Slight and Shadow

by Shae Ford

  “Dawn Hessa’s vision has come to pass, Grandmot,” he said to the feather-haired woman. He pointed his spear at Kyleigh and called behind him: “One more deserving has fallen into our path. Nadine will be spared!”

  His announcement set off a round of muffled cheers from the other guards. More smiling heads popped over the Grandmot to get a good look at Kyleigh — who was trying desperately to wrap her head around the strangeness of it all.

  They were deep underground. There shouldn’t have been anything but rabbits and crawly things where she stood … and yet, there seemed to be a whole race of people living in the tunnels. She’d been certain that humans preferred to live in the open air.

  Though, she supposed she’d been wrong about them before.

  The Grandmot was the only one who wasn’t smiling. “Hold your tongues,” she snapped, and the guards immediately quieted. Her eyes shot to Kyleigh.

  They were dark and set far apart. Her nose and lips stretched almost to a point, and her stare seemed to lurk behind them. It gave her a cunning look, one that reminded Kyleigh a bit of a fox.

  The Grandmot’s eyes flicked over her for half a breath, and then she spun back to the guards. “It is true that a stranger has fallen among us. But how can we know if she is more deserving than Nadine?”

  Kyleigh had almost forgotten about the little girl. But at that moment, she suddenly leaned out from behind the Grandmot. Though her voice was small, the whole company leaned in to hear her:

  “Surely one who trespasses upon our lands is the most deserving.”

  All heads turned to the Grandmot. Her face twisted up about her eyes, and the expression she wore was a strange mix of emotion. She might’ve been angry, or perhaps even upset. Kyleigh couldn’t quite read her look.

  The Grandmot had heavy, silver loops hanging from her ears. When she shook her head, they thwaped against her jaw. “I cannot argue with Dawn Hessa’s vision,” she finally said.

  Nadine’s mouth parted in shock. “But the lot has been cast! I must go —”

  “Did Hessa not say your life might be spared, should one more deserving come to us? And I say one who trespasses upon our lands is more deserving! The outlander will serve as our sacrifice.”

  The Grandmot’s words were followed by a metallic clang as the guards drove their spears against the rock.

  Had Jake not been so badly injured, Kyleigh might’ve objected to being a sacrifice. But she was no healer. She knew she couldn’t save him. Her only hope now was to try to bargain for his life. So she leaned against the silver spear and forced herself to meet Grandmot’s gaze with a smile.

  “In need of a blade for hire, are we?” she said, with far more confidence than she felt. From what little she’d seen of them, Kyleigh got the sense that this was a rather proper brood of humans, a brood that would likely have a thick set of rules. So if she wanted their help, she knew she’d have to step lightly. “I’ll tell you what I can do —”

  “You have no right to address our Grandmot with your outlander tongue,” Nadine said sharply, putting herself between Kyleigh and the Grandmot. “You will speak to me.”

  “I don’t really care who I speak to,” Kyleigh leveled the spear at her, “just so long as you listen carefully. Now, I have no idea what the lot of you are squawking about, but perhaps we might be able to help each other. My friend is in desperate need of a healer. Have you got one?”

  “Yes, but you will have no need of them,” Nadine said spitefully. “Where you are going, there will be no return. As for your friend —”

  “Tell the outlander we will heal her friend, if she completes this task for us,” the Grandmot said, waving a few of the guards forward to collect Jake. “Be gentle with him — he may be of use to us, should this one fail. And Nadine, you will take the outlander to her post immediately.”

  Nadine clenched her jaw tightly, but didn’t argue. “As you speak, Grandmot.” She slunk off into the tunnel without another word, and Kyleigh just assumed that she was meant to follow.

  Chapter 20

  Cave Trolls

  A smaller, darker tunnel branched off from the main path, and soon Kyleigh was having to hunch over to keep her head from scraping against the ceiling. That’s when she noticed that Nadine still had a few inches between the top of her head and the rock above her.

  Odd … she hadn’t really thought of her as a short woman.

