“We have to make sure we have enough wood for the whole night, all you can collect,” Jilli continues. “I want everyone looking, but only one trip each, because I want us all back in the light of the fire before it’s fully dark.”
The fire burns low in the center of the road. Jilli had refused to set up in the trees.
I have to sheath the broadsword to gather wood, which leaves me feeling vulnerable and more on edge. My feet are unsteady, because I’m hurrying and tripping on undergrowth in the failing light. Mieklo clings tighter to my shoulder as he bumps along.
My hands shake, because I’m gathering wood too slow. I’ll never get a full armful and get back in time.
I hear an animal noise behind me. I spin towards it, but I don’t see anything.
I search faster.
The forest is lit with the barest gray. I don’t dare delay any longer.
I’m the first one back to camp. I don’t know what Jilli fears, but I’m glad to be back in its safe light. I put a few pieces of my collected wood on the fire and set the rest down nearby. It’s not a very impressive pile.
Gnuf joins me. He lays down and puts his heavy head on my lap.
There’s an inhuman shriek beyond the light of the fire. I draw the broadsword and lay it across my knees. I scan the wall of black that surrounds me, darkest right where the fire’s light ends. I swear I see a movement, but I can’t determine the shape. It’s not one of the others, so I try to convince myself it was nothing, just my imagination running wild.
The dark forest is full of strange noises.
Blaize appears beside me, and I almost flip the broadsword at her, the hilt slipping in my sweaty hands as I realize it’s her. I get the blade under control. “Sorry.”
“Keep that handy. Something’s out there.”
Rent returns second. It’s as if he were invisible like Blaize. One moment he’s not there, the next his face is bright orange in the firelight. “Where’s Hax?”
“Not back yet, but neither is Jilli,” Blaize says. “There’s still time.”
“How can you tell? It all looks black out there from here.” Rent begins to pace.
“Jilli won’t be late,” Blaize says.
“What’s out there?” I ask.
“Shadows and smoke,” Blaize says cryptically.
I frown.
“I’ve never seen them, but there are creatures made of shadow, called penumbra.” Rent is still pacing. It’s making me anxious as well. It was mostly dark when I returned. It must be fully dark by now. “The fire should keep them at bay. They need the shadows.”
The fire burns low again. Blaize throws a few more sticks on it.
Several more minutes pass.
“Okay, maybe now we can worry,” Blaize says with a shrug. Now she’s pacing.
An eerie howl, too warbly to be a wolf, echoes around us. Another voice answers it.
“Why aren’t they back yet?” Rent walks along the border between light and dark. It makes my breath catch, like he’s walking on the edge of a precipice.
A wispy black claw swipes at Rent, leaving a smoky trail behind it. He steps back away from it and comes closer to the fire. The shadow’s edge closes in closer to us, and he throws a few more sticks on the fire.
“We have to keep the fire up,” Rent says.
“Yeah, but at this rate, we’ll be out in a couple hours,” Blaize replies.
“There’s some thicker branches. Those will last longer.” He’s watching the darkness around us with a tired look. For a moment, I’ve forgotten he’s still recovering from almost dying yesterday.
“But where are Jilli and Hax?” Blaize asks.
No one has an answer.
“They can both take care of themselves,” I add quietly.
A screeching like two animals fighting breaks out. It’s coming from the north, beyond the edge of the road, but close. We all look where the sounds come from, but I can’t see anything.
“Jilli would be back by now if she could get here,” Blaize says. She clutches her knives, but what would they do against shadows? “She’s in trouble. I have to go find her.”
“Absolutely not,” Rent argues, putting a hand out to stop her. “We need to stay together. They’ll be back.” His words are hopeful, reassuring, but his face doesn’t match.
But the longer we wait, unable to do anything but watch the dark close in around us from every side, the more unlikely it seems. Our circle of light is a small island in a vast, dark sea.
