Chương 32: [Kindred Souls and Shadowclaws]

The third canvas went over the ridge pole between them, Shai taking one side, Rika the other while Torren got the pole seated. Rika grabbed the nearest guy rope and pulled it out to angle.

"You know what's funny?"

"Hm?"

"They were so careful the whole time. Phil asking Torren not to take offence before he said anything." She looped the rope and crouched to the peg.

"Listening when you spoke like they were trying not to put a foot wrong." Torren moved to the next corner, taking up his own rope.

"Then you mention your blends and suddenly they're joking, needling each other, completely different people." She drove the peg in and sat back on her heels.

"All that time and tea was the thing that finally let them relax." She laughed.

"How was tea the thing to do that? It's so stupid." Shai ducked into the tent with the groundsheet, smoothing it flat.

"I thought they were actually serious about the milk," Rika called in after her.

"Then Phil grabbed his chest like he was dying and I realised they were just being idiots." She was still smiling when Shai came back out.

"Stupid idiots. I loved it."

"Kindred souls," Torren said simply.

"Anyone who takes their tea that seriously, I have a great deal of respect for." Rika looked at him. He looked back. She started laughing.

"You're serious."

"Completely."

"You sound just like them."

"I'll take that," Torren said, unbothered. Shai smiled.

"They were like that yesterday too, just quieter about it. I caught glimpses." She glanced at the fire.

"It's nice that they let it out."

"Luka's thing with the sugar," Rika said, hauling her bedroll out of the supply pack.

"Straight face the entire time. Everyone sighs. And then—" She mimed pulling something from nowhere before ducking into the nearest tent with it. Torren chuckled, pulling provisions from his leather pouch and setting them by the fire.

"They all just accepted it. Like his terrible joke was totally something they should have seen coming." She reappeared and dropped onto a log.

"And then Luka calls Leo and Parmo whatever he called them and both of them come back at exactly the same time. Faking offence. Like they'd planned it."

"I wasn't expecting that from Leo," Shai said, carrying her own bedroll past.

"He'd been so quiet all morning," Rika said.

"One thing and he was exactly the same as the rest of them." Torren set a small clay bottle by the fire and straightened up.

"The milk."

"Phil with his hand on his chest." Rika shook her head.

"Like he'd just watched something irredeemable nearly happen. The feeling behind it. Genuine tragedy."

"He was committed," Shai said, coming back out.

"Very." Rika looked at her.

"And then you." Shai looked back at her.

"What about me."

"Oh come on." Shai laughed.

"I don't know where that came from."

"Same place it comes from in all of them. He was asking for it."

"He absolutely was." Shai sat down.

"And he took it well." Torren looked between them both.

"I meant what I said. About the Ironwood." He glanced toward the treeline.

"I've been in a lot of rooms with a lot of people. That—" He brushed his hands off.

"I meant it." The fire crackled.

"They'd fit in the guard," Shai said after a moment.

"Walk in on any evening, nobody would think twice." A small smile.

"Leo would probably be nervous until he saw Sara throw Davan's lunch. He'd feel right at home after that." She paused.

"His mother still tries to pat him on the head. Has to reach up to do it. He's been taller than her and his father since he was thirteen apparently." Rika smiled at her. Shai smiled back then looked at the fire. Rika said nothing. A bird called once in the treeline and went still.

"Right," Torren said. He got to his feet.

"Perimeter." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. He moved to the treeline and began walking it slowly, one hand trailing close to the ground. Behind his fingers the earth shifted, roots nudging upward, vines threading through the undergrowth along the camp's edge. At intervals something pushed up through the soil — small clusters of hollow stems, pale green, growing visibly faster than anything should.

They trembled as they settled and made a faint sound, delicate and dry, like small bones touching. By the time Torren completed the circuit each cluster had gone still. He crouched at the nearest one and pulled the vine lightly. The movement ran the full length instantly, every cluster shivering at once, the sound rising briefly then fading. He stood, came back to the fire, and sat down.

"Done," he said, and reached for his cup. The evening came in slowly, the sky shifting from blue to a deep bruised purple through the treeline. Torren had a pot going over the fire, a meat stew, thick with vegetables and herbs, the smell of it carrying through the clearing. They ate without much said. Rika scraped the last of it up.

"That's not fair." Torren looked at her.

"You cook like this and then we have to go back to Shai's attempts after."

"Rika."

"I'm just saying."

"My cooking is fine."

"It's adequate," Rika said.

"His is something else entirely." Torren looked quietly pleased.

"The herbs are from my garden. There's a root I've been cultivating for about three years that I finally got just right." Rika pointed at him.

"See. Three years. That's what I mean." Shai shook her head but didn't argue the point. When the fire had settled lower Shai reached into her pocket and held out the watch.

