Darkness Shall Fall

by Alister E. McGrath

  “Come on,” Peter said. “We’ve got plenty. Time to head back.”

  “Will Peras think it’s enough?” Orrin asked. “You remember what he was like two nights ago.”

  Peter had been confused by Peras’s rage that night. It had seemed so out of character. But there was urgency. They had to get the rafts built before the Gul’nog came looking for their hideout.

  “We’ve got twice as many vines as we did that night,” Peter said, his head held as high as he could manage. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Because if he—”

  “Nothing to worry about. Come on. Grab those sticks, and we’ll be off home.”

  “Home,” Orrin said glumly. “Home is Aedyn, Peter, not some foul-smelling cave.”

  “Then let’s hurry, and we’ll be there soon enough.” Peter stooped and filled his arms with a load of branches and draping vines. He almost stumbled under the weight, but righted himself and took a deep breath. “Feels good to be hunting for something other than mushrooms,” he said with a laugh.

  Which reminded him that the dried meat Peras had supplied was a welcome change over mushrooms, but it hadn’t exactly been what he expected. No matter. Why should they waste time getting more interesting food when there was such a rush to get away from this place? They could feast in Aedyn.

  They headed back in the direction of the cave, trailing twigs and bits of leaves as they went. The going was slow in the darkness. Even though the Gul’nog seemed to have abandoned their hunt, no one was fool enough to leave the safety of the cave in daylight.

  Peter tried to engage Orrin in conversation several times, but all Orrin would do was grunt. Peter was irritated at his silence — his spirits were high, and there were a thousand things to discuss: how the rafts would be built, when they would leave, how Peras would manage to navigate the treacherous waters back to Aedyn. He disliked walking in silence like this now that they didn’t really need to.

  They were still a quarter mile away from the cave’s entrance when they heard the screams. The shrieks of many people. Peter and Orrin looked at each other, dropped the branches, and sprinted toward the sound.

  Stumbling in the dark and going too fast to dodge the ends of branches, they tore through the underbrush to get to their home. Heaving with exertion, they stopped in the last shadows before the cliff face. Orrin grabbed Peter’s shirt sleeve and dragged him down into the bushes.

  Peter almost cried out. The Gul’nog had found them at last. It looked as though they had smashed in the walls of the tunnels — smashed their fists through solid rock — in order to widen it. The narrow passageway hadn’t saved them after all. The creatures swarmed in and out of the people’s fortress, a pile of rubble at their feet.

  The people ran about, pursued by the hulking monsters. In the dim moonlight, Peter could just distinguish the figures — there was Alyce with her five-year-old son, Alexander, clutched tightly in her arms. And there was Gregory, his good hand clutching his opposite shoulder. And there was Matthias, one leg curiously bent and dragging behind the other. Where, Peter wondered urgently, was Peras? He should be here. He should …

  His mind froze. There — Lord of Hosts preserve them all — was Julia.

  She was fleeing for the safety of the trees, a small bundle clutched tightly in her hand and a Gul’nog in hot pursuit. She was running as fast as she could, but her sprinting was no match for the stride of the monster behind her. It was upon her in a moment. Its fist slashed through the air and connected with her head.

  She collapsed without a sound, falling to the forest floor and lying there, unmoving, among the dirt and rocks.

  Peter wanted to scream — wanted to run to her side — wanted to kill the Gul’nog with his bare hands, but he didn’t need the pressure of Orrin’s fingers on his arm to tell him that he had to stay hidden. He kept his eyes on his sister, willing her to move, to show any sign of life, biting his lip until blood came.

  The Gul’nog bent and scooped up the small parcel that Julia had been carrying. Peter couldn’t see what it was, but the Gul’nog seemed overjoyed with its find. It took the horn that was dangling from a cord around its neck, raised it to its mouth, and blew a long, low note.

  It was a sound Peter recognized — he had heard it once before, that night when the Gul’nog had suddenly turned and left him and Gregory alone.

