The harborfront was still pristine white, not yet trodden into dinginess; the burnt-out shells of Thane manors were mounds ofwhite across a river speckled with ice-chunks and chopped steel-grey beyond the breakwaters.

They stood in the crowd a moment: merchants and smiths and lacemakers from the Zak enclave in dark, knitted hoods and felt overboots, Rand stonemasons brought in for the reconstruction, timber-runners and trappers from the western mountains, one Thane walking with careful politeness past a scowling Aeniri cattlebaron.

Megan filled her lungs and breathed a soundless sigh. The headache was fading slowly. She linked one arm through Shkai'ra's and threw her other around Sova's shoulders, steering them away from the jostle and clamor of the main road. "There's a shorter way through here. Also likely to be less travelled." An Aeniri man sweeping his doorstep and knocking down the icicles that threatened passers-by looked up and smiled.

"Teik Vixen! You're back. In health I hope." Megan nodded uncomfortably.

"And you can protect me from well wishers," she whispered to the other two.

Sova looked at her curiously. "Don't you like being famous?

Who was he?"

Megan cleared her throat. "He's one of the Aeniri, that's all I know, but since the war they've all been treating me like best-loved kin. Being famous isn't comfortable. I'd forgotten how uncomfortable, away two years."

Shkai'ra chuckled. "But you find it useful sometimes." She ducked her head under a thatch fringed in snow and pushed away from the building.

"HEY!" Sova squealed as an icy clump from the roof on the other side of the street dropped down her neck. Megan laughed.

"I did say this way was shorter. I didn't say it was any wider."

As they entered the Zak quarter, the character of the houses changed, bringing a breath of age from F'talezon further north.The carvings around doorways were little more than swirls in the wood, rather than the Areniri brightwork, bringing the eye swinging around sure it had seen movement, while the stone seemed to hug the earth closer.

Sova brushed the snow off the head of an imp carved into one wall and smiled at it; its lips carved in a pucker over big sugarloaf teeth.

It was all different. Not like before. Here she was just herself, just a passer-by. Sometimes I miss being the lady, with two guards and a maid. Here I'm just a girl-child in a fur tunic and leather pants, with a long knife in her belt, attendant on a tall warrior and a sorceress with steel nails. Well, that's good, too. I could ask for what I wanted, then, but I can do that now, too, and well, they like me. I like me. She threw her shoulders back and strode out, swaggering a little, hand on the bone hilt of her blade, proudly gripping the rucksack for Ten-Knife-Foot's medicine. The swagger was easier to imitate than Megan's gliding, acrobat-graceful slink.

I'm glad it was my turn to go out with the Captain and the Khyd-hird, she thought. Francosz hadn't even told her what he and Shkai'ra had done in Rand, just smiled sort of dreamy-smug and put her off. This would give her stories to trade.

All these Aenir and Zak... The Zak were so closed-in looking, faces shadowed in their dark, hooded cloaks; they all seemed to be going someplace definite, with a purpose in mind. One stepped aside politely to avoid Shkai'ra's stride, turning to stare after the two women.

"Koru!" He muttered. "Megan Whitlock! More lives than a River Quarter cat." His cape had fallen open to disclose a wet bundle of sausages in burlap and a round loaf of bread, dusted with flour and still smelling of the oven. Sova braked, nearly slipping as loose cobbles turned under the trodden snow; the man started again as she almost ran into him, gave her a quick glance and swung away with a mumbled apology.

"Anschal, yangbohtgh," he muttered and hurried on his way.

She knew enough Zak now to translate that: Excuse me, youngsquire. Funny, you never think of witches coming home from market with bread and sausages. They never did in the stories, she mused. In the stories they're always brewing poisons and potions, not chat. Ahead, Shkai'ra leaned down to Megan with a word; the smaller woman smiled up at her, leaning into her companion for a moment. Or as having lovers, she thought wistfully. I wonder if anyone will ever love me? Did Pa love Mama? I don't think so.

