Shadowstrike

One

One

Cathal asked. Brice had asked himself the same question, countless times.

“I can’t keep running forever.” It was what he had been telling himself for the last hour, ever since Cathal said Shaela had tracked Brice down already.

That was disconcerting. Normally, Brice had a few days’ grace at a new hold-out, but he’d only arrived here at dawn. Either he was growing slack, or Shaela had new intelligence.

He looked around, at the trees, the leaves filling out as spring finally came to the basin. High overhead, the last of the day’s sunlight bathed them in brilliant light, but at their base the trunks were already smothered in shadow.

Cathal turned his head, those large discs where his eyes had once been swirling like angry clouds. His lips parted as he took a breath, revealing yellowed fangs that matched his razor-sharp claws. But Brice felt no threat from the thing his commander had become. Not after all they’d been through.

“Of course.”

Brice shrugged. “Let’s focus on Shaela first.”

“I know.” He sensed Cathal shift beside him, ready to interject, and so Brice continued. “But we stick to the plan. She’ll bring shades. You deal with them‌—‌you, Car and Ap Owen…”

“…if he gets here. I’ll deal with Shaela.”

Cathal clicked his tongue. He’d been doing that more often recently, whenever Brice made a suggestion.

“Nor do I. But when’s that ever made a difference?”

Cathal nodded, then moved off, to the edge of the hold-out roof. He pulled himself up to his full height, over a head taller than Brice. With his hands on his hips and his legs shoulder-width apart, his whole body covered in strips of cloth, he appeared as a phantom surveying his domain.

“Car still close to them?”

“She’ll know he’s there.”

Brice pushed out, with his mind, or with whatever his lattice had become. He focused, concentrating on the forest. Around the concrete block of the hold-out was a track of muddy grass, surrounded by trees. There was one path, branches extending over the top to create a tunnel. Through the tunnel was the raised earth platform of the landing pad.

Not that any did now. Not since the shades had surrounded Haven. And definitely not since the Hermes took off, barely half a year ago, taking Keelin and the others to the safety of Metis.

Brice rubbed the mark on his arm, barely visible now. The mark where a shade had sunk its fangs into Brice’s flesh. By rights, he should be either dead or changed, like Cathal. But his body had rejected the venom.

He’d discussed this with Cathal many times, on the roofs of other hold-outs. Cathal knew about the venom in the bite of a shade, because he possessed it too. And he felt the shades’ lattices, weak and poorly formed but there all the same. As he explained, and as Brice concentrated, he too began to feel the presence of the shades with greater accuracy.

But the way Brice’s body had not succumbed was still a mystery. Cathal suggested it was down to Brice’s lattice being altered‌—‌a polite way of saying it was totally screwed, somehow becoming a part of his body in a way it was never meant to. It explained nothing. Brice was immune, and that was that.

Cathal dropped his arms to his side, a sure sign he was expecting company soon. He’d mentioned the kin‌—‌his term for the shades‌—‌that would surely be travelling with Shaela. The shades would not be able to focus on Brice‌—‌another mystery‌—‌but their presence would be a distraction. That was why Brice needed Cathal and his friends.

Of course, Shaela might be running with more of the infected, the ones Nyle had turned. But Brice doubted it. Nyle wasn’t one to share.

She was closer now, and Brice pushed, reading the traces around her, concentrating on the individual lines. No infected besides Shaela, but a number of shades. He counted, twice.

“You okay with fifteen of them?”

And now Brice caught Car’s trace, off to the right. One of the few traces he recognised by taste‌—‌musty and sour, but oddly comforting.

“You got enough strength?” he asked Cathal. “Need another pack?”

That was something else that worried Brice. A month ago Cathal drank at least three blood packs each day, but now he was down to one. It wasn’t as if they were running low, either. With what Cathal, Car and Ap Owen had taken from Haven, and the few that were stored in each hold-out, they had ample.

“You sure?”

His voice was sharp, and Brice winced.

“Tell Car to sweep round, ready to move in on the shades,” Brice said as he saw movement, over by the landing pad. A shape emerged from the trees, skirting round the raised ground. Other shapes moved in the shadows of the trees.

Of course they kept to the shadows. The sun had not yet set, and the shades would not want to expose their skin to its burning rays. But Shaela would be covered, as Cathal was. She would be protected, free to move about before nightfall.

And now she appeared, striding through the tunnel of branches between the landing pad and the hold-out. She held her cloth-covered head high, and although her arms hung by her sides Brice couldn’t miss the glint of her claws.

She stopped at the edge of the path, tilting her head toward the concrete block’s roof. The dirty cloth on her face twitched and Brice could imagine her sneering.

