In the Empire of Shadow

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Damn!” Raven said. He, for one, clearly did not doubt Elani for a moment. “Valadrakul, wards!” he called. “Elani, where away?”

  Elani pointed upward and to one side, past the spaceship’s nose.

  “We’re under attack?” Susan asked, turning the gun away from Valadrakul.

  “It’s a trick, lady,” one of the soldiers called. “He’s just trying to get the gun!”

  Susan started, and her grip on the pistol tightened, but none of the natives of “Faerie” were paying any attention. Raven was looking about for cover, glancing every so often at the sky; Stoddard was shading his eyes and looking up at the treetops; Elani and Valadrakul were both muttering and gesturing, preparing spells.

  Pel got slowly to his feet, not sure just why, or what he hoped to do; he was unarmed, and had no way to fight if Shadow’s creatures really were approaching.

  “Aye,” Elani called, in a pause between mumbles, “Shadow’s creatures draw nigh. Hellbeasts, carried by another, one that flies—they approach, yonder—a score, perhaps, aboard the flyer!”

  The Earthpeople and the Imperials stood, baffled, or milled about in confusion; the natives were more alert. “Shelter in the ship?” Stoddard asked, nodding toward Christopher.

  “Nay,” Raven replied, “an we might be trapped within and besieged, or the vessel crushed and us thereby.”

  Stoddard nodded an acknowledgment; Pel, who had been heading for the door of the ship without realizing it, stopped dead in his tracks.

  A better means of escape occurred to him. “Elani,” he called, “can you get us out of here? Open a portal?”

  Amy had gotten to her feet, as well, and was standing close beside the little wizard; she added her own voice, saying, “Please, Elani?”

  The sorceress shook her head. “We’ve not the time,” she said.

  “Look!” one of the soldiers called, pointing upward.

  Something big and black was moving, up above the trees, blocking the sunlight and plunging them into shadow. Pel, watching it, thought it resembled a blimp passing overhead. Did Shadow use airships?

  “All right, men,” Lieutenant Dibbs called, “form up, two lines, helmets on, weapons ready.”

  “No,” Raven shouted, “flee! Take shelter, wherever you may!”

  “These are my men…” Dibbs began.

  “Sir,” a soldier said, cutting him off, “our blasters don’t work here.”

  Dibbs froze for a second, then said, “Damn. All right, then, we’ll take cover—but in proper order. We aren’t running away. Shelby, you take that end, and the rest of you form up, we’ll move over there, under the starboard vane.”

  “Lieutenant…” another man began.

  “Move!”

  For a moment, no one spoke; leaves rustled, boots stamped, as everyone did what he or she thought best to prepare for an assault. A faint humming that reminded Pel of distant insects came from somewhere overhead, and he realized it came from that dark shape.

  Pel remembered his previous visit to Shadow’s realm, and the horrific fight near the forester’s hut on Stormcrack lands, the fight where Spaceman First Class Cartwright had died; there, Shadow’s creatures had burst up through the ground and come showering out of the trees from every direction. There was no safe place. The only chance to survive was flight.

  He considered turning to run now, dashing off into the forest at random, but that, he realized, might just take him into the jaws of some slimy black monstrosity.

  Besides, if he died, perhaps he would be reunited with Nancy and Rachel. If he died bravely, went down fighting, didn’t he deserve to join them, wherever they were? Maybe if he died here he would wake up safely back home on Earth, in his own bed, alive and well.

  But there was no point in being stupid, in making it easy for Shadow. He headed for Valadrakul and Susan; Valadrakul had his spells, Susan her revolver.

  “’Tisn’t seeking us,” Elani said abruptly, breaking the silence.

  “Is’t not?” Raven asked, startled. Pel saw that the nobleman had found a broken limb among the debris that the ship had brought down, and was holding it in his right hand like a club. His bandaged left hand was empty.

  “Nay. ’Tis come to study the portal that brought us hither.”

  Pel started to relax, then realized what that could mean. “It’ll find us soon enough, then,” he said.

  “An it flies not on through, into Empire, aye,” Elani agreed.

