Devils on Starfall Isle

11

The things came before dawn. They were worse than she'd been expecting.

They were huge, tall things with long necks and long spindly legs. Their feet had wicked claws which gleamed in the moonlight. Their heads were like wolves, with lolling black tongues and predator's eyes. Their skin was dark and shiny, like flies, and they snarled and howled, the sounds sharp in her ears with no mud walls in the way to muffle the sound.

They came, stalking across the beach, their huge strides covering the distance in a heartbeat. They made noises that were probably language, chuckling and shrieking with an angry contempt; calling as they strode to the little shed. Her knife was still in her hand, but it felt ridiculous, a toy against the storm.

One of them squatted down. It folded its spindly legs under itself, and its huge head came down so that it was level with hers. It brought it up to the thin wood walls, and it sniffed. She could smell the stench of it, see the short hairs on its snout; and when the beach was suddenly lit up by a falling star its teeth glittered, each as long as her knife.

It fixed her with its gaze.

Immediately behind her one of them roared, and she jumped and whirled around in the tiny space; and the one in that had been staring at her made a sound that might have been a laugh.

But then she noticed the footprints around the shed.

Where she had walked, singing the songs of sanctity, there was a faint glow, her footprints picked out on the pebbles, gentle as starlight. The things couldn't cross that threshold, and they snapped at the invisible barrier. Her charms were shining too, the last component of the boundary between her and them. That was why you mustn't hurry, she thought; if you did, you'd leave gaps between the footprints and they would be able to get through.

So what now?

Strangely, the creatures didn't seem to be malicious; they were just curious. They sniffed and growled, their claws clacking on the pebbles, silent on the earth. Then one of them shrieked, a noise that chilled her to her bones, and the rest looked up to the eastern sky; and they all stood, shook themselves, and galloped away, howling through the night.

She let out a ragged breath, and slumped onto the bare ground, too tired to celebrate. She thought that she was too stressed to sleep, but it came to her, even in the cold, even through the fear.