peered out over the bridge, across the water, into the darkness. Even with his shadesight, the rain prevented Cale from seeing much on the other side of the river.
The dread intensified, rooted in Cale’s mind. Tremors shook him. He stared across the river for the source, unable to move, unable to blink. He knew it was supernatural fear, that he had to fight it, but it overwhelmed his will.
A barrage of lightning flashed in the distance and Cale saw the source of his feeling, saw its silhouette framed for an instant by the sickly vermillion of the lightning bolts.
“Gods,” Cale said.
In form it had the shape of a man, but stood as tall as three shadow giants, looming over even the tallest buildings in Archenbridge. The blackness that composed its immense body was more than mere darkness; it was a hole, the night brought to life. Cale knew it was not Kesson Rel. It was instead the embodiment of fear, terror made manifest.
It stalked silently along the riverbank with the slow, methodical stride of a predator that had nothing to fear from other creatures. Supernatural terror leaked from it the way shadows leaked from Cale.
Cale held his breath as the creature paused before the bridge. It turned a featureless black face toward Archendale. Its head bobbed as if it were sniffing for spoor.
Prepare yourself, Cale signed to Riven, and the prospect of a battle helped clear his mind. His heart slowed. His breath came easier. He put both hands on Weaveshear’s hilt, and readied himself.
The creature put a foot on the bridge, seemed to think better of it, and turned and continued its path along the riverbank. Cale and Riven watched in relieved silence until it disappeared into the darkness.
“Dark and empty,” Riven said.
Cale agreed. There were darker things stalking the Shadowstorm than mere shadows and giants.
“We need to get to Ordulin,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
4 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms
Following the road, avoiding shadows and an increasing number of shadow giants, they made their way east toward Ordulin. The land became bleaker as they neared the provenance of the storm. Trees, grass, and shrubs had not been merely twisted, but many of them had been transformed entirely by the planar influx. Oaks and elms had been changed to black-barked trees with fat, spade shaped leaves. In place of larch there stood thin conifers with warty trunks and black needles. Malformed animals stalked the plains. Shadows dripped from the creatures’ mangy fur and they skulked away with growls and howls when Cale and Riven materialized in their midst. Some might have once been raccoons or foxes, but Cale could not tell for certain.
“It is like the Plane of Shadow,” Riven said, and Cale nodded.
They passed a road marker stuck in the embankment along the Dawnpost. It told them Ordulin was two days by wagon. The marker struck Cale as ridiculous, the artifact of an ancient, lost civilization. An abandoned horse cart lay in a ditch not far from it.
“How much farther?” Riven asked above the wind and thunder. The assassin could not read.
Cale estimated the time, based on the speed they had been moving.
“Two days by wagon. That puts us hours away.”
The assassin nodded, and glanced back the way they had come. “I wonder if she got out.”
At first Cale didn’t know what Riven was talking about. “The mare?”
Riven nodded.
“She got out,” Cale said, and thumped Riven on the shoulder. “Let’s move.”
Patrols of shadow giants grew more frequent, but they avoided them as they had been, and ate up the miles until they reached their destination.
Several bowshots away, Ordulin rose from the plains. Even from afar, Cale could see the black spike of Kesson Rel’s spire hovering over the center of the city, as if about to stab it through the heart. A continuous onslaught of green lightning bolts shot out of the churning sky and struck the top of the spire. With each strike, a tremulous line of energy raced along the spire’s length, from top to bottom, as if the spike were a conduit for the power, directing it to something or somewhere beneath it.
“Ordulin,” Cale said.
Even in the steady illumination from the continuous lightning, the walls and buildings of the city looked like featureless rectangles of black, shadowy tombstones marking the deaths of tens of thousands. Darting clots of black plagued the sky around the city, around Kesson’s tower.
Shadows. Thousands of them.
A great, swirling column of shadows spiraled around the tower for a moment, then perched on