Of Song and Shadow

by Phillip Drayer Duncan

  More of the shadow creatures raced in, trying to meld with the dragon to repair its damage. The horde seemed to forget about breaking our defensive line and turned its focus on repairing the big ’un.

  We couldn’t let that happen.

  Risking a glance around, I saw that many of my allies shared the sentiment. Axel was hurling magic at the smaller creatures, knocking them from their feet. Paeter was just to the side, stabbing at the head of a giant turtle who was simultaneously snapping at his spear while hobbling toward the dragon. Mary Beth hurled fire at a pack of tarantulas. Half of them fell to ash, but two others scurried past and were almost to the dragon.

  This was it.

  Now or never.

  We had to kill the shadow dragon while it was injured. That was our only chance.

  But what could we do?

  I glanced back at Eva, who sat against the wall, holding her knees and rocking back and forth. Her eyes were on mine and I could tell she was still crying. There was nothing I could do for her at the moment, though. I turned back to the chaos at hand.

  The dragon finally managed to tear Nicolo off and knocked him to the ground. Using one of its massive feet, it pinned the razorback-wolf to the floor and moved in to to finish him. Nicolo fought back, clawing and trying to force the dragon’s head away, but it was hopeless.

  Then I saw my moment.

  Like a firework going off in my brain, I saw my opportunity and charged. I didn’t know if it was going to work, but I had to try.

  I held Drynwyn out to the side. The blade extended and widened into the giant buster sword once more, until the tip of the blade was dragging on the ground behind me.

  Paeter was just ahead, still trying to stave off the car-sized turtle from melding with the dragon. It was almost there. The tarantulas had already arrived and were crawling up its back, scurrying toward the wounds that needed healing. Giant bat creatures descended toward its damaged neck, melding with the wounds Nicolo had given it. A squirrel-like creature was hanging from its lower lip, trying to meld with the mouth laceration I’d gifted it, even while the dragon tried to eat Nicolo. All around the shadow creatures were piling on.

  As I closed the distance with the turtle, I ran up the back of its shell and launched myself toward the dragon’s head.

  I had two quick thoughts…

  First, the turtle nearly snapped my leg off when it realized what I was doing. If not for being so focused on Paeter, it would have.

  Second, as I sailed toward the dragon, I realized this was exactly how Matthew McConaughey’s character died in Reign of Fire, which, I may add, was the most anti-climatic death in any dragon movie ever. He could’ve at least chipped its tooth. I could only hope I’d suffer a better fate.

  Then, I raised my sword over my head and brought it down in an overhand strike. My blade cut through the dragon’s neck, nearly decapitating it. Normally, my sword cut through the shadow creatures like they were made out of butter, but halfway through the white light of my sword returned to a dull metal and planted itself, as if it knew what I planned to do.

  Hanging on to the hilt of Drynwyn, my feet dangled above the ground while black fluid drained over my head and shoulders. The dragon tried to rise, lifting me higher. The tarantulas and bats raced toward the wound I’d just created.

  They weren’t quick enough.

  Hanging with one hand, I reached into my pocket and produced the coin Paeter had given me. Then with a closed fist I rammed my arm into the dragon’s severed neck, on the side its body was still attached to. Pushing past oily bile, I shoved my arm as far as it would go, tried not to think of inappropriate comments, and released the coin.

  At the same moment, my sword flared back to life and finished severing its way through the dragon’s neck. I dropped to the floor along with the dragon’s decapitated head, just as its chest exploded in a burst of white light.

  Oily fluid and black meat rained down on me, then turned to ash and fell away.

  Above me, the hole in the dragon’s chest was large enough to drive a truck through. It stood like that for just a moment, then its whole body disintegrated into one massive pile of ash.

  Their dragon destroyed, the other shadow creatures moved back toward our defensive line, but for the moment, none of them seemed particularly interested in me. Still, there were too many of them, and at the back of the cavern, I could still see more approaching. Now, though, we had a chance.

