Motherhood had become a perilous pursuit in Morae. In the space of six months, over half the witches in the Bregon Woods alone had lost their babies to the Ghul. The Moraens did what they could to fortify themselves against the abductors, but the Ghul were so relentless that a night had not passed in months without a child being taken. When baby Birren was born, Lara Brand was both delighted and mortified.
There was a time when the Ghul were just shadowy figures from half-forgotten myths. Myths about a great rock that had crashed from the sky unleashing horrid beasts and demons upon the world. However in those myths, the Ghul were sealed under the earth never to return again. Although there was evidence of a fiery rock crashing into Lake Erras thousands upon thousands of years ago, few people believed the Ghul were anything more than mere fantasy. Last autumn changed all that – the Ghul were real and they had returned.
When they first appeared, many abductions took place. At first it was the women and not the children who were targeted, but after a month that all changed – for the worst. When the children were taken no demands were made, no explanations given. As soon as the sun went down, the Ghul could be seen roaming the forest floor, looking for an opportunity to steal a child.
They were armoured but not with the metal and mail Lara had seen worn by the knights of neighbouring Scoriath. These pale ‘knights’ wore the skeletal remains of beasts the like of which were never seen in Morae, or indeed on the surface of the Myr. There was no consistency in the design of the armour. Some Ghul wore helmets fashioned from huge horned skulls, others had lashed smaller bones together in an obscene headdress. There were Ghul who had strung together rib cages to form off-white body armour. Some of the more imaginative ones had strapped sharp claws to their arms. There were even those who armed themselves with spears fashioned from the femurs of gigantic monsters from beneath the earth. The Ghul were horrific-looking soldiers – cadaverous bodies dressed in skeletons, armed with weapons of ivory and bone.
Their eyes were fixed in a manic stare, giving little hint of any intelligence behind them. But there was intelligence, and cruelty and savagery and malice. The Ghul’s activities were not diurnal. It was not known where they went when the sun came up but each new dawn was cherished by the Moraens, as it meant twelve or so hours without the sickly presence of the Ghul under their trees.
At first these pallid invaders only attacked the foolish and the unwary, those who were caught out with their young after dark. The women of Morae, known collectively as the Pryderi, soon learnt that the only place they could be secure was in their tree-huts high above the ground. Long before the Ghul arrived, the Pryderi set iron pikes into the trunks of their trees to impede the progress of Morae’s numerous tree-climbing predators. These pikes were laced with razor-sharp wire. Into each set of pikes a trap door was placed through which the Moraens entered and exited their abodes. Large, enchanted locks secured these grates and for a while this seemed enough to foil the Ghul’s attempts at child-stealing.
But they were cunning and any small opportunity was exploited as Lara Brand was to discover.
Although the Ghul were vicious and capable of inflicting serious injury upon the Pryderi, very few Moraen women had actually come to harm since autumn. However, if a mother was willing to fight, she was killed without hesitation. Sadly, if one of the women was put to death, it would inevitably follow that her offspring would be executed too. It seemed the death of the mother removed any need to keep the child alive. In light of this, many women did not raise a hand against the Ghul when they took a child. Although it went against every natural instinct in them to let their young be stolen away, fear of the child being slaughtered tamed all but the most wild of Pryderi. Those that did fight were quickly disposed of by the pale soldiers that made up the Ghul abduction squads.
The sad fact was that the Pryderi were not the race they once were. Centuries ago they had built themselves up to be formidable users of magick, capable of defending themselves against all aggressors. But the tome containing all the collective wisdom of the Moraen witches was stolen long ago and over time many incantations were forgotten. The Pryderi’s intricate knowledge of spell-casting waned, and only a few could successfully complete an incantation powerful enough to provide any real contest for the Ghul.