The trees on the south side of the road rustle, and I bring the broadsword up before me. Rent is almost touching me on my left, and Blaize is only a few steps away on my right. We face the unknown together, which bolsters me.
I think I see faces in the dark, and my confidence deflates.
A torch bobs out of a break between the trees, and it illuminates Jilli’s face. In her other arm, she has Hax. He’s conscious, upright, held around his midsection and letting himself be carried along. His legs dangle, and the sour look on his face says he’s not enjoying this. She kicks through the underbrush to get to the road, making quite a raucous.
Rent and Blaize run to them once their orb of light joins ours.
“What happened?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“What took you so long?”
“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?”
The flurry of questions makes Jilli’s whole face furrow. “Easy, easy. Hax stepped in a hole. I’m not sure if it’s broken or just sprained, but he couldn’t walk.” She sets him down on his good leg, and Rent helps him over to the fire.
Jilli and Blaize exchange an awkward look. I turn away to give them privacy and to help Hax. Once he’s seated, Rent begins a prayer.
“You should save your strength,” Hax says, interrupting him, covering his hand.
Rent shakes his head. “If we need to run, you need to be able. Hush, and let me finish, because it is indeed broken.” He begins again.
Hax’s face goes from a frown to a grimace as Rent lays his hands on his ankle. Air hisses between his teeth. His features smooth one line at a time, and then he exhales. He rotates his ankle and hops back to his feet to show it’s healed.
“Thank you, brother. Now, what’s the situation?”
“The fire’s going, but who knows for how long.” Rent’s frown deepens. “That’s all the wood we have.”
“Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot,” Jilli says. She slings something off her shoulder that turns out to be a large bundle of sticks and branches. It doubles the size of our collected pile, but I still wonder if it will be enough. Jilli must be thinking the same as me. “We’ll make it enough. The penumbra won’t dare come into the firelight, but stay away from where the shadow and light meet. That’s where they’re strongest.”
She seats herself cross-legged with her back to the fire. She keeps one hand near her sword and the other near the pile of wood. Blaize joins her, and then the rest of us.
Jilli and Blaize clasp hands, and I’m glad we’re all together now.
As the evening goes on, I no longer feel like I’m seeing things. I can clearly see the faces. They’re only smoke and shadow, but I can make out swirls of canine and feline features. Once a shadowy crow flaps along the edge of our circle of light.
The fire burns steadily, slowly consuming all of our wood, and still the penumbra watch us patiently from the dark.
The next several hours are spent in anxious silence. Even Hax is unusually quiet. His hands are restless, but he doesn’t start any of his normal boredom habits.
My stomach starts to protest, rumbling and gurgling. Because when was there time to eat? My arms are close behind. They start quivering from the strain of holding up the broadsword. “This would be a good training exercise,” I mention to Jilli from the edge of my mouth.
She fights to keep her laugh in check. It’s just a single chuckle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“How much longer until sunrise?” I ask. An unbidden yawn comes out of me.
“I’m not sure. Another three or four hours, I think.”
“How much longer will the wood last?”
“At this rate? Not that long. I’m going to have to cut down how much I’m using, or we’ll run out. Even then…” She trails off, picking the bark off the stick in her hand. Her usual cool confidence is lukewarm.
Jilli lets the fire die down to half its former size. It’s mostly embers, with a few low flickers. The circle of light around us shrinks almost to our feet.
Gnuf brays anxiously, the shadows just out of reach.
“I thought you said they were strongest at the border of light and dark?” I ask, my voice wavering. I pull my knees up to my chin. Mieklo chitters anxiously.
The darkness swirls faster, the penumbra growing more agitated as they get closer. Teeth and beaks nip at our feet, and we huddle as close to the fire as we can.
Blaize twirls her knives in her hands. The blades are just blurs “Are we going to sit here and wait for the fire to burn out and for them to be on us? We should attack now.” She stands.
“We can’t let the penumbra touch us,” Jilli says. She puts her hand on Blaize’s arm. “They can drain life with a touch. This is still our best chance.”
