Samuel Stenn needed a lesson. The boy who lived nearby had five older brothers, all of whom made it painfully clear that Samuel stood last in the pecking order of power and privilege on the Stenn farm. If the boy had any hope at all of holding sway over anybody in this world, that unfortunate role fell on his neighbor, Kora. For miles around, only she was younger and more inexperienced than he. Samuel Stenn took every opportunity to show it. He beat her at Stones, at Horseshoes, and at Clackers. He thumped her at Build Sticks, Pushers, and Find Your Quarry. Having constantly competed with five older brothers, and being two years older than she, he abused his significant advantage. Still, with every defeat, she became more and more determined to someday claim victory. One day, Samuel bet Kora a barn cleaning that he could stay hidden from his older brother longer than she could in a game of Find Your Quarry. Kora picked her spot. She pulled herself into the heart of a massive inkberry bush and covered herself at its center with dirt and leaves. Samuel’s brother searched. And searched. For hours he looked, without success. The sun went down and Samuel’s parents and Gram Heega came calling and demanded the children reveal themselves with intimidating shouts. Kora refused. Starving and cramped, in pain and exhausted, she would not lose this contest. Finally, hours into the dark evening, Samuel Stenn emerged, spooked, hungry, and defeated. Her punishment was severe, yes, but it was worth it. By the gods, she shut that boy up.

Topper shook his head in pity.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack… 

That sound. It had returned, but with a different ring. The first rapping, back at her farm, clacked like sturdy wooden sticks being struck at a frenzied pace. This wasn’t sticks. It was something else. It was bones.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack… 

Never had she conceived of such a sound. Hollow. Draining. An affront to music. To nature. The echoing permeated and inhabited the trees and the bushes around her. The boughs trembled. The fronds drooped in despair. The entire area demanded that she succumb and yield.

“It’s over, kiddo,” Topper piled on, although he didn’t give the appearance of having heard the ghastly strum.

“I heard you the first time.” She didn’t need Topper to stoke the fires of her fear. “Please, tell me everything you know.”

“Do you tell the pig she’s being marched to slaughter? Or do you let her enjoy her final moments alive, in ignorance?” Topper said it in complete seriousness.

“I’m the pig?”

“Only in likeness to fate, m’dear.”

They both turned in the direction of a new sound.

Baying.

Not from a single hound. The cacophony of a pack. Impatient. Agitated. Ungovernable.

“And that’s my cue,” Topper said as he doffed his bowler.

“Wait! You’re leaving?”

“Why would I stay? You hear those hounds? Garakul commissioned the Master of the Hunt. He’s going to run you down. So listen, I have some advice…”

“Yes?”

“Don’t struggle.” He turned to go.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack…   

“Stop! I gave you those coins! In return, I made an official entreaty that you guide me to the White Owl Wood!”

“Yer not holding me to it?” His face wanned and his eyes widened with incredulity.

“I most certainly am!” she said as she thrust a finger into his face.

“Fak! Fak fak! That’s merciless! Look at me. I’m the size of a rabbit. A fat, pipe-smoking, inadequate, old rabbit. Have some compassion!”

Kora stared him down.

The little man pulled his bowler down tighter on his head. “Fine! I’ll guide ya ‘til yer caught. But then I’m free! Understand?”

“That’s all I ask.”

“It’s too much! Let’s go!”

He bounded off. His rabbit metaphor proved apt. Quick. Spry. Kora could barely keep pace with him. His size allowed him to deftly avoid the cloying branches and bushes that frustratingly snagged Kora’s arms and legs. She ran as fast as she could, but still, she lost him quickly.

The howls and cries of the pack intensified, as if sensing that their prey was on the run sent them into a state of rapture.

Kora couldn’t help but imagine what the pack would do once it caught up to her. Did Garakul care if she arrived alive? If the pack dragger her back, ripped to pieces? Clawed to ribbons? She couldn’t help but consider the softness of her neck.

Topper was nowhere to be seen. He had abandoned her already. She cursed him.

As if in response, Topper popped up in the distance and waved his bowler. She bolted after.

“What’re ya stopping for?”

