The bowl of the sky was blue streaked with crimson as the sun sank down to a well-earned rest. Wind was kicking up out of the north. A bank of dark clouds was building there, promising a wet night.
The terrain began to change rather quickly from uplands to riparian. Rocks and boulders dotted the landscape. Real trees reappeared for the first time since leaving the elves’ homeland.
Mathi’s pony stumbled into a draw and refused to climb the other side. Treskan started down after her. The pack-horses half tumbled in too and voiced their displeasure loudly. While the two tried to calm them, they heard another horse approaching fast. Treskan tried to draw his sword-it took three tugs to free it from its scabbard-and had only just gotten it out when a long-legged saddle horse hurtled around the bend in the draw, riderless. Mathi watched open mouthed as it passed. It was Balif’s horse. The saddle was torn to shreds and smeared with blood.
Hastily Treskan dismounted, tied the pack animals to a tree, and got back on his pony. Thumping his heels, he steered his horse after Balif’s fleeing mount. The general’s horse was almost out of sight. Mathi tried to get her blinkered pony to gallop, but the wise beast declined, shuffling off at an indifferent trot.
The wind picked up, driving in the storm from the north. The crimson sunset disappeared under a veil of clouds. The wind blowing down their backs was hot. Silent flashes of lightning threw the ground ahead into bright relief for an instant; then everything faded into the stormy dusk.
She rode a mile or more, blundering along the sandy bottom of the draw. Saplings and tree branches tore at her. Mathi had to throw an arm over her face to protect her eyes. Lightning flared again, followed by a growing hammer of thunder. By the flash she saw Treskan had caught Balif’s big horse up ahead. Mathi urged her mount on.
Her pony stumbled in a drift of sand, falling nose first. No equestrian, she was hurled headlong over the animal’s head and hit the ground. Something snapped loudly. Rolling head over heels down a short, steep bank, Mathi came to rest flat on her back. Her pony walked past, nickering loudly. It sounded as though the beast were laughing at her.
A dark figure on horseback loomed over her. “Are you all right?”
“I think my back’s broken,” Mathi answered. “I heard it snap.”
“Blink your eyes.”
Lightning snapped overhead. Mathi saw her interrogator was Lofotan. She bolted to her feet, exclaiming in surprise.
“No one with a broken back leaps around like that,” the old soldier said.
“The general’s horse! Did you see it?” asked Mathi.
Lofotan pointed. Off to his right, Treskan sat on his pony, holding the reins of Balif’s mount. It was shivering and foam flecked.
“Let’s find yours,” Lofotan said.
Together with Treskan they went up the draw and found Mathi’s pony cropping fronds. Returning to where the pony tripped, they spotted a fallen pine branch.
“There’s your back,” said Lofotan. Mathi had heard the limb snap and thought it was her back.
Mathi reclaimed her reluctant ride. It circled away from her, rearing more than a pony its size ever did.
“What’s the matter with the nag?” Artyrith shouted, coming over on foot. He seized the pony’s halter and held on. Eventually the disturbed creature calmed enough for Mathi to mount.
“Where’s General Balif?” she said.
Lofotan didn’t know. He was coming up the south bank of the Thon-Tanjan, looking for his comrades, when Artyrith appeared, riding like a madman after the general’s horse. Between the two of them, they cornered the terrified runaway, but still there was no sign of Balif.
They backtracked to the pack train. Everything was present except their leader. By the intermittent glare of lightning, they examined Balif’s horse.
The smooth leather saddle was scratched in long, parallel lines on either side of the seat. There were smears of blood on the saddle and on the horse. The quivering creature had a bad wound on the right side of its neck, four deep gashes side by side. It didn’t take eagle eyes to see they matched the scratches in the saddle.
“A predator must have attacked our lord, knocking him off his seat. It then mauled the horse before the horse got rid of it,” Lofotan said. “We’ll have to trace the trail back and find our lord.”
Artyrith strung his bow and hooked a full quiver on his belt. Lofotan armed himself with a spear of unusual style. It was shorter than a standard horse spear, with a thick shaft and a bronze crossbar set back about a hand’s span from the keen bronze head. When Mathi asked, Lofotan said it was a bear spear.
“Are there bears in this country?” Artyrith asked, but Lofotan let the cook’s question go unanswered.
Mathi remembered the phantom she had seen at Free Winds. The creature Lofotan expected to find was no bear. Another one of Vedvedsica’s children had trailed them from the outpost and struck when Balif was alone and vulnerable. Inwardly she shook with anger. Or was it relief? If the traitor Balif was dead, her task was finished, even if it did mean her effort had come to naught.
Rain began to fall in big drops. Lofotan ordered them all to stay behind with the baggage. Treskan and Artyrith erected the tent and picketed the pack team to some surrounding trees. Artyrith laid a fire in the entrance of the tent, angling the canvas flaps to protect the flames from rain and wind.
“Keep it burning and stay awake,” Lofotan warned. “Whatever attacked our lord may still be out there. Do you have a weapon?” Mathi and the scribe had their swords; that was all. “You’d be mauled to pieces by the time you got a chance to stick it with that.” He gave the scribe a standard spear.
“That will keep the beast a little further away,” he said.
The old warrior and the cook rode off just as the rain started lashing down in earnest. Mathi and Treskan huddled by the fire, the spear laid across his knees. The scribe got out his writing board and recorded the day’s events.
Mathi asked him what he wrote. He read his last lines aloud:
Mathi looked up. Rain was coming down in torrents. The horses huddled together, starting noisily when lightning flashed or thunder boomed.
A fat drop of water landed squarely in the center of Treskan’s words. The ink ran, ruining the empty space below the scribe’s previous lines. He tried to blot it dry, putting his spear aside to better reach the page. At that exact moment, the creature that had stalked them all the way from Free Winds landed on all fours between them.
Treskan was speechless with terror. The sodden creature was a mass of matted, dripping fur. By firelight Mathi could see its dark eyes veined with red and a hint of fang protruding from its black lips. It squatted on its haunches, leaning forward on its front claws. Breath steamed from its pug nose.
Treskan’s hands closed around the spear shaft. His movement was too obvious. The creature bared a black lip, snarling.
“Don’t,” whispered Mathi. Another breath in the wrong direction, and the thing would tear the scribe to bits.
“What can we do?” said Treskan in the faintest voice.
“Listen to me,” she said to the monstrous visitor. “Begone now. Run away before the elves return and slay you. You have no reason to be here. What you want, who you want, is well watched.”
Treskan stared.
Mathi ignored him and went on. “He’s not an elf anyway.” To the scribe she said, “Hold out your hand.”
“What?”
“Hold out your hand to him. Let him smell you!”
“Are you insane?”
“Do it or die!”
