“It broke,” he gasped. “His link with it. Gone.” He stared into those blue eyes, so maddeningly calm, and heard the terror rise in his own voice. "It isn’t his anymore. Don’t you understand what that means? I won’t be able to—”
White-furred shapes erupted from the forest’s edge. Sleek killers, lithe and powerful, with teeth that gleamed like pearls along their slathering jaws. They gave no warning, but burst from the stillness of the surrounding woods with a suddenness and a silence that seemed more demonic than bestial and they were upon the company so quickly that few could muster a defense. One man went down with a cry of anguish, sharp teeth ripping at his throat before he could manage to reach his sword. A woman screamed as two beasts bore down—on her, their claws making short work of her face. Something pale and hungry leaped toward the group that was surrounding Andrys, and before anyone could react it had borne one woman down upon him, spattering him with blood as it tore through her throat mere inches from his face. There was screaming now—some battle cries, some howls of fear—and the mixed sound churned in Andrys’s brain as he struggled to kick the dead weight of the woman off his chest, praying that the creature would go with it. Then someone managed to take up a weapon and spear the beast, forcing a blade through its gut while Andrys struggled to get his own weapon loose. Even that didn’t stop the thing. He felt the teeth clamp shut around his leg as his sword slid free of his sheath and he kicked out wildly with his other foot, hoping to dislodge it before those powerful jaws slid around to the back of his steel greaves, or else crushed them utterly. Another sword hacked at the animal, blinding him with a spray of black, foul-smelling blood. He struggled to get away from the beast, and when at last he did he fought his way to his knees, and then to his feet. He was as ready to fight as he had ever been in his life, but he knew deep inside that even that wasn’t enough. Ten years of civilized fencing bouts in an upper-class salon had hardly prepared him for this.
There were dozens of them in the camp now, and they were carving their way through the Church’s troops with tooth and claw and sheer bestial savagery. Some of them were attacking the soldiers, but most of them were going for their mounts, as if they knew the saddled beasts to be unarmed. Amidst the rearing, squealing horses it was impossible to see how many animals there were, but the smell of blood was thick in the air and the few men who dared come near that battlefield were spattered in crimson.
As for the beasts who had chosen human prey ... with their strength, claws, and endurance they were five times as deadly as any equivalent human host would have been, and ten times more terrifying. Their powerful jaws cracked the shafts of the spears that were thrust through their flesh, and even the sharpened steel hooks of barbed spearheads that were left dangling from their flesh didn’t slow them down. Their misshapen paws grasped at weapons with almost human dexterity, and jerked them out of the soldiers’ hands with savage strength. They might have been devils for all that they acknowledged pain, and the worst of it all was that Andrys had no doubt that devils-true devils-would follow them. In one terrible instant the Forest had ceased to recognize him as its master, and now it was free to unleash all those horrors which it had been saving up since the moment they first violated its borders.
“Get together!” Zefila yelled, and somehow the order carried above the cacophony. Those men and women who were still standing began to fight their way toward each other, gathering together as herd beasts will do when surrounded by predators. Andrys struggled toward them, his own sword dripping a line of black blood along the ground, and relief washed over him as he got to the point where there was human flesh to put his back to, and sharp steel swords to protect his sides. Several of the soldiers had managed to take up their springboks and now, with the protective efforts of their comrades buying them a precious second in which to aim, they launched their projectiles. Again and again, pausing only to reload from boxes at their feet, trusting to their brothers and sisters in battle to protect them as they did so. Bright quarrels bit into white fur, freeing blood as black as the night itself. A smell filled the clearing which was ten times more horrible than the rotting stink of the Forest, and Andrys felt bile rise up in the back of his throat with such revulsive power that for a moment he feared he would be overcome by it. Several of the soldiers were, and their comrades struggled to protect them while they doubled over, giving vent to their fear and their revulsion in a hot, fierce flow.
I’m going to die here, Andrys thought as he gouged one of the creatures with his sword; the creature leaped back with such force that it took everything he had to yank the weapon loose before it was pulled from his grasp. Was that Narilka’s voice he heard, crying out his name in the midst of this madness? The delusion lent him strength, and he dared move forward far enough to stab at the creature’s face. He didn’t hit it himself, but in its effort to avoid him it impaled itself on another’s spear. Good enough. We’re all going to die here.
But the tide of battle was turning. The beasts who had feasted on horse flesh had left, carrying chunks of their booty away in blood-soaked jaws; their fellows were slowly losing ground. As their numbers diminished the humans spread out, extending their protective circle to include their fallen comrades. So many were dead, so many wounded ... you couldn’t look at them, Andrys discovered, or you’d stop fighting. You didn’t dare think about what the battle had cost, or the sheer horror of it would paralyze you.
And then it was over. The last beast was dead, or dying, or fled into the night. Soldiers moved silently to slice each and every white-furred throat that remained, not wanting to be taken by surprise as they recovered the camp. Others moved quietly to where the fallen lay, and in a few corners of the battlefield soft weeping could be heard. That sound shook Andrys to his core. These were city folk, he realized, like himself, and for all their brave talk and macho posturing they had probably never seen more violence than a tavern brawl, or at best a temple riot. Nothing had prepared them for what they saw now. Nothing could.
Gerald Tarrant-you bastard!-you caused this! And so help me God, if I catch you, you’ll pay for it. With a trembling hand he wiped blood from his eyes, hoping it wasn’t his own. First by my hand, and then in Hell.
“You all right?”
It was Zefila. The blood smeared on her face was black, and it reeked of the beasts. He managed to nod and she turned away, evidently satisfied that he could take care of himself. Where had the Patriarch found a woman of such fortitude, he wondered? How had he known, when he interviewed hundreds for this quest, which ones would stand up to such horror?
The Patriarch. He started suddenly, aware that he hadn’t seen the man since the battle started. Whipping about in sudden fright, he searched the battle-scarred campsite for him—and found him, to his relief, standing at the edge of the camp. His robes were spattered with blood and he seemed to be favoring his left leg, but he was alive. Thank God, Andrys thought. How could they have gone on without him?
“Bind up the wounded,” Zefila ordered. “Get them on horseback, if the animals will have them. Move it! Those things may come back.”
“What about the dead?” a woman demanded.
There was a pause. Several men stopped what they were doing, and all turned to look at the Patriarch. The cool blue eyes did not meet their gaze, but turned outward as if staring at some distant vista.
“We take them with us,” he said at last. His tone was strangely bitter. “For as long as we have the horses to carry them.” He looked over the battlefield, and his proud brow furrowed as if in pain. “Men who serve the One God with their lives deserve better than to rot in a place like this.”