She nodded once and slipped easily from the horse's back, managing to hide her inevitable disappointment at no longer being the mounted escort poised to charge any dangerous but misguided beast that should come lumbering down the mountain into range.

Above us came a screeching call, so sharp and loud that we all turned our eyes upward.

"A kite," said Orgos.

"No," I corrected him, "it's a bird."

"A kite is a bird, idiot," he said without malice. "A kind of hawk."

The bird was circling perhaps a hundred feet overhead, its tail black and forked like a swallow's and its head down, watching. Its head and body were a brilliant white, even against the pale sky, and set off the black of the tail and wings strikingly. I was about to turn away from this before Orgos started one of his lectures on the wonders of nature, when a curious thing happened. A smaller bird flew up to the kite, chirping shrilly, then veered off and swooped low at us with only a yard or two of clearance.

"A starling," said Orgos. There was a note of confusion in his voice as his eyes followed the smaller bird to where it rejoined the kite, calling as before. The raptor, continuing to glide in tight circles, wings out straight, pinions splayed, returned a series of sharp whistles.

"It's not a starling," said Mithos, eyes upturned. "I mean, it's not a a starling, it's starling, it's the the starling. The one we saw before." starling. The one we saw before."

"Based on what?" I asked. "You've seen one starling, you've seen 'em all."

"Based on nothing," said Mithos, dropping his eyes to mine. "A hunch. A sense of being watched."

This was, of course, quite absurd, but "absurd" is not a word which leaps to the lips when confronted with Mithos giving you one of those looks. Orgos? Maybe. Renthrette? Certainly, though you should expect to pay for it. But Mithos? Mithos? Absurd? No. Mithos kept himself to himself, showing little emotion and letting the world go on around him till he told it to stop. When he gave orders, people followed them without question because he seemed so sure of his own mind and so dangerous to challenge. Not that he was violent or overtly threatening, you understand. He was just grim and powerful. Yes, that's the word: Absurd? No. Mithos kept himself to himself, showing little emotion and letting the world go on around him till he told it to stop. When he gave orders, people followed them without question because he seemed so sure of his own mind and so dangerous to challenge. Not that he was violent or overtly threatening, you understand. He was just grim and powerful. Yes, that's the word: powerful powerful, in every sense.

Now, though my brain said that the idea that these birds were keeping an eye on our progress and discussing it over a sandwich and a couple of pints was preposterous, the fact that it was Mithos who had said so gave it a kind of weird credibility. Renthrette watched him for a moment as if expecting further explanation, but he did not give any, and when she turned away, her face was blank, expressionless. Orgos nodded thoughtfully to himself and advanced along the cinder track, eyes skinned for an opening in the rock that would get us out of the freezing night winds.

I watched as they set off again and wondered, as I have often wondered in their company, what the h.e.l.l I was doing with these people.

The cave which Mithos's keen eyes picked out of the mountainside was almost obscured by a great slab of granite. Behind it a fissure in the rock admitted us into a short corridor which we pa.s.sed through two abreast, and thence into an L-shaped chamber, a long entrance stretching back into the cliff and then curving left through a narrow fissure. Its walls were irregular, in parts jutting out sharply, and it was, if anything, colder than it had been outside.

I crossed the uneven floor with a sour look on my face: There was a musty, almost rancid scent to the place and the air was moist as well as cold. Droplets of water pearled on my face. I brushed them off, wandering to the back of the cavern and the hollow, which cut to the left. This was dry, though much of the larger cavern (the two parts of the L were virtually separate "rooms"), was mossy, and a thin slime covered the floor by the entrance, where a trickle of water ran down the wall. No hand had carved the cave: only the wind, the rain, and the awesome splitting power of freezing winter and spring thaw, if spring ever came to this frigid wind-trap.

"Excellent," said Orgos in a voice apparently without sarcasm.

"Just like home," I added.

"We'll soon warm it up once we've got a fire going," said Mithos. "Renthrette, see if you can hang the blankets across the doorway. Keep the wind out."

The horse was led inside, much to my distaste, and offered what little greenery Renthrette had found.

"Must we sleep with the animal?" I whined.

Renthrette gave me an angry stare and said, "We've had to ever since you joined us."

