Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [163]
The region’s thick darkness folded about her like a shroud as she walked, until the light of her lantern was all but smothered. Trembling, she kept her eyes on the ground before her, refusing to search for threats in the looming darkness at either side. If the Forest meant to attack her now, then it surely would do so, and no single lantern could stop it; she had gambled everything on the Hunter’s promise, and now, with his words ringing in her ears like a prayer, she gave her whole attention over to following the trail before her. It wasn’t easy. The earth was dryer this far into the Forest, which meant that the marks she was following were more shallow, less certain, easily confused with the scrabblings of local animals. It was so hard to see in the gloom that once she went down on one knee so that she might run a hand along the trail for a foot or two to confirm its presence by touch, but the sudden sense of something burrowing beneath the soil, something filthy and hungry and drawn to her heat, made her stand up quickly again. It won’t hurt me, she told herself. Her heart was pounding; her hand felt clammy against the lantern’s handle. Nothing here will hurt me. But despite that self-reassurance she moved quickly forward, whispering a prayer to her goddess that her feet might stay on the right path, even as she fled unseen horrors beneath the earth.
Hours passed, cold and immeasurable. She found a hump of rock and sat down on it, resting just long enough to catch her breath and wash down a bit of dried biscuit with a swallow of water. Had she truly run in this place once for three days and nights? She trembled to recall those hours of terror. Could Andrys sense the Hunter’s constant presence here, or was that sensation reserved for the woman he hunted? For his sake, she prayed he was immune.
At last, her strength renewed by the meager meal, her courage somewhat bolstered, she lowered herself down from the rock and prepared to take up the Church’s trail once more.
Then she heard the noise.
It wasn’t like the other noises that surrounded her, although it would have been hard for her to describe the way in which it differed. A thousand creatures had skirted the edge of her lamplight since she had come here, and their scrabblings and slitherings had become an accustomed counterpoint to her own footsteps. This noise was different. This noise echoed with purpose. This noise, as it mirrored her own footsteps, warned of something intelligent, something focused ... something dangerous. Something unbound by the Hunter’s promise, that was free to sate its own hunger in these nightbound woods.
Her heart began to pound, but she forced her stride to stay even. Surely anything that belonged in this darkness could outpace her easily; the trick was not to run, not to provoke it. The Church soldiers couldn’t be far ahead—right?—and if she could just get within hearing range of them, maybe the thing that was following her would be frightened off. Or maybe she could cry out and get someone to come to her, fast enough to keep it from moving in on her—
And then there was a sound ahead of her, and another to her side. She heard footsteps first, like those which followed her, and then a kind of snorting. She felt a chill crawl along her skin, and only the knowledge that displaying her fear would make things a thousand times worse kept her legs from locking up in terror beneath her. Everything in the Forest is his, she chanted silently. Nothing of his will hurt me. But what if her fears had manifested some new creature, some demonling not yet broken to the Hunter’s ways? Would she still be protected then? There was rustling on both sides of her now, so loud that she knew it was deliberate ; the things that echoed her steps were taunting her. Goddess, help me. Please.... Her legs were numb, her feet so heavy she could hardly move them. Could her pursuers smell her fear? Did it whet their appetite? Oh, Andrys, what have