into satchels and readying the mill for their arrival tomorrow morning. They both grabbed a lantern and exited through the wide wooden doors at the back of the mill, away from the stream. Corim held Jayson’s lantern as he pulled the door closed behind them with a grunt.
When Jayson turned around to take his lantern back, Corim stood rigid, muscles tensed, one of the lanterns held out before him. The boy’s gaze was locked on the edge of the forest beside the narrow dirt lane that led to the village.
“What is it?”
Corim jumped at his voice, turned frightened eyes toward him. “I thought I saw something on the lane.”
Jayson shot a glance toward the empty roadway. The trees were dark to either side, the lanterns’ glow illuminating only a small grassy area around the mill, the ground rutted from wagon wheels and carts delivering grain. Overhead, the sky was clear, stars like pinpricks, the moon hidden behind the trees and the surrounding hills.
Jayson frowned into the darkness. “What did you see?”
Corim shook his head. “Something ran across the road, at the edge of the light. Low to the ground. But-”
“But what?”
Corim swallowed. “It had eyes. Yellow eyes, like cat’s eyes. But it didn’t move like a cat. I think it saw me. And… I think it hissed at me.”
Jayson’s frown deepened. He hadn’t heard anything, but he’d been struggling with the door. “It probably was a cat,” he said, straightening. He tried to shrug his sudden unease aside as he took his lantern, but he found the back of his shoulders prickling and itching as he moved toward the lane, Corim a step behind. One hand slid into the satchel slung across his chest, rooted around at the contents inside until he found the handle of his sheathed knife. Without taking his eyes off the lane, he unhooked the clasp and drew the blade free, keeping it close to his side. The village wasn’t far-a short stretch along the lane to the main road, and then a half mile to the center square. The mill would have been in the center of the village if the founders hadn’t built near where the river widened and the current was sluggish. He needed the swifter currents upriver to work the grist stones.
They entered the lane, trees to either side, low underbrush coming up to the road’s edge. Branches arched overhead, leaves rustling in a light breeze. Otherwise, the forest was silent, with none of its usual sounds-the hoot of an owl or the rustle of something passing through the underbrush. Jayson shivered.
They’d made it halfway to the main road that led to Gray’s Kill when Jayson heard the hiss, low and scratchy and nothing like a cat. It crawled up beneath his skin and set the hairs on the back of his arms and neck on end.
He halted. Corim bounced into his side from behind as he scanned the shadows thrown by their lanterns.
Then Corim cried out, pointed, and even as Jayson turned, knife raised defensively, he saw the eyes-pale luminescent yellow, wider than a cat’s, set in a malformed, black face, above a mouth opened wide and riddled with teeth.
The creature leaped from the underbrush, straight at Jayson. He barked out a yell of horrified surprise, tripped over a rut in the road, and stumbled as the thing latched onto the forearm of his knife hand, teeth sinking in deep. He screamed, landed hard on his back, air whooshing from his lungs, the light from the lantern dancing wildly. He flung his arm to the side, trying to shake the creature off, and felt its growl shuddering through his arm. Claws shredded the sleeves of his shirt, scored his flesh, and he slammed it into the ground, once, twice, then dropped his lantern, switched his knife to his free hand and swung at the thing wildly. The blade struck the creature across the back and it released him with a piercing shriek, falling away. Jayson kicked back, scraping along the dirt as the creature scrambled to right itself, moving unlike anything he’d seen before, all leathery muscle and sinew and tendon. It glared at him, the malevolence in its eyes, in its stance, palpable. It hissed again, tensed itself to leap toward him-
And then Corim appeared from the forest, a large branch in one hand. He raised it overhead and with a panicked cry brought it down on the thing’s back so hard the branch cracked and split.
The creature yelped like a beaten dog and scuttled away from them both, but turned with another hiss before dodging into the underbrush of the forest.
Jayson gasped into the night’s silence, Corim shifting closer to him.
“What was that thing?” Corim asked. His voice was raw and cracked, shaking.
Jayson sat up, winced as he tried to use his mangled arm, then brought it closer to the lantern light. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Blood stained his sleeve, seeping sluggishly from several ragged cuts and the jagged curve of the bite mark, but none of the cuts were dangerous. They stung when he moved his arm, but he’d recover.
Something darker stained one side of his shirt though. He frowned down at it, touched it with one finger and felt his skin burn at the touch.
“What is it?”
“Blood,” Jayson said, wiping it off on the bottom of his shirt. “From that thing. I must have cut it when I swung at it with the knife.”
The undergrowth rustled and they both lurched upright, Corim brandishing his branch, Jayson the knife. But the noise receded. Jayson scrambled to his feet as something skittered across the lane just outside the light of the lanterns, followed by two more on the other side.
“Holy Diermani preserve us,” Jayson muttered, eyes wide, his gut clenching so tight he thought he’d piss his pants. “There’s more of them.”
“And they’re headed toward the village.”
Jayson stared at Corim in shocked silence, then whispered. “Lianne.”
He snatched up the lantern and began to run. Corim’s harsh breath followed him. Jayson’s feet pounded into the earth, his own breath tight and constricted in his chest as the forest of the lane flashed past, shadows and trees juddering wildly in the swinging light. A chittering sound surrounded them, punctuated by harsh hisses, a few shapes darting in and out of the light through the underbrush, as if tracking them, but Jayson didn’t pause. He burst from the lane onto the hard-packed, flatter roadway, tripped, and fell to the ground with a curse. Corim caught up to him as he regained his feet.
Then a gust of wind brought the thick stench of smoke and he stilled.
Ahead, lurid against the black silhouette of the trees, a fire raged. A horse’s scream pierced the air and abruptly cut off, but in the stillness that followed he picked out different sounds: faint shouts, the harsh baying of a dog, the clash of weapons, and as a backdrop to it all, the low, rushing sound of flames roaring into the night.
The wind shifted again, blowing black smoke across the road. He choked on it, on the oily soot and hot ash that stung the skin of his face. Coughing, he hunched forward, his wounded arm coming up in a vain attempt to shield himself.
Beside him, he heard Corim suck in a ragged breath. “Ma!” he cried out.
The youth leaped forward, but Jayson snagged him by the arm and jerked him back. Corim nearly slipped from his grasp, but Jayson tightened his grip, hard enough to bruise. “Corim!” he growled, and shook the boy. “Corim, stop! Look!”
Corim turned on him, the look of panic and horror sending a dagger into Jayson’s heart. The same sick nausea roiled in his own stomach as he thought of Lianne, of her silver-shot brown hair, hazel eyes, and smooth cheeks that dimpled when she laughed. But he swallowed the taste of bile at the back of his throat and forced Corim to meet his eyes.
“Look,” he repeated, and nodded toward the road in the direction of the fires.
Corim twisted in Jayson’s grip to look back over his shoulder.
At the horse’s scream-Holy Diermani, Jayson prayed it had been a horse-the chittering in the forest had fallen silent. But the creatures hadn’t left. In the shadows beneath the trees, made pitch-black by the red-orange blaze where Gray’s Kill burned, pale yellow eyes glowed in the reflected light of their lanterns. He counted half a dozen pairs between them and the village. But even as he watched, more shifted to the edge of the road.
A pack. They
In his grip, Corim tensed and a small whimper escaped the boy. Jayson’s gaze flicked toward the burning village, his mouth suddenly dry with fear, but he couldn’t risk Corim. The boy had been entrusted to him by the
