As the sun's bloody orb dipped below the treetops, Gentleham's gates swung closed. They met with a loud thump of wood on wood, the recently reinforced frame having become a bit too heavy for the hinges.
Torches flared on the wall. The previous shift of watchmen climbed off, replaced by a new set. By all appearances, the town was on high alert.
Not on alert for Annel and his mother. Those were two dangers the townspeople knew nothing about. But orc raids across the border had the entire countryside in fear. As the only fully walled town within a fifty mile radius, with a population of well over ten thousand, Gentleham was both a refuge and a target.
Annel had no interest in the town's rich stores of grain or trade goods, though. Seated in a copse of trees, he'd been watching and waiting for the past two hours. Once the long shadows from the trees reached across the fields, he looked down at the pool of deeper shadow by his side.
"Be careful, mom."
"I will," the wind sighed. The shadow began to move, mixing with the deepening twilight until it was invisible.
To Devra, the darkness was no hindrance. It was true that she had normal eyesight and hearing, even without proper eyes or ears. That was a boon from whatever dark god had created spectres. But she also had other senses.
Shadow-sight. The eddying darkness held an inversion of the real world's forms, which was now as natural for her to navigate as water was to a fish. Like being underwater, her shadow-sight didn't extend far. With her normal eyes suppressed, she couldn't see the distant hills, much less the moon. But the city walls were evident in front of her, across the long fields and cleared areas surrounding the town.
She slid across the ground, as fast as a galloping horse could move, and didn't pause when she reached the wall. Up its side, across it not twenty feet from the nearest sentinel, and down into the wall road.
Gentleham was a rural town. Most of the people went to bed once it got dark out. Devra had felt a tingle of excitement when crossing the wall; it was the closest she'd come to any human besides her son, since being raised as a spectre. And on seeing the guard, she'd also felt a tingle of... interest.
But in the empty street, she quickly realized there was no chance she'd be found out. Spectres were just a story to terrify naughty children. Any of the few nightgoers who noticed a shadow move would assume that it was just their imagination.
On the other hand, she realized that she didn't know where to go. Annel's vague instructions, on how to reach a place he'd heard of but never been, wouldn't be particularly useful.
She began to aimlessly roam, flitting along in the deepest shadows, working her way into the town and away from the walls. But before long, she came to a halt, hovering above something.
A dog. More specifically, a flea-ridden mutt, likely not owned by anyone, surviving on the fringes. But even if it wasn't healthy, it could still spark her hunger. Anything living could.
Sensing something, the dog got to its feet. It stared up at the wall, not quite looking directly at Devra. After a moment, it made a noise, half growl and half whine.
She wavered. Why not just drain the dog's life away? Even if it barked or howled, nobody would pay attention. And the longer she hovered near the dog, the more intense her hunger became. It threatened to overwhelm her.
But Devra had, until recently, been alive. And as a living woman, she'd always had a soft spot for dogs. Even the scruffy, unloved ones. Especially those, in fact. Her attachment to her old life, her personality, fought with her basic instincts.
Finally, instinct won the struggle. All Devra's personality could do was... find a new target. She slid through a nearby open window.
On a low bed, an aging, pot-bellied man in smallclothes was already slumbering. From beyond the open door to the room came clanking and clattering sounds, likely someone cleaning up after dinner.
Devra didn't hesitate. Driven half-mad by her hunger, she plunged onto the man's chest. Instantly, she began tearing at the structure beneath. The strange tissue that connected the soul to the body.
He awoke, gasping and shuddering, clawing at the bedding. He cried out, once, twice, but weakly. A soft voice called a query from outside the room. But at that point, he couldn't make any more sounds. He was dying.
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The spectre continued consuming, ripping away at the man's essence, at that moment nothing more than a ravening beast. Finally, there was nothing left. The man lay still, staring sightlessly upward, his fingers curled into claws.
Devra came back to herself, floating to the side of the fresh corpse. She felt more sated than she ever had. Not just full, like an overstuffed stomach. She felt expanded. Like she was more than she had been a few minutes before. None of the animals she had killed in the forests had given her a feeling like that.
She realized it was also the first time she'd ever killed a human. That was something that should provoke guilt. But instead she remembered the feeling of feasting on him, filling her hunger in a way that had felt right. She realized that she didn't feel guilty. Perhaps, as a spectre, she couldn't feel guilty about killing a human.
