watched as she stumbled, watched her roll onto her back, still shrieking, her face twisted into pure terror, watched as the Shadows converged on her like carrion birds to dead flesh. She rolled to her side and clawed at the ground, dragging herself away, but the Shadows were too swift, pouncing on her, feeding off of her, off of the unborn child inside her, their actions far more frenzied than they were with the others, far more greedy, more gluttonous. Her fingers dug at the earth as her screams broke down into tortuous sobs, as tears streaked her face, and then a Shadow lashed out, almost impatiently, its form passing through her neck, and with a gasp her head fell to the ground and her struggles ceased.
Colin choked, his stomach seizing, his chest tightening, bile rising up sharp and acrid in the back of his throat. He struggled to draw air into his lungs, but he couldn’t, struggled to swallow the bitterness and nausea and horror Until a hand clamped onto his shoulder, the grip so hard he winced, the paralysis shuddering in his chest beneath the wave of pain. He sucked in air, felt something tear in his throat, and deeper, in his lungs, and coughed as he staggered and turned.
“Colin! Karen!” his father barked, his voice rougher than usual, higher in pitch. He shook him, shook Karen as well, her eyes wide and shocked. “You have to get out of here. We can’t stop them. We can’t even hurt them. You have to run! Both of you! Back to the plains!”
“But what about-”
Before he could finish, his father’s grip tightened. Leaning forward, his voice black, he growled, “Run, goddamn you!” And then he shoved them both, hard, shoved them back toward the space between the wagons, back toward the plains and the dwarren’s battle. Colin tripped, landed hard on his ass, Karen’s hand tearing free from his, but his father had already turned. He scanned the chaos before him, face tight, then shouted, “Ana!” and dashed off to the left.
Colin lurched to his feet, took off after his father, but within two steps he was brought up short by Karen as she grabbed his arm, spun him around. “Where are you going? You heard your father. We have to get out of here!”
“I have to help him. I have to find my mother.”
“But he told you to get out!”
“The dwarren are out there! There’s nowhere to go.” Karen bit her lower lip, wavering, so he drew in a sharp breath and added, “What about your father?”
Her eyes darkened, angry and concerned at the same time. “You bastard,” she whispered. Then she spun, searching those nearest, trying to see past them. “Over here.”
They stumbled away, one of the Armory guardsmen staggering in front of them, a Shadow reaching for the man’s chest. Colin dodged, slipped to his knees in the grass, Karen keeping him upright, shot a glance left and right, searching for his mother, for a glimpse of either of their fathers And caught sight of Walter instead.
The Proprietor of Haven stood with his back to one of the wagons, his sword leveled before him, the blade twitching back and forth among three different Shadows. A fourth Shadow writhed on the ground, feeding off Jackson, the Company’s representative staring up into the sunlight, eyes glazed with death, skin white, yet still beaded with sweat. Walter hissed as one of the Shadows feinted with a tendril of darkness, his sword jerking toward the black shape. He wiped sweat from his face with the back of one arm, the gesture short and rough and desperate, then barked as another Shadow slid closer, this one from the opposite side. His sword swung toward the second Shadow, hovered point first, trembling there, while his gaze followed the movements of the third.
Colin frowned. The Shadows were playing with him, like cats who’d trapped a mouse in a dusty corner of an alley. They didn’t seem as frenzied as when they’d first attacked, and the ones surrounding Walter glistened with a fluid gold color.
And then Walter noticed them, his eyes settling on Colin with a flare of hope. “Colin!” His voice was tight and thick and shook with fear. “Colin, help me!”
One of the Shadows slipped closer, and Walter growled a warning, his sword swinging toward the new threat as another Shadow edged forward, almost imperceptibly. The fourth one-the one feeding on Jackson-began to rise, shimmering with a patina of gold in the light. It moved sluggishly, but with more intent, as if it had been sated.
Colin didn’t move. He could feel Karen at his side, slightly behind.