“I lost you. You’re so fast.”

He called over his shoulder as they continued running, “It doesn’t make any difference. Nobody outruns The Hunt. But we can sure as The Hells make him work for those teueriks. Or kill you before he can.”

Lovely.

The night sky had cleared of the recent rain, and the light of the moons illuminated the landscape, allowing her to pick her way through the dark underbrush. She followed Topper down a steep rocky embankment, mostly by sliding down on her feet, rear, and hands. If she somehow survived through the night, those scrapes were going to hurt. In two spots, she almost tumbled headlong, but in a panic grabbed nearby shrubs to keep from breaking her neck.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack, clackety-clackety-clack-clack… 

The volume grew. They were getting closer. Too fast. Relentless. Topper was right, she thought. She would never outrun them. She was doomed.

The pack yipped in delight.

Topper led her to a stream, but instead of crossing it, he turned in the water and began hopping and skipping from rock to rock, downstream.

 

Kora followed. “Can we lose them in the water?”

Topper scoffed. “Seriously?”

“Then why are we in here? This is really slowing us down.”

“You’re welcome to go yer own way!” Topper snapped. His face red, his boots soaked, he was panting furiously.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack!

Closer. How could they be so fast? She imagined being overrun in the water. Lying face down. Teeth ripping at fingers and hands. Blood polluting the cold water.

The yaps of the pack sent chills up her spine and into the base of her skull. They were just out of sight. A pair of bats whipped over her head in their desperate attempt to flee the impending woe. If only she could fly, she thought. She imagined herself kicking at the heads of the dogs. How many seconds could she keep them at bay before they sunk their teeth in?

The stream spilled down into a sunken rock quarry. Rock cliffs flecked with azure stones spilled down on all sides, a natural chalice filled with dark, still wine.

A dead end. No way out.

“Topper…!”

Topper ignored her and sprang from the rocks, froglike, to land splashing in the waters below. Kora followed, though not nearly as graceful. The wet rocks prevented firm footing and she flopped sideways into the uninviting waters. When she came up for air, Topper was treading water nearby.

“Follow me down. Under that rock. Take the deepest breath you can and follow the current. If you can make it, there’s a place where you’ll be able to come up and grab a breath. I’ll tap you when yer there. If you drown… well… that’s probably good.” Topper took a deep breath and went down.

At the crest of the hill split by the trickling stream, two massive hounds appeared, almost large enough for a man to ride. They glowed a ghostly grey, like a sculpted pyre of ash in the hearth, with fibrous, muscular bodies on powerful legs. Their fearsome faces, framed by stiff pointed ears, twitched when they snapped at the air, and pink eyes darted back and forth, surveying the landscape. Wide, black nostrils picked at the night air. They spotted Kora immediately and growled, laced with intimidation. The growls caused the skin around their maws to pull back unnaturally far, exposing black gums rooting an array of appalling fangs.

Kora’s flesh trembled and her feet kicked in the water harder than necessary.

Before she lost all control, she gulped down as much air as she could suck in and dove. True to Topper’s instruction, the water tugged and flowed under the large, overhanging rock and nothing prevented her from swimming through the wall of rocks. Without a speck of illumination, she swam as fast as she could without any idea of where the waters led. Memories of swimming in the ocean with her father flickered by. He would count how long she could hold her breath. They would have contests. He always won.

She swam further.

Where was Topper? Where was his tap? Her lungs burned. Panic began to bubble up. How did Topper know how far she could swim underwater? Her feet kept scraping the bottom, and her head the top, so she knew she swam through a narrow tunnel. Claustrophobia gripped her.

She couldn’t go any further!

Her head grew heavy. Look father, look how long I’ve gone. I would have beaten you this time. Why aren’t you here? I love you…

Tap tap tap.

Instinctively, she jerked up and her head broke the surface. The glorious air filled her lungs. Still unable to see, she moved to stand but her head hit the rock, less than a foot above the surface.

“Ya did it,” Topper whispered, “didn’t think ya would.”

Another gasp of air was all Kora could muster in response.

“One more submerged stretch, not as long, and then it’ll open up. Keep following the current.”

