way they controlled the horses, their deference to Menish, it began to make sense. Their whole lives were but re- enactments of the murder of the pig.
Trees flicked past him in his desperate run, some loomed over him like spectres of evil and he lurched away from them, still clutching his throat. His lungs were now gasping, and his chest ached with exhaustion. He did not know how far he had run, but it would never be far enough.
Only when exhaustion totally overcame him did he realise that they were not chasing him. He had not considered any other possibility. What other evil were they engaged in now? With a moan of pain he sank to the ground and sprawled panting and helpless among the leaf litter. Where were they? He cast his senses about him but he could not detect anyone. The pain in his throat ebbed away slowly, as if it were reluctant to lose its hold on him, while the glimpse of darkness beyond still made him want to scream.
But he could hear his own heartbeat, alive and strong, beating out its reassuring rhythm in his temples. Slowly, so slowly, his panic subsided into something less desperate and vented itself in quiet sobbing.
He must have lain there under the trees for some time. It seemed as if hours had passed. Certainly the angle of the sun had shifted when he slowly raised his head from the forest floor. He had heard the noise of something moving nearby. Trembling, he reached his senses in that direction. The undergrowth hid whatever it was but his mind found it.
It was only a deer. He could feel its watchfulness, its tenseness as it considered the faint scent of man. Azkun was still, hardly daring to breathe now. He had no experience of this kind of animal, although it reminded him of the horses. This one was all quivering fear. It picked its way through the undergrowth and now he could see it.
It was a tall, stately animal. He had been right, it was like a horse, but more delicate, more vulnerable. He understood its habitual tenseness, its continual sniffing for dangerous scents. Its ears were large enough to detect the sounds of enemies approaching, its eyes were placed to give it a wide angle of vision, and its long, slender legs were perpetually poised for flight.
He wanted to reach out and touch this creature, to reassure it. But he had no answers to the death of the pig. Horror he knew, but the threat itself now seemed secondary to the sadness that he could do nothing to aid this creature.
A whimper of despair escaped from him and instantly the creature was gone. It turned and bounded gracefully through the thicket. He could feel it leaping through the trees up the hillside beyond. Running, ever running, even as he had run from the death of the pig. He wept for it.
As he felt it run he detected a sudden change of direction, it avoided something else it was afraid of. Azkun tensed, casting his senses in that direction.
It was Grath.
The northerner was still some way off, Azkun could not see or hear him yet. But he knew where he was. His senses had been driven to acuteness by the pig’s death. He was also aware that Grath could not detect him in the same way. But he was following Azkun’s trail unerringly. He would find him in a few minutes.
Cold fear gripped his heart. The deer had escaped, but Grath was not hunting deer, he was hunting man. The blood lust in his heart was abated but it was still there. It still ruled the way he thought. Azkun had no way of knowing when that evil would seize him again. And Grath was coming for him.
His legs still trembled from their previous exertion, but he willed them into use. Some instinct told him to climb a tree, but he overruled that urge. Grath was following his trail as if he could see his footprints. To climb a tree would be to wait for death. No, he could only run like the deer, alone and desperate.
But this time he was not driven by panic. He was careful to avoid making too much noise, he tried to leave as little sign of his passage as possible. But he did not really know what signs Grath found to follow so he had little gauge of his success, or failure.
He found himself moving down the forested hillside. Twice he slipped on the leaf mould and despaired at the clear marks left for Grath. At the bottom of the hillside ran a tiny freshet that spilled and gurgled over moss covered stones. The sun sparkled through the trees and caught in its waters, flickering and dancing. But he had no time to enjoy the spectacle that yesterday he might have looked at forever.
He leapt across the stream easily, but his foot landed in mud on the other side, leaving a deep print that shouted that he had passed this way.
Azkun looked at it for a moment, debating with himself whether he should attempt to cover it, or keep ahead of Grath. He decided to keep moving. Grath would find other signs to follow anyway, one more could make no difference. Grath would catch him in the end.
But when Grath reached the stream he hesitated. Azkun could feel his confusion and did not understand it. His trail was obvious. Why did Grath stop? He did not stop long, however, and when he resumed his pursuit he was somehow smug and confident. Azkun’s fear mounted. He felt as if he had missed some opportunity, but he did not know what.
On the other side of the stream the ground sloped steeply upward. He found himself using both hands and feet to climb. The leaf litter was more slippery. Panic began to lurk at the edge of his mind.
The hill rose before him interminably. The vegetation was changing. The trees were shorter. Azkun ran on, blindly hoping that Grath would grow weary of following him before he himself grew weary of running.
His path led him out from the trees. He was suddenly standing on a rocky outcrop that formed the summit of the hill he had climbed.
The world as he knew it spread out before him like a vision of creation. Far below he could see the wrinkle in the forest where the little stream ran. Somewhere down there Grath was following him, but his urge to keep running was stilled by the panorama before him. This was but a low hill compared to the others that surrounded it. Great blue giants thrust their massive pinnacles to the sky. Many of them were white with snow that gleamed and dazzled in the autumn sunlight. Their grandeur reminded him of dragons. He clutched at hope. Surely the dragons would save him from Grath. But when he searched the skies for this hope to be answered he saw only an eagle flying, high and remote with death in its heart.
Death and violence surrounded him. It was in the skies, behind him it followed in the shape of Grath. This was not the purpose of the dragons. They had not made the world for this! Was all their creation, then, fallen from their purposes?
Yet the majesty of the mountains looked grandly down at him. They were not tainted by violence. They were serene in their beauty. He could see no murder in the snows. But, while there was no evil there, there was also no help, no compassion. As if sleep were the only way they could prevent themselves from rending the world and ridding it of the offences that crawled on their slopes.
And there were no dragons in the skies. Were they also afraid to right wrongs lest they destroy everything?
Azkun had little time to ponder. Every moment he stood here Grath drew closer. He could also sense Althak and Bolythak searching for him across the valley on the other side of this hill, ahead of him. He ran on.
As he moved down the slope he veered away from the place where he knew Althak was. He did not wish to be driven from one killer into another. He had thought Althak was his friend.
At the bottom of the slope a swift torrent flowed between high, rocky walls; foaming and crashing over great, grey boulders. His fear grew. The freshet had been easy to cross, but this was an impassable barrier. The other side was at least twenty feet away, he could not hope to leap it. And climbing down the slick, rock walls was treacherous even for one so used to clinging to rock faces.
There was even more amiss. He had been mistaken about Althak’s position. He and Bolythak were on this side of the stream, and not far away. Grath was still picking his way down the slope, following Azkun’s trail. Althak and Bolythak were following the line of the stream down towards him.
Where to escape? The easy way was downstream. He could not move back up the slope or up the stream. But Grath’s confusion at the freshet gave him hope. He had to try and cross the torrent. Clenching his teeth, he lowered himself over the edge of the rock wall and clung to the mossy surface. He could feel the chill spray of the thrashing water below and all sound was lost in the roar of the stream.
It was like the Chasm.
Handhold, foothold he made his way down. But the roar of the water below and the slick rock he clung to brought back his old, habitual, numbing fear. He forced himself to remain alert but he felt himself slipping away. He could feel his pursuers approaching. They had seen each other now. The numbness of the Chasm threatened to
