When a distant branch cracked, Moria's head snapped up. Daigo shot an accusing glare at the dead creature, as if it had brought friends.
As they listened, Moria heard the distinct clomp of boots on hard earth. She started to ease forward, but Gavril grabbed her collar and whipped her back so fast she gasped. He shoved her hard, pushing her to the ground.
"Down!" he whispered, as if she had some choice in the matter.
She hit the earth with Gavril practically atop her back as he held her there. When she opened her mouth, he slapped his hand over it.
"Quiet and stay down."
She wrenched his hand off. "If you want me to do something, try asking--"
"Shhh!"
He glowered, but there was fear in his eyes. Genuine fear. He leaned against her, hand between her shoulders, pinning her there, and she could feel the thud of his heart.
He thinks it's shadow stalkers.
They lay in a cluster of trees, nestled in undergrowth now. Daigo stretched out, his gaze fixed on the distant source of noise. She could still hear the clomp of boots, the rhythmic sound broken only by the occasional rustle of dead leaves or the crack of a twig.
How many are there? It sounds like an army.
An army of the dead.
Twenty
Moria shivered. Gavril's hand rubbed between her shoulder blades. She glanced over at him, startled. His gaze was fixed forward, straining to see whatever was coming, rubbing her back absently, as if in reflex to her shudder. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped and scowled, as if it was her fault he'd shown a moment's kindness.
You're always so angry, as hard as you try not to show it. Furious at being sent here, to guard this forest--the insult of it.
That tramp-tramp vibrated through the earth. The thunderous drumbeat of an army on the move.
It was a line from many a tale, but Moria herself had never heard the sound. The empire had been at peace ever since the desert hordes were vanquished in the war that had sent Gavril's father here.
But now, listening to the drumbeat of footfalls, the line came to mind, as did an image from another tale. The army of the night. A thousand shadow stalkers raised by a hundred sorcerers, long before the Age of Fire. The dead rose, and they moved across the land like a plague, killing army after army, the warriors falling, only to rise again. An unstoppable force.
But it had been stopped. By the warriors of the North on their snow dragons. They'd ridden over the battlefields and blasted ice on the shadow stalkers, freezing them so the armies of the living could shatter their corpses with a single blow, giving the shadow-stalker spirits no place to hide.
It was a story often singled out as proof that bards' tales were foolish nonsense. People would laughingly debate which part of the story was the most ludicrous: shadow stalkers, snow dragons, or clever Northerners. All three were equally mythical beasts.
As the footfalls drew closer, Moria calculated the distance to the stream. Could they outrun them on more open ground? In legend, shadow stalkers were relentless, moving with speed, yet
never running, as if their broken bodies couldn't quite manage that. But they had a second form, too--the fog, their spirit form.
She moved her lips to Gavril's ear. "Would you fight shadow stalkers? If they're in manifested form?"
"Of course." He looked offended and a little bewildered, as if there was no question.
"Good. If they come this way and there are fewer than it sounds, we'll fight."
He frowned. "You think those are shadow stalkers?"
"Don't you?"
He turned his gaze forward again. "It sounds like boots. But the search party is dead."
Or it was . . . and is risen again.
As the footfalls grew louder, the drumming lost its rhythm and became scattered boot clomps, as if distance had made it sound synchronous. Fewer feet than she'd thought, too. Perhaps a half dozen men.