How the Shadows Deepen
Palawen Ty and her friends travel through the heart of Jadenwood, searching for some sign of the elusive Fey. When the trail leads to a series of grizzly murders, many local villagers are keen to point the finger of blame at the newly arrived strangers. Soon, Palawen and her companions are fighting for their lives against the anger of a vindictive mob and the magics of an enraged dryad.
Meanwhile, tensions are running high in the city of Taralius. Shade’s search for the mysterious Phial leads her to confront the shadow of a past she thought she’d left behind. Elsewhere, Avendor Tarcoth continues his recovery from the near-burnout he suffered while pulling Tiberius Alaran from a burning chapel. Avendor hasn’t seen the sage since the night of the fire, and his continued absence is only one more knot in an ever-expanding tangle of deceit and intrigue.
But the worst is still to come, for the shadow of an ancient evil has returned to the Realm of Relen-Kar.
Madness in the Wood
The deep places of Jadenwood were a verdant swell of looming trees and sprawling bramble. Hardly a breeze stirred as Palawen Ty picked her way through the woods with a hunter’s quiet grace, carefully planting each footfall. With the approaching dusk, the canopy cast wide swaths of murky shadow, and she squinted against the fading light to avoid catching her foot or stumbling into a low-hanging branch. Otherwise, the trail she followed was easy to pick out. The lingering traces of magic were as unmistakable as a skunk’s pungent musk.
It felt similar to the magic she’d inherited from her unknown sylph father, too weak to belong to a full-blooded Iria. It was, however, the first sign of them she’d found since setting out from Timberford with Caleb, Tanner and Malek four days earlier. Their purpose was to seek out the region’s tanmar, who was supposed to inhabit the moors north of Jadenwood. It would be no easy task. The people more widely known as the Fey were secretive and elusive, and the tanmar—usually a woman from among the various sprites—was responsible for maintaining the safety of all other Iria in a given region. It was unlikely that such an individual would reveal herself to a group of humans, even a group that included a feyling like Palawen.
And so, when they’d first stumbled across the faint traces of Iria magic, she’d sent Caleb and Tanner on ahead to the nearby village of Hillcrest while she and Malek followed the trail, hoping to find some means of fulfilling their purpose.
Palawen pressed on, picking her way between several bushes to take up a position in the shadow of a large elm. There, she raised a sliver of dried reed to her mouth. A single warbling breath sent the semblance of a sparrow’s song trilling through the forest. A heartbeat later, a matching call came back to her, assuring her that Malek was somewhere nearby. A second extended trill indicated that he was moving in her direction.
Palawen remained rooted in place until Malek emerged from the tangle of the wood. The drooping cap that cast his eyes in shadow seemed a match to his long, white moustaches. He didn’t have her talent for sensing Iria magic, but a lifetime of experience as a trapper had taught him plenty about woodcraft and tracking. He was also one of the most skilled archers Palawen had ever known. The only man she’d count as his better was her own father.
“I found prints,” he said. “Only partial, but by the size and the stride, I’d say they were made by someone not yet fully grown.”
Palawen groaned. “We’ve been tracking a kid?”
“Seems that way.” He regarded her carefully. “Should we head back?”
Palawen squinted into the darkness and considered his suggestion. It was sensible enough. What could she hope to find by following some youth through the forest?
Even a youth with Iria blood? she wondered. A feyling like me?
The thought triggered too many unpleasant memories. Even with her father to guide her, she’d spent much of her childhood hiding in the dense growth of the Pargamine Jungle, wishing she could be something other than what she was—afraid that others might hurt her. Here, in the depths of Jadenwood, she couldn’t help wondering if someone else was doing the same.
“Let’s keep moving,” she insisted. “We might not get another chance like this.”
“You sure?” asked Malek.
“I’m sure,” Palawen snapped, irritated at the direction of her own thoughts. She was not allowing herself to be led by sentimentality. Her decision was purely practical.
“Then lead the way,” said the old trapper. If he was unconvinced, there was no hint of it in his voice.
They pressed on, though Malek lingered more closely now. To Palawen’s weak night vision, the trapper was little more than a shadow creeping through the woods.
