Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [92]
And then he stopped and stared, as one human fragment among many caught his eye. A dark arm atop the paler ones. Thick hair, as black as night. Eyes that he knew, staring into the sky like eyes of the dead even as the dark limbs twitched in a mockery of life.
“Sisa,” he whispered.
He heard the Iezu curse softly as she, too, realized who this body belonged to. Tarrant’s latest victim, strewn atop this lake of human remains like so much garbage. How many others here were his victims, or at least vivid simulacra of the same? He looked out upon the acres and acres of twitching flesh and shuddered. They were all women, and from what he could see they were all within a narrow age range. Mostly pale, as befit the Hunter’s taste in victims. Doubtless attractive during their lives, although now that quality made them seem doubly gruesome.
Then: “Move!” the demon hissed from behind him, and he did so without thought, trusting Karril’s warning. Fingers scratched his ankle as he moved just beyond the reach of something, and for a moment a wave of fear surged through his blood with such force that his limbs bound up like a frozen motor. Frightened, he struggled to keep moving. From behind him the demon hissed sharply as if in pain, but when he stopped to turn around, a hand shoved him from behind as if to say, I’m fine! Keep going! Glancing down at the ground before his feet, trying to locate the safest ground, he saw with horror that human limbs were closing in on the path from both sides. Arms grasped at him as he lurched past, some closing on air behind him, some coming close enough to scrape his boots. For some reason that sight made him more afraid than all of Tarrant’s lava hell combined, and he broke into a run. Forcing his way past the grasping arms, whose fingers sent waves of terror coursing through his soul whenever they made contact. Where was the end of this path? he thought desperately. How many bodies were there? He found it impossible to believe that so many women could have fallen victim to one man’s hunger, but what did he really know about the Hunter? How many numberless atrocities had the man indulged in, in the years before his semi-retirement in the Forest?
And then one of the arms grabbed his ankle and held it. His own weight sent him plunging forward and down, into the hands and the arms and the legs that were waiting for him, and—
—running.Tree branches spreading across the path like spider silk, dark webs catching her as she runs, she struggles, she convulses madly, desperately, as the black thing that has chased her for three days and nights closes in—
—running while the ground comes alive, crawly things oozing out of the very pores of the earth to trip at her ankles, sending her facedown into a bed of hungry worms—
—running from the thing that has chased her for days, manlike but demon-strong, whose hunger licks at her flesh as she stumbles, as she feels sharp talons piercing her skin, setting hot blood to flow free—
Strong hands took hold of his hair and his collar and yanked upward; it was the pain more than anything which made the visions scatter, allowing him one precious instant in which he could gasp for breath. The hands about his ankles shifted grip, and the visions began to close in once more—but the demon dragged him forward, hard enough and fast enough for them to be thrown lose. Left behind.
Shuddering, he gasped, “Tarrant’s victims—”
“I know,” Karril said grimly. “Keep moving!”
He knew in that moment, as he struggled to his feet once more, that the demon had experienced those awful visions through him. And he knew with dread certainty that if he should fall again, if those bodies should overwhelm him, the demon would be trapped alongside him in an endless hell of suffering, reliving the last moments of each of the Hunter’s victims over and over and over again....
He ran. Fast enough that the hands couldn’t take hold of him, or so he prayed. Hard enough that any which did would be shaken