The Pillars Of The World

asked for her help were more afraid of having their spirits devoured before another of Death’s Servants passed by than they were of giving up life prematurely.
    So she had gathered them gently and taken them to the Shadowed Veil so that they could pass through and reach the Summerland beyond.
    Even for the Gatherer, death had become too constant a companion.
    As soon as they reached the stream, the mares hurried forward to drink their fill. Then the sun stallion took his turn, drinking quickly while the dark horse stood watch.
    Morag untied her canteen from the saddle and dismounted. “Go on, drink,” she told the dark horse. She watched the trees for any movement. The sun stallion guarded the mares.
    When the dark horse finished, she filled her canteen and drank, gulping down the water, which had a slightly bitter taste. Another sign of the nighthunters’ presence—or the loss of magic in the land.
    As she bent down to refill the canteen, the sun stallion reared, screaming, and struck a mare’s flank with his hoof.
    As the mare bolted toward the field, a small black body fell off her flank. The nighthunter spread its wings and leaped toward the sun stallion, trying to sink its needle-sharp teeth into the sole of the upraised hoof.
    The sun stallion twisted its body. The nighthunter’s teeth scraped the side of the hoof. Before it could attack again, the dark horse lashed out, knocking it to the ground. His hoof came down, pulping the body.
    Then came the awful sound of nighthunter wings in flight.
    “Run!” Morag yelled. The horses had to be away from here before she made her own kind of strike. The mares obeyed instantly, running for the field. The stallions moved to either side of her, prepared to fight.

    Frustrated and scared, she swung her canteen by its straps, hitting the sun stallion’s rump. He whirled, ears flat, teeth bared.
    She swung the canteen again, hitting one of the nighthunters before it could reach the dark horse’s neck. “
    Run so I can fight!”
    That they understood. The horses ran, and, for a moment, she was alone, feeling as defenseless as any other creature against those spawns of twisted magic.
    Then she gathered her power and released it in a short burst, hoping the horses were far enough away not to be touched by it. The nighthunters fell all around her, stunned. But they wouldn’t stay stunned for long.
    Morag ran.
    The other horses had fled the length of the field and were gathered by the road. The dark horse, however, danced nervously a few yards away from the woods.
    “You stayed too close,” Morag said angrily.
    The dark horse snorted, offered his left side.
    Morag barely had time to get both feet in the stirrups before he turned and galloped across the field to join the others.
    Her power couldn’t kill the nighthunters. She’d learned that the night the mare was attacked. They were bodies without spirit, and there was nothing for her to gather. But her power could leave them flopping on the ground for a few minutes. They weren’t completely helpless—they could still bite and scratch—
    but they could then be killed by mundane methods.
    When they reached the other horses. Morag dismounted and sank to her knees, shaking. Her skin crawled while she raked her fingers through her hair, almost expecting to dislodge a nighthunter from the tangles. After a minute or so, she got to her feet and examined the horses. One mare’s flank was bleeding a little where the sun stallion’s hoof had struck her, but none of the others had been injured. The sun stallion’s hoof, where the nighthunter’s teeth had scraped it, wasn’t really damaged. Still, she poured the water she had left in the canteen over the stallion’s hoof and the mare’s flank to clean them as best she could.
    She glanced at the woods. The nighthunters would be revived by now and were no doubt flying through the woods to reach the trees closest to this part of the field. But it was still daylight, and there was enough open ground between the trees and where she stood. The nighthunters kept to the woods and the shadows within it. They wouldn’t cross this much open ground in daylight. However, once the sun set ...
    She would have been willing to stay a little longer to give the horses a chance to graze, but, although they sniffed at the grass in the field, none of them ate.
    “Let’s go,” she said, moving toward the dark horse. “We’ll find someplace else to rest.”
    Death whispered.
    Morag