The Shadow Watch

by S. A. Klopfenstein

  “All eyes,” Kale said, gazing up to the low-hanging clouds. The lane was empty, save for their footprints in the soggy spring thaw.

  “Our tracks,” Tori whispered. “Even if we slip past them, they’ll know we went into the forest.”

  Ren nodded. “Morphs don’t venture into the Forest of Ghen. It is full of spirits, the dead whispering on the wind, their fingers choking out the breaths of the guilty.”

  “I thought those were stories,” said Tori.

  Ren smiled. “I’m sure you thought plenty of things were stories. The chancellor’s creatures will look for us on the other side of the forest. But we won’t be venturing where they expect.”

  “We can yack about it when we’re safe in the forest,” said Kale, who had not once taken his eyes off the sky. “There are only the two sentinels now. The rest must be searching the northern Fringes. The sentinels will spot us as soon as we break cover, but we may have enough time to clear the field.”

  There was a mighty whooshing sound overhead, like canvas tents in a terrible storm on the Steppe, as one Morph made its pass. It soared near the cloud line. The other would be on the opposite end of the Fringes now.

  Tori felt queasy, and gripped her dagger tightly. She pictured that wingless beast again, its fangs inches from her face. Those Morphs killed Mum! She wanted to kill them all, but she pushed the thought away. It would do her no good right now.

  Kale counted to himself, then hissed, “Now!”

  The three sprinted from the shanties. The field before them was barren grassland. No trees. Not even a hill. They were utterly exposed, and no sooner had they crossed the South Road than there was another loud whoosh behind them.

  A Morph descended straight from the thick clouds, landing on a shanty roof. The four posts snapped beneath it. The creature arched its back and released an ear-piercing cry. Then, three more Metamorphi descended from the clouds. The creatures were toying with us, Tori realized, waiting for us to come out in the open.

  “Shenzah!” Ren cried. “Run!”

  Tori, Ren, and Kale ran as fast as they could, but the creatures were on them in seconds. One faced them head-on, its jaws wide, its talons flashing as they reached for Tori. Kale leapt forward, swinging his saber with finesse. The blade clanged off the creature’s talons, and the Morph flew past and circled around.

  Another came from the left, its talons tearing at Tori’s cloak, but it could not latch on. Tori swung her dagger, and there was a splatter of blood from the creature’s wing, but then another attacked from behind.

  “We’re surrounded!” Ren shouted as he clipped its wing with his own blade.

  One by one, the Metamorphi descended from all sides. It was some sort of spiraling battle formation, and their blades had little effect on the creatures. They swooped down so quick that none could land a solid blow.

  “Form up!” cried Kale. The three of them moved back-to-back, facing the creatures, exchanging blows deflected by talons. But the Metamorphi could not snatch up Tori from any direction. Talons stretched out, only to be deflected by blades.

  Ren tried a new tactic. From his cloak, he produced a satchel filled with iron balls. With a flare of magic, the balls shot through the air like a flurry of musket-fire. The first Morph to attack was shot in the wing and spun away, blood spraying Tori’s face as she lashed out with her dagger. The Morph veered in the air, missing them, but its wing gave out, and it crashed to the ground nearby. Kale leapt to finish it off, and Ren sent another flurry of shots at the remaining three Morphs as they regrouped out of range.

  The Morph leader let out three sharp cries, and the Metamorphi returned to the sky, flying in a tight circle.

  “Well, if any of the Morphs didn’t know we were here, they’re on their way now.” Kale glared at his brother.

  Ren shrugged. “That’s one down.”

  The Morphs remained high in the sky. Tori, Ren, and Kale crept toward the Forest of Ghen, staying formed up back-to-back so they could see the Morphs from all directions. Sharp cries echoed across the plains, and two more Morphs joined the others in the sky.

  “And now, they have five,” said Kale.

  The leader let out a sharp series of cries, and the Morphs descended one after the other, in swift succession, straight down upon them.

  Tori’s grip went tight on her blade. Was this how it ended for Mum too? Did she fight bravely, only to be overpowered in the end?

