The blazing light of the sun ahead of them was itself as much of a relief as the lack of any real opposition to their leaving when Casek saw it ahead of him. What few straggling Drau left behind in the tunnels had been dispatched handily between the warriors of their party. He and Raelynn, being the most battle-ready of their group, acted as the vanguard, leading the charge toward the exit, whilst the rest of their bedraggled party followed behind.

  Impressively, the foci-bearing woman had joined in quickly, summoning a polearm and lancing Shadowspawn with an ease—despite her exhaustion and long captivity—that belied a lifetime of fighting experience. She had not given her name, but Casek couldn’t help but admire her fortitude. The others that had been held with her shuffled behind them, barely responsive to the goings on around them. But, when the woman had joined the fight, their eyes had been drawn to her, and had scarcely left since, as though she had cast some sort of spell freeing them from the long sleep fighting desperately to keep a hold of them.

  It was remarkable to Casek that any of them had gathered themselves enough to run. He could not imagine what they had been through—the things they’d seen and experienced. A week ago, Casek had been feeling hard done by waking with no memory of his life before.

  Now, he wondered if he’d been afforded a phenomenal mercy.

  What hadn’t escaped his notice was how Idris had kept himself out of any combat, allowing the other three fighters to take care of any danger that came their way. Instead, he kept to the back of the pack, and his eyes had spent a considerable amount of time focused upon Casek. Even with his back turned, Casek felt the weight of his gaze; and any time he turned and found the older man to be looking at him, the sheer cold calculation behind the man’s scrutiny sent shivers down his spine.

  None of this stopped the wide grin that broke across his face as they broke into the light at last, and the warmth of the sun kissed his cheeks. He breathed deep the fresh, open air, savouring the first must and salt-free breath he’d taken in what felt like weeks.

  “Casek!” Raelynn pulled up beside him, wearing a wide, albeit tired, smile. “We made it! I honestly thought I wouldn’t see the sky again in years. Without you, I wouldn’t have—neither would any of us. Thank you.”

  Casek began to respond, but was abruptly cut off by Idris’ no nonsense monotone. “Thanks and celebrations are for people free of danger. Listen, Raelynn.”

  The mine entrance was a ways outside of the city limits, backed by forests of oak and alder that reached far into the horizon. Casek concentrated on the sounds beyond the rustling of leaves and their own group. It was faint, but in the distance, the whispers of distant cries and struggle were on the wind among the trees—the sound of a deadly hunt through the woods.

  “The people I freed must have fled into the woods,” Casek muttered.

  “Indeed,” Idris said. “And the Shadowspawn have followed in force. As we have no clue whether the Daemon will return sooner, or later, I would suggest we make haste in the opposite direction.”

  “That would leave us having to cover a lot of ground to loop back north for Pyry,” Raelynn said.

  Idris’ brows raised. “You mean to recover Taran from the capital?”

  “I meant to recover everyone,” Raelynn retorted, meeting Idris’s questioning stare head on. “I will finish that task.”

  He held her gaze for a moment, then shook his head. “Now is no time to talk foolishness. We make for the docks at Makavi. We should be able to find a boat in acceptable enough condition that we can row along the coast far enough to avoid getting caught in this Daemon’s hunt.”

  “Pyry’s harbour is along that route,” Raelynn said.

  “And if we are sensible, we’ll sail past it until we reach Oreia.”

  Raelynn narrowed her eyes, but turned away from Idris and instead addressed the woman they had freed, and the group of people gathered behind her. “I do not know your name, but you are welcome to join us—at least part of the way. If you can find a boat, we can lead you to Oreia. It is the only settlement of humans left, as far as any of us have been able to tell. We can’t promise much, but a bed, a modicum of safety and some hot food is better than anything you’ll find in the wilds.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I am going to stay.” She paused, glancing out toward the woods where they could still hear the sounds of the hunting Shadowspawn. “I have been imprisoned with these people for nearly one hundred years. We do not know each other, and we have shared no words, but nonetheless, we are bound. I will not abandon them to be hunted—not when I might help. I do not speak for everyone here, of course.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  She glanced back at the group of people behind her, but if anything, they edged further toward her at the implication they might choose to leave. One man, a wiry twenty-something with straggly hair the colour of straw stepped forward, eyes focused on the woman.

  “We, too, will stay. This is our home. We did not abandon it to the Shadow one thousand years ago. We will not now.”

  Idris tutted loudly and muttered something Casek was certain was insulting. He ignored it, stepping forward and reaching out a hand to the woman.

  “Good luck,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll meet again one day in better circumstances.”