Her voice was harsh and grating.

Brice glanced into the trees either side of her, then over her shoulder. The shades had fanned out, a few risking a flash of pain as they jumped across the tunnel. They hissed quietly, and in the shadows their fangs shone.

“Only fifteen of them?” he said. “Nyle let you out with so few?”

She snorted.

Cathal moved to Brice’s side, his own claws extended.

She spat out that last word, using Cathal’s attempt to cling to his humanity as an insult.

“You’re so sure of that, come on up,” Brice said, moving to one side and waving a hand. The other he kept by his side, hovering over the knife he wore at his hip.

Shaela made a grating sound, and her shoulders shook. Laughter. Cathal tensed at that sound.

“Not going to leave any of it for your boss?”

Brice knew that would get a reaction, and he wasn’t surprised by the expletives that she shot into his mind, mixed with threats of dubious physical possibility. It was almost funny.

And then she charged.

The movement was sudden, catching Brice off-guard, and he only realised what was happening when she was already in the air, leaping up to the roof of the hold-out. A clawed hand sliced through the air, and Brice jumped back from the edge, out of range. He crouched, knife ready, as she landed.

She spun, and Cathal fell. Brice pushed out, briefly, but knew his friend wasn’t injured, just knocked from the roof.

Then Shaela attacked in earnest.

She was quick, and strong. She’d been getting the best blood she could, and was in peak condition. Her limbs moved in a blur, claws raking towards Brice, the air thick with her stench.

And he read her movements.

Brice became conscious of everything, messages racing round his body so fast that time seemed to slow, and he existed in each moment. He sensed rather than saw the way she came at him from his right, and how she kept one foot back. He calculated, and as he ducked to avoid the higher attack, he felt her swing round, bringing a leg higher, the boot slamming down toward his shin.

He shifted, and the boot hit concrete. He ducked lower, swinging his knife, its keen edge slicing through the cloth wrapped round her leg, biting into her thick hide. Spray, warm and coppery, hit his face.

She jumped back. But there was pain in her voice. Not from the cut itself, but from wounded pride.

Brice could use that.

He felt blood pump round his system, felt adrenaline surge. He tightened muscles, eased others.

And he attacked.

The fight enveloped Brice, a series of moves he read and controlled. He saw strike and counterstrike. He read signs within his own body, oxygen levels in his blood, adrenaline, heart-rate, lactic acid in his muscles. He tensed and flexed, and the knife became a part of him, an extension of his body.

At the same time, he was conscious of traces around him, as Cathal slashing through the shades. The aroma of blood rose, although it was not nearly strong enough to cover Shaela’s stench.

Her insults faded into grunts of effort and hurt. He noted the pull of her arms, the shift of her legs. He anticipated.

And when she over-exerted, her body at full stretch, her head level with his shoulders, he twisted and brought the knife down, eyes fixed on the point where it must strike.

Shaela screamed, high-pitched. She vibrated wildly, and Brice twisted the knife, pushing it in harder, forcing it to sever the muscles at the back of her neck. As she stumbled Brice pulled the knife free and stabbed down again. This time the crunch of metal on bone shot along his arm.

She collapsed onto all fours, wailing pathetically. Brice leaned on the blade, and Shaela dropped her elbows to the concrete. Her roar of pain was flecked with spit, then blood.

Brice hammered the metal edge home one last time, and Shaela’s arms gave way. She collapsed, and Brice followed her down, using his weight to drive the blade in up to the hilt.

When she hit the ground, Brice’s muscles jarred.

The scream faded. Brice pulled the knife free and stood.

Shaela’s body didn’t move.

Brice took a breath, then bent down to clean his knife on the few unbloodied patches of cloth she wore.

Then he stood. The last warmth of the day was fading, and he could smell the approaching night, even over the dead beast’s stink. And the stench of the others.

Cathal had killed many of them. Brice saw his old commander lurch amongst the trees, pulling down another black beast. A short way off, Car fought too. He grabbed a shade from behind and sunk his fangs into its neck, pulling back in a spray of blood and gore before letting the body fall into the undergrowth.

Of the fifteen shades, only three still stood, and that number reduced even as Brice counted, one of the traces flaring then growing cold as Cathal tore the life from the creature. He turned on another, ripping out its throat, and Car brought the last to the ground with a slice of his claws.

Brice closed his eyes, and breathed deep. He allowed the ache to flood his muscles. He studied his body, feeling bruising and cuts‌—‌none of them were deep, and even the one that still bled would soon be sealed, white blood cells already in the area, platelets knitting across the opening.

And then Cathal’s voice cut through his mind, pulling him back to the world of the forest.