  “Mistress Thorpe,” Raven called, “can you send word, warn those who remain at Base One?”

  “Of course, sir,” Prossie replied. “But I can’t promise they’ll pay any attention.”

  Raven muttered a word Pel didn’t catch. It sounded like an archaic obscenity.

  “The flying creature is at yon portal,” Elani announced, pointing upward.

  “Goes it through?” Raven called.

  Pel looked about, and saw that the party had collected into three groups—and one individual.

  One group consisted of Elani, Amy, and Ted, clustered at the base of a large tree of undistinguished species; another was composed of himself, Susan, Valadrakul, Stoddard, and Prossie Thorpe, standing by the side of the downed ship; and the third was made up of Lieutenant Dibbs and his fourteen men, gathered under the ship’s stubby wing, farther astern. Raven stood alone, on an upthrust root of a gigantic oak, swinging his makeshift club stiffly and watching the leaves overhead.

  And Colonel Carson’s body lay in the open part of the little clearing between the ship and the trees, near the center of the uneven quadrilateral formed by the survivors. Pel turned away, and found himself looking at the dead officer’s troops.

  Dibbs had his men arranged in two rows of seven, one line facing forward, the other aft, with himself at the outer end; all of them were crouching, as the fin provided slightly less than six feet of headroom. Some, Pel saw, were clutching their blasters by the barrels; others were searching the ground for sticks or rocks.

  “Are there any other weapons aboard the ship?” Pel called to the lieutenant, shifting back to the rear of his own cluster.

  Dibbs shook his head.

  “Nay,” Elani cried. “It turns away! It senses us!”

  A dozen faces turned upward.

  And a moment later, a dozen assorted black-winged horrors plunged down through the green leaves, claws outstretched, fanged mouths agape.

  Chapter Six

  Valadrakul gestured, and the foremost hellbeast exploded in golden fire. Pel ducked instinctively as football-sized gobbets of black slime spattered across the ground and the side of the ship. Another flash he guessed to be Elani’s doing.

  The other hellbeasts came on without slowing, and before Pel could raise his head one of them struck him on the shoulders and spun him around, slamming him against the hull. Dazed, he could see nothing but purple paint on smooth metal as sharp claws or teeth—he couldn’t tell which—chewed at the back of his head.

  Then there came a brilliant yellow flash, and Pel could feel things sliding down his back, across his buttocks and down the back of his legs.

  People were screaming, he could hear them, and there were other noises, gnashings and scratchings and gurglings. He heard a loud popping, and realized that it was the sound of a gunshot—Susan had fired her pistol. Another flash sent spots dancing before his eyes.

  He remembered the other fight against Shadow’s creatures. That had been different; they had come up from beneath the ground, rather than down from the sky, and then hundreds more had come in from all sides, from the surrounding forest. There had been no warning at all, and the group there had been somewhat different—Cahn and his crew were there instead of Dibbs and his squad, the little people had still been alive, Nancy and Rachel were there. There had been no ship, but a woodshed with a magical portal in it, and the party, hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched, had fled through the portal.

  This time, there was no portal—unless one of the wizards could open one, and that seem
ed unlikely, in the midst of battle, without any previous preparation. Pel knew nothing about how the portals worked, but he remembered that Elani had needed several minutes to open one.

  If they faced those limitless hordes again, the hundreds of horrible things that had come leaping out of the forest, they were surely all as good as dead. A few might escape into the surrounding forest, but what would become of them then? They would be lost, to starve or be picked off one by one by Shadow’s creatures.

  Maybe, Pel thought, it was almost over. Maybe, in a few minutes, he would be joining Nancy and Rachel—either in death, or waking up again safely back home on Earth.

  Unsteadily, shielding his face with one arm and bracing himself against the ship with the other, Pel turned.