"Funny," I observed. "I mean that great stinking manure factory."

Renthrette glanced at the horse to make sure it hadn't been offended.

"Can't leave it outside," said Mithos. "There may be wolves about."

"Oh, great," I said. "Knowing our luck we've probably holed up in their den. The horse would be safer as far from here as possible."

"No animals have lived here lately," said Orgos, our resident naturalist. "There's no dung, bones, or anything."

"Pity," I said. "There might have been something edible. Do we have anything for dinner at all?"

"One loaf of bread and a block of goat cheese," said Orgos, fishing through a saddlebag.

"I suppose we could always eat the horse," I mused. "Better than sleeping with it."

"I'd rather sleep with the horse than with you," Renthrette snapped.

"I'll bet," I said. "I'd suggest you invite it over for dinner first, but since we've sod-all to eat ..."

"Give it a rest, Will," she muttered, balefully. Orgos grinned at me briefly and then joined Mithos in the center of the chamber.

They squatted down and began striking the steel and flint into the few dry leaves we had managed to find. When a flame appeared they cupped hands around it, whispering nurturing words as they fed it twigs and blew softly at its base. Renthrette joined them and the three of them crouched together, urging the fire to life as if tending a newborn calf, willing it to breathe or to take its first step. I watched from the back of the chamber, oddly distant from their seemingly familiar ritual. When the flames were strong enough to set their teeth to some of the larger branches we had gathered, the group shared a collective smile of comradeship and achievement. I shivered, as much at the exclusion as at the cold.

The cave did warm up, and within an hour or so, after a meager supper and the smallest gulp from Orgos's water flask, I was as comfortable and ready to sleep as I was likely to get. The four of us were seated quietly around the fire, watching it as we had done months before, only days after I met them. Bearing that in mind, I was half expecting the request for a tale of some sort when it came. It was, after all, pretty much all I could do. What I wasn't expecting was that it should come from Renthrette.

"Got a suitable tale, Will?" she asked.

I gave her a searching glance, but her eyes were lost in the fire. Briefly they flicked up to me, expressionless, then returned to the hearth without comment.

I considered for a moment, then spoke. "Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a girl with hair like spun gold and eyes of blue clear as a spring sky. She was fourteen and lived with her brother and her parents in a town that sat in a range of tall, imposing mountains. The parents doted on the girl and gave her everything she could wish for and, since they lived in a fine, s.p.a.cious house with a maid and a butler and a nurse for the children, she did as she pleased and was as happy as a girl has ever been in life or story.

"But one day, her father came home from the market and his face was anxious. He was distant, preoccupied, and barely looked at the girl when she asked him what he had brought for her today. She was upset and sought out her brother. Together they watched as her father's worry spread to their mother and among the servants, but they did not know why until there was a loud rapping at the door.

"A man was outside, dressed in armor and a white cloak. His face was stern, and twenty other soldiers stood in ranks behind him, all with spears and shortswords. The children watched as the soldiers marched into the house and began helping themselves to food, drink, and whatever valuables they came upon. Plates were smashed; ancient crystal, pa.s.sed on through the family, was brushed aside to shatter in pieces on the floor; and priceless furniture was overturned and chopped up for firewood. The servants, beaten by the soldiers, fled. The mother wept loudly over the ruins of her possessions and the father sought out the soldiers' commander, pleading with him to spare the rest of their belongings.

"But the soldiers just laughed and went on stealing and destroying everything in the house. Then one of them caught sight of the girl, and, catching her by the hair, he thrust her against the wall. As others gathered around them, the father burst in upon them with a hatchet and felled one of the men with a single blow. The others turned on him with their swords. The mother ran to tear them from her husband, but it was too late, and she too received her death wound. The children saw all this, but were too afraid to weep. Instead they fled, from the house, from the town, from the mountains.

"They fled for several years, living from hand to mouth, hiding in the streets, lurking in shadows, learning the ways of the downtrodden and the poor. Learning to hate the soldiers in their armor and white cloaks. ..."

"Is this your idea of humor, Will?"

