Shadow Roamers

Kan couldn't believe his eyes.

Demons were things from the legends. Stories told to restless children in the dead of night. He didn't doubt they existed in the past, but to believe they were still roaming the shadows and hunting defenseless travelers was completely different.

Could this really be one of them?

He had no time to think. The creature landed on top of the wagon roof and swung a slimy limb at him. Kan dodged to the side. As the gooey shape wobbled past his face, he drew his sword and aimed for its head. It was within an arm's reach, an easy target, yet by the time his blade slashed down, there was only air where it cut through.

He blinked. There was no more sign of the thing around him.

Meizo calmed the startled horse. The expression on his face was solemn, the lightheartedness gone. "They shouldn't be here," he muttered, half to Kan and half to himself. "Not without being summoned. Stay on guard, young man. Specters like this always hunt in groups, so more must be coming."

He chanted an incantation under his breath. The dagger on his belt unsheathed itself at the words and floated about him in a graceful arc, hovering like a trusted soldier on patrol. It was an Artifact, Kan recognized, a relic from the gods that could follow its owner's will through the bonding of Ichor. He had one of those too, once.

Kan clutched his sword tighter and scanned their surroundings. The fog hung heavy, and the hazy image of the woods pulsed with anticipation.

An ear-shattering screech came from above. The horse reared. Kan moved fast, sword raised almost by instinct. A dark shadow flashed in front of his eyes, baring sharp fangs as long as his fingers. He aimed true, but again his blade crossed nothing. The shadow was gone as if it had been his imagination.

"You can't follow them with your eyes," Meizo called from the other side of the wagon as he fended off a creature of his own. "Feel them. Make them show themselves."

Kan darted a glance at the shaman. His flying dagger bit into what looked like a thick cloud of mist, which wailed in agony before flattening into a puddle of murky fluid on the forest floor. The weapon dashed toward its next target, and Meizo brought his flute to his lips.

The tune he started to play seemed vaguely familiar, although Kan couldn't recall where he might've heard it. There was a luring, mesmerizing undertone, yet the unmistakable malice in it made the hair stand up on his nape.

Slaying demons would be impossible without Ichor, he thought, if these things were indeed demons. But the tune reminded him of the strange sensation at the first creature's approach, and it intrigued him. He reached for the feeling. It was a subtle one, like a whisper pulling on a fine thread at the back of his mind, calling for his attention. He closed his eyes and focused, turning his awareness inward and hushing the music flowing around him.

There. He caught the thread and yanked.

His eyes snapped open, and he slashed before he saw a bright shape snatching at him from his left. It was clear as ice, and he would've looked right past it if not for the whisper in his mind leading the way. His blow landed hard. The creature shattered with a bone-chilling shriek as his sword cracked its skin, spilling its viscous insides all over his arm.

Kan furrowed his brow. He'd had plenty of blood spill, much more than he preferred, yet the uncanniness of this slime unsettled him differently. He brushed off the thought and raised his sword again to the sense of a new presence drawing close.

They kept coming, endless and tireless. It wasn't long before Kan was drenched in goo, and he lost count of how many he'd killed. The sun must be setting, as the light in the forest dimmed and the fog started glowing red. The wagon horse was nowhere to be seen, likely had broken free of the harness and run away amid the chaos. Meizo's music held off the creatures from advancing all at once, but even the hesitant ones circled the two men restlessly, watching with an almost palpable hunger.

It didn't make sense, Kan suddenly realized. Although he wasn't familiar with this part of the woods, they hadn't traveled far, which means someone in town should've set foot in these parts before. If such deadly beings had always been lurking around here, people would've seen them, and he would've heard of it.

Something drew them specifically to this wagon. What was it?

Kan remembered the crate. Its heaviness, despite its size and look, had caught his curiosity and suspicion. He turned to Meizo between two wide sweeps of his sword that burst a handful of creatures closing in from both sides. "Your crate!" he shouted. "What's inside?"

Meizo made a snuffled noise. He couldn't risk breaking the rhythm with dozens and hundreds more of these things salivating around them.

Kan gritted his teeth. The whispers in his mind were growing into a humming, and it became harder to locate each one separate from the others. He barely spun in time when the next creature snapped at him. When he brought the sword down, he was close enough to see his reflection in its bulging scarlet eyes, and his head was a finger's length away from its gaping maw.

No more time to waste, his instincts told him. Kan ignored the fact that he was hired to protect his customer's belongings. He threw himself into the back of the wagon and smashed down the locked door.

"What are you doing?" Meizo's music stopped abruptly, replaced by his astounded voice. The last syllable hardly left his mouth before it was consumed by a chorus of ecstatic shrills. All the creatures around them halted and turned in their tracks—one had just opened its mouth to bite on Meizo's leg when it suddenly jerked back—and swarmed to the back of the wagon in such an eager rush that Kan thought they might crush each other in the process.

"Stand back." Meizo had come around to the situation. He produced a paper talisman from his sleeve. "I'll purge them."

The two men stepped away from the wagon as the layers of creatures built thicker. Kan appreciated the time to catch his breath. The shaman muttered a short incantation and released the talisman. It levitated and drifted as if caught by a nonexistent wind, landing softly on the giant blob of creatures squirming and squealing. A blazing white fire shot up. It radiated no heat while it danced and cracked and filled the air with an acrid smell. A few scattered screams escaped before everything went quiet.

The sun had set, leaving a streak of flaming red along the horizon. The fog started to lift, and Kan was glad to find the disquieting sensation in his mind gone. He fixed a cold gaze on Meizo as the latter wiped off the sweat on his brow. "What is in your crate?" he demanded again. "Did you know it would draw these things to us?"

Meizo shook his head: "It's an Artifact for the Temples. No one knows what suits a demon's appetite, so I sealed it out of precaution. They shouldn't be able to sense it through the seal … not until you broke it when you tore down that door."

Kan scrutinized the shaman, not inclined to believe him. "If they had found us before we left town," he said, "it would've been a slaughter. I thought the Temples would've learned a lesson after five hundred years."

Meizo was silent for a moment. His eyes leveled on the crate unscathed from the demonic fire. Then he fetched another paper talisman out of his sleeve. "I can tell you the full story later. But first, how about a cleansing spell for the slime?"