Part 2 (1/2)

Aril understood the question. It was the same as when Mother had offered to let him sleep in the next day. He was supposed to say no. He struggled to find words.

”I was just ... I was praying for Papa to come, and you came. I thought ...” He trailed off. He did not know what he had thought.

The shadowman stared at him for a moment. Finally, he asked, ”What number Nameday is it? Eighth?”

Aril felt indignant that the shadowman had taken him for a wee. ”My tenth,” he corrected, and his tone made the shadowman smile.

”You are small for your age,” the shadowman said. ”But only in your body, not in your heart. What is your name?”

”His name is Aril,” Mother answered. Aril frowned that she had stepped on his answer.

The shadowman nodded. ”Aril is a good name. My friend's name was Jak. And he was a halfling like you. Not from this village, but from another like it.”

The screams from the village continued.

”Can you count, Aril?” the shadowman asked.

Aril nodded.

”To one hundred?”

Aril nodded again.

The shadowman stood and looked down on them. ”When you reach one hundred, this will all be over. Those trolls will never bother you or your village again.”

Aril nodded, wide-eyed.

The shadowman looked at Mother. ”This is nothing you'll want to see. Same for the boy. Trust me, and stay where you are. I'll save who I can.”

Mother just stared.

The darkness around them began to deepen. Before it was too dark to see, Aril took a skipping stone from his pocket and tossed it to the shadowman.

”You might need it,” he said.

The shadowman caught it, smiled, and slipped it in a pocket.

”I might at that. Your papa would be proud of you, Aril.”

The shadowman vanished as the darkness grew impenetrable. Aril held his hand before his face and saw nothing. His mother's arms were around him though, so he felt safe enough.

The shadowman's voice cut through the darkness. ”Start counting, Aril. Aloud.”

Aril did. ”One, two, three, four ...”

By ten, he heard roars of surprise from the trolls. By fifteen, he heard the first of them die. Others followed quickly-at twenty, twenty-three, thirty-one. Roars of pain came one moment from Aril's left, then from his right, one moment nearby, the next farther away. He imagined the shadowman stepping out of the shadows, killing, and disappearing, only to materialize across the village and slay again. By sixty, Aril stopped counting. The surviving trolls were trying to flee. He could tell by the way their terror-filled shrieks grew more and more distant.

Mother held him throughout, rocking him, humming a lullaby. He thought perhaps she was more frightened than he was.

”It's all right, Mother,” he said, and patted her hand. ”He is here to save us.”

He felt his mother shake her head. ”No, sweetdew. Not us. He's here to save himself.”

After a time, quiet settled over the woods. Then Aril heard a whoos.h.i.+ng whoos.h.i.+ng sound. The smell of smoke and burning flesh grew powerful. sound. The smell of smoke and burning flesh grew powerful.

He and Mother remained still, as the shadowman had told them. He heard no trolls, no combat, merely the moans of wounded villagers, the soft crying of mourners, the barking of a few dogs.

”Shadowman?” Aril called.

The darkness lifted. He blinked in the flickering orange light of a great bonfire that burned in the communal fire pit between the forest's edge and the village. Aril and his moher walked cautiously to the forest's edge. A pile of a dozen or more troll bodies, all of them dismembered and squirming, lay within the flames. Thick, stinking black smoke spiraled up from the corpses. The smell was foul and sickening.

The shadowman was gone.

The survivors from the village wandered slowly, dazed, confused. A few tended the wounded or knelt over fallen friends. Aril avoided looking too long at the dead. He would have cried but he felt too numb to do anything more than stare.

Some of the survivors walked cautiously toward the fire. Many held weapons-mostly pitchforks-but a few carried swords. Others leaned on their fellows, whether from wounds or fatigue Aril could not tell. They murmured amongst themselves as they neared the pyre. Aril could see them pointing, explaining, trying to make sense of what had happened. Some prodded the burning troll corpses with their weapons. Sparks mushroomed into the air.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. A storm was threatening. Aril doubted it would rain, though. It rarely did.

”None escaped,” Aril heard someone say.

”Did you see him?” said another. ”Who was it? What What was it?” was it?”

Aril and his mother limped out of the woods toward the fire. Mother took Aril's hand firmly in her grasp.

”It was the shadowman,” Aril called, and all eyes turned to him. ”The shadowman saved us, all of us. His name is Erevis Cale. We saw him. He talked to me.”

Aril spotted Nem in the village beyond, standing near his father, who held a woodsman's axe resting on one shoulder. Aril waved, relieved to see his friend. Nem returned the gesture and both forced smiles. The numbness left Aril abruptly and he began to cry. So did Nem.

”The shadowman is a hero,” said another, and everyone nodded.

”Where did he go, Aril?” asked Matron Steet.

Aril glanced around through his tears and could only shrug.

”Back into the shadows,” Mother said.

Aril gazed into the woods, into the dark.

”Come into the light,” he whispered to Erevis Cale.

CHAPTER ONE

25 Eleint, the Year of Lightning Storms.

Black clouds roiled in the night sky. Lightning flashed, splitting the dark. Thunder rolled and boomed. Swells like mountains rose and fell on the sea. Rain fell in torrents. The mizzenmast of Night's Secret Night's Secret bent in the wind. The whole of the caravel creaked from the battering of the storm. Loose rigging and shredded sails snapped like whips in the gusts, but the dark pennon bearing the symbol of Shar and flying from high atop the mainmast held its ground against the storm. Rivalen smiled at that. The black circle bordered in violet looked like an eye, Shar's eye, guiding them to their goal. bent in the wind. The whole of the caravel creaked from the battering of the storm. Loose rigging and shredded sails snapped like whips in the gusts, but the dark pennon bearing the symbol of Shar and flying from high atop the mainmast held its ground against the storm. Rivalen smiled at that. The black circle bordered in violet looked like an eye, Shar's eye, guiding them to their goal.