  I rose to my feet and brushed the ashes from my chest.

  I glanced back at Eva and saw she was staring at me. She wasn’t crying anymore. For the first time, she had a look on her face that was something like hope. Like maybe we weren’t doomed after all.

  I put on my best reassuring smile and gave her a thumbs up.

  Then something yanked me from my feet.

  Chapter 24

  I hit the ground hard, dropping my sword.

  The wind was knocked from my lungs, but I forced myself to action, reaching for Drynwyn.

  A black tendril shot through the darkness and engulfed my hand. It yanked my arm backward, nearly dislocating my shoulder. Trapped in the black slimy thing, I couldn’t free my hand.

  I tried to reach with my other arm, but the tendril around my foot gave me another yank and dragged me across the floor. The sword was out of my reach then, but I reached for it anyway. Beckoned for it. For only a moment, I thought I felt it calling back to me, but then another black tendril wrapped around my other arm. Another hit me around the waist.

  It was pulling me into the horde. I saw the other shadow creatures running past me at the remaining defenders, but I was helpless to do anything.

  More of the tendrils crawled across my flesh, wrapping me up and securing me as though I were a bug caught in a spider web.

  I looked around for help and spotted Paeter hauling Byron back toward the injured, though I couldn’t tell what had happened to him. Mary Beth had apparently run out of magical energy, and was using Paeter’s spear to stave off a shadow panther while her husband tried to get the other Blade Mage to safety. I couldn’t see Axel. And it didn’t appear any of the others noticed my disappearance. No one except Eva.

  She was on her feet now, hands clamped over her mouth.

  I tried to yell to her. I tried to tell her it was okay, but another tendril wrapped itself around my mouth, cutting me off from speaking. I couldn’t cry for help and I couldn’t reassure her that everything would be all right.

  It would’ve been a lie anyway.

  Clearly I was about to die, and without Byron, the others wouldn’t last long, either. The dragon had been the center of our attention, but the Valravn was a devious opponent indeed. He’d set me up for a fall and there was nothing I could do.

  I caught one last glimpse of Eva. She was looking down at the coin.

  Though I couldn’t speak, I could still move my head to some degree. I shook it from side to side, meeting her gaze that one final time, and telling her that whatever it was the Revenant wanted, it wasn’t worth it. Her eyes were locked on mine and I knew she understood the message.

  Let me die.

  Then the blackness wiggled over my eyes and I saw no more. I could feel it, though. Crawling all over my body and dragging me in deeper, as though it were pulling me from every direction. I thought it would just rip me apart. I imagined my body tearing like a piece of duct tape. I tried to scream, but no sound came.

  Yet I could hear the screams of my dying allies as the shadows attacked them, but after a few moments even those sounds began to fade.

  Next, I lost my sense of feeling and all I knew was darkness.

  You might think it was a relief after the pulling sensation, but it turns out that the lack of feeling is in fact much worse than pain. At least pain lets you know you’re still alive.

  So, was this it? Was this what the Valravn did to its victims? Just trapped them in utter darkness without any of their senses? Was I even still alive? Was my body trapped in the black mass a
nd that’s why I couldn’t sense anything? Or had it already killed me and this was my fate? Nothingness?

  Even my sense of time became foggy. Had I been there minutes? Hours? I really wasn’t sure, and it was becoming more difficult to think.

  Then, when I thought for sure I was dead, I heard the faintest hint of a sound. At first, I wasn’t even sure it was real. Perhaps it was just my mind losing all faculties in the darkness.

  Then it was clearer.

  A woman’s voice.

  She was singing.

  I didn’t know the words. They were in a language I didn’t speak. Yet, I knew the voice. I’d heard it in my kitchen. It was different now, somehow. I knew Eva by her tone and pitch, yet now her voice was perfection. The type of voice that can quiet a crying baby and bring the hardest of hearts to tears. The voice of an angel. Better even. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

  And then I felt something. A stirring in my chest. What was that?

