Dance of Shadows

Prologue

Prologue

Night lay like a cruel, sweeping black over the ruined land. Petero stood, coat billowing a coal camouflage about his lean body. He was tense and his young face taught and watching, waiting… Once sparkling orbs of blue had faded to a hollow, malachite grey. Everything about him seemed much older than his seventeen years; the way he stood and the coldness in his gaze.
         “I do not forgive…” He muttered and the bitterness in that voice carried over the dented hills and the poisoned waters, blown to the place known as Niak. The stagnant orange cloud hovering on the horizon was now the only tell tale sign of the city he had left behind.

Kristi stood at a distance, studying the tortured form of her brother, they had had to leave. She knew that he understood that. How could he not? He was the one that had dragged them out of the city in the first place because to stay… She shuddered, not wanting to think about ‘because’.  Yet now he was wasting so much of the precious time between darkness and sun rise.  She trailed one hand absently over the ground, it was rough and rocky to the touch, just like everything was on the broken earth of their surroundings. Even here, past the boundaries of Niak itself, she knew they weren’t out of danger, the Feeling was telling her so... Bitterly she let her thoughts trail back to days with Petero, running through fields of long green grass… And fairytales told from the memories of her other.  Quiet footsteps came to rest by her sitting form.

“Time to go?” She asked, not looking up.

“Yes. Time to push over the ridge.” The voice of her only kin held no hope in it only an anger and resentment that showed everything the teens had been through, “Come Ki.”

Boots bit deeply into the dead earth, biting rock, champing away at the lifeless nothing that the catacombs splitting the two lands, was made of. His land, his haven, lay beyond, somewhere over the ridge of the catacombs, somewhere on the far horizon that his mother had spoken so wonderfully of.

Petero held himself steady on the rocky face of incline, knees bent and back hunched over so his nose was grazing the igneous surface. The third moon was fading in front of them, its barbed, splintered surface sinking behind an indigo rise. He sighed, a faint smile sliding over his face, where they were going he knew that they’d see hundreds of nights when they’d see the third moon falling back to make way for the sun. The further they moved away from Niak, the more they saw the stars and the planets that had never been visible behind the thick smoggy sky. It was then he saw part of the mountain side move.

“DOWN!” He cried, throwing himself down to the muddy earth thirty foot below. He felt his knees give way beneath him and he rolled on to his back, letting his momentum absorb into the ground.  Kirsti, however, hit the ground beside him with a cry of pain. He grimaced as he saw blood gushing from a gash across her ankle. But he had no time to think things through as a low rumble shook the ground.
“What’s going on?” Kristi whispered.

And then it roared. A harsh, feral roar ricocheted off the ridge walls, crashing and clanging though their ears. Inhuman eyes snagged Petero’s.
“Demon.”  He whispered and he felt his vision blurring. Hastily he shook his head, grabbing his sister’s hand and running. She whimpered, limping beside him as he tried to pull her faster than she could go.
“Peter-”

He stopped, pushing her onwards, “Run!” She staggered and nearly fell again, “Kristi, run!” He was bellowing the order, she knew he was serious. She hadn’t looked herself but he could see things that no one else could…

Petero sank into a low, defensive stance. He knew he could never challenge a demon, not one like this, without calling on his magic… He felt his mouth curl in distaste for the word. He was going to regret this. Summoning all the energy he could risk, he pulled together a web from tendrils of air, pulling the threads close, making them burn with all the heat he could find around him, seizing as much strength as he was able to contain. Staring directly into the luminescent eyes of the stone, gargoyle-like monster, he cast his construction with all his might, feeling the energy drain from him, leaving him faint. The monster screeched, the curdling yelp in its throat making his head spin faster.

“Peter!” Kristi was calling him… Lurching around to stumble after her voice, he could hear the magic being broken through, the crackling crescendo as the artificially combined elements were shattered.

He could see his sister before him, her threadbare clothes hanging off the slim body beneath.  Why wasn’t she running?

“RUN!” He yelled, forcing his own voice to rise with difficulty. But she stayed where she was. So he pressed himself further, letting adrenaline take over as he felt his energy fading more and more. Where could they go? They needed to hide. Where could they go? “Run!”

“There’s a cave of sorts down-” Kristi was pointing somewhere beyond his vision.

“Go! Just get out of here!”

The magical web caved. The wail of power as it tried to force itself back into the rest of the area spat itself through Petero’s mind. His eyes were burning quicksilver as he finally allowed his vision to blur into a very different view. Kirsti trembled as he came up beside her. Her brother was waning… he was losing control. The pain shooting up her leg was increasing as he seized her wrist, hauling her behind in his wake. She had no choice as he pulled her towards the engraved mouth of the cave. She could see the demon now, its rocky body shaking the ground beneath its feet.

Suddenly darkness swallowed her and they were inside the cavern and then Petero was gone, his hand torn from her as agony spliced her leg and she fell.