Furthermore, any thought of direct confrontation was quickly quashed by Major Chabriel, the Ghul commander in charge of the abductions, a lean female with long white hair: 'Witches, last night, one of your coven, upset over the relocation of her child, took matters into her own hands and used magick against us. She was disposed of, but know this, as a result of her defiance, her child is now dead. We will not tolerate such action to be taken against us. Fail to comply and under our blades your wriggly offspring will go. This is the word of Caliban.'
Despite the hold the Ghul had over the Pryderi, they did not demand all the children at once. The Ghul seemed to enjoy protracting the whole affair, their cruel nature delighting in the nervous tension that enveloped the grove like a dense fog. They could taste the rancid fear in the air and did what they could to sustain it. The Ghul were in no hurry and were content to return every night to take another child or two.
There were mothers who tried to escape Morae with their children, but Chabriel soon made it clear this was not a course of action that was in anyone’s best interest. Chabriel and her squad added to their armour the bones of any Moraens foolish enough to run their blockade. Even the women who tried to escape during the day were caught by wild beasts the Ghul had trained to monitor the area around the grove. These beasts, the marroks, were indigenous to Morae and had for centuries regarded themselves to be the natural predators of the Pryderi; it spoke volumes of their evil nature that they had allowed themselves to be trained by the Ghul. Evil it seemed could recognize itself in other species and the marroks quickly found that the Ghul could supply them with enough Pryderi meat to satisfy their ravenous appetites. This is not to suggest the animals required the Ghul to assist in the hunt. Stalking Pryderi was what the marroks did best. With their long, lupine snouts and sharp eyes, the marroks slithered their way through the underbrush, constantly sniffing the ground in the hope of picking up the scent of a Moraen foolish enough to venture out on her own.
Recent months had seen them become quite brazen, attacking in groups. They watched the borders of the grove like prison guards, and except for the protected treetops houses of the Pryderi, there was nowhere a Moraen could go that the marrok could not follow. Like the Pryderi, the legless, lower half of the marrok ended in a serpentine coil which was used primarily to assist the beasts’ movement through the trees. It also allowed them to hang from the branches of trees and drop on any unsuspecting prey that had the misfortune to wander beneath them. They were hard to spot in the dappled canopy of the Bregon Woods, their dark grey fur providing them with all the shadowy camouflage they needed to stay out of view.
There were members of the coven who argued that the witches should seek out help from people outside Morae. But this was rebuked by many who knew only too well the prejudice in the world outside against their kind.
'Help? From outsiders?' Arethusa exclaimed when Lara suggested the idea. 'You are young and naïve Lara Brand! Where were the outsiders when the Sessymirians invaded Bregon? What help was sent in the entire three hundred years they occupied the town? What help was sent five centuries ago when the Morgai stole the Incanto and robbed us of so much power? What help has ever been provided to help us keep the vermin marrok away?'
She was right. The Pryderi had been abominably treated by the world outside. Many Myrrans feared the witches and those who did not fear them despised them, hated their insular ways, their pride and arrogance. Then there were those who based their opinions on something less profound and more obvious – the Moraens' physical appearance. 'They will not help us,' Arethusa continued. 'To them, we are a dangerous species, hideous to behold and impossible to trust. They treat their lepers better than they treat us.'
Although there were lepers in Sanctuary who would disagree, it was true that the Pryderi were pariahs on an international scale. However, many would contest Arethusa’s use of the word hideous. In fact, the unique beauty of Moraen women was famed throughout the lands. Fair of face, the Pryderi had ensnared the gaze of many outsiders, but in some men the lingering gaze would harden to an angry stare when they took in the entire form – from the waist up the Pryderi epitomised the beauty of the female form, but below the waist things were very different. The long, prehensile tail that extended from the Pryderi’s abdomen resembled that of a blue serpent. Their bodies were covered in tiny scales ranging in coloration from slate to the deepest of dark purples. The arms of a Moraen woman, usually hidden beneath dark robes, were slightly longer than those hanging from the shoulders of outsiders, and they were arms that culminated in long fingernails capable of skewering a man’s eyeball (or so it was believed).
