The monster growled and loped from the shadows, passing within a few feet of me, and headed toward the river.
Chilled by such a near brush, I froze and watched my stones go bouncing by. In another day or two, would I be so despairing and tired and fed up that I might just try to grab the thing‘s head and wrestle them off it? If enough days passed without it trying to kill me, I could see myself getting desperate enough to risk it.
The monster paused on a mossy bank near the river and looked back at me. It looked at the bank and back at me. It repeated it, over and over.
It might not understand me, but I understood it. It wanted me on that bank for some reason. I mulled my options. It took all of one second. If I didn‘t go, what would it do to me? Was there anyplace else I could think of to go? I walked downstream to the bank. Once I was there, it lunged at me and herded me with snapping jaws into the center of the bank. Then, as I watched in shock and astonishment, it urinated a circle all the way around me. When it was finished, it rippled sleekly into the night and disappeared. I stood in the center of the circle of urine still steaming on the ground, and comprehension slowly dawned.
It had marked the earth around me with its scent to repel lesser threats, and I was willing to bet most threats on this world were lesser.
Numb from the day‘s events, exhausted from fear and physical exertion, I sat down, pulled out the remainder of my protein bar, made a pillow of my coat, then stretched out on the bank, set my MacHalo beside me, and left it blazing.
I chewed slowly, making the most of my meager meal, listening to the soft roar of the river‘s rapids.
It looked like I was holed up for the night.
I had few expectations that sleep would come. I‘d lost everything. I was stranded in the Silvers. My stones were gone. There was a deadly monster collecting my things and pissing circles around me, and I had no idea what to do next. But apparently my body was done for the day, because I passed out with no awareness of having finished my meal.
I woke in the dark heart of the night, pulse pounding, unable to pinpoint what had awakened me. I stared up through the black treetops at two brilliant moons, full in a blue-black sky, and sorted through dream fragments.
I‘d been walking the corridors of a mansion that housed infinite rooms. Unlike my cold-place dreams, I‘d been warm there. I‘d loved the mansion, with its endless terraces overlooking gardens filled with gentle creatures.
I felt it drawing me. Was it somewhere in this realm? Was it the White Mansion the Unseelie King had built for his concubine?
Far in the distance, I heard the howling of wolves as they saluted the moons. I rolled over, pulled my coat over my head, and tried to go back to sleep. I was going to need all my energy to deal with tomorrow and survive in this place.
Something much closer howled an answer back to those distant wolves.
I shot straight up on my bed of moss, grabbed my dirk, and lunged to my feet. It was a frightful sound. A sound I‘d heard before, back in my own world—beneath the garage of Barrons Books and Baubles!
It was the tortured baying of a thing damned, a thing beyond redemption, a thing so lost to the far side of despair that I longed to puncture my own eardrums so I could never hear such a sound again.
The wolves howled.
The beast bayed back. Not so close this time. It was moving away.
The wolves howled. The beast bayed back. Farther still.
Was there something worse than my monster out there? Something like the thing beneath Barrons‘ garage?
I frowned. That would just be entirely too coincidental.
Was it possible ―my‖ monster was the thing from beneath Barrons‘ garage? ―Oh, God,‖ I whispered. Had IYD actually worked?
For time uncounted, I listened to the mournful concert, eyes wide, blood chilled. Such desolation, isolation, loss in the thing‘s cry. Whatever it was, I grieved for it. No living thing should have to exist in such agony.
The next time the wolves howled, the beast didn‘t bay back.
A short time later I heard terrifying yipping and the sounds of wolves being slaughtered, one after the next.
Shivering, I lay back down, curled into a tight ball, and covered my ears. I woke again near dawn, surrounded by dozens of hungry eyes staring at me from beyond the circle of urine.
I had no idea what they were. I could see only powerful shadows moving, stalking, pacing hungrily in the darkness beyond the light from my MacHalo.
They didn‘t like the scent of the urine, but they could smell me over it, and I obviously smelled like food to them. As I watched, one of the dark shapes pawed a spray of leaves and dirt over the urine.
The others began to do the same.
The black monster with crimson eyes exploded from the forest.
I couldn‘t make out the details of the fight. My MacHalo was throwing off too much glare. All I saw was a whirl of fangs and talons. I heard snarls of rage, answered by frightened snarls and hisses and screams of pain. I heard some of them go splashing into the river. The thing moved impossibly fast, ripping and slicing through the darkness with deadly accuracy. Chunks of fur and flesh flew.
Some of them tried to run. The monster didn‘t let them. I could feel its rage. It rejoiced in the kill. It reveled in it, soaked itself in blood, crushed bones beneath its taloned feet. Eventually I closed my eyes and quit trying to see.
When at last it was silent, I opened my eyes.
Feral crimson eyes watched me from beyond a pile of savaged bodies.
When it began to urinate again, I rolled over and hid my head under my coat.