  The woman took his hand, grip firm, and shook it. “Thank you Casek. Without you, none of us would have felt the free air on our faces again. I am íte. If I live to see your return, know I will do everything I can to repay the debt owed to you for what you have done here.”

  Casek nodded, and watched for a moment as íte and the others darted off into the forest to begin their new lives, as long or short as they might be. Then he hurried in the opposite direction, after Raelynn and Idris, who had already started back toward Makavi.

  They reached the town’s gate again without incident. Somehow, scurrying through the cobbled streets felt even more uncomfortable than the first. Even with being able to sense there were few Shadowspawn close by, the still silence of what should have been a bustling hub of activity and noise was unsettling. His gut still held memories of what this place should have been like, and though he couldn’t picture it clearly, he could still feel the absence of what should be.

  Instead, every open doorway, every shrouded window up high, was a place from which they could be watched by unfriendly eyes. Each drawn out second of silence cranked the tension up a notch higher, until Casek’s teeth ground in his mouth, and he flinched and started at every subtle change in the wind or imagined movement in the corner of his eye.

  He was about ready to crack by the time they reached the docks once more and began searching the quay for a sea-worthy vessel.

  “I can’t believe how well-preserved these boats are,” he wondered aloud whilst they checked the lifeboats of a trading vessel too large for them to sail unaided. “To be honest, I’m struggling to wrap my head around how well preserved most things are. The buildings are resin-cured, so I can understand that. But for there to be things like tools and rope—Gods, for there to be any boats left intact near the ocean—its ridiculous.”

  Idris regarded him for a moment, a pair of oars in hand for the likely-looking rowboat he’d just removed the protective canvas covering from. After an uncomfortably long pause, he spoke. “It is a phenomenon poorly understood. We know it is something to do with the presence of the Shadow, though. It is said that in the once-resplendent cities in the North, where the Shadow resides in unfathomable numbers, things appear decades old, rather than centuries—or even millennia.”

  He glanced over the rowboat—a decent sized, deep brown vessel with a small mast and sail and enough space for the three of them to be comfortable, but small enough to be rowed—and nodded in satisfaction. The three of them began using the still-intact pulleys to lower it over the side of the trading ship, into the sea below, whilst Idris continued.

  “Some suggest—myself included—that it has something to do with the nature of the magic used to create the stasis crystals. They preserve living people almost perfectly, awake and alive, for an indefinite period. I believe there is a power bleed in places where many of these crystals exist in close proximity, and things nearby are preserved beyond their natural limit. Others have suggested it is something to do with the Shadow themselves. That they have consciously or accidentally altered the very fabric of our reality—changed fundamentally how the passage of time affects the world. This, I think, is a little harder to believe, but the reality is that we simply don’t have the answers to say with any certainty.”

  In a matter of minutes, they were in their small vessel, preparing it and themselves for their journey, when a chill ran across Casek’s arms that had nothing to do with the fresh ocean breeze. With it, came a twist of nausea, and he jerked his head back towards the abandoned town.

  “You sense something, Casek,” Idris said, regarding him with a dead-eyed stare.

  Raelynn glanced up, words already threatening to spill out of her mouth, but Casek spoke first, eyes never leaving the buildings at the end of the pier. “It’s here. We need to set sail—now!”

  As if in answer, a furious shriek burst forth from what had once been a warehouse, sending the assorted gulls bobbing daintily on the gently lapping ocean scattering into the air in a flurry of panicked squawks. Casek span, rushing to untie the fastenings holding back the tightly rolled sail, whilst Idris and Raelynn scrambled for their oars to put them to sea.

  The Daemon herself exploded forth from the vast wooden double doors in the centre of the building, her howls filling the square, and penetrating right to Casek’s bones, even as their boat drifted easily away from the pier thanks to the efforts of his two companions.

  It thundered at them from the building at terrifying speeds, flanked by a retinue of slathering Bel’gor in spider form, reaching the pier unsettlingly quickly. For the barest of moments, Casek thought it might hurl itself into the sea and swim after them—or even leap the distance to the boat. Mercifully, it reared up on its back legs, frothing with impotent rage, and shrieked again.

  Only, this time, amongst the piercing, alien rasp, Casek could hear a single word:

  “Tainted!”

  He shot glances at Raelynn and Idris, and their faces told him he had not imagined it. Again and again, the Daemon howled at them as they sailed away, with Casek taking up his own oar to hasten their speed. Again and again, he dragged the wooden paddle through the water, each stroke punctuated by another howl from the Daemon, gradually growing more and more distant until finally, he could hear it no more.

  “Tainted!”

  “Tainted!”

  “Tainted…”