It was not just Myrran men who struggled with their acceptance of the Pryderi. The women of many nations were critical of the Moraens regarding them as a vain, petty and vindictive breed of people, an opinion probably garnered from their reclusive lifestyle if not their seductive looks. It was true that a number of the Pryderi were insular and small-minded, but there were others who believed the coven had made a mistake when it cut itself off from the world outside.
A lot of the Myrran contempt for the Pryderi was born out of xenophobia. And yet, in a world inhabited by hundreds of species as wondrous and varied as could be imagined, it was strange that one race had been singled out and distrusted more than any other. Academics in the University of Caquix had studied this phenomenon and many deduced that the distinct prejudice against the Pryderi was sexual in nature. This was partly derived from the fact that there were no male members of the Pryderi. Moraen woman gave birth to Moraen daughters who in turn gave birth to more females. No involvement from a male was required and this, some scholars postulated, effectively neutered the males of the Myr. This emasculation process had given rise to feelings of contempt and this had been at the heart of the gulf existing between Morae and other countries.
Perhaps the most distinguishing aspect of Pryderi physiology was their phosphorescent, blue blood and the stone that lay above their heart. The stone was called the birthstone and from it emanated a glow of azure light. The connection between mother and daughter in Morae was so strong that the bond manifested itself biologically. The Birthstone glowed steadily when mother and daughter were alive. But when the bond was severed by death, the stone stopped glowing. In a sense, it died. This inexplicable condition was one of the Pryderi’s most closely-guarded secrets. It was unlikely that anyone outside of Morae knew anything about it.
The Pryderi were generally self-sufficient. They spent their days tending to arboreal flocks, growing herbs in woodland gardens and making clothes and crafts. However, some of the practitioners of magick sought work beyond Morae’s borders, despite the long-standing unease regarding the rest of the Myr. The farmers of Scoriath were always prepared to pay good money to Pryderi who could cast protection spells to safeguard crops and cattle against the vagaries of weather and thieves. However, quite a few Pryderi were also reputed to be involved in less honourable employment whereby their skills with magick were used to steal the unobtainable, to influence the incorruptible or to assassinate the untouchable. Although use of incantations in such ways was officially forbidden by the coven, like any given society, the witches of Morae had members who wouldn’t think twice about deviating from the ideals of their peers. Unfortunately it had given them a terrible name across the Myr.
Lara Brand was a novice, with only a few incantations to her name, basic spells such as illuminating the darkness for brief moments, or the superficial healing of small wounds and abrasions. Her problem was confidence – spell-casting did not come easy to her. She had lost her mother when she was young and this had impacted upon her development in the mystical arts. She looked like a witch – as was custom, she had shaved off her hair above her forehead as a sign of her commitment to the eldritch ways of her people – but she did not feel like a witch.
Lara knew it was not wise to venture out at night, but her child had fallen ill, and as the night drew on little Birren’s sweating and convulsions gave her little choice.
Although the Pryderi village lay high in the safety of the trees, there was no way to cross from tree to tree. Each tree was a leafy island, accessible only via the trunk. The Moraens had lopped off all connecting branches as a means of security – if the Ghul or marrok managed to obtain entry into one of the Pryderi huts, they would not be able to move to others from that tree. It was a necessary precaution but that did not help Lara at all. The coven's physician lived on the outskirts of the grove, at least twenty minutes away. Lara thought of calling out to neighbours to help her, but it was very late and they would be wary of opening their doors to any at such an hour of night.
Birren gasped a painful cry and Lara grimaced as she decided to risk the journey to the physician. She lay her little one in a dark blanket and wrapped it tightly around her. All that could be seen of the child was a pale, upset face, and a little tail that had poked through a hole in the blanket.
Lara snuffed out a candle she had burning on the table and her room was smothered in darkness. Despite the cool night-time air, she was sweating. Beads of perspiration were dotted all over her shaven brow. She wiped her head with her long, flowing sleeve, surprised at how damp the cloth became. Her tawny hair was clinging to the moist back of her neck. 'Am I that scared?' she murmured to herself. She didn’t want to dwell on the answer.
