Worldbinder

THE CHASE

In the cool morning air, Vulgnash and the Knights Eternal raced through a glen, their long legs carrying them swiftly. They had fed well during the night. Fourteen strong men they killed, draining the life from them. They were sweet, these small humans of the otherworld, filled to bursting with hopes and desires that humans on this world seemed to have forgotten.

Vulgnash could not recall when he had last tasted souls so sweet, like fat woodworms. Other humans that he had taken lately were empty, like the husks of dead beetles.

There had been other small humans at the fortress besides the men-women and children. Vulgnash and his cohorts had left them. Perhaps the Knights Eternal would go back to feed upon them at another time.

Now, he was sated, full of hope himself. He hoped to catch the wizard soon.

Already, the morning sun was coming, slanting in from the trees to the south. Kryssidia looked toward it mournfully, as if begging that they stop and find a cave in which to hole up for the day.

“Patience,” Vulgnash growled. “We may catch them yet.”

The humans had left a trail that was easy to follow. Even without Thul’s infallible sense of smell, Vulgnash could have followed the scuff marks among the pine needles, the broken twigs and bent grass.

Vulgnash used his powers to draw shadows around them, so that they traveled through a lingering haze. Had anyone spotted them there, they would have only seen an indistinguishable mass of black, loping through the gloom.

Finally, they reached a grotto, a place where the rocky crown of a hill thrust up, with a cliff face that rose some eighty feet on three sides. A few gnarled old pines cast a deep shadow in the cavern.

“The scent of humans is strong here,” Thul growled. “The scent of death is strong on them. They bedded here for the night.”

It was a good place to bed down, Vulgnash saw. It had hidden the humans from prying eyes during the night, from his prying eyes, and its shadows would hide him from the burning sunlight.

“They can’t have gotten far,” Vulgnash said. The sun had not yet cracked the horizon. “They might only be a few hundred yards on their way.”

Kryssidia hissed in protest, but Vulgnash went racing down the hill, heading west, using all of his skill to run silently over the forest floor, sometimes leaping into the air and taking wing when the brush grew thick or rocks covered the ground.

Thul raced ahead, loping along, stooping every dozen feet to test the ground for a scent. They glided down a long slope, into a forest of oaks that opened up, inviting more light.

Slanting rays of morning sunlight beat through the trees, cutting Vulgnash’s flesh like a lash. He drew his cowl tightly over his face and bent the light to his will, surrounding himself in shadows.

All too soon, they stopped at the edge of a wood. Before them lay a broad expanse of golden field, the morning sun shining full upon it in the distance, so that a line of light cut hard across his vision.

Kryssidia hissed and turned away, but Vulgnash squinted, even though the light pierced his eyes like nails.

There in the distance, perhaps only a quarter of a mile away, he could see four figures racing through the endless open fields of summer straw. Bright yellow flowers grew tall in the field, with dark centers. They bobbed in the soft morning breeze.

So close, he thought. So close.

The humans could not have known that he was on their trail. Vulgnash and his men had moved as softly as shadows. And though the humans were running, they were not running in their speed. Instead they jogged, conserving their strength as if for a longer race.

Vulgnash peered at the bent grass they left in their wake. In the starlight, the trail would look as dark as a road.

“Tonight,” he said, “we will take our hunt on the wing. Though they run all day, we will be upon them within an hour.”