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 vertically against his torso, keeping it out of sight as he waited for his sire to come unto him.
The hulking footfalls slowed as soon as Syn halted, and the breath was so heavy and pronounced, his father sounded as a charging bull.
Syn awaited the approach, the thunderous, earthquaking approach, and he began to breathe as did his sire. When he looked down at his hands gripping the rake’s pole, there was a red wash upon them, and he wondered when he had started bleeding—
No, it was not blood. It was his own eyes glowing as his father’s did.
But he couldnae wonder about this.
As his sire closed the final distance, Syn’s mind worried over when to swing, what angle was required, whether he would be able to lift the weight of the rake that was a feather to his father and a boulder to him. But his body knew the answers and had the power. Even as he wondered the when and how of it all, his arm and torso abruptly coordinated together.
The arc of the swing was too exact for him to believe. And he didn’t know who was more surprised, him or his sire. His father’s jowled face turned and regarded the clawed metal spikes coming at his head as if he didn’t recognize what they were.
Syn had little strength and the rake was heavy. However the teeth and tongs were unforgiving. Before his sire could raise an arm or duck, they scored deeply into his father’s ruddy, angry features, moving across his temple, his cheek, his nose. As the tool came out on the other side, blood flared and spooled in the air.
His father bellowed in pain, his filthy bear paw hands coming up to where he had been scratched so deeply. And then, on the far side, the rake was carried upon its own momentum, swooping down to the ground, landing like a bird of prey, talons gripping the earth as its perch.
Syn yanked against the handle. Pulled with what might he had. Threw his weight back against the abiding hold of the tool.
He looked at his father and froze.
His sire had straightened and dropped his hands. One of his eyes had been pierced and was hanging by some kind of threaded, bloody ligament, the orb upon his cheekbone, the vacated socket dark as a cave. His face was contorted in a mask of horror and vengeance, the mouth with the rotten teeth wide open, the fangs extended fully.
The rake came free from the earth, and as if of its own choosing, flipped in Syn’s grip, the tongs trading places with the blunt end of the handle.
Without thinking of what he was doing, Syn surged forward and thrust the wooden grip’s