Lara carefully made her way to the trap door in her floor and opened it slowly. The door moved soundlessly on its hinges, and the cool night air washed into the room. Cradling Birren close to her, Lara peered down into the darkness below. Although the Myr's three moons were out, very little light penetrated the thick canopy overhead. She listened and could not hear any indication of anything below. She waited a few minutes and still nothing could be heard but a susurrant breeze running through the flat, broad leaves surrounding her. Birren gave a little cry, disturbed by the darkness that hid her mother from her.
'Hush now little one,' Lara whispered. 'Everything’s going to be fine.'
Lara placed her swaddling bundle into a pouch she had strapped to her chest. Birren nuzzled into her mother's breast and listened to her mother’s rapid heartbeat with great curiousity.
As Lara made her way down the bole of the tree, her ears strained for any sign that the Ghul or marroks were nearby. All was still and calm. When she slithered onto the dew-covered ground at the base of the tree, Birren gave another whimper, but not of pain. Lara knew her daughter’s cries. The infant was disturbed by the darkness surrounding her; Lara could feel her tail flapping about nervously. Patting the baby firmly on the back did nothing to alleviate the child’s sense of agitation. The whimpering cry continued and Lara knew that it would not abate until the darkness had been dispelled.
She put a hand up to her daughter’s face to comfort her to find that her skin was hot to touch. Lara had already tried a healing spell that had done nothing to rid Birren of the fever that gripped her so avariciously. Underneath the palm of Lara's hand, Birren's eyelids fluttered as the young child struggled to locate the reassuring face of her mother. Her frustrated cry grew in intensity and Lara’s concern that it would soon become a howl led to a desperate course of action.
'Shhh, Birren. I'm here darling,' she whispered with great urgency. 'I'll give us a little light.'
Lara kneeled down in the damp grass and lay her arms over her legs. With her palms facing the darkened canopy of the trees, she began an incantation. Strange words flowed from her lips, and her baby ceased her crying and craned her head back to listen to the spell. Although the El Illumina spell was a rather commonplace piece of magick among the Pryderi, Lara's anxious state made it difficult to execute and she struggled to find the cadence and inflection the spell demanded.
The beads of perspiration that had formed on her brow now glowed with ethereal light. Her scaly skin was briefly illuminated as the beads of light ran down her face. Lara cupped her hands and from the bowl they formed, the same ghostly light shone. A pool of liquid light formed in her hands, a swirling mass of gold and white. Her fingers shaped this light until the liquid mass resembled a luminescent ball. All the while, Lara's voice grew louder and more rhythmic. Shadows danced across the bark of the trees and the foliage above was painted with a gentle lustre. A gurgling laugh escaped Birren's little lips as her mother’s face came into view, lit from below by the semi-solid ball of purling light. Lara's incantation stopped and the light flowing from the ball faded until it was nothing more than a soft, persistent glow upon her face.
Lara looked around apprehensively but could see no sign that anyone had been alerted to her presence by the incantation. She gazed down at her chest to see Birren's big blue eyes staring back at her. She still looked deathly ill, but she was much happier seeing her mother so close. Lara moved off across the clearing, taking care not to drop the orb which wobbled in her hand like a ball of golden jelly. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she was terrified it would give her away.
The pair stole down the path silently, the only sign of their passing a long meandering line in the grass made by Lara's tail. The night hid her tracks, but the Ghul were creatures of darkness and would not find it difficult to find her should they stumble across signs of her passing. She was also nervous the marroks would smell her out. They had incredibly powerful olfactory senses and had been rumoured to be able to pick up a familiar scent from leagues away. In her favour, the marroks had not been seen in the immediate vicinity for weeks. The last reports of marrok activity suggested the pack was patrolling the northern border of the forest which was ten leagues away. If she was lucky, she would be able to get to the physician in one piece, and Birren's pain could be eased.
