feel the pain.
He remembered how quietly the Hounds' legs sheared away, how the place where the stone broke glittered like fresh-spilled salt in the afternoon sun. He remembered how the light flashed off their polished skins, making the moving pack flicker like the surface of the harbor on a bright day when the wind was blowing over the water, and in the back of his mind, Kellen could almost hear the faint scream of gulls. He did not remember his own screams, how as the battle wore on, his voice cracked and broke, and became only a whisper of unyielding fury.
And still the Hounds came. And still Kellen fought.
'KELLEN. Kellen.'
Someone was calling his name.
'Kellen. KELLEN!'
Dazedly, Kellen tried to raise his club once more, and realized that at last he had no strength left. His muscles shook; a slow constant tremor as if he were wracked by fever-chill, but he felt almost as if he were floating, somehow distant from his body, as if everything he had done, he had done almost in his sleep.
He was staring at the ground. He couldn't raise the club, because he wasn't holding the club. The world around him was silent, without the clack and rattle of living stone moving to attack. Somehow there was a wrongness to that, and Kellen felt a faint pang of alarm. Where was his club? Where were the Hounds?
He raised his head, slowly. The effort made him nauseous and lightheaded. He blinked. It took a conscious effort, and his eyes felt gritty and dry. He knew, obscurely, that he should be in pain, but he wasn't yet. Just—numb. Exhausted, and numb.
Shalkan was standing beside him, gazing at him with a worried expression. The unicorn looked rumpled, his head hanging with exhaustion, but there was no blood on his silver fur.
Kellen raised his hand to touch that fur, and gasped as shooting pain lanced through his body, shocking him back to himself. He looked down. Swollen and bloody against his forearm was the deep print of mastiff jaws.
'We have to go now,' Shalkan said gently, raising his head with an effort. The unicorn's voice was hoarse, and Kellen felt a dim flare of alarm for his companion.
'But the Hounds,' Kellen said. His voice sounded clumsy and strained, as if he'd forgotten how to speak. He looked around, blinking at the brightness of sun on stone.
'They're all dead,' Shalkan said flatly. 'Or if they aren't, they're no danger to us.'
The ground around the pocket canyon was littered with the lifeless broken statues and scattered limbs that had been the Outlaw Hunt—and worst of all, here and there, the limbless bodies of still-animate Hounds, helpless but still attempting to reach their prey, squirming like hideous caterpillars of stone.
'Get on,' Shalkan said again, taking another step closer to him. 'They'll have figured out by now that we've managed to get rid of the first packs. They'll be creating more. Fortunately, it will take them some time, and the new packs won't get here until morning. But we're only safe over the Border. Get on. You have to get on; we have to get out of here.'
'I can't do that again,' Kellen said in a ragged whisper. 'I can't.'
'Kellen,' Shalkan said harshly. 'Are you listening to me? Get on. We have to go now. We have to get over the border before they send another pack.'
Kellen finally turned toward Shalkan, but when he moved, his knees buckled and he fell. The unicorn moved forward quickly, so that Kellen fell half across his back, stomach down.
Shalkan stood steadily beneath his weight. Kellen sprawled there for a long moment, his body suddenly aware of how much it hurt, and wondered how he would ever find the strength to lift his leg across the unicorn's haunches.
But he had to..Because if they stayed here, another Hunt would come. And this time, they'd both die.
He couldn't let that happen to Shalkan.
Gritting his teeth, Kellen swung his right leg across Shalkan's back.
The bolt of sudden unexpected agony shocked him back to full consciousness. He realized that there was a deep welling bite high on the outside of his right thigh, and that his left ankle had been bruised between a Hound's jaws sometime during the fight. It twisted beneath him as he put his full weight on it to mount, and he grabbed Shalkan's shoulders, gasping for breath. As he did, his broken finger momentarily hurt worse than all the other injuries put together, and he gasped and coughed, choking on the pain. Shalkan half crouched, and suddenly Kellen was on his back, sprawled astride. There was no way he could hold on—but at least he was in place. More or less. For now.
