A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(35)

With new determination, Lucy, Alisdair, and Saul started down the road, following the compass needle as it shivered and turned. But they had hardly taken a few steps before a strange squeaking noise filled the air.

Lucy paused, looking around for a source. The circle of light around them showed nothing but the empty pavement, but the noise grew louder nonetheless. Lucy was looking to Alisdair, about to ask him to move the lantern, when a black thing darted out of the darkness and over her foot.

Gasping, she jumped backward just as a small lump disappeared into the shadows. 

"What was that?" Saul whispered.

The squeaking noise still filled the air, and soon it seemed as if it was right upon them. Lucy shifted closer to Alisdiar and the lantern, and a not even a second later it all erupted into chaos. 

From the darkness, small creatures around the size of a newborn infant flooded the ground around their feet. They were vaguely humanoid, but with pot bellies and no necks. Their heavy foreheads fell over burning red eyes, and each foot and hand was capped off by needle-like claws. The creatures moved almost like a wave, swarming around Lucy's legs.

A handful of the creatures swiped at her. Lucy tried to jump out of the way, but one still ripped into her leather boot and pierced skin. Lucy screamed, and nearby Alisdair and Saul yelped as blood ribboned down their legs from the claws scraping across their skin. 

"We need to run!" Lucy yelled, trying to pick a path away from the ocean of creatures undulating around her. She barely got one or two steps when the creatures changed tactics. Instead of attacking the Dreamwalkers' legs, the creatures scrambled on top of one another, stacking up until they were teetering in lopsided towards around four feet tall. One of the creatures jumped from the top and onto Lucy's waist, digging its claws into her waist. She yelped, trying to smack it off, but it held on tight. Alisdair swung his lantern at it, managing to dislodge it and sending it flying off into the darkness. 

Saul snatched Lucy's hand and they kicked their way out of the middle of the swarm. Then they ran, racing down the paths and through the streets. The creatures, thankfully, found it hard to keep up because of their stubby legs, and after a few minutes, they were left behind.

Lucy and the men stopped by a lantern over a shop window to catch their breath.

"Those things were horrible," Alisdair said, examining the shredded skin around his shins and feet.

"Are they some of the creatures that are coming to life in Krov Korol?" Saul asked, removing his spectacles and wiping sweat off his brow before replacing them.

"We need to keep moving," Lucy said, wincing as she placed her weight on her injured foot. The creatures had covered her in more lacerations, and when she glanced down she saw the black ooze trailing down her leg from her clogged veins. She bit back a disgusted frown, and instead focused back on her compass.

"Let's try keep stops to a minimum—" Alisdair started, but before he could finish his thought, another screech cut through the sky above them.

This time they did not wait around to see what had caused it. They took off running, Lucy looking at the compass in her hand and shouting instructions. They ducked into alleys and cut through koi pond gardens, heading ever after the place the needle pointed to.

As they ran, the screeching above them never left, and at one point, small leather wings cut into their lantern light and a pair of glowing white eyes swooped low. But then Lucy led them into a temple, where they raced down the hallways and exited a back door onto a different street. The flying creature no longer chased them, but almost immediately a slug-like creature plopped down from the eves of the temple and oozed toward them. It was slow moving, and they raced onward, leaving it behind them.

"What is going on?" Alisdair shouted, trying to peer behind them even though the shadows had already eaten up the monsters once again.

"It doesn't matter," Lucy puffed, checking the compass once again. "Once we get rid of the source, none of this will matter. They'll leave, along with the darkness." 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they found themselves at the base of The King's Brow, where they stopped running. Someone in the castle had obviously ordered more lights to be strung up around the palace walls. They were red lanterns, and from the bottom of the hill, they looked like wicked smiles, curved and bright, hanging from every inch of the roofs. The palace was impossible to miss now. It was no longer hiding in the shadows. 

"Koshmar ordered the castle to be completely lit from now on," Alisdair gasped out, bending over to catch his breath "He said that the darkness was not meant for him."

Saul snorted breathily. "So much for his concern with depleting supplies."

Lucy took a shaky breath as her stomach churned at the sight of the palace. This was exactly the place where it was the most dangerous for her to be. Koshmar was only at the top of the hill, and he would be ready to stab her as callously as he had Gregor. She wouldn't be able to save Joon from the dream world if she was bleeding out on his palace floors.

"We don't have to go any further," Saul whispered, placing a steadying hand on Lucy's shoulder.

"I know," Lucy replied. "But if I don't, then who will?" She met Saul's eyes, and when he had no retort, no offer to take up the burden for her, she nodded her head in determination. She would be the one to save her prince. She would be the one to bring back the sun. 

"We need to get moving before any more of those creatures come after us," Lucy said, looking back down at her compass.

They followed the directions toward the hill, but as they started up the road, Lucy noticed the needle veering off to the side. Saul noticed as well, and raised his eyebrows in question.

"Maybe it's confused," Lucy said, stopping and turning around in a circle. But the compass still kept pointing to a direction that was not the road that led up to the castle.

"So it's not the palace then?" Alisdair asked.

Lucy shook her head. "I guess not." She added under her breath, "I would have thought..."

They walked off the road and onto the grass, heading around the side. There was swath of unoccupied land on this face of the hill, dedicated to showing off the gates in all their glory with no homes or shops to crowd it out. The compass took them out into this land, and then suddenly, it flipped around to face behind them. Lucy frowned, taking a few steps more in the direction they had been going, and then retracing her steps. The compass needle danced, spinning in its circle.

"I think we're here," Saul said, lifting his lantern to look around them. The only thing within their circle of light was grass and a few bushes. Nothing that looked anything like a source of darkness. Zerkalo had been a dead girl on a slab of stone. Krov Korol couldn't be a stretch of grass.

Could it?

The compass vibrated in Lucy's hand, shaking until it became violent enough that she dropped it with a sharp breath through her teeth. It fell from her hand just before exploding with a bang into a shower of emerald sparks just like the lantern in the dream world. Saul and Alisdair jumped away from the fiery sparks raining down from the sky, and covered their ears too late after the echoing boom of the explosion. Lucy winced, looking up at the gate where the guards would surely now be on the alert. They wouldn't think much of a lone lantern out in the darkness, but an explosion and green sparks was sure to bring them down to investigate.