Shadows and Light

completely covered by nighthunters, tossed its great head, catching two nighthunters on the tines of its antlers as it tried to dislodge the creatures closest to its eyes and throat. It went down, rolling to crush some of the nighthunters under its weight. Got back up on its feet and kept struggling, fighting.
    The shadow hound reached Evan. He yelped when her teeth sank into his shoulder, nipping flesh along with the shirt and coat. She pulled him back a few feet, away from the nighthunters still flying around trying to get a piece of the stag who kept pivoting, kept swinging its head, using the antlers as a many-pronged knife. Then the shadow hound changed back to her human form and pulled the large hunting knife out of the sheath in her boot.
    There was nothing Morag could do for Ashk and the boy, but there was something she could do for Owen. Pulling an arrow from the quiver, she ran toward him. Sensing the moment when his body gratefully yielded to Death’s caress, she gathered his spirit and pulled it away from the dead flesh before the nighthunters could begin to feast on it.
    Narrowing the focus of her gift, she released it straight at the dead body. The nighthunters rose up, squeaking—and headed right for her.
    They were bigger, stronger. Twice the size of others she’d seen. Mother’s mercy!
    She released her power again.
    Two nighthunters veered off, flying erratically for the shadows of the woods. The others fell to the ground, squeaking and flopping around.
    Not much time, Morag thought as she ran toward them. She drove the arrow through the body of the first one she came to, pinning it to the ground. Pulling out another arrow, she drove it into the next body, jumping back when it tried to lunge and sink its sharp teeth into her foot. Again and again, she drove an arrow through a black, winged body until all those nighthunters were pinned to the ground.
    Glancing at the woods, she quickly moved away from the trees. The nighthunters didn’t like daylight, but if prey was close enough, they’d dart out of the shadows to feast.
    She turned toward Ashk, not sure what she could do—and saw the remaining nighthunters abandon their prey and fly back toward the safety of the trees; saw the stag stumble for a couple of steps before it bounded away, blood flowing from wounds that were already turning dark and rotten; saw Ashk, her face stark with a kind of brutal beauty, splattered with gore from the nighthunters that had come within reach of her knife, standing over her son; and, with some surprise, saw Neall, mounted bareback on Shadow, releasing an arrow and bringing down another nighthunter before it reached the trees.
    The ground was littered with the creatures’ bodies—and there were still more of them hiding in the shadows.
    Neall swung a leg over Shadow’s neck and slid to the ground, an arrow nocked in his bow, his eyes still watching the trees as he sidestepped over to where Ashk stood.
    Her legs trembling, Morag walked over to join them.
    “Caitlin?” she asked, looking at Neall.
    “She’s fine,” Neall said. “I was bringing the horses in closer to the stables when I saw her. After she told me where Evan was, I sent her to the cottage. Ari will look after her.”
    “Mother?” Evan said, pushing himself up until he was sitting. His face pinched up with an effort not to cry.
    Tears spilled over anyway. “Mother, I’m sorry.”
    Ashk stared at nothing, said nothing.
    “What happened?” Neall asked, his tone sharp. “Why were you out riding on your own?”
    “I—I wanted to get a couple of things from the manor house,” Evan stammered. “It was daylight, and the Black Coats were gone, so I— We weren’t going far, and we’ve gone by ourselves lots of times before.
    But Caitlin asked if she could ride my horse, and I said she could ride it a little, so we stopped here, just for a minute. But the horse kept acting strange once Caitlin got on his back. Kept trying to pull away and head for your cottage. Then Owen said he thought he saw something in the trees. Told me to hold his horse while he went to take a look. He didn’t go very far into the trees before he screamed and ran out and those ... things ... were on him. And the horse ran away with Caitlin, and I couldn’t hold the other two and Owen was on the ground with those things all over him, and I tried to run but I turned my ankle and fell and ... Mother, I’m sorry.”
    “It wasn’t your fault,” Ashk said in an