"Shifts. Rika, first. When both hands reach here," she pointed at the two, "wake Torren." Rika took it, turned it over in her palm, then realised Shai wasn't finished and turned it face up.

"Torren, when both hands reach here, wake me." Shai indicated the five.

"I'll take last watch."

"The forest is quietest in the middle of the night," Torren said.

"I'll enjoy it."

"Of course you will," Rika said. They sat a while longer before Torren banked the fire and ducked into his tent. Shai followed shortly after, pausing at the entrance of her own.

"Wake him properly. Don't just throw something at him."

"I would never." Shai gave her a look and was gone. Rika sat back and looked at the treeline. The fire had dropped to a low steady glow. The forest was dark and close and still, the only sound the occasional shift of something moving through the undergrowth far enough away not to matter. She turned the watch over once more, set it on her knee, and watched the hands move. The forest was at its quietest when Torren heard it.

Not a sound — the small night creatures that had been moving through the undergrowth going still all at once. He was already looking toward the eastern treeline when the nearest cluster of hollow stems shivered, the tinkling rising briefly and cutting off. He closed his eyes. Reached down through the earth, feeling along the roots and soil. Something large. Thirty feet out, pressed against the shadow of an old oak. Waiting. He opened his eyes.

"Up," he said, loud and flat.

"Both of you. Now." The tents opened inside four seconds. Shai came out first, both swords drawn, Rika a half step behind with her bow in hand. Neither of them asked what it was. Torren stepped forward to the edge of the firelight.

"Eastern treeline. Watching us." He was already pulling the inner forest up through himself, feeling it settle into his bones. Rika's eyes moved to the shadows between the trees. For a moment there was nothing, shafts of moonlight piercing the darkness in places, branches catching her eye as she glanced from left to right. Then she caught it. The faint shimmer of scales, the black mist curling slow and low around the base of the oak.

"Got it," she said. She took three quick steps back, wings snapping open, and launched herself upward. Her hands caught a branch twelve feet up and she swung onto it in one motion, bow already rising.

"Shadowclaw," she called down.

"Big one." Shai was already moving. She came in fast from the left, angling to draw its attention, swords catching the firelight. The creature's head swung toward her — long and scaled, wolf-shaped but wrong, the mist thickening as it pushed off the oak and came forward. It was fast. Shai was faster. She pulled left as it lunged, letting it pass close enough that the claws raked air a foot from her side, and kept moving, circling, keeping it turning.

Torren moved wide of Shai, putting himself on the creature's other side. Then he stood still and waited. The shadowclaw feinted toward Shai and turned for Torren instead. It went for his throat. He let it come. His fist caught it across the side of the skull as it reached him, snapping its head sideways. The creature stumbled and Rika's first arrow took it in the shoulder. The second took it in the haunch as it turned back toward Shai. It was slowing.

Shai drove in again, opened a cut along its flank, and was gone before it could answer. The mist thinned as the creature's attention fractured between three targets it couldn't reach. Torren crouched. One hand flat on the earth. The vines came fast — up through the soil and around the shadowclaw's legs, pulling tight, locking it in place. It thrashed once. Twice. Torren stood. His hammer came up and down in one clean arc. The beast's skull shattered, its black, scaled form slumping over. The clearing went quiet.

Rika dropped from the branch and landed beside Shai. She looked at the shadowclaw, then at Torren.

"I might as well have taken second watch," she said, shaking her head. Shai laughed.

"Let's get it harvested while we're up." They worked without waste. Rika took the scales, moving methodically along the creature's flank, the black surface still faintly iridescent. Shai found the core where she expected it — deep in the chest cavity, small and cold. She wrapped it and pocketed it.

"This far south," Rika said.

"When did shadowclaws start coming this far south?"

"They don't," Shai said.

"Usually." Torren looked at the treeline.

"Something is moving through the deep Wilds. Pushing things ahead of it."

"Good thing the elders told us to camp," Rika said. Shai turned the core over in her pocket.

"If that had reached the town in the night—" She left it there. Torren gathered the body and carried it to the treeline. He crouched beside it for a moment, one hand on the earth.

"Back to the forest," he said quietly. He came back to the fire. Rika was already at her tent entrance, a scale still in her hand, turning it in the light.

"Go," Shai said.

"Both of you." Rika didn't argue. She pocketed the scale and was gone. Shai settled onto the log, weapons across her lap, and looked out through the gap in the treeline toward the town. Torren paused at his tent.

"It's still my watch, are you—""Go to bed," she said.

"It's not long before we'd swap anyway." He looked at her for a moment, then nodded and ducked inside. The fire had burned low. The perimeter clusters were silent. The forest had settled back into itself, the monster that had been stalking through it now dead, the night creatures starting up again somewhere deeper in the trees. Shai watched the darkness between her and the town.

"Not on my watch," she said quietly. She looked at the fire, and waited for the dawn.