A wooden shutter banged open ahead of them, a tiny, alleyside stall. The wares were already set out in wicker baskets: hot pastries, baked and deep-fried with fillings of fruit or meat or cheese, smelling of spices and warmth in the damp cold of the narrow, shadowed laneway. Her stomach rumbled, forgetting breakfast; she trotted level with Shkai'ra and nodded at a bowl of shortbreads in the shape of imp-faces.

"Those look nice," she said.

Shkai'ra snorted. "Youngsters are like warhorses, there's no end to feeding them and they let you know it," she said, buying three.

"Ia, Khyd-hird," Sova said dutifully, juggling hers in her hands before biting off its nose.

"In the month of Dagde Vroi, someone might get it to smile back at you," Megan said, thinking of the jokes she had played, and Sova glanced nervously down at the confection. Three bites solved the problem, and she dusted her hands happily.

"I admit I'm not thrilled," Shkai'ra said, "at the idea of being in a city of spook-pushers during a festival devoted to practical jok... Yagh!" She wheeled and groped at the back of her neck, pulling loose an orange ball of fluff that growled and spat and hissed, swatting the air with hind claws extended, handkerchief-sized wings flailing, tail wrapped firmly around Shkai'ra's wrist. The flitterkitten was the size of her hand and had landed right on the back of her neck. It had claws the size of small fishhooks, even sharper. It stretched its head out, spitting and hissing at something further down the street."Here, what's to run from..."

Shkai'ra turned farther, and saw what seemed to be a snow bank detach itself from the drift on the street and amble toward them. She blinked, looked again. That snapped it into shape: a dog. Or wolf, deep-chested muscular build, thick sturdy legs, sharp-muzzled head with alert, pricked ears, long feathered tail, snow white fur just long enough to seem shaggy. An instant's calm acceptance, and then the doorway behind put the beast in perspective.

It was as tall as Megan at the shoulder; its mild yellow eyes on a level with Shkai'ra's. Must weigh as much as a pony, her stockbreeder's mind estimated, as her hand flicked across her body to the hilt of her sword. Zaik aid my arm-there was no way to kill something that size with a sword, not with one thrust, not unless a god directed it, you needed a bow and a fast horse, or a long, cross-barred spear. Danger-flush hit her with a sudden brutal hammerblow. And...

It isn't attacking, ran through her. She had been a hunter from childhood; this was nothing like the fixed stare and sidelong rush of a wolf, the ears were up, the tail curled high and beating frantically.

The fluffball in her other hand was making a determined effort to crawl up her sleeve, its wing-claws tangled in cloth; tail and hind legs wiggling in mid-air; its experience was much more limited. The scent said enemy, and the size was beyond belief, a feline's nightmare come true.

Sova shrank back against the wall, drawing her knife and dropping into a crouch as she had been taught.

A, a greathound? she thought, and shivered. A legend, a tale told to naughty Thane children to make them mind; a word among the men her father spoke with, teRyadn mercenaries fighting alongside the Aenir enemies of her folk with monster wolves attending them.

The ground shook and sounded, as it would under the hooves of a horse. She remembered her lapdog; this was not like Pishkaat all. She kept Shkai'ra in the corner of her eye to await orders.

Then Megan smiled and stepped forward, calling a name; Sova felt a sudden, irrational flush of relief. It couldn't be too bad if the Captain was in charge, monster or no.

Megan stepped out from under the heavy overhang into the sun-glare and squinted down the street, shielding her eyes with a practised hand, smiling. It could be another greathound, she supposed, but they were rare on the river.

"No," she murmured. "Shyll's, and none other. The rumors were right, it has been him and Rilla taking the House's ships back from Smoothtongue. ' Memories opened and a rare grin lit her face. Then more memories, of other separations and the dog's reaction to them: her face changed as Inu bounded forward, tongue lolling, and she moaned, "Oh no, not again."

"INU! SIT!" she yelled; but it would take more than that to stop him once a long-lost friend had been scented. A teRyadn greathound never lost the memory of a scent.

The dog, rather than obeying her, leaped, making a sound somewhere between a joyful woof and a bellow. Megan had time to brace herself against the wall and say, "Shkai'ra don't hurt him, he won't-" before it was on her in a flurry of snow and clumsy paws and slobbering tongue.