I looked up from the fire to find Renthrette staring at me. Her face was drawn tight and her already pale skin had a strange bleached quality. Her eyes were cold but full of rage.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

She gave me a long, hard look, and the anger in her eyes froze hard. Then, quite suddenly, and with a studied casualness which did not register in her face, she rose to her feet. "Forget it," she said, then added, "I'm going to get some sleep." She walked toward the back of the cave, gathering up one of the blankets in a single, irritable gesture.

"Don't you want to hear the end of the story?" I asked. She turned and her glance chilled me to the bone. I was used to her distaste and loathing, but this was different. This was close to hatred.

Her voice, when she spoke, however, was casual, almost jocular. "The part where she and her brother meet up with a group of rebels and become adventurers, but they get separated by the stupidity of this idiot actor they found in the street? I don't think so, thanks."

She turned and walked away, leaving the three of us in silence by the fire. I shrugged.

"That was way out of line, Will," said Orgos, his voice cold, his eyes boring into mine. "You're lucky she didn't put a dagger through your lungs."

There was another long and awkward pause as he refused to let me out of his gaze.

"I would have," said Mithos. His eyes never rose from the fire and his tone was soft, almost thoughtful. But he meant it. Hit with a wave of fear-fear of Renthrette, of Mithos's words and, even more, fear of the hint of agreement in Orgos's dark eyes-I struggled to my feet and blundered out into the night air.

It had been a stupid and mean-spirited thing to do and I was far from clear what I had been trying to achieve: trying to make her look slightly stupid for ridiculing me, I suppose. And I was trying to make myself look shrewd at having put together the half-clues I had been given over the past few months. Maybe I had hoped she would take it all with a half smile and a wink, impressed, even touched that I might give her background so much consideration. Or maybe I was just trying to claim a little insight because this place made me feel so stupid and lost. I had no idea how close to the mark I had been, but the fact that they all knew what I had been shooting at suggested I hadn't been far off. Suddenly the cleverness of my story fell away and I glimpsed something of its awful truth. If she had been through something like the picture I painted, Mithos was right: it was a wonder she hadn't killed me on the spot. To bring it all up to score a cheap point at her expense ... Standing out in the cold, windy darkness and the silence of the mountain, my motives looked pretty shoddy.

I had convinced myself that I was no longer really interested in Renthrette. Even when I had been, it had been pure, unmitigated l.u.s.t, as she had been quick to point out. Hadn't it? There were times I had begun to wonder, but they had pa.s.sed quickly enough. I had felt quite sure that given the choice between a lifetime of friendship and one night with her under the sheets followed by no relationship of any sort, I would have taken the latter without hesitation. The patent spitefulness of what I had done made me wonder, with something of a start, what my feelings for her actually were. It was an unnerving thought.

Me and Renthrette? You must be joking. There might be-in fact, I know there are-some men who jump at the chance to be spurned by a woman, their feelings trampled and their poetry mocked, but not me. Not Will Anything-for-a-quiet-life Hawthorne. The Bill Hawthorne who had patronized the Eagle in Cresdon and who lived for beer and cards, the dashing apprentice actor and minor playwright, had a formula for love which ran as follows: flirtation, seduction, consummation, satisfaction, evasion. Afterward, when one is gathered with one's mates over a few pints of Old Seymore's chestnut ale, the cycle is concluded with a little recollection and narration. All that hearts and flowers stuff was merely part of steps one or two, and anyone who thought otherwise was doomed to a life of quite unnecessary pain. That was strictly for the birds.

And as if on cue, one appeared. It perched on the slab of rock across the cave mouth only ten feet or so from where I stood and looked at me in silence. A moment pa.s.sed and I realized that it was doing none of that shifting, twitching, head tilting stuff that birds do. It was quite still, its eyes fixed on me.

The moon was riding high and three quarters full, casting a pale glow on the rocky landscape, which flared softly and then faded as clouds pa.s.sed overhead. Suddenly, the sky cleared and the night shapes grew harder edges as the moon brushed the track and the crags around it with a watery silver light. The bird's distinctive blackish green plumage sparkled metallically and I recognized it: It was a starling.

While this thought was registering in my head, I caught movement elsewhere, out among the strewn boulders and rocky outcrops beyond the road. I turned to face them, and, as my eyes adjusted a little, I saw a flicker of shapes-no more than shadows-moving quickly. Then one by one I saw pairs of clear green eyes p.r.i.c.king out of the darkness like fireflies.

