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As Kataria stared at the white feather tied to it, she suspected the power of the Spokesman was likely a lot simpler than that

Inqalle infested her hts alike She had slipped in on the Howling, sank teeth into Kataria’s thoughts, and she could still feel the

Inqalle’s words only persisted because truth was always like venom: once injected, it could not be removed until the proper steps had been taken to cure it Kataria knew this, just as she knew that what Inqalle had said was true

For too long had she been co so unlike one How could any shict call herself such when she stared for hours over the sea, watching …?

No Hoping, she corrected herself You were hoping that one of theo back to the way things were Those days are over You alanted theht?

She didn’t answer herself

Maybe … this is a gift from Riffid, she told herself Maybe this is how you prove yourself to Inqalle No, not to Inqalle To yourself She shook her head No, not to yourself …

She looked down at the white feather, frowned

Not just to yourself

The Spokeser to be used upon unsuspecting human skulls It reminded her why this had to be the way It reminded her of the sensations she had felt in the company of her companions Former companions, she corrected herself

They had infected her, deafened her to the Howling They had taken so from her This was how she would take it back

She had found their trail earlier She could follow it, descend upon the attention Tift cracks at the base of the skull They would die immediately They wouldn’t be able to ask her why She could do it, she told herself If she could avoid the longfaces’ patrols, she could sneak up on theht entered her o

She shook her head, growled

Sorowled back

She froze, hearing the footsteps Her ears twitched, angling fro each noise Heavy feet fell upon the earth with the ungainly disquiet of a predator glutted Nostrils drew in deep breaths, sniffing about the woods The growl, a deep chest-born noise, becarew upon her body

The sikkhun, she thought They said so about a sikkhun She sed hard What the hell is a sikkhun?

And in the sounds that followed, she realised she didn’t want to know She heard a sharp ripping sound; the stench of blood filled her nostrils Slurping followed, meat rent from bone and scooped into a pair of powerful jaws Blood dripped softly, hitting the ground with the sound of fat raindrops A bone snapped, crunched, was sucked down

And with every breath it could spare, the thing let loose a short, warbling cackle

She folded her ears against her head, unable to listen any on her hands and feet, she slid into the underbrush, leaving the sikkhun to its gruesorueso as civil asyour companions, you weak little--

She folded her ears further, shutting them to all sounds, within and without, as she softly crept away

Tracks told stories

This was the accepted thought ah his feet, unable to lie or hide through his soles The earth had a long memory, remembered what it was told Earth remembered Earth told shict Shict re his tracks in the forest, al, slow strides, she recalled, heavy on the heels and the toes alike He was a o forward, always held back

She had tracked hi to kill him She tracked him now, certain that she had to

And what’s different this ti to kill hi him for a year

Because, she told herself, that was a time when she did not knohat it was to be a shict This time, she knew She would prove it

She had found their tracks shortly after The earth was moist and dry at once, torn bethether it wished to continue living or not It nised in the tracks were sier But those were coh, especially to those humans she had once called companions

No matter They all had to die, eventually The other humans would be a nice warm-up before she stalked and killed her true quarry She would have liked to have started with Lenk, though, suspecting that he would be the hardest to kill He was the itated, the most paranoid, theto be hard to kill? she asked herself Right He’s just so crafty and clever This entire ‘stalking’ is a farce If you showed up in front of hiood it was to see you as you clubbed his brains out

No, she told herself, he liked her, but probably not that reed with herself, but the point is, you know this is just a stalling tactic Pretending to stalk hi his name if you think he’s alive Wait for him to come out and then embrace him and then crush his neck If you really wanted to kill him, you wouldn’t even have to try But …

She snarled inwardly, opened her ears wide to let the sounds of the forest drown out her own thoughts

You also know this forest is dead Nothing’s going to hed No wind sighed back And from the dead wind, no trees rustled in response And from the quiet trees, no anireenery and blue skies and brightsunshine yielded no sound, no life

Barren forests weren’t unheard of Plants, inedible and intolerable to anis could not

Except for roaches, apparently She flicked away a dried trace of anal sputu different about this forest, this silence This silence lingered like a pestilence, seeping into her skin, reaching into her ears, her lungs It found the sound of her breath intolerable, the claht to drive the wind from her stomach, to still the noisy blood in her veins