Page 48 of The Hunting Moon
As if a Compendium footnote unfurls in Jay’s brain too, he nudges Winnie and points sideways. A quick squint into the shadows—it is fully night now—reveals a thick copse of trees. More trees means less space for those antlers.
One,Jay mouths, lifting a single finger. His skin glows pale, but the black-clad rest of him blends away.
Winnie checks her glasses: the neoprene strap is tight.
Two.Another finger, and she readies her muscles to rise.
Three.No finger this time. Jay simply springs to his feet and launches straight north.
Winnie does too. Or rather, shetriesto, but she’s half as fast and twice as loud. Jay is somehow already five paces away before Winnie has fully stood and taken her first step. A stick snaps and dead leaves she wouldswearweren’t there ten seconds ago now rip and rattle. She doesn’t need to look at the sadhuzag to know it has spotted her.
She looks at it anyway, a slow-motion swivel of her head as her arms pump and her knees rise and she abandons all attempt at quiet…
Oh yes. It saw her, itseesher, and its head tips with a vicious, barking bellow to fill the forest. So loud, it shakes straight into Winnie’s skeleton. It pounds her eardrums and expands inside her skull, this vibrating howl that says,You are not where you belong.
The Compendium definitely never mentioned that sound.
Nor did it describe how much the ground would quake with each of the sadhuzag’s now stamping hooves. Winnie’s own footfalls turn unsteady, and despite her pushing, pushing,pushingto catch up with Jay, it is as if the sadhuzag’s movements recalibrate the earth beneath her. Her feet don’t land like they should; she can’t gain any rebound to kick her knees high.
Hoofbeats thunder closer. The rocky and rising terrain is no challenge for the sadhuzag, and branches thrash and break as if its antlers slice through all in the beast’s path.
Nope, nope,nope.Winnie is not going to outrun it, and now Jay—who has reached the cluster of elm trees ahead—is swiveling back and realizing the same thing.
“DUCK!” he roars, and Winnie somehow actually obeys.
She dives straight down onto the ground.
Antlers slice above her, and a smell like ancient fury crushes over her.Razor hooves,her mind provides, and Winnie rolls sideways. Silver cuts through the edge of her vision. The earth rips and shreds.
Then the sadhuzag is past and Winnie is trying to scrabble to her feetagain. Ahead, Jay is shouting and waving his hands. “Come here, you dipshit! I’m right here! Come and get me!”
Dipshit, Winnie wants to inform him, is really no way to address this majestic nightmare and she is profoundly annoyed on the nightmare’s behalf. She is also quite relieved those hooves did not make impact because holy crap, they have literally ruined the earth. Like someone took a sword to the soil and just started slashing.
Winnie has two thoughts while the beast stampedes away and Jay vanishes behind the enormity of the wild, deadly antlers.
1) She and Jay are now separated.
2) Bad things happen when she is alone in the forest.
It’s like these nightmares only show up when you’re around, Winnie. Or like you’ve got some special power that only letsyousee them.
Sure enough, a slight wind kicks against her, carrying with it a smell like burning plastic. No whispers—yet—but then the sadhuzag’s hooves and bellows dominate all sound.
Not again,she thinks.Not again.She kicks into a sprint after Jay, after a nightmare she’s pretty sure Jay couldn’t take down even with a weapon—at least not by himself. That thing is the size of Hummer, and the cluster of trees remain the only option to escape it. Let the Whisperer deal with the sadhuzag. Let her and Jay simply get away.
The wind churns faster. Winnie pushes herself harder. The sadhuzag is a vague, enormous shadow in the darkness, and she occasionally glimpses a figure rolling and diving and running and sliding.
“Jay!” she tries to shriek at him, knowing it will draw the wrath of the sadhuzag onto her again.“Jay! To the trees! Back to the trees!”That’s all Winnie says—all shecansay, really, because yes, the nightmare stag with seventy-four antler prongs is now veering around to gallop across the uneven terrain at her.
Its eyes glow like headlights, and just like a car, Winnie can tell it’s approaching fast because those lights are getting bigger.
Winnie hurtles toward the copse of trees that she prays offers safety. She also prays that the Compendium is right:Though not flesh eaters, they will kill any who enter their territory, including other nightmares.Otherwise,with the way she’s moving, she could step on a basilisk or into a spidrin web without realizing before it’s too late.
The thicker clot of elm trees looms ahead, a wall of darkness now lit up by glowing green from a nightmare that wants Winnie and Jayoff its land.Winnie wishes she could scream at it,Gladly! We willgladlyleave if you would just let us go!
Her breath comes in punctuated gasps. Her hairs once more prick upward—and there’s that stench again, like a plastic spatula forgotten on the stove. Oh yes, the Whisperer is coming. The wind isn’t wild enough yet to herald its imminent arrival, but it is most certainly on the way.
The line of elm trees is so close. Winnie spies a rowan tree too.
