Nightpeople by Anthony Eaton

take it easy, girl.’ The man’s voice was soft and surprisingly high. Despite his warning, Saria continued to struggle, until he lost patience and tugged the leash so hard she was pulled completely off her feet and fell forwards onto the dirt.
    She rolled and tried to rise, but the man crouched and pinned her to the ground by planting one boney knee in the middle of her chest.
    â€˜You gotta name?’
    When she didn’t answer, his eyes narrowed.
    â€˜You answer when I ask you a question, girl. What’s your name, eh?’ The knee dug more sharply into her, driving air from her lungs.
    â€˜Saria.’
    She tried to say it defiantly, but even to her own ears she sounded scared.
    The man nodded. His sharpened smile returned.
    â€˜Saria. So that’s what they called you. I always thought Dreamer Wanji had you stashed out there somewhere.’
    Abruptly he stood, releasing his weight.
    â€˜Get up!’
    He tugged the thong viciously, pulling her back to her feet.
    â€˜You don’t make trouble and we’ll have no problems, eh?’ The old man grinned again. The skin across his face was stretched and Saria could make out the bones of his cheeks and jaws. His eyes were sunk in hollows so deep they were thrown into pools of shadow, adding to the skeletal effect.
    Back on her feet, Saria was able to look around. They stood in the shade of a couple of ragged shrubs. The remains of a fire smouldered in a stone circle nearby, and various bundles were strewn on the dirt around it. Off to one side the bodies of six or seven creatures which looked like large rock-hoppers lay in a bloody pile.
    All of this she took in in a second, but what grabbed her attention most were the others. Standing in a rough circle around them was a group of perhaps ten people, men and women. All appeared old, like Dreamer Gaardi or perhaps older, and all watched her silently with expressions that betrayed nothing.
    â€˜What’re you doin’ out here, eh? All on your own in the middle of the Darklands?’
    â€˜I was going to Woormra.’ Distracted by the implacable stares of the group, she answered without thinking.
    â€˜Woormra?’ The pale man nodded. ‘Figures. And I don’t imagine you’d be walkin’ on your own, so who’s takin’ you there?’
    Saria hesitated a moment too long before replying. ‘Nobody.’
    The old man’s hand flew like a snake striking, delivering a stinging blow across her face before she had time to dodge.
    â€˜Don’t try me, girl. I can do a lot worse things to you than that. Now, who?’
    Saria tried to glare at her attacker, but before the pale stare of the old man her eyes fell to her feet.
    â€˜Dariand.’
    â€˜The nightwalker. Of course Dreamer Wanji’d send him. Where is he?’
    Saria thought furiously, recalling Dariand’s comment from a couple of nights earlier: If you’re lucky, you’ll collapse from hunger or thirst, or you’ll get bitten by a snake. If you’re unlucky, someone else will find you before I do.
    â€˜I don’t know. I got separated from him in the dark, and was wandering for a couple of days.’
    The man grabbed her by the chin, his bony fingers digging into the soft skin of her cheeks.
    â€˜Don’t lie, girl.’ The eyes were mesmerising; they seemed to grow and glow and Saria felt herself sinking into them. ‘You ent been out here more than a day, or you’d be nothing more than a burnt-up stick. So where’d you run off from that nightwalker?’
    It took everything Saria had in her not to drop her eyes, and every last scrap of control she could muster to think of an answer. She wouldn’t tell them the truth – that much she knew. She wouldn’t tell them about the soak. Instinctively she knew that her only hope now was for Dariand to rescue her, and the further away these people thought he was, the greater his chances of catching