  “Do you want your weapon back?” Kyleigh said. Nadine didn’t turn around, but held her hand out behind her. She slowed her pace when Kyleigh passed her the spear.

  “You are strange, outlander,” she muttered after a moment. “My ancestors have spent centuries trying to find the light in the darkness. But you already see it clearly.”

  Kyleigh was still trying to figure out what she meant when she realized that Nadine’s bright red dress had lost its color, and the world had gone entirely gray. They were in the pitch black, and her dragon sight had taken over. “Who are your ancestors, exactly?” Kyleigh said, trying to steer the subject away from herself.

  “We are the lastborn amongst the tribes, the most un-favored. The others call us mots — a word that means children in many of our tongues. And though the name was meant to shame us, we now wear it proudly.”

  Kyleigh had never heard of the mots before. “How did you come to be all the way out here?”

  Nadine shrugged. “There are many stories. The Grandmot says the first of our ancestors left the cities and sought fortune in the desert. Though the sun forsook them for their paler skin, the earth had pity on them. She took the mots into her arms and has held us ever since.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Kyleigh was still trying to get used to the fact that a whole brood of humans lived underground. Underground. It was the strangest thing she’d ever heard of.

  As Kyleigh watched Nadine, she noticed that the mot’s back and arms were ribbed in lithe muscle. She carried herself on the balls of her feet and moved without a sound. When Kyleigh held her breath, the silence was almost deafening.

  “You’re a warrior,” she guessed.

  “Oh, I would applaud your wisdom,” Nadine said dryly, “if I did not think the noise would alert our enemies.”

  Kyleigh laughed.

  Nadine short pony’s tail brushed the tops of her shoulders as she shook her head. “You are strange, outlander. Very strange, indeed.”

  The silence and the darkness didn’t last long. Soon they stepped out of the narrow passage and into a hallway flooded with light. It was much wider than the one they’d just escaped, but for all of its size, there was only a very slim vein of empty space down its middle.

  Dozens of campsites were crammed against either side of the hallway. Packs lay clumped together in neat piles, casting shadows across the row of bedrolls beside them. Soldiers slept in some of the bedrolls, but a good number of them were gathered around small, low-burning lights — which looked to be nothing more than a few hot coals glowing inside silver braziers.

  Nearly half of the soldiers were women. All were dressed in red silk: the men had it wrapped about their waists, and the women wore a garb similar to Nadine’s. But what made each soldier different was the style of his armor. Some were nearly covered in it; some wore only a few necessary pieces. And every inch of the silver was inscribed with delicate symbols.

  The soldiers stared openly at Kyleigh, and several nodded to Nadine in greeting. When she turned to nod back, Kyleigh noticed she had a small, silver hoop piercing the top of her left ear.

  As they passed by, the soldiers rose from the camp and took up their spears. They began following behind Kyleigh in a swarm, tittering in a strange chorus of voices.

  Her skin began to crawl. The mots’ chanting was hardly any louder than a whisper, but the way it bounced around the tunnels made it seem as if their words were everywhere: behind her, before her — even inside her head. Though the tallest man among them was only just her height, Kyleigh kept a firm grip on Harbinger.

  No m
atter what she’d promised the Grandmot, Kyleigh had absolutely no intention of being sacrificed. These passages were far too narrow for her dragon form, but if it came down to a fight, she thought she might still have an advantage: Harbinger could cut through silver just as easily as steel.

  He wasn’t particular.

  “Make certain you are right with Death, outlander,” Nadine said as they neared the end of the passage.

  Kyleigh tensed. She raised Harbinger slightly out of his sheath. She could have him drawn in half a breath, if she needed to.

  The curious tittering behind them grew to a steady rumble, quieting only when Nadine came to a halt. They stood at the mouth of a tunnel, which spilled out into a massive chamber.