  As it had on that other night, the horn gave some signal to the others. The Gul’nog seemed to raise their heads and retreat as one. Suddenly, the cave entrance was empty of the monstrous creatures. The pounding of their feet echoed through the forest as they withdrew to the west.

  Peter rushed to his sister’s side. The ground was littered with bruised and groaning bodies. His friends lay there moaning, clutching broken limbs, but he stumbled around them, hardly sparing a thought for anyone but Julia.

  She lay where the Gul’nog had left her, her arm skewed at an awkward angle under her chest. As Peter reached out to touch her head he could feel a warm, sticky liquid pooling beneath his fingers.

  “Julia,” he said, his whispers urgent. “Julia!”

  She moved her head slowly — once, twice, and blinked her eyes open. She focused on Peter just for a moment, and then her eyelids slid closed again.

  “Julia!”

  “Let her sleep,” said a voice, low and soft in his ear.

  Peter looked up with a start.

  It was Louisa. A thin, dark line snaked its way across her cheek, and the hem of her skirts was in shreds almost to the knee. She reached out a hand to touch Julia’s forehead, letting her fingers trail through her hair. “Let her sleep now.”

  Peter nodded, forcing down the lump that seemed to have lodged itself in his throat. “What happened?”

  “They came,” Louisa said simply. “Peras told the monsters where we were hiding, and they came to find us.”

  Peter almost laughed. “That’s ridic—”

  “Peras betrayed us.” Her voice wasn’t angry. More like tired. “I told you he would, Peter, remember?” She turned her eyes to the front of their cave. “The Gul’nog smashed through solid rock to find us. The rocks began to rumble, and part of the roof fell in toward the back. Everyone was running and screaming, and no one knew where to go. The monsters found them before they could get away.”

  “Who?” asked Peter, choking out the word. “Who didn’t get away?”

  “Most of us.” Louisa’s eyes shut, and she rocked back and forth as she recited the litany of names. “Leon. Alexandra. Simeon. Celeste. Frederick. Elmira. Geoffrey. Carmine.”

  She continued, but Peter’s mind stopped registering after thirty or more names. A gasp escaped his lips, and tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. Louisa named boys and girls, old men and women. Most of the people he had promised to protect.

  But he shook his head. This was not the time to mourn. Tears were not scientific. Crying wouldn’t bring back the dead, and there was work to do. Rafts to build. And now, though it pained him to do this kind of mathematics, they would have fewer rafts to build, and they could leave this cursed island even sooner.

  A gleam in the darkness caught his eye. He reached down and pulled up a short knife. It looked like the one Gregory had used on the mushrooms in the forest. He would return it to him. For now, he just tucked it into his belt and stood.

  “Peras,” Peter said. “Peras will know what to do. I’ll find him.”

  “Peras.” Louisa spit out the word as if it were a foul taste in her mouth. “Peras has been lying to you from the beginning, Peter. If he’s a true messenger of the Lord of Hosts, why did it take him so long to appear? Why did the Gul’nog seem to abandon the hunt the day he arrived? Why did he arrive the day after the Gul’nog found you in the forest? How did the Gul’nog find our hiding place without so much as a search? They came straight to it. And why, stepbrother, did Peras choose that precise moment to be away?”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t an ordinary evil, Peter. This isn’t a Shadow you
can flee from. You can run away to Aedyn and pretend it doesn’t exist. But it will come there. It’s time to stand up and fight.” She stared at Peter with wide eyes, her gaze boring deep into him.

  His eyes slid away from hers and he jumped to his feet. “I’m going to go find Peras. He’ll know what to do. Take care of Julia.”

  Louisa watched him go as he ran off into the night. Peter would not believe her yet. And Julia — she touched her stepsister’s forehead once more — needed rest.

  She stood and looked around. Many of the people from Aedyn had fallen near the rubble at the entrance to the cave. Others had collapsed near the trees. Some were moving, crawling about looking for their family members. Many, like Julia, lay still. But unlike Julia, most would not get up again.

  Louisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, sucking the air into her lungs. She remembered the light that had come to her that day, just before the eruption — remembered how she had been called. And so she went to work.

  She went first to the ones who were in pain — those who were crying out to the Lord of Hosts for his help. She moved among them slowly, one at a time, ripping makeshift bandages from her skirts or from their own clothes to press against wounds. As she touched the people, their cries grew fewer, and their courage rekindled.

  And then she came to a face she knew better than the others — a face that had welcomed her at the very beginning.

  “Alyce,” Louisa said, “you’re hurt.” Alyce’s foot was twisted beneath her at a strange angle, and even under the Shadow, Louisa could see that her face had gone absolutely white. She seemed to be whispering something, and Louisa bent closer to hear.

  “Al … Alexander …”

  Her son. Where was her son? Alyce never let him leave her side.

  Alyce reached out to grab Louisa’s hand, her nails digging into the skin of her palm. “He was with me … I was holding him …”

  “I’ll find him,” Louisa said. “I’ll find him for you.” She knelt by Alyce’s feet and reached out a cool hand to touch her ankle. It was already starting to swell. “I’ll sing you a song,” she told Alyce. “I need you to rest here, and when you wake, Alexander will be here.”

  Alyce’s eyes were already closed as she nodded. Louisa hummed a thread of a tune first, and then began to sing in a still, quiet voice:

  The two come together; the two become one

  With union comes power, control over all

  Flooded by light, the shadow outdone,

  The host shall return; the darkness shall fall.

  Alyce was asleep by the time she finished.

  Louisa stood and surveyed the scene, her eyes desperate for the sight of one small child. If he’d been with Alyce during the raid, he couldn’t have gotten far. He wouldn’t be in the rubble … he must have run away. But why would he leave his mother? Would the Gul’nog have taken him as a—

  Louisa felt someone tugging on the shreds that remained of her skirts. She looked down and saw the small, grubby boy, five years of age, his eyes wide. Louisa bent and picked him up. “Alexander! We’ve been looking for you.” She held him tightly against her.

  “I was hiding,” he said. “Mother got hurt, and the monster was coming.”

  “Clever boy,” Louisa said gently. “Mother has just hurt her foot, but she’ll be all right soon. She’s sleeping now.”

  Alexander nodded, his cheek pressed against Louisa’s shoulder.

  “And now I need you to be very brave,” Louisa said. “We have to find the people who are hurt the worst and get them back inside the cave. It will be dangerous for them to stay out here too long.”

  “But what if the monsters come back?” Alexander asked, his eyes wide as he looked up at her.

  “They won’t,” said a new voice behind her.

  It was Orrin, come from amidst the trees. “Not tonight,” he said. “And we’ll look for a new hiding place tomorrow. Peter’s gone off to seek Peras,” he said to Louisa. “Let’s help the rest of these poor souls back inside.”

  It didn’t take them long to do so. Alexander ran ahead of the others, calling out his friends’ names as he found them, and Louisa and Orrin carried the wounded inside together. It was perhaps an hour before they had everyone safely inside. Those who were less hurt began to tend the weak.

  “More patients for you, Healer,” Orrin said with a smile.

  Louisa grinned and squinted at the sky beyond the rubble that had been their tunnel. It would be dawn before they knew it, and Peter and Peras were still out in the woods. What would Peras do to Peter when they encountered each other? She turned back to the wounded. It was these people who needed her care now.

  She went to Julia’s side first. The blood had clotted and dried in her hair, and as Louisa took her hand she began to rouse from her slumber. She blinked her eyes open and looked at her stepsister as if she were an absolute stranger.

  “Peter,” she said. “Is Peter all right?”

  “He’s out looking for Peras,” Louisa said. “You remember what happened?”

  “The Gul’nog came,” Julia said. “And we couldn’t fight back.”

  “But it won’t be that way for long,” Louisa said. “We’re going to bring the battle to the Shadow, Julia. It won’t defeat us — it won’t! You and me — we’ll show the Gul’nog that the people of Aedyn can still stand up. We’ll show them that the people of the Lord of Hosts have a power they can never match!”