They’d travelled nearly a mile when she first detected a change in the magic. She could still feel it, but there was something else now—something oily and rancid that caused her gut to knot up in unpleasant recognition. Palawen had experienced that same feeling from the various horrors she’d encountered over the past weeks.
The dachyra. The shaktri. The Faceless.
“Stop,” she hissed at Malek.
Trailing some dozen yards to her left, the trapper halted, his lanky frame going taut with anticipation.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Something’s wrong,” she answered just as quietly.
“Dachyra?”
There’d been no sign of the shadowbeasts during their journey north from Timberford, but that didn’t mean anyone had forgotten them.
Palawen shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then what—”
Raised voices cut Malek off. The shouting was too distant for Palawen to make out the words, but the emotion was evident. She motioned forward, then set off again, slipping her bow from the holster on her quiver and stringing it as she crept forward. She trusted Malek to follow and focused all her attention on the sounds ahead. Her hearing was stronger than her sight, and she picked out faint murmurs among the trees. She listened intently for several minutes until she came upon two men standing at the edge of a clearing.
Both clutched worn axes that had more the look of tools than weapons. The taller of the pair held out a simple lantern. By the flickering firelight, Palawen could make out another body, lying bent and broken in the middle of the clearing. She couldn’t discern the full extent of the injuries, but dried blood was splattered across the ground and the corpse had already attracted the attention of scavengers.
“I’m telling you,” said one of the men. “That’s Ergin. That shirt was a gift from Jina.”
“Devilry,” stammered his companion, tracing the Sign of the Guardian between his forehead and his heart.
Palawen exchanged a brief glance with Malek as he eased up beside her. The trapper stroked his moustaches thoughtfully before detaching himself from the shadows. Palawen quickly stepped out behind him.
The two woodsmen whirled, raising their axes defensively.
“Who’re you?” asked the man with the lantern.
He had big eyes and bigger ears, reminding Palawen of the lemurs she’d seen swinging through the jungle back home. He thrust his lantern toward Malek, as though the trapper was some ghast that could be scared off by the light.
Superstitious nonsense, Palawen thought. She knew first-hand that ghasts didn’t fear anything.
“Easy, there,” said Malek. “We were just passing by and heard raised voices.” He glanced toward the body. “What happened here?”
“Just found him like this,” said the smaller man, “all broken and bloodied, like he’d been mauled by a rockcat.”
Palawen frowned, stepping forward for a closer look at the dead man. He was tall and broad shouldered, with wide eyes that seemed to bulge from their sockets. His limbs were all twisted and broken, the flesh dark and pulpy, as if he’d been crushed to death. Blood crusted dozens of wounds where skin appeared to have burst open. When a plump, blackish beetle skittered through an open cut, Palawen turned away, fighting back the urge to be sick.
“Ashes and embers,” she coughed, backing away from the corpse. “You knew him?” she asked of the lemur-faced man.
He nodded grimly. “Ergin Skrag, may the Nine rest his soul. Was apprenticed to the local blacksmith. But this wasn’t no rockcat. This here’s Shadowcraft or my name’s not Pemish Heln.”
Palawen stifled a grunt. She’d known too many fools who were eager to blame every oddity on Shadowcraft. Or on feylings, she thought bitterly. For many, it amounted to the same thing.
In this case, however, she found she could not dismiss the man’s assessment. The sense of wrongness was still there, like a stench that refused to be banished. She could almost taste the corruption lingering around them. The thought made her more than a little uneasy. She wasn’t eager to encounter anything that could do this kind of damage.
“Have either of you seen anything strange recently?” she asked.
“Not me,” answered the smaller man.
“Maybe,” said Pemish, scratching behind one large ear. “I thought I caught the shadow of something following me yesterday. Thought it might be a wolf, but it didn’t move like one. It was more like—”
His words dissolved into a scream as a nearby tree shuddered and began to rise over them. At first, Palawen thought it was somehow growing. Then she noted long arms unfolding from the trunk and thick legs with feet like heavily gnarled roots. Branch-shaped antlers crowned a flat face, featureless except for the deep and unmistakable hollows of eyes, which flared with pools of greenish light.
She recognized the creature immediately.
“Aldelm!” she screamed.
