Page 56 of WarBride

TAAR

My prey is running. I must give chase.

The joy of the hunt thrills through me. I feel it calling to me—that lust for the crack of bone in my jaws, the gush of blood down my throat. That sensation of a beating heart stuttering out its last, desperate pulse in my grasp. The need for carnage burns in me, filling me up from my core.

I see nothing but movement, heat, and the brilliant vibrance of fear emanating from that shadowy bit of nothing that is my quarry. I must have it. I must make its fear mine, must possess it in that intimate moment of sheer terror just on the brink of death. Blackness boils in my veins, and gods! I’ve missed this! I’ve craved it in secret, fighting, resisting, but all the while yearning. There’s nothing like this feeling, nothing like this absolute power coursing through my soul. Nothing like this hunger which must and will be satisfied.

“You’ll never feel more alive.”

The voice whispers in my memory, seductive and soft, like gentle fingertips trailing down my neck and spine.

“Believe me, my love. This is the very soul of existence—the dance of life and death entwined. You must experience it for yourself. And when you do, you’ll know the truth. You’ll know what you were always meant to be.”

She was right. She was soshakhingright, as she always was. I knew it the first time I tasted the dose she offered. That night, when the two of us together burst from the darkness and set upon that company of human soldiers, who had dared camp toonear the edge of our territory. I still remember what it felt like, tearing into their flesh as they screamed. Those screams were music to my ears, and their blood was hot and delicious. My very soul feasted on their deaths.

Why did I give it up? Why did I forsake the very essence of existence? I was a coward, afraid of what I’d experienced, afraid of what it might make me become. Not anymore. I’m ready now as I wasn’t back then. Ready to embrace the truth of being. Ready to transform.

“We are death,”her voice purrs in my head.“We are the oblivion from beyond the veil, that which makes mighty men cower in their beds in the dead of night. We are the last great dread of mortality, and we are unstoppable.”

I know it. Oh, Shanaera, my love, I know the truth at last! How could I have ever doubted you?

So I lunge after that fleeing form. I am the wolf pursuing the deer, driven by an instinct so primal as to be irresistible. I am the truest form of myself that I have ever been, the most real, the most whole. The world around me is blotted out, a veil of darkness come over my vision. I don’t have to see—the senses driving me are more powerful than vision, more powerful than any sense by which a mere man perceives his world. I stretch out my hand to take hold of my prey, to snap the life-cord. I can already taste the sweet flow of spinal fluid, the savory stickiness of marrow. My heart hungers for her death, her pain.

Suddenly—light. It flares in red brilliance, piercing through the black film like lances straight into my eyes.

Vellar!

That burning voice bursts in my head, reaching through the darkness into this realm of death and hunger where I exist, then reaching deeper still. All the way down to where the quivering worm ofmanhoodstill writhes in the center of my being.

Vellar! Hear my voice! Do not fall into the demon’s song!

My worm-self struggles, rearing its sickly head, trying to assert dominance. I stagger back from the light, throwing up both hands, bellowing to drown out the thunderous roar of song in my head. Where is my prey? She has gone beyond my perception, hidden behind that being of light. But I need her, I need her death.

“Give me to drink,” urges the ravenous voice in my head. Shanaera’s voice? I’m not sure anymore. It’s deeper somehow, and many. A legion of voices made one and ravenous.“Give me to drink, Taarthalor. Pour out blood unto me.”

Turning from the light, I stagger then run back into the embrace of darkness. There is more prey out there, waiting for me and my hunger. I can smell it. I will find it. I will spill its blood.

I will offer my sacrifice of worship to the darkness which indwells me.

21

ILSEVEL

I fling myself to the ground as the unicorn leaps. My chest hits the mud, air knocked from my lungs, and I’m aware of nothing for some moments beyond terrible heat soaring overhead in a burning arc of light.

Then, pulling myself upright and twisting around, I see the unicorn rear up on its hind legs, standing between me and his master. Red light flares from his horn in a burst like lightning. But these sights mean almost nothing, for my vision is but a frail thing compared to the sound, the song. The absolute fury of the unicorn’s soul, rising up against the darkness of thatun-song, which seeks to overwhelm it. For a moment I don’t know which will vanquish the other. I know only that these two forces cannot exist in the same plain, not without bringing this whole world down with them.

It lasts no more than an instant—the light and the dark, the song and theun-song.

I’m shaking my head, gasping for breath, and my physical eyes blink into focus on the world around me again. The unicorn stands before me, shuddering, his red hide covered in flames. Beyond him, hunched over like a monster but moving fast, is Taar, fleeing across the field, making for the not-too-distant forest.

I breathe out a quivering sigh and let my head come down to rest in the muddy road. Then, with a curse, I push up onto my trembling arms. I’m absolutely spattered in muck from head to toe. When the wind blows, it cuts right through the wet cloth andinto my bones, but though I shake in every limb, I don’t feel the cold.

Fearing my knees will simply give out and leave me toppled over once more, I slowly get to my feet and face the unicorn. He turns his great head about, looking at me from those flaming orb eyes, like two suns trapped in his skull. His massive chest expands and contracts so hard, as though it struggles to contain this great soul within the physical confines of flesh and bone. Any moment now he might explode.

“You . . . you saved me,” I pant.

The unicorn throws back his head, uttering a ferocious bugle.

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