The leaves rattled like talons. The sound sliced through him, a blade of fear that threatened to slit loose his bowels. The thought of fouling himself before Abi only encouraged his rising panic.
‘Ready?’ whispered Abi.
Cade shook aside his dread long enough to concentrate, to reach into that well of energy beyond the world and draw lightning into his hands, summon light and power enough to drive the horrors away.
Agony was all he found there, a spike of it transfixing his brain.
His eyes bled dancing lights. Abi shrieked too as they collapsed in the dirt. Their powers had abandoned them. Why?
The corn was crackling, louder and louder, rushing towards them.
Abi reeled, moaning in pain as Cade pulled her away and they broke into a run. Pelting through the corn, he continued in his flight for at least a minute before realising that she had slipped from his grasp.
He swayed on the spot. The realisation that he had lost her sent his insides spinning. He wheezed her name, hands groping for her in the dark. He could hear her calling him, though her voice seemed distant.
Something else was crunching steadily through the corn towards him.
His spit turned to dust. His heartbeat choked him. His head screamed. Pain and darkness wove a delirium of childhood nightmares: spidery fingers picking at his window; voices giggling dark promises under his bed; his young hands lifting the sheets beneath which he lay and revealing a pair of famished yellow eyes peering up at him. Impossible things, childish delusions banished by maturity. And yet, just such an aberration was moving towards him with a hunter’s tread, its existence an affront to everything he knew of the world. Fear sucked strength from his legs, slowing his pace until the field felt like a swamp. The universe was broken, fractured into madness and chaos. Cade clutched his head as if it might burst with pain.
He staggered through several banks of corn, dazed as he paused to stare into each darkened alley for any sign of Abi. He fumbled for an axe from his belt and lurched into the next row of corn.
Something stood there.
Cade froze, tormented by the sound of his own whimpering sobs, as the shape turned to face him.
Its outline was obscure, Cade’s senses resisting the sight of it. But he glimpsed its eyes, gleaming and merciless. The sight of them choked the scream mounting in his throat just as it sent a fresh wave of agony exploring his brain. He dropped his axe before he could hurl it, dazzled by pain as the monster came at him. Reduced to instinct, Cade bolted off through the corn like a startled hare, only to see another oily silhouette emerging from the stalks to receive him. Gleaming hands flowered in the dark, reaching for him.
The thing flinched back as something glittered past its face – the slender blade of Cade’s own hunting knife. It had been flung without finesse, well wide of its target, but it granted Cade the second he needed to pivot and spring in the direction of the girl who had thrown it. Buoyed by relief, Cade caught Abi with such force that he almost lifted her off her feet. They stumbled into a run, Abi leading the way, their hands locked in the darkness.
The Nothings rushed after them as they blundered through the corn. The pain in Cade’s skull seemed to shepherd him left and right like a buffeting tide. But Abi held him tight on course as she crashed through wall after wall of corn ahead of him, never slowing. They gained ground and the pain in his head began to evaporate. He felt like he could run forever. His palm began to tingle in Abi’s grip.
They smashed through leaves, tripping on stalks, deaf to any sound of pursuit. Cade felt the pain start gnawing at the back of his skull every time he slowed his pace. This cornfield was another maze, nothing but dark lanes of dirt and leaves to left and right, endless and identical, a relentless monotony. It was as if the earth itself had succumbed to the night’s madness and was replicating the walls of their prison as they ran, hoping to lead them on until they collapsed from exhaustion. His hand throbbed.
Abi pulled him to her every time he stumbled or slackened his pace. His lungs felt like bloody rags, struggling to feed his tortured limbs. There was no way out of here. Even Abi was slowing, stumbling, her breath reduced to drowning gasps. The Nothings would soon be upon them. He closed his eyes.
Horned Throne, hear my prayer.
He thought of the earth beneath their pounding feet, the fertile loam beneath its crust. His fingers tingled, aching to feel that crumbling soil, moist and cool.
I beg not Your forgiveness, only that You receive Abigael, orphan of the Cradle, into Your keeping. She was just. She was kind. She was loved.
Cade reached deeper into his vision until he felt himself electrified by roiling whispers, the secret energies of the soil.
Lead Your foundling into pastures green, for she has served You well.
His hand stiffened as if in seizure, though Cade barely felt it.
Deliver her from darkness, Father.
