Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [124]
He chivvied them down the long rectangular entrance hall and almost to the arched exit before instinct impelled him to look back. He couldn't see shapes, not yet, but the darkness boiled with movement. Shadows were pouring out of the doorways along the walls.
Kevin reckoned he needed to delay the phantoms for at least a few seconds. Otherwise, few if any of the captives would make it outside. He turned and tried to bellow a war cry, but it came out as more of a weary, frightened squeak. He strode toward the far end of the chamber, and a wave of shadow hurtled out of the gloom to meet him.
He drove his sword into a shadow's chest but never knew whether he'd slain it, for the next instant, the rest of them swept over him, and after that, he was no longer able to keep track of specific adversaries. There was only a pack, a many-limbed mass, striking and snatching at him from every side, as he lurched and whirled and slashed at it.
Once, for a split second, a narrow gap appeared in the mass, and Kevin glimpsed other devils loping toward the door. He wished he could intercept them as well, but knew there was no chance of it. Cold hands seized hold of his arms and shoulders, and the strength began to flow out of him.
Even as he struggled to pull free, other shadows clutched at him, and it was hopeless. He resolved not to scream, but did it anyway, sure the phantoms were sucking out the final traces of his life.
* * * * *
In time, he woke to cold rain spattering his face and hard, wet floor beneath his supine body. He pried open his gummy eyelids. Gray clouds floated directly overhead, but walls rose at the corners of his vision, as if he was in a pit. He tried to lift himself for a better look around but failed. He was horribly weak, and cold deep inside in a way that even his soaked attire couldn't explain.
"Young man!" someone whispered. "Don't move!"
He rolled his head to the side and saw the goodwife with the curly gray hair, who was also lying on the floor.
"Why not?" he whispered back.
"You'll provoke it!"
Somehow Kevin knew without asking what "if was. King Shadow. The lesser phantoms had borne him and his fellow human into the titan's lair. The fancy he'd scrawled inside the Cormyr Gate had more or less come true.
"Did the shadows recapture all of you?" he asked.
"No," the woman said. "Most of us made it out the door."
Kevin surprised himself by smiling. "Helm gave me good value for my penny then. Better than I had any right to expect."
The matron frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"It doesn't matter. Tell me where we are and what's going on."
"We're in a large chamber at the top of the keep. The roof is gone, and this huge… thing apparently makes its lair here."
"Go on."
The lesser shadows dumped us here for the monster to eat when it's ready, the same way you'd put down food for a dog. It already gobbled up Quinn and Evaine while you were unconscious."
"It's not gobbling us at the moment, and if it's not paying attention, perhaps we can slip away."
"It is paying attention. Evaine tried to sneak out, and that's when it snatched her up."
"Oh. All right, I understand. Now try to rest while I figure a way out of this."
"That's mad. If you were facing the way I am, if you could see the creature-".
"Ajandor, the knight I serve, taught me that if a man his head, he can think his way out of almost any peril, and I might as well try. Why not? What do we have to lose?"
The matron smiled. "When you put it that way, lad, not a thing. Think away."
Kevin lay and pondered, wondering what Ajandor would have done in his place, and if the knight had actually come looking for him. Probably not, for by the cold light of this joyless morning, he recognized that the trick he had attempted to play was a puerile one, born out of desperation rather than sense. No doubt the shrewd old man had seen through it at once and simply bade good riddance to the impudent ass who had hoped to gull him.