‘Aaugh!’
Annev spun towards the scream and was shocked to see four spindly limbs reaching out of the shadows beneath the smithy awning, their clawed hands wrapping around Lorn’s arms and legs. The baker screamed, thrashing against the shadows that bound him, and stabbed the nearest monster.
The spearhead passed clean through the demon without any effect, and the thin, grey arms slowly sank into the soil, pulling the baker with them.
Alanna screamed, Yohan cursed, and Annev leapt forward, easily crossing the twenty feet between himself and Lorn. He swung his flamberge at the demon’s nearest limb and his flaming sword sliced a shadowy shoulder apart. Grey mist leaked from the wound, and one hand holding the baker dissipated into nothingness. The flames on Annev’s sword flared black and red, then burned blue-white once again.
A flat-nosed face with fanged teeth and empty eye sockets burst from the ground, shrieking at Annev. He tried to stab the demon’s face, but its head darted back into the shadows. In the same instant, the three hands holding Lorn wrenched down, pulling the baker through the ground and into the space between the shadows.
Annev slashed again but it was too late. Lorn was gone.
Before Annev could process what had happened, more villagers cried out in terror. Annev whirled and saw the limbs of half a dozen shadow demons latching onto avatars and villagers alike. A pair of bony arms grabbed Alisander and yanked him into the dark shadows surrounding Sraon’s cold furnace. Brinden swung his poker ineffectually at the demons, and Alisander disappeared into the ground.
Alanna screamed again as a pair of clawed hands reached up from the floor and hooked around her ankles. A flat pool of darkness spread across the ground beneath the smithy awning. Annev gasped, recognising it as one of the shadepools from the Brake, and then Alanna fell into it, slipping from the blacksmith’s fingers and disappearing into the earth. Sraon stared open-mouthed at the place where Alanna had stood, his halberd clutched impotently in one hand.
‘Get away from the shadows!’ Sodar bellowed, appearing at Annev’s side. ‘The eidolons live in the shadows. Get into the light, you fools!’
The villagers bolted into the streets. One fell and was trampled by Yohan and Brinden, and when Lemwich and Titus stopped to help the young carpenter, a gangly grey demon darted out from behind Sraon’s anvil and tackled them both to the ground. As the demon struggled to subdue the two boys, Annev stabbed with his flamberge and speared the eidolon through the chest. It writhed on the point of his sword and the flame flickered black and red again. Lemwich and Titus scrambled to their feet and helped Nikum to safety, and the eidolon’s wispy, tattered form evaporated into smoke and shadow.
Annev spun, looking for another demon to fight. He glimpsed Chedwik running past the water barrel Sraon used for tempering steel and saw a pair of long grey limbs ambush him from the side. Annev dashed forward, striking through the barrel, splitting it apart. Blue flames hissed through the water, sending up a flash of steam, and water spilled across the ground.
But it was too late for Chedwik. The avatar and the demon had both disappeared.
‘Sodar!’ Annev shouted. ‘There’s too many of them!’
‘Everyone into the village square!’ Sodar shouted. ‘Keep away from the walls or anything else that casts a shadow. I’ll set up a ward.’
Annev dashed into the street where the surviving villagers and avatars had gathered. ‘Head to the village square!’ he shouted. ‘Follow me and stay away from the walls!’
‘Damned if I will!’ Yohan shouted back. ‘The Son of Keos is trying to pen us in for the monsters. He’s one of them! Run for the woods instead.’ Suiting words to actions, he ran down the street, heading in the opposite direction towards the Brake.
Annev cursed as the butcher and his family followed, and then the barber and weaver. The wagoneer, Duane, barely hesitated before going too. The remaining students – Fyn, Brinden, Titus, Lemwich and Therin – stayed with Annev, as did Sraon. The smith lifted his halberd and shouted at the departing villagers.
‘You bunch of fools! The boy’s tryin’ to help you.’
Nikum, the carpenter, hesitated and looked back at Annev, Sraon and the rest.
‘The blacksmith is in league with the devils!’ Yohan shouted back. ‘He lured us to his smithy so they could slaughter us. Keos has marked him, too!’ Yohan tapped a finger next to his eye then kept running.
Nikum looked between Sraon and Yohan, hesitating, then hurried after the chandler and the other villagers.
‘Bloody fools!’ Sraon cursed. He shook his head and spat. ‘Lead the way, Master Annev. We can’t save ’em if they won’t let us.’
Chapter Seventy
When the group reached the village square, they found Sodar already there. The priest held Edrea’s discarded cornette knife in one hand and was scrabbling about on his hands and knees carving a large symbol into the earth beside the well. He looked up as Sraon, Annev and the rest arrived.
‘So few?’
‘Yohan turned them against us,’ Sraon said.
‘Even Alanna?’
‘We lost her at the forge.’
Sodar sighed, rising to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, Sraon. If we’d got there sooner …’
The smith frowned. ‘She’s truly gone then? There’s nothing you can do?’
‘No. The shadow realm is well beyond my power. Even if it were not, I doubt you would like what you found there.’
Sraon nodded. He took a deep breath, turning the halberd over in his hands. ‘She slipped right through my fingers. She said—’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind.’
Sodar patted his bloodied robes and withdrew his pale green magic sack. He reached inside, plucked out a bulging waterskin, and held it out to Annev. ‘Pour this into the symbol.’
Annev sheathed his sword, took the waterskin and balanced it on his forearm. As he shook its contents into the grooves Sodar had carved, he was surprised to see the bag contained salt instead of water. He traced the fifteen-foot glyph – a large V within a wide O – while Sraon, Sodar and the other five boys gathered at its centre.
A chorus of bloodcurdling shrieks shattered the air as Annev finished. He spun towards the noise and looked down the long road leading to the eastern edge of the village.
At the end of Farm Street, next to the shadows of a collapsed dwelling, Yohan and the butcher’s youngest son Jori battled three eidolons – the other villagers were all gone. The demons wrestled with the boy, pulling him kicking and screaming into the darkness. Yohan made a run for it, but before he could escape the shade of the ruined building, he was seized by the ankles and forcibly dragged into the earth.
Annev shuddered and stepped back into the protection of Sodar’s ward. Brinden licked his lips, his eyes glued to the spot where the chandler had disappeared.
‘So … are we safe here?’
All eyes turned to Annev, who in turn looked to Sodar. The priest bowed his head and closed his eyes.