I turned awkwardly, sc.r.a.ping against the stone in my haste, and dipped into the little corridor with its curtain of gray wool. "Wolves!" I shouted. "There's a pack of wolves outside. Or something."

"What does 'or something' mean?" said Orgos, casually and without getting up.

"I didn't get real close!" I shouted back in panic and anger. "They looked like wolves. All right?"

"Renthrette is trying to sleep," said Mithos, his eyes on a piece of wood he was whittling with his knife.

"Are you people deaf or just stupid?" I yelled again. "I said there are ..."

"Wolves," said Orgos. "Yes."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" said Orgos.

"Well, what are you going to do?" I demanded, body and voice beginning to tremble with exasperation.

"Nothing," said Mithos. "Stay here. They'll be gone by dawn."

"Are you out of your tiny minds?" I retorted. "There's a pack of ravenous, bloodthirsty beasts out there. Wolves, for G.o.d's sake! Listen!"

They had started to howl, great falling bays that rolled through the night air and trailed into plaintive whines like the music that drifts from a madhouse. A paralyzing chill seeped into my bloodstream and spread throughout my body. I went pale, fumbled for a weapon I didn't have, and then turned to find Orgos gazing off as in a trance. His black face, glowing softly in the firelight, was transfigured with a strange contentment, an almost spiritual delight in the wolf voices.

"Is there something wrong with you?" I bawled at him. "Do you find the idea of wolf muzzles poking into your ribcage for the juicy bits somehow amusing? Or is this more of that harmony-with-nature b.o.l.l.o.c.ks? They'll tear your throat out as soon as look at you."

"No they won't," said Orgos, with a sigh which suggested we'd had this conversation a hundred times. "They almost never attack people unless the winter is unusually hard and nothing else has survived. Not the case here, evidently. Nor would they seek us out in a cave like this, especially when there's a fire. No wolf that wasn't desperate for food would consider coming through that curtain. Just relax and enjoy the music."

And, as if on cue, a black muzzle sprouting with pale grayish bristle pushed through the woolen hanging at the cave's mouth. Slowly, guarded and low to the ground, its teeth bared and a low growl emanating from its throat, a great wolf entered.

SCENE V

Sorrail

It's a funny thing, but sometimes-not often, you understand, but from time to time-it's nicer to be wrong than right. This was one of those times. The fact that Mithos froze, reversing the grip on his knife carefully, and Orgos scrambled awkwardly to his feet, eyes flashing to the sword that lay a dozen feet away, really didn't help at all. We were in a very small s.p.a.ce with a wolf whose teeth, at this none-too-comfortable distance, looked like kitchen knives. Moreover, as the shifting of the curtain testified, there were more behind it, and they were coming in.

The horse went berserk. It had been standing over in the corner, as far from the fire as it could get in relative comfort, but the scent of the wolf induced sudden and total terror and it began to rear and paw the air. It ran to the back of the cavern and then paced to and fro, neighing and shaking its mane, its dark eyes bulging.

The wolf came on, right into the cave, undaunted by the fire, and there were at least three following it. I glanced around wildly, but there was nothing even resembling a weapon to hand and none of us had bows. We would have to fight at close quarters, with those great jaws snapping at us from all sides. In true Hawthorne fashion, I backed off slowly, my eyes fixed on the foremost wolf.

It was a huge dark-gray beast with a s.h.a.ggy collar of longer fur stretching back like a mane from its slim face to its shoulders, while in its eyes was a cold light that suddenly and curiously reminded me of the starling. The a.s.sociation made little sense so I discarded it, returning to the more important matter of putting some yardage between me and those lupine chops. Backing off into the hollow at the back of the cave, I stumbled into Renthrette as she was getting to her feet and finding her sword.

I turned to her, but she looked through me as if we had never met, and then glanced from the advancing wolves to the leather-bound grip of her broadsword. It was a long, keen-bladed weapon, almost like a rapier but heavier, and she held it outstretched before her to hold the animals at bay. Instinctively, I stepped behind her.

