Free When True Night Falls by C.S. Friedman Page B

them before she saw them. Heard them chittering among the trees while their forms were still masked by the shadows. Heard their scrabblings, as they fought for a prime vantage point. High above a vast shadow circled: razor-sharp wings, crowding out the moon. She sobbed, and jerked her foot against the chain, desperately trying to break free; the thick steel band didn’t give.
    “Let me go!” she screamed. As if the men would listen to her. As if they would care. “Oh, God, please, let me go ... I’ll be good, I swear it. I’ll do anything you want! Just get me out of here!” She jerked at the chain again and again, pulled herself along the half-frozen earth until the steel links were strained to their utmost—as if a child’s strength could somehow break such a bond, if she only tried hard enough. And she prayed, with a passion born of utter terror. Knowing even as she did so that the God of her faith would never help her. The Hunt was His device—His plan, His ritual—and why would He set aside His plan for her, why would he break His own rules for the comfort of one tiny soul? But to pray when one was frightened was a reflexive response, and so she muttered the ritual words of supplication even while her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching for movement.
    At last she found it. She whimpered as the shadows opposite her stirred, as the liquid darkness coalesced into a long, scaled body. Something leapt at her. Long body, scaled flesh, horns set just above the eyes—it was upon her so quickly that she barely had time to scream before its claws raked her skin, its carrion breath choking her—
    And then something struck it, hard. The creature made a noise that was half shriek, half gurgle, and fell back. She was dimly aware of a black shaft that transfixed its flesh, and of noxious blood that poured forth from it as it clawed at its chest, trying to pull the barbed shaft loose. Then another quarrel struck it, and another. It howled in pain and rage and fell back again, almost to the line of the trees. There were small things coming from the shadows now, faeborn parasites that thrived on dying flesh; they fixed their sharp teeth into it and began to feast, even while it thrashed about in pain. Even as she watched the blood that gushed from it slowed to a trickle, sizzling as it struck the ground. The desperate thrashing ceased. Only the tiny scavengers continued to move, and she could hear the gurgling sounds they made as they tore loose bits of the faeborn flesh and swallowed it.
    She was shivering. Uncontrollably. Her face stung from where the beast’s claws had raked her, and when she rubbed the spot with her hand her fingers came away bright red and sticky. That thing had almost gotten her. One more second and it might have ripped her throat out, or torn out her heart, or done something even worse, that left her alive to suffer. Suddenly mere death didn’t seem so terrible anymore. At least it would end this suffering. At least it would quell the fear. She looked up at the sky, at the position of the moon, and sobbed. Mere minutes had passed since they had chained her here. Out of how many yet to pass? How many hours of fear and pain and utter despair must she endure, before the dawn released her? And if she survived this night—if her body survived, if some fragment of her mind retained the capacity to fenr-how many more nights would there be, in which her God would use her to draw out the nightborn, in order that His servants might destroy them?
    Suddenly she understood what had happened to the other children. And she envied them their utter withdrawal. Their peace.
    Take me , she begged her God. Take me away from this. I’ll do anything....
    No response. Not from Him. But overhead a dark shape eclipsed the moon briefly; she glanced up in time to see black wings outlined against Casca’s brilliance, talons that gleamed like rubies in the moonlight. Then, as if in response to her scrutiny, the dark