Abi’s cry startled him. A blinding thicket of lightning was writhing in the air between their parted hands, the fulmination apple-green, ripe as the moon. They both fell aside as they pulled their hands away and the lightning snapped into nothing, releasing a luminous green vapour into the air. Abi lay gasping in the dirt beside Cade as they watched the smoke thicken. Its tendrils thrashed like wounded snakes, knitting into a pair of unreadable yellow eyes either side of a narrow head crowned with curling horns.
For an instant, Cade thought he might still be in the Cradle, perhaps in bed, stricken with fever as the imaginings of his childhood frolicked before his eyes.
The Faun Light shook itself into existence, its body twice the size of any goat herded in the Cradle, its shaggy black fur steaming green, casting a lantern-glow about the swaying corn. Another miracle sprung from a fairy tale, an envoy of the Horned Throne, an angel of soil and sky sent to lead benighted wanderers from the dark.
He could feel it drawing vigour from him, using him to channel energy from beyond the veil. The Horned Throne was reaching out beyond the sundered boundary of the Cradle to help them, despite all they had done. If evil sorcery dwelt in the world, then so too did mercy and goodness. The Faun Light skipped as its cloven hooves materialised, each leg thudding in the dirt.
Abi wheezed with exhaustion as she touched its muzzle, confirming its miraculous reality, then bowed her head as if she couldn’t bear to meet its gaze.
Cade felt pain cramping the back of his skull once again, heralding the approach of the Nothings. The Faun Light pawed the ground, eager to lead them to safety, but they were both too drained to move. Spurred by pain and fear, Cade managed to lift himself. He hauled Abi onto the Faun Light’s bony back. Its thick fur smelled like soft summer apples. Abi suddenly struggled, realising what he was doing. She clasped his hand as fiercely as ever, but the sweet green vapour steaming from the creature’s fur seemed to send her into a daze. Cade could hear the approaching rustle of corn through the pain shrieking in his ears as he gently transferred Abi’s grip onto a fistful of the goat’s fur.
The Faun Light fled through the corn before Cade could slap its rump. Within seconds they had vanished, leaving Cade in darkness. He burbled prayers of thanks as his killers drew near. Exhaustion numbed him, though his brain buzzed unbearably. Cade heard the first of the Nothings approach from behind, its presence heightening that buzz to a razor whine. He fought through it. Without turning to look at it, he gauged its height, its position, waiting for it to move again. He closed his eyes and gripped the last of his axes.
The Nothing shifted behind him and Cade sprang from the ground, eyes still closed, twisting as he lashed out with the axe, intent on burying it in the creature’s skull. He felt the blade connect, shear through flesh. The Nothing recoiled, though it issued not even a whisper of pain. Cade enjoyed a bewildered instant of triumph before something hit him deep in the belly, robbing him of breath and dropping him to the dirt.
As he gasped on the ground, he saw the moon briefly unsheathed from the clouds, casting its pale green light upon the scene of his death. He was surrounded. As he rolled onto his belly, something struck his back, electrifying him. His limbs spasmed in the dirt and he spiralled into unconsciousness, dreaming of the last thing he had seen lying in the dirt beside him: his throwing axe, smeared with blood, pasted with a slice of human ear.
Cade felt a pinprick in his throat. A soothing warmth restored him to his body, culminating in a rush of strength that threw him shrieking and thrashing onto windswept hills. His heart thundered. Beside him knelt a bald young woman in glorious bronze armour. The filigree plates on her shoulders gleamed in the glowing dawn that was gathering to confront the sullen storm clouds.
‘You’re safe.’ She spoke in a voice lilting and sweet. ‘Take a moment to steady yourself. I’ve given you something for the pain.’
She had a foreign accent as grand as her armour. Her pale skin was flawlessly smooth, untouched by the sun, miraculously unblemished by scars or pockmarks. Cade felt he should have been mesmerised by this angel but there was something oddly repulsive about her placid green gaze. It was like staring at needles inching towards his eyes. He had to look away.
The cornfield had gone and he was alive, resting against a soft bank of moss. Bushes of pale grass hissed before him, whispering all the way to the distant glimmering sea.
‘The girl,’ she said. ‘We need you to find her.’
Cade felt drunk, struggling to wrangle his thoughts through a migraine fog. The Horned Throne had sent help. Abi had escaped. Now he himself had been saved from the Nothings by this strange young maiden.