There were five wolves in the cavern now, all snarling, hackles rising and falling like wind-blown aspens as the muscles beneath flexed and tightened. They had arced around the fire and now held their ground, their eyes amber with the leaping flames which were doing nothing to discourage them. The horse, now quite mad with terror, bucked one last time before its heart stopped and it fell heavily to the ground.

"Wait!" said Mithos, as the four of us huddled together, blades outstretched. "They may yet withdraw."

This seemed unlikely to me and I didn't like the idea of those jaws coming at me, cowering as I was back there with no weapon to hand. Moreover, there was something about the wolves which I didn't like; something beyond the obvious, I mean. They didn't move right. They exchanged glances and made noises unlike any beasts I had ever seen. And their eyes: in their eyes there was, what? Something I didn't want to name. ...

The back of the cave was littered with stones of various sizes as if part of the cave wall had collapsed decades ago. As I watched the wolves no more than four or five yards away, I had been weighing a rock in my hand thoughtfully. Now I flung it, hard as I could, at the nearest and largest of the wolves.

He saw it coming and tried to duck, but it struck the mound of his shoulder and knocked him to the floor with a yelp. He was barely down for a moment, however, before he was on his feet again and coming for us. And the others came with him.

The cavern exploded with the noise of their rage as they set upon us. For a second the room seemed full of their gaping throats and gleaming fangs. Renthrette's sword, orange in the firelight, cut and lunged, and a wolf howl died on its dark lips. Mithos felled another, but there seemed to be more coming in. Orgos slashed one across the side and it collapsed, whining, but another was on his back and snapping at the nape of his neck. I saw Mithos call out and step toward Orgos, sword smoking with fresh blood.

Then I felt hot breath on my arm and a shock of pain. A wolf, paler than the others, almost white, had got past Renthrette, launched itself at me, and clamped its jaws around my left wrist and was worrying at it. I screamed, trying to shake it free, and blood, my blood, spattered on the cavern wall. The wolf let go, only to throw its forepaws onto my shoulders and send me crashing hard onto my back. Then it was on my chest and its muzzle was dipping for my throat as I flailed uselessly at it.

I didn't see Renthrette's sword pierce the beast until it had stiffened and slumped lifeless on top of me. Her eyes turned back to the fight. I just lay there feeling the wild thumping of my heart.

When I rolled out from under the warm and b.l.o.o.d.y fur of the animal, my left wrist stripped raw and streaming blood, I found I was too weak to stand, and my arm felt as if it had been thrust into the heart of the fire. I was gripped by an agony as tight as the wolf's jaws. Gathering myself into a sitting position with my back to the rock wall, I tried to stay the bleeding with a piece of my shirt. In truth, I also had to cover it up because I thought-wrongly, as it turned out-that I could see bone. Briefly my eyes misted over.

When I looked again, the wolves which remained, four or five of them, had withdrawn a little and now hung back around the cave mouth. They watched us still, but more warily now, and the sounds they made to each other were different. One of them, a silver-gray beast with a white blaze on the fur of its throat, met my gaze and returned it with eyes like yellow moons floating in black oil. Orgos still stood beside Renthrette, but he was bleeding from his neck and leg. Drops of crimson trickled down Renthrette's sword arm, and Mithos had backed up to the wall and leaned against it. His sword hung wearily from his hand, his face was pale, and there was a great wound in his side. His right hand was clasped across it, but blood seeped through his fingers and fell like rain to the cave floor.

"I do not think we can hold off another a.s.sault," said Renthrette.

"But we will show them what human muscle and fine steel can do before we perish," Orgos replied, darkly.

There was a commotion at the cave mouth. The wolves parted on either side of it, as if by agreement, and their growls grew low and ominous. Something was coming in.

The curtain was torn down and a great bear shambled into the cave. It was immense and brownish and it filled the corridor completely, squeezing into the cave with difficulty. Its head and paws were vast, the latter equipped with claws perhaps seven inches long. I'd seen bears back in the Cresdon baiting pits, but this was bigger than any of them. And then there was the way it looked to the wolves and growled strangely, and the light in its eyes.

Renthrette blanched and Orgos's dark skin seemed to cloud over. Mithos's jaw dropped slightly and there was dread in his eyes. For once, I knew what he knew. The bear's reach would tear out our hearts and crush our skulls before we could get close enough to stab at it.