Trull studied his friend for a moment, then asked, ‘We’re not alone here?’
‘The ay knew to follow us. Yes, they are curious, but they are also clever, and they remember. They have followed Imass before.’ He lifted his head and sniffed loudly. ‘They are close tonight, those ay. Drawn to my song, which they have heard before. The ay know, you see, that tomorrow 1 will hunt dangerous prey. And when the moment of the kill comes, well, we shall see.’
‘Just how dangerous?’ Trull asked, suddenly uneasy.
‘There is a hunting cat, an emlava-we entered its territory today, for I found the scrapes of its claim, on stone and on wood. A male by the flavour of its piss. Today, the ay were more nervous than usual, for the cat will kill them at every opportunity, and it is a creature of ambush. But I have assured them with my song. I found Tog’tol-yellow ochre-after all.’
‘So,’ Quick Ben said, his eyes on the dripping meat above the flames, ‘if your wolves know we are here, how about the cat?’
‘He knows.’
‘Well, that’s just terrific, Onrack. I’m going to need some warrens close to hand all damned day, then. That happens to be exhausting, you know.’
‘You need not worry with the sun overhead, wizard,’ Onrack said. ‘The cat hunts at night.’
‘Hood’s breath! Let’s hope those wolves smell it before we do!’
‘They won’t,’ the Imass replied with infuriating calm. ‘In scenting its territory, the emlava saturates the air with its sign. Its own body scent is much weaker, freeing the beast to move wherever it will when inside its territory.’
‘Why are dumb brutes so damned smart, anyway?’
‘Why are us smart folk so often stupidly brutal, Quick Ben?’ Trull asked.
‘Stop trying to confuse me in my state of animal terror, Edur.’
An uneventful night passed and now, the following day, they walked yet further into the territory of the emlava. Halting at a stream in mid-morning, Onrack had knelt beside it to begin his ritual washing of hands. At least, Trull assumed it was a ritual, although it might well have been another of those moments of breathless wonder that seemed to afflict Onrack-and no surprise there; Trull suspected he’d be staggering about for months after such a rebirth. Of course, he does not think like us. 1 am much closer in my ways of thought to this human, Quick Ben, than 1 am to any Imass, dead or otherwise. How can that be?
Onrack then rose and faced them, his spear in one hand, sword in the other. ‘We are near the emlava’s lair. Although he sleeps, he senses us. Tonight, he means to kill one of us. I shall now challenge his claim to this territory. If I fail, he may well leave you be, for he will feed on my flesh.’
But Quick Ben was shaking his head. ‘You’re not doing this alone, Onrack. Granted, I’m not entirely sure of how my sorcery will work in this place, but dammit, it’s just a dumb cat, after all. A blinding flash of light, a loud sound-’
‘And I will join you as well,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘We begin with spears, yes? I have fought enough wolves in my time. We will meet its charge with spears. Then, when it is wounded and crippled, we close with bladed weapons.’
Onrack studied them for a moment, then he smiled. ‘I see that I will not dissuade you. Yet, for the fight itself, you must not interfere. I do not think I will fail, and you will see why before long.’
Trull and the wizard followed the Imass up the slope of an outwash fan that filled most of a crevasse, up among the lichen-clad, tilted and folded bedrock. Beyond this black-stone ledge rose a sheer wall of grey shale pocked with caves where sediments had eroded away beneath an endless torrent of glacial melt. The stream in which Onrack had plunged his hands earlier poured out from this cliff, forming a pool in one cavern that extended out to fill a basin before continuing downslope. To the right of this was another cave, triangular in shape, with one entire side formed by a collapse in the shale overburden. The flat ground before it was scattered with splintered bones.
As they skirted the pool Onrack suddenly halted, lifting a hand.
A massive shape now filled the cave mouth.
Three heartbeats later, the emlava emerged.
‘Hood’s breath,’ Quick Ben whispered.
Trull had expected a hunting cat little different from,a mountain lion-perhaps one of the black ones rumoured to live in the deeper forests of his homeland. The creature hulking into view, blinking sleep from its charcoal eyes, was the size of a plains brown bear. Its enormous upper canines projected down past its lower jaw, long as a huntsman’s knife and polished the hue of amber. The head was broad and flat, the ears small and set far back. Behind the short neck, the emlava’s shoulders were hunched, forming a kind of muscled hump. Its fur was striped, black barbs on deep grey, although its throat revealed a flash of white.