The House Of Gaian

whispered. He whipped his horse into a frenzied gallop, leaving Selena and Ashk racing to keep up with him.
    Get away from there, Breanna , Ashk thought as she rode recklessly toward the bridge. Get away from there !
    Breanna felt her gorge rise as she reached the bank and looked down. Fear hammered in her chest, in her head.
    Not a piece of red cloth. Part of a bloody arm. The small man had been ripped apart before the remains had been flung up on the bank, abandoned.
    She saw other things now. Mangled bodies of water sprites caught among the stones. Blood still dripping over the stones into the water.
    “Who are you?” Keely asked again, her voice now holding a touch of fear.
    Blood still dripping over the stones. Breanna shivered.
    Pebble on stone.
    She whipped her head toward the sound so fast, she felt a muscle pull in her neck.

    The water sprite clung to the rocks, her side nothing more than ripped flesh and broken bones. “Run, Breanna,” she whispered. “Moonlight. Circle. Can’t... touch ... circle. Run.”
    The sprite stared at her with dying eyes as Breanna backed away from the water. Fresh blood. Fresh death. “Keely?” She turned to look for her mother, the woman who had remained a child. She saw Keely’s head and shoulders above the rose bushes. “Keely?”
    “W-what are you?” Keely took a step back.
    “Keely! Get away from there!” Breanna ran toward the rose bushes. The circle would protect them. She could warn Liam that there was danger here before he got too close. But first...
    She heard Liam shouting at her, but she didn’t stop, just ran.
    Keely spun around, stumbled, and grabbed the rose bushes to keep from falling, screaming in pain and terror.
    Breanna rounded the end of the crescent and stopped, too frozen to do more than stare.
    They were big. Much bigger than the ones that had attacked her and Liam a few weeks ago. And ...
    different. Not wings, but flaps of skin that stretched from hips to front limbs, like the squirrels that could glide from tree to tree.
    As she watched, unable to move, one of the creatures sank its sharp, jagged teeth into Keely’s leg, ripping off a chunk of her calf and gulping it down while another slashed at the other thigh with teeth and talons. When a third scrambled up Keely’s back and sank its teeth into the flesh that joined shoulder and neck, her scream raked through Breanna.
    “ Keely !” She took a step forward, unable to think past the fear and yet certain she needed to do something .
    Until the fourth creature turned and stared at her—and her courage shattered.
    It had a long, deep gash down one limb, as if it had been slashed with a sharp stone. Tears still glistened on its dark, leathery face. Snot still bubbled from its nostrils. It let out one whimpering cry as it held up its arms to her—and then snarled and leaped.
    And Keely’s screams of terror turned into a shriek of rage as she let go of the rose bushes and grabbed one of the creature’s legs. “Not my girl. You can’t have my girl ! EARTH!”
    The ground around Keely moved, shifted, churned. She sank into the earth so fast there was no time for the creatures attached to her to escape.
    Breanna watched Keely disappear. Watched her mother’s hand convulse around the leg it held, pulling the last creature down with her until it was buried up to its waist. It screamed, clawing at the ground as it fought to free itself. She watched, too numb to move, until an arrow whistled past her and buried itself in the creature’s chest.
    Silence.
    Keely.
    She wanted to scream to break the silence, to beg Keely to come back. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
     
    “Liam, get Breanna away from here. Get her away now .” She recognized Selena’s voice, but it was just a sound.
    She knew Liam picked her up. She knew he got her on his horse somehow and they were galloping to her house. But she was too far away to feel him, too far away to feel anything. Even the wind.
    “Mother’s mercy,” Ashk said, her voice rough with pain and pity. “That bastard turned children into nighthunters.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “He turned them into nighthunters.”
    “Could they still be alive down there?”
    There was something cutting about Selena’s voice—and there was something odd about that cutting tone.
    “They’re buried in the earth,” Ashk said. “Buried alive.”
    “But they might be able to survive longer than her?”
    What difference does it make ?