The Light of Burning Shadows

FOUR

He’s done it again!” Visyna shouted as the boat she was in ground to a halt on the beach. She stood near the bow weaving a pattern from the natural energy around her, creating the artificial dawn that now hung above them. Arrows zipped past her head, but a power curved their path around her. “He promised he wouldn’t go charging ahead like that.”

“You mean Private Renwar?” Rallie said, looking up from the sheaf of papers she was sketching on with a feather quill. The drawing of Visyna standing in the bow pulsated on the paper. Dark and light ebbed and flowed across the page as energy coursed around them.

Visyna waited for all the soldiers to jump out of the boat before she answered. “You know who I mean, Rallie.”

“He’s fighting demons we can’t see,” Rallie said, flourishing her quill as a rakke burst through the line of Iron Elves and charged the boat. The beast saw the two women alone and howled, its maw opening wider in anticipation.

“Rallie, hurry,” Visyna said.

“I see it,” Rallie said, her quill flying across the page. The rakke leaned forward and began loping toward the boat on all fours. Sand sprayed high into the air as its claws dug into the beach. Muskets fired, but the beast continued to close.

A wave sloshed around the boat, sending spray over its sides. Water splashed onto Rallie’s page, which sent sparks of energy shooting into the sky. The air around them sizzled and crackled. Visyna continued to weave the light that gave the Iron Elves their advantage, while looking down at Rallie. The page was a mess. Rallie looked over the edge of the boat with obvious annoyance.

The rakke was almost to the bow.

“Rallie!”

Rallie set the sheaf of papers down and picked up an oar. As soon as she touched it, the wood hummed with energy. The rakke leaped, its claws fully extended as it flew toward Visyna. She closed her eyes and kept weaving.

There was a loud crack of wood splintering. The boat shook and the air smelled of burnt flesh. The howling of the rakke ended abruptly, followed by a splash. Visyna opened her eyes. Rallie stood beside her, a broken oar in her hands. Smoke wafted lazily from the wood and sparks still crackled along its length. The body of the rakke floated facedown in the water beside them, its chest impaled by the other half of the oar.

“Keep weaving, my dear-the sun isn’t up just yet,” Rallie said, casually putting the oar down and going back to her seat. She picked up her sheaf of papers and, wiping off the top page with the sleeve of her cloak, began to sketch again.

Visyna refocused her efforts on her weaving, pulling together more skeins of energy and infusing the light above the island with more power. Silver filigrees danced between her fingertips. She took another quick glance down at Rallie’s sketching and saw that once again the boat and herself were there, the lines flowing and strong. Rallie, however, had chosen not to put herself in the drawing. Where she sat, the lines of energy curved around that space as if unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge what was there.

The sky grew lighter and fire, real fire, blazed in several locations from the sparks of musket and cannon shot. Konowa walked a short distance to stand on a jumble of rocks and look back down at the beach. Several soldiers milled about as more appeared, carrying the wounded. A makeshift first-aid station had been set up right on the beach and Konowa knew Visyna, Rallie, and his mother would be there now tending to the wounded. Farther up the beach were the still figures of several soldiers.

Konowa let his gaze drift out to sea where the Black Spike had dropped anchor, another full broadside ready and waiting. There were certain advantages to having the son of the Queen in command of the Iron Elves.

The ship named for his father’s Wolf Oak was a towering three-masted, seventy-two-gun ship-of-the-line, one of Her Majesty’s main means of projecting power around her far-flung empire. Five years ago, just the sight of her dropping anchor in the Bay of Kilok Ree had been enough to quell the rebellion there of some disgruntled natives protesting the exporting of priceless religious and magical artifacts to Celwyn, the Calahrian capital. Konowa could understand their reactions, both the rebellion and the sudden change of mind when the Black Spike appeared. The ship was for all intents and purposes a floating gun platform, carrying twenty of the massive sixty-eight-pounder carronades, another forty thirty-six-pounder long-range cannon, and twelve lesser guns, although six were currently strapped to the bows of her away boats. It was a pity there wasn’t a way to get the Black Spike up the side of the Shadow Monarch’s mountain. Along with the Iron Elves, the Black Spike could end this war, or whatever it was, in about three broadsides.

