'Speak,' he called, too harshly.
The voice of the Hulorn's chamberlain, Thriistin, sounded through the wood.
'Prince Rivalen, the Hulorn requests your presence. There is news from Ordulin. Something... strange is afoot.'
Strange, indeed, Rivalen thought. He inhaled deeply and adopted his false face.
'Inform the Hulorn that I will attend him apace. I have only a small matter to consider first.'
'Yes, Prince Rivalen.'
The moment Thriistin walked away, Rivalen snarled and flung Elyril's ring so hard into the door of his townhouse that it dented the wood. He jerked the enameled black disc that served as his holy symbol from around the chain at his throat and stared his rage into its black hole.
'Why, Lady?'
She had kept her secrets from him, led him to believe one thing while doing another.
'I am your Nightseer,' he said to the shadows.
The darkness made no answer.
He engulfed the symbol in his palm and started to squeeze.
'It was I who was to summon the Shadowstorm in your name.
The disc bit into his skin. Warm blood seeped between his fingers even as his regenerative flesh tried to repair the damage. Still he squeezed, his rage building, his blood flowing.
'Why?' he said, his voice rising. The shadows around him swirled through the room, mirroring in miniature the Shadowstorm over Ordulin.
'Why?' The disc snapped in his hand with a loud crack and the sound brought home the realization of what he had done. His rage abated. The shadows around him subsided. He opened his palm to look at the symbol of his faith, broken and bloody in his palm.
'I had hoped to be your instrument, Lady.'
The words caused him to think of his mother. He did not know why. And they also brought him revelation. He realized, with a clarity born of pain, that hope had been his transgression.
Accepting what he had done, he composed himself, stood, placed the cloven holy symbol in his pocket, and walked out of the room to attend the Hulorn.
* * * * *
The caravan arranged the wagons into a circle at nightfall, on the road but near the edge of the forest. Denthim organized the able-bodied men into watches and tried to calm the rest of the group. He distributed thin brass rods to the watchmen. Varra did not know what they were.
Denthim's mother, assisted by a few other women in the caravan, cooked several kettles full of thin broth. Children cried and laughed and played around the fires. Men and women spoke softly, fearfully, and looked back on the storm.
Varra helped as she could but mostly tried to avoid getting underfoot. A wave of nausea prevented her from enjoying the broth.
'Feeling unwell?' said the man who had been sleeping in the wagon.
His voice startled her, and she disliked his smirk, the knowing look in his dark eyes, though something about him reminded her of Erevis. 'I am fine.'
'Something in your belly, no doubt,' he said with a wink, and turned away from her. She decided to ignore him, and he seemed content to ignore her.
The camp eventually settled into sleep. When Denthim returned to the wagon, his mother and the dark man were already asleep in the wagon. Varra's nausea had kept her awake and she smiled a greeting. Denthim smiled in return, though he looked weary.
'Wind is picking up,' he said. He grunted as he pulled his girth up onto the wagon.
'It is.'
He patted her hand. 'Try to get some sleep, little sister. Tomorrow we move quickly. That storm is closing on us.'
She nodded and decided not to look south. Denthim took more of the brass rods from an inner pocket. Varra saw that each was tipped with a dollop of a translucent substance.
'Sunrods,' Denthim explained, no doubt seeing her curious look. 'Tap the end on something and it glows like a lantern. Bought them from a peddler once. Had them for years. Here.'
He handed her three. They felt warm in her hand. Denthim settled into the bench, and soon his snores joined the hiss of the wind. Varra rolled up in a blanket that smelled like hay, and slept.
She awoke later to a howling wind and a roiling stomach. Denthim and his mother slept near her in the wagon, stirring fitfully. The dark man lay curled up in the far corner of the wagon, difficult to see in the darkness. She realized that she had not learned his name.
Her stomach grew worse, and she knew she would need to retch. Unwilling to wake the others with the sound of her vomiting, she climbed out of the wagon and hurried toward the forest. She patted the shoulder of one of the men maintaining a watch as she passed.
'Need privacy,' she said, and he grunted in reply.
She made it into the darkness of the trees, put her hands on her knees, and vomited. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
A violent gust of wind rattled the trees, and sent them to whispering. Goose pimples rose on Varra's skin. She felt the air change, felt it cool, felt it grow heavy. Something was wrong. She dashed for the camp.
'Awaken! Awaken!'
Before she had taken five steps she tripped on an exposed root and fell. The impact knocked the breath from her, and her warning died in a painful wheeze. The wind picked up still more, a gale that tore leaves and limbs from trees, and it carried on its currents hateful moans that made Varra's bones ache.
Screams erupted from the camp—one, another, another. Lights flared to life in the watchmen's hands— Denthim's sunrods. Varra half-crawled, half-ran back to the edge of the forest.
The wind sent a fog of dirt and dust through the camp. She made out dark, roughly humanoid-shaped figures with eyes like burning coals whirling in the wind, whipping through the camp, a storm of clotted forms. There were three living shadows for every person in the caravan.
The shadows, perhaps attracted to the light, swarmed the watchmen with sunrods. Dozens of forms whipped around the men, blotting out the light, reaching into and through the watchmen's flesh with cold, black arms. In moments all of the watchmen were dead, all of the sunrods extinguished.
Children cried. Women and men shouted, screamed. Varra could barely hear them above the moans of the shadows, above the wail of the wind. The shadows flitted through the camp, reaching out for warm flesh. And where they touched, they killed.
The camp devolved into chaos. People scrambled from their wagons, panicked and desperate. Horses and mules bucked and kicked against their tethers. Shadows swarmed the site, moaning, killing.
Varra heard Denthim shouting orders. He stood near his wagon, holding the bridle of his panicked mule, even as the creature sought to break free of its yoke.
'Here,' he shouted.
Others took up his call, and a pocket of fighting men and women—sheltering the children, elderly, and those who could not fight for themselves—formed a rough line and hurried toward Denthim.
A dozen corpses dotted the plain. Shadows wheeled everywhere.
Varra knew no one would escape, not unless the shadows could be drawn off.
She acted before she thought. Sheltered behind the bole of a tree, she struck one of her sunrods on the trunk and it burst into light. She hurled it into the forest away from her.
A dozen pairs of red eyes turned from the attack and darted for the light. Varra ran farther back into the forest and struck another sunrod, casting it in the opposite direction of the first. The shadows' moans chased after it.
Varra ran deeper into the trees and ducked behind a tree, breathing heavily. She poked out her head to see that the shadows had already extinguished the first light. As she watched, they squelched the second. She had not
