But then she heard something straight ahead of them: a man weeping. It wasn’t the sound a man made when he was hurt. Nina had heard that before, and that was more like angry shouts than this. No, this man felt something worse than injury.
An image flashed in Nina’s mind of the man, whom she couldn’t see, holding a small, unmoving body in his arms. In that brief imagining, the face of the man belonged to her father, and the face of the child …
She almost opened her eyes then. The imagining, she thought, couldn’t be any worse than the reality. But she merely clung tighter to her father and remembered what he told her to do. We’re still okay, she told herself, squeezing her eyes even tighter shut. We’re still okay.
Tharadis had slowed to a walk when the man’s crying could be heard, and now stopped to peer left and right. Nina could feel his heart thumping through his chest. Every one of his muscles was tight, ready to spring. He took another step forward. The sounds all around them changed somehow. Nina realized why: they had stepped into an intersection.
The man’s weeping was even clearer. But there was another sound coming from the same direction. It almost sounded like the slow drip, drip, drip of water falling on the paving stones. But Nina knew that wasn’t quite right.
With a sudden, sharp gasp, she realized it wasn’t drip, drip, drip.
It was click, click, click.
Tharadis quickly stepped to the side, pressing himself and Nina against a brick wall, hard. They paused there, Tharadis’s breaths coming quick and deep. The clicking had stopped, and so, too, had the man’s cries. Her father tugged her hands down a little away from his throat; she hadn’t realized she was squeezing him so hard.
Two more breaths, and he was running.
He stopped so suddenly Nina’s knees slipped. Before she could fall, she tightened her grip with a yelp. Tharadis coughed and then he was running back the way they came.
Behind them, where he had stopped just a moment before, the sounds of chaos erupted. People screamed, something roared, something hard hit something soft. The screaming stopped, and the roars faded behind them as Tharadis ran.
Without warning, Tharadis fell to his stomach. Nina thought something bad had happened to him, but then he started crawling over the ground. Wood scraped against Nina’s head and then her back. Everything grew darker. They were under something. A cart?
No. Stairs. Fast and heavy footsteps—human footsteps, it seemed—accompanied by panicked breathing, shuddered the planks above their heads. Nina wanted to brush away the dust and dirt that fell in her hair, but she didn’t dare let go of her father’s neck. Five, six people ran down the steps.
There were more footsteps out on the street, but these sounded wrong. Not like people. Each step was accompanied by little clicks, like … the clicking of a old dog’s overgrown toenails. The people on the steps paused, then tried to scramble back the way they had come, kicking and screaming and pulling each other out of the way. Someone fell, hit the stairs hard, cried out as someone else stomped on them. The inhuman steps came fast. A whoosh, like something cutting the air. A wet sound. More whooshing, more wetness. Things dropped onto the steps—Nina didn’t want to think about what they were. A line of warm liquid dripped between the planks onto Nina’s neck.
She began to shake.
With his bandaged hand, the hand not holding Shoreseeker, her father reached up and held her hands, entwining his sweaty fingers with hers.
With a frighteningly loud snarl, the monster loped away from the stairs, its retreat punctuated by barks and growls. Tharadis’s breathing was calm and slow, almost as if he were trying to be quiet. But why? The monster was gone.
Then she knew: there was another still there. She could hear the steps creaking beneath it. It snuffled the air as loud as a horse. Then it started feeding on the pieces of people lying on the steps. Hot breath, reeking of rotten meat, washed over Nina.
Someone groaned above her. No, the beast wasn’t feeding on the dead people. It was feeding on the living one.
Tharadis’s muscles tensed as he drew back his sword arm.
He stabbed upward. Wood splintered. The feeding, and the moaning, stopped.
Roars in the distance. Tharadis wriggled his sword free and yanked it back. Liquid spilled onto the ground. More roars, getting closer. Tharadis frantically scrambled out from under the steps, stumbled to his feet and bumping Nina’s shoulder hard, and ran like death was on their heels.
Nina heard the loping steps behind them, getting closer. Death was on their heels.
