The Shadow

Chapter 9

A couple of hours later the town of Eelry appeared on the horizon, coming into view in time with the sinking of the sun. Kai was immediately struck by the size of it—he'd known it was small, but this... There were less than a hundred buildings all together, with only one inn in sight. None of the houses that he could see were very large. They were single story buildings, comparable to the houses that made up the slums of Northshore. And there—as they approached the city, Kai saw a house that seemed to be caving in on itself. Another house's door had been torn off, and yet another was missing parts of its roof.

Small as this town might be, this wasn't normal.

"Wait," he gestured for Harper to stop, pulling Lunar underneath a massive tree whose shadows hid him from the sun.

Harper seemed to notice where his gaze was fixed, eyes widening. "The hounds. They've been here too. Should we run?" Her face paled. "What if they haven't left Eelry."

Kai shook his head. "We'd have heard them by now, but I'll check to be sure. Stay here," he said.

"No," she said, chin shifting slightly upward. "I'm coming. I acted like a coward before, leaving you to the hounds, but I have a bow and am just as capable of killing those things as you. I won't run again."

Kai opened his mouth to argue, but closed it at the look of determination in her eyes. Although he feared losing someone he cared about—and part of him did care about her, despite barely knowing her—she was capable, judging by the shots she'd made on the pheasant earlier. Hopefully, she wouldn't panic like she had during the hound's attack on the wagon train. He simply nodded, turning Lunar around as they proceeded to the city.

The destruction became more clear the closer they grew. Debris filled the streets and most of the houses had broken windows or walls. It looked as though the town had been caught by surprise, perhaps in the middle of the night when they had all been asleep. They should have had a watch posted, but for a place this small... Kai wouldn't put it past them to forget. Even if there had been a watch, there was nowhere to run. Nothing but trees, hills and fields stretched out beyond Eelry for miles.

By the time they had stepped within the cobblestones of the town's streets, Kai had still not heard the terrible sound that the hounds produced. Blood and gore marred the streets and houses, but no bodies—not even one. Warily, Kai dismounted from Lunar and stepped inside a house with a half collapsed roof, gesturing for Harper to keep watch outside. Splatters of blood coated the red-painted walls and meager amounts of furniture that stood atop a plain stone floor. It seemed there had been a struggle, but there were still no bodies. Kai stepped outside the house, jumping atop Lunar and heading further down the city streets, Harper at his side.

They were near the center of Eelry when they saw it, and he nearly threw up. A gagging sound beside him told Kai that Harper had the same reaction. There, in the square, were hundreds of corpses, shredded to a bloody pulp. Limbs and guts covered the walls of nearby houses; the area surrounding the bodies bathed in blood. No faces could be recognized within the carnage, but they were humans. Men, women, children—the hounds had spared none of them. And yet they had not been eaten—in fact, most of the bodies remained whole; in scraps, but they weren't eaten. The hounds had killed them... For sport? For the sake of killing? Kai had never heard of animals so terrible; some killed for fun, but not in numbers so large or in such cruel a way. He would have placed the blame on humans had he not seen the unmistakable claw marks marring nearby bodies. Perhaps men had controlled them, but the killings had been done by those creatures—of that much Kai was certain.

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