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Silence.

The lithe, mousy faced woman tilted her head slowly to one side. No. Not quite silence. The music in the air had but only dimmed. Nature's most loquacious had merely settled for a dull mumble.

The woman slowed her steady gait. Smokey gray eyes warily studied the silent bushes lined along the path. Faint rustling of leaves. Wind, perhaps? She furrowed pale brow and continued her cautious walk. Sweat beaded the palms of her hands, her left grasping tightly her wooden piccolo and her right hovering just above one steeled stiletto hidden in her forested cloak. The dirt beneath her worn leather boots barely made so much as a whisper as she moved. Something just wasn't quite right....

An arrow whizzed past her, barely nicking her right shoulder, and embedded itself into the nearby rotting tree trunk. The woman's feet acted on instinct. Left before right, she raced as fast as she could down the remnants of the path. More arrows whizzed toward her. She jumped. The bushes offered no soft landing. It didn't matter. She was on her feet again. She stole one frantic glance. Silence. Darkness.

Then whoosh. She hit the ground, another arrow striking where her head should have been. There came a loud curse.

"Stand still, girl! You're only making this harder on yourself!" The voice was gravely - the voice of one who had taken one too many from the pipe. The woman heard the bow's string retract. It was close. Very close, "come and face your bounty like a real man!"

The woman's lips curled in disgust. Her right hand tightened along the plain hilt of the stiletto. She crawled through the bush. Dirt, rocks, stray branches were not kind, but a little pain was better compared to certain death. She took great care to keep silent. Her pursuer had no such inclinations. His own boots took their own great liberties with each heavy stomp and grounding of dirt. She smirked. The arrow fired, but was further off. Dirke was starting to lose his touch.

She crept closer toward the heavy sounds. The smells of the repugnant dead swamp were worse closer to the ground. If she could afford to, she would have lost her day's meal in the bush. But she was close. She had to be close...

"I see you," Dirke's voice sang. She froze, but no arrow pierced her chest. She cast her gaze around, but there was no telling anything in the inky blackness the swamp waters were starting to produce. He was bluffing. He wanted her to make a mistake, a sound, anything. He had lost the advantage once she had run closer to the magical swamp.

The woman licked her thin, pinkish lips. She careful, slowly pushed her feet beneath her. She swore she heard his breath near her ear, but that could have been a trick of the darkness. Many had gone mad lost in the forevers of the murky swamp.

"Come out, come out!" Dirke's voice seemed to drive farther from her. She searched about her, but saw nothing. His footsteps were drifting further and further from her. She took a cautious step backward, then stopped. She closed her eyes, listening. She heard them, ever faintly. Birds. She carefully made her way back toward them. Birds never ventured so near the swamp. If she could just follow them, she would soon be safely back upon the path.

She had not taken more than two steps, when she heard the most terrible of screams. Her heart jolted as though it had been struck by lightening itself. She half turned in the direction of the scream. Dirke. It was Dirke. His screams lasted no more than a few seconds longer, before there came the sickening crunch of a body being broken. The rancorous laughter that followed chilled the woman to the bone. She shivered.

And then she ran.