your courage …’
‘Thanks!’
‘But taking on a caitsthe to save my worthless life — that I will
‘Where did it get to?’ said Rix. Each throb was a nail hammered through his skull. He swayed and hastily sat down. ‘Can you see it?’
‘It’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘You’ve discovered a way to stop the beasts,’ said Tobry. ‘Perhaps the only way.’
But for how long? And how vengeful would it be when it healed itself? ‘It’s a wonder no one else has done it.’
‘Only you would have the balls, if you don’t mind the expression, to head-butt a caitsthe there,’ said Tobry, checking over his shoulder.
‘Feels like I’ve been whacked with an iron bar.’ Rix pressed his fingers to his cheek and winced. The welt was exquisitely painful.
‘You took a direct hit from a whang the size of a burglar’s cosh.’ Tobry chuckled. ‘You’re going to become a legend. They’ll have to amend the bar sinister on your family crest to a bent todger.’ He snorted.
Rix imagined what Lady Ricinus would say about that. She was entirely lacking in a sense of humour. ‘How’s your shoulder?’
‘Not as sore as my ribs.’
‘Are they broken?’
Tobry probed them gingerly. ‘Might be cracked, but nothing can be done if they are.’ He took the case of potions and bandages from his saddlebags, one-handed.
Rix cleaned Tobry’s shoulder wound, smeared on a lime-scented unguent and bandaged up the shoulder. Tobry did the same for Rix’s forearm and the chest and belly gashes.
‘I’d better attend your cheek as well,’ said Tobry.
‘It didn’t break the skin.’
‘You don’t know where the caitsthe’s been, or what its — ’
‘Proclivities are?’
‘Quite. You wouldn’t want to end up with pox or grandgaw.’
Rix wondered about a caitsthe’s proclivities while Tobry tended the welt across his cheek. No, that was a detail he would prefer to remain ignorant of.
‘Now what?’ said Tobry, checking behind him again. And again.
Rix avoided his eyes. Tobry had not blamed him, but he should have. In bringing him up here, Rix had traded on their friendship, risked Tobry’s life, forced him to face his greatest fear, and for what?
The urge to cleanse himself in a life-or-death struggle had vanished. Exhausted, cold and aching everywhere, Rix wanted no more than his large, empty bed … but that reminded him why he had left in the first place.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Tobry.
‘How can I? An injured caitsthe will be twice as vicious when it recovers.’
‘Seneschal Parby can send fifty men to hunt it down.’
Rix could not return to the nightmares, nor the voice ordering him to do terrible things. He worked his thigh muscles. His legs still felt shaky.
‘It could kill a dozen people before our soldiers get here.’
Tobry’s eyes darted towards the thicket, swept the boulders, checked the trees. ‘There’s no one else up here.’
‘In a few hours it could be down in the lowlands, hunting women and children.’ Rix eyed the low passage the beast had taken. ‘It’ll be in there somewhere, licking its wounds — ’
‘Not an image I care to dwell on.’ Tobry managed a feeble grin.
He took only friends and pleasure seriously, but Rix felt the overwhelming burden of responsibility. ‘Sorry, Tobe. I don’t have any choice, I’ve got to deal with it. What do you know about the beasts?’
‘Not much. They’re uncanny creatures — ’
‘You mean enchanted?’ Rix’s voice rose — a block of wood had more magery than he did. His hand slipped to the hilt of his sword, hovered, then gripped it tightly and he felt better. At least its power was on his side.
‘I mean they’re not native to Hightspall. No shifters are.’
‘But — I thought they’d always been here?’
‘The chancellor would like us to think so.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘He doesn’t like people to think he’s not in control.’
Rix put that worry aside for later. ‘Then where did they come from?’
‘I don’t know. The first records of shifters — little jackal-men — only go back a hundred years — ’
‘I’m not interested in them,’ Rix snapped. ‘What about caitsthes?’
‘They weren’t on the uncanny creatures list when I learned it as a boy.’
Rix rubbed his cold arms. ‘So they’re new. How did they get here?’
‘How would I know?’
‘You read books. You know everything. Have a guess.’
‘A wildcat fell into a pit of power and was transformed into a caitsthe?’
‘What’s a pit of power?’
‘Didn’t those expensive tutors teach you
‘Sometimes my mind wanders.’
‘Let me know when it comes back.’ Acid had crept into Tobry’s voice; his injuries must be troubling him.
‘Just tell me what you know about caitsthes, Tobe.’
‘Well, in man-form they’re reasonably intelligent.’
‘How intelligent?’
‘Smarter than the average young lord, not that that’s saying much.’
Rix’s fingers curled around the hilt of his sword, sprang away, clung to it. ‘Then it knows we’ll come after it …’
‘Yes.’
‘And it’ll be waiting in ambush.’
‘They’re vengeful, too. It’ll be planning to attack you where you hurt it.’
Knowing how close he’d gone to losing his manhood, Rix swallowed painfully. What folly had brought him up here? Well, no choice now. Going down on hands and knees, he headed into the thicket.
‘I’m going first,’ said Tobry, coming after him.
‘Bugger off.’ Rix centred himself on the track to block the way.
The path was barely the width of his shoulders and the vines formed a woven wall so close above his head that a three-year-old child could not have stood upright. If it attacked him here, he would not be able to swing his sword. With its superior weight and strength, the caitsthe could pin him against the brambles and tear him apart. Or come at his defenceless rear …
Halfway in, he stopped to sniff the air. Dark blood spotted the ground here and there and the caitsthe’s rank tang was everywhere. How badly injured was it? Had it healed itself already?
A second path crossed the first. Rix checked left and right but could not tell if the caitsthe had turned aside. Now it could come at him from three directions.
‘See anything?’ said Tobry.
‘No.’ It came out as a croak.
He emerged from the vine thicket, which terminated at a steep talus slope running up against the Crag, itself a mass of knotted rock towering so high that he cricked his neck trying to see the top. The sky had gone the colour of lead and the wind shrilling around the ragged edges of the bluff made his head throb.
‘Where’s it gone?’ said Tobry, standing up beside him.
‘Don’t know. Haven’t seen blood in a while.’
