The Rune of Eldrath.

CHAPTER 8: SHADOW BEASTS

Garrick had fought soldiers, sellswords, assassins, and two types of Void creatures in the past five years.

None of them had come out of a lake.

The first creature broke the surface twenty feet to Kael's left with no warning, a mass of dark movement that had no consistent shape, pulling itself onto the bank with limbs that reorganized as it moved. A second came up on the right side. The enormous shape beneath the water was still rising, its shadow spreading wide across the lakebed.

"Kael, bank. Now," Garrick said.

"I see them," Kael said. He was already moving.

"Faster than that."

Kael reached the shallows and pulled himself out. Garrick stepped past him and drove his sword into the center of the nearest creature. The blade went through it without any resistance and came out the other side and the creature kept moving as if nothing had touched it.

"Your sword is not doing anything," Kael said.

"I noticed," Garrick said. He stepped back and tried from a different angle with the same result. The creature advanced. "Tell me you have something."

"I have something," Kael said. "I do not know how much control I have over it right now. The relic contact pushed the god up loud and it has not settled back down."

"How loud," Garrick said. He put himself between Kael and the nearest creature and kept moving backward slowly.

"Loud enough that when I reach for the power I am not fully sure where it stops," Kael said.

"Short burst. Same as the capital. Can you do that."

"I think so."

"You think so," Garrick repeated.

"I am reasonably confident," Kael said.

"Reasonably confident is not the same as yes," Garrick said. He hit the creature again with the flat of his sword. Still nothing. The second creature had moved in from the right and cut off the bank behind them. "Kael, I need an answer."

"Then yes," Kael said. "I can do it. Get to the side. Not behind me."

"Why not behind you," Garrick said. He moved right anyway.

"Because if I lose control I am going to fire in the direction I am facing and I do not want you behind that." Kael raised his left hand. The rune was still blazing from the relic contact and the gold light gathered in his palm without any deliberate effort from him. "Brace."

"I am braced," Garrick said.

Kael pushed the light out in one focused burst. It hit the first creature and the creature stopped existing. He shifted left and hit the second creature and it came apart the same way. The light scattered outward and the ripples moved across the lake in every direction.

The enormous shape in the water stopped its ascent.

Both of them went still.

"Is it retreating," Kael said quietly.

"Not yet," Garrick said. He kept his eyes on the water. "Do not move. It felt that burst and it is deciding whether you are worth the fight."

Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.

"It is very large," Kael said.

"Yes," Garrick said.

"Have you seen something like it before."

"No." Garrick did not look away from the water. "But old things do not charge without thinking. It is calculating."

"Calculating what."

"Whether the power you just showed it means you are dangerous enough to avoid." Garrick kept his voice flat and low. "So stand still and let it think."

Forty seconds. The shadow stayed in place, neither rising nor sinking.

"If it comes up," Kael started.

"You use everything you have," Garrick said. "I get out of the way. But I do not think it is coming up."

Fifty seconds. Then slowly, without any hurry, the shadow began sinking. It went down by degrees, shrinking as it went, until the lakebed was empty and the water above it was clear.

Garrick let out a slow breath. "Back toward the trees. Normal pace. Do not run."

They walked back from the bank one step at a time. The lake surface stayed completely still. At fifty feet the shadow was fully gone. Garrick watched the empty water for another full minute before he moved.

"Now," he said. "Into the trees."

They walked for fifteen minutes before Garrick allowed them to stop. Kael sat against a wide tree with the spearhead on his knee and his left hand open and shaking in his lap. The rune was still hot enough to feel.

"Talk to me," Garrick said. "What do you feel."

"My arm is tired," Kael said. "My vision has gold at the edges. Not painful. Just sitting there." He pressed his palm flat against his leg. "The god is louder than usual. Still not words. More like pressure that does not let up."

"Your eyes are solid gold," Garrick said. "Both of them. No hazel at all."

"How long will that last."

"Last time it was several hours. Look at me directly."

Kael focused on Garrick's face. The gold at the edges of his vision pushed in and then steadied. He kept his breathing even and his eyes on Garrick and after several minutes the intensity stepped back.

"Better," Garrick said. "You held it. Both times tonight."

"I thought about attacking you once," Kael said. He said it plainly because Garrick needed to know. "The thought was there. Specific. I did not follow it."

Garrick held his gaze. "The thought being there is not the problem. Following it is. You did not follow it."

"Tell me if it looks like I am about to," Kael said. "Do not give me the benefit of the doubt and end up dead because of it."

"I will tell you," Garrick said. "And if telling does not work I will put you on the ground and hold you there until it passes."

"Good," Kael said.

They made camp further in the trees. Kael ate without tasting the food and cleaned the spearhead and wrapped it in cloth. His eyes were back to their normal color by full dark. He lay down and was asleep within minutes.

He did not expect what came while he slept.

That night, the Shadow Within finally revealed itself.