The suddenness of its appearance caused the two woodsmen to freeze. It was their undoing. The tree-thing reached down and snatched both men off their feet, lifting them to its face as though examining them through some preternatural sense. After a moment, it turned and smashed the shorter man against the ground. His head split; his neck snapped with a sickening crack.
The aldelm raised Pemish, preparing to send him to the same fate.
Palawen was already moving. Her first instinct had been to reach for her magic, but even one gentle probe was enough to rake her body with pain. It had been that way ever since she’d somehow channelled it through Carvesh Tarne’s strange sword and split the skull of the demon known as the shaktri. A veil of pain had grown between her and the power that had been hers since childhood.
No magic, then. Weapons it is.
Her bow would be of little use. Instead, she drew the mace, gripping so tightly that the leather strips pressed into the tender flesh of her palms. With a savage scream, she attacked the creature’s leg. Bark cracked and wood splintered. The expressionless face swung toward her. Palawen struck, again and again, smashing larger and larger chunks from the creature’s limb—all to little effect. It reached for her as it had with the woodsmen, but Palawen anticipated the movement. She reached out, threw one arm around its thick fingers and started clambering up toward its head.
Bloody, flaming mad. She could almost hear Tanner’s voice chiding her as she climbed.
“Watch yourself!” Malek hollered. He sent an arrow into the side of the aldelm’s head.
“Won’t do any good!” Palawen yelled.
Before the creature could snatch her, she leaped, flying from one arm toward the other. Using her own momentum, she struck at the creature’s wrist. The mace hit hard, cracking wood and loosening the grip enough for Pemish to scramble free. He tumbled to the ground, landing with a heavy thud. Palawen leaped and dropped to the forest floor beside him.
“Run!” she cried.
Pemish clambered to his feet, struggling for breath after his fall. He nodded once and fled. Malek fired off another arrow into the creature’s empty eye before following. Palawen backed up hurriedly until she was certain that she was beyond the creature’s reach. Then she raced after Malek, catching up with him in a few strides.
“I have to say,” the trapper muttered, blowing out his moustaches with every breath, “things are always interesting with you people.”
“I think I’d rather have it boring,” Palawen replied, dodging around a tree and ducking under a low-hanging bough.
“It’s a boughman, isn’t it?”
Palawen nodded. Clearly, he was familiar with at least some of the old stories. “I don’t know what it’s doing here, though.”
“Wonderful,” Malek muttered.
They caught up with Pemish quickly. The woodsman hobbled along, clearly injured. That uneven stride made him unfit for a prolonged run. Palawen considered trying to lure the aldelm away, but there was no way to ensure it would follow. It might decide the wounded man was an easier target. Her only other option was to keep by Pemish's side and watch for some means of escape. The aldelm would catch them in a flat foot race, which meant she had to evade it by going places it could not easily follow.
“Malek,” she shouted, “go left!” The trapper vanished between the trees. “You’re with me, big man.” She dragged Pemish along as she crashed through a cluster of low-hanging firs.
“What’s happening?” he gasped, with a notable tremor to his words.
“As far as I can tell, a very angry aldelm is trying to kill us. Right now, I’m your best chance at survival. You duck when I say ‘duck,’ run when I say ‘run.’ Understood?”
“Whatever you say,” he agreed.
“Go left!”
They turned abruptly, running nearly perpendicular to their previous course. She could hear the aldelm crashing through the trees in the direction they’d been heading. It hadn’t yet detected their subterfuge.
That’ll buy us a few seconds. Best use them wisely.
They ran another twenty yards before changing direction again. Palawen cast her eyes about, seeking any landmark she could use to orient herself, but Jadenwood was unfamiliar territory. She had no real sense of where she was going and could only hope to find something useful.
It came in the form of a sprawling old willow growing up out of a notable depression and surrounded by several large, jagged rocks. The tree itself was massive, and the thick, drooping branches that stretched nearly to the forest floor would provide some much-needed cover.
“There.” Palawen gestured toward the tree. “Keep low, but move as fast as you can.”
Pemish faltered. “That’s the Whispering Willow! They say it’s haunted, the spawn of the Witching Tree herself.”
“No time for folk tales! Move!”