Konowa flexed his knee and followed after his men. The island was all but theirs. Everywhere he looked, rakkes lay dead on the ground and sarka har burned with frost fire. Now, finally, they could set sail for the Hasshugeb Expanse. Content, Konowa reached up a hand and patted the black acorn underneath his uniform tunic.

A white-hot needle of pain stabbed his heart and seared his hand.

He gasped and stumbled backward, falling to one knee. This was nothing he’d experienced before. He raised his saber in defense against the expected blow, but none fell.

He looked up. There was nothing around him. Sweat was beading on his forehead and his blood felt as if it was boiling inside his skin. The cold that normally infused him when using Her power was now replaced by a heat that took his breath away. Musket fire barked to life up ahead. Men shouted and someone started screaming and didn’t stop.

Konowa forced himself to his feet and started forward. The pain was receding and he broke into a run. When he reached the soldiers on the other side of the island, his mind couldn’t make sense of what he saw. Private Harkon staggered about on the beach surrounded by other soldiers.

His shadow was on fire.

White-hot flames roared wherever his shadow fell on the sand and Harkon screamed as if he himself was the one burning.

“Run into the water! Private, throw yourself in the ocean!” Konowa shouted.

Harkon looked toward Konowa, his eyes shining with madness. Harkon began tearing off his uniform. Konowa realized he would have to take matters into his own hands and charged forward.

Private Vulhber got there a step before him and roughly picked up the stricken soldier and began running for the water. As soon as he did, his own shadow caught fire. He cried out, but held on and kept running, plunging them both into the waves. Steam boiled into the air, but the flames did not go out.

Konowa reached them, but was lost as to what to do now. He spun around looking for Visyna or his mother or even Rallie, but none were in sight.

“We’re still burning,” Vulhber said, his voice trembling with the effort to keep calm. Blood frothed at Harkon’s lips as his screams continued.

“Major, what do we do?” a soldier asked.

Konowa felt as lost and powerless as he had when his regiment had been disbanded. Now that he had command again he wasn’t going to lose his regiment a second time, especially not to something he couldn’t even understand.

“You!” he shouted, pointing to a soldier. “Run to the beach and get the women. Now!” The soldier sprinted off, his shako tumbling in the sand as he ran.

“Major.”

Konowa turned. Sergeant Arkhorn had come up to stand beside him. He had cocked the hammers on his shatterbow. They traded a look and Konowa nodded. Arkhorn raised his weapon and aimed at the two men in the water.

“Wait,” Private Renwar said, limping into the water and blocking the shot. He strode forward until his own shadow merged with theirs. It too ignited and white tongues of fire sizzled along the water’s surface where his shadow lay. Renwar then closed his eyes and plunged his hands into the fire. A jolt of crystal ice from the black acorn against Konowa’s chest knocked him down again. Several soldiers staggered at the same time. The white flame guttered and was overcome by the frost fire, which then hissed out.

“Help them out of there,” Sergeant Arkhorn said, as Konowa climbed back to his feet. Vulhber and Renwar came out more or less on their own, but Harkon wasn’t moving and had to be carried. They laid him out on the sand, then quickly stood up and backed away. It looked for the all the world as if Private Harkon was sleeping.

“He’s dead,” Alwyn said.

Konowa started to look away, then stopped. In the brightening dawn it looked as if the soldier no longer had a shadow at all. He cursed the tricks his eyes played on him and returned his focus to what was real.

“What new abomination is this?” a soldier asked. Konowa turned to see who it was.

“Don’t you dare start up with that Creator-savior rubbish again, Inkermon,” Yimt said, pointing his still-cocked shatterbow in the soldier’s direction. “This isn’t the place.”

