we hit the bottom of the gulley we had come from, but it was either that or watch The Great Blockhead try it on his own. So, muttering curses upon all over-opinionated, know-it-all mountain men, I kept going.

  We had nearly reached the top of the ridge when motion caught the corner of my eye.

  It wasn't much, little more than a shadowy presence off to my left and below us, but I froze, an instant jolt of mindless fear tearing through me.

  "Arramy..."

  His voice was a deep, husky growl. "Move." He was the one dragging me forward, then, his fingers digging into my hips as he lifted me and shoved me up onto the last big rock in our way, somehow summoning the strength to drag himself up and onto it too. Another quick shadow to our right had me grabbing at his arm, hauling him all the way to his feet.

  "Keep going!" Arramy hissed, pulling me in beside him.

  I sank my teeth into my lower lip to muffle a whimper as Arramy turned us to the left, his limp intensifying as he increased our pace, following the top of the ridge.

  The paved top of the ridge. We were on a road. A beautiful, civilized, manmade river of a road that wound along the spine of the hill, the flagstone flatness of it starkly out of place in the thick of the woods.

  Whatever flicker of hope I might have felt immediately disappeared as a shadow went sliding through my peripheral vision again, gone before I could get a better look.

  Arramy just tightened his grip on my shoulder and kept hobbling forward.

  A long, black, sinuous shape darted across the road ahead of us and Arramy swore beneath his breath.

  "What was that?" I gasped, "Some sort of... cat..." My words trailed off as another dark creature appeared, this one maybe three meters long from its nose to the tip of its tail, slipping between the trees off to our right. It kept up with us easily, flowing over the ground like an eel swimming along the floor of a pond. An eel with soft, downy fur that swayed and drifted it as if caught on a breeze, blurring its outline.

  There was no breeze.

  Beside me, Arramy came to a sudden stop, his muscles tensing.

  I turned to see what he was looking at, and my breath left my lungs.

  One of the dark things was standing in the road, maybe ten meters away. It was looking at us, obsidian eyes glittering in a pointy, feral face. It lifted its head, scenting the air, its lips pulling back in a grotesque smile of wickedly sharp teeth. Then a crest of that downy fur rose along the length of its spine, revealing a startling bone-white stripe from its neck to the end of its narrow tail.

  Arramy edged in front of me, keeping me behind him with his left arm as he rotated in place, holding his spear-staff across his body with his right hand.

  I turned and pressed my back to his, wielding my own spear in shaking fists.

  Several more creatures were closing in on us, three from behind, two on the sides, all of them gliding silently out of the trees and over the rocks like some sort of freakish living liquid, those bold-striped crests flashing. They weren't hiding anymore.

  This was what death looked like, circling us on padded feet that made no sound on the pavement. There was no mercy in those narrow faces, only hunger and cunning. To them we were prey, and they knew we were weak.

  Arramy's hoarse, "C'mon, ya brougha! What ya waiting for!" broke through the tension like a physical blow.

  The things bared their teeth and laughed at us – low, stuttering growls that sent a shiver running over my skin.

  Abruptly, one of them broke the line and made a swift strike at Arramy's left side. Arramy swung the butt end of his spear down, but the thing had already dodged away, letting loose a blood-curdling, high-pitched cackle, as if it had tested him and found what it was looking for.

  Another feint came from the right, and I jabbed with the point of my spear as the thing rushed by, but it was just a distraction. There was a low, coughing bark, and then one of the things hit Arramy full on from my open side, sending him flying.

  I scrambled after them, spear raised, but they were moving too much, locked together like two wrestlers in an arena, Arramy holding the thing off with both hands as it snapped and clawed at him. I couldn't hit the thing without possibly hitting Arramy instead.

  Somehow, though, Arramy wasn't dead yet, and his frantic, "Behind you!" had me whipping around to find one of the things coming up in a stealthy crouch. I didn't think. I started screaming and lashed out with my spear, swinging wildly and missing. The thing grimaced at me and backstepped a few paces, but kept circling just like the others, all of them growing bolder, chattering louder.

  Then, suddenly, the big one managed to roll Arramy onto his back, lock its jaws on Arramy's vest and get a foothold on his chest. Immediately it began yanking and tugging, shaking Arramy back and forth like a dog with a rag. It looked like it was ripping out his throat, and I screeched and raised my spear, but the next instant Arramy wrapped both arms around the thing, hooked a leg around its middle, and flipped them both over. Then he proceeded to slam his fists into the thing's head.

  With a gurgling snarl the thing let go of him, and Arramy kicked hard, lunging away from it and staggering to his feet. He came up holding his fallen spear, just in time to face the thing's new attack. Arramy brought his spear around and down in a vicious arc, and the fire-hardened point connected with the thing's skull.

  Silence reigned, broken only by the sound of hooked claws scrabbling over stone as the thing writhed, its eel-like body convulsing before it shuddered and collapsed, nothing left of its head but a mess of bl
ood and bone. The next instant, the other things scattered, yelping and coughing out that awful high laughter as they fled into the trees.

  Breathing hard and bleeding from several gashes across his chest and arms where the thing had raked him, Arramy stepped back so we were side by side. He glanced up the road in the direction we had been going. "The west gates of the plantation should be about a mile that way," he said, low and urgent. "I want you to promise you won't stop til you get there. Not for anything."

  My thoughts fractured. I looked up at him, eyes wide. "What?"

  He was absolutely calm. "They're hungry and angry. They won't stay away long. You have to run, kid, and don't you dare look back."

  Time slowed. I shook my head, not wanting to hear what he was saying.

  Arramy took a step away from me, a hint of a smile crossing his lips. "Run, Brenorra. Finish this." He held my gaze for a moment longer. Then he turned and started limping away from me, passing the dead thing on the road.

  I was still shaking my head. I wanted to shout at him, tell him he had to come with me. He couldn't just leave. I couldn't make it without him. Still, no sound would come out of my mouth. My feet might as well have grown roots, unable to move while Arramy kept going, the distance between us growing wider and wider.

  He began shouting when he was about twenty meters away, his voice hoarse as he taunted the things in the trees, "You want more? I'm right here! Come on!"

  My heart stopped as a low, black shadow came slithering out from behind a tree to his left. It raised its crest, and then the others answered, white stripes flashing against the green of a mossy boulder, the dark trunk of an oak, the low branches of a laurel. There were so many of them.