The Shade

[PepsiWhirda]

Whirda surveyed the carnage wrought by her elf-enchanted blades. Charred undead limbs strewn across the ground, putrid blood smeared across the entire scene—across Whirda herself, she realized, flicking a glob of the stuff from the rim of her sallet. Her weapons themselves were spotless. The holy fire burned away any undead residue, leaving them, if possible, even cleaner than before.

The shambling creatures were comically inept, hardly what she had expected from the Pale Moors. Even without Lady Tyrande's enchantment, she would have made quick work of them. Even during the fight, her attention was elsewhere. On the person following them. On Darkshire's sinister mayor, whose motives she couldn't begin to pin down. And especially on Nyx. The voices, or whatever they were, in the blood mage's head were more frequent now. Every few minutes she went rigid in her saddle, that look of far-off consternation plastered on her face, squinting her crimson eyes like she was trying to see something far off.

Whirda absentmindedly mounted Cascade and rode off, leaving the smoldering corpses behind.

After a minute, she noticed the silence. Before, she could hear the rider behind them, far enough to avoid notice in the gloom, but just close enough to be heard. Now, there was nothing. She turned in her seat, searching for the rider. Her reason told her to expect an attack, but her instinct, far more trustworthy, spoke to a different theory. Dobson.

As if on cue, Nyx spoke. "Whirda... something's wrong. We're not being followed anymore."

"I know," Whirda said tersely. She could see nothing along the winding road behind them, except the dull glow of undead flesh smoldering on the roadside.

"Do you think we scared them off?" Nyx said, smiling.

Whirda ignored her. Something was wrong. Alarm bells rang in her head, but she wasn't sure what to do. Ride back, into a potential ambush, or ignore the signs and continue on their journey.

As if to answer her question, a strangled cry echoed in the silence. A familiar voice, tainted by fear.

"Is that..." Nyx said, confused.

"Come on!" Whirda said, tugging back on Cascade's reins and digging her heels into the horse's sides. Cascade scrambled to turn, and tore off in the direction of the scream. Whirda bent low, whispering assurances in the horse's ear. Whatever they were approaching, she suspected, it would not be as simple as a handful of shuffling zombies.

Nyx bounded ahead of Whirda, the nightsaber's superior agility overtaking Cascade. She clung to the great cat's churning shoulders, the goblin chieftain's staff bouncing painfully against her back. Something had the nightsaber angry. Nyx felt the vibrations as a primal growl erupted from its mouth, quickly turning to a roar that split the air and reverberated in her ears. After a hectic thirty second ride, the cat slid sideways and shook its whole body violently, like it was trying to dry off after a swim. Nyx was knocked from its back and sprawled in the dust. Before she could stand, it bounded off into the darkness, still following the source of the scream.

Nyx stood, cursing, and brushed the dust from her robes. Whirda rode up beside her. She offered a hand and Nyx took it, swinging up behind the battle mage and settling in to the back of the saddle, wrapping her arms around Whirda's waist.

Directed by the cat's continued roaring, now intermingled with the yelps, barks, and howls of something canine, Whirda and Nyx tore through a copse of sickly trees and emerged in a clearing. Whirda was already dismounting, tucking into a roll and coming up running, her kukris somehow already in her hands, though Nyx hadn't seen them leave their sheaths.

In the center of the clearing, Dobson wrestled frantically with an undead wolf. The creature bent low over the young guard, jaws snapping inches above his face. Patches of fur hung off it in clumps, revealing the infected black flesh beneath. Its eyes were bright yellow and bloodshot, the crazed eyes of a rabid thing. Its cracked brown claws scored on Dobson's flesh, raking deep wounds in his arms and along his right thigh.

The corpses of two other wolves lay on the ground nearby, and Nyx's nightsaber wrestled with a third, the cat's jaws clamped firmly around its neck.

Dobson took notice of them, and screamed something like, "Help!" The word emerged with a dribble of blood.

Just speaking seemed to steal what remained of his strength. As Whirda sprinted across the clearing, two of Nyx's blood bolts whistling past her face, the wolf's jaws clamped down on Dobson's shoulder, rending flesh, its head snapping back and forth with a spray of blood. Gods, how Dobson screamed, the sound striking Whirda almost physically.

The blood bolts caught the wolf in the side, sending it hurtling away, a hunk of Dobson's flesh still in its stubborn jaws. In a second, Whirda was atop it, her weapons ablaze, holy fire devouring fur and flesh, muscle and bone. By the time she was done, an unrecognizable pile of gore was all that remained, burning in the night.

The nightsaber, having finished off the fourth wolf, padded up beside her, its face bloodstained, its eyes still ablaze with territorial fury. Cats and dogs, Whirda thought, and fought the peculiar urge to laugh.

Nyx was already at Dobson's side, wrapping her few remaining bandages tight around his shoulder. He sobbed with the pain. The wounds along his arms and thighs, though numerous, were shallow. They weren't life threatening, so she would have to tend to them later.

"We have to get him back to Darkshire," Nyx muttered, focused on her work.

Dobson's bloody hand came up, quicker than expected, to wrap around her wrist. "No," he groaned. "Not Darkshire. No one—no one there who can..." His eyelids fluttered. The words emerged thick with exhaustion. If he lost consciousness, Whirda wasn't sure he would ever awaken.

The battle mage knelt, and slapped him firmly across the face.

"What!" he yelped, his eyes going momentarily wide. "What—"

"Stay with us, Dobson! Don't you dare fall asleep! Why can't we take you to Darkshire?"

"No one there who can fix me," he said, his eyes out of focus. "Only—only the professor can."

"Van Helsing?" Nyx asked, and Dobson vigorously nodded. Blood spurted from his shoulder wound and he moaned.

"If we don't get to him... quickly. If we don't, I'll—I'll turn into one of... one of..." His eyes closed, and Whirda's next slap rendered no response. A line of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, traced a red path down cheeks white with blood loss and fear.

"What does he mean?" Nyx asked, looking to Whirda. "He'll turn into what?"

"One of them," Whirda said darkly. "One of the undead. I've seen this before, in Faerûn. The creatures carry an infection. If they bite you, you turn into one of them. A creature of the night."

"How soon?" Nyx's eyes were wide with fear. "We can't just take him with us, can we? I mean, we have to, but... what if he..."

"There's time." Whirda spoke through her teeth, trying to calculate. "If we ride straight, without stopping, without resting... there's time. He's young. He's strong."

"We'll make it?" Nyx asked.

Whirda exhaled through her teeth. "We'll make it."