Book 1 - Chapter 2.5
Sol found Night crouched at the same corner she had hidden behind before. Sol grabbed her shoulder and tugged to indicated soundlessly that they should head back through the alley, but Night resisted.
"Stop!!" Night spat at her.
"Shhh!!" Sol said in reply. She glanced anxiously at the monsters, but they continued to gorge on the remains of the tithe.
"You 'shhh' and get down!" Night hissed in return.
With a soft intake of breath Sol hunched down behind the smaller woman and wait to see what happened next.
The shadows had devoured every last scrap of the tithe, but they lingered and had not noticed Sol and Night's quiet spat from the alley. Instead, they were looking expectantly up at a window on the top floor of the nicest looking building in the town square. A figure called down to them with a voice that sounded like Prosper's.
"You arrived earlier than we expected. We weren't able to gather all the offerings from the surrounding villages." He was babbling nervously as the infernal orange eyes stared up at him in expectant silence.
"And there was a blight that killed quite a few of the crops, we got too much rain. The storms also churned up the river water so fishing wasn't as plentiful as usual-" The monsters roared again, their mouths opened in a crackling bellow that sent out more steam and warmed the whole square.
"We don't have any more to give!" Prosper pleaded. "If you come back in a week then there will be more, I promise!"
One monster gave a short snarl like a lit match, and shot a plume of fire at the window.
Prosper cried in terror as the flame swept its way along the brickwork of the building before flickering out.
There was silence, and then finally Prosper's voice again, steady and resolute.
"Alright. You can have them."
There was the muffled sound of Prosper arguing with someone inside of the building, and a few moments later the front door of the edifice opened, and out stepped six children. They were the youngest Sol had seen so far in the town. The group of kids were flanked by four new guards as they were led into the square.
Sol could see the haze of their small forms and hear the light sound of sobbing as the adults presented them to the monsters. Some of them tried to back away, but the guard leading the rear pushed them forward gently with the side of his pole arm.
Sol's breath had gotten light and fast as she braced herself for whatever was to come of the scene, and her mind raced on what she could do to stop it.
She quietly unpacked and strung her horn bow, and she notched an arrow.
Sol, poised and ready to point, draw, and shoot, leaned over Night, who was tense under her.
"What's going to happen?" She whispered to her still and silent companion.
Night's breathing was fast and harsh and her voice cracked as she answered, "They are going to take them. They're going to take them away."
She then grabbed Sol's shoulder and turned herself so that they were facing each other. "Please, Ranger. I need you to trust me. Give me your name."
"And then what?" Sol said. She felt queasy, as if she was peering down into deep dark waters.
"Then we destroy them." Night said with trembling fervour.
Sol's stomach lurched, with excitement or fear, she could not tell, but her bow still felt familiar and warm in her hands, and she used that to reassure her.
"I'll try my way first."
Sol stepped up and over Night, pulled back the string of her bow and bellowed at the guards. "TAKE THE CHILDREN BACK INSIDE!!!!"
The guards jumped at the sound of her voice and then bolted back towards the building with the children wailing after them. A couple of the adults dropped their pole arms to pick up the smaller kids so the whole group could move faster as they all disappeared in to the building and locked the door behind them.
None of the monsters pursued them. Their attention was trained on Sol, all twenty four of their glowing orange eyes now fixed on her and her bow.
Sol breathed in once to steady herself, reminding her that she had killed creatures larger than these with less to fight with.
She aimed for one glowing eye, a vital point for any beast, from the tiny mouse to the colossal dragon.
She tensed, breathed out, and let the arrow fly.
It soared, swift and true, and lodged itself into the face of the closest monster. The shadow's head snapped back with the impact.
Sol notched another arrow ready to take down the next shadow, but her previous target righted itself, brought its head back down slowly, and blinked once, snapping the arrow in half and turning what was still stuck in its eye into kindling.
The other monsters shot volleys of fire at Sol before she could even boggle in surprise. Had she not been pulled sharply backwards into the shelter of the alleyway by the hood of her coat, she would have experienced the same fate as her arrow.
She tipped over into a stumble that left her flat on her back, dazed under Night as fire arced and burst hot just feet away from her.
Night glared down at Sol with furious bright eyes that swam in Sol's vision like multiple moons. "Did you have your fun?" Night shouted at her. "Prove your point? Do you want to listen to me now??"
"Maybe." Sol mumbled.
The fire stopped and was replaced by furious roars as the monsters realized their target had evaded them. They surged towards the mouth of the alley and the sheer mass of their collective shadow cast everything into gloom.
Night yanked Sol to her feet and the two of them ran.
The the beasts lodged themselves as one into the alleyway's mouth, clawing at the walls and growling like a spreading fire. A few plumes of flame shot past the two women as they turned a corner.
