Ember Dione maMarin:
Dark Flight
Oh, moons of mercy, moons of light Guide me in the darkest night Keep me safe from evil spirit Send your blessed light to sear it
Oh, moons of mercy, moons of might If in shadow, dark, or night, My body die with evil near it Send your light to guide my spirit
It was dark, and she could not see. She could not hear for the roaring in her ears, and she could not move. Oh, moons of mercy, moons of light . . . She tried to spit out the panic but choked on grit and fur and dirty blood. Guide me in the darkest night. . . Struggling, she dragged a breath into her lungs, and then the fright that held her frozen burst and she screamed, the sound suffocating in the black death above her. Keep me safe from evil spirit. . . The body that pinned her to the ground was too heavy; she panicked and thrashed under it, straining back and forth to break free. Heat ate at her legs. She realized then that-oh, gods-the roaring in her ears was fire. Send your blessed light to sear it . . . And then the pain stabbed, rhythmically, with her pulse, throbbing, driving each second of terror deeper in her mind. Fire ... A joint-ripping yank tore her free of the dead worlag, her ragged breathing punctuated by the fire's crackling, while sobs racked her body and the tumbling brands spread the flames and fed her panic.
The worlag's body shifted again, rolling toward her, and she jerked back in horror. Moons of mercy, were the dead rising to
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2 Tara K. Harper
claim her? But the sudden movement sent a black wash of pain over her head, and she could barely see where the shadows of brush beckoned. With a silent scream against the agony, she slid into their sharp embrace like a broken doll, her teeth bared to bite back her shriek and her breath still caught in her chest from the frozen grip of fear. On the other side of the fire a worlag turned, its bulbous eyes searching. There was blood on the soil, blood on its claws. It hesitated, and then a waft of throat-choking smoke curled between them, hiding her where shadows of deep roots pressed against her back, steadying her as the burning forest swallowed her body and the blackening waves swallowed her mind. All she saw, all she heard, was the worlags tearing and snapping at the broken bodies and burning wagon, the flame-lit canvas and clothes.
Pain. Burning, crushing pain. She crawled, cringing under the brush, clinging to the gray shadow of the wolf that urged, carried, dragged her on. This way . . . through here . . . She could not focus her eyes, her mind anymore. Wait. . . duck. . . There was blood on her hands, her clothes, her face. Hurry . . . The roaring in her ears kept rhythm with the growls of bloated woiiags feasting in the obscenely dancing light behind her, and the snap of human bones was the death drum in her ears-she did not have to look back to see the hairy forearms that dragged to their knees when they stood and the other, spindly middle arms that tore at the riding beasts like the cutters on a farmer's plow. Their beetle jaws dripped blood and tendons as they fought over a body. Ember Dione whimpered and dragged on. It was dark.
Night voices flickered in and out of her ears. But the gray shadow led her on when she cried out, and the rough tongue licked at the pain till she fell into the dark fire of her pulse, where the black heat blinded her. Blood, thin and warm, dribbled down her face and slid into her ear, and as the noise drowned, the dark again became complete.
It was dawn when she woke, her head throbbing dully, the air green with morning dusk. Her slender body was curled in (he growth of a deadfall, her gashed leg stretched stiffly out to one side and her black hair tangled in the twigs. A sharp branch stuck into her cheek. Against her back, the gray wolf was warm, proof of the early chill that was seeping through the moss and the calm that greeted her wakening. No burned-out wagons met
