Strong hands wrapped around her shoulders and dragged her along the dirt. Mel wriggled out of them and spun around, pointing the blade of her dagger at a dirty-looking man in torn clothing. He took a step back, watching her small blade. Then his eyes rose to catch hers. He waved his hand toward his chest and scrambled inside a tent close by.
Mel heard wings flapping from the sky and her limbs felt heavy. She got up and ran after the man into the tent and when the flap closed behind her; she saw the man standing in the tent watching her. Behind him to the side, a younger man was seated cross-legged on a blanket, watching her too. He looked to be about Mel’s age, maybe younger, and he watched her with dark gray eyes. They had a black lining to them that made the irises pop.
She still had her dagger drawn and the younger man seemed to watch it with a nervousness to him. Mel sheathed the dagger and took another step inside. She could still hear the flapping of wings outside in the dark night and footsteps in the distance. Something was moving this way, toward her or toward Aldrion.
The older man took a seat next to who Mel assumed was his son and gestured for Mel to sit down opposite to them. She did, keeping her eyes on the two men on the other side of the tent. Her heart kept beating hard inside her chest and she thought the void troops would be here in the village at any moment now.
“Who are you?” Mel asked.
They exchanged a glance, then the old man looked back at Mel. He touched his chest and said, “Luthel”. He pointed to his son. “Hanon.”
“Melissa,” Mel said.
Luthel nodded, and then it was quiet again.
“Are they going to kill us?” Mel asked.
They sat in silence, listening to the footsteps growing closer, and Mel felt her breathing coming in quick bursts. She couldn’t control her fear any longer.
Finally, Hanon shook his head.
“Why?” Mel asked. “Where are they going? Are they going to attack Aldrion again?”
They said nothing.
The footsteps drew closer, and Mel heard snarls coming from outside the flimsy tent flap. She had nothing protecting her from beasts here. No walls or guards. What would she do if they pulled the fabric away and revealed the three people sitting inside?
She could hear her heart beating, then a huge roar sounded through the sky. But this time it came from the west. The dragon was in Aldrion already. Mel swallowed hard, feeling the cold creep in under her cloak.
She licked her lips, willing her mind away from her friends in Aldrion. She couldn’t think about what would happen to them tonight. Mel couldn’t do anything to stop this.
“I need to get to Bahlan,” she said. “Do you know the place?”
Luthel nodded.
“Can you show me the way there?”
He looked down at the floor for a moment, then his hands wrapped together and he placed them in his lap.
“In the morning,” he said, his voice raspy. “I will take you there.”
“Why is the void not attacking us?” Mel asked.
Neither Luthel nor Hanon met her gaze any longer, and they sat still, fiddling with the blanket and acting like she hadn’t spoken. Mel felt a shiver creeping down her spine, and she wondered if these people really were her allies.
“Why will you help me tomorrow?” Mel asked.
She leaned forward across the tent, willing Luthel to look at her.
“You can’t stay here and I don’t care where you go,” he said.
Mel leaned back against a wooden beam inside the tent and let herself relax. It wasn’t an answer that gave her any comfort. He had practically said he didn’t care if she lived or died. But it was honest. Mel could see it in the way his eyes were flat and his face neutral, almost tired. He didn’t seem to have anything to gain from her, dead or alive. He just wanted her out of his village.
The void army seemed to have passed through to Aldrion. Mel could hear the clinking of iron in the distance and the roars of the dragon. She closed her eyes, tuning in to the ringing of her dagger. It was faint in its sheath, but it was the only music she had. She listened to it until she felt herself drift away and she let the exhaustion take her.
#
When Mel awoke, the tent was empty and light spread in through the canvas. The sun was up, but Luthel and Hanon were nowhere to be found. She rubbed her neck, feeling sore from her sleeping posture. She had been leaning against a wooden tent beam all night. She wondered if Luthel and Hanon had slept at all last night or if they had just watched her. It made her uncomfortable to think about.
She stood up in the tent and pulled her backpack up on her shoulders. Mel watched the tent flap for a second, wondering if they would come back soon. Then she decided to have a look around, anyway. She picked through a few piles of what looked like mostly old worn clothing and found some food wrapped in cloth. Mostly berries, some kind of bark, and a few roots.
Mel winced. Was this what passed for food around here, or did they have another tent dedicated to preserving bread and jams?
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She found two pillows to the side of the room and picked one up. Underneath it lay a small metal object. Like an amulet made out of iron. Mel turned it in her hand and tried to listen if it had a note ringing inside. But it didn’t. It wasn’t magical.
She placed it back and put the pillow on top. She searched around some more and found a small pile of bones in another corner. This made her spine rigid, and Mel didn’t want to look around anymore. There were probably animal bones, she told herself.
Mel felt like the tent was suddenly too small for her, too crowded for even one human to stay inside. She pulled the tent flap to the side and walked out into the sunlight streaming in from the east. It was still early and most of the gray clouds were too far above to block out the light.
She searched around the village, looking for Hanon and Luthel, but didn’t see them anywhere. She looked for any signs of life around, but no one was here. It seemed to Mel like the village had been deserted.
Mel walked up to the campfire that was propped up from the wet ground like everything out here seemed to be. It was cold and had no embers burning in the bottom. No one had lit it since last night, and Mel wondered why. The air felt chilly and cold constantly crept up from the ground. A fire would have been nice about now.
A snarl sounded from behind her, and Mel spun around. There, only a few feet away, in the middle of all the tents, stood a beast. Mel’s heart pounded as she saw the thing up close in the sunlight.