Her father pivoted to the right into a narrow passageway, sweeping his arm, knocking things over. Baskets, shovels or rakes, pottery. Two or three of the monsters were behind, crashing through the obstacles, jaws snapping and snarling. They weren’t far behind. Nina could hear them as clearly as if they were only inches away.
They left the passageway. Smoke filled the air. Fire off to the right, crackling and warming Nina’s arm and leg, but only briefly. Tharadis ran forward. People nearby, running. Some whimpering on the ground, in pain. Shrieks as the beasts fell upon them and ripped at them, shrieks that quickly ended.
Tharadis turned to look over his shoulder, his pace slowing. He was getting tired. Too tired.
And it was her fault. “I’m sorry, daddy,” Nina whispered to the back of his neck, but he didn’t say anything. He hadn’t heard her.
They came to a stop, Tharadis panting as he leaned against something. A wall, made out of timber. Dogs barked in the distance, their yelps more panicked than Nina had ever heard in a dog. Tharadis gave Nina’s arm a reassuring squeeze with his injured free hand, then twisted his torso, as if peering around a corner.
His breath audibly caught in his throat.
From the direction he was looking came the sound of metal dragging heavily against rock, like an iron rod dragged across the paving stones. The sound slowly came closer. Nina also heard hoarse, low laughter and heavy, limping footsteps. The laughter was not made by a human throat, Nina knew. The metal thing was dragged through something wet. The laughter kept coming, louder with each passing moment.
Tharadis backed away, slowly at first, then sprinted with all his might in the opposite direction, his legs and arms pumping furiously, his exhaustion apparently forgotten.
He ran, taking various turns, until thin, stiff branches snagged at Nina’s shoulder and hair, and the air smelled noticeably fresher. Like a garden. She could still hear the noises, but they sounded distant. As if it were happening on some other world.
Tharadis slowed to a walk, then stopped, using his arm to prop himself up against another wall, this one covered in vines that tickled Nina’s shoulder. His head drooped, but still Nina clung to him.
He straightened and patted her hands. “It’s okay, Neensy. We can rest.”
She slid down his back to her feet. “Can I open my eyes?”
“Sure.”
She did, blinking to clear them. Moonlight from both moons shone through the sparse cloud cover, enough to clearly see where they had stopped. They were in a garden, just as she had thought. A very maze-like one. They stood on a small, round terrace encircled by stone benches. Between them, tall hedges curved in different directions, creating twisting passages.
Tharadis took Nina’s hand in his own. The strip of cloth covering his wound was sticky. “Come on,” he said, leading her down one of the paths. “Let’s find some place to rest a moment.”
He was holding her hand gently. Still, she didn’t let go, even if she were causing him pain. She couldn’t. Not yet.
She noticed he still gripped his sword tightly in his other hand. “Is it safe here, daddy?”
The path forked. They went right. “We’ll be safe once we’re outside the city.”
They weren’t outside the city, so that meant they weren’t safe yet. Still, the gardens calmed her. Here, she felt safe. Her father was here. He would protect her.
Further in, he sat down against the wall and crossed his arms ove
r his knees. Only a handful of moments passed before his eyes were shut tight and his head bobbed forward. Shoreseeker’s tip drooped and finally rested against the bricks.
Nina snuggled up beside him, slipping inside the protection of his arm, but he was so deep asleep that he didn’t even stir when she touched him. Exhaustion pulled at her, too. She didn’t want to stay awake anymore; she wanted to dream of being somewhere, anywhere, else.
Sleep had almost claimed her when she saw the crimson glint of eyes down the path, shrouded in streamers of white mist.
Chapter 71: Flight II
For the briefest moment, Nina hoped that she really had fallen asleep, and that this was just a nightmare. But she knew by the wild beating of her heart that she was awake.
“Daddy,” she whispered as she shook him. She didn’t want the monster to hear her—even though its eyes were already fixed on her. “Daddy, wake up.”