“Colin!” Walter yelled, and Colin jerked. No fear this time in Walter’s voice. It was threaded with demand, with arrogance. The voice of a Proprietor.
Colin thought about the alley, about the beatings, about the day Walter had kicked him hard enough that he’d pissed his own pants. He thought about the arrest, the gallows, the day spent in the pillory, unable to move, unable to even scratch an itch, thirsty and hungry, covered in blood from his own struggles and the spit of the other townspeople. He thought about the look on Walter’s face as he left him in the alley, about the satisfied smirk he’d given him on the gallows, and he heard Walter’s laughter as he pissed on him from the darkness while he was in the penance locks.
A cold rage settled over Colin, the same rage he’d felt as his mother cleaned his wounds after the locks, as she cleaned the piss from his body. A rage Colin had shoved deep down inside himself, that had simmered next to his heart since he’d been released from the pillory, seething as they crossed the plains, as they climbed the Bluff, as they hunted and camped and struggled to survive.
Colin let that hate out now, let it course down his arms, tingling with heat, prickling his skin. He let it show in his eyes, his back straightening.
Walter stilled, his eyes widening slightly, his sword dropping a few inches toward the ground.
With a surge of satisfaction, Colin spat to one side and turned his back, turned toward Karen. He caught a flicker of motion as one of the Shadows leaped, heard Walter curse, saw the so-called Proprietor duck down and roll beneath the underside of the wagon out of the corner of his eye, the Shadows a flicker of black movement behind him, and then he dismissed Walter completely from his mind.
Karen eyed him with a faint frown. “We need to find our parents. Now.”
The space between the wagons and the trees was littered with bodies, with Shadows and shrieking forms. He saw Sam swinging wildly with a whip, two women at his back, saw another group of men make a break for the open plains behind, saw three children huddling in the grass beneath one of the wagons and recognized Lissa’s face as she raised her head and stared out at the chaos, her younger brother’s body held protectively to her chest, his face buried in her arms so he wouldn’t be able to see. Colin headed toward the kids, had made it halfway to them, dodging feeding Shadows as he went, when Karen pulled him up short with a frantic, “Dad!”
Colin spun around. Karen’s father stood protectively over three others, a mother and her two children, their backs to the last wagon, a sword held uselessly before him. His face was lined in fury, with pure and unadulterated rage, the most alive and intense Colin had seen the man since he’d met Karen and her father in Lean-to. All the sorrow, all the grief over losing his wife and two children on the passage across the Arduon Ocean, had been transformed into one goal, one purpose: keep the Shadows at bay.
And the Shadows were playing with him, as they’d played with Walter. Nearly all of them were now, their initial frenzy gone. They moved with purpose, with intent, with a cold intelligence.
Karen’s shout distracted her father. He turned, yelled, “Karen!”
And the Shadows struck.
Karen’s hand wrenched from Colin’s. He cried out, tried to catch her, to hold her back. He heard her scream, “Dad!” again as she charged forward, her hair streaming out behind her, her dress flapping around her feet.
Colin leaped after her, his heart thundering in his chest, his skin flushed with sudden prickling heat. Not enough to smother the coldness, but it burned in his arms, his legs, his lungs. Nothing mattered but Karen and her father, nothing but the Shadows that had drawn back, their glistening darkness-so like cloth-shuddering outward as they readied to attack. All sound dampened except for his breath and the pulse of blood in his ears. Everything faded except for the brilliant patch of sunlight before the wagon.
Karen’s father drew himself up, back straight, as the Shadows streamed forward, smooth and deadly. He didn’t even use the sword. He tried to block the Shadows with his own body, his own life. The Shadows slid through his chest and pulled themselves up over his torso even as Colin saw the life in his eyes dim, as his body began to fall.
“No!” Karen screamed, and stumbled, reaching for her father, ignoring the Shadow that had bypassed him and those he protected, that was converging on her. Colin felt his heart shudder in his chest, felt the metal and