Lara made her way around a thick copse of trees at the top of a steep gully. The path dipped sharply among the rocks until it spilled out into a broad clearing bounded by steep walls on three sides. The physician’s hut lay at the far end of the gully, not more than five hundred yards away. Lara dared to hope that everything would be alright and it was at that point that three Ghul stepped out into the gentle light of the orb she carried. Another three came out behind her, and more again on either side of her. Slithering across the verge with rapacious delight, numerous marroks licked their slathering jowls in anticipation of the bloodbath to follow.
The Ghul were a mockery of the living, gaunt figures with skeletal faces and hollow eyes. Their cadaverous visages failed to convey any warmth at all, as if their bodies were bloodless, animated solely by grim determination and a hatred of all other beings. Their smiles were devoid of humour, unless humour was redefined as the delectation derived from routine acts of cruelty and brutality. Although they were neither tall nor physically intimidating, they were multitudinous. Lara knew that the Ghul were impossible to reason with. She could not entreat them to leave her – and her baby – alone. There would be no way she could talk her way out of the situation.
The marroks moved in, the closest ones snapping their jaws to unnerve their quarry. As they bit the air their huge curved teeth clashed together like iron scimitars on a battlefield. Their tails swished in irrepressible excitation, a twisted mimicry of Lara’s own tail which swept back and forth across the damp grass in terror.
'Wait!'
Lara looked up to see the owner of the voice stride into the small pool of light emanating from the ball of light that was still shining from the Moraen’s trembling hands. It was the Ghul commander, the female called Chabriel. In one hand she held a long whip which she cracked over the head of the advancing marroks. The serpentine hounds stopped immediately and silence fell upon the gully. Chabriel’s other hand was stroking the white mane of an albino marrok. This one was larger and older than the others. As it slithered into the light, Lara gasped and clutched her baby even closer to her chest. Lara had seen him before and his appearance in the clearing chilled her to the core.
Bith Brand had been picking flowers in the meadow below. Little Lara had been told to stay on the balcony but was bored and looked down upon her mother in the field with great envy.
Bith sang a sad tune and the long plaintive notes floated up through the leaves and hung upon the branches. Lara closed her eyes and listened to her mother’s song. It was a ballad about a woman whose love had gone across the sea. The woman was heart-broken and was setting off across the water to find the one she had lost. Lara didn’t really understand the song – she had never even seen the sea – but the doleful melody was strangely soothing and the little girl could feel herself getting drowsy as she listened to it. Underneath her lace top, Lara’s birthstone glowed, and the intricate white filigree of her shirt was suffused with a gentle blue light.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar noise sounded, deep and disturbing. It was a bestial growl. Bith stopped singing. Lara poked her little head over the balcony, fearing the worst.
In the meadow below, Bith found herself surrounded by a pack of marroks. A large, white male marrok sniffed menacingly at the air between it and the woman whose scent it had picked up earlier that morning. It grunted ferociously at her, annoyed that it did not taste the fear it expected of prey caught in such a vulnerable position. It slithered forward, its red eyes gleaming in the springtime sun. The rest of the pack circled the pair, breathing heavily in unison, their bared fangs declaring their malicious intent.
Lara hurled herself over the balcony and caught the uppermost rung of the ladder leading down to the ground below. She clambered down the ladder but was stopped by the protective grate that encircled the tree thirty feet from the ground. She pulled at the grate’s iron trap door but her mother had locked it to keep out the very creatures that were surrounding her.
'Mama!' Lara screamed as the circle around her mother grew tighter. If she had known how to count, Lara would have counted twelve hounds snapping and hissing with grotesque glee.
Bith did not answer her daughter. As soon as she heard the declaratory growl of the albino leader of the pack, she had commenced an incantation Lara had never heard before. Bith was one of the strongest, most versatile magick-users among the Pryderi. She specialized in temporal spells, incantations that actually changed the way time flowed. She knew there was only one spell that could stop the onslaught and she had to be quick. She would stop time. When the spell was finished, the marrok would be physically frozen in time and she would be released from the spell at which point she planned to steal up into the security of her tree-house.