Shkai'ra looked down at the hind end of the flitterkitten in her sleeve and at Megan, who was vainly trying to keep the dog from licking her face as she held him by a death-grip on his ruff.

The Zak couldn't quite turn her head far enough, even from the cold, wet nose he was trying to thrust into her neck, and was spluttering as she shouted at the dog.

"Sit! Sit! Down! Get down! Stopppfth it! You'll drown me!

Sifipth-top it!" Shkai'ra blinked again, trying to make her mind accept the sheer size of the thing; felt the sweat of a fear come and gone too quickly to register cooling on her flanks; felt another sensation bubbling up from her belly, and took a bewildered moment to recognize it as laughter. The dog's tongue was the size of a washcloth, and abundantly wet.She hooted, doubling with a weakness half mirth and half relief, let the weakness in her knees carry her down to a helpless squat in the snow of the laneway.

Megan glared at her between swipes of the dogs tongue and said, "It's not phtth-Inu, you great son-of-a-bitch, stop it-It's not funny!"

Shkai'ra leaned back and howled as the kitten disappeared completely. "Here I was thinking that one of the mythical beasts was attacking us, and it's a puppy the size of a horse!"

Megan endured the sloppy tongue, glad that the dog knew its own strength and didn't try too hard. Inu was how she had first met Shyll. The teRyadn had had to help her up since Inu had knocked her down in his first enthusiasm. She remembered taking his hand for an instant, tolerating his touch because she was so busy staring at him. His hair was light blond, sun-bleached white, his clear-seeing green eyes like warm surf.

She had scrubbed her hand when she pulled it loose because the response in the pit of her stomach frightened her, especially when he smiled, and she had launched into a furious tirade about the rudeness of irresponsible dog owners to hide her fear.

He had smiled again and apologized and somehow had managed to make up for his animal's misbehaviour. I have missed him, very much, she thought. I even don't mind his drool mine that he calls a dog.

"SIT!" she bellowed, and surprisingly, Inu, with a basso whine-Uuurumph-sat down and cocked his head sideways at her. She held her head between her hands and wished she could hear normally, suddenly heard a blast like a shout, HI FRIEND!

GOOD FRIEND! KISSWARMUCKUCKHAPPY-PANTSNIFFU!-.

and winced, closing her eyes. She slitted them open again to look at Shkai'ra laughing in the snow, at Sova with her hands to her mouth trying not to smile and at Inu who muttered at her and whined again.

"Inu," she said, quietly so as not to shake her head too much, with a smile that she bit her lips to stop, "meet Shkai'ra, a new friend-"Shkai'ra started to sit up as Megan said, "Say hello!" Inu's head had swung to the Kommanza and with a yip he leaped, raising a cloud of powdery snow, and lay down on her, pinning her with friendly front paws. With enthusiasm he began to lick her face. Sova leaned back against her wall and held her sides.

Not so different from Pishka after all, except for size.

"Shkai'ra! Hold still!"

"I am holding still!" The Kommanza said through clenched teeth. "It tickles."

"Well, you're the one with a kitten stuck up her sleeve and when we had trouble getting it out said she could stand it even when we talked to the cytokenska about Ten-Knife."

"And I did. Until the Zaik-damned rat crawled up and started sucking on my armpit-get it out!" Megan tried another gentle pull, with her hand around the flitterkitten's body. She could feel the swelling pigeon-chest muscles flex as it mewed and hooked its wing-claws deeper in the cloth.

It hissed, scrabbling harmlessly with its hind claws. "This will never work!" Megan snapped.

"That's what I've been telling-eagh!" Megan brought out her hand, squeezed the cloth down around Shkai'ra's upper arm, and forced the kitten lower so Sova could grab it with hands muffled in a scarf.

Shkai'ra stood immobile, the flat muscles of her arms and shoulders rigid and quivering with the effort needed it hold control; there had been a time when she lay naked in a swamp with only her nose above the reeds, and cannibals poled dugouts in search of her. Fish had begun to nibble on her; that had been easier to endure than this.

