FOREVER KNIGHTS: #6 Malevolent Attentions

Grier Country (The Fallen found for six years)

DERAGAN

Pinned to the dirt road, Nora tried to writhe from under the weight compressing her. It was the size of a horse, but all its weight was in its back end. Clawing blindly, she found only fur where there should’ve been skin. But it was interwoven like vines. Hard and impossible to permeate.

A Sarabi.

The dark orange-red eyes and pointed snout made its black stare nightmarish. Mouth sneering, its drool dangled in long strands across her face.

She couldn’t breathe. Frantically pushing harder at the creature.

Pain ruptured in her face. Jaw aching, she struggled to scream. But there was only bubbling in the back of her throat. Blood seeped warmly through an opening wide enough to keep sound from climbing her vocal cords. Breaths rasping, she fought for air.

Drowning under the heavy weight.

Her jaw flapped loosely as her mouth moved. Trying to plead for the life being stolen from her. Tendons should’ve held her jaw together but on one side they were now only shredded sinew slopping her cheek.

The animal leaned down and drug a rough tongue over the opening of flesh and muscle, sending white-hot pain searing through Nora. Tossing her body again, proved useless. She couldn’t escape. Hot tears burned her face. Even in her terror, Nora clung to hazy images. Fighting off the cold.

Someone laughed cruelly. Close by.

Managing to turn her head, Nora saw him-or what she could. Blinking hard she peered at faded, moth-eaten robes resting on worn leather shoes. Looking up as much as her head would turn, she found gray wool. Worn through in several places over the skeletal frame. Vision blurring, she tried to see more. A long beard hung over his belly, dancing wildly as his bottom jaw moved in the exaggerated laughter of a skeletal nightmare.

Tipping his head down to watch her, revealed eyes as hollow as the sound. Sunken black things belonging to a rodent. Something peering from shadows.

His words were a rasping hiss. “Where’s your lover now, Fallen?”

Hopelessness forced out the remnants of life she’d clung to. As her body numbed with sorrow, she retreated to the darkest parts of her mind. Finding solace in memories of midnight blue eyes. And knowledge that one day vengeance would arrive. One day all the evil creatures would know her suffering.

Relaxing brought peace...soon after that, nothing. Her life slipped away as easily as she surrendered her last breath.

Screaming in terror Nora ripped open her eyes. Safe in her bed, she’d merely had another nightmare so real it could’ve been a memory. In all of them she clawed for life. Clinging to a streamer of hope that somewhere someone tried to save her, yearned to avenge her.

But he was never able to find her, else he was a heartbeat too late. So, she was alone. Forever dying.

Sighing she rose and walked to the window. Forcing it shut. Rubbing her arms briskly as she padded back to the warmth of her bed. Pulling the coverlet around her neck in hopes of warding off the cold. She shivered beneath it uncontrollably.

In the dark, in his rental, Deragan shared the sentiment. His panting matching hers. His racing heartbeat matching hers. Still feeling the terror of the nightmare they’d shared.

But what Deragan didn’t know, was that he was not the only one…