yell.
'I'm going to distract King Shadow,' he said. 'You get out of here. I'm hoping the other prisoners will follow your lead.'
Her blue eyes widened. 'But the shadow will kill you!'
'It's going to do that anyway.'
She hesitated. 'We'll still have all the smaller shadows, the ones shaped like men and cats and wolves, barring the way out of the fortress.'
'Run. Hide. Throw rocks at them. Whatever it takes to get away.'
She swallowed. 'All right, and may Helm take you into his keeping. The knight you serve must be very proud of you.'
Kevin smiled at a pang that had nothing to do with the mauling the shadows had given him. 'Well, he used to be. Get ready.'
He gave her a moment to gather her strength, then, wishing the shadows had left him his sword, he scrambled to his feet, and spun around.
As the matron had advised him, the room was big and essentially circular, with a ragged hole where the ceiling once had been. Scraps of it were lying about the floor, and painted pentacles adorned the plaster walls. In the middle of the space, taking up a goodly part of it, hulked King Shadow.
Kevin was prepared for the hugeness of the shadow and for the strangeness of its tangled limbs, like fat, flexible feathers writhing in all directions. However, he had had no inkling of the true nature of King Shadow's flesh. He hadn't been able to make it out when the titan drifted past high above his head.
Within the shadow's murky substance flowed human faces distorted and jammed together. Despite the stretching, twisting, and squashing, it was somehow possible to discern their grimaces of agony, madness, and rage. Ilmater's tears, was this what became of the people King Shadow destroyed? Did their souls wind up trapped inside the shadow's body?
Kevin stood frozen with horror as King Shadow reached for him, one amorphous arm dipping down above his head and another curving in on each side. At the last possible moment, the youth snapped out of his paralysis and flung himself backward. The three tentacles closed on empty air, and all the faces inside the titan's body began to rave and howl in a silent cacophony.
Bearing the psychic din as best he could, Kevin made his own noise, shouting and shifting back and forth. King Shadow stretched out more of its members to seize him, and the gray-haired woman jumped up and ran for a doorway. Several other prisoners did the same, and the rippling hillock of a shadow ignored them all.
Kevin grinned. It was satisfying to have played a trick that worked, even if it was going to cost him his life.
King Shadow clubbed at him with blows that flattened its boneless arms and shook the floor. The squire dodged and dodged again, knowing it was only a matter of time before one of the tentacles connected. Once his evasions carried him near a doorway, and he dashed for it. The shadow extruded a great slab of itself between its prey and the exit, cutting him off as effectively as a wall.
Something shattered, flashed, and roared on top of King Shadow, and all the faces inside the devil shrieked in agony, for the immense phantom wore a crown of crackling blue and yellow flame. Kevin looked up at the hole in the ceiling, where Ajandor was preparing to throw another keg of oil. Unlike the first, this one didn't need a fuse. When it broke, the contents would feed the fire that was already burning.
Ajandor heaved the barrel, and the conflagration boomed and flared higher. A man drenched in burning oil would likely thrash about and expire, but the titan floated up toward its tormentor. The falling raindrops shone yellow in the firelight.
Kevin picked up chunks of debris and hurled them at the shadow. Several of the smaller phantoms appeared along the edge of the hole. Apparently trusting them to dispose of Ajandor, King Shadow dropped back onto the floor to confront the squire, who wished he hadn't just wasted his only chance to bolt.
Its ragged tendrils squirming, King Shadow spread itself to either side of Kevin, pinning him against the wall. The titan looked like a pair of hands poised to catch a ball, albeit with fire dancing on the upper surfaces and spatters of burning oil dripping off the sides.
Kevin saw no possibility of escape, so he spat at King Shadow. It was a feeble gesture, but better than nothing.
The twin masses of shadow-stuff began to close on him like the covers of a book, then Gray Dancer fell at his feet, hitting the floor with a clank.
Kevin stooped and grabbed the mithral sword by its leather-wrapped hilt. He was sure that Ajandor had dropped Gray Dancer intentionally, to give his fosterling some semblance of a fighting chance, even though the knight needed the weapon himself to battle his own opponents.
The squire came on guard, and a wave of vitality washed the soreness and weakness out of his muscles. Gray Dancer was bolstering his strength. Ajandor had occasionally permitted him to handle the blade, but it had never done anything like this. Apparently it took a foe to wake its magic.
The adversary in question had faltered momentarily when the sword fell between them, but now the twin arms of its V-shape began to converge once more. The squire ran to the member on the right and swung Gray Dancer in a vertical cut.
The weapon's razor edge split the churning shadow-stuff and scrambled the writhing, flowing faces inside it. King Shadow screamed, and its limb twitched backward, creating a gap between itself and the wall. Kevin dived through.
Once out of the trap, he immediately turned and renewed the attack, cutting and cutting for all he was worth. Drops of burning oil spattered and blistered him, but he scarcely felt the pain. Then a column of shadow-stuff exploded out of the mass before him, slammed into his chest, and hurled him across the room.
If not for his hauberk, the impact likely would have shattered his ribs. As it was, as he dropped on his rump, he started to black out, then felt Gray Dancer's magic grip his mind like a powerful hand and heave it back to wakefulness.
When Kevin looked up, King Shadow had pulled itself up into a gray-black fiery sheet curling over at the top like a huge, tempest-driven wave. The youth saw that he wouldn't have time to roll out from underneath, so as the shadow began to fall, he raised Gray Dancer's point to meet it.
King Shadow impaled itself on the sword, and no more balked than surging water would have been, crashed down on Kevin, swatting him like a fly. He lay in a pool of seething, gibbering, burning ghost-faces. He was dazed, vaguely surprised to still be alive, and Gray Dancer hauled him back to full consciousness again, with more difficulty this time.
Though the blade had no real voice, not even a silent one like the shadows, he somehow sensed what it wanted to tell him: Look, look, look at King Shadow now, look, you only have a moment!
Kevin did look. The shadow-stuff splashed across the floor was still 'humping and slithering, but not with its former nimbleness. Evidently the fire, Gray Dancer, or both had finally done the titan some significant harm. Moreover, the soft, murky substance was converging from all directions toward a sort of bulb, as if to rebuild the creature's body around it. Unlike the seepage, the node contained no tortured human faces. It was pure black.
The squire reckoned he knew what to do, but then hot pain washed over his ribs and leg. He looked down and discovered that his clothing was on fire. He could attempt to extinguish it, or he could ignore it and strike while King Shadow was vulnerable.
He tried to rise, and other pains balked him. His left arm and ankle throbbed, sprained or broken, he supposed. He tried again and this time made it to his feet.
He limped forward. The shadow-stuff was flowing faster now, and had nearly succeeded in coating the titanic creature's heart with itself. He drove Gray Dancer's point into the one sliver of absolute blackness still showing.
All the faces screamed, and King Shadow vanished. Kevin threw himself on the floor and rolled until he was free of the fire.
Then he just sat, too sore and spent for anything else, the strength Gray Dancer had lent him expended, until a shout reminded him that his had not been the only battle. He peered up through the smoky air. The rain felt good on his singed, sweaty face.
Ajandor peered back down at him through the hole. 'Are you all right?' asked the knight.
