The Lightning God's Wife: a short story by Grace Draven Read Free Book Online Page B

on a little girl as they struggled to
outrun the nebulous wall of darkness bearing down on them.  It flared over the
plains, churning up powdery dirt and debris until the black wall turned brown. 
Had she not seen its transformation, Revida might have mistaken it for a dust
storm.
    But this was no storm.  Whatever seethed and roiled behind
the fleeing children was built of shadow and smelled of power.  Despite the
sun’s punishing heat, chills pebbled the skin on Revida’s arm, and she gasped
as a colossal face, twisted with hatred, coalesced within the dark wall.
    The children looked back and screamed in unison. The girl
stumbled and fell, nearly yanking the boy off his feet.
    Revida abandoned the cave in which she sheltered and ran to
the children.  She scooped the girl into her arms and grabbed the boy’s hand.
    “Run!” she shouted over the howling leviathan pursuing
them.  Age had made her slower, but terror turned her fleet.  They barreled
into the cave’s cool dimness.  Revida set the crying girl down and made for the
remains of the previous night’s fire.  She plunged her hands into the pile of
cold ash and soot, coming away with black hands.  The boy watched her for a
moment, then mimicked her actions.
    She returned to the cave’s entrance.  The shrieking darkness
was almost upon them.  The face had disappeared, replaced by a pair of twisting
silhouettes that grappled each other for dominance.  Revida sketched a sigil at
the entrance with soot-blackened fingers.  The boy did the same, drawing the
complicated protection symbols with the practiced ease of a skilled sorcerer.
    Revida sketched the last line of her sigil just as the
shadow wall struck.  The impact threw her and the boy back into the cave’s
interior and showered everything in tiny bits of stone shrapnel and dust. 
Sprawled on her back, Revida shielded her head with her arms as the ground
beneath her shook.
    Her ears rang from the enraged shrieking just outside the
cave.  Whatever threw itself against their sanctuary couldn’t cross the sigil
barrier.  It beat against the symbols’ invisible bulwark, inhuman screams and growls
punctuating every strike.
    Aching and dizzy, Revida clambered to her feet.  The boiling
shadows blocking the entrance also blotted out the light, turning the cave into
a crypt.  Revida reached blindly into the darkness. 
    “Boy, are you there?”
    “Yes, I’m here,” a thin voice answered back.
    “And the girl?”
    “She’s with me.”
    Revida sat down.  She couldn’t see half an arm’s length in
front of her, and until whatever foul thing lurking outside the cave decided to
leave, she could do nothing more than wait.  The children sheltering with her
huddled nearby, safe—at least as safe as anyone could be with an enraged demon
pounding on their sigil door.
    As quickly as the attack began, it stopped.  The howling
ceased, and the shadows dissipated.  Sunlight flooded the opening, illuminating
the interior space with weak light.  Revida found the boy and girl holding each
other.  Emaciated and ragged, they both squinted at the bright sunlight outside
and then at Revida.
    “I think it’s over,” she said.
    With those words, the boy jumped to his feet and sprinted
outside, the girl close on his heels.
    “Wait!”  Revida tried to grab the little girl but missed. 
Cursing the children’s antics and her own creaking bones, she followed them out
of the cave’s sanctuary.
    The shadow cloud was gone, leaving behind only a merciless
blue sky, trenched earth, and a prone figure not far from the cave.  The
children hovered over him, both pleading in shaking voices for him to wake up.
    Revida drew closer and heard the boy command in a
surprisingly powerful voice “Father, open your eyes.”
    She crouched beside him.  A man sprawled on the ground, so
caked in dirt and grit he looked more golem than human.  Revida couldn’t make
out much of his features and none of his hair color.