She heard Topper’s inhalation, but she needed a few more gulps to convince her lungs to keep working. She wondered if those hounds could dive and swim. She took another deep breath and submerged again.

The next stretch wasn’t as harrowing or far as the first, and when she surfaced, she could tell by the flow of the air and the echoes of the sloshing water that she had made it to a larger space.

“Topper?!”

“I’m too old for this madness. And my pipe leaves are ruined,” she heard echoing out of the darkness ahead. “Keep with the current. We’re almost back under the moons,” he called.

Her feet kept bumping rocks, slowing her down, so she pulled her feet up and kicked on her back until she emerged from the cave and into the open air and moonlight again.

Topper stood on the riverbed, pouring water out of a boot.

Kora trudged out of the river. “How much of a head start did we get?”

“Not enough.” He wrung water out of his black coat.

“Do you have any other ideas?”

Topper blew air out between his lips, causing them to vibrate in a way that made her feel foolish for asking. “Listen kiddo, all we’re doin’ is delaying the inevitable. That’s all I’ve got.”

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack.

The clacking of bones sounded a little further away now, but no less urgent. Topper was right. It was inevitable. There was no way out. So why keep running? She considered climbing a tall tree. But she would be trapped. She could throw herself from the top of the tree. That at least would spare her the pain of being run down by the pack. She could choose her own death.

The hounds bayed in glee, as if feeding on her despair.

Topper dashed off, darting between bushes, pulling her away from her desperate contemplations. She ran.

            And ran.

                    And ran.

For minutes? Hours? Her lifetime?

Always paced by Topper, she wondered if she would have had the vigor to push herself as hard as she did now without him. The blisters on her feet screamed in protest. Her lungs burned.

BAH-OOOOOOOOOOOM!

The blast echoed over the valley. A hunting horn set the hounds to a frenzy of yips and howls and rattled the needles of the pines. As if in subservience, a cloud moved over The Father and the temperature dipped ten degrees. The moan of the horn made her heart sink into her feet. Who would make such a ghoulish sound? What was it? Could it be reasoned with? Bargained with? Made to feel?

But she knew the answer.

Clackety-clackety-clack-clack!

Closer. So fast! There was no way to outrun them. It was hopeless. NO. She wasn’t caught yet. The howls approached. Trees and bushes flew by in a blur. It would be so easy to stop running. NO. Push, she urged herself. You will not lose. She single-mindedly focused on Topper, lest she lose him. He always seemed to lead her on the way that was least obstructed. Time after time they avoided steep climbs or overgrown bushes that would have otherwise blocked her way or slowed her down. She wondered how long ago she would’ve been caught, had she been alone. She wondered why she cared.

Topper looked over his shoulder and his face betrayed what must’ve been a fearsome sight behind her. “We did well kid, but I’ve done all I can,” he said with a tinge of apology as he darted off and disappeared into the side of a massive briar.

Kora spun around. The pack closed within sight now, leaping through the dark of the woods; the ghostly grey hair on their backs reflecting the dim light of The Son, making it appear a deathly glow. Their yips rose in pitch, a cue to their Master that their prey was in view. As their heads tilted up to call up into the night sky, Kora saw the bony ridges of their hard palates. She shuddered at the size of their teeth, larger than on any mortal dog. The hunting horn blasted from a distance. These hounds must have raced ahead of their Master.

She leveled her crossbow with trembling hand at the lead hound. The monstrous beasts, with pink eyes eyeing her covetously, slowed and fanned out to circle her. Eight snarling canines moved into position to cut off any means of escape. She was finished. The crossbow was useless! Those claws were going to rip at her skin. Razor teeth were going to puncture her throat and stomach. Her hope ossified and the crossbow fell to the ground.

The hounds hopped and yipped in ecstasy. In direct response to her despair.

Somehow, her fear was contributing to their fervor. For sure, ever since she first heard the pack, and the moan of the horn, she hadn’t felt like herself. Like the girl who fought to the end. The girl who had sent a whimpering Samuel Stenn home with his head bowed in defeat. She had become one thing.

Prey. That was all.

That’s when the idea struck her.