'Kaiku, we have to go,' Asara was saying to her. Then, turning her so that she was looking into her eyes. 'Do you hear? We have to go now!'
She could see over Asara's shoulder, into the trees that surrounded the village. Of course, of course. The retaliation. From the foliage, white shapes were slinking, muzzles wrinkled and teeth bared. The emyrynn were coming. Their hospitality had been abused.
'Where is Lucia?' someone cried. 'Where is Lucia?'
It was that name that brought Kaiku out of her daze. With a whimper, she moved to flee into the camp and search, thinking only of the need to protect her. Asara grabbed her arm.
'She is there,' Asara said, pointing. And indeed she was, with Doja and a half-dozen soldiers clustered around her. Tsata and Heth were approaching, Peithre carried in Heth's arms. Kaiku saw him and motioned towards Lucia, then ran that way herself, with Asara following.
Phaeca…
Kaiku shoved the grief away. She could not allow herself to think on it now. There were others whose lives would depend on her. Lucia was all that mattered.
The emyrynn were coming from all around the village, but they appeared in greatest number at the point where the camp lay against the outermost edge. They sprang through the leaves, sleek and graceful, their white fur pristine. Such beautiful creatures, but their faces were sharp now, grinning in animal rictus, and there was deadly purpose in their steps. The soldiers were firing into the undergrowth, rifle balls clipping purple stems and ricocheting off tree trunks with a splintering of wood. They hit nothing. The emyrynn appeared in glimpses, and each glimpse showed them to be ever closer to their prey.
'Fall back!' Doja cried. 'Protect Lucia!'
'Which way?' Asara called, addressing Lucia, who was gazing into the middle distance. 'Lucia, which way do we go?'
'They're so angry,' she whispered.
Kaiku wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and moved Asara aside. 'Which way, Lucia?' she asked, gently. 'We have to leave.'
At the sound of her voice, Lucia's focus shifted to her. She trembled for a moment, then flung her arm out and pointed into the trees. 'That way.'
'Fall back!' Doja cried again to the soldiers who were retreating towards them, loosing shots into the trees. And with that, Lucia and her retinue ran, away from the village, and the forest closed around them.
The emyrynn broke cover with a harmonic cascade of piercing howls. They burst out into the open, sprinting on all fours, moving like liquid. Their curious musculature gave them a disconcerting gait, rippling them left and right in a sinuous charge towards the men who were covering Lucia's retreat. Those who still had powder in their chambers fired off what shots they had, but all of them missed. Some turned and took flight at the sight of the creatures; some stayed and fought. The outcome was the same. The emyrynn tore into them with surpassing savagery, gouging at faces with their small, sharp antlers, ripping at throats with their blade-like teeth. They bounded onto their prey, bore them to the ground like hunting cats, then shredded them while they were helpless. Their white fur became stained dark red, their muzzles wet with blood. They revelled in the slaughter.
Lucia and Kaiku hurried into the forest, the centre of a stumbling cluster of soldiers who fought to protect them from every side. There were perhaps ten soldiers left now including Doja; also with them went the three Tkiurathi and Asara. Kaiku's eyes were blurring with tears that fell from her lashes with the jolting of her feet on the ground, but she did not notice. She was seeing past them. The forest could not obscure her vision; it had turned to a transparent mass of golden sinews, and within it she saw the emyrynn stalking. Hundreds of them, converging on the village.
'Kaiku, can you see them?' The voice was Asara's.
'Yes.'
'Are they coming after us?'
Kaiku looked. She had dared to hope that vacating the village might curb their wrath, that the emyrynn merely wanted their unwelcome visitors gone. But now she saw, as the last of the soldiers who had stayed behind were killed, that some of the emyrynn had set off in pursuit, following the trail Lucia and the others had left.
'Yes,' she said.
There were scattered emyrynn ahead of them and to either side as well. Some were moving away, either ignorant of their presence or uninterested. Others lay in wait in hollows or in the branches of trees, plainly hoping for their victims to come near. Though some of the creatures seemed content to leave them be now that they were driven off, others had decided to hunt them. There was no way they would be able to escape without further bloodshed.
'Can you speak to them, Lucia?' Kaiku asked. 'Can you explain?'
Lucia did not hear her. She was sobbing and panting, propelled along by Doja's strong arm, tripping on branches and roots. She seemed seized by some fear that she could not identify, gazing around wildly like a madwoman, fleeing without hope of escape.
Kaiku breathed a curse. They had no choice but to go where Lucia led them, and abandoning the village had robbed them of any place to make a stand, however futile. The low, slanting light of Nuki's eye forced its way dimly through the canopy, but the trees were too dense here to see far, and only Kaiku could spot the emyrynn as they darted nimbly through the trees. The forest still resounded with the fading echoes of their comrades' screams, and the only other sound was the scraping of twigs, the thump of boots and the rush of exhaled breath as they raced away from the emyrynn village. That, and the endless, monotonous tapping in the distance that had plagued them for days.
Gods, what were they hoping for, anyway? That the emyrynn would turn around and give up? That was a slim chance indeed. They would run, they would fight, and after that they would die. The odds were impossible. But there was nothing else left to do.
'There are two of them, ahead and to our left,' Kaiku called, as she sensed their approach. The soldiers shifted their blades, ready to receive the creatures; but Kaiku got to them first. Though there was something of the spirit world in them, they were not as hard as demons or Weavers to over-match; but they were awkward and unfamiliar, and it took time to engage them, longer than she would have liked. She would be unable to deal with more than a few at a time.
She used her kana to reach inside their minds and stun them into unconsciousness. She was reluctant to kill them if she could help it.
'They have been dealt with,' she said.
'Any more?' Asara asked, as they scrambled up an incline thick with bluish bracken, shepherding Lucia awkwardly onward.
'Three from behind,' Kaiku said. Her heart sank as she saw them arrowing through the forest. 'They will catch us in a few moments. Three from the right. Two ahead.' She grimaced. 'I cannot protect you from all of them.'
'Then you take the ones that are following,' Doja said tersely. 'We'll handle the rest.'
The soldiers had slung their rifles back over their shoulders and drawn swords by now, for ranged weapons were useless in the confines of thick undergrowth. Despite Kaiku's warning, they were still not prepared for the emyrynn when they attacked. They expected to be able to hear the stirring of leaves, the rustle of bracken as their enemies neared; but the emyrynn were like ghosts, and made no sound at all. They sprang as if from nowhere, took down two of the soldiers, ripped out their throats in a single bite and were gone before anyone could lay a blade to them.
'Keep going!' Doja cried, as some of the soldiers faltered. The wounded men were still flailing, gurgling out their last. 'We cannot stand here!'