  The Morphs reached her, and Tori swung hard with her dagger, shrieking with rage, remembering her mum’s face. It was deflected, but Kale swung his saber in the same moment and clipped the first creature’s wing. Ren fired off another round of shots with a flare of his magic. The Morph came down hard, and Kale rolled away, entangled. Ren met the second in the air, leaping into flight with his dagger outstretched, a war cry on his lips. The blade met flesh, but the creature latched onto him and plummeted to the ground.

  Tori was left alone to face the last three creatures. This is it, but maybe I can take one down with me. She swung her blade, but the three reached her together. She warded off her first attacker, but the leader of the Morphs came down from behind and latched onto her with bony arms.

  Talons seared the flesh of Tori’s shoulders, and she shrieked with pain as the creature lurched her heavenward.

  Tori’s dagger proved useless. Her arms were clamped to her sides. The fields blurred beneath her as the beast bore her higher and higher. Far below, Kale and Ren battled the other Morphs. One more creature lay dead, but the sentinels were circling back to join the fray. On the ground, a pair of wingless beasts bounded through the Fringes toward the clearing. Tori resisted with all her strength, but the Morph was too strong.

  The creature spoke. Its voice was soft and sweet and familiar. “You are weak, little Gallows Girl. You have lost much blood this past year.”

  It’s the chancellor! Tori’s body gave up under his fierce hold. She knew, now, her escape was over. Even if she could manage to squirm out of his reach, she would only plummet to her death.

  “You’re a survivor, Astoria,” he said. “And you’re gifted. Why waste it? Why resist me?”

  Tori did not answer. It infuriated her to have made it so far for nothing.

  From this great height, the field seemed to roll past as though it were set on a giant wheel. Tori found the sensation exhilarating, as though she’d waited all her life to fly. The wind swept through her hair in currents and waves like the sea. Her senses came to life. The air, too, was composed of things unseen, coursing energy. And this realization gave Tori a trace of hope.

  “You’re right… I don’t want to waste away,” Tori admitted, a last desperate idea teasing at her mind. “I’m tired of resisting… I’m tired of hurting.”

  Even in his Morph form, Tori could tell the chancellor was smiling his alluring grin. “Of course you are, Astoria. You’re weak. But I can make you great.”

  “I’ll go,” said Tori. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

  The chancellor was soaring north across the fields. He loosened his grip on Tori. He was confident. He thought he had won. But the chancellor was wrong, Tori was not weak. Her awareness of the world was stronger than ever. The chancellor underestimated her strength, and she would make him pay for it.

  Tori flexed her mind, reaching out with her sense. The wind died down for a moment.

  But then, a gust struck them, as though they had flown into an invisible wall. It was so forceful and unexpected that the chancellor spun on his wings, and Tori seized her opportunity. She thrust out her arms, and the chancellor lost hold of her. She plunged Ren’s blade into his side.

  The spinning stopped. The wind died down again.

  And then, they were plummeting—

  Tori wrestled free of the chancellor, and she plunged, her cloak flapping, her eyes watering. The ground raced toward her, and she knew she was going to die. She was a falling star about to collide with the world in an explosion of light. An explosion that would bear h
er on to see her mum again. That was what her mum had always taught her. This world is but the first of many, and we are destined to explore them all, my little love.

  Celene Burodai’s soft voice filled Tori’s memory and gave her strength. Tori had been wrong about her mum, and she was grateful she had found out before the end. As she fell, her mum’s face sprang from memory, so bright, so full of love, and Tori forgot all the bitter hatred she’d stored up over the years. In the end, Tori and her mum would have the same fate, and there was beauty in that.

  The earth’s jaws rose up to swallow her. But at the last moment, Tori felt a surge of energy spring forth from within her. Tiny particles of air—the energy that coursed through it, through all things—caught her up like so many tiny webs of rope, slowing her fall. Not much, but it was enough. Tori landed in a clumsy crouch. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed with a bray of sharp pain.

  My legs! She thought she must have shattered them. But it didn’t matter. She was alive.

