The light had absorbed all the shadows around them; they moved through a syrupy golden haze. Still, a shadow stretched across them now, crisp and black, crackling along the edges as if it were on fire, as if a flame itself had learned to cast a shadow. And the beast cast it, and it was great and terrible, and its head rose to nearly the canopy of the forest, and the single horn scythed from its forehead curved and gleaming as a sword.
