Within my breast there is no light

     But the cold light of stars;

  I give the first watch of the night

        to the red planet Mars.

                 --The Light of Stars

                   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

     He'd seen them on his back trail, four-footed death--running in a pack.  The size of small ponies, dark-coated, heavily muscled, the beasts ripped up the ground with clawed pads.  Their teeth were sharp, a brilliant white, and their eyes blazed like ghostly coins of yellow flame. 

     Nuzzling the earth, searching for his spore, they appeared canine.  But there was something reptilian in the way they carried themselves, slinking low over the earth, slipping like shadow-striped wraiths below branches that scraped the moon. Stryker heard their bestial chorus, rising over the ridge he’d just cheated; hellhounds--baying in bloodlust, slashing the sky with a howling dirge. 

     They were getting closer. 

     Running, he stumbled, fought for balance, and by some miracle, kept moving.  His ragged heartbeat was a warning; he couldn't push the pace much longer, not with risking cardiac arrest.  But, if he slowed...  best not to think about it.

     His mouth and throat was dry.  The metallic tang of fear lay on his tongue, while terror jazzed along his nerves, driving his feet like pistons into matted, autumn leaves.  Another time, he'd have paused to enjoy the firestorm of colors; red, orange, aspen-gold, brown, bruise-purple--drinking the windfall of the dying season.  But time, like hope, lay just out of reach.  There was only this frozen loop of present, rewinding over and over, in a place outside of reason. 

     Stryker ran with the knowledge that distance was illusion and far would never be far enough.  Stryker recalled the old superstition that said--`you can die in your sleep from a dream of death if you don't awaken in time`.  He feared it was true .  Every instinct screamed danger.  Unfortunately, this just distracted him from his struggle for disbelief.  Knowing he was caught in a dark fantasy didn’t help him master it. 

     A hunting party followed the pack.  Sight of it was enough to freeze reason.  Like animated cadavers, the riders were stiff of limb with ice-cold, fish-belly-white flesh.  Their heads were fixed in place with soulless eyes, wide and vacant, locked onto some private horror. 

     Despite their festive costumes, they radiated a melancholy air.  Their faces were masked in imitation of natural and unnatural creatures.  Their bodies were sheathed in clashing colors, in diamond and stripe patterns of silk, embroidered with metallic beads, glass jewels, oversized, meritorious ribbons, peacock feathers, sea-shells, and bells like grape clusters. 

     For weapons, they brandished comically undersized bows, wearing quivers on their backs that were full of badly feathered shafts.  The riders were dominated by a will they could not resist.  Somehow, Stryker knew that these pale riders were as much prisoner as he himself. 

     Bringing up the rear of the party was a hulking brute, dressed in a mantle of black wolf-fur that swept down the back of his leather tunic.  His riding beast was a wild-eyed, blood-hued unicorn with sulfurous mane and tail.  And at his side, hung a silver hunting horn, strapped to a wide, studded belt that also held a rune-etched, short sword in scabbard.

     The Hunter's face was a mystery of darkness.  Under his hood, red coals smoldered where eyes should have been.  Twisted antlers of smoke curled up into the wind from under the cowl, staining the air over his head.  His skin was an odd mixture of olive green, shading into brown, possessing the fine gloss of polished wood.

     Striker wasn't sure if the rider was more or less than human but either way, one look had been enough; he knew a losing hand  when it was dealt him.  Since then, he'd pushed himself blindly, dangerously near his limits, trying to distance himself from this engagement. 

     The jungles of 'Nam had taught him about times when victory was defined only by survival.  He only wished the useless gray twilight, filtering through the forest, hindered his pursuers as much as it did him.  The eternal eventide gave no shelter, refusing to darken to true night.  Were it brighter, he could have made better time, avoiding headlong spills over rough terrain.  Were it darker, he could have hidden in it. 

     Stryker nursed a murderous rage, holding it close as a lover to warm him against the chill of terror, distracting him from the gibbering fear that shrieked in the back-shadows of his brainpan.  He'd have cursed as well, but he needed breath too badly.

     As breaks in the forest ceiling appeared, the moon stabbed with a maniac glare.  Her pale-gold, charcoal-smudged face fell into focus; a laughing skull appeared, mocking his scrambling flight.  The tyrant orb squatted in the sky on a broken wheel of stars, refusing to let it spin.

