“Run,” Dnara whispered.
“What?” Ren dropped her shin guard and grabbed her sword, standing back to back with Dnara. “Why?”
“There, up,” Dnara said on stilted whispers, her eyes locked on the shadow as it formed two blazing white eyes of its own.
Ren craned her neck back. “I don’t see anything.”
“There’s a shadow,” Dnara answered as her heart hammered. “It’s keeping the wind from me.”
“I don’t understand,” Ren huffed then cast her gaze to the trees as the ashbirds cried out in a growing cacophony before going silent. Planted in the ground near her armor, the torch flame sputtered then died in a waft of smoke. Even the everbright lantern dimmed in the presence of this imposing darkness.
“Run,” Dnara implored, knowing with every bone in her body that the shadow had come for her alone.
“From what?” Ren questioned but called out to the tree line. “Nate! Liam! Come quick!”
The two white slits the shadow had for eyes shifted to Ren and narrowed. “Shhh,” Dnara cautioned then whispered, “I don’t think it likes loud noises.”
“What doesn’t?” Ren asked, lowering her voice and keeping her back pressed up against Dnara’s as they made a tight circle in small, quiet steps. “I don’t see a damn thing.” Ren shivered in her rough cloth shirt. “But I can feel it, like something crawling up my skin. And the air... It’s getting hard to breathe.”
Dnara took in a long breath and the air tasted stale on her tongue. “It’s on the other side of the creek, and it’s as tall as the trees. It’s just standing there, staring at us; staring at me.”
The shadow’s gaze had moved from Ren back to Dnara as the pair whispered back and forth about what to do. Dnara believed they should make a run for it, and Ren finally agreed, but insisted they move with slow, unthreatening steps towards the invisible boundary. Together, they took one step away from the creek. The shadow took one step closer.
“It’s following us,” Dnara whispered.
As they took three more steps, the shadow splashed into the creek with a heavy footfall. “I can see that,” Ren said as the water’s moonlit sheen outlined three large, clawed talons. “Brodan’s balls,” she cursed then grabbed Dnara’s hand. “Run!”
Ren lurched forward, leaving the rest of her armor behind in the grass. Dnara needed no encouragement to follow Ren’s lead. Tightly holding onto Ren’s hand, she dashed with her to the tree line. Ahead, the wind tossed more fodder at the barrier in frantic gusts, as if in warning.
Dnara’s eye’s widened and her feet planted. “Stop!”
But her understanding and warning came too late. Ren plowed into the barrier at full speed with a echoing thunk. She staggered back a step before falling onto her back, groaning in pain and clutching her head.
“Ren!” Dnara came to her side, relieved to find the soldier in pain but otherwise unharmed.
Ren blinked and sat up, shaking away the impact. “Like running into a stone wall, that.” She dazedly stared at the invisible wall and held out her hand to it. “Magic?”
“I don’t know,” Dnara replied, placing her hand next to Ren’s and feeling the strange barrier humming against her fingertips. On the other side, a brown windblown maple leaf flattened against her palm, unfelt and suspended a few thin millimeters away.
“Go get help,” Dnara said to the wind, uncertain if it could hear her. The leaf peeled away and floated slowly down to the ground. Behind them, the shadow crossed the river. “It’s still coming,” Dnara warned, returning her attention back to the shadow.
Ren rose to her knees and faced the creek with the leveraging help of her sword. She winced with every move but steadied herself and held up the sword in warning to an enemy she couldn’t see. “Stay back, beast!”
The shadow stopped, tilting the unformed mass it had for a head. With soundless thunder, a swooping shadow knocked the sword from Ren’s hand. Ren lost her balance and slumped forward. A sound rumbled, lowly pitched and vibrating up Dnara’s spine. It shook the trees, this sound, and made the river stones jitter upon the earth. It took Dnara a long, deep breath to realize this unnerving sound was the shadow creature’s laugh.
“Think it’s funny, do ye?” Ren set her palm to her knee and pushed herself upwards to stand, toddling side to side but finding her balance in the end. She now held not a sword but a thick branch in her hand, which she wielded in the same warning posture with no less confidence than had it been steel within her grip. “Keep laughing, then. I can’t see you, but I can hear you.”
Ren swiped the branch towards the sound and the shadow recoiled. The laughter ended and Ren stood up straighter. “That’s what I thought, coward.”
The shadow’s eyes narrowed again, its amusement turning to annoyance. The air grew cold around them, frigid enough for their breaths to appear as white puffs in the middle of a temperate forest. Beyond the wet talons, the creak slowed to a drip before freezing over.
“I think it’s angry.” Dnara rubbed her hands together, wishing she knew the magic words to create a fire.
“Good,” Ren sputtered past chattering teeth and held the branch with both hands. “You think a little cold is going to scare me?” She shivered as the grass around