Inkermon held his ground. “Don’t you see? It’s a test, a means of measuring the man to determine the righteousness of his soul. The Stars are returning, calling up evil long banished to the depths, and we are ensnared in a dark web, tempted by a seductive power. We have sinned and must repent. Repent now and save yourselves.”

“It went into the water just as we got here,” Renwar said, shaking off helping hands and coming to stand in front of Konowa. Inkermon looked as if he had more to say, but Yimt’s shatterbow was aimed squarely at his midsection. “Harkon was the first one here and that’s when his shadow caught fire.”

“What went into the water?”

Renwar shook his head. “I didn’t get a good look, but it was big. I think it had been burrowed in the sand and was forced to leave when we got here.” He pointed to a spot a few yards away.

Konowa was amazed he’d missed it. A large furrow perhaps six yards long and over a yard wide was indeed dug into the sand. Tracks of some kind appeared to lead away from it to the water, but the sand was so disturbed he couldn’t be sure. Was this what he had sensed earlier? Konowa was about to turn away when he noticed other holes in the ground. These were smaller and ragged around the edges, and piles of ash lay at their bottoms. Sarka har had been burned here, but not by the Iron Elves. These appeared to have been destroyed days ago. He reached out a hand and touched the ash. It was the same temperature as the surrounding sand. A recently burned sarka har would still be ice cold.

“Seeing ghosts again, Renwar?” another soldier asked, drawing Konowa’s attention back. The man had a weasely face and stood a bit apart from the rest of the group.

“Zwitty,” Konowa said, the distaste clear in his voice. Zwitty’s desire for distance now made sense-Konowa still remembered the craven indifference with which Zwitty had killed an Elfkynan warrior at Luuguth Jor.

Zwitty jumped to attention. “Yes, sir. Just commentin’ on the fact that young Renwar there has a habit o’ seeing things the rest of us don’t.”

“That’s a load of shite and you know it,” Arkhorn said. “Ally ain’t seen nothing the rest of us haven’t. He just happens to see ’em a little sooner than the rest of us. Kind of odd when you consider the lad’s got the vision of a gopher, but if he says something crawled into the water, then I for one got no plans for going swimming later.”

To a man, the soldiers shuffled a few more feet away from the water’s edge. Konowa had instituted a tradition of allowing the Iron Elves a brief bit of relaxation after assaulting each island, including a swim and a celebratory cookout on the beach. Tradition was going to be broken tonight.

“I sensed five of Her elves on the island,” Konowa said, pointedly changing the subject.

“And I counted five of them gone right back to Her,” Arkhorn replied. “Those gold pieces of the Prince’s are going to get stale before we ever find one of them buggers to have a talk with.”

A headache named the Prince of Calahr blossomed behind Konowa’s eyes. He would have to explain again, for the umpteenth time, why the Iron Elves had not managed to capture one of Her elves alive. So be it. They’d find enough of them on Her mountain once they got there and the Prince could talk to his heart’s content, or until he was torn limb from limb.

Either would suit Konowa just fine.

“Clear the area and head back to the boats. We’re leaving now. Bring the private’s body,” Konowa said, though he knew the soldiers knew the drill. His men just stood there, the shock of what they had just seen overriding everything else.

“Kester, Major,” Private Renwar said. “His name was Kester Harkon.”

Konowa held his tongue. What, did they think he didn’t care?

A voice pitched so that it felt like needles in Konowa’s ears cut through the silence.

“But begging the major’s pardon, what was that? What burned them like that?” Zwitty asked.

Konowa looked around at the faces of his men. How could they despise him more? “I don’t know. Whatever it was is gone, and so are we. Sergeant, get the men moving. Now.”

As Arkhorn barked orders, Konowa walked closer to the place that Renwar had seen…something. Questions piled on top of questions.

Konowa stared a moment longer at the sand, but no answers came, only a growing sense of foreboding. He turned and began following the men back to the boats.

Out at sea, a dark shape slid quietly just underneath the surface. Silently, and without a single ripple, it lifted its head just high enough above the water to watch Konowa’s retreating back. The creature never blinked as it slid back beneath the waves and was gone.