My Shadow’s Keeper Part 3: Entwined (Excerpt)

By Rory Hatchel

            Luckily, Lucan didn’t have to pull the carts.

            Thiala’s magic did most of the hauling. They made their way through the dense woods west of the mines with four large carts of saltpeter, all pulled by tendrils made from their own shadows.

            Lucan’s job was to check behind them for any sign of the Zoldak or any other military personnel from Elfzegarek. He resisted the urge to ask for the hundredth time why Thiala hadn’t simply killed the Zoldak if they were now trying to hide from them, but Thiala didn’t say. Dara had told him repeatedly to let it go, that Entropos must have some reason for keeping them alive, but what did she know? She was obsessed with staying on Thiala’s good side and half in love with Vaeril.

            That was honestly the worst of it. Ximo was the only squad member besides Lucan not trying to bang Vaeril or go into the woods and braid each other’s hair and talk about our mommy issues. Well, that and Lucan had no hair. That helped.

            Dara covered the tracks of the carts as best she could. She split her time between that, and finding their way through the woods, trying to find the shortest route between here and Karasdorf, where their boat waited for them.

            For the first few days, Lucan’s job was boring. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had to offer them. Each day was the same: wake up, eat berries, stretch and warm up, then go backwards from Dara and Thiala. He made sure Dara had done a good enough job covering their tracks (though honestly, he had no idea what he was doing). As he did that, he scanned the horizon. The crowded forest didn’t help, so what he really spent most of his time doing was climbing trees. Which was, honestly, fun. Who knew saving the world would involve so much tree climbing?

            He spent the first half of the day going backwards. He stopped and ate some more berries, maybe some fruit he grabbed on the way, and then he doubled back. Each day in the afternoon, he had to move at double speed to catch back up with Dara and Thiala at night. As he caught up with them, once again, he checked to make sure their tracks were covered. Over and over he wandered half a day out, then double-time back to his sister.

            Until the fourth day.

            From the top of an old elm, Lucan spotted the Zoldak wandering through the forest. Well, he heard them before he saw them. Boisterous. Rude. Laughing. Talkative.

            They were being chased by amateurs.

            Lucan got closer, keeping an eye out for them. He saw they had a new member, a balding Dwarf with a long grey beard. He had a huge crossbow strapped to his back and a black panther by his side. Perfect. He’d have to find a river to wash his scent off before getting back to Dara. She’d know better how to keep off the beast’s trail.

            The Dwarf was leading the group. Well, not in front of the group, but he was guiding them, looking for tracks, checking their direction, keeping an eye on the sun. The other members deferred to him with their questions and followed where he decided to go. A tracker. Fine. He’d never catch their trail. Dara was an expert, and she had Lucan double-checking her work. It’d be impossible to -

            The Dwarf pointed to something on the ground. The rest of the Zoldak gathered around and looked at it. They talked for a few minutes (loudly), and then the Dwarf pointed in the direction they should go. It was the exact direction of Thiala and Dara. Lucan got closer to see what clue they discovered. It was a pair of footprints.

            Motherfucker.

            Lucan turned and double-backed to his squad. If the Zoldak had their trail, they needed to change strategies quickly. The Zoldak were gaining on them, and they couldn’t make a proper last stand. They didn’t have Ximo. Or the element of surprise. And the Zoldak brought backup.

            Shit. Shit. Shit.

            A few hours later, Lucan shadow-stepped in front of Thiala and Dara. Dara’s arrow was already knocked and pointing at his forehead. Thiala’s hands glowed a sickly green.

            “We got a problem,” he said. “Also, don’t fucking shoot.”

            They both lowered their weapons. “What problem?” asked Thiala.

            “Zoldak. Less than a day behind. They have our trail.”

            “How?” asked Dara. “I’ve been -”

            “He’s good. Got a hunting cat or whatever.”

            “Shit.”

            “Yeah,” said Lucan. He turned to Thiala. “What do we do? Set an ambush?”

            “No,” said Thiala. Her eyes looked east while she thought. “We can’t fight them until we get the goods on the boat. Once they’re on their way to Vaeril, nothing else matters after that.”

            “Except getting out undetected?” said Lucan.

            Thiala walked past him, dragging the carts behind in her wake. “Come on. We won’t sleep tonight. We need to pull ahead.”

            “This wouldn’t be happening if we killed them,” said Lucan. “Why didn’t we -”

            Thiala stopped, turned, and glared at him. Her eyes flickered to the soft green of Entropos, and Lucan’s blood ran cold. Without a word, she turned back and started going again.

            “Don’t bother hiding our tracks,” she said while she walked. “Focus on obscuring them. Slow them down but keep pace with us. We can’t get separated now.”

            The day passed in silence. Lucan and Dara made glances at each other, having whole conversations with their faces, but Thiala ignored them.

            In twin, they said:

            “You okay?” asked Dara with a raised eyebrow, closed mouth, thin lips.

            “Fine,” said Lucan with a sigh. He added a shrug and a raised eyebrow to emphasize his disbelief.

            “Worried?” she furrowed her eyebrows while covering some tracks.

            “Frustrated,” said Lucan’s lips. He smoothed them out. “Not worried.”

            “Why?”

            “I don’t trust her,” with a nod to Thiala.

            “She’s just following Entropos.”

            Big sigh. “I know,” said Lucan.

            “Then what?”

            “This whole job. Vaeril. Everything.”

            “Vaeril?” asked Dara with a head pulled back.

            “Yeah.”

            “He taught you,” said Dara. Pouting face. Confusion.

            “No.” Hands on hips. “He taught you,” said Lucan. “And Thiala. But he didn’t teach Ximo, and now he’s dead.”

            “They were old friends.”

            “I know.” Big sigh. “We’re missing something.”

            “It’s not our job to know everything. Our job is to deliver the saltpeter.”

            Lucan didn’t say anything to her for a while.

            “What’s wrong?” pressed Dara.

            “Why didn’t she kill them?” he asked.

            “Maybe she’s not done with them.”

            Lucan turned when he heard laughter in the distance. “Well, they’re not done with us,” he said. “Come on.” They both hurried to catch up with Thiala.

            That night, Thiala laid out the plan.

            “Tonight, I’m going to keep going with the carts, trying to get ahead of them.” She took off the wheels of one of the carts, but the weight didn’t shift. The back of the cart floated in the air, supported by a sparkly blue light. “Take these,” she said, handing two wheels to each of them. “Go and make tracks with them in different directions. I’ll go in single file. We want to throw them off our trail as best we can. We don’t want to fight, not yet. All we need to do is slow them down, avoid a fight, get the saltpeter on the boat, and then kill them all.”

            “And we do that by …” asked Lucan. He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, especially around Thiala, but she glared him down. Again, he silenced himself.

            “We get to that when we come to it. For now, let’s get to work. It will be a long few days. And nights.”

            So they set to work. Pushing through the sleep deprivation was easy. They’d been trained for this. They’d pushed their bodies to extremes that were unethical and foolish, but surviving that training qualified them for this mission. Zoldak were grown men pretending to be heroes. It shouldn’t be hard to outpace or baffle them.

            And yet, in the morning, the Zoldak were still close by. None of their tricks had worked. They were pressing in, and they still had two more days of travel to get to Karasdorf. They were going to be caught, and probably captured, unless they did something drastic.