Felltree Marsh red duck

last from me!

she fled.

run and run! you never escape saatsine! you never escape cen!

sobeille ran to salvage her life. she ran to save yura, to make sense of all that just occurred. her heart pounded a harder staccato than her galloping feet; a blessing then that her ribs were constructed so rigidly, else her heart might have shorn clean from bone then and there!

later, after careful doubling of tracks had her leaning against a felled oak in exhaustion, sobeille would put aside the mindless urgency of survival and allow thoughts to once more creep within her mind. foremost, she'd think of sivaak -- blood-drinker. caribou-killer. and now a new epithet, drawn from the betrayal of her own coven.

judas.

sobeille sank to the ground and felt her blood thrum weakly within her. now she thought of black scar; his name spinning clean as glacial water over stone in her mind.

cen.

over and over until her thoughts invariably turned again, this time to the witch in the cave. the haggard skull brandished around her thin neck.

cen and judas and the witch; each face cycling in and out of mind until at last a survivor's tormented sleep subsumed here.