Gentle ripples flowed out across the grass and as they touched each hound it seemed to slow down. The albino, only a few feet from her, opened its jaws wide and leapt from the grass, its teeth bared. As it leapt, the laws of physics were turned on their heads. The beast hung for an impossibly long time in the air, slowing down in its arc.
But Bith had miscalculated. Although time slowed down as her spell washed over her attackers, it did not stop. It could not stop until the spell was complete.
The hounds still came. The albino continued to move through the air, its glowing eyes fixed on the Moraen. He could now smell the fear he had sought before. Bith could not abandon the spell half-way through and she realized with terrifying clarity that she would not have time to finish it.
Nearer and nearer the albino came, slower and slower. Its hot breath moved viscously over her face.
The spell was almost done but it was futile. The jaws of another marrok clamped down on Bith’s arm, another on her thigh. Teeth ripped at her back so slowly Bith could feel the cold touch of each tooth being dragged along her spinal column before the epidermis burst. She could feel her blood slowly exploding from her veins, followed by the dreadful, sickening feeling of muscle and sinew being peeled from her bones. From her vantage point on the grate above, Lara screamed as she watched her mother being eaten in slow motion.
The albino gripped Bith’s skull in its huge teeth and closed its jaws. She felt the jagged incisors pressing down on her head, heard her skull cracking under the weight of the beast’s jaws, tasted the blood running from her nostrils as the pressure of the marrok’s bite grew and grew. Seconds unfolded so slowly that what would have been a relatively quick yet savage demise became an interminable agony. Her vision darkened imperceptibly, like a winter’s twilight. All sounds faded to nothing as Death lethargically descended upon her. In her worst dreams, Bith Brand could not have imagined a more painful end to her life. The huge white hound continued to press down on her skull until it burst open like an egg and a glob of thick, incarnadine yolk slowly spilled out. It dribbled down her neck, a glacier of blood and bone.
Suddenly time around the marrok returned to normal. All that was left when the feeding frenzy had finished were her bones and the flowers she had picked for her daughter.
The albino marrok sniffed the air as if trying to place a familiar scent. Its eyes focused upon Lara and a sinister leer spread itself along his long, thin snout. Somehow, across many years, it recognized her scent. Lara's face went pale as a potent mix of hatred and fear fought each other for supremacy of her emotions. She was only five when she witnessed her mother's bloody murder. She had tried to repress the memory but the slaughter in the meadow was so vivid, it had been burnt into the retina of her mind’s eye. Millennia could pass and still Lara would be unable to stop reliving every moment. As she stood before her mother’s killer, rage swelled up in her and as it did so, so too did the light in her hands. It burned brighter with each passing moment, so much so that the Ghul backed away to the edges of the gully. The marroks remained close unperturbed by the glowing orb.
An unequivocal growl of contempt spewed out of the albino’s mouth; it did not fear Pryderi magick. It did not really fear anything. Other marroks joined in a discordant chorus of snarls and grunts.
A little cry sang out from the bundle attached to Lara’s chest and her intensifying anger fell away to be replaced by pure dread. She had brought her child out into the darkness and now stood to pay the price. Birren squirmed in her pouch, unsettled by the strange noises that now surrounded her.
The light in Lara's hands faded, the dim sphere in her palms echoing the hopelessness she felt in her heart. As the golden light fell away, Chabriel stepped forward. 'I believe this hound knows you!' she said plainly.
'It took my mother from me fifteen years ago,' Lara replied, her voice harsh and guttural.
Chabriel showed no surprise. She stared back at Lara with unsympathetic eyes. Her thin lips slowly spread in a smile that lay like a scar across her face. 'How… poetic,' she said mockingly. 'You do know that we will take your child this night, don’t you?'