She ignored the winter fair for the moment, people pushing close together, their breath foggy on the cold air, the scent of mulled wine and cider very strong, and the hot spices of the meat pies drifting from the baker's section. A Zak swordsmith demonstrated her wares, cleaving a silk pillow and a bar of brassin turn. Ploughs, harrows, luminescently beautiful woolen carpets from the Thane workshops across the river, pots and dishes of plain earthenware from all up and down the Brezhan, barrels of salt pork, sides of bacon and mutton, piles of roots and hardtack and salt fish and apples as fresh as autumn's kiss, by Felykska Horse-Goddess I swear it!

The three of them were standing on the market corner of the enclave, near the horse pens. Inu, lying between them and the crowds, watched with intense curiosity, his head twisting almost upside down. Passers-by who spared an interested glance for the two travellers fishing in the third's coat stepped respectfully around the greathound, and went their way.

With an effort of the will, Shkai'ra focused on the horse pens.

Good stock, some of that, she thought; horses were something a Kommanz aristocrat could always generate an interest in. For a moment she felt a nostalgia that was almost like the memory of lost love.

You picked out a likely colt and hand-reared it, hand-fed it, kept it in hall, gave it a secret Name that was between the two of you...

The dance circle, half-way around the square, was full of musicians and dancers on the smooth-tramped surface and somewhere very close a creature like a horse screamed.

"There! I've got itl" Sova said, holding the kitten in both hands. It saw Inu, and the girl laughed as it tried to crawl into her sleeve. "Look, stupid. The dog isn't interested in you." She put it on the ground. It promptly leaped and fluttered up to Shkai'ra's shoulder again and draped itself there. Its scrap tail wrapped itself as far around the back of her neck as it would reach, and it directed a warning hiss at the greathound from beneath the clubbed ponytail of red-gold hair before settling down to a suspicious grooming session.

Megan squeezed Shkai'ra's arm, briefly brushed her cheek against the wool and let go. "Well. You have another khyd, it seems. It's a good thing that the cytokenska agreed to come look at Ten-Knife later on in the day. I don't think he would haveliked accompanying this cavalcade through the fair." She looked over at the horse trader's section of the fair. "I don't suppose I have to ask what interests you, akribhan."

Shkai'ra shook her head without turning, gaze locked on the livestock pens. Most of the Aeniri interest seemed to center about the cattle: there was a corral of huge, white-coated bulls, barbarically shaggy, their horns crescent moons that glinted bronze-tipped and lethal. Pity the bear or wolf that tries that herd, she thought. On second thought, she also pitied the herders.

The horses were working animals, mostly. Some interesting riding beasts; they would have to abandon the ship when the river froze, go upstream, on sledges pulled by horse and greathound. Baiwun Thunderer hammer me flat if I don't get something worth forking, she mused. Might even be one war-trained, have to learn different commands, but ....

The rough post and rail fence had the top cleared of snow by the row of children's bottoms as they watched the mixed-breed mares, heavy enough to haul stumps out of the ground; or as the merchant was proclaiming, "Hitch two of my beauties together and they could haul the Dragons out by the roots!" Their breath plumed out of their nostrils in long streams and they stamped their plate-sized, feathered hooves in the slush. Beyond that, a crowd pressed close around an isolated pen, where the stallion's screams were coming from. A flash of black and silver shone in the sun over people's heads as the horse reared, trailing ropes and men from head and neck.

Megan looked over and sighed. "That's Laeryk. Every few years he tries to tame and sell a Ri. Everyone old enough to walk knows that only Ryadn can tame Ri, and they mind-bond with them, they don't break them to a halter. Laeryk's found out how to get them this far, but he's never managed to make one live longer, and so far only the DragonLord has has ever bought one.

