tips of his stained fangs descended, and his body lowered into an attack stance.
Syn moved without thinking. He burst forth and bit the back of his sire’s hand, the one that had previously held his front teeth within its flesh. As his molars found home, his father’s roar was so loud, it rebounded through the trees, and Syn prayed unto the Scribe Virgin that the female and her brother heard it and ran for safety.
There was no waiting round to see if his entreaty unto the higher power was granted.
His sire turned upon him with a vengeance that was madness and aggression combined. And Syn made sure that he stayed within range of the punishing blow that came down with the swiftness of a hawk upon a lemming. At the moment before impact upon his face, he ducked and scampered back. His sire took the bait, lurching forth, swinging again, stumbling, for he was as yet in his mead though he had stopped his imbibing long before.
Syn kicked his father in the shin and went further back. Then he took an off-kilter punch to the side of the head and went another step back.
He knew he had provided a sufficiency of challenge and affront when an unholy red light, emanating from his father’s eyes, bathed him in the color of coming death.
It was then that Syn ran.
And he ran fast, but not too fast.
He had no idea where he was going. He knew only that he had to draw the monster away from that family if it was the last thing he did. And indeed, it would be. He was going to die in this, but hopefully the female and her kin would take heed of his broken body and protect themselves—and mayhap this was the best solution for all. He would be over, and that young female would be, if not safe, then safer, for surely Syn’s sire would be cast out of the village by the elders?
Another thing to pray for, not that he had time to entreat the Virgin Scribe once more.
With the red light of his father’s violence streaming behind him, the forest was lit in a murderous manner, the trees and brush, the trail that Syn found himself upon, the deer that were flushed from their stands, illuminated in the fashion of the blood that would soon be shed.
Syn’s thin legs pumped as fast as they could, and the only thing that allowed him to keep the lead was his father’s prodigious weight. Verily, the hoarse breathing, the huffing and puffing, was like a dragon that labored upon the ground in a canter when it should have taken unto the air. His sire did not have that skyward option, thank Fates.
The clearing arrived without preamble, the forest’s arboreal obstacles of trunk and bramble ending with sharp delineation, and for a moment Syn couldnae fathom where he had taken the chase—except then he recognized the landscape. ’Twas the start of his father’s verdant fields, the ones he rented out to the farmers for their horses, cattle, goats, and sheep to graze and take of the river water.
Up ahead, here was a post-and-beam construction, open on all sides, for the animals to find shelter under, and Syn headed there, hoping for some kind of protection from the attack. As he closed in, he noticed a stand of hay rakes propped up against one of the roof supports, and the strangest thing happened. His palms tingled and his body flushed in a manner not related to exertion or fear. Within his mind, he knew with abrupt clarity what he would do with the potential weapons and the precision of his plan shocked him—although not because of its violence. It was because the images held such certainty that it was as if the actions he would take had in fact already been taken.
Mayhap he could survive this.
Allowing his instincts to guide him, he gave himself up to a deadly purpose, relinquishing control to this unfamiliar underbelly of his consciousness. The effect of submission was otherworldly. Within his mind, he receded until he became separate from his body, an observer witnessing himself from off to the side rather than looking out from behind his own eyes.
It all flowed like water.
Adding speed to his spindly legs, he put some distance between him and his approaching sire, coming upon the meadowing tools with promptness. His small palms found the well-worn, sweat-stained handle of one of the rakes and he set the length