Lara's hands went to her chest and the ball of light spilled onto the ground where it burst into a puddle of liquid gold. 'Oh mercy no!' Lara pleaded desperately as darkness engulfed them all.
Chabriel stepped forward, now just a vague black shape in the deep dark of the gully. 'Mercy?' her voice taunted from the dark. 'Silly witch. Ghul are not capable of mercy. Do not ask of us that which we cannot give.' The sound of her voice was hollow. It was so empty of life, it was not a voice at all. Just words in the dark.
Lara squeezed her child so closely to her chest, Birren gave a little squeal of pain. The witch sank down to knees in a pusillanimous huddle, imploring the darkness to let her child go free. 'Please leave my baby. I’ll give myself in her place.'
Chabriel was unmoved and responded coldly. 'You know that is not the way of things. Your supplication is wasted. We will take your child. Or your heart the marroks will devour.'
The beasts surrounding Lara howled in response, encouraged by Chabriel's suggestion. Lara by contrast was enervated by the desperate situation into which she had placed her child. She felt weak and nauseous. Her mind raced but it had nowhere to go. She searched for options that weren’t there. In the dark cradle of the gully, there was no-one near who could help. She had no time to cast a spell, nor would she try to – her mother’s death highlighted the inutility of magick. Images of Bith and Birren belted through Lara’s mind. 'No!' she whimpered despairingly.
'Your child is ours,' Chabriel said softly. There was no force behind her voice. The words just existed, like an irrefutable fact that Lara could not accept. The Ghul commander stepped forward, in front of the albino marrok who stood only feet away from the Moraen. Birren, seemingly aware of the danger tried to burrow into the safety of her mother's bosom.
A surge of anger shot through Lara's body and she ripped her baby out of the cloth pouch on her chest. She could feel Birren's feverish body through the blanket in which she had been wrapped. Lara tugged the blanket away and for a brief second clutched her infant daughter's body to her cheek. 'Goodbye!' she whispered and then rose up high upon her tail with such an explosion of movement that both Chabriel and her albino hound jumped back. Lara swung her arms upwards with all her might and hurled her child into the trees high above, hoping beyond all hope that Birren had the strength and instinct to hold onto a branch. The child’s prehensile tail thrashed about in the air as it flew upwards and upon finding a slender branch, whipped around it instinctively. Lara could see her baby's silhouette merge with the dark shadows of the canopy above and when she did not fall, a feeling of intense relief fell upon her like rain.
Chabriel barked an order to the albino marrok at her side. The creature sprang at Lara, its muzzle at her throat. But she did not care. Her child was out of immediate danger.
Lara looked up into the trees and cried, 'Climb!' Her voice was a hoarse invocation to her daughter who just stared down uncomprehendingly into the pool of black below her. Lara had done all she could do. Underneath the heaving torso of the beast that lay on top of her, ready to eviscerate her, Lara reached for the lace thread running through the collar of her tunic. She undid this with a small tug and above her breast the tunic fell away, revealing a ghostly blue light emanating from beneath her skin. 'You want to eat my heart, foul thing, here it is!' she snarled defiantly.
The marrok, unprepared for this, backed up slightly from the Moraen, unsure of the azure light that ebbed from the torso of its prey. In the supernal glow of Lara’s birthstone, the beast sniffed suspiciously at the witch’s body. A thin, mucilaginous stream of saliva dripped from its mouth onto Lara’s bare chest. She did not move. Seeing no sign of danger, the beast nuzzled its snout against Lara's throat, ready to crunch down on it as soon as the order was given. Lara closed her eyes and gave herself up to her fate.
But the order did not come. The fangs remained inches above her skin, rather than under it.
Chabriel knelt down beside Lara and stroked her hair in an intimate gesture, as if oblivious to the innumerable Ghul and marroks that surrounded them in the sable folds of the gully. 'It would take but a moment to kill you, but part of a broader scheme you are,' she said plainly.