He usually makes up his expenses selling its hide, mane and tail." She looked at Shkai'ra. "I wanted to show you a Ri. Why don't you take the new acquisition and have a look at the carnage while Sova and I get Shyll?"The Ri. Sixteen hands, perhaps, if it could be gotten still enough to judge. Black whirlwind, blizzard wind off the steppe, never halted or stayed. It wheeled, dragging six handlers with it, kicked with both hind feet, lunged forward with both front claws, knocked a man spinning into the fence, tried to leap and trample, stretching the muzzle as if it could savage him. Another dropped her rope and tumbled away, screaming, grasping at the pumping arteries of a thigh. The sound was lost under the scream of the Ri, stallion-shrill with an undertone of hiss, keening at the ears like steel on slate.

Black coat striped darker black, mane and tail a white so clean as to be almost silver, foam blowing from open jaws where long, meat-eater's fangs gleamed through the leather muzzle.

The snow was trampled into mud and gore, and broken ropes showed where the beast had been tied. The Ri was blowing, fighting in the silence of knowledge that it would get free, that it would rend them all. The muzzle straps around its head had worn raw; it was thin and its dark green eyes showed white all around.

The merchant shouted and three more leather ropes glided out and settled over the Ri's head. The creature was at last dragged to the wooden pilings of the fence and lashed fast though it did not stop, would not stop.

Shkai'ra's lips shaped themselves into a soundless whistle. She blinked, trying to put aside the inner eye's preconceptions and see. It was shaped like a horse, yes, but not the block-headed, thick-necked steeds she had been raised on. Like the Kaina bluegrass stock, like the desert horses of the Yad-'zeahs, the peacock-worshiping sand nomads of the lands east of the Mitvald. Slim, strong... but the spine was too flexible for a horse's, the feet padded and clawed. The head was wedge-shaped, the mad green eyes set forward in the skull.

Binocular vision, carnivore's eyes, for judging the leaps that fastened those teeth, those twin fangs that caught and the shearing row behind...

The eyes caught her. Those were not in the least a horse's, not even a stallion fighting-mad in the breeding season. A ruttingstallion fights for dominance; the vanquished retreats, to try another year. This thing fought to kill, loved to kill, she had seen it before-It was the smell that prompted her memories. The musk, acrid, rank: the devil-face lunging at her out of the trap, tearing its own leg free and coming at her through the trampled snow. Wolverine, maddest of the weasel tribe, climbing up the blade of her spear until it jammed against the crossbar, ran her backward with a forearm's length of razor steel sawing back and forth through its guts and twice its weight on the shaft, until the spearbutt rammed into a tree and it died; ripping the tough, double-thickness of leather off the sole of her boot with its last strength, worrying it as it went blind with loss of blood.

This is a thing you must love, or kill, she thought, breathless, and looked up, daze fading from her face. The Ri was slamming itself rhythmically against the rough bars of the corral in the scant handspan of play the multiple ropes provided; the watching urchins had retreated to safer ground. The handlers were grouped about their wounded fellow, one weeping as he applied bandage and tourniquet. The merchant wept, too, tears of frustration, as he took up a short, broad-bladed axe. The type a butcher used, when the oxen were held fast in the press.

"Wait, man," she breathed, stepping past him. She realized she had spoken in her own language, from her childhood and six thousand miles to the west.

"Wait, I'll buy it," she barked in trade-Zak.

The merchant wheeled incredulously. One of the handlers looked up and snarled a negative, touching a short, thick bow by his side. The merchant was an Aenir, round-faced and fair; his stockfolk were all of another breed, short, narrow-eyed, brown-skinned folk, with long, straight brown locks caught back in headbands, and loose white clothes. He roared back at them in the same agglutinative language and turned to Shkai'ra, the flush and sweat of fury still on his skin.

"Fine! Gold this spawn of Tchernebog, this Ri, spittle of Bayag cost me; blood to bring it here. No one but Laeyrk of Clan Droyosz has ever brought a living Ri to the Winter Fair. None! I say it! A journey of three months and a day to the east I made, tofind Hoparu-ho trackers who would attempt it. Not for gold! For arms in their wars, with that I bought their skill. Leyshi haunt me if I lie! Two months on the steppe with Ryadn hunting our trail. I say it!"