It was a thing on four legs, almost like an animal, but there was something distinctly disturbing about it. Its back legs were muscular and its body taught. It reminded Mel of a boar, except it had no fur and there were brown veins forming a strange pattern on its back.
Mel took a step back, and the beast snarled once more. Her breath came in quick bursts and her heart pounded in her chest. Next to the beast, a figure stepped up. It was like smoke had formed together to create the silhouette of a human. But those white, glowing eyes betrayed it as a shadow.
Mel could only think that she was going to die now and, in the moment, it gave her strength. Energy surged out to her limbs, and she felt like trying something risky. Since the end was here, anyway. She dashed to the side, hearing the beast snarl at her once more. She ran toward Aldrion, her steps quick and her red cloak fluttering in the wind.
She put all her effort into the sprint and she heard the beast's paws slamming against the wet ground as she ran. The terrain was hard to run in, but Mel pushed herself to keep going. She heard it drawing closer and Mel could feel its presence now.
She swallowed hard, steeling herself for the impact of the huge creature jumping against her back and pushing her against the ground. But instead, it jumped out in front of her, cutting Mel off.
It happened fast and Mel stumbled over her own leg when she skidded to a stop in front of the beast. It bared its teeth at her and Mel’s hand touched the cold, wet ground before she staggered back.
She heard footsteps sloshing against the ground behind her, and Mel knew the shadow was walking toward them. She took in a deep breath, feeling her lungs burning from the effort of running. Mel reached for her dagger and unsheathed it.
The beast’s brown eyes trailed down to her weapon, and Mel felt her blood rushing through her veins. Was she stupid enough to fight this thing with a small knife?
Yes, probably.
The beast growled and jumped at her. Mel felt her body moving without her being entirely conscious about her effort. She moved to the side, throwing herself to the ground and rolling away. It wasn’t graceful. Her backpack was in the way and she felt herself smashing everything inside it with the weight of her body, but she had evaded the beast’s attack.
She pulled off her backpack and threw it on the ground beside her. The beast circled around in a wide arc, seeming to take in momentum and build up speed. Mel bent her legs, coming into a crouch, and she saw the beast hurling toward her, mouth open and teeth ready for her.
Mel threw herself to the side, but this time she stopped in her momentum and spun around in a circle instead, fainting her evasion. The beast took her bait and snapped to the side of her. Mel continued her spin, moving her dagger with her body and using her legs to push that extra distance to reach the beast. Her dagger sank into its neck, right above the shoulder, and a flicker of orange graced the metal.
Nothing really happened. It didn’t catch fire, and the earth didn’t move. The beast just bled something black and sticky from its neck and collapsed to the ground. Mel put her hand on the earth to steady herself. Her body ached and her legs felt zapped of energy. Her gaze moved toward the east and the smokey shadow was still walking toward her.
Its eyes were almost translucent with the sunrays coming in from behind it, but the darkness of its shape was even more black than before. Mel stood on heavy legs, walking away from the beast’s body. It wasn’t dead, but it didn’t get up either. She glanced back toward Aldrion, wishing she could be there instead of dying out here in the cold wasteland.
Her mind seemed to conjure the most horrifying images from the days before, when she had seen strong men being killed one after another by a shadow. It could transform and move inside you, and Mel didn’t want to know what that was like. She had been lucky with the beast that lay by her feet. Lucky and maybe a little smart in her use of evasion, but it wouldn’t save her now. Not from a shadow. She knew that.
The shadow stopped a few steps away from her, watching as Mel brought up the dagger in front of her eyes. She focused on the metal item in her hands, partially covered by dark goo, and listened to the ringing inside. She vibrated with it. She rang the tone in her mind and the shadow seemed to look beyond her at something in the distance.
It brought up a sword from what looked like a smokey sheath, even though Mel was sure it didn’t need one. The blade was wispy and dark, with white lines glowing inside. Mel took in a deep breath, willing her eyes away from the emerging shadow and back to her own dagger. The note rang in her mind and the dagger glowed orange.
Mel’s heart leaped inside. She had made it glow.
The shadow took a few steps forward and swung the sword back. Mel stood with both her feet planted in the ground and an orange-glowing dagger in her hands. She wondered what to do now, how to make the magic come out of the dagger. She remembered Elennian Mali, the fire summoner of Auburn Hills, who had used his hammer to light candles in the chapel. He had swung it around and then magic had emerged.
Mel brought her dagger back in a swing and mentally conjured an image of the glowing orange dragon fire leaping out from the dagger and hitting the shadow. Her hand thrust toward the shadow. But then she felt the shadow’s blade against her arm. It dragged a deep gash into her forearm and the dagger slipped from Mel’s hand.
She fell to the side, hitting the ground with her shoulder. She sank into the wet earth, holding her forearm. The shadow loomed above her and Mel watched as blood seeped from her wound.
It pooled on the ground next to her, and strange wisps of light emerged from the crimson liquid. Mel looked at her arm, seeing the wound glow like rays of sunlight. A frown covered her forehead as she felt the shadow grab her leg and pull.
Mel kicked the shadow with her other leg, twisting her body to lie on her back. She groaned, still holding her arm, and searched with her eyes after the dagger. She saw it lying a small distance away and she connected to the pure note once more, making the dagger glow. This time she just stretched out her arm toward it and a ripple seemed to grow from the center of the metal.
Pushing out the air around it and shaking the earth. The shadow wobbled on unsteady legs and changed shape into dark smoke rippling in the air above. Mel saw fire spreading on the ground, despite the dampness of the waste. Her head fell back, and the earth kept shaking.
Her eyes saw gray mist above her and a dampened sky, then a navy blue cloak fluttered past her vision and water seemed to rain down from the heavens.