When True Night Falls (9 page)

It was only later, in the depths of the night—much later, and after considerable exertion—that he thought to ask her, “What’s the
first
most dangerous voyage?”

It was too dark to see, but he thought he sensed her smile.

“Going home,” she whispered.

It was Sara’s first time out.

Behind her, before her, all about her, the grim sentinels of the One God kept watch for faeborn dangers. As they did so they prodded her forward, pushing her when necessary, cursing her stubbornness under their breath even as they muttered the prayers of the Hunt. She was so afraid it was hard to move, the terror constricted her limbs, she found it hard to breathe ... but that was good, she knew. Fear would draw the nightborn. Fear would manifest demons who were otherwise invisible. Fear would enable the Church to do its holiest work ... and she understood all that, she understood the value of it, she just wished it didn’t have to be
her
in the center of all this, marching numbly at the heart of this macabre procession while the faeborn gathered just beyond the reach of their torchlight, eager for the promised feast.

Her.

With a constant litany of prayers upon their lips, the hunters of the Church wended their way through the depths of the untamed forest. The thick darkness parted grudgingly before their light and closed up behind them, hungrily, as soon as they had passed. She had never seen such a darkness before, a dank, heavy blackness that clung to the trees like syrup, dripping thickly to pool about their feet. The mere touch of her feet against the nightclad ground made her shiver in revulsion. And in fear. Always, always fear....

At last the man in front signaled for them to stop. She did so, shivering. They had sent her out with only a woolen smock to guard against the evening’s chill, and it was proving hopelessly inadequate. Perhaps they would have given her more had she asked for it, but how was she to know what she needed? She had never been outside before, save in the Church’s sheltered confines. How could she possibly anticipate the rigors of such a journey—she, who had spent twelve sheltered years behind the high walls of the Church, who knew no more of nightborn dangers than the secondhand tales of cathedral matrons, whispered over the daily chores?

What does it matter?
she thought despairingly.
What does any of it matter? I’m not coming back from this, am I?
Oh, they had told her otherwise. And she knew that some children did indeed come back from the Hunt, because she had seen them. Empty-eyed. Spirits bleeding. Souls screaming out in ceaseless horror, behind a glassy countenance that had lost all capacity for human expression. That was what these men hoped she might become some day. That was their true goal. They would have denied it had she asked them—had she dared to ask them—but she knew it nonetheless, with the absolute certainty of youth. And that thought frightened her more than all the monsters of the dark combined.

“This is the place,” the man in front announced. The others murmured their assent—their voices filled with hunger, she thought, a hunger for killing, a hunger for her pain—and urged her forward, into a clearing which Nature had provided for their sport. Suddenly the men at her side seemed far more terrifying than whatever evils the night might shelter, and in a sudden burst of panic she turned and tried to run from them. But strong, cold hands were on her shoulders before she could take three steps, and a chill voice warned her, “Not now, little one. You just wait. We’re not ready for that yet.”

They took her to the center of the clearing, where it waited. A low granite boulder. A steel ring, driven into it. A chain....

“Please,” she whispered. “Please take me home.
Please.”

They were too busy praying to listen. Prayers for the living, prayers to conjure wisdom, prayers to consecrate the Hunt. A heavy steel band was set about her slender ankle and snapped shut. It fit her, as it had fit a thousand girl-children before her; the measurements of the Chosen didn’t vary much.

“Please,” she sobbed. Her voice and body shaking. “Take me home....”

“In the morning,” one of the men uttered shortly, testing the strength of her chain. As if she could find her way out through some subtle flaw in the steel. “All in good time.” The rest of them said nothing. They were forbidden to comfort her, she knew that—but it was terrifying nonetheless, to have the men she knew so well suddenly transformed into these emotionless statues. Statues who might curse the loss of a bolt or the escape of a night-wraith, but who would not blink an eye if she were torn to shreds before their very eyes.

Not true
, she told herself desperately.
They have to care! They’re my people, aren’t they?
But it frightened her more than anything that suddenly she wasn’t sure of that. She felt like an animal surrounded by strangers, being sacrificed for something she could barely comprehend.

Prey.

