Unsleeping Patron - The Velvet Envoy

A thick, wet tearing noise hit the eastern ridge ten minutes after noon a thick, wet tearing noise, followed by a thud that vibrated through the slate beneath Silas’s boots.Silas didn’t call out to Gideon. He kept his head low, crawling up the loose scree behind the shelter walls, his palms grinding flat against the cold gravel. Every shift of his ribs pulled at the dead, rotting knot in his gut, sending a wave of sour nausea up his throat. He spit onto a grey stone and kept climbing.Below the crest, the terrace dropped into a narrow, shadow-drenched gully.Two shadows thrashed in the dust thirty yards out. One was a broad-chested tiger, its coat the dull black of wet coal, its flanks torn open in jagged red ribbons. The other was an antlered stag, its heavy brow-tines curved like iron sickles. They weren’t fighting with the clean, instinctual rhythm of animals on a nature film; it was a desperate, messy slaughter. The tiger’s teeth were buried deep in the stag’s throat, locking its jaw while the stag’s hooves caved in the predator’s ribs with dull, hollow cracks.Silas held his breath, his forehead pressed against the cold shale.The tiger shuddered, its black tail lashing twice before going limp. Blood pooled beneath its jowls, steaming faintly in the thin air.Then the stag moved.It didn’t drop to graze or lick its wounds. A sickening, wet crunch echoed through the gully as the beast’s front legs buckled backward. Joints snapped, popping out of their sockets with the sound of green timber breaking under ice. The long, furry snout collapsed inward, folding into itself while the antlered skull shrank, pale skin tearing through the mat of coarse hair.A green light dull and oily, like light passing through mossy river water wrapped around the thrashing shape.Silas’s fingers dug into the scree. A small pebble slid from beneath his knuckle, clinking twice against the shale before coming to rest.The light dissolved.Standing over the dead tiger was not a beast. It was a girl, slender and sharp-featured, dressed in a loose, emerald-green robe woven from a fabric far too smooth for this barren wasteland. Two dark, velvet-trimmed deer horns curved upward from her forehead, buried in a thick mane of chestnut hair. Her ears were long, pointed, and tipped with tufts of dark fur, twitching at the slightest breeze.She didn’t look at the dead tiger. Her head snapped straight toward the ridge where Silas lay.Her eyes were completely green no whites, no dark pupils, just two pools of polished jade reflecting the dull grey sky.Silas didn’t even have time to pull his knees under his chest.Air rushed into the gully with a sharp whistle. A green blur crossed twenty yards of jagged shale in a single, fluid leap. Before Silas could swing his stone dagger, a hand small, pale, but hard as a blacksmith’s vise clamped around his windpipe and slammed his back into the scree.The air flew out of his lungs in a wet gasp. His head bounced off the slate, sending a shower of red sparks across his vision.The girl crouched over him, her knee planted heavily on his sternum, pressing directly against his decaying internal organs. The pain was so agonizing Silas’s vision blacked out for a full second. He clawed at her wrist, but her skin felt cold and slick, like polished marble.She leaned down, her pointed ears flicking forward. Her nose twitched as she sniffed the collar of his torn jacket, catching the heavy scent of old blood and rot leaking from his skin.Her lip curled back, exposing two sharp, cat-like canines.” Ψɨ ר Ө  ?”The sound that came from her throat was melodic, filled with soft vowels and sharp, clicking consonants that made no sense to Silas’s ears. It sounded like birdsong played backward.Silas choked, his hand feebly kicking at her leg. “Get… off…””Silas!”A heavy boot struck stone at the top of the ridge. Gideon appeared over the crest, his face flushed, his hand holding a heavy, wooden-handled stone club he’d fashioned an hour ago. Behind him, Hester stumbled up the scree, her hands flying to her mouth as she saw Silas pinned beneath the horned girl.The green-robed girl didn’t flinch. Her head turned toward Gideon with terrifying smoothness, her green eyes narrowing.Gideon took one step down the slope, his knuckles white around the wood, but he froze when the girl’s free hand extended two slender fingers. The fingernails weren’t human they were long, curved black talons that hovered half an inch from Silas’s left eyeball.”Don’t move,” Silas choked out, his throat burning beneath her grip. “Don’t… approach…”Gideon’s jaw worked. He looked at the girl’s deer horns, the feline tufts on her ears, and the dead tiger in the gully below. His eyes dropped to the heavy leather pouch slung across his shoulder. Inside, the Relic of Humanity the jade slate began to pulse with a low, warm amber vibration, reacting to her presence.The girl felt it too. She lifted her head, her nostrils flaring as she caught the warm amber light leaking through the seams of Gideon’s pouch.Slowly, without taking her eyes off Gideon, she lifted her weight off Silas’s chest.Silas rolled onto his side, coughing violently, dragging air back into his starved lungs while cold sweat soaked his shirt.She stepped over him, moving toward Gideon with silent, weightless grace. Gideon held his ground, though the muscles along his neck were as tight as bowstrings. He reached into the pouch and pulled the jade slate out just far enough for the amber glow to illuminate the shale between them.The girl stopped two paces away. She tilted her head, inspecting the eleven English names engraved into the stone.”   ,” she murmured softly, the harsh edge vanishing from her voice. She reached out one finger, her black talon hovering near the gold-bound edge of the slate, but she didn’t touch it. ” ǥȥƥ   .”She looked at Gideon, then down at Silas, who was struggling to sit up against the rock face.Her green eyes held no hatred, but no warmth either. It was the look a traveler gave a curious, wild dog on the side of a dirt road.Without another sound, she turned her back on them. She took two steps toward the crest of the ridge, launched herself into the air, and vanished over the rocks, leaving behind only the faint scent of crushed pine and fresh blood.Gideon lowered the slate, his hand trembling so hard the green stone rattled against his belt.Hester rushed down the slope, dropping to her knees beside Silas. “Are you alright? Silas, look at me “Silas pushed her hands away, dragging himself up against the slate. His heart was hammering against his rotting ribs, each beat a dull, sickening thud.”We’re not alone out here,” Silas rasped, staring at the empty ridge where the girl had stood. “And we can’t even tell them to stop.”