"Six Dragonclaws," Shkai'ra said, very softly. Her gaze had never left the animal's, white-rimmed green meeting lambent grey. Only the DragonLord had offered so much for a live Ri. And his men had demanded a refund when it had died along with four sailors on the journey upriver to F'talezon.

"Accepted," he said quickly. "All damages it accrues are now your responsibility! Not a moment more will I guard this suh'im ." He stepped back with an elaborate bow, sweeping the axe before him. "But before you claim your property, Teik, payment." She ignored him, throwing the coins into the bloody muck at his feet. The kitten squeaked and soared away, mewing.

Shkai'ra paced to within a foot of the beast and stared into its eyes. The open mouth of the carnivore gaped, pink and white and carrion hot, the spittle wetting her cheeks.

"Ahi, horse," she whispered in her own tongue, the language of truth and passion. "Hsssa, ssa, we'll have you loose and see a great killing soon enough. Great Killer... so... Teeth of a Winter Storm... shhh." Talking constantly, quietly, she gently laid the tips of her fingers on the Ri's neck. It convulsed, and one of the ropes parted with a sound like a shot-pistol. Shkai'ra never flinched, never moved, never ceased to meet the mad green eyes.

"Saaa, ssssa, yh'zorza, yhlceemra, yh'uhnaat, saaa, saaa-" she murmured, hands stroking along the narrow muzzle, regardless of the curved fangs that clenched down within the halter of leather and iron, centimeters from her skin. "We are brother, we are sister, we are kindred..."

The Ri writhed and twisted under the intolerable touch of the two-legged one, not-herd, not like herd, killkillkillkillki ... It raved and strained to sink fangs into the face so close that was not afraid-was not afraid. Soothing voice with blood in it.

Not-herd, not like-herd, but similar, close. There was no fear, no stink to enrage it, only firm hands that held its head and with the ropes made it look at her. No fear. Slowly it stopped fightingthe ropes and began listening to the voice. No fear. Not herd, not like-herd but close enough. No fear. It reached with its mind for the lack of fear in hers.

The animal stood, quivering. The clawed not-hooves of its forefeet stamped once more and were still as its mind plunged into hers-her mind forced into its in spinning circles of its memories and hers.

hot salt wet pouring down throat soft smash woodironskin claws sink eateateat food wriggles in mouth- -soft resistance as the sword sinks in, eyes widening as she twists the blade to withdraw, jetting wetness on her wrist, across her face- -twoleg runs runs smell fear taste taste notcatch pleasure nip chase runs runs falls gather eateateatscreaming- -turning in the saddle, drawing, losing, flight of arrow falling falling STRIKES figure tumbles lies disappears galloping waving bow shrieking laughter I live you the warm pleasure rush belly- -female quivers hot shrieking take thrust fill fill offer meat heat scent female female- -riding him, arcing back clawing muscles clench her mouth on on hard hard wet tongue ahhh- Shkai'ra shook her head and reeled back a step, looking into the green eyes that somehow held a shadow of grey in them now.

It stood quietly, panting, froth spilling over its tongue as it gasped. It stood quietly and stared at her.

She pulled out her belt knife and cut the muzzle loose, dropping it into the mud and stepping on it as she reached to cut the other ropes. Her mind didn't consciously hear the merchant's cry of, "NO!" but her head swung around as the Ri's came loose, and an identical snarl marked both of them. The Aenir blinked, swallowed, found his eyes forced aside by a frantic need to see something beside the sameness in the eyes of thewoman and the creature he had loved and hated for so long.

Shkai'ra stepped back slowly, and the Ri followed.

Pace-pace-pace, and her eyes never leaving the animal's.

Someone opened the gate behind her as she stepped backward through it.

The crowd melted away from them, a bubble of space more than ten feet around them, on a course that lead to the shore.

The Ri followed her, followed her eyes, limping slightly on swollen claw-feet.

Ahi, horse, Shkai'ra thought. Not-horse, kin, soon, soon.

The fair-market was near the east side of the island, one narrow street leading to a cliff edge some ten feet to the water.