The sheggam was wounded. White smoke poured from the cuts arcing over its blood-smeared skin. It dragged itself forward. Nina noticed both of its feet were missing, the legs beneath its knees now little more than ravaged stumps. It left red streaks on the stones as it pulled its body toward her. It didn’t even seem to know it was wounded; all she could see in its eyes was a hunger. A hunger for her.
“Daddy, please.” Tears fell from Nina’s eyes. She shook her father harder, and he even stirred a little. But he still didn’t wake up.
Nina. The small voice seemed to come from all around her. Nina realized it was coming from the Raccoon Family still around her neck.
“Mom!” Her father stirred at the word.
Shh, dearest. I’m here, came her mother’s voice. Listen to me. Wake your father, but whatever you do, do not scream.
Nina glanced up. The sheggam was only ten steps away now. Its lips peeled back as it came for her, baring dagger-like teeth.
Nina’s breath came in gasps. She didn’t know if she could keep herself from screaming. Why couldn’t she scream? Were there more nearby?
She eyed Shoreseeker, still held loosely in her father’s hand. She didn’t know the first thing about fighting. And every instinct within her warned to run and hide, not fight.
With a burst of speed that seemed impossible for something so ravaged, the sheggam raced forward, breath hissing.
There was nothing for it. She slapped her father’s face.
Tharadis’s eyes popped open.
With its massive, powerful arms, the snarling sheggam threw itself at Nina.
Gripped tight in Tharadis’s fist, Shoreseeker cleaved into the sheggam’s elbow first, then connected with its jaw as the sword continued its upward arc. A normal blade wouldn’t have done nearly the damage that Shoreseeker did, not with a reverse upward cut like this. But Shoreseeker shattered the sheggam’s jawbone and ruined its pale flesh with equal ease, carving its way through its skull.
As if a ball had been tossed to her, Nina caught the sheggam’s severed face. She stared down at the horror she held, blood and mist oozing between her fingers, before she dropped it.
Nina screamed.
Roars sounded from all around them.
Tharadis leapt to his feet. Without a word, he threw Nina on his back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, gripping one blood-slicked wrist with her other hand as he ran.
A massive form burst out of the hedges just ahead of them. Howling, the sheggam thrust its spear towards her father’s middle, but Shoreseeker turned it aside and gored the beast all in one motion. Tharadis hadn’t slowed during the brief battle. He continued running down the twisting garden passageways, sometimes going left at a fork, sometimes right. He never stopped to consider which way to go; it was as if he had already made the choice before he even knew he had to.
Nina heard snarls and heavy clicking footsteps all around them, but was amazed when they finally burst onto the street without encountering any other monsters. There had to have been dozens of them in the gardens; Nina had heard them. How had her father known which paths would help them avoid the sheggam? It was almost as if he had memorized the garden’s twisting pattern of passageways. But how could he have done such a thing? It just didn’t make any sense.
She didn’t have time to ponder it. Once down the street, they squeezed through a narrow archway, past wooden shelves that had collapsed, the clay jars that had once stood upon them in ruins on the ground. Beyond that, they found themselves in an area three times as wide as the archway had been, its paving stones sloping downward. Small wooden stalls, covered by multi-colored cloth awnings, flanked the area. A market at one time. But now the stalls were as ruined as the shelves in the archway, the awnings shredded, scattered, and befouled by mud and other things. While the stalls on the left were damaged, the ones on the right had been completely smashed and dragged away from the wall, to make way for the nightmare that Nina now saw.
A dozen people had been stripped and flayed. Each hung from a single, thick spike of rough metal, hammered through the meat of their arms just below their wrists into the stone wall. Their toes barely touched the ground, giving them just enough purchase to offer hope but no escape. For those that still lived, anyway. The skin had been peeled from several of them, thin strips still clinging to their bodies, dangling like gory streamers. Others had been bled dry, various bladed metal objects stabbed into pale limbs. A few still drew breath. One of them, moaning—
“Nina.” Her father gathered her close in an embrace, pressing her face against his stomach. “Nina,” he said again, pointing to the other end of the market with Shoreseeker. Reluctantly, she turned to look. Another archway, like the one they had just come through. It was clear of rubble, a sight which calmed her suddenly uncontrollable breathing. “We just need to get over there. Beyond that is a thoroughfare, and a couple of side streets. Then we’ll be at the gate, free of the city. It’s not much farther.”