  Julia gave a hint of a smile, and then put a hand to her cheek with a groan. “Don’t try to move much yet,” Louisa said. “You’ve got a beastly head wound.”

  “I was trying to run from … I had … Oh no.” Julia sat up, wincing as she did so. She felt the ground around her as if searching for some lost object.

  “What is it? What are you looking for?”

  “The talisman!” Julia said with another groan. “I’d taken it out of Peter’s hiding place when we first heard the Gul’nog coming. I had it in my hands!”

  “You didn’t have anything with you when we found you,” Louisa said, puzzled. “I would have noticed it.”

  “You would’ve seen it for sure,” Julia said. “It glows blue.” She winced. “That wretched creature must have stolen it. Blast it all … Peter will be furious when he hears. Oh, why didn’t I just leave it where it was?”

  Louisa’s face fell. The talisman. “Because if you had, the Gul’nog would’ve killed us all until they found it. By taking it outside, you actually saved us.”

  Julia didn’t seem comforted by those words. “Well,” she said, “I suppose we’ll just have to steal it back. And then we’ll stand up to the Shadow.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  Peter crashed through the trees, heedless of the noise he was making. The Gul’nog had gone off west, and he was heading east. Besides, they wouldn’t much care about him anyway. They had already done their night’s work.

  He didn’t dare call out for Peras, but then he didn’t need to. He knew precisely where he would be: down at the beaches, scoping out their launch site and the supplies they’d assembled. It wasn’t much farther, and even in the dark he knew the way.

  He was breathing hard by the time he reached the sea. Unlike the lush beaches of Aedyn, this shoreline was stony and barren. Waves lapped darkly at the rocks, and the wind whipped around Peter’s head. Here, at least, he could breathe free air. Here, the acrid smell seemed to have burned away.

  Peter doubled over, pressing his palms to his knees and gulping in deep breaths of the wind. Even in the cool air he was sweating, and now that he’d stopped running he could feel every muscle screaming, feel the hundred scratches from twigs and branches that had cut his arms and legs as he’d run. But after a moment he straightened and looked around him, realizing he was utterly and completely alone.

  Where was Peras?

  Peter scanned the shoreline, looking for Peras’s familiar figure. He was nowhere to be found. Peter cupped his hands around his mouth and called out Per
as’s name — not too loudly, for there was no need to take risks. But there was no answer.

  After a moment, Peter collapsed on a rock, his chin falling into his hands. If Peras wasn’t here — if he wasn’t scoping out their launch site — then where on earth could he be?

  Did it mean Louisa had been right?

  He shook his head. Of course it didn’t mean that. She’d been raving when she’d said those things about Peras. It was the tension of the Gul’nog attack that had her speaking like that. Peras must be here somewhere — or else he’d passed him in the woods.

  Yes, of course, that was it. He’d been in such a hurry to get to the shore he hadn’t noticed Peras in the darkness. Stupid of him, really. And now he really ought to get back and help Louisa at the cave — see how Julia was getting on. Peras would have returned there by now, and everyone would be looking for him.

  Peter stood and looked back the way he’d come. The woods were awfully dark. He would have given anything to see the sun again, to run under a bright blue sky. But for now they lived under the Shadow.

  Not much longer, though. Soon they’d be in Aedyn, and the Shadow would never touch them there. With that happy thought in his mind and a smile stretched across his lips, Peter went back into the woods in the direction of the cave, swinging his arms as he went.

  The journey back seemed quicker — amazing what a good attitude will do for you! He even whistled a bit when he came to the part of the path that always worried him most — the part that skirted along the edge of a cliff. And it wasn’t long at all before he found himself back at the cave’s entrance.

  Julia and all the others were gone. Louisa must have taken them inside. Bodies still lay around, bodies of people he knew. They would have to begin burying them right away. He scrambled over the rocks and into the cave. But the scene laid out before him was not what he had expected.