Lara opened her eyes and looked towards Chabriel. 'What do you mean?' she said tentatively. Up in the tree above, Birren just hung there, gazing down at the dark shape of her mother pinioned by the white shape of the marrok.
The witch's eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and she could make out her daughter hanging above. She had hoped that fear would drive Birren higher up into the tree, but her bond to her mother tethered the infant to the tree's lower branches. Lara was distraught that Birren had not instinctively sought out the relative security of the canopy but also relieved that her baby was not bringing attention to herself by crying. In an attempt to keep the Ghul's focus off her baby, Lara hissed at Chabriel, 'What scheme am I a part of?'
'Not just you, Lara Brand.' Lara flinched at the Ghul's use of her name. 'All Pryderi are involved.'
Lara looked up, past the marrok at her throat, into Chabriel's gaunt face. She could see Chabriel's eyes now, opaque pools of dead white, staring back emotionlessly. In her mind she screamed, 'Climb Birren! Climb!' but the child just passively hung over the clearing, innocently watching the shadowy proceedings below. 'Involved in what?' Lara sneered. 'What are you doing with our children? Where are they?' Her voice grew in volume as the questions left her mouth. Chabriel had stirred the coals of her rage. 'Tell me!' Lara screamed, her voice echoing down the gully.
If Chabriel was aware of Lara's growing fury, she did not show it. 'That shall you know at another time when invitations are extended!'
'And what does that mean, you corpse bitch?' Lara spat, hysteria rising with every syllable.
Her frustration with the Ghul commander's enigmatic comments went ignored. Chabriel gazed blankly back at Lara and said with cold simplicity, 'Let it be known, Caliban seeks his brother. Remiel Grayson will be found.'
Chabriel stood and turned to leave Lara, but the Moraen would have nothing to do with it. She pushed the snout of the albino marrok out of her face, her incensed mind totally focused upon the Ghul leader. 'What are you talking about, you monster? I don’t know anyone called Remiel Grayson.'
Chabriel paused. She stood perfectly still, contemplating Lara's comment, fingering the whip she held in her hands. She coldly gazed up at the infant hanging from the branch above and then turned back to face Lara. In the faint illumination radiating from the witch's heart, Chabriel smiled. Again Lara was reminded of a thin scar splitting open across pale skin. 'No-one knows him. But he can't stay out of sight forever. Out of hiding, we will draw him,' she said like a mantra and faded into the darkness. 'Caliban will not be denied.'
'And who is Caliban?' Lara yelled, trying to dominate Chabriel's attention. But she was failing. Again the Ghul commander looked up into the dark canopy above where Birren just stared back, her curiousity greater than her fear.
Moments later, Chabriel said three words that made Lara feel as though a Sarras thorn had been thrust into her heart: 'Cut her down!'
What followed next was nightmarish. The albino's snout shot forward and teeth as long as kitchen knives wrapped themselves around Lara's throat. She was slammed back against the ground with incredible force. She lifted her hands to pry the beast from her throat but other marroks had leapt forward and her arms and legs were pinned down by sharp teeth. She could not breathe. The albino's grip on her throat was brutal.
Lara's head started swirling. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of chopping. It seemed far away, muffled, as if heard through a blanket around her head. The albino clamped down harder. Lara was spinning backwards in her skull, hurtling through a monochromatic void, falling away from the distant sound of a small child crying.
It was early morning when Lara was woken. Yellow sunlight tinged the trees above but deep in the gully, all was in shadow. Someone was cradling her, putting strange smelling crystals under her nose. Suddenly all her senses burst into life and she could hear and smell everything around her. Her eyelids shot open to see the concerned face of the very physician she had sought the previous night.
Her gaze shot around the gully floor. All signs of the Ghul and marroks had gone. The only thing left on the grass from the night before was a thin layer of dew. Lara stood up and immediately saw the thing she dreaded most. The tree Birren had clung to had been cut down. The Ghul had abducted her daughter.