  The chancellor fell a hundred yards off. He stirred on the ground, to Tori’s dismay, but as he tried to raise himself, he collapsed. The sentinels landed beside him, and wingless Metamorphi bounded across the field in their warg-like forms.

  Ren and Kale flew to her; Ren helped Tori to her feet, and she realized, strangely, that the pain had dissipated, and she could stand. The three of them raced across the remaining distance of the field. The Morphs did not pursue, but instead tended to their fallen chancellor, who was screaming with pain.

  The outstretched limbs of massive socha trees welcomed Tori, Ren, and Kale to the Forest of Ghen, and they disappeared under a thick shroud of foliage into the safety of the Haunted Forest.

  They sprinted deep into the woods. Tori thought her lungs would explode by the time Kale finally paused for a rest. Tori felt like she might retch, but Kale seemed to barely be breathing heavily at all. He stooped to his knees and held his ear to the ground.

  “I don’t think we’ve been followed.”

  “I told you as much,” said Ren.

  “We should keep moving, though.”

  “Please,” said Tori, panting. Her entire body was pulsing from the throes of the attack, from surviving a fall from only the gods knew what height, and from running for her life for what felt like hours. Her energy was gone, and her body was spent. “Just… a moment’s rest.”

  “Of course,” said Ren, glaring at his brother. He handed her a canteen of water, and she lapped it up eagerly. “I feared you were dead.” Ren touched her shoulder gently, but she still cringed at the unexpected touch.

  “So did I,” she said, taking another swig. “I would be if it weren’t for both of you. Thank you.”

  Ren smiled, and Kale nodded, and for the first time in a year, Tori felt momentarily safe. But she knew it could not last long. “Th-the chancellor…”

  “I don’t know how he managed to survive that fall,” said Ren. “But I think it’s safe to say he won’t be on our heels immediately.”

  “He’ll send scouts soon,” said Kale. “We should press on. Our shelter is still a good distance away.”

  “Your shelter?”

  Ren smiled. “As I said before, we’ve been waiting for you.”

  “We can talk about it when we’re safe,” said Kale. “Until then, we should move quick and keep silent.”

  Ren shrugged. “Afraid he’s right.” He touched her shoulder again. His hand was warm, but still it unnerved her. Tori became suddenly aware that she knew nothing about the men who had helped her. Ren seemed to sense her unease. “Breathe easy for a little while, Astoria. You’re safe with us.”

  After several hours of trekking through thick undergrowth, Ren paused near an outcropping of boulders. He circled a mound of rock and, on the far side, found a thin crack just large enough to slip through. Tori followed and entered a small space about ten feet across, a cave formed by the leaning boulders, accessible only by the crack. Inside lay three rucksacks.

  “Provisions, a change of clothes, and a bedroll,” Ren said, handing her a pack. He opened his own and retrieved some strips of salted pork. “Eat. You look a bit haggard.”

  “Thanks for noticing.”

  “I’m not saying you’re not lovely for someone who just spent the last year starving in the citadel. Because you are.”

  Tori regarded him querulously. Ren had saved her life, but she didn’t even know why. But he did risk his life to help me.

  For now, she was famished, and she dug greedily into the pack. Soft bread, nuts, salted pork. She slumped on the ground, leaned against her pack, and ate voraciously. Nothing had ever tasted so glorious.

  “So, you were the ones who drugged the guards in the citadel?” said Tori.

  “Actually, that was work on the inside,” said Ren. “We would not have dared enter the White Citadel.”

  “The inside?” said Tori. “Who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Tori had wondered it from the moment she’d seen the unconscious guards outside her cell. She thought back to the last encounter she’d had with him, when her master had embraced his rebellious slave. It had made no sense. “Commander Scelero?”

  Ren nodded, though his smile waned. “Your former master has a… vested interest in your survival.”

  “I was only a servant.”

  Kale slipped through the crack in the rocks and huffed. “And I’m a horse’s ass!”

  Ren shook his head. “What my brother means is your master knew you were a Watcher. How do you think you ended up in his household? Blind chance?”

