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Her eyes had grown more accustomed to the darkness, and in the shado she could see more of the folstza, ten, a dozen, sixteen, twenty; they roved restlessly through the undergrowth as they approached, for, like cats of any size, they did not wish to admit that they approached; all but the one ar At last the folstza sat before her in a seold or brown eyes, or looking off into space as if they couldn’t iine how they found themselves there Some sat neatly, tails curled around four paws; some sprawled like kittens One or two had their backs to her They were all sizes, fros and the size of their feet, to soe
"Well," said Aerin "I’sded troubles you too, I’"
As if this were a signal, the cats stood up and wandered toward the small campfire, where Talat laid his ears back flat to his skull and rolled his eyes till the whites showed "No," said Aerin bemusedly; "I rather think these are our friends?’’ and she looked down at the thing that noined itself between her legs (it had to scrunch down slightly to accoainst her hip
It was the biggest of the lot of the themselves around the fire, some of them in heaps, some of them in individual curls and whorls The one that now sat and stared up at Aerin was black, with yellow eyes, and short sharp ears with a fringe of fine long black hairs around each; and down his neck and back were cloudy grey splotches that dripped over his shoulders and haunches She saw the flicker in his eyes and braced herself just in tis and put his forepaws on her shoulders His breath was soft against her face, and the ends of his whiskers tickled her cheeks He looked faintly disappointed as she stood her ground and stared back at hiain and padded silently over to her bedding, lying unrolled and ready near the fire He batted it with a forepaw till he’d disarranged it to his liking, and then lay down full length upon it, and smiled at her
Aerin looked at hi intently through slitted eyes, for all their languor; none of them had their backs to her now She looked at Talat, who had backed up till his ruainst a tree, and whose ears were still flat to his skull She looked longingly at Gonturan, hanging from a tree on the far side of the fire, where she had set her when first ht, but Aerin thought shecat did, and knew there was no help there
"Even allies ain startled at how decisive her voice sounded She stalked over to her blanket and the cat on it, seized the hem of the blanket, and yanked The cat rolled a co startled, but Aerin did not stop to watch She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders, picked up the bundle she used as a pillow, and rearranged herself to sleep at the foot of the tree on the far side of the fire, with Gonturan’s hilt in easy reach She lay doith her back to the fire, and stared wide-eyed at the writhe of tree root before her
Nothing happened
The silence was broken only by the small snaps of the fire, and even these, at last, subsided, and real darkness fell I should keep the fire going Aerin thought; who knohat else is out there waiting? Who knowsBut her nightain she was suspended in nowhere, but nowhere was lit with a sht it was her name it called, but perhaps the as "uncle"
She awoke at daith a cra in the holloeen her last rib and her pelvis As she stirred he began to purr She sat up anyway, and glared at hiave her the sa
Talat was dozing uneasily, still leaning against his tree, and was inclined to be cross when she went to put his saddle on; but perhaps that was because of the four-footed grey-edged shadow she brought with her She rode off without looking behind her; but she felt, if she could not hear, the fluidbeside the into the rocks above them as the trail narrowed Once he jureen tree on the other, showering them with small sharp needles and seedpods; and when he rejoined thelided out of the way He was sain "Don’t let him tease you," Aerin murmured Talat’s ears stayed back all that day, and he was a little short on the weak leg, for he could not relax
On the next day the yerigs joined thereat ruffs and silky feathery legs and long curling tails They were a little less alar than the folstza only because Aerin was accusto’s hounds, which were only half the size of the yerigs The royal barn cats who caught the rain bins were barely a tenth the size of the foltsza
The yerig leader had only one eye, and a torn ear She touched Aerin’s knee gently with her nose and then raised her head to stare fiercely into Aerin’s face "I welcoed the that the dogs did not exist, still somehow all found theht Aerin slept very war on the other
Still they traveled north and east, and still the sun rose before the her quiet arishly and sank sooner each day; and while the trees still shook out young leaves for her, there were fewer trees, and the solitary sound of Talat’s shod hoofs rang duller and duller Occasionally she thought wistfully of the Lake of Drearey stone hall that stood near it; but she struck these thoughts fronized them
And then the day ca of shadow, and the clouds hung so low it took an effort of will to stand up straight and not bow beneath their weight "Soon," Aerin said to those that followed her; and soon came back to her in a rumble ofas if all his joints ached, and Aerin illing enough to go slowly; she heard little gibbering voices snarling and sniveling at the edges of herover her eyes, as if the nothingness that haunted her nights would find her out in the days; and she ht her, and the voices stopped, and the fog lifted But she was not long allowed the pleasure of this sle voice murmured to her, and its murmurs reminded her of her Northern blood, her demon blood"No!" she cried, and bent forward to press her face in Talat’s mane, and then she felt the pressure of a heavy paw on her shoulder, and whiskers tickled her cheek, and she opened her eyes to see two yellow eyes in a black face that did not smile; and Talat stood perfectly still, his head bowed, as the black cat’s other forepaw pressed into his crest
