Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [9]
He was free at last of his prison.
With a laugh ringing in his throat, he stepped onto the smooth, stone-paved road and headed west at a trot, eager to catch up with the army he could still hear marching far ahead of him.
Defiance was easy enough in the heat of the act, but a far different thing when the path was dark, the trail long, and only cold and hunger marched by his shoulder.
Caelan gritted his teeth against fear, refusing to look too far to the left or right. The forest bordered the road in ominous quiet. Now and then he heard distant howls that might belong to wolves or worse. He kept quickening his pace, refusing to run, but going fast enough to be breathless. How had the rear of the army gotten so far ahead so quickly? All day he’d listened to them march by; now there was only the dreadful silence of the woods.
He thought he saw eyes gleaming off to one side. His mouth went dry and his heart quickened jerkily. But then the faint gleam vanished.
Caelan told himself he was seeing visions.
The gleam reappeared in the trees, brighter now although still distant. He heard a faint trace of sounds, an echo of laughter perhaps, and smelled food cooking. Pausing in the middle of the road, Caelan realized he was seeing the lights of a camp ahead. He’d found the army.
Relief washed over him. It was hard to believe his lifelong dream was finally in his grasp. At last he was going to live as he chose. All he had to do to enter the army was to lie about his age. He was tall and broad-shouldered. He thought he could convince the officers he was old enough to serve.
Squaring his shoulders and brushing quick hands down the front of his short novice robe, he practiced briefly what he would say, then strode toward the outskirts of the camp.
A shape barreled into him from nowhere and knocked him flat.
Half-stunned, Caelan slowly registered a foul stench; hard, heavy muscles; and a triumphant grunting. It was a lurker, and it had him.
Fear galvanized Caelan, and he yelled with all his might, flailing wildly with his arms to drive the creature off.
His resistance only seemed to excite the creature. It leaped atop him, ripping his robe into shreds. Lurker smell was nauseating, and Caelan gagged and choked. He had no weapon, not even a tinder strike or a coal box. Lurkers were skulkers, cowards who preyed on carrion and stragglers. Although vicious, they were easily frightened off by simple tactics such as armed resistance or even lire.
With regret Caelan thought of the knife he kept hidden in his clothes chest in his quarters. He’d bought it at the fair from a Neika tribesman last summer. It was forbidden, of course, and certainly not allowed at school. But he’d managed to keep the proctors from finding it during their periodic room searches. What he’d give to have the weapon at hand now.
Stupid to be caught like this. With the wide, paved road bordered on either side by deep ditches kept cleared by imperial order, he had felt safe. He hadn’t even been thinking of lurkers this close to the hold or the nearby town.
Sniffing along Caelan’s throat, the lurker laughed low. For a moment it sounded almost human.
Horrified, Caelan jabbed it in one eye with his thumb.
The creature reared back with a howl, and Caelan was able to scramble free. He gave it a kick that knocked it over, gained his feet, and ran for his life.
Shrieking, the lurker lunged after him, and the chase began in earnest. Caelan knew if it caught him it would tear him apart in its excitement, or else drag him off to feed a colony.
Lurkers were fearsome things, half human and half animal. Man-sized when grown, they could walk upright or drop to their knuckles. Hook-nosed and fanged, they had faces that looked semi-intelligent, and they were certainly cunning. Their skin was usually mottled or covered with warts. Long silver hair grew to their shoulders and hung in tangled locks filled with twigs and burrs. Said to be originally spawned of demons, they skulked the fringes