Free Bec by Darren Shan

chasing the chickens. “I don’t think he’d be much help.”
    We set off quickly, each of us aware of the rapidly setting sun. It’s almost the time of the Fomorii.
    The first hut. Holes have been torn in the walls, so it’s easy to peer in. Floor caked in drying blood but otherwise empty. No trapdoor or hiding place. We push on.
    The second hut’s smaller than the first. A tiny entrance. No holes in the walls. Dark pools of shadows. We stick our heads through the doorway, allowing our eyes to adjust to the gloom. Objects gradually swim into sight. Pots, a small table, a broken chair. Rugs on the floor — there could be a souterrain beneath. We slide in, Ronan first, me last, looking up for winged demons hanging from the thatch. The men search beneath the rugs — nothing. They file out. I’m bringing up the rear, almost through the door, when something breathes behind me.
    “Beccccccc...”
    I stop...turn... eyes wide... heart beating fast. I stare into the shadows. I can’t see anything but I know I’m not alone. I want to duck out of the door or call for help but I can’t. My tongue is frozen, not with fear but magic.
    Long, terrifying seconds pass. Then, in a blur, claws dart out of the darkness...a twisted face... fiery eyes...a savage mouth filled with rows of teeth... the demon grabs me!

Drust
    I NSTANT reaction — magic. I don’t waste time screaming. I bark a spell, my lips moving quicker than ever before. My hands heat up. Then, instead of wrenching my arms away, which is what the demon expects, I grab its claws tightly and try to scorch them to scraps.
    It doesn’t work. As my hands glow, the claws grasping me glow too. Brighter and brighter, the pair of us, a contest. For several seconds we are locked together, no words, my gaze fixed on my hands and the claws. Then I start noticing details — not claws but
hands.
Smooth flesh, eight fingers, two thumbs. Dark flesh but not demon dark —
human
dark.
    I bring my eyes up but I can’t see my attacker’s face because of the magical glow. A swift inner debate. Then I let the power drain from me. The light dies away. Shadows reform. It takes my eyes a while to adjust, but when they do I see that I was right — it’s a man, not a monster. And he’s smiling.
    “Good,” the man says. “You have magic — a bit anyway — and common sense. You’ll do.” Then he brushes past me, out of the hut, and summons the others with a far-reaching call. “You can stop searching. It’s safe. There are no demons here. Now come and find out why I sent the boy to fetch you.”
    The stranger’s name is Drust and — as we immediately see by his long blue tunic and shaved, tattooed head — he’s a druid. After calling us together and telling us his name, Drust doesn’t speak for a long time. Instead, he builds a fire and casts a spell to prevent smoke and contain the glow within the crannog, so as not to attract demons. After a while he takes hot rocks from the fire — with his bare fingers — and places them in a pit filled with water. When the water is the right heat, he drops in chunks of meat wrapped in straw.
    We sit silently, eyeing Drust suspiciously, waiting for him to speak. I’ve never seen a druid before. Wandering men of minor magic, yes, but never one of the legendary seers. His tattoos are amazing. They’re a map of the stars, but they move like the stars do, slowly revolving across his scalp.
    When the meat is cooking to Drust’s satisfaction, he stands before us and runs a calculating eye over the group, one by one, judging. His eye seems to rest longest on me, but maybe I just imagine that.
    We’re all tense. We have tremendous respect for druids, but we fear them too. They’re human, but something else as well, powerful, with rules and ways of their own. We’ve heard tales of how they sacrifice children to the gods, breed with demons, build mountains, level raths, and divert the course of rivers.
    Finally, Drust looks at Run Fast. He