The Hunting

The bells are baying. Throughout the city, they bay. With no hand to ring them, they howl and cry, like the hounds hunting in the last days. With bitten lips, the people huddle behind their walls, their eyes covered against the despair. The night falls in shafts of darkness, pooling on the streets where shadows have no right to be. Still the bells keep on, clamoring and calling until, suddenly, there is a voice. A single voice, like the cry and keen of the hunter's horn, and the bells cease. Alone the voice pierces upward, silence crawling up its spine.