Page 17

They walked gracefully up to the fire and dipped their poles and hoops into the flame.

Some of the crowd oohed and cheered as the poles and hoops burst ablaze.

Other onlookers mumbled to each other, seemingly displeased with the appearance of the hooded dancers.

The women tapped their flaming instruments to the frames they wore, and they too ignited.

They began to dance and spin as they repeatedly chanted, “ Anvellach tao Litha , anvellach tao Litha. ”

The band quieted, except for the drummer, who matched the women’s chanting tempo.

The women began to stomp in time with the drumbeats, then twirled into a dance, spinning flames around them with their poles and hoops.

Their faces were all shadow beneath their thick hoods, which lent an eerie, haunting feeling to their performance, while also protecting their hair from the sparks that showered down from the frames above them.

Some of the crowd began to trickle away, clearly upset by the display.

One woman chided as she walked hurriedly past us, away from the fiery dancers, “Who do they think they are, playing at damn old fae rituals like this? Don’t they know they endanger us all? Are they trying to summon the shadowfiends to kill us?”

“It’s reckless, is what it is. Plain reckless. They’ll bring the darkness down upon us all like this. If the Paragons were here, they wouldn’t stand for this,” the man walking with her said.

The hooded women whirled and writhed about the circle, dipping through their own flaming hoops and rolling and spinning the poles along their bodies.

Most of the remaining crowd cheered and stomped along with their tempo, drunkenly taking up their same chant.

The words made no sense to me, except for the word Litha of course, but I recognized the cadence and lyrical sound of Senuan, the ancient fae language.

Byrgir and I chanted and stomped along with them. I was mesmerized by their dance.

At last, the mysterious women ended their dance with a coordinated stomp, shouting the last word of their chant and raising their flaming instruments to the salmon-pink sky.

The crowd howled and cheered. The band struck up again as the women swung their flaming poles and hoops hard through the night air to extinguish them, then dropped their hoods, displaying smiling faces.

The crowd closed the circle and absorbed the four of them into the next dance.

We danced until my feet hurt, until my cheeks ached and my abdominal muscles burned from laughter.

Until Byrgir was holding me up more than I was dancing on my own.

Finally, we stumbled from the small crowd of remaining fervent dancers and collapsed onto the grass together.

The sun was climbing back into the sky. The sky bled lavender, then pastel-pink, and finally brilliant orange above the trees.

Couples slipped from the light of the bonfire into the shadows of the forest as we caught our breath. My chest ached when I looked at Byrgir’s fire-lit face, not just from the exertion of dancing, but from nervousness and a deep, growing desire.

He glanced at me, still chuckling from our last attempt at dancing. “What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing, just laughing.”

“At me?”

“No, just at… I don’t know. I’m drunk, I guess,” I laughed.

“Oh good, I was worried you were just really shit at dancing,” he said.

I punched his arm playfully.

“We should get you to bed then, kid. Where are you staying?” he asked, still chuckling.

“Just at the Red Hind,” I said.

“I’ll walk you home.”

“So soon?” I asked.

“Soon?” he said incredulously, gesturing at the sky. “It’s not even late anymore, it’s early! The sun is already rising again.”

“Yes, but it does that as soon as it sets. Doesn’t mean it’s morning yet,” I argued.

“Do you want to dance more?” he asked, humor still in his voice. “Because you seem like you can barely stand.”

“No, I’m too tired,” I answered.

“What do you want, then?” he asked, meeting my gaze.

I swallowed, suddenly struck by how close his body was to mine, how completely I held his attention. I was unable to voice what I was thinking. Uncertain if I even should.

“What do you want?” Byrgir repeated, the smile fading from his lips. His gaze slipped down my face, tracing the line of my nose, his eyes lingering on my mouth.

“I just don’t want this night to be over yet,” I said. A partial truth.

“Me neither,” he said, his gaze still on my lips. Then he raised his eyes to mine. “But it’s late, and if I let you back on the dance floor you might hurt yourself. Let’s go.”

He stood and offered me a hand, pulling me up. An energetic tingle shot up my arm where our skin touched, his hand engulfing my own, the calluses of his palm rough against mine.

