The red mage paused to regain his breath, and then yelled once more.
“Beadhbhs!”
Farris frantically tried to pull himself to his feet as panic erupted all around him.
Although shaking with terror, he couldn’t take his eyes away from the creatures; he was strangely fascinated by the way they moved. Some men tried to fight them off, but they died for their efforts. Others tried to flee, but they were killed for their cowardice. The beasts attacked always in pairs, closing in on their prey with startling synchronisation, as if sharing the same thoughts. More beadhbhs flooded in from all around, pouring out from the dense forestry and vastly outnumbering those unfortunate enough to survive the crash.
The Glenn. My luck had to run out as some point.
Nearby, the knight named Sir Bearach swung his claymore in large arcs, cutting down any bird that crossed its path. He moved through the carnage, roaring curses and raging with bloodlust. When he had a moment to spare, he called towards Farris and the mages.
“We need to leave. Now.”
“Chester,” Sláine said, grabbing Farris’s hand, “can you walk?”
Farris smiled. “I’d rather run.”
As he spoke, two more beadhbhs fell upon another wounded survivor across the clearing, his cries drowned out by the sound of flesh torn by talons. Some of the other men had climbed up on top of the ship’s remains, but the beadhbhs surrounded it, shrieking and squawking as they leapt upwards. One beadhbh broke away from the flock and charged directly at Farris, its path curving away from him, ready to attack from the side. Farris noticed that there was another, following an opposite but otherwise identical trajectory.
He was about to call out and alert those still capable of fighting, but there was no need. The red mage took a step forwards and fire burned in his hands. He made no move until the beadhbhs were upon them, but as they leapt through the air, the mage threw his arms towards the sky, engulfing the birds in flames. The beadhbhs shrieked as they fell burning to the ground.
The battle raged on by the wreckage, but several more survivors had joined the mages, obviously aware that magic was their only chance of escaping in one piece. Without saying another word, they turned and ran from the clearing, deep into the poisonous valley of the Glenn.
He had no more pain, but Farris felt the bones in his knee bend and grind with every step. The path wriggled through ditches and streams as they went, but their pursuers never gave up the chase. Every so often, Farris heard a scream, or a cry for help from behind, and he knew that another beadhbh had satiated its hunger.
But still they ran.
It was clear that no Man or Simian had taken this route in a long time. The plants and flowers that sped past seemed beautiful. Farris didn’t give them a second glance. Twigs and leaves scratched against his face while upturned roots threatened to trip him, but he didn’t slow. There was little material between his feet and the forest floor, and he felt every stone and blade of grass roll beneath him.
Still, he blindly followed the figures of Sir Bearach and Sláine before him.
If we reach a dead end, we’ll be trapped between that and the beasts.
As the trail evened out for a small stretch, Farris quickly glanced behind. Perhaps a half-dozen more men still followed, but four beadhbhs came closing in, leaping through the foliage with ease. Farris turned his attention back to those running ahead of him.
As long as there are more of us than them.
The cold air caught in his throat, and every breath jabbed icy daggers into his lungs. A thousand voices in his head begged him to stop, to rest, to catch a breath, but he ignored them.
The trees above his right shoulder fell away, revealing the full splendour of the Glenn below. On the other side of the river, the hills rose up green and grew darker towards the top until they became jagged peaks, like stone teeth splitting the sky.
Another Simian blocked the beautiful view, overtaking Farris. Just as the crewman was about to pass, one of the beadhbhs caught up and sprang onto his back; they both went tumbling to the ground. Farris didn’t look back to see what happened next.
The Pyromancer ran the furthest ahead, his cape flapping wildly behind him. As the path veered back into the dense forest, he glanced back.
“We can’t outrun them forever!” he cried, vaulting over a fallen tree covered in thick green leaves. By the time Farris reached it, the others cowered behind the red mage and Sir Bearach. Both men stood facing Farris.
“Get behind me, and don’t move!”
Farris ducked under the knight’s outstretched claymore and turned just in time to see the last beadhbh spring over the tree, its talons stretched out and pointing forwards like curved knives. Everything seemed to slow as the beadhbh glided gracefully through the air. Sir Bearach spun on the spot, bellowing obscenities as the beast connected with the blade.
An instant later, the knight crouched over the severed body of the black beadhbh.
A man in white uniform stood by his side. Farris recognised him from the ship’s bridge.
Another navigator, perhaps?
“Sir,” he said. “Are… are you sure it’s safe for us to stop?”
The knight grunted. “Just as safe as it is to keep running. We’ll need to catch our breath if we’re to outlast the rest of them.”
The two mages approached the corpse, along with two more of the crew. One was the thin, red-haired Simian Farris had been sitting across from in the mess room, the other a bearded man in blue overalls, like the mechanics and engineers from the ship. He appeared to be crying.
“Where are we?” he said, blubbering under the thick black beard that consumed half his face. “What happened up there?”
Sir Bearach pulled a dagger from his boot and dug the blade deep in the bird’s corpse. “Beadhbhs: predators of the Glenn. They’re rarely seen outside of the valley, but—”
“No! What happened up there?”
Farris knew the answer to that. He pointed at the red mage. “It was this one. He’s far too fond of his fiery magic.”
“That’s not fair!” The mage turned and marched towards him. He was tall, but still stood up on his toes to look Farris straight in the eye. “I saved your life when you had a knife to your throat! And it was you who started the fight, when—”
“Fool!” The red Simian waved a dismissive hand. “The fight didn’t start until Officer Brádaigh had his throat opened. When one man murders another, we can deal with it. When one man decides to burn the ship from the sky, that’s a fuckup that can’t be fixed.”
The other men argued, but Farris remained silent. Sir Bearach had started skinning the dead beadhbh. The knight’s white cape was laid out on the ground with strips of feather-covered flesh piled on top of it. Sláine the White noticed and strode over to the knight.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
