Miles to Babylon

II: The Darklander, part II

          Awen's eyes shot open. The girl placed a hand against her face. "No! Don't look."

          Fear trickled down her back like cold water, or maybe it was sweat; every unpleasant feeling was creeping back. Her hair was an itchy mess stuck to her neck; she brushed it over her shoulder, realizing with a wave of fear that her hood had fallen. She was exposed, vulnerable—

           Almost immediately, Awen felt the coarse wool fall across her cheeks again as an arm drew her hood back over her head. She looked up to see a girl an inch or two taller than her, her own face shadowed by the hood of a green shawl. With her back to the fire, all Awen could see were a few red curls. "Is he in white?" she whispered.

             "Yes. He's got armor on, looks like an angry marble. He's watching us from the trees over there."

             Awen's pulse raced ahead of her. The sentry.

            The girl pressed so close that Awen felt her whisper. "Follow me."

            "What?"

            Before she could think, the girl was pulling her by the hand through the ring of startled dancers. She couldn't even look back—in no time they were at the edge of the clearing, where the girl ducked under the branches and into the bulk of forest beyond.

            "Where are—"

            "Shh!"

            The wood was black as pitch after the light of the bonfire. Awen's eyes struggled to adjust as she followed the girl through the undergrowth, wondering how she would explain the tears in her breeches to Auntie Thea. If anyone was trying to follow them, at least they'd have a rough go of it.

             "Down here," said the girl, letting go of Awen's hand as she staggered down the slope of a small vale. "Watch out. The leaves are all wet."

              At the bottom of the vale, a stream glinted like a thread of molten amber. It caught the light from beyond the brushwood, where the din of music and revelry still reigned.

             The girl crept up the other side and into the shadow of an old bridge. She collapsed into the heap of her cloak, her face two glints of green in the moonlight. "We'll be safe here," she said between breaths, and Awen had to agree. It was a good spot; close enough to the bonfire that they wouldn't get lost, yet nicely tucked away, and this bridge was wide enough that—

             Awen shot up, staring at the bridge. The shape was wrong—too angular, too seamless. It dawned on her as she edged forward; the arch was cleanly bent by a bulbous hinge, the metal glinting blue between foamy corrosion. Her gaze followed the colossal leg across the vale, where it disappeared into the earth.

             "What's wrong?" asked the girl, but Awen barely heard. Her eyes traced upward, piecing together the hidden body, until they settled on a long, abraded face half-buried in leaves.

             "There, that—" Awen wasn't sure what to call it. The tales told only little; the only comfort was in how very dead the thing must be.

              "You've never seen one before?"

              "Bits and pieces, around Myddvai," Awen said. "Never one so big, or so—" she stared at the cold face, the lumps of earth where the body was buried. "—whole," she finished.

              "You're not in Myddvai anymore." The girl grinned. "And you'd never sleep again if you knew what's left in these woods."

             "D'you mean you've been here before?" Awen asked, dropping down beside her. "And here I took you for a Darklander!"