Read Online Shadow by Will Elliott - Free Book Online Page B

toward the woman’s feet. She sighed, licked her lips, arched her back as the coiling thing – a thick vine, it almost seemed to the wolf, though surely it was not – traced its point over her ankle, coiled about her knee, then up her thigh, toward her centre.
    The wolf’s confused whine was hardly louder than a breath, and certainly quieter than his enemy’s moans of pleasure, which began to fill the glen.
    He hesitated at the top of the small waterfall, wanting in equal parts to leap down and attack, and to leave this dangerous woman be. He was decided when, some distance away from the glistening length – a tail? – gently stroking her loins and provoking her sounds of pleasure, the wolf caught sight of what at first seemed a log gently bobbing to the water’s surface. But no, it was a sleek head. Two eyes glimmered with power and with humour. Whatever it was, it saw him and had seen him since he’d first poked his head into the glen to look below. The woman, her eyes still closed, had not.
    The wolf whimpered quietly, turned about, and ran.

THE HIDDEN VILLAGE
    1
    Dogs furiously barked from an apparently empty space on the plain. Siel picked up a rock and hurled it in that direction. It vanished on the throw’s downward arc. There was a clattering noise as the vanished stone hit something unseen. The barking reached a fever pitch. ‘Is this kind of thing normal in your world or not?’ said Eric.
    â€˜No. Run.’
    A short sprint later, looking back, there were suddenly a dozen huts visible where she’d flung the stone, houses of mud-brick and logs. Two dogs strained more playfully than angrily at the chains which held them. There were no people in sight.
    Siel jogged back to where they’d stood when she threw the stone. ‘It’s vanished!’ she called. ‘From here, I can’t see it. Can you see it still?’
    â€˜Sure can.’
    â€˜A spell,’ she said. ‘But why does it only shield the place from our eyes when they view from this angle? I don’t understand.’
    They walked among the huts and called out. No one answered. The dogs were soon befriended and calmed when Eric fed them meat he found inside a hut whose door was left open.
    Valuables and food lay about quite openly, indicating people had fled from imminent danger. Siel found a string for her bow but it was home-made, not military grade, and would not fire nearly as far as her old one.
    They stuffed themselves full of fruit and meat found in the same home’s larder, which was packed with more spoilable food surely than anyone, even a family, could eat before much of it rotted. ‘Maybe the village keeps all its food here,’ said Siel, devouring some sweet potato. ‘Maybe they have a folk mage to preserve it.’
    â€˜But how do you explain these?’ said Eric, pointing at the enormous boots by the back door. ‘Everything here is too big. It’s like Faul’s place again. Look!’ He held up a wooden spoon and bowl, both enormous. ‘The other huts aren’t like this. They seem normal.’
    They stuffed all the food they could carry into their packs and bathed in the rain-tank shower, complete with soap and a little stove to heat the water. ‘Did I ever tell you the story of the three bears?’ Eric asked Siel as they dried themselves.
    â€˜What’s a bear?’
    â€˜The three wolves, then.’ He gave her a brief amended version of the fairy tale. ‘And that’s us, I think. I’m not sure whoever left here is gone for good. But that,’ he pointed at the roof, ‘is a miracle. Let’s have one above us overnight for a change. Why don’t we rest up here?’ She began to object. ‘One fucking night, come on,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to roll the dice.’
    They fed the dogs again, barred the door and lay in a bed big enough for five people.
    2
    Eric was awake,