A sudden, animal grunt from somewhere off on the plains behind the Shadovar caused Vasen’s heart to jump and startled the veserab. Its wings flapped and it lifted its face into the air, long tongue wagging back and forth like an antenna. The Shadovar stood, patted the creature’s side, and said something in his baroque, incomprehensible language.
A call sounded in the same language from farther down the riverbank. The first Shadovar shouted back, then said something to his mount. Vasen could not see down the river from where he stood in the cave’s mouth, and didn’t dare risk exposing himself by venturing out of the cave.
“Another one,” Orsin whispered.
“Maybe more than one,” Vasen said.
“Let’s find out,” the deva said. He crouched low and moved out into the brush, a few paces outside the cave. He looked down the riverbank, then looked back at Vasen and held up one finger.
Only one more Shadovar.
Vasen would wait them out. It appeared the shades had stopped only to water their mounts. They would be on their way back to Sakkors or Shade Enclave soon enough. He would not risk the pilgrims’ safety or the abbey’s discovery by attacking.
He made eye contact with Eldris, Nald, and Byrne. He did not speak but formed the words we wait and do nothing with his lips.
They nodded. Like him, they understood the stakes.
Noll coughed again, summoning a wince from the Dawnswords. The intake of breath from the pilgrims at the rear of the cave was sharp enough to cut wood.
The veserab, already skittish, grunted at the sound and again reared up, drool dripping from the circle of its fanged mouth, wings half spread. The muscles under its hide rippled. It extended its neck and the sore of its face opened like a blooming flower, revealing more pink flesh, more flaps of teeth. It chuffed at the air, sniffing for spoor. The Shadovar came to its side, the shadows around him swirling, a frown on his lips. He spoke softly to the creature while scanning the bank. The Shadovar would be able to see as well in darkness as Vasen, perhaps better Orsin made himself small in the scrub. Vasen flattened himself against the wall, his fist clenching and unclenching on his sword hilt. By his side, Byrne softly breathed out, and Vasen caught the tail end of a whispered prayer in the exhalation.
The Shadovar’s red eyes poured over the terrain, the scrub, the trees. His eyes went over and past the cave mouth, and Vasen allowed himself to hope.
The far Shadovar called to the near one, a question in the tone. The other answered a bit too casually, nodding across the river bank.
“They’re coming,” Vasen said to Byrne, and Byrne nodded.
Another coughing spasm from Noll.
The veserab shrieked in agitation. The Shadovar gripped the reins and slung himself into the saddle, calling out to his comrade as he did so.
“Ready yourself,” Vasen whispered to Byrne. “We can’t allow either to escape.”
Moving rapidly but methodically, Nald, Eldris, and Byrne sheathed swords, unslung their crossbows, cocked, and seated quarrels. Vasen kept blade to hand and prayer at the top of his thoughts.
The veserab coiled its body, tensed, and with an awkward shove vaulted into the air. For a moment, Vasen lost of sight of it, but only for a moment. It landed amid the scrub just to the right of the cave mouth, crushing shrubs and snapping saplings. Orsin crouched in the foliage ten paces from it.
The Shadovar called over his shoulder to his comrade. He cocked his head, his red eyes fixed on the cave mouth.
Noll broke into another coughing fit. The Shadovar slid out of his saddle, drew his sword, the blade like black glass, and advanced on the cave. Darkness clung to him, concealed his legs and lower body in a fog of darkness. The veserab lingered behind him, sucking in the air, its long tongue dangling between the rows of its teeth. Orsin crept closer to the creature, as silent as a ghost.
Noll’s hacking ceased. The tension in the cave was as thick as the shadows. Many of the pilgrims whispered prayers.
The Shadovar halted.
Vasen held up a hand to order Eldris, Nald, and Byrne to hold. They nodded, but took aim nevertheless.
The darkness deepened around the Shadovar, he took a single step within it, and moved in an instant from the darkness in which he stood to the darkness in the mouth of the cave. His sudden appearance three paces before them elicited a surprised curse from Byrne and hurried shots from the crossbows. Two bolts went wide, but Byrne’s struck the Shadovar in the chest. The darkness around the Shadovar killed the bolt’s inertia, and the missile thumped weakly into his breastplate.
The pilgrims shouted in fear. Vasen voiced the prayer he’d kept behind his teeth, and his sword ignited with Amaunator’s light. The Shadovar blanched before the sudden glare, his darkness overcome by Vasen’s light, and Vasen bounded forward with a shout. He slashed at the joint in the Shadovar’s armor between shoulder and neck, but the Shadovar recovered enough to duck under the blow and stab his sword at Vasen’s abdomen. The black blade ground against Vasen’s armor, and he lurched to his left before it could penetrate to his flesh. He slammed his shield into the Shadovar’s face, felt the satisfying crunch of bone, and sent the shade careening backward three strides.
“Kill the mount!” Vasen shouted.
The veserab shrieked, spitting drool, and lurched like a serpent toward the combat, crushing scrub and saplings under its writhings. Byrne, Eldris, and Nald rushed past Vasen toward the creature, blades high and lit. The creature reared up, hissing. Vasen did not see Orsin anywhere.
He lunged at the Shadovar, noting with horror and fascination that the shade’s broken nose already had ceased bleeding-the bones reshaping themselves as the flesh regenerated. The Shadovar spit a mouthful of blood, parried Vasen’s overhead slash with his own blade, and loosed a kick that struck Vasen in the abdomen and doubled him over. Vasen’s breath rushed out of him, but he got his shield up in time to block a slash that otherwise would have decapitated him. He swung his blade at the Shadovar’s leg to drive him back a step.
They regarded each other for a moment, Vasen’s light dueling with the Shadovar’s darkness while Vasen’s fellow Dawnswords surrounded the veserab and hacked at its flesh.
Vasen moved first, bounding forward and stabbing low. The shade sidestepped the blow and loosed a cross slash for Vasen’s side, but Vasen swept the blade out wide with his shield and lashed out with a backhand. The pommel of his sword caught the Shadovar flush in the cheek, sent him reeling. From nowhere Orsin reared up behind the shade and leaped on his back, his quarterstaff drawn across the Shadovar’s throat, his legs wrapped around the shade’s waist.
The shade’s red eyes flared with surprise and fear. The darkness around him swirled, churned. He spun a circle, gagging, trying to shed Orsin, but the deva covered him like a cloak, his arms hooked around his quarterstaff, squeezing. The shade tried awkwardly to bring his large sword to bear on Orsin, but the deva’s position made it difficult.
Vasen did not hesitate. He lunged forward and stabbed the Shadovar through the midsection. The shade screamed when Vasen’s glowing blade cut through the black armor, the gray flesh. Blood gushed from the wound. The shade staggered under Orsin’s weight, then fell to the muck. The moment he hit the ground Orsin rolled off of him and Vasen stepped forward and with a downward slash decapitated the Shadovar.
“Their flesh regenerates only while they live,” Orsin said. The deva was not even breathing hard. “This one is done.”
But not the other.
To Vasen’s right, the veserab wailed its dying shrieks as Eldris, Nald, and Byrne’s swords rose and fell on its quivering flesh. Black blood stained their weapons, coated the creature’s blue hide. Its wings flapped feebly as it made one last effort to get airborne, but it was too wounded to fly and only managed a clumsy lurch. The Dawnswords’ blades ran it through. Its body spasmed as it died.