She missed those rich grasslands and their young, fresh winds. The heaving clouds of the coming rains, the thunder in the earth as wild herds passed in their annual migrations. And her riding, always on the strong, barely tamed cross-bred horses of the Dal Honese, the faint streaks of their zebra heritage as subtle on their hides as the play of sunlight on reeds. Beasts as likely to buck as gallop, hungry to bite with pure evil in their red-rimmed eyes. Oh, how she loved those horses.
Apsalar's mount was a far finer breed, of course. Long-limbed and graceful, and Masan Gilani could not resist admiring the play of sleek muscles beneath her and the intelligence in its dark, liquid eyes.
The horse shied suddenly in the growing gloom, head lifting. Startled, Masan Gilani reached for the kethra knife she had slipped into a fold in the saddle.
Shadows took shape on all sides, lunged. The horse reared, screaming as blood sprayed.
Masan Gilani rolled backward in a tight somersault, clearing the rump of the staggering beast and landing lightly in a half-crouch. Slashing the heavy knife to her right as a midnight-limbed creature rushed her.
She felt the blade cut deep, scoring across two out-thrust forelimbs.
A bestial cry of pain, then the thing reared back, dropping to all fours – and stumbling on those crippled forelimbs.
Reversing grip, she leapt to close on the apparition, and drove the knife down into the back of its scaled, feline neck. The beast collapsed, sagging against her shins.
A heavy sound to her left, as the horse fell onto its side, four more of the demons tearing into it. Legs kicked spasmodically, then swung upward as the horse was rolled onto its back, exposing its belly.
Terrible snarling sounds accompanied the savage evisceration.
Leaping over the dead demon, Masan Gilani ran into the darkness.
A demon pursued her.
It was too fast. Footfalls sounded close behind her, then ceased.
She threw herself down into a hard, bruising roll, saw the blur of the demon's long body pass over her. Masan Gilani slashed out with the knife, cutting through a tendon on the creature's right back leg.
It shrieked, careening in mid-air, the cut-through leg folding beneath its haunches as it landed and its hips twisting round with the momentum.
Masan Gilani flung the knife. The weighted blade struck its shoulder, point and edge slicing through muscle to caroom off the scapula and spin into the night.
Regaining her feet, the Dal Honese plunged after it, launching herself over the spitting beast.
Talons raked down her left thigh, pitching her round, off-balance. She landed awkwardly against a slope of stones, the impact numbing her left shoulder. Sliding downward, back towards the demon, Masan dug her feet into the slope's side, then scrambled up the incline, flinging out handfuls of sand and gravel into her wake.
A sharp edge sliced along the back of her left hand, down to the bone – she'd found the kethra, lying on the slope. Grasping the grip with suddenly slick fingers, Masan Gilani continued her desperate clamber upward.
Another leap from behind brought the demon close, but it slid back down, spitting and hissing as the bank sagged in a clatter of stones and dust.
Reaching the crest, Masan pulled herself onto her feet, then ran, half-blind in the darkness. She heard the demon make another attempt, followed by another shower of sliding stones and rubble. Ahead she could make out a gully of some sort, high-walled and narrow. Two strides from it, she threw herself to the ground in response to a deafening howl that tore through the night.
Another howl answered it, reverberating among the crags, a sound like a thousand souls plunging into the Abyss. Gelid terror froze Masan Gilani's limbs, drained from her all strength, all will. She lay in the grit, her gasps puffing tiny clouds of dust before her face, her eyes wide and seeing nothing but the scatter of rocks marking the gully's fan.
From somewhere beyond the slope, down where her horse had died, came the sound of hissing, rising from three, perhaps four throats.
Something in those eerie, almost-human voices whispered terror and panic.
A third howl filled the dark, coming from somewhere to the south, close enough to rattle her sanity. She found her forearms reaching out, her right hand clawing furrows in the scree, the kethra knife still gripped tight as she could manage with her blood-smeared left hand.
Not wolves. Gods below, the throats that loosed those howlsA sudden heavy gusting sound, to her right, too close. She twisted her head round, the motion involuntary, and cold seeped down through her paralysed body as if sinking roots into the hard ground. A wolf but not a wolf, padding down a steep slope to land silent on the same broad ledge Masan Gilani was lying on – a wolf, but huge, as big as a Dal Honese horse, deep grey or black – there was no way to be certain.
It paused, stood motionless for a moment in full profile, its attention clearly fixed on something ahead, down on the road.
Then the massive beast's head swung round, and Masan Gilani found herself staring into lambent, amber eyes, like twin pits into madness.
Her heart stopped in her chest. She could not draw breath, could not pull her gaze from that creature's deathly regard.
Then, a slow – so very slow – closing of those eyes, down to the thinnest slits – and the head swung back.
The beast padded towards the crest. Stared down for a time, then slipped down over the edge. And vanished from sight.
Sudden air flooded her lungs, thick with dust. She coughed – impossible not to – twisting round into a ball, hacking and gagging, spitting out gobs of gritty phlegm. Helpless, giving herself – giving everything – away. Still coughing, Masan Gilani waited for the beast to return, to pick her up in its huge jaws, to shake her once, hard, hard enough to snap her neck, her spine, to crunch down on her ribcage, crushing everything inside.
She slowly regained control of her breathing, still lying on sweatsoaked ground, shivers rippling through her.
From somewhere far overhead, in that dark sky, she heard birds, crying out. A thousand voices, ten thousand. She did not know that birds flew at night. Celestial voices, winging south as fast as unseen wings could take them.
Closer by… no sound at all.
Masan Gilani rolled onto her back, stared unseeing upward, feeling blood streaming down her slashed thigh. Wait till Saltlick and the rest hear about this one…
Dejim Nebrahl raced through the darkness, three beasts in full flight, a fourth limping in their wake, already far behind. Too weak, made mindless with hunger, all cunning lost, and now yet one more D'ivers kin was dead. Killed effortlessly by a mere human, who then crippled another with a lazy flick of that knife.
The T'rolbarahl needed to feed. The horse's blood had barely begun to slake a depthless thirst, yet with it came a whisper of strength, a return to sanity.
Dejim Nebrahl was being hunted. An outrage, that such a thing could be. The stench of the creatures rode the wind, seeming to gust in from all sides except directly ahead. Fierce, ancient life and deadly desire, bitter to the T'rolbarahl's senses. What manner of beasts were these?
The fourth kin, lagging half a league behind now, could feel the nearness of the pursuers, loping unseen, seemingly content to keep pace, almost uninterested in closing, in finishing off this wounded D' ivers. They had announced themselves with their howls, but since then, naught but silence, and the palpable nearness of their presence.
They were but toying with Dejim Nebrahl. A truth that infuriated the T'rolbarahl, that burned like acid through their thumping hearts. Were they fully healed, and seven once again rather than three and scant more, those creatures would know terror and pain. Even now, Dejim Nebrahl contemplated laying an ambush, using the wounded kin as bait.