  Tori pondered this, chewing on a large clump of bread. She had always thought it a strike of fortune, maybe even kindness from the gods.

  “Don’t eat it all now,” said Ren, gesturing to her already half-devoured loaf. “Scelero chose you to be his servant because he knew what you were.”

  “But I didn’t even know,” said Tori.

  Kale crossed his arms over his chest.

  “The commander was trained to detect magic,” said Ren. “Like all the other Morphs.”

  “Like all the…”

  “Scelero is the commander of the Metamorphi,” Ren said. “And without his help, we would have had far more Morphs on us in the Fringes.”

  Tori ate silently for a moment. She couldn’t believe it. Her old master was a magic hunter?

  “Don’t be too surprised. The Morphs are a secretive army. I doubt even his close friends know.”

  “Then why would he help me? He should have had me executed years ago.”

  “Shapeshifting is a magic gift the chancellors of old fancied,” said Ren. “They distorted it to make their very own breed of hunters to track down the surviving remnants of the Watchers. But the commander is not as loyal as our chancellor thinks. Just as I was not, many years ago. Just as many others in Osha are not. In secret, of course.”

  Tori gnawed on a strip of salted pork. “So, you work with Scelero?” Ren nodded. “And you’re an Oshan noble not loyal to the chancellor. So, who are you exactly?”

  “Ren Andovier.”

  “Of…” Tori coughed, nearly choking on the pork. “Of House Andovier?” House Andovier was a fallen Lord House of Osha, often spoken of in hushed tones in Maro’El. “The Cursed House. I thought you died of a… plague, or something. The last of your line.”

  “And they hung your corpse from the White Citadel,” said Kale. “Yet here we all are.”

  “For the past three hundred years, our family secretly preserved knowledge from the Old World,” Ren went on. “Which is why they say we died. When the chancellor found out, he had to be rid of us. So now, I hunt down Watchers, but for different reasons than the Metamorphi.”

  “To recruit them,” said Kale, but Tori sensed that he did not quite share the same fervor his brother displayed. “To join his army of Watchers.”

  “An army?”

  “A resistance,” said Ren with a smile. “We call ourselves the Shadow Watch.”

  “Shado
w…” said Tori. “Like the soldiers in the Night Legions?”

  “A play with words, of sorts. The chancellor has his Shadows, and he has forced the Watchers to live in shadows for centuries. Soon, shadows will be his undoing.” Ren beamed as he spoke of this hoped future. “We have a fortress, deep in the mouth of the Crooked Teeth, where many more Watchers are hiding. That is where we’re headed. We’ll start north tomorrow.”

  More? How is that possible? Though, Tori supposed if she and her mum had remained hidden from the Morphs for so long, perhaps others could as well.

  “There’s no sign the beasts pursued us into the forest,” said Kale, glancing back out the opening to the cave.

  “Why don’t they come?” Tori asked.

  Ren spread out his bedroll. “Morphs are responsible for so much horror, the ghosts would torment them into insanity. But they will be watching from above, and waiting on the other side. We must go unseen, travel in darkness. We’ll rest till nightfall. Sleep, Astoria. You deserve it. You’ve had one damned day for the ages.”

  Tori spread out her bedroll beside Ren’s, and Kale stalked away to take the first watch. Tori did not sleep immediately. She could not calm her mind.

  It was overwhelming to take in. Her master had been a Morph. He had known what she was. And now, he had betrayed his master and assisted in her escape.

  Tori could not let herself dwell on what that might mean for him if he was caught. He had likely risked his life to free her.

  Tori thought of her mum. It was strange to think of her. Since the day of the Gallows, she had suspected that the events of her mother’s betrayal had not been what they had seemed, but the Morph had confirmed it. Her mother had died at the hands of the Metamorphi. How did it happen? Was it because of me? Was that why we were running through the tent city that night?

  Tori had blocked it all from her memory for so long. She had not wanted to think of it, because it only brought sadness, bitterness, and rage at her mother’s betrayal. But now…

  When Tori finally drifted to sleep, it came in fits. For it was in her sleep that the ghosts of Ghen first appeared to her.