Christian was too afraid to pause and consider how badly he might’ve been hurt. He looked up the hill and saw the faun glaring down at him from fifty feet away. Or at least that’s what he thought he saw. It might’ve been a gaunt and hunched tree, or a rock. He was mad with fear. He sprang to his feet and ran limping on, breath whining. His left side throbbed with pain, and he had twisted his ankle coming down the hill. He’d lost his sketch pad somewhere.

The lanky boy followed the path downstream. It was a wide river, as wide as a four-lane highway but, at a glance, not terribly deep. The water rushed and foamed over a bed of rock, spilling into dark basins before hurrying on. In the blind their shared body heat had created a certain stuffy warmth, but down by the river it was cold enough for Christian to see his own breath.

A horn sounded somewhere far off, a hunting horn of some sort, a long, bellowing cry. He cast a wild look back and staggered. Torches burned in the almost-night, a dozen distant blue flames flickering along the mazy staircases that climbed the hills. It came to Christian there might be dozens of parties of fauns in the hills, hunting the men. Hunting him.

He ran on.

A hundred yards along, his right foot struck a stone, and he went down on hands and knees.

For a while he remained on all fours, gasping. Then, with a start of surprise, he saw a fox on the far side of the water, watching him with avid, humorous eyes. They gazed at each other for the length of time it took to draw a breath. Then the fox bayed at the night.

“Man!” the fox cried. “Man is here! A Son of Cain! Slay him! Come and slay him and I will lap his blood!”

Christian sobbed and scrambled away. He ran until he was dizzy and seeing lights, the world throbbing and fading, throbbing and fading. He slowed, his legs shaking, and then shouted in alarm. The light he’d been seeing at the edge of his vision, a wavering blue glow, was a torch. A man stood on the hill, a black shape against a blacker background. He held the torch in his right hand. In his left was a gun.

Christian acted without thought. Because the man was on his right, Christian swerved to the left and crashed into the river. It was deeper than it looked. In three lunging steps, he was up to his knees. In moments he had lost all sensation in his feet.