She shoved him forward, pushing him along the course that offered the most concealment—though not nearly as much as she would have liked. Behind them, she could hear the aldelm crashing through the woods. The sounds of its pursuit were drawing closer, suggesting it had picked up their trail again.
“Stop!” hissed a voice.
Palawen whirled to find a boy peeking out from behind an oddly shaped evergreen. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, with a shock of golden-blond hair. His wide eyes were amber brown and darted about with a squirrel-like nervousness.
“Keep away from the willow!” he hissed.
“What? Why?”
Pemish screamed.
Palawen spun back toward the woodsman. For a moment, she was baffled by the sight of him entangled among branches that writhed and grasped like leafy tentacles. In several places, Pemish’s flesh tore from the friction of bark against his skin.
“What the hells?” said Palawen, stepping toward the willow.
“It’s too late for him,” said the boy.
She ignored him, slipping her mace back into its holster and yanking her hunting knife from its sheath. As soon as she was within reach, she grabbed Pemish by the arm, hacking at the clinging branches with all her strength. For every one she cut loose, two more seemed to take its place.
Then, Malek was with her. Palawen couldn’t say where the old trapper had come from, but his knife cut and slashed as furiously as her own.
Soon, they freed Pemish and pulled the woodsman beyond the willow’s grasping reach. Malek guarded their retreat, his knife slashing hard and fast. The tree seemed to quiver in frustration at having lost its prey.
Prey? It’s a willow tree! It’s not supposed to have prey.
“Run,” she hissed at the woodsman, half dragging him to his feet. “Keep away from the trees if you can.”
He nodded, and Palawen shoved him in the direction she wanted him to go. Malek lingered to guard their retreat.
“Come on!” Palawen screamed at the trapper.
It was too late.
One of the willow’s branches surged forward, striking Malek like a spear through the gut. He screamed and staggered backward so that his own weight tore him free. He turned and stumbled beyond the willow’s reach. His shirt and vest were torn to bloody ribbons. Something like a thick thorn penetrated deep into his flesh.
“Malek!” Palawen cried, rushing to catch him and pulling one limp arm over her shoulder to support his weight. Already, there was an angry redness to the wound and a glassiness to his eyes.
“Move!” she screamed at Pemish, shoving him once more toward the deep shadows of the woods.
They’d gone no more than a dozen yards when the aldelm stepped out in front of them.
They skidded to a halt before the enormous creature. Palawen retreated one step, then another, slowly angling to her left. They just needed a clear path. In the depth of the forest, they might have a sliver of a chance.
Providing no other flaming trees try to kill us.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
Perhaps it was fear that clouded his mind, or perhaps he thought he saw an opportunity to escape. Whatever the reason, Pemish bolted. He turned and ran as fast as his wounded leg would carry him—which turned out to be no faster than a brisk shamble. For one brief moment, all the aldelm’s attention was focused on the fleeing woodsman.
“Come on!” cried a voice. It was the boy again, peeking out from behind what Palawen would have sworn was the same bloody tree. “Have to get away,” he said quietly.
“I can’t just leave—“
“He’s as good as dead,” the boy squeaked. “I’m Twig. I can hide you and save your friend, too, I think. But we have to go now!”
“Help!” Pemish wailed. His voice broke as the aldelm slowly raised him over its antlered head.
“Hurry!” the boy insisted.
Still, Palawen hesitated, knowing that she had less than the span of a single breath to make her decision. She could fight, or she could flee; both felt like piss-poor choices. She risked one final glance at the aldelm, clutching Pemish in its huge, gnarled hand. The woodsman beat wildly against the unyielding fingers. Beside her, Malek rasped in pain.
She couldn’t save them both.
Palawen Ty turned and ran, following the strange boy and struggling to support Malek’s weight. As they went, she caught the briefest glimpse of a figure lurking amid the trees. It was little more than a silhouette against the forest’s darkening backdrop, visible for less than an instant before being swallowed up by the deepening shadows. It all happened so quickly that Palawen couldn’t distinguish anything beyond its vaguely human shape—and the chilling sense that it was watching her with unfettered malice.
As they fled, Pemish Heln’s final cry echoed between the trees, loud and accusing.
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