Now Kataryna took in the surroundings. The forest was wild here, on the banks of the great river, a complicated wall of brambles, creeping vines and great spiny plants. Through these the Grimalkyn flowed, seemingly immune to the sharp spines. With a resigned sigh, Kataryna pushed through after him, thorns clawing even through her fur. Blood trickled down her arm splashing to the ground. A skittering reached her ears and she glanced down just in time to see some small, deformed bug crouching over the blood droplets and lapping them up. With a shudder she pushed ever onwards…

The brambles changed, sharp spires of rock scraping across her skin and digging into her bare feet. She stood in a stone forest, rock monoliths surrounding her, their faces carved with strange and arcane ruins.

For a moment she faltered, and found the Grimalkyn beside her once more.

"Do not linger," he coaxed, "to linger is to be lost." He flicked his long tail, flowing sinuously onwards.

"Easy for you to say," Kataryna muttered, scrambling after him over rock falls and through gullies. Her legs ached, her arms throbbed with cuts and bruises and she was beginning to feel a shadow of the blood loss weakness once more. Her step faltered and she leaned heavily against a rock, blinking to clear the haze from her eyes.

"Almost there," the Grimalkyn urged, "never fear."

Kataryna drew a long and lingering breath. A grey haze had settled over the stone forest, sinking down between the rocks and the sickly, cloying stench of blood reached her senses. She shuddered - the mist was brown tinted and seemed to be seething.

"Grim… What is it?" she whispered, hesitantly but urgently. The mist was coalescing and it may have been her imagination, but she could see what dimly looked like faces - human and Furrae, forming in its substance. She shivered as it settled.

"It is Cerberus," was all he would say, his ears drooping in disconcertment and he darted away, a pink and blue lightning bolt of fur.

Her legs throbbing, Kataryna forced them into motion, pain erupting down her side as cramps took hold. Behind her the mist settled and began to take form. Three sets of slavering jaws, composed of many faces, lunged at her. Such a sight was enough to lend wings to her feet and she ran as she never had before.

Behind her the shadow-dog took chase, oozing across the ground as horrified faces screamed and twisted hungrily from its midst.

The ground was slick with moisture, mud allowing little purchase and the blood pounded in her ears. She knew not where she ran merely that it was away, away from this monstrosity. For an instance she had to slow to navigate a particularly awkward outcrop in the stone forest and she felt it gain on her. Its wretched, vile scent filled the air, engulfing her senses and nausea rose within her. A cold chill swept over her, a bone deep cold that bit straight to the core.

She glanced over her shoulder, very quickly wishing she had not. Mere feet from her the great dog head leered, huge jaws open, long, sharp dark teeth bared and a face stared at her from the tip of its huge slavering tongue. Its breath reeked of decay and death and other horrors.

Her foot caught against a ridge of rock and Kataryna stumbled, tumbling in a flurry of fur and feathers. Something cold beyond measure brushed against her and she realised, with horror, that the blood-mist horror was licking her. In vain she tried to crawl away, but her wings were too heavy, too great a burden to bear. The huge jaws, dripping shadowy goblets of saliva, closed about her.

She was falling, plunged into a sea of guilt. She had betrayed him, abandoned him selfishly, taken her life away without even telling him why. No note, no nothing, just her. Dead. No better then any of them. She could see them now, the shadowy wisps that made up the mist, mere shades of what they once were, reaching for her.

"Come join us, Kataryna," they called in silent voices. "Come be one with us. Here there is no pain, no guilt, no fear. Nothing but the Hunt."

Their fingers were like skeletal whispers, brushing gently against her skin and their faces… their faces were like masks, eyes that did not blink, expressions that did not change.

And they looked hungry.

She could feel the hunger in them, feel it consume her. Found herself slipping away, to be drawing down into a world where everything seemed so simple, so clear-cut…

"Come feel the Hunger with us Kataryna, come…."

She could feel her Self flowing amongst them, becoming one with the shadows and the darkness and the Hunger, the all-consuming Hunger. Their touches were gentle and beautiful caresses.

"Yes," she whispered, "yes!"