They had withdrawn to the shadows of the forest, black and concealing, so that she could no longer see them. The lantern which they had used to light their way through the forest had been hooded now, so that the faint stars of the rim and Casca’s quarter-disk were the only illumination. Hardly enough to see by. Not nearly enough to drive away the hordes of monsters who took shelter in night’s darkness, whose hunger she could sense just beyond those hard-edged shadows....

“Please,” she whimpered. “Oh, God, please. No.”

She heard 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 thing which had been circling overhead began its descent. Sharp claws flexed in anticipation as the broad, night-black wings lowered it slowly to the ground. She was suddenly aware of how utterly still the night had become; even the faeborn demons who had been whispering in the shadows were silent now, as if they recognized something in this creature that even they feared. Then its eyes fixed on her—quicksilver, diamondine—and the hunger that was in them brought a soft moan to her lips. Of terror. Submission.
Desire.

The chain no longer chafed at her ankle. The cuts on her face no longer burned. There was nothing in her universe but those eyes, those terrible eyes, and the cold burning hunger behind them. As the great bird scanned the surrounding countryside once more—taking the measure of its enemies, it seemed—she knew with utter certainty that the men of her city were as frozen as she was. Mesmerized by the force of this demon’s presence.

“Take me home,” she whispered. No longer certain who she was talking to. No longer sure what she wanted.

Wingtips curled to catch the night air, it lowered itself with consummate grace to the boulder at the clearing’s center. She caught the flash of ruby talons closing about about the thick steel ring, silver eyes scanning the woods for enemies. Transfixing them? Then a chill light seemed to rise up from about its feet, so bright that she had to shield her eyes or be blinded; silver-blue flames, that licked about the creature’s flesh. She felt a thrill of pure terror as the mass that was within those flames melted, transformed, reshaped itself. Into—

A man. Or rather, a demon in man’s form, whose flesh embodied the very chill of the night. The silver-blue power poured down from him like water, lapped at the base of the rock that supported him, ran outward in a thousand tiny rivulets that laced the ground like veins, until the whole of the clearing was caught up in the web of his power. The form he wore was breathtakingly beautiful, features as fine and as delicate as the numarble statues which flanked the great arch of the cathedral—but cold, as a statue’s substance is cold, and utterly unhuman. She shivered, knowing that her fear had summoned something as far beyond the mere beasts of the Dark as the angels were above mere men. Wondering if the Church’s hunters would dare to fire at such a creature.

Apparently one of the men had found his courage, for a dark, slim shape shot forth from the darkness. The demon did not turn to confront his attacker, nor otherwise acknowledge the assault—but power, brilliant, laced up from the ground like lightning, and sizzled as it struck the blessed shaft. A moment later the quarrel reached the place where he stood, but its course had been altered so that it missed its intended object by inches and continued onward, into the thick darkness of the forest beyond.

The clearing was silent now. Utterly silent. She could feel her heart pounding as the demon-man stepped down from his perch, coming toward her—and she knew that he could hear it, that its fevered rhythm drew him like sugar would draw an insect. Helpless, fascinated, she made no effort to flee, but lay frozen in a reverie that was as much yearning as it was pure terror.

Then something stirred at the edge of the clearing—and she nearly cried out, recognizing its source. One of the men was going to try to save her. She knew in an instant that his sword would be as ineffectual as his quarrels, that by entering the clearing he was opening himself up to attack ... but her voice was frozen in her throat, and she lacked the power to warn him.

The demon’s eyes never left hers, but they narrowed. Something in them flickered, and power shot up from the ground like lightning. It consumed the man in an instant, licking at his flesh like fire—and leaving frozen flesh in the place of ash, that shattered into a thousand glassy bits as he fell to the ground at the demon’s feet.

All around her unnatural bonfires flared, leafless trees silhouetted against silver-blue unfire. She heard one of the men scream out, another trying to flee—but the demon’s power claimed them all, and at last there was nothing left of the Church’s special warriors but a silver flicker that played across the ground, outlining bodies as still as the earth itself.

Then, slowly,
he
came toward her.

His eyes were mirrors that reflected back at her all the terrors of her childhood. His essence was hunger that drank in her fear. His presence embodied the night, with all its special threats: The faespawned. The undying. The Dark. And something else, that she now hungered for as desperately as she had once hungered for freedom.

Eyes shut, lips parted, she sank down into the sea of his hunger, and the bittersweet ecstacy of dying.