  It was a great sadness, though I wasn’t sure why. I felt the need to cry, but without eyes, there was to be no release.

  I screamed in my own head, the one thing the darkness couldn’t take from me. I cried out within my own mind.

  And still the song went on.

  I felt a tremble and I heard, once again, the shrieking miserable sound of the shadow creature. The song was hurting it. No, killing it.

  Feeling returned to my limbs and light filled my eyes as it began to release me.

  Shrieking still, it tried to pull away, but there was no escape.

  Eva’s song grew louder.

  With one final defiant shriek, the shadow monster died.

  Ash fell all around me and I was free of it.

  I rolled to my side, gasping for air and trying to adjust to the sensory overload. I was lying in a pile of ash and more was snowing down on me.

  And there was Eva.

  No longer the scared woman on the run, she stood tall and proud, her chin raised into the air as she sang. She walked slowly across the battlefield, her eyes blazing with white light, her dark hair whipping around as though she were standing in a breeze.

  Every ounce of her screamed power, and the shadow creatures knew it.

  All of us knew it.

  Glancing around, I realized that she hadn’t just killed the monster who’d claimed me, but she was killing all of them. A few toward the back of the cavern were still shrieking and trying to escape, but one by one, they all exploded into piles of ash.

  As the last of them died I slumped down to the ground, watching the ash snow down toward my face.

  It was over. We’d lived.

  Then Nicolo’s face appeared above me.

  He stared at me for a few seconds then said, “You lose, Blade Mage.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “My arm will grow back,” he said, motioning toward the stub where his missing appendage should’ve been. With his remaining arm, he raised his sword. “I doubt your head will do the same.”

  After all of this, I was going to be murdered by a wanker in tight leather pants. Go figure.

  Chapter 25

  Time sort of froze as I looked up at my impending doom. After everything I’d been through thus far, to die by the sword.

  At least it would be a quick death, but I still didn’t want to die at the hand of Nicolo.

  I just didn’t like him. I’d have much rather been consumed by the Valravn’s shadows. Don’t get me wrong, the Valravn was still an evil dick, but at least he’d been polite about it. He’d even complimented me. Nicolo, on the other hand, wasn’t just an evil dick, but also a douche.

  There was no way any of my friends could get to me in time to help. Through the thick falling ash snowstorm, I doubted any of them could see what was happening anyway.

  I needed my sword, but it was still about fifteen feet away.

  Wait…

  How did I know that?

  With some certainty, I knew exactly where Drynwyn lay, buried under an inch or so of ash, but how did I know? I remembered as the shadows were hauling me away that I felt as though my sword was calling out to me.

  And that had happened before, hadn’t in? Back when I’d fought the Abasy in the Patterson’s bunker. It had kicked my sword away, yet somehow in the smoke, I’d known exactly where to find it. It hadn’t seemed strange at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I always knew where it was.

  What had Byron said about my relationship with the sword? That it was bound to me. Inescapable.

  Nicolo’s blade started downward.

  I focused on my sword. I beckoned it to me. With my minded I pleaded to the blade. Come back to me!

  And it did.

  I felt it moving. The slightest shimmer at first, and then I knew it was flying across the cavern right toward my outstretched arm.

  My hand tightened around the grip as soon as it touched my palm. For a moment, I felt like Luke Skywalker summoning his lightsaber. It was exhilarating.

  I lifted the blade above my face at the last possible second.

  Nicolo’s sword smacked against mine and he staggered backward. Unprepared for my defense, his balance wavered. I surged forward, swinging Drynwyn at his midsection. His backward stagger saved him from being disemboweled, but I still caught him across the hip, my sword biting deep.

  At the same time, I kicked out with my foot. My Converse connected directly with his knee and there was a satisfying crunch.

  Nicolo cried out and fell to the ground.

  I was on him then. I threw my weight over his and pinned his only arm to the ground with my free hand and raised my sword with the other.

