Chapter One
Rain, Blood, Flight
A mist of rain was falling in the unnamed town, darkening the dank evening. Outlines were blurred, hazy, in the spitting drizzle. Cold fingers of rain painted the world in faceted dewdrops, each beautiful in its icy perfection. No stars shone through the thick bank of clouds swathing the sky, and the only noise was the soft flutter of wings as a sparrow settled her self more deeply in her nest. In this night of mist, a young boy crouched against a mud daubed wall, huddled in the folds of a thin cloak. A large, russet dog lay curled around his side, warming him. A crash from a nearby house rang out eerily in the muffled silence. Both dog and boy jumped up, the cloak falling forgotten at their feet.
"Where is that no good son of donkey! I'll flay 'im alive when I catch the miscreant. Where are you boy?" Slurred with drink, the voice preceded a shabbily dressed man, who stepped woozily out onto the small porch of a grimy whitewashed house. He slammed the door behind him, rattling the windows in their frames. A wasp buzzed angrily around his head, echoing the man's words in a high, peevish voice.
"Son of a donkey! Flay him alive! Where are you boy!" She whined petulantly, "I'll sting him to death my self for making me come out in the rain."
The boy instantly darted into the shadows, the dog at his feet leaping into his arms as a white-and-ginger furred cat. She glared evilly at the man and his daemon, yellow eyes slitted in hate. Hugging her close to his thin chest, the boy slowly edged around the corner of the closest house, hardly daring to breathe.
The inebriated man on the porch struck his fist against the wall in fury. The bottle clasped in his fingers shattered, falling in a muted dazzle of shards. Blood welled from a slash on his hand, dripping poppy red to the floor. Howling in pain and drunken rage, the man clutched his wrist and glared murder at the night. Then he turned and stomped back into the house, his daemon looping circles above his head.
Shaking with barely suppressed sobs of anger, fear, hatred, the boy sank to his knees on the rain-drenched ground. His daemon crawled out of his arms, fox-furred, and licked his hands. Though her voice cracked and shook, she soothed her boy in hushed whispers.
"Easy, easy Grake. It's all right, dear heart, he's gone. Shhh, shhhh, quiet. We're all right. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone, gone." She mumbled these words over and over, rubbing against Grake, licking his hands, his face, whining softly. The boy gathered her upin his arms, buried his head in her russet fur, and wept.
When the racking sobs quieted, he lifted face and wiped his eyes, which were red from crying. "Is he really gone, Kanling? Is he?"
"Yes Grake, he's really gone. And it's time we were gone too." She put her paws on his shoulder, and stared him straight in the eye. "We can't live like this. Skulking in corners, running away at night to avoid a beating. We should leave. Everything's ready."
Grake sniffed miserably. "I know, Kanling, I really do. But-this place," He gestured helplessly. "We used to be happy here. What changed it all? What tore it all apart?"
"Mother left. Father started beating us. You know why, you just don't want to admit it." Kanling squinted menacingly at him, and nipped his ear. "Now, we need to go. We've put it off too long."
"All right." Grake laughed at the stubbornness of his daemon. "Let's go get the cloak back though. We might need it." So the pair scuttled back to the wall where they had huddled just a little while ago. The cloak lay where they had left it, a forlorn dark bundle in the night. Drenched with wet coldness, the material was heavy, and streaked with mud. Grake grimaced at the state of it, but shrugged it on anyway.
Kanling led the way on silent feet, fox eyes piercing the misty gloom about them. They paused only briefly at the edge of the unnamed town, where under a hedge a small bag of salted meat, stale bread, and dried fruit lay upon the soggy ground. They crept into the fields only until they were out of earshot of the village. There Kanling changed into a magnificent black horse, who knelt and let Grake scramble onto her back. With fingers twined tightly in his daemon's mane, the pair galloped into the night, and soon dissolved into the darkness.