dully beneath her, cushioned by grass that had never seen a blade. This grassland stretched from horizon to horizon, dotted only with a bush or two, with, a hint of thin darkness to the east where there might be trees following a watercourse. Overhead, the sky was a blue bowl, the sun a white-hot disk in the midst of it. Two stallions raced behind her, a Medicine Hat pony, and a tall palomino; and she pulled herself up, not wanting to run blindly into a new trap. She stood warily sniffing the wind that whipped her mane and tail, head up, looking for the Evil One. The stallions followed her lead, each facing in a different direction.
She wondered how the Evil One would counter this shape; there wasn't much that could take on three mustangs and win, not on the plains-
Then the palomino whinnied sharply, and she and Watches-Over-The-Land pivoted in his direction.
Fire!
Fire sprang up in a long line stretching from horizon to horizon, racing toward them, eating its way across the landscape. Kestrel fought her horse-instinct to run in a blind panic, as more fires cut across the horizon, until they were ringed with flame.
'Follow!' whinnied Mooncrow, and reared, and leapt-
She followed, and found herself-Fluttering through air that tasted thick and grainy. In bird shape. But not the familiar bird-shape of Kestrel, but black, speckled, stub-tailed.
A starling? She faltered for a moment, then picked up her wingbeats again, moving easily among the-
High-rise apartment buildings?
Fumes drifted up from the traffic below, but they didn't seem to bother her in this shape. Car horns blared, sirens screamed, construction equipment rattled and pounded, and the noise of uncounted engines battered her ears.
Beside her flapped an English sparrow and a pigeon.
The air behind them popped. And the Evil One, in his form of Black Bird, hovered there for a moment, confused by the terrific noise.
That moment was all that Kestrel needed. It was time to stop running and give him a taste of being the prey! Calling a starling alarm, she dove on the Black Bird, certain of what would follow.
Her alarm call swiftly summoned a cloud of starlings from all directions, which followed her lead and proceeded to mob the Black Bird mercilessly. Individually, the Evil One was more than a match for them-and in fact, he lashed out with beak and claws, and sent several of his tormentors tumbling dead out of the sky. But that only made the rest of the starlings angrier, and they pecked at his head and pulled at his feathers until he began to falter and lose height. And he could not tell which of the starlings was really Kestrel; he could only strike blindly and hope that luck would put her into his reach.
He could not win this one, and so he changed the setting, shattering the air with a terrible cry that wrenched the fabric of time and space, sending them all hurtling-
Into the white of a landscape of nothing but snow and ice. Wind ate at her; snow whipped around her, driving itself into her eyes and nose. The sky was white, the ground was an undulating white; everything was white.
Kestrel shivered, despite the thick coat of fur she wore, encased as she was in the body of an arctic fox; beside her were a white wolf and a snowy owl. She had barely time to take in what form she now had, when what she had thought was a snowdrift heaved upward on two hind legs, roaring, and came at them with monstrous paws spread wide to crush them all.
But they were not there when the polar bear's foreclaws hit the snow. Kestrel had gone to the right, the white wolf to the left, and the owl straight up. This time they attacked the bear; the fox nipping at its hind end, the wolf tearing at its flanks, and the owl battering its face and eyes with its wings.
The bear roared with frustration, and knocked the owl out of the air. Instantly, both Kestrel and Mooncrow leapt in, each snatching a wing, and pulling it away from the bear's claws.
This is nothing but stalemate, she thought to herself, as she panted, her sides heaving, her lungs aching. He can wear us down like this-we have to find some way to bottle him up!
'Put me down and follow!' commanded Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta, and she obeyed unthinkingly, opening her jaws, then followed as the owl plunged forward into-
The cool, green depths of the forest.
A very, very large forest-
No, she was simply very small.
She scampered instinctively into the shelter of a leaf-filled cranny beneath the trunk of a fallen forest giant. She was a deermouse; beside her was a chipmunk, and beside him, a vole. She peered out at the forest outside; it was as silent as the city had been noisy, with one lone bird calling off in the distance, and not even a faint breeze rustling the trees. Sunlight lanced down through the branches, making shafts of gold among the green.
'Kestrel, will you trust me?' asked her ancestor, twitching his whiskers with agitation. Nearby, a black wolverine snuffled through the dead leaves, and she knew that this was the Evil One, looking for them. But for the moment, they were safely hidden in the hollow beneath the fallen tree.
'Yes,' she answered simply.
'Then when you find yourself as a swallow, fly into the first cave that you see. '
Fly into a cave? But even though swallows were clever flyers, and often nested in caves, how would that help?
She never got a chance to ask that question, for at that moment the black wolverine caught their scent, and began to dig at the entrance to their shelter.
'Follow!' cried Mooncrow.
And once again she darted through the air, this time above a landscape she recognized. It was the area around Carlsbad, New Mexico, and she was, indeed, in the shape of a swallow.
Unfortunately, she was entirely alone.
And behind her was a Cooper's hawk, talons outstretched to snatch her out of the sky.
The Cooper's was the deadliest predator of birds that flew; Kestrel had seen them take starlings and crows before their prey even knew there was a danger. With a squeak of panic, Kestrel twisted and dipped and turned, trying to outmaneuver her enemy.
But she was tired, and the Evil One wasn't even missing a wingbeat!
She looked down, hoping for some kind of brush to dive into to shake her pursuer. But there was nothing down there but rocks and cactus-
And the mouth of a small cave.
She folded her wings and dove. The hawk followed, but as she looked back, she heard him laugh, and saw him transform in midair from a hawk to a great black owl!
Too late for her to change direction-
She shot through the mouth of the cave into echoing semidarkness. 'How kind of you to be so stupid as to go into a place where I have the advantage!' he mocked, as she banked frantically, just in time to avoid the back wall of the cave. Then she had to bank again, as her flight took her too near the entrance he was guarding, evading his talons by so little that she squeaked with pain as he grabbed one of her primaries and yanked it out.
He lunged at her-
And as soon as he passed into the cave itself, he flew directly into the web of an enormous spider!
It confused him, and he flapped in place, angrily shaking his head to try and rid himself of the clinging fibers. But before he could, a huge bat dropped down on his back from the ceiling above, knocking him into the floor of the cave so hard that he hit his head. And for the moment, he lay stunned.
Kestrel seized the opportunity and darted outside, followed by the bat.
The bat transformed into Moh-shon-ah-ke-ta as soon as both of them were outside; Mooncrow rose up from out of the rocks, and Kestrel dropped down beside him and took her human form again.
'Now!' cried her Ancestor.
They joined power, calling on the ancient rocks, calling on the Earth and Air, the Sky and Lightning-
And all the ancient spirits answered them.
The earth shook itself, knocking them off their feet; the Sky sent down Lightning all around them, blinding them, deafening them, hemming them in-
Rocks tumbled down the slope of the hill, blocking the entrance of the cave, and before the Evil One could find a shape to escape the trap, Lightning struck the hillside again and again until the sand smoked and fused,