Instead, she felt an intellectual worry. Was she truly still Devra, the woman who had always cared for people and animals? Or was she becoming something else?
Suddenly, she just wanted to get away from the dead body. She floated out of the window, past the dog that was now barking, and into the night.
For a while, she simply moved around, going up and down the streets and thinking. But after a while, she recalled that she had a responsibility to her son. Then she began to search in earnest.
Gentleham wasn't large. Before long, she found the location. Its size made it easy to spot.
It was a tall three-story house, of a size uncommon in the town. It also had a feeling of magic about its front door. Although never much more than a hedge witch in life, Devra had at least known how to spot a mana signature. And, it seemed, she hadn't lost that ability in death. She moved closer, examining the house.
Up close, the enchantments were fairly obvious. The door was warded, and though she wasn't sure exactly what would happen if someone tried to break in, she felt sure the ward would apply as much to her as to a flesh and blood person.
The windows, too, were warded, even on the second floor and third floors. She wasn't sure if she could pass through the walls, but it seemed unlikely; they were built of thick, dense stone.
But there was one entrance left to her. She traveled onto the roof, then up a short column of brick and over its edge.
Inside the house, Devra emerged from a fireplace in the kitchen, flitting to the side. The fire was banked; she hadn't even felt its heat. And the room seemed to be empty.
She moved out of the kitchen. The ground floor was a wide, open space with several display cabinets. She took careful note of everything before moving up the stairs.
On the second floor, she found several rooms, all empty. The area near the stairs held several couches and chairs for entertaining guests. In a hallway behind it, there were two bedrooms, one that had signs of recent occupation and one that was closed and unused, as if for a guest or absent child. After examining them and finding nothing of note, Devra moved up to the third floor.
There, she found Helda, the owner of the house. She was a woman in her forties, wearing a high-necked dress. Worryingly, she was already facing the stairs, her eyes searching the shadows. Devra huddled her form into a particularly dark spot, observing for a moment.
Helda seemed to be aware that something else was in the room with her. Much like the dog, actually. While ordinary people didn't notice her presence, some combination of higher senses -- perhaps just hearing and sound, or perhaps sensitivity to magic -- could hint that the spectre was nearby.
Devra slowly slid herself to the side, following a line of deeper shadows along the wall. After a moment she was able to slip behind the frame of a large painting, which still afforded her the ability to "see" Helda with her shadow-sight.
After a moment, Helda focused on the painting, her eyes narrowing. She stepped forward, leaning to examine it more closely.
Devra chose that moment to act. She flowed out from behind the painting. Helda's eyes flicked to the side, clearly seeing the spectre's form. But Devra gave her no time to act, springing forward across empty space and onto Helda.
This struggle was much more intense than the man in the house. While his soul connections had been like tissue, easily ripped away, Helda's soul was like leather, tough and unwilling to yield. As the woman struggled, groaning and cursing, she also summoned a sparking purple fire to her fingers, tearing at the spectre. Devra felt herself weakening, but tenaciously hung on.
In desperation, Helda went into a brief trance, chanting a stanza. A powerful purple light flared around her right hand. She immediately slammed her palm into her own chest.
But Devra had seen it coming, and simply flowed around Helda's figure, dodging the attack. There was a flare of power as the energy was absorbed back into Helda's body. The woman let out a choked scream and collapsed.
After that, Devra was able to finish consuming Helda's soul energies. Although initially weakened by Helda's attacks, Devra once again felt herself stronger than before, once she was finished feeding.
Once she was done, she receded away, her shadowy form trembling in place for a while. The fight had been another first: her first time being injured as a spectre. Having been detected was worrying, as well.
But those were problems to analyze later. Devra floated off, leaving Helda's corpse where it lay. The night was still young, but there was much to do -- she needed to help her son sneak over the walls and reach the house, in order to loot its treasures.
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Sometime during the night, the tall house caught fire. Luckily, its stone walls insulated the buildings on either side from the heat, giving the alarmed neighbors enough time to douse their thatch roofs with water. The blaze itself was too intense to calm and burned until morning, leaving nothing but an empty shell, which a few guards and volunteers cautiously examined with wetted scarfs tied around their mouths.
But elsewhere in the town, the dead man's body had been transported to a chapel. A priest of Corum was examining the cadaver's chest, mouth and hands, pausing now and then to mutter to himself. And finally, he called for a messenger.