Inside the cave the whole horde’s hung. Asleep, they’re like a butchers’ rack of meat; newborns dangling inside thin wings’ furred sacs, they wake—pulse—squirm. Stalagmites bud with drips. A tunnel chokes, a ragged snag rips out its gaping mouth: smug, crinkled mugs all snuffle up, up into the shrieking light to seek the thrill, the thrall of blood. Stained evening ravens down a wrinkled brainwave’s cloud-ravine. The bats swim heaven’s airy flesh, pressed so flush you’d think it flayed. Each witch raids the excess recesses of space, switchblades; whipsaws: dark paper dolls, which scissor- slip a self-made maze, tilt off, loft up; crizzle, sprawl. Seasick within a blizzard’s scree, thick scud, quick tricks of ether, dragons drugged, they circle back, flit, trip, and fling; berserk— undertows of thrash and shuffle, bare hustled flak. Hell-bent, the dazzled flock’s mass muscles out through mizzle. Each whorling ear pricks up and swells. A rush of thunderheads, stunned over-reach, jerrybuilt as each dead soul is spilt and ferries off across the ruts along some pitch, riddled by the foretaste of what they are about to bite into: hides where fangs will dart, plunge tiny needle-teeth in any stung ripe seething bull’s -eye, sipping up its sap. This mad besotted pack of Huns fall as one body, down and down, to nip and suckle. They grip the flesh, they feast—attack a beast, which buckles, cries, and almost drowns.