Nina nodded without thinking. But she couldn’t shut out the moaning she heard. “What about the man on the wall?”
Tharadis crouched, cradling her cheek and rubbing a thumb across it, and looked into her eyes. “Do you want me to help him?”
She hesitated, then nodded again. She was afraid—more afraid than when she was at Falconkeep. But seeing her father fight and do whatever it took—she couldn’t explain it, but it made her feel stronger somehow. Like she had to be stronger.
“Okay, I’ll help him. Go hide in one of those stalls. I’ll be back shortly.”
Without looking back, she ran over and crouched behind a low wooden wall, focusing her attention on the exit. A small trickle of gray smoke rose up against the night sky, growing larger. The building next to the far archway was on fire.
A sound like raw meat dragged across a dull knife greeted her ears. The man yelped, but only for the briefest moment. Nina hugged her arms, rubbed her hands up and down them. Her teeth started chattering.
A short time later, Tharadis crouched in front of her.
“Did you save him?” she asked.
His answering smile was all wrong. Not a smile at all. “I did the best I could.” He helped her up when they heard the sound of someone stepping on broken pots.
Tharadis yanked her back down. “Stay hidden,” he whispered. “Don’t come out until you see me. Don’t make any noise.” He looked over her head, cursed quietly. “Get ready to run, Neensy.”
He took her hand, but she yanked hard on it and pointed to their intended exit.
Tharadis turned to see the roof of the building abutting the archway suddenly fall inward with the sound of heavy beams groaning and finally snapping. Smoke and ash erupted upwards, the force of the explosion spraying bricks and flames into the archway. The arch itself bent and cracked, then finally crumbled in a heap of burning wood and stone, blocking their path.
The only way out was the way they had come.
Tharadis turned around, peering over the wall of the stall towards the first archway. He motioned for Nina to stay put, then stood, Shoreseeker held in front of hi
m. He slowly advanced.
Moving as quietly as she could, Nina lifted her head to look over the edge of the wall. Two monstrous armored shapes, both holding crude but massive swords, stood at the market’s mouth, bathed in the orange light of the fire. They paused a moment, studying Tharadis.
Then they sped forward, closing the distance in moments.
The one in front swung its sword, faster than Nina thought such a heavy thing could go. Her stomach clenched in a knot as she watched it speed toward her father’s head.
But Tharadis bowed under it. His shoulder took the beast in the stomach, staggering it, and Tharadis spun off it, Shoreseeker lancing into the second sheggam. Its eyes popped open in surprise as the blade pierced its chest.
The first sheggam recovered quickly. It swept its blade around—and yet again Tharadis flowed beneath its swing. Tharadis dragged his own sword across the beast’s belly, spilling entrails. The sheggam fell to its knees, stunned at its own death. A moment later, the sheggam collapsed in a twitching heap.
Tharadis grabbed for Nina, but four more sheggam burst into the market, one wielding an axe and another with a sword. Muzzles frothing and snarling, the two armed ones ran forward. Both swung their weapons in the same arc. Tharadis brought Shoreseeker up in time—if only barely—yet even so, the combined force of their swings crushed him back against one of the broken stalls. Wood groaned beneath him as both sheggam leaned forward, putting more weight on their weapons. The muscles in Tharadis's arms strained as he fought to hold them off. Sweat sprang from his brow. He gripped Shoreseeker’s hilt with both hands, which Nina imagined was stabbing brutal pain into the wounded one. Tharadis’s eyes flicked to one of the unarmed sheggam, running on all fours behind the others—straight towards where Nina hid, a few paces from Tharadis.
She crouched, helpless and gripped in terror, as the sheggam opened its mouth wide, baring fangs and a tongue mottled black and pink, rancid breath spilling out as it lunged for her throat. She wanted to scream again, but the sound never reached her lips.
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