For Those Who Dream Monsters Read Online Free Page B

and instinct informed them that it was too late
to give up now – they had to feed or had to die.
    The
horse was wheezing, the blood freezing in its nostrils as it strained through
the snow. Its chestnut coat was matted with sweat whipped up into a dirty foam.
Steam rose off its back like smoke, giving the bizarre impression that the
animal was on fire.
    The
woman shouted at the horse, willing it on, and brought the reins down against
its flanks. She had only been fending for herself for three days – since the
soldiers had tied her husband to a tree, cut off his genitals and sawn him in
half with a blunt saw – but she knew instinctively that without the horse she
and her children would die. If the starving wolves did not kill them, the cold
would. They still had many miles to travel – and they would never make it on
foot. The time had come to resort to the last hope her children had left.
    The
woman pulled on the reins, slowing the horse to a more controlled pace. She
tied the reins to the sleigh, the horse running steadily along the forest path.
She tried not to look at her shaking, crying children, clinging onto each other
as they were thrown around the sleigh – the pitiful sight would break her, and
she must not break. She must not lose the battle to keep her children alive.
    “Good
girls,” she muttered, without looking back, “hold on to your brother.” She stood
up carefully in the speeding sleigh and reached over the side, unfastening the
buckles on the wicker basket attached there. She opened the lid as slowly and
as carefully as the shaking sleigh would allow. The sight that greeted her made
her stomach turn, as fear for her children gave way to shock and panic. She
howled in despair. A sudden jerky movement sent her sprawling back into the
sleigh. She pulled herself up and clawed at the basket again, tearing the whole
thing off in an effort to change the unchangeable.
    “Little
pig!” screamed the woman, her eyes wild and unseeing. The children screamed
too, the madness in their mother’s voice destroying the last remnant of safety
and order in their world. “Little pig!” she screamed. “They took the little
pig!”
    The
woman fell back onto her seat. The horse was slowing. An expectant howl pierced
the darkness behind the sleigh. The woman grabbed the reins and struck at the
horse’s flanks again. The animal snorted and strained onwards, but even in her
panic the woman knew that if she tried to force any more speed out of it, she
would kill it, and all her children with it.
    The
howling and snarling grew closer, forcing the horse’s fear onto a new level. It
reared and tried to bolt, almost overturning the sleigh, but its exhaustion and
the snow prevented its escape from the hungry pack.
    The
wolves were beginning to fan out on either side of the sleigh, still behind it,
but not far off. One of the beasts – a battle-scarred individual with
protruding ribs and cold yellow eyes – broke away from the others and made a
dash for the horse, nipping at its heels. The horse screamed and kicked out,
catching the wolf across the snout and sending it tumbling into the trees. It
pulled itself up in seconds and started back after its companions.
    The
reins almost slipped from the woman’s bleeding, freezing hands. She tightened
her grip, wrapping the reins around her wrists. If only they were closer to her
parents’ village, she could let the wolves have the horse – it was the horse
that they were after. But without the horse they would all freeze in the snow
long before they reached safety.
    The
pack was catching up with the sleigh now; the wolves spilled forward, biting at
the horse. The woman shouted at the wolves, whipped at them and at the horse
with the reins, but there was nothing she could do. She cast a glance at her
daughters: the two little ones pale as sheets, Irena holding onto Vitek as if
he were life itself. And Vitek – her perfect little boy. The woman remembered
her husband’s