Stands of trees materialized out of the darkness. Leafless, skeletal, their limbs stuck out of the boles at twisted, agonized angles. Their dry boughs rattled in the wind. The men pointed and murmured.
Mennick steered his horse close to Reht’s side and spoke in a tone only Reht could hear.
“Do you feel the air, Commander? It has changed. As the storm grows stronger, the air seems to steal strength. I find it hard to breathe. Do you feel it?”
Reht nodded.
“The deeper we move in, the worse it is becoming.”
Reht looked the mage in the eye and saw concern there. The nervous seed in Reht’s stomach sprouted leaves.
“We’ve made a mistake,” he said.
The storm was not Shadovar magic. It was something else entirely, something not of Faerûn, and he had led his men right into it.
“Halt,” he said, but his voice broke. He turned to the runners, cleared his throat, kept his voice steady. “Halt! We are calling a halt and turning around. Do it now!”
“Commander …” Kelgar said.
Reht threw back his hood and stared at the warpriest. “You see what this is as clearly as I. There are no Shadovar here, priest. This is something else and we need to get clear of it. Now, follow your orders.”
Kelgar stared back, nodded. “Aye, General.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to get out,” Mennick said.
To that, Reht said nothing. He did not know either.
Word spread but slowly in the rain, in the darkness. The line stopped at last and reorganized for a march out of the storm. Horns sounded, their clarion strangely muffled.
“On the double quick!” Reht said to his runners. “Pass it on!”
“The scouts?” Mennick asked, his horse blinking in the rain.
They had not had word in hours. The scouts were either lost or … something else. Reht shook his head, refusing to give voice to his concerns.
“They will have to catch up with us.”
Mennick nodded, and looked back into the darkness.
Orders carried through the pitch, the men prepping to move out on the double quick. The rain abated and some of the men cheered. The darkness, however, remained unrelenting.
Reht found the absence of rain more ominous than comforting. Black mist curled around the muddy ground, around the twisted dead trees, and around the nervous hooves of their horses, who pranced and neighed. For the first time, Reht realized that he had not seen a wild animal in hours. He stilled his heart and forced calm into his voice.
“On the double quick! Move!”
The wind at their backs swallowed the last of his order as it picked up, howled, and took on a strange keening. The line lurched forward as the cold deepened. Reht’s teeth chattered and the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. He felt eyes on him, looked over his shoulder, but saw nothing save the darkness. His instincts screamed at him to run, told him that something unforgiving out there in the darkness was coming for him. He saw the same sentiment reflected in the alarmed faces around him.
They were moving too slowly.
“On the double quick! On the double quick, damn it!”
“There!” someone shouted, the word nearly lost in the wind. “There!”
Shouts erupted along the line and carried through the black. Reht turned in his saddle to see thousands of coal red points of light floating in the darkness, as numerous as the stars.
Eyes.
The darkness was coming for them.
The keening sounded again, a mistuned longflute, and Reht realized it was not the wind. It was the creatures, shrieking at them, closing on them.
“Around and hold formation!” he shouted, and hated himself for the tremor in his voice. “Around and hold!”
The shouts of commanders carried through the darkness, echoing his words. Horns sounded again, making a cacophony with the keening.
The army scrambled into formation as the wind turned to a gale and the creatures sped toward them. A few men deserted, fled with their horses at a dead run. Reht cursed them for cowards.
Armor chinked, men cursed, and weapons were readied. Hundreds of crossbows and bows twanged. A swarm of bolts and arrows flew into the darkness at the eyes, veering wildly in the wind. The creatures wailed again, apparently unharmed, and closed. Soul deadening cold went before them.
Reht drew his blade, readied his shield. His magically augmented vision allowed him to distinguish the creatures as they neared, but barely. Vaguely humanoid in shape and composed of living shadow, they rode the wind and flew like arrow shots through the night. Red eyes