Two smaller shadows had peeled off form the larger mass that was still stuck at the entrance and galloped after their quarry with a crackle of hooves and claws on cobblestones. Sol notched another arrow to her bow, and shot one of the duo dead in the forehead. Her shot stopped it in its tracks but didn't kill it, and it shook the smoking arrow from its head and kept on.
Night led Sol through more winding back alleys, and the roads got narrower and narrower, making it harder for Sol to turn and fire another arrow.
"Where are you taking us??" Sol shouted after the retreating cloak in front of her. "We're going to get stuck if we keep going this way!"
"Just keep going!" Night called back.
They ran until finally the sound of hooves and claws was replaced with a grating crunch behind them. Night pulled Sol behind a corner and they stopped, breathless to peer back around. The two smaller monsters that had followed them were jammed together in the narrow opening they had just run through. They thrashed and spewed plumes of flame, but to no avail.
"Alright, excellent!" Sol said with a breathless laugh. "I guess they aren't very smart, eh? That's something we have over them." She notched another arrow to her bow. "Good thinking, Night. I'll try to finish these two off. There has to be a weak point on them."
Night placed a hand on Sol's bow and pointed it downwards.
"That won't work, Ranger." She said with a gulp of air as she caught her breath. She wiped the sweat from her face and her eyes flickering in the gloom.
Sol shook her head. "It slowed them down." She said.
"You're not much smarter if you keep using the same useless trick against them." Night shot back, then upon catching Sol's scowl followed up with, "Sorry, that was rude of me... Can we do it my way now?"
"Alright fine, what's your way?" The snarls from around the corner were getting louder and more frantic, and harkened to the fact that they didn't have much time before one of the creatures figured out how to dislodge itself. The fire they were spitting made the closed space of the alley increasingly unbearable.
At Sol's acquiescence, Night held out her hand. "I need your name." She stared pointedly up at Sol. "Your real name."
Sol kept her mouth shut, and Night's brow furrowed at the hesitation. She jerked her hand out at her emphatically. "Please." She said.
"Fine. FINE!" Sol said. She stowed the drawn arrow back in its quiver and slung her blow over her shoulder. She grabbed Night's hand with her own, but pulled the smaller woman closer so she could loom over her. "But I need yours as well."
"I gave it to you. It's Nyx."
Sol twitched her head to the side in puzzlement. "Wait... Yesterday you told me it was Night."
"Then you misheard." Nyx glared up at her. "Your turn."
Sol hesitated one last time. A plume of fire cast the alley in an orange glow.
"My name is Sol." She said.
Nyx nodded then she reached upwards and put her free hand on the back of Sol's neck. "Sol, I need your help. I need you to share the weight of what I am about to do, but I promise you, I won't let any harm come to you. Can you carry this with me?"
Nyx's expression shifted from her usual furrowed brow and scowl to open earnestness as she waited her Sol's reply. Her bright eyes sparkled in the firelight.
"Don't make promises you can't keep." Sol said lowly, leaning closer to her.
"I'll stake my life on it." Nyx's hand was gentle but firm on Sol's neck and there was a slight tingling from where it rested against the base of her skull. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Sol's face. The roars behind them grew louder, accompanied by the sound of breaking bricks.
Sol was staring into deep water yet again, but the terror of the abyss was something she knew better than immolation.
"Alright." She said. "I'll carry it with you. Whatever it is."
Nyx's smile was so bright and full of relief that Sol felt it emanating through her. The tingling along her neck grew and raced down her shoulders along her arms and blossomed into the hand she had clasped around Nyx's. The orange glow of the encroaching fire was briefly overtaken by the golden glow that surrounded the two of them in that one brief moment of connection.
Then it was gone.
Nyx pulled away from Sol. Her smile of relief settled into a smirk of confidence.
"You stay here." She said. She snapped her fingers and called forth sparks of lightning. "I have some demons to slay."
She slid past Sol and around the corner to stand before the two monsters still wedged in the narrow alley. They trained their haunting orange eyes on her and opened their mouths ready to wreathe her in flame.
Nyx held up both hands as if she was about to conduct an orchestra or start a dance. Golden lightning flashed between them, and with a swift sweep of one arm she let loose a bright bolt that blasted the shadows into nothingness.
Sol stared in awe at the raw show of unimaginable power. Lightning right from a human's fingertips!! She thought to herself in amazement. Not even the most devout witch could craft something like that.
Nyx lowered her hands and let out a steadying breath then rolled her neck in a stretch before trotting towards the town centre.
"Nyx, wait!" Sol called after her. Nyx paused to look back over her shoulder. "I told you, stay there." Her confident smirk had turned into a grin. "Stay safe. I have this under control." She turned and continued on out of sight.
Sol felt a tug at her chest. She wanted to see what else the mage could do, so taking a page from Nyx's book, Sol followed after.