I stand too, retreating closer to the fire.
“They won’t touch me,” Blaize says, but it lacks her usual confidence.
When we’re all standing, Jilli throws the last few pieces of wood on the fire. It flares, and the penumbra shriek and cry and retreat. Then they creep in closer with the retreating light, watching patiently.
They know the fire will soon be out. All they have to do is wait.
Jilli holds her sword in one hand and the makeshift torch she appeared with earlier in the other. She saves it for last, but she doesn’t toss it in. She relights it on the flagging embers. The penumbra hiss and yowl as they’re driven back once more.
We all crowd closer to Jilli, staying in the flickering light, staying in our shrinking orb of protection.
“Who smells like moldy moss?” Hax asks with a crinkle of his nose. He sniffs and looks pointedly at Gnuf, who he’s pressed against. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Let’s not discuss bad smells, because you know you’ll lose there,” Rent says.
“I told you, beans and I don’t get along. Why do you think I was so against them?”
The attempts at humor make the moment feel more normal, but there’s a wavery undercurrent of panic just seconds from the surface. It’s heightened by us all being pressed together.
I hope morning comes soon.
My adrenaline has kept me going all this time, but my body can no longer sustain it. My arms become too heavy, and the broadsword’s tip thunks into the hardpack of the middle of the road. Soon, the sword will be propping me up.
Large burnt flakes rain down on me. The cloth wrapped around the branch is gone, along with half of the stick.
It gutters, and I hold my breath. The torch seems content to keep burning for now.
The penumbra have become quiet. It’s even more eerie than the howls and yowls and caws. I can feel dozens of eyes on us, but they’re harder to pick out without the shadowy creatures moving around.
Hax casts a spell, and the torch brightens, but I quickly realize it’s only an illusion. It’s an illusion the penumbra don’t fall for. They don’t even notice. But Hax’s illusionary light shows the shadowy creatures clearly for the first time. They’re a mass of dozens of animal-shaped creatures made from shadow, the light giving them form but not much distinction.
The penumbra fade back into the darkness as Hax cancels his illusion. “Well, that’s a lot.”
“The light illusion was a good idea, even if it didn’t work,” Jilli says. “Anyone have any other ideas? Anything else we can burn?”
I remember the journal in my shoulder bag. It’s already a quarter full of sketches and monster descriptions. I’ve become quite attached to it.
But paper would burn.
“I have something–”
Before I can finish, Rent cuts me off. “Let me try.”
“You’re still recovering,” Hax argues with a frown.
“I healed you.”
“Yeah, meaning you have even less energy.”
Rent waves his brother off and begins a prayer.
The torch is almost down to Jilli’s fingers. Even if it doesn’t go out, she’ll have to throw it away soon.
Rent’s hands begin to glow, brighter than the torch, brighter than the fire before it. They’re brilliant white. The penumbra hiss and retreat, but only a little, only enough to stay on the edge of their comfortable darkness.
Rent’s hands glow brighter. The penumbra grow agitated as they’re driven farther back.
A wolf made of shadow dares to break from the darkness. Its patience has run out, and it knows this may be its final chance to make a meal of us. It runs straight at Jilli and I, smoky tendrils trailing behind it, as if the darkness is trying to suck it back, but it keeps coming.
Then Rent’s whole body begins to glow. He’s still chanting his prayer, and he’s painfully radiant. I have to look away from him, and I see the wolf-shaped penumbra fly apart like smoke in a stiff breeze.
The other penumbra hesitate, retreat a step.
The light grows brighter, and I have to press the heels of my hands into my eyes. I can still see the light with them closed and covered.
Rent’s chanting is all I can hear until Hax starts shouting.
“Enough, brother! They’re fleeing. Enough!”
Rent grows quiet, and the light quickly retreats.
I can barely see him through the stars bursting in my vision. I can barely see him collapse from exhaustion. I can barely see the first grayish hints of dawn.
We survived the night.
~ * ~
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