She sat up again, and the cat dropped to the ground, and Talat turned his head to look at the cat, and the cat turned his head to look back Talat’s ears, half back, eased a little, and one reluctantly came forward and pointed toward the cat, and the cat walked up to him and put up his nose Talat’s other ear came forward and pricked, and he lowered his nose, and the two breathed gently into each other’s faces Then they went on
The ly uneven plain; the footing was bad, crumbly and full of small hidden crevasses, and there were no trees at all Aerin’s arlided and shambled out of the shadows of the rocks and the last leaves, and billowed up around her till she and Talat were the hub of a wheel; and all looked around theer in Dah Aerin unslung Gonturan from her saddle, and carried the blade in her hand, for the co for a sword to do in the wide bleak brooding space before the could come
The silence haain, but indifferently this time, as if she heard theth she did not doubt "Co and folstzain beside therey sky and the bleak grey landscape Mountains again there rey space; but the clouds ringed them in, and there was no horizon Her beasts followed her because she led them, but they could not see what she led theht that was useful; but the small nasty voices in her mind seemed to push harder on one side of her skull than another; and so she went toward them
And before the, or tower, or all three; for it was the size of athat will be ripped into an avalanche in the next great storm; and yet it was also a worked shape, however improbable, as if a hand had built it - surely in its peak was the glint of s? - but the hand ed to a madman Around it twined a vast vine of the surka, and Aerin’s stomach turned over and fell back in her belly like a stone, and the gibbering voices could be heard to laugh
She dismounted and walked slowly forward She raised Gonturan, and Gonturan blazed blue, and the black tower suddenly glowed red, fire red, and the peak of the tower lifted and turned toward her, and the glint of as a dragon’s red eyes, and the black shadow that bent toward her was a dragon’s black head, and it opened its mouth to breathe flame at her Her left arm went suddenly dead, and then the pain of old burns bit deeply into it, new and fresh; and she s "No!" she screaainst the glare of fla li was in her way; soainst Talat’s flank, and her er smelled scorched flesh She turned back fearfully, for her left arm still throbbed with on; only the black monstrous shape twisted round with leaves
She bent and picked up her sword; but the blue fire had gone out, and the blade was as dull as the grey plain around theht be s, for she kne that she had cosded was here And she knew also that there was no way in, for the way that Gonturan ht have won her was lost to her now
Slowly she circled the great tower, but there were no doors, and now it looked like athat should have had a door, it was foolish to have supposed otherwise; and her quest was a failure, for if not here then she knew not where She crawled over the rocks below the surka that wrapped itself around the black crag, for she would not touch the surka if she could help it, this surka that the eye of Agsded ht have stirred; but she went alone, for Talat and the folstza and yerig waited where she had challenged the toith Gonturan’s flame and then lost it
She came round the full circle and knew herself defeated, and she went up to Talat and put her arms around his neck and her face in his mane, as she had done so often before for little hurts and disreat hurt she had no other recourse He tucked his chin against her arain - and he bolted forward, and reared, and neighed, a war-horse going to battle She stared at hi her elbow
Talat scraed into the twining surka, which slowed hi felt that the leaves pulled at hied through theain as he reached the foot of the smoother walls of the tower itself; he was above the vines now, and Aerin could see streaks of their sap on hiain, and struck the walls with his front feet; and sparks flew, and there was a ss He caain; and then the folstza and the yerig were flowing up over the rocks and through the clinging surka to join hih outthrust knob of rock, and scrabbled at it
"It won’t work," Aerin whispered, and Talat reared and struck again, and the ser
The folstza were clawing great ropes of vine fro theht The sharp little elbow of rock that the yerig queen clung to gave way suddenly, du her at Talat’s feet; but where it had been there was a crack in the black wall; and when Talat struck at the crack a fine rain of stone powder pattered down
The torn vines thrashed like wild things when they touched the sandy grey ground Aerin reached to touch one of the dark leaves, and it turned into a small banded snake with venomous eyes; but she picked it up anyway, and it was only a leaf She stood staring as her arht better purchase on the black rock face; distantly she heard the patter of stone chips, and she picked up another leaf, and wove it through the stem of the first; and another, and then another, and when, suddenly, there was a crash and a roar and she looked up, what she held in her hands was a thick heavy green wreath of surka; and her hands were sticky with the sap
A great face of the crag had fallen, and within, Aerin saw stairs winding up into the black ht; and her army turned its eyes on her, and panted, and many of their mouths dripped pink foa pads Talat was grey with sweat With the wreath in her hands, and Gonturan banging lifelessly at her side, she stepped carefully through the rubble, and through the ranks of her arhtly with their noses as she passed them, and set her foot on the first stair