Free Shadow by Will Elliott Page A

– he was fast) he went to the fellow, the girl. Cuddling up, a little human fireplace of warmth. Was anyone who wished to allowed to warm himself here? Could he lie here with them? Was permission needed? How was it obtained? He stood gazing at their peaceful sleeping faces. A touch of beauty about them not found in those awake. He’d not yet been so close to this pair. To others, yes. But these two were … different.
    He reached a hand down to do he knew not what – maybe nothing, maybe something bad – when the woman stirred, rolled sideways, surprising him. The sheet came away from her left breast, exposing a dark nipple erect with cold. He peered at it, patted his own chest, wondering at the difference. She was still asleep. What was inside her body? Was it like the dogs’? Would enquiry put out the pleasant little fireplace of warmth, or just extinguish half of it?
    â€˜Not here, lad,’ said a nervous-sounding voice. ‘This way. More to show you, over here. You didn’t like the mess outside, this will just make another, and worse, oh aye. Come! I’ll show you things better than that. Way up high, if you can follow me. Wager you can’t, lad. Way up, up we go…’
    Where was this hidden person, brashly interrupting his thoughts, speaking so loud in his ear? That way! Away he went, the world tilting again, till he was off in the trees, near where there was a brook burbling, and a woman’s laughter, and – ah, something else …
    4
    Eric rubbed his eyes, shifted an inch or two away from the blade at his throat. The three bears, he thought, almost amused to find the old tale was now based on a true story.
    The half-giant said ponderously, ‘I come back to feed my dogs. Should have told a couple of dolls to do it, no doubt. But the dolls don’t always obey or do it properly anyway.’ The dolls remark was self-explanatory, for what held blades to their throats were little people made from oval blocks of sand-coloured wood, hardly taller than the mattress. Their flat oval faces had no features but a cut line for a mouth and two roughly gouged eye holes. They were still as statues, but for the faintest tremble in their knife arms.
    As for the half-giant, he was not as big or loud as Faul had been. In dirt-brown overalls, adorned here and there with grass as though he’d rolled around in it, he sat on a thick wooden chest at the end of the bed, fists pressed into his knees. From reddened eyes tears streaked down his fat cheeks.
    Siel did not enjoy having a knife held to her and, whether she’d broken into someone’s home or not, it was not what she wanted to see first thing in the morning. Picking her moment, she lashed an elbow sideways, breaking the doll’s thin arm. It popped out of its shoulder socket and clattered against the wall. The doll ran about in a small circle as though it were in pain.
    â€˜Easy now! Don’t break em, they’re hard to make. They won’t hurt you.’
    â€˜Knives to the throat are a strange way to express that, with all due respect,’ said Eric, relieved his own doll didn’t react to Siel’s attack with a pre-emptive strike of its own.
    â€˜Dead dogs are a strange way to say thanks for the food and the bed,’ said the half-giant. ‘Don’t mind the dolls, I’m training em to guard the village. They don’t learn easy. Outside now, you bunch of useless twigs. Out!’ The little wooden men lurched out the bedroom door, clattering into the door frame and into each other as they went. The broken arm remained behind. ‘My name’s Gorb. Now then. Who killed my dogs?’
    â€˜First I’ve heard of it,’ said Siel, covering herself with the sheet. Under its cover she reached for the curved knife, which she’d kept under the pillow.
    â€˜You didn’t do it, I know that. But he knows something,’ said Gorb, nodding at Eric.