  Stone ceilings stretched into the shadows, sitting as tall as one of Roost’s highest towers; the smooth, gray chamber was nearly as wide as the full circle of the castle walls. Thick beams of light filtered down from the many holes that peppered the roof. Kyleigh could hear the wind moaning as it blew across them.

  The chamber looked as if it had once been a gathering place. Hundreds of chairs had been carved out of the stone floor, and they filled the room in tight rings — growing steadily smaller with every level, like ripples in a pond.

  In the middle of the chamber sat a high-backed chair and a massive silver bell. The bell was perched on a short platform, and hung only a little taller than the chair.

  It had obviously been a very important room, once. But the grandeur had long since faded. Now most of the chairs were missing their backs — some had been completely reduced to rubble. Even the grand chair in the middle had a jagged corner broken off its top. And the stench of death was everywhere.

  Kyleigh wasn’t sure how many hundreds of bodies littered the cold floor, and she didn’t know if she had the stomach to count them. She saw bits of red silk here or there, but most of the bodies were of animal-like things completely covered in black hair.

  One hairy body lay close to the entrance. A tangle of pointed teeth lined the creature’s decaying mouth. She grimaced when she saw the huge, shovel-like paw that sprouted from the end of its arm. The paw was still stretched out towards the tunnel; the claws glinting at the end of it were short and thick — and strong enough to carve through stone.

  Cave trolls.

  “You must run to the middle of the room and ring the bell,” one of the mots said, shoving a spear into Kyleigh’s hands. “Do not try to abandon your task, or we will have no choice but to kill you. Our spearmen can split a grain of rice from one hundred footfalls away.”

  “Well that doesn’t seem very practical at all. Wouldn’t you rather use a spoon?” Kyleigh said as she quickly scanned the chamber’s walls. There were a number of tunnels, each branching out in a different direction. She didn’t know what would happen when she rang the bell, but it looked as if she would have plenty of options for escape.

  The mot looked slightly confused by her joking. Then his face went stern. “You will not have time to make it back to shelter, once you have rung the bell. Go bravely, and may Death welcome —”

  Someone darted past him, clipping his shoulder and cutting his sentence short. Kyleigh watched in surprise as Nadine leapt over the nearest bodies. She sprinted straight for the bell.

  The mots cried after her, but Nadine ignored them. And no one seemed eager to try to chase her down. Instead, the mots filed out of the tunnel, shoving Kyleigh to the front of their ranks. They stood in a line and lowered their spears — obviously preparing for some sort of battle.

  Nadine was nearly at the bell when Kyleigh managed to piece it all together. She thought she knew what would happen when Nadine rang the bell. She could guess the sort of creatures that would come charging out.

  There was no way Nadine could outrun a troll. Her legs were too short, and she only had two of them.

  Kyleigh sighed inwardly, cursing all brands of human pride. Then she tossed her spear to a nearby mot and set out after Nadine. She sprinted past the bodies and vaulted over the stone chairs, watching for danger out of the corners of her eyes.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  Nadine’s spear struck the bell, and Kyleigh grit her teeth against the stabbing tones. She leapt over a particularly thick pile of corpses and skirted her way across a fallen pillar, finally leaping down to land next to Nadine — who looked rather surprised to see her.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked. “This is my fate! I was chosen for it!”

  “For death?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry — did you want to die?”

  Kyleigh had meant it as a joke. But when Nadine didn’t respond, she spun around. The mot’s face burned red, and she kept her features smooth.

  “Why —?”

  Howls bounced off the tunnels in front of them, cutting her sentence short. Kyleigh squinted into the darkness to try to see the sort of trouble they were up against.

  Just as she’d suspected, trolls came pouring out of the tunnels — only, she hadn’t been expecting quite so many. The horrible, hairy creatures spilled from the passageways like water from a leaky hull, moving in one great, furry wave to swallow them up. Their teeth glinted out from their jaws — jaws that could unhinge and stretch to nearly twice their normal size.

  “Run, outlander, if you value your life!” Nadine said. She stepped forward and gripped her spear tightly. “Mine ends here.”

