Chapter 19, Demon
The pain echoed around inside Shadowflight's head. Her body wanted to stop, to give up, but it didn't. She had been hit before by the treacherous quills, but never had it been this bad. She felt like leaving, running backward, falling over the edge of the flat land and into the golden fire. Her eyes hurt and so did everywhere. Her tail, her leg, her belly…
She opened her eyes. The one eye that was blind had a quill deep inside it. She looked around, her flank was a forest of quills, and her leg was even denser with them. Her whole back…
She rolled in the snow, trying to make the swelling, blooming, billowing pain stop. She clamped her teeth on the quills that she could reach and wrenched them out.
She got most of them, and blood dribbled out of every gash. She staggered to her feet, and looked around for Demon. He was a few feet away.
"MOVE!" he screamed. His soft yellow eyes were bright red.
"You…" Shadowflight rasped, "You're not doing this because you're jealous of me and Rockpool are you? This is…different."
"That's right," the porcupine said hoarsely, "I could care less about your stupid affairs. Love! I have only one in my life."
He leaped toward her, and pushed her down by the chest with one paw and held her there. "You…" he whispered, "I love you…But never…never…you won't want to cross with me. I will cross! Come with me, Shadowflight. There are creatures there…they would see us…please, Shadowflight."
"I won't! I belong in the Clan. I have a place!"
"No you don't!" Shadowflight felt his black claws dig into her chest, and she tried hard not to wince. "You don't have a place, Shadowflight. You are unwanted there! Fights, that's all that Clan life is. It's stupid! Worthless! Go somewhere where you would be prized!"
"No!" Shadowflight struggled under his grip. "You saved me…from the Twoleg traps…I thought of you as wonderful. But this…" she looked at Nightwind, still suspended in the green light, the golden fire and the path.
"I have friends," she rasped, "That I couldn't leave."
"WRONG!" he shrieked, "You think you have friends," his voice shook with emotion, "But you don't need them. You're a loner. I don't see you trying to bring that poor Rockpool to consciousness. You're not trying to figure out how to get Nightwind out of the light, or rushing down the mountain to find Skyfeather and Leafcloud. It's only me that is with you now!"
He sprung away from her, and raced over to the path.
Shadowflight was after him, she fastened her teeth onto his thick tail, and clawed his quills downward.
He whirled around. "Don't stop me!" he shrieked. He scored his claws into her chest, and butted her with his tail.
She grabbed some of his quills in her mouth and yanked them out, leaving a place of fuzzy fur. She raked her claws into it, and dark red blood dribbled down his quills. Never before had he bled like that. Nobody could get through his quills.
He turned around, and grabbed her shoulder in his strong teeth, and shook her. Shadowflight thrashed and scored her claws into his nose. He dropped her.
He turned around, and then was running, running quickly, past Nightwind, and over to the path. Shadowflight raced after him, but he was on the path, and he kept running, until he vanished from sight.
But burned into the once clean path were his paw prints, deep black places, so perfect. She saw his claws and the place where his pads fit…
She sat down, the snow was blowing hard now, and there was wind. But she could still see the path and the place where Demon's paws had burned their print into it. And the fire was still burning, but it had gone harder when Demon went over it, and now it was back to normal, but still burning, still burning…