We talked and laughed as we walked through the dark woods.

We were just on the edge of town, nearing the inn, when a piercing scream resounded from the nearby hill. We both stopped and turned instinctively. Another scream followed, then another, then more, all carrying down from the hill of the first bonfire we had danced around.

Byrgir grabbed my arm, all cheerfulness gone from his expression. “Get to the inn,” he commanded.

“What?” I stammered.

“To the inn, now,” he growled, pushing me away gently as he stepped toward the continuing sounds of pain and mayhem.

“Where are you going? I want to go with you!” I moved to follow him.

“No Halja!” he yelled, and I halted. “Get into your room and bolt the door. Do not open it for anybody. Do you understand?”

“Byrgir, what–”

“Go now, Halja!” he roared.

I backed away toward the inn, real fear in my veins now. I turned and began to run. When I looked back over my shoulder, I glimpsed Byrgir running back toward the woods.

I sprinted to the inn and reached it just as the large double doors slammed shut before me. I banged on them desperately. “Let me in! Let me in, please!”

They creaked open and I slipped inside. Two men slid a heavy beam across the doors right after me. I charged up the stairs to my room, locked the door, checked that my small knife slid easily from its little scabbard in my boot, and grabbed my bow.

The screams had carried into the streets now.

I felt the fear and chaos rising in the city, the intense emotions of people fleeing for their lives.

I opened the window to see people running, screaming, as a great shadow roiled down the street behind them, drowning the torchlight and early dawn in black.

A woman ran by as the shadow caught up to her, sweeping over her.

I could see her form in it as she ran, but something sprinted up behind her with unnatural speed.

Its torso looked human at first, but it crawled facing forward on six limbs, spider-like and fast. And not human arms and legs, no.

Elongated, pale, bony appendages. They ended not in hands and feet, but long singular blades of sharp bone.

The ends of the blades clacked against the street as the creature rushed up behind the woman and plunged one into her back without hesitation.

The blade burst forth from her chest, and she coughed and spluttered blood from her mouth.

The creature leaned back on its rear legs and stabbed another blade through her, then pulled the two apart, ripping her cleanly in half with a squelch.

Blood flew, and the dark mass of her guts slid forth onto the cobbles of the street. I screamed.

It turned its head to me with a nightmarish twitch. Empty, clouded eyes in a pale face devoid of expression. It launched itself at the side of the inn, and its blades sunk into the wood of the wall beneath me, one after another as it climbed with haste.

Thud . Thud. Thud .

I took two steps back, nocked an arrow, drew a steadying breath, and raised my bow just as its monstrous form appeared in the window.

I loosed my arrow and it found its mark, slamming into the creature’s chest. An unsettling howling roar ripped from it, and I readied another arrow as it pulled a bladed arm from the wall and swung it inside the window.

I sunk the second arrow into its eye and heard the cracking of bone.

It slumped into stillness, suspended on the side of the inn by its blades still stuck into the wood.

I nocked another arrow and stood watching the monster as I tried to calm my breathing.

The smell of rotten flesh was overwhelming.

Screams echoed from around the village as I gained the courage to approach the shadowfiend in the window.

It did not move, although I kept an arrow nocked anyway.

I pushed its chest with my foot, still prepared to fire at it.

It didn’t react. I pushed again, harder, and its limbs strained against the blades embedded in the wood of the building.

I put down my bow, grabbed the arrow in its eye socket, and pulled.

It came free with a wet suctioning sound.

I shoved the creature’s top arm until it came loose from the wall.

The upper body of the monster slumped backward, still hanging from four legs.

I realized that I should’ve retrieved the other arrow before I pushed it, for it was now out of reach.

But at least it was clear enough to close the window, which I was just about to do when I heard the clacking of another monster on the road below.

I grabbed my bow and sidled back up to the window ledge.

The blade-footed shadowfiend below paused and looked up at its fallen––or rather, suspended––brethren, and I took my shot.

The arrow barely caught one of the monster’s long, spider-like legs.

In all my practice, I had never tried to shoot drunk before. It was harder than I anticipated.