  Twisted fragments of monster were strewn everywhere, horribly out of place in the bright midday sun—some like the remains of a gigantic burst black balloon, some like black jelly, some like charred driftwood or burned roasts, all dark and harsh against the gentler colors of the forest. Valadrakul stood amid the debris, systematically targeting the survivors—a fifth exploded as it gnawed on someone, one of the group that had stood to the side, Amy and Ted and Elani. All three of them were down, lying on the ground with hellbeasts atop them. As Pel watched, something in that heap flashed white, but the monsters continued their assault. Whatever magic Elani had attempted had not worked.

  Pel’s own group, by the ship, was also under attack—there were creatures assaulting Prossie Thorpe and Stoddard, and one lay dead at Susan’s feet, the back of its head blown apart. Pel judged that Susan had thrust the .38 into its mouth before pulling the trigger.

  A single monster had gone after Raven, who had warded it off with his club; the antagonists were now facing off, a few feet apart. It seemed to Pel that there was something unnatural about Raven’s position, and for a second that puzzled him. Then he realized what it was; the natural pose for a man with a club would be to hold the weapon in both hands, or to keep his free hand up, ready to grab. Instead, Raven’s bandaged left hand hung uselessly at his side.

  None of the beasts had attacked the Imperial soldiers; hiding under the ship’s wing had apparently been a successful ploy. Pel found himself irrationally resenting that.

  And there was no second wave, no throng of monsters spilling out of the trees and underbrush. In fact, this time the humans seemed to be getting the better of the fight.

  Stoddard had his attacker, a thing like a greyhound with bat-wings and elongated, tentacular forelegs, by the throat, and was squeezing; the monster was trying to wrap its own snakelike limbs around the big man’s neck in return, but its head was twisted back so that it could not see its foe, and Stoddard jerked it from side to side, so that it was having trouble finding its target.

  Prossie’s opponent was smaller, and resembled a flying spider, or perhaps a winged monkey; at first glance it didn’t look big enough to be seriously dangerous, but Pel could see blood on Prossie’s hair and uniform as she rolled on the ground struggling with it.

  “Lieutenant!” Pel shouted. “Do something!”

  Valadrakul flung out a hand, and the thing attacking Prossie exploded.

  One hellbeast had landed atop Colonel Carson’s corpse; realizing at last that its prey was already dead, it turned toward the ship and slithered forward, wings dragging behind. Pel was not sure who it was aiming for, Valadrakul or Prossie or himself.

  Stoddard began slamming his antagonist against the side of Christopher, a steady dull thudding.

  “Come on, men!” Dibbs called; he came charging out of his shelter brandishing a thick chunk of tree-limb. Several soldiers followed; Pel, startled, saw that three or four did not, but remained where they were, huddled under the guidance vane.

  Half a dozen men landed atop the slithering creature, arms rising and falling as they pounded at it with rocks and clubs; other men flung themselves at the two monsters that were still atop Elani’s group.

  A sharp crack sounded, and Stoddard’s creature went limp. Thin liquid oozed down the side of the ship.

  Valadrakul worked his magic once more, and Raven’s opponent burst into ruin without ever striking a blow.

  In seconds, the remaining creatures were dead, and the humans were brushing themselves off, gingerly testing wounds, assessing the damage.

  Pel had superficial scratches on his head and back, and the T-shirt he wore had been shredded, but he was not seriously injured. None of the soldiers had received anything worse than a few scratches on their hands and arms. Valadrakul and Raven were untouched; Stoddard had bruises on one forearm and a red abrasion on the side of his neck.

  Prossie had received dozens of shallow slashes from the razor-edged feet of the thing she had fought, and had lost enough blood to make her dizzy. She sat against the base of a tree, resting, while the others gathered.

  Elani, Amy, and Ted were in a pile, under several dead monsters; it took the others a few moments to dig them out.

  Ted was on the bottom, and had had the wind knocked out of him, but was otherwise not visibly damaged any further than he had been before. The bandage on his head had been torn off, but the wound beneath appeared no worse.

  Amy had three long gashes on one forearm, but had fended off all other attacks; she was pulled upright, dazed and panting.

  Elani was dead; she had thrown herself atop the other two, and one of the monsters had torn open the back of her neck, as well as slashing at her head and elsewhere. Her hair and clothing appeared singed, though none of the creatures had used fire in their attacks. Pel wondered if some sort of acid or venom might have been responsible.

