Good…
It followed the trail through the damp, lush, rain-perfumed darkness. A trail, faint at first and then glaringly vivid, marked by that old, familiar scent.
There was no taint of the old watchful enemy in it but reflexes, ancient in its breed even before it had been fashioned thus, made its every movement silent. Each footstep tested before being taken. Each slight noise a cause for deep stillness and waiting.
It felt lesser creatures sensing its passage and falling fearfully silent, though a few scurried away frantically, luring part of its deeper nature after them. But it could not be deflected. A special prey was to be sought tonight. The old prey. The best prey.
And it was there. Ahead. Mingling with the scent of fire and bruised foliage and trampled earth.
Good…
Caution, though. True enemies they might not be, but dangerous and subtle they were. Watch. Listen. Scent the air.
Were there, after all, tangling nets and sharp points silent all about? Was there that hint, acrid in the rich dampness, of fearful, expectant watching… waiting?
No. All was as it had been told. All was stillness and forest, save for the silent, sleeping lairs that did not belong. And the fire…
And…
There, alone. Crouching in the shelter of a tree, head nodding, lulled by the steady drip of rainwater falling from the branches above.
Down, low. Soft and silent through the damp grasses.
Nearer.
Nearer.
Drip, drip.
Then an ancient malevolence wilfully bred into it. The need for prey to be alive.
And screaming.
Drip, drip.
It growled. Soft, but low and frightful.
The prey jerked awake at the ominous rumble, eyes bewildered. They looked around. And then forward. Slowly they focused. And widened. The mouth opened, a black void in the firelit night.
And the scream began. Drawing it forward faster and faster as its intensity grew…
Claws extended…
Jaws foam-flecked…
Farnor jerked bolt upright in his bed, eyes wide and mouth gaping in imitation of the face that had just rushed towards him, growing larger and larger until it had filled his entire vision. His mouth ran with saliva and his skin bristled with unholy desires. He spat out the imagined contents of his mouth with desperate and disgusting urgency, then he plunged forward and buried his face in the blankets, wiping his still sodden mouth to and fro frantically until it was dry and his lips were raw and matted with hairs.
Slowly he swung upright, then crashed back down on to his pillow, his breath coming in laboured gasps. His hand shook violently as he reached out to strike the small lantern by his bed.
After two clattering attempts he succeeded, and it bloomed gently into life.
Its welcome and familiar light filled his bedroom and began to melt away the vivid horror of the last few seconds. Began to melt it away until it had only the intensity of a nightmare.
A nightmare. His breathing began to ease. He hadn’t had a nightmare in years.
This was a nightmare, wasn’t it?
But it was only a flimsy token of resistance against the grim certainty that stood stark in his mind.
It had not been a nightmare. It had been the crea-ture. He had been with it. He had been it. Been it as it stalked the damp forest in search of the prey it had been sent to kill. He had felt its every subtle, muscular movement, its formidable power, its every desire. He shuddered and wrapped his arms about himself at the memory.
He felt sick. He wanted to call out to his parents as he had when he had been a child. Wanted the solidity of their gentle reassurance and smiling understanding to dismiss into nothingness the tortured vapours that had risen to assail him in his defenceless sleep. Wanted them to turn his room and his bed back again into the haven that it really was.
But he could not. Despite the childish clamour ris-ing from within him, he knew it was not possible. Whatever he was now he was no longer that child. Those old reassurances had been a part of his journey to here and they belonged to another time. Now his cry would not be that of their child, it would be that of a man. And alarm and concern would tinge any reassurance.
And questions. Questions which he would not be able to answer, or be able to answer only with more lies.
There must be no more lies. That he knew now. So there must be silence.
He gazed at the beamed ceiling with its well-mapped cracks and stains and shadows. His breathing had eased and, somewhat to his surprise, he found his quaking spirit bolstered by a resolve. An unclear resolve, admittedly, but a resolve nonetheless. One framed through the years, had he known it, by the love that had given him those parental reassurances and made his cracked and twisted ceiling – and, indeed, everything about him – into an impregnable fortress capable of withstanding all ills. Until such time as he should learn that only he could be his own fortress.
He felt suddenly alone. He had his parents and Gryss and, unexpectedly, Marna, who would be a truly staunch ally, he knew. But still he was alone. Yet even as he realized this, so his fear lessened. Somehow, this last… contact?… vision?… by its very intensity had made him understand, and to some extent perhaps even accept, that he was not some inadvertent spectator of a strange and unfolding happening, but a player in it, whether he willed it or no.
It was like going to Gryss with the toothache, he supposed. Thinking about it was worse than being there… usually. The ‘usually’ made him frown mockingly to himself; toothache was perhaps a bad analogy.
He sat up, needlessly wiped his mouth again and then took a drink from the beaker of water that stood next to the lantern. The pool of saliva glistening on his blanket caught his eye. He grimaced. It was disgusting. He shuddered as he remembered the sensation almost of drowning as he had woken to find his mouth so gorged.
Then more prosaic considerations intervened and, without thinking what he was doing, he threw some water on the viscous mass. It was like a purifying blessing. Then he folded the blanket around it and rubbed it vigorously until it became just a damp patch. It would soon dry. He felt cleaner.
He doused the lantern and lay back. Plans formed in his mind. He would seek out Gryss tomorrow and tell him what had happened. He would suggest that Gryss and he visit the castle on some pretext – perhaps to look at the sick, perhaps to see if they needed supplies – and there they would look and listen.
And Marna? Should she be told?
Yes, he decided. Marna must know. Marna had somehow become a part of this.
As he drifted into sleep, he reviewed the events of his contact with the creature so he could order his telling for Gryss in the morning. He went over it several times, though each time it became more fragmented as intervals of sleep intervened.
Then, at the end, a faint voice inside him whispered softly to him that one day he would have to face this creature. And that he would have to kill it, or be killed by it.
It was a fearful thought, but it was faint and distant and had no power to disturb the ponderous, rolling momentum of his need for rest.
Farnor slept.
There was uproar in the camp.
‘What the devil’s going on?’ Haral thundered as he emerged from his tent, a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. He kicked a nearby figure. ‘Get that fire built up, and fast.’ There was no protest at the blow.
Other figures were tumbling from the circled tents.
‘Guard the perimeter!’ Haral bellowed.
A sentry ran over to him. He was wide-eyed and trembling, and his voice was almost hysterical. ‘It grabbed him. Just appeared and grabbed him. I’ve never seen anything like it…’
Haral threw his torch to someone and, seizing the front of the sentry’s coat, pulled the man up on to his toes. ‘Get a hold of yourself, Bryn. What grabbed who?’ he demanded angrily.