And they were right, there was no pain, no guilt - the emotions fleeted away as though they had never been. There was nothing but the Hunger, seething inside her. The Hunger, but not for food.

…For the Hunt.

A quiver of anticipation passed through the beast of amalgamated spirits. And a whisper began to rise amongst them.

"Preeeey, preeeey…" The words rose in volume and tempo, until they became the baying of a dog. And then, the great amalgamated beast began to move.

It was weird for Kataryna, a part of the greater being, but still holding onto at least a fragment of her conscious mind. She felt herself being drawn into the Hunt, felt the bloodsong sing in her veins - veins that would never willing hurt a flea. The beast surged and the souls trapped within moved with it, pushing against her so that she must join in the chase.

The great shadowy hound flowed through the rocks, and Kataryna caught a fleeting glimpse of their quarry - a small blue and pink shape, leaping and darting through the rocks, pausing every so often to glance back at its pursuer.

"Run Grimalkyn," she whispered, "I am lost," but just as quickly the bloodlust took over and her face distorted into a horrific grimace.

Oh but how they would make him run!

The thrill was not in the kill, but the chase.

The shadow-hound flowed over and around the rocks, the Grimalkyn remaining just far enough ahead. Kataryna, already quite near the front, managed to wiggle herself forward so that she took the position beneath the beast's chin. Here the bloodlust really took hold.

The Grimalkyn darted, mere feet from the great shadowy jaws. As one, the souls that made up the dog's chin lunged, fingers clawing in an attempt to grasp him. Her fingers very lightly brushed against the fur of his long, bushy tail and then he was gone, slipping through them as easily as moss.

"

Prey, prey!

And there stood the Grimalkyn.

Only he was not the Grimalkyn that Kataryna had seen before. He appeared to have grown to many times his normal size, so that he now stood at least eight foot tall. His pink and lavender fur bristled and his eyes shone like twin suns.

"Release her," he commanded, and his voice, whilst still having that sing-song quality, was now a deep, booming roar.

The shadow dog paused.

"She is mine now," the words came from a thousand voices, all in unison and Kataryna was shocked to hear her own voice amongst the cacophony.

"No," boomed the Grimalkyn and his eyes flared blue. "She is not." He was speaking in a rather direct manner for him. "She shall never be yours." His tail flicked angrily, restlessly.

The dog growled and snapped and Kataryna found her fingers reaching out to clasp him. He was mere inches away, how easy it would be to drag him in and have the great shadowy jaws consume him.

He did not give her the chance, his long fingers grasping her outstretched hand. His touch was cool and slightly clammy and firm, extremely firm. Kataryna felt him begin to pull, to try and tug her free. She resisted, wanting to remain here in unity, here where everything was so simple. Shadowy hands closed about her, holding her securely in place. The Grimalkyn braced his feet against the ground, tail thrashing angrily and tugged with what she imagined was all his weight. She could feel herself sliding one way and at the same moment being drawn back the other, stretching, being drawn in twain.

"No!" She screeched, the words sounding very harsh to her. Her wings spread slightly and unknown to her, the feathers emanated a glowing white light. The shadowy hands released her, and she tumbled free, bowling the Grimalkyn over. The two of them tumbled, silver and pink, white and blue, down the rocky slope.

Dazed, confused and dripping shadows from her extremities, Kataryna picked herself up. The Grimalkyn had returned to normal size now.

"Nearly there," he repeated, bounding ahead, "dark shadows have gone to cower in fear."

"That thing is frightened of me?" She asked, brushing clinging clumps of shadow from her clothing. "Why?"

"You are the one that walks the line," he replied, "you should bow to none. The power inside of you is more then you can know."

She frowned, "that sounds almost like a line from a song. Something by Aeternity?"

The Grimalkyn answered that with nothing more then a glance and then was gone again, leaping and darting down the remainder of the slope. She ran after him. "How did you do that? Grow huge and all?"

He skidded to a halt and rewarded her with a disparaging glare. "I am the Grimalkyn," he replied, as if that explained it all. Possibly it did, Kataryna reflected, her knowledge on such beasts of the imagination was scant to say the least.

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