     Stumbling, gasping, Stryker fell against a large tree bole.  Its rough bark felt dry, powdery against his hands.  Chunks of it crumbled off like cheese mold.  The dream-scape forest seemed to be in an advanced state of blight and decay, stricken with an unnatural corruption. 

     He clung to the trunk, drawing thin gulps of breath through a throat painfully constricted by dehydration.  Stryker coughed.  The fit shook him violently, like a mouse in cat jaws, finally subsiding, leaving him weak, black spots swimming before his eyes from oxygen starvation.  His vision cleared after a few breaths, and he realized--the trees were staring at him.  

     Wooden forms, male and female, young and old, protruded from nearby boles.  He lifted his head.  A perfect leg emerged from the trunk he leaned against, only to turn back at the knee and return to captivity again.  Stryker gazed higher and saw the arched, fluid lines of a female torso trusting from the tree.  Its arms dwindled upward, becoming common branches.  Her elongated fingers splayed in all directions, a study in static desperation.  The tree's human face was frozen mid-scream, eyes wide with terror, cheeks glittering with crystal tears that clung to the wood like embe dded gems. 

     A shudder went through Stryker; the tree was moaning.  Her voice turned hard, cutting the wind.  Other trees sobbed along.  The sounds washed across his spirit like a murmuring river.  Alien thoughts fed the pool of his mind.  Run, just a little farther.  You must escape the forest or you will become the forest.

      Striker climbed a small pile of rock, and reached out to lean against a bole.  He brushed the side of the face imprisoned there, surprised by its warmth and hardness, confronting life reduced to petrification.  "I wish there were something I could do for you," he whispered.

     The voices came again in unison, chopping through his sympathy like an axe.  Run-run-run...  There's little time...

     "This is madness," he screamed.

     Yesssssssssssssssss!

     Stryker jumped down and pushed on, keeping an eye out for some place halfway defensible.  All choices dwindled to two; fight or surrender.  Surrender was the easy way out, but he couldn't crawl, he'd never learned how, and he was too old to start.  Lie down and die?  Rest in peace?  Hah!  Only way I'm going is in pieces, kicking, gouging every inch of the way.

     He found what he needed along the base of a bluff: a trail that forked.  One path went up sharply, to the top of the bluff, while the other clung to its base.  Stryker left a clear trail as he followed the lower path.  He meant to.   Loping on, with the ghost of a second-wind, he soon reached the other end of the bluff, where the high trail came back down to join the main trail again.  He climbed the high trail, heading back the direction he'd just come from. 

     Along the high trail, he passed large outcroppings of loose rock, like widely spaced jack-o-lantern teeth, along the lip of the drop.   As he reached them, Stryker added extra rock for fulcrums and planted broken branches, seesaw fashion over the stones to act as levers.  This magnified his strength for what had to be done.

     He set his traps, moving quickly.  Just as he finished the forth, he heard a savage refrain from below.  It was time to rock-and-roll but...he froze, choking on a burst of pain.  Fire snaked down his left arm, from his heart.  His clawing fingers buried themselves in his shirt, while his breath hissed out like air leaking from a punctured tire.

     Not now.  Stryker demanded.   I've no time for this...

     Strangely enough, the pain obeyed him; it eased off, draining away.  Stryker pulled himself up and staggered back to the previous deadfall.  He wrapped his right arm around the branch and waited, willing his left arm back to strength.

     The dire-hounds passed the end pile, reaching a closer position.  He dropped his full weight on the lever.  Rock toppled and fell.  Confusion followed.  Hounds yelped in panic and pain.  Stryker didn't waste time surveying the damage.  He staggered to the end pile and threw himself on the lever there as well.  He was just in time. 

      Boulders slipped from place, gathering lesser fragments of rock in their train.  They slide fell to the lower path, another storm of rock, dust and shale.  The broadside caught the main party.  Horses cried in terror and pain, dancing on hind legs as retribution thundered by. 

     Half of the riders were thrown to the trail.  Others were carried or dragged away by horses out of control.  The wounded were left without regard, broken, bloody, and trampled on the trail, while the main party pushed on, to escape the threat of granite hail.

     Stryker bared his immaculate teeth in savage joy.  Now, he'd be able to use the remaining deadfalls.  He ran flat out for the farthest one.  Many of the hounds got through with sheer speed.  The riders weren't so fortunate.  They took the brunt of the next attack. 

