Kneeling on the ground,the cold ground, the forest earth...Fingers raw and bleeding..Legs cramped from endless running..Exhaustion like a vise around her chest, and every breath gained a fleeting triumph against its constriction.

Wait he had said, when the hunt was over he decided to spare her life...Just wait...

She tried not to be afraid...This was the Masters land, wasn't it? ..The people here were his...The beast obeyed his will...Even the tentacles of the thorny vines which had torn at her ankles while she fled, the black-barked trees which had blocked her path, the tangled branches overhead which filtered the moonlight so that parctically none of it reached the ground...they were all his creatures, weren't they? And he wouldn't hurt her...He had promised her that. The Master would never, ever hurt her.

"Please come soon," she whispered,clutching the amulet he had given her....Blood from her roughened hands filled in the delicate etched channels, smeared across the black onyx surface...She could feel the forest closing in around herlike a vast living thing with a will of its own, its cold heartbeat throbbing beneath her knees.

He had promised not to hurt her...

She clung to that thought as the cold breeze stirred branches to near her face, as thier sharp tips scratched her skin ever so lightly..She jerked back startled..For there was a rustling inthe bushes all around her,and it took her all her willpower not to struggle to her feet and start running again...Not that she would last long...She hadn't slept for nearly three days now, and her only food had been hard ramberries, an topsit that made her stomach cramp ....Fortunately she had found water on her second day, or she might not have made it this long----

Fortunately?...She laughed bitterly....There was no fortunate in this place,nor any random hope to cling to..The Master had meant to chase her for three nights, therefore she had found enough water to keep going; his Forest had hearded her properly... She couldn't begin to understand it, but she had heard its music...Black music, whirlpooled in his eyes...She shivered, remembering it....She shivered for wanting it so badly, and for fearing that desire.....

The rustling had stopped, she realized suddenly...It seemed to her that it had ended abruptly, or perhaps she was only suddenly aware of it......Trembling, she rose to her feet...Her legs shook and her feet burned in pain, but she managed to straighten up, her hand clenching the amulet so tightly that its edge cut hard into her palm....What new danger was this, that drove the normal denizens of the Forest to silence?

It was a man.....

He steeped from the darkness suddenly, into a thin beam of moonlight allowed her to see him...A ghoust of a man, with ghaustly pale skin and eyes that blazed blood-red in the darkness...His hands were long and thin and his fingernails had been sharpened like claws; his teeth, when he grinned, were long and sharp likewise, as though Nature had stripped them from some predatory beast and set them in his mouth...There was no color about him, not anywhere on his person, and his flesh had a glow that spoke of a chill, unwholesome power....

"Well." His thin lips twisted into a smile, or at least some faccimile..."What have we here?

His presence was like a chill wind that froze her skin as he approached...It took everything she had not to quail in terror before him, not to sink to her knees and beg wildly for mercy, though she sensed there was no mercy in him.....

He came very close, so close that she could feel his breath upon her hair...The red eyes studdied her---all of her----and as he glanced down at her chest with a smile, she realized that the Masters assault had left her half-bare, one breast and a shoulder exposed to the night...Did the white man stare at her in that way because he thought it would frighten her?...Maybe in another time and place it would have...But she could still feel the Masters grip upon her arm; she could still taste the terror of that moment...She could still feel his power, death-born, demanding, and a desire inside herself so terrible, so all consuming,that it was all she could do not to offer herself up in sarifice to his hunger.....What was the mere gaze of one ghostly creature, compared to that?...Clan-born or hired ,he was a servant of the Masters...And the Master had promised that none would hurt her..........

"I need to know the way out," she whispered...Her voice was weak, and hoarse from thirst....."Please."

The ghost-man laughed; it was a cruel sound..."Do I look like a tour guide to you?"...He reached out his hand toward her face, and she forced herself not to back away..Fear hammered in her chest, but fear was what he wanted; she refused to give him the pleasure of seeing her give in to it...

"Such a pretty toy," he mused. The white hand cupped the side of her head, caressing her roughly; where his thumb preesed against her temple there was a searing pain, so sharp that it nearly made her cry out..."Such a shame, to disguard it now."

There was a sudden movement behind her, about her, and she whipped around to see its sourse...Kur, lean and hungry...but not any creatures of Nature....Theses were obscene entities , whose thin legs endded in paws with six claws, they bared two rows of teeth; increadibly strong and ferocios looking, whose eyes glowed redly like the eyes of thier Master, whose fur was as pale as the fur he wore on his person, as the hide made up his boots....It took effort to turn and face the man again; but he was thier Master, that she scenced clearly....Growl they might, paw the ground, but they wouldn't attack her without his approval...

Terror welled up inside her with numbing forse, but with it came fury...Had she run for three nights from the Forest's Demonic Master, feeding him with her blood and her suffering, only to yeild up her hard-earned survival for this ghostly creature's amusement?..."No," ...she whispered. She pushed his hand away from her; her temple burned like fire...."No!" She thrust the amulet into his face, held the bloodied disk inches in front of those cruel red eyes..."He promised me safety. He gave me his word."

There was no fear left in her now , nor room for any to take root...Fury had filled her to overflowing, and brought with it its own dark strength..."Take me out of here," she commanded....The pain in her temple was intense, nearly blinding, but she wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing her react to it. .."or leave me alone untill someoneb comes along who can."

Those Kur behind her growled, and she heard one of them pad closer..She did not turn around...It was impossible to read the ghost-man's expression, or to guess at his intentions....

She felt something hot trickle down from her temple, where he had touched her skin....Was it blood? .....Did he thirst for that, too, like his Master did? ..If so, the bloodied amulet was doubly challenging....She held it higher, demanding that he acknowledge it...

The girl was not afraid now, not at all ... The Master had claimed all the depths of a girl's fear, and no other man---or beast---might inspire such emotions again....

A girl senced, rather than heard, the nearest Kur withdraw...A girl saw something in the white man's expression change...And then he, too, steped back, and caught up the amulet from out of her hand...He was careful not to touch her again, she noticed... Wary of doing any more damage to the Master 's prize?

"Come," he said shortly....He turned from her, and a girl dared to draw in a long, deep breath...Behind a girl the Kur's fell into line; a girl could hear them sniffing at the bloody footprints as a girl began to walk...."Move quickly. It's almost dawn."

Only a little while longer, a girl promised her bruised and battered feet...A girls muscles burned, but she forced them to move....Only a few miles more....A few hours...Then sleep.....

Staggering along as best a girl could, a girl let the ghost-man lead a girl out of the Forest....

Narilka, a story by `F`Lar.........