The Radiant War

Chapter 3b

     *Of course not! I'd never do that!*

     *I sense falsehood. You do not wish to die in battle. You will betray us if you think that will save you.*

     *Look, I didn't sign up to be an assassin! I thought I would just stir things up a bit, then become one of you and live in one of your cities. That's all I wanted, to be one of you,*

     *There are enough of us at present. We are not like humans and other lower life forms who multiply without thought until they exhaust their resources. We adopted you to be a tool, not a Radiant.*

     *You lied to me! You lied to all of us!*

     *Yes. We do what he have to in order to achieve our objectives.*

     The Radiant was close now. It was going to carry him off, he realised, and nobody would bat an eyelid because Radiants carried people off all the time. If he screamed and fought, people would probably think he was crying out with joy It would take him to some remote spot, then tear him apart!

     He turned back the way he’d originally been going, back towards his house, and ran. Tentacles reached out for him. He dodged them and then he was past it, sprinting for all he was worth. The Radiant was slow and clumsy and continued on for several more yards, blowing gases out of its siphon in an attempt to change direction. By the time it had turned to follow Fienwell, he was fifty yards down the street and still running.

     A Radiant could not keep pace with a running man unless there was a strong breeze behind it, blowing it along, but every Radiant in the city had stopped what it was doing and was closing in. Fienwell saw them in the sky ahead of him, looking like toy balloons that had been released by careless children. They looked harmless, and to most people they were such a common sight that they barely noticed them, the way most people barely notice the full moon, but the sight of them sent a surge of desperate fear through Fienwell. The wind was picking up, lifting dirt and litter from the streets and blowing it past him from behind. The Radiant behind him had summoned a gale to help it catch up. It would hinder the creatures ahead of him, but that didn't matter so long as they could keep him within a slowly contracting circle. There was no escape!

     No, there was one hope. He reached his house, but instead of entering it he dashed across the street, almost getting run over by a horse and carriage. He hammered on the door of the house opposite his. “Let me in! Please, let me in! It's Fienwell! It's the man you were sent to get! Please, let me in!”

     He looked back the way he'd came. The Radiant was much lower now, moving fast with the help of the wind from behind. Its longest tentacles touched the ground, lifted, then touched the ground again further on as if it was walking on them. The carriage that had almost run him over had to swerve to the other side of the street to get past it, the driver staring in astonishment.

     He wasn't the only one. Everyone in the street had stopped to watch the Radiant. This kind of behaviour was completely out of character for the normally docile, serene creatures. “What's it doing, mummy?” he heard a half raised fox asking. His mother, her dress billowing in the wind, ushered him inside their house and slammed the door.

     Fienwell reached down to his belt and pulled out a six inch dagger. Pitifully inadequate against the creature. It was nothing more than part of his clothing, part of his attempt to look like a normal citizen, most of whom carried small weapons as a defence against muggers. His knuckles went white as he gripped it tightly, though, drawing some measure of comfort from its reassuring weight, and he turned his back on the door, determined to give as good an account of himself as he could. He could at least hurt the creature. He could at least do that!