  In that moment, all of the arrogance fled from his eyes. Where he’d been so cocksure a moment before, now he was afraid.

  Nicolo knew I had him. Good. Fuck him, I thought. Let his last moments be filled with the same fear he liked to inflict on others.

  Then Eva’s song rose in my head, so loud and powerful I couldn’t think. I dropped my sword and rolled to the side, clutching my ears. It didn’t help. Nothing could block out that sound invading my skull.

  What had been a beautiful serenade moments earlier was now deafening me. I wondered if this was what the shadows had felt, but then I could wonder at nothing. The song was so loud in my skull that I couldn’t think at all.

  Finally, it ended, and I realized that she stood between Nicolo and me.

  Staring down at him, she said, “Get up, you fool.”

  Her voice was different now. Husky and authoritative. Her face no longer showed the fear or kindness I’d seen in it before. Now, she looked proud and strong. A person in control of her own destiny. How dare the shadows cross her.

  “Eva,” I rasped, still dizzy from her song.

  She flicked a glance in my direction, and all I sensed was disdain. Then she looked away.

  “Eva,” I repeated.

  The next thing I knew I was off the ground and my face was in front of hers. Her hand was curled around my throat. That was starting to get old.

  “That name is an ancient thing,” she said, her white glowing eyes staring into my own. In those eyes I saw only fury and had little doubt she’d kill me if she so desired. “That’s the name of a woman long dead. Speak it not again, human.”

  There was a pause, but the scowl on her features didn’t soften. Finally, she continued, “Whoever it was you thought you knew… Whoever it was you sought to protect… She’s gone now. Do you hear me?”

  I didn’t answer.

  With a disgusted sigh she dropped me to the ground and strode away.

  Nicolo rose slowly to his feet. He had murder in his eyes, and he only had eyes for me.

  Then the wind picked up within the cavern again, stirring up the ashes like a snow globe. I felt his presence again, moments before he arrived.

  The Revenant appeared next to Eva.

  His red eyes assessed her for a few moments, then he began to laugh, a sickening sound like a serpent
orgy in hell. He reached his arm out for her and said, “Our queen has returned to us.”

  “Yes, my love,” Eva replied, stepping into his embrace.

  “The Valravn has gone back into hiding,” the Revenant said. “With you restored, he’s no longer a threat to us.”

  “It was a foolish mistake,” she said. Staring into his glowing eyes, she dropped to one knee and bowed before him. “I should not have been tricked. I should not have allowed them to capture me...to take my voice.” Looking back up at him, her voice turned cold. “It will not happen again, my lord. I will wreak vengeance on all of them.”

  He reached a gauntleted finger down to stroke her cheek. “They will pay for what they did to you, my dear. But it will not be today. We have other…matters, to attend to.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said, rising to her feet again. She wrapped her arm around his waist. “It will be as you desire.”

  The Revenant nodded. “Let’s be done with this place.”

  Nicolo limped toward them. “And what of these others, my lord?”

  “They’ve seen me,” the Revenant said. His armor creaked as he shrugged his shoulders. “They should be put down.”

  I thought I saw a little light twinkle in Nicolo’s eye, then. He rather liked the prospect of killing all of us. No surprise there. Fucking wanker.

  Eva’s gaze fell on me, and only for a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of the woman I’d known for this short time.

  “I disagree, my love,” she said, her gaze returning to the Revenant. “Let them live.”

  “What?” Nicolo asked, his face contorting in rage. “Are you mad?”

  The Revenant’s gaze fell on Nicolo and he staggered backward a step, then caught his balance, and bowed.

  “I’m sorry, my lord,” Nicolo said. “I spoke out of turn.”

  “It is not to me you owe an apology.”

  Nicolo turned his gaze to Eva. “My apologies, mistress. I meant no disrespect.”

  She approached him slowly, took a handful of his white hair, and pulled his face so that he was looking up at her. Then she raked her fingernails across the unburnt side of his face, leaving four bleeding laceration lines.