It suddenly fell to all fours and rushed forward in a blur of motion, and the farmer braced his pike for the impact, but at the last moment it veered away and retreated. It resumed pacing on two legs, and then launched toward him again. This time its claws struck the head of the pike with a metallic clang, knocking it aside. Gormin yanked it back into position, but the creature again withdrew. It was too damned fast, he realized. In this open space, it could sidestep his defense with that unnerving speed. He began to back toward the hole in the barn wall.
In a flurry of motion it came at him again, and he felt the force jar through his arms as the pike was batted aside. He threw himself to the side, frantically swinging the pike around, and he felt contact as the haft struck a solid mass and knocked it aside. He came up into a crouch again and felt a wetness soaking his arm and side. Whatever had scored him, claws or spines, had been so sharp that he was only now feeling the associated pain, but the bleeding was profuse. The creature was near the stalls again, pacing back and forth on all fours as its claws dug long furrows in the hard-packed earth of the barn floor. It made the peculiar rattling noise again with its quivering spines.
Gormin backed another step toward the hole, but as soon as he moved, the black thing hurled itself forward, coming at him in a circular motion to his left. The farmer did not brace the butt of his pike to the ground this time, instead keeping it free and quicker to maneuver into place. The creature swerved at the last moment and launched itself at him from a different angle, and he leaned away, trying to swing the point of the pike into its trajectory. Such speed! Sparks dazzled his eyes as claws struck the pike, and he fought to retain his grip. He fell back as its weight bowled him over, and his leg went numb as the spines pierced through clothing and into his flesh. He shoved with the pike haft, hoping to lever it away from him before it could reach anything vital, but it clung to him. The farmer saw gnashing teeth flash at his face, and he twisted aside-and then suddenly the thing’s weight vanished from atop him.
He struggled to his knees to find the dog, Wulf, thrashing on the ground with the creature. The dog had crashed into the thing from the side and worked his muzzle behind the spines to rend and tear with powerful jaws at its neck. The black creature writhed and spun in place, raking at the dog’s flanks. Gormin knew that if the creature could bring its deadly claws to bear against Wulf’s underbelly, the dog would suffer the same fate as the dead graffa. He lurched to his feet, circled for the right angle, and then plunged his pike through the creature’s side and into the ground. The monster convulsed wildly, flinging the dog away from it, and scrabbled at the weapon with its talons. It tried to roll and twist away, but was pinned through to the firmament, and Gormin held resolute to the other end of the pike. The thing turned malevolent yellow slits upon him, and, wrapping its claws around the pike, began to pull itself along the haft toward him.
Gormin stared in disbelief. Retaining his grip on the pike with one hand, he drew his old infantry saber with the other and struck at the thing’s neck. The creature lashed out at him with one claw, but being transfixed and trying to climb the shaft, it lacked the freedom of movement to fend him off. His first strike glanced from the spines, but then he slanted beneath them and struck home, hard. The blade bit deep into the creature’s neck, and a second blow followed true, all but severing the wedge-shaped head. The monstrosity shuddered, spines clattering in a sharp crescendo, and went still at last. It slid back down the pike to land in a heap on the ground.
The farmer prodded the body with his saber, studying the greenish ichor spilling out, and then turned away. Wulf was a few paces away, panting and lying on his side in a pool of blood. His dark muzzle and ears were torn to ribbons, and one eye was pinched shut while the other was fixed upon the black creature’s corpse. Gormin started toward him, but a surge of dizziness reminded him that he was in no better condition. His shirt and pants hung in tatters, and blood flowed down his side in liberal amounts to leave red footprints on the packed ground. He took a steadying breath and went to the dog, falling to his knees at its side. Its eye swung to him.
“Worthless cur,” he said in a gentle tone, reaching out to ruffle the thick fur at the dog’s neck. Wulf curled his lip in a faint snarl, but his tail gave a few tentative taps on the ground. Gormin blinked away an unaccustomed burning in his eyes. “I cannot lift you now, boy, but the house has clean water and cloth for bandages. I will have you back to your ornery self in no time.”
With a last reassuring pat, he pushed himself to his feet and headed for the hole in the barn wall. As he neared it, he heard something outside that froze the blood in his veins: a chorus of dry rattling sounds, many strong. He spun and crossed to his pike, still jutting from the ground, and wrenched it loose. If he could defend the narrow opening, perhaps he could keep them at bay long enough to-what? They were alone out here, far from deliverance of any kind. Anyone with a speck of sense, he realized, had fled to the city.
A sudden, fierce gratitude washed over him that his family was safe within the city walls. His jaw tightened. Perhaps the morning light would scatter these foul creatures. They had only to survive the night to know the answer.
Even as he turned back to make his choke point, however, several of the black creatures crawled through the opening and went skittering up the wall. Their yellow eyes were burning slits in the shadows. Gormin’s heart sank as he swung the pike from one to another, and more of the monsters poured in through the hole. The farmer seized his lamp from where it hung on the plow handle and retreated to the dog’s side. There he laid aside the lamp and his pike for a moment, and dug his fists into the thick fur to drag Wulf back with him to the corner where the stalls met the outer wall of the barn. He braced his pike there in the corner, and laid his saber within easy reach on the ground, preparing for the rush that would come. The lamp guttered and flickered beside them but held. A detached part of Gormin’s mind wondered when the oil would be exhausted, how much light remained to them, but he knew it would not matter.
The dog strained to its feet, crimson beads dripping from its fur, and pressed against the man’s side with a rumbling growl at the creatures. Gormin felt a surge of pride at the animal’s courage. The farmer heard a distant hacking sound, and surmised that more of the spiny creatures were invading his house. He hoped they would not damage the charcoal picture. He wished he could have seen it once more.
And still the creatures swarmed into the barn, spreading across the walls and ceiling: a dozen, then twenty, then more. Outside, the last of the ember tinge faded from the western horizon, and true night fell.
CHAPTER 5
“Varkhuls. A great many of them.”
Amric nodded, though he did not need Bellimar’s words to recognize the tracks covering the ravaged floor, or the deep furrows left by their claws in almost every surface of the barn. He and Valkarr were familiar enough with the repulsive creatures.
“They relish digging their prey out from entrenched positions,” Bellimar continued, “and they quite excel at it.”
Amric knelt in the blackened section of the barn to pluck a mangled knot of metal from the floor with his forefinger and thumb, and he held it up for inspection. An oil lamp, he realized. That explained the meager plume of smoke they had seen from the main road, and the several charred varkhul corpses they had found here in the barn. He pictured the vile fiends running about ablaze, feeling the terror they so relished inflicting on others, and he bared his teeth in a grim smile.