  Kyleigh had only had a few brushes with trolls, and mostly they’d been with the scrawnier forest trolls: the hairless little creatures that liked to keep their homes in hollow logs. She’d never battled an army of cave trolls. So she was rather shocked when the first one reared up and began to twirl a sling.

  A rock flew out and shot towards them with deadly speed. Kyleigh heard it hiss past her elbow as she jerked to the side. “The trolls have slings?” she said, whipping Harbinger from his sheath. “Since when do trolls carry weapons?” Another rock whizzed by and nearly grazed her ear.

  Blazes — the little devils had good aim, too.

  The cave trolls’ faces were split evenly between their gaping mouths and their large, bat-like noses — they had no eyes. The holes in the middle of their heads flared wide as they charged. When they caught the warm scent of the mots’ blood, their barking grew frenzied.

  Their cries bounced off the walls and down through the tunnels, calling others to the feed. Soon, the trolls’ forces had swelled into a small ocean of furry, writhing black. For the first time in a long time, Kyleigh had to admit that she was outnumbered. There was nothing for it, then.

  Though he complained loudly, she sheathed Harbinger and sprinted past Nadine — who apparently didn’t want to be outdone. Kyleigh cursed when she heard the desert woman following close behind.

  A volley of stones flew towards her. There was no way to dodge them without hurting Nadine. So with a roar, Kyleigh dove into her dragon form.

  She heard the hollow thud of rocks as they bounced off her scales, and heard Nadine scream behind her. The trolls must’ve smelled the change in her blood, because sparks flew from their nails as they dropped on all fours and tried to skid to a halt.

  But it was too late to run.

  Yellow flame burst from Kyleigh’s throat, reducing the first several rows of trolls to neat piles of smoldering ash. She turned her head from side to side, holding her exhale as she chased the trolls back with a steady, sweeping line of flame. The lucky few at the back of the charge managed to dash into the tunnels with little more than charred patches on their rumps. She could hear their screams of panic echoing off the walls — warning the others to stay away.

  Kyleigh decided to let out a roar, just to see if she could get them to soil themselves. But no sooner had she inhaled than the world began to go black. The bits of rabbit she’d had for dinner were not nearly enough to ease a dragon’s hunger, and her body finally gave out.

  Her legs crumpled, her chin struck the ground. She used the last ounce of her remaining strength to slid
e back into her human form. She felt the cool stone press against her cheek … and then the darkness rushed in.

  *******

  When she woke, Kyleigh’s first thought was that she must be dreaming. She blinked against the bright sunlight and turned her head towards a welcome sound.

  No, she hadn’t dreamt it. A stream of water trickled in front of her, a stone’s throw from where she lay. It sparkled as it slid across the rocks and wove itself through a thick rug of grass. She reached out to run her fingers across the nearest patch of green, and discovered that her wrists were clamped together.

  A shackle made of silver held them tight. There was no chain between the shackles, which meant she had very little room to squirm. When she rolled over, she found an identical shackle around her ankles.

  What in blazes —?

  “Hello, fellow a’calla.”

  She looked in the direction of the familiar voice and her heart leapt at the sight of Silas. He held his shackled hands up in greeting. A number of thick, purple bruises covered his face.

  Kyleigh had never imagined that she’d be happy to see a cat. “Still alive, are you?”

  He grinned. “You won’t be rid of me that easily.”

  Kyleigh groaned as she forced her tired body upwards. Fortunately, there was something directly behind her that she could lean up against. Unfortunately, it was the bars of a rather large cage. They were seated on top of a small, grassy plateau, and seemed to be in the bottom of some kind of valley.

  The valley was a little larger than the size of a small village. The ground was made up of different levels of plateaus, sitting like shelves across the earth. Crops sprouted up from most of the shelves — though there were a few that had goats grazing on them. Kyleigh’s stomach rumbled at the sight of their fleshy legs.

  If there hadn’t been a blasted cage in the way, she would’ve snatched the fattest one right out of his pen.