The Dark City by Catherine Fisher Page A

can’t believe that it actually changes matter in any way or that the bridge can have only one end. In all my training, the Watchleaders insisted that the powers of the Order were an illusion—I can see fat old Jeltok now, banging his cane on the table. Well, it’s an illusion that’s worked on me.
    Galen Harn had crossed. I found traces of a campfire on the bank and scraps of food—fungus of some sort. Maybe they brew a concoction of this and drink it to counteract the spell. Too risky to try without knowing more.
    In the end I had to give up. Even leading the horse into the swamp would have been useless—the whole area was thick with seedbeds and alder; soft, probably deep. I almost screamed with frustration, and kicked the black rotting chains of the thing with hatred.
    What makes it worse is that they’re traveling by night. Harn is cunning. He’s been hunted all his life; he knows how to blend with the leaves and the land, though I don’t believe that nonsense that the keepers can turn into trees and stones.
    It was well after dark when I turned back from the bridge and though I’d slept a little, I was tired. Yesterday I sold the pack-beast and most of the goods in a village beyond the fields—speed is more important now. But I kept the horse, and that’s one advantage. They’re on foot.
    I rode the horse back up the stony gully and turned east, quickly crossing the fields in the dark. My plan was to follow the river upstream until I could cross it. The wind was chill and the stubbly ground uneven; worst of all it rose constantly, and the river ran below in a steep cleft with ash and elder springing out of the sides. There was no way down—I just had to keep going, farther away from the bridge all the time.
    Furious, I strapped my jerkin tight and kicked the horse on; we galloped now, leaping small walls and hedges, four moons watching us through cloud. Down lanes bordered with stone walls, past a dark farmhouse, skirting tangled copses; the search for a track seemed endless. It was almost light before I found it. A narrow, beaten trail. It looked as if animals had trodden it; it led into a dark stand of juniper and fireberry bushes, and smelled of night-cat.
    The horse didn’t like it. Neither did I, I suppose, but time was pressing and I was angry and a bit reckless. So I rode down. I can see old Jellie shaking his head now.
    It was dark among the trees, the branches low and tangled. I had to dismount, slashing them aside, leading the horse. Uneasy, fly-bitten, and scratched, we scrambled down, tread muffled on a springy mattress of needles, the winter’s shriveled berries. The track dropped steeply and the horse kept whickering, the smell of its fear sharp on the air. I swore at it, then swung my crossbow out and racked it hastily. In the undergrowth a twig had cracked.
    I stopped, raising the bow. The copse was dim. Ahead, somewhere below, I could see a pale daylight, but here the trunks crowded, silent.
    I heard it before it leaped and squirmed around; the yowl was in my face, past me, then the lithe black shape had fastened onto the horse; it reared, screaming with terror. I aimed too fast; the bolt shot wide, crunched in an ashbole. Then the horse was gone, in a heedless bloodstained panic, the night-cat streaking after it like a shadow.
    Furious, I scrambled down the track, all hope gone. I’d seen what a night-cat could do—there’d be no chance of riding back to the bridge. And I was scared, believe me. But I needed the food and money in the saddlebags. Everything was on