     Stryker ran back to the remaining deadfall.  If he were lucky...yes!  The hunters were tired of falling rock.  They reined in, turning back the way they'd come.  Like sheep to the slaughter, they approached the last deadfall, not knowing that they'd won clear to safety.  Their own retreat would destroy them. 

     Stryker released the final deadfall on top of the riders. 

The results were much the same as before.  Peering over the edge of the bluff, Stryker saw that their ranks were greatly thinned.   But his satisfaction cooled.  The smoke- horned rider was not on the lower path.  After the rock slides started, He must have backtracked to the fork in the road, leaving the other riders behind as bait--and I fell for it.  I've been unbelievably stupid.

     Stryker was pissed with himself, but he had to nod grudging approval of the Rider's tactic.  It left him flanked and vulnerable.  Just what I would have done if I were the hunter and not the prey.  He was bottled up; the last of the hounds would be closing in from one side while the Hunter came from the other end of this higher trail.  They'd be converging on him rather quickly now; it was endgame, time for final moves to be played. 

     He checked his options; he could stand and fight, struggle up the slope--off the track, or try climbing down to the lower trail.  Down was out of the question, too sheer.  Someone else might have managed it but he couldn't; he wasn't a climber, had no gear, and doubted his lingering strength.  Up-slope, through the thinning trees, was manageable, but would only buy him a little time before he was pulled down.

     He needed a more radical solution, a change in the nature of the game.  A thought occurred to him but he hesitated; it was an all or nothing gamble that would have to be done at once, before the next threat arrived to produce a knee-jerk reaction from him. 

     So far, the force of his will hadn't been enough to snap him awake.  He decided to back the effort with total commitment.  If breaking the dream ensured his his immediate survival, he believed himself able to break every rule to get the job done. 

     Still, confronting an immanent death, of his own choosing, was a desperate chance.  The shock of a forced awakening might very well kill him, straining his heart, as it saved him from the hunter and his hounds.   Ah, well.  No guts, no glory.     

     Stryker wavered on the lip of the bluff, thoughts turning crystal clear, as he stared at the early stars of endless evening.  Drawing a slow breath, he sprang out into space, arms extended like a diver.  His eyes closed as air ripped by.  He had sixty feet to live.  But it's never the fall that kills you, it's the sudden... 

     ...burst of warm rays; tangerine, red, gold, thick as angel wings above the head of a pin. The light filled his eyes.  Vertigo set in as time slowed to a crawl, stretching his fall into an endless affair, but racing ahead for the rest of the dreamscape in a weird exchange. 

     The skull faded from the moon.  The broken wheel of stars began to turn.  The gray sky bled, wounded by a dawn blaze that fed color back into the world.  In the woodland, the last of the hellhounds snarled their protest against the piercing command of the Hunter's horn.  It called them away to a dark and distant nesting, unsatisfied, unfulfilled. 

          *     *     *

     Stryker burst up in bed, in semi-darkness, shoving sheet and blanket away.  He saw a cluster of red spheres drifting near the ceiling, beading the shadows like monstrous spider-eyes, smoldering with a malignant intelligence.  The eyes orbited each other, dancing in a nebulous mist of bloody light that rolled with syrup-slowness through the air.  They grew in size, swelling out of some alien dimension, bathing the room in crimson. 

     The cluster reached his bed, dancing in over head a moment, then suddenly dimmed-out, funneling through some unseen door at the last possible instant. 

     Alone, he fumbled at his nightstand for the little bottle he kept there.  He popped a nitro pill under his tongue.  As the fabric of time returned to normal, he felt his heart taking a healthier rhythm, slowing.  Breathing became easier. 

     He noticed that his silk pajamas were soaked with sweat.  At last, pride and discomfort compelled him to move.  Kicking off the damp covers, he swung his feet to the floor, and reached for the lamp on the night stand.  Its full, white light purified the room, washing it with calm and comfort. 

     Stryker staggered to the window and threw it open.  Cold air entered, filling his lungs, chilling his body.  He found it bracing, and welcomed the normalcy along with the familiar sight of fog-fuzzed lights and the early-morning silence of streets that were not yet awake.  These were things he knew and understood.  This was reality...he hoped...he prayed...