  “I thought she was supposed to be a wizard,” one of the Imperials muttered.

  “She was,” Prossie said.

  “Then why didn’t she defend herself, the way whatsisname did?”

  “She defended Ted, instead,” Amy explained dully, staring down at the dead sorceress. “She saw he wasn’t moving, so she destroyed the one that went for him, instead of the one that was after her.”

  “I saw a flash,” Pel said, “but it didn’t seem to do any good.”

  “That was the last time,” Amy said. “I’m not sure…”

  “’Twas her death,” Valadrakul said, interrupting. “At a wizard’s death the web of energies that’s been woven about her through all her life comes unraveled all in an instant, and betimes there’s a flash, or a display of one sort or another.” He stared at Elani’s remains with an expression Pel couldn’t interpret—it might have been grief, or anger, or almost anything.

  “Well, we…” Dibbs began. He cut off short and looked up, startled, as a deep shadow suddenly fell over the party, blotting out the patchy sunlight.

  “What’s that?” a soldier asked.

  “The big one,” Valadrakul said, looking up, his face suddenly intent. “’Tis the hellbeast that carried the others hither.” He raised his arms and began a spell.

  “Is it attacking, too?”

  No one answered, but from overhead came a sudden snapping and crunching—tree-branches were being smashed aside as the thing tried to fight its way to the ground. Leaves and twigs showered down.

  Pel looked up, puzzled, trying to locate the descending creature. The trees and shadows made it difficult to see just what was happening.

  “Why doesn’t it just come through the hole the ship left?” he asked no one in particular.

  Valadrakul was too busy with his magic to answer, and no one else had a ready reply, but then Pel managed to figure out what he was looking at, and realized why. The thing was coming through the hole the ship had left. It still had to break off limbs.

  Otherwise, it couldn’t fit.

  * * * *

  Prossie stared up at the hellbeast in weak and horrified fascination. Behind her, someone screamed, but she didn’t bother to turn and look.

  She had heard stories about animals of incredible size that were found on various obscure planets on the outskirts of the Empire—or even worlds
that were closer in, but off the main routes. She had generally assumed that such tales were exaggerated; she knew that non-telepaths had a tendency to distort things. Telepaths had something of a self-correcting mechanism, since their memories would automatically be compared with those of the other telepaths, and even so, some events grew in the retelling, so it was no wonder that non-telepaths might blow things all out of proportion.

  On the other hand, it was a big universe, and the Empire was full of marvels, so she had never completely dismissed stories of beasts the size of spaceships.

  But now that she was actually looking straight up at one, she found it impossible to believe. That thing up there could not be real, she told herself.

  A heavy tree-limb plummeted down and smashed ringingly against the grounded spaceship’s metal hull, leaving the opening in the treetops a little larger, giving her a better look at the thing. She stared up, ignoring the leaves, bark, and branches that fell around her.

  The hellbeast was roughly bat-shaped, but with a huge, bloated body, a body the length of Christopher but easily twice as thick. The head was raw nightmare, with saw-edged ears the size of sails, man-sized compound eyes where each facet was a slit-pupiled green disk, a mouth that could swallow an aircar; the clustered fangs were like swords, and the dangling purple tongue, thick as a man’s thigh, writhed like a wounded squid’s tentacle.

  The wings were still tangled in the surrounding trees, tearing their way through; Prossie glimpsed at least four sets of claws, rather than the two that an ordinary bat would have. And the monster’s shadow covered Christopher, the narrow clearing where the ship had fallen, and a broad stretch of forest to either side.

  There was simply no way such a creature could exist in any sane universe.

  But then Prossie reminded herself that she was not in a sane universe—she was in Shadow’s realm, in Faerie, where magic ruled and science was powerless.

  Regardless of what universe it was, there was still only one sensible reaction to such a monster, and that was to run. The thing might be able to smash its way through the forest, but judging by how slowly it was making its way down to the ship it would not be able to do it with any speed; she ought, she thought, to be able to escape it easily, even in her weak, wounded condition.