Chương 22: Chapter Twenty-Two: There Were Rather A Lot Of Them

"Something the church would call that, yes," Alice said, because she had no more time to think and the sun was going and she needed him to do something, anything.

"They're drawn to dark spaces. They're driven back by light. Now light a fire, please."

"You're trying to frighten me into releasing you," he said.

"It's a reasonable thing to try."

"I'm really not," she said, losing patience. She looked back at the shadows again. South, toward the distant tree line. Shapeless, dark things moved restlessly. There were three more. She was tied up. She had no lantern. The knife was on the grass ten feet away. The sun was going and she was sitting in the open marsh outside every ward that had ever done anything for anyone, and the things that had been finding her since the first night were arriving in a number she had not seen gathered in one place before.

"Hartley," she repeated, very quietly and slowly like she was talking to an idiot.

"Listen to me." The eyes in the eastern reeds did not blink. Hartley was still watching her. He wasn't looking away from her, otherwise she would have made a move for the knife, but he seemed to be thinking.

"I have a lantern," he said. She was so surprised that she forgot to answer immediately, Behind him the shades moved. More eyes than before. They were closer than they had been two minutes ago, which was two minutes she had spent arguing with him instead of running for her life.

"There is no need of a fire," he said, somewhat resentful at the implication that he was an idiot. So her tone had not hidden her real feelings.

"Horned, double-wicked. Better than that small thing you had." He reached behind him and into his bag and the lantern he produced was, she could admit, significantly better than hers. She had spent a shilling and three pence on hers at the chandler's on Greybell Lane. His was the kind of thing a professional bought, someone who knew exactly what worked and what didn't work. He struck the tinder. The flame caught. Warm light spread in a circle around them and the incoming darkness receded and she breathed.

Then the notifications arrived. You have encountered a [Flicker Demon].

You have encountered a [Shade Demon].

You have encountered a [Flicker Demon].

You have encountered a [Shade Demon].

You have encountered a [Lurker Demon].

You have encountered a [Flicker Demon].

You have encountered a [Lurker Demon].

Sub-Quest: [Off With Her Head] advanced. They stacked and kept stacking, layered across her vision faster than she could read them, gold-bordered white text accumulating like pages to a book she did not want to touch. She had never received more than one demon encounter notification at a time before tonight. She was receiving over a dozen in approximately four seconds, and the count was not finished. Even worse, that annoying Sub-Quest that she had thought linked to combat had advanced.

She remembered what it said: You are not supposed to be here. The world agrees. Do something about that. She had yet to do anything and this advance already warned her this was going to be less of a fight, and more of an attempt at survival. The lantern lit a good circle around them. A wide, steady light. It was not going to be enough. She could see them at the edges of it now.

The smaller ones, fist-sized, and with no fixed form, swarming in the reed shadows where the light didn't reach, moving in and out of the dark the way small animals did when they were excited. The dog-sized shapes held further out, patient. And beyond them, even larger ones she had never seen a Lurker so clearly before, had only ever seen one across the district as she walked early on, seemingly unafraid of much of light. There were three that she could count. Possibly more that she couldn't.

The lantern was a good lantern. But there were too many of them and for some of them, the only thing light would do was make them hesitate. This was not something they could win against.

"How much tinder do you have?" she asked.

"Enough."

"To last how long?" she insisted. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. He looked worried now, as if her fear was finally able to alarm him.

"Long enough," he said, which meant he didn't know. The sun set. Not gradually. The remaining light slipped out of the sky quickly, as it always did in autumn in the east of England, with nothing to slow it down, just flat marshland in every direction, rumbling clouds, and then the sudden absence of warmth. You have encountered a [Hollow Demon]. She saw the notification out of the corner of her eye. She had never encountered a Hollow before. But it wasn't hard to point it out.

She found it at the far edge of the light, where the reed beds met the open ground. It was too large to conceal itself properly. It wasn't trying to. It was waiting. She looked at the knife on the grass. Ever since she woke tied, Alice had thought about finding an opportunity to grab the knife but had ultimately decided it was not yet the time. The knife was mere feet away. Hartley was close and stood in the path between her and the gate to the city.

There was some amount of light now, but the rope around her wrists was no longer a problem she could wait for. Not yet had become now.

"Hartley," she said.

"There is something near the far reed bed that is larger than anything else out here and light is not going to hold all of them back. Run when you get the chance""What are you even saying–" She ignored him, said " Sprint" and moved. [Sprint] – Active. Ten feet was nothing to full speed. She crossed it before he fully turned and went down for the knife with her hands behind her, which was undignified and hurt and it allowed her to assume a position from which cutting rope was possible.

She had the blade against the rope and was pulling when he grabbed her coat. She cut anyway. The rope gave. She also cut her palm, but didn't have time to care about it.

"What the–" He had her by the collar and the momentum of her not expecting him to be that fast drove them both sideways. The lantern swung wild in his other hand and then left it entirely as he caught her with both arms. The lantern hit the ground and rolled three feet before settling, still lit, throwing its circle of light sideways at the marsh grass rather than up. He shoved her against the nearest tree, hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

"Run," she said.

"Are you insane–"" Run." She found his eyes and held them.

"I am not joking about this. I am not frightened of you. I am frightened of what is behind you right now and I need you to run." He turned. She watched the moment he saw them. It happened in his face before it happened in his body. He stilled as if his nervous system had just gone through fight or flight. The ones at the light's edge had come closer while she'd been cutting the rope.

The Flickers were close enough that the lantern's sideways-thrown circle caught the edge of them, and the way they moved in and out of that edge was not the way animals moved. The Shades were patient shapes in the dark beyond that, and beyond them, the Lurkers, human-sized, watching patiently, waiting for the right moment and believing it had arrived. One of the Lurkers made a sound. She could not have described the sound to anyone who hadn't heard it. It was not a growl exactly. Not quite a scream.

Or even the scratch of nails on glass. It was all of those things at once.

"What," Hartley said, breathing heavily, voice a mere murmur, "are those things."

"I told you."

"What even are you? What did you do?" He released her slowly, as if afraid the movement was going to push the demons to jump them.

"Nothing. This happens to me. This is what I was telling you." She moved past him to pick up the lantern, just as slowly, but he stopped her, grabbing her wrist. Her palm was bleeding onto his hand but she didn't care. The demons merely watched.

"Run. Now. The gate is north-northeast. I'll hold the lantern behind you. You are faster than I am and you should go first." This was true, if she was behind him, the lantern was between them. If he was faster, he would reach the gate first and she would not have to think about what came after. He didn't run. He turned to face them. She understood it. She had done exactly the same thing the first night, running under the lunatic impulse that chose to face to fight in the face of terrible odds.

She had killed a Flicker Demon that night. A mere level one and running on shock and stubbornness and she had won. But these were not just terrible odds. This was suicide.

"First, I am not going to let you have my lantern. The light seems to be the only thing stopping them," he said and Alice didn't quite agree. For the Flickers, yes, but for the larger ones? They mostly seemed to wait, as if for a signal.

"Second," he continued.

"If you think you can outrun a horde of monsters, then you are crazier than I thought." She didn't think she could outrun them. She was simply going to try. She didn't want to go down without trying. He was Nota rank and far more experienced than her. He was, by any reasonable measure, considerably better equipped for this than she was, but she didn't think any of that would really matter here. Hartley took out a revolving pistol from under his coat, and then they both froze. They heard a sound.

It was a sweet and high sound, almost like a childish giggle, sharp, but small. It came from the Hollow in the back. And as if having received orders, the horde of Flickers and Shades and the occasional Lurker moved forward, into the light. Several of the Flickers dispersed immediately but the horde did not stop for a second. Hartley took the first shot. He fought well, she would say if she had been paying much attention. He was fast for his size and very efficient.

He took down two of the smaller ones in the first ten seconds and was managing well with the third when the Lurker at the edge of the light circle jumped him. She picked up the lantern. She ran. She told herself, on the first three steps, that she was going to at least look back. On the fourth and fifth she knew this was not true. On the sixth she was running properly and had stopped thinking about it. The gate was north-northeast. She knew this marsh.

She had covered this ground dozens of times in the past two months and she knew exactly how long it took and exactly where the path firmed up and exactly where it didn't. She ran with the lantern and its sideways circle of light and counted her steps and did not think about the sounds behind her. At some point the screaming started. And then, at some point she could not hear him anymore. She ran harder. She could hear them behind her.

Dozens, hundreds of feet and feet-like appendages running across the marsh, water loudly being splashed everywhere. She managed forty seconds before something closed around her ankle. She met the ground hard, and the lantern left her hand and rolled and came to rest in the grass four feet away, throwing its light sideways again, and she was face-down in the wet marsh with something very large and very cold holding her foot. Her knife was still in her other hand. She had not dropped it.

She pushed up against the ground and slashed at the creature. The blade cut across its body as if through mist, but she could still feel the teeth lodged in her ankle, and as it reshaped itself before her eyes, coldness spread through her foot and she began to lose feeling. The eyes in the grass around her did not blink.