The hunter listens with mounting suspicion to the words of the ill mare. They have a strange and bitter bite to them; even one as used to insanity as Manhattan finds them frighteningly caustic. The mutt, loyally protective, lets her hackles lift and her blunt claws embed themselves into the ground. For once, she fears, it is her master that will be too gentle in the face of a threat. Knox himself senses what is to come- eight minds working together in perfect synchronicity have proved themselves skilled at prediction. Perhaps it is the depth and wealth of their knowledge that together they possess, perhaps the species has simply devolved into a set of repeating patterns.
For whatever the reason, Knox prepares himself for the fight. He steps backwards with delicate force and plants himself firmly in the shore mud. He pulls his nose to his neck and paws the earth in anticipation.
Even when the mare strikes the air where he once stood, he makes no move against her. It is Manhattan who leaps from her place; Manhattan who lunges forth and hopes to seize the mare's tender flesh with her poison-edge jaws. Should she success, the effects will be immediate: a numbing of all senses, a loss of control over one's body and will until, perhaps, the weakness pulls them back to the earth from whence they came. Knox himself is transfixed. He remains unable to respond to the incident fully- stays still shocked by the swiftness with which Manhattan came unnecessarily to his aid.
But is it he who needs help, or this mare? Possessed and in a fit of insanity, the stranger reminds him of himself. Is there not something to connect to within her, then, troubled as she may be?
You must be the only one, greedy Zekiah thinks for him.
She is no more than a toy for you,Dovev assures.
Yuh must help hur, corrects the Sentinel.
You must save her, adds the noble Huric.
Death is all that can save her now.
Somehow, for some reason that he cannot describe, Knox knows that the first and oldest of them all is right. He knows this as he pitches back and rears to split the stale marsh air. He knows this as he speaks, softly to himself,
"Farewell, lost one." He understands completely as his figure lurches forward and his wildly churning legs aim to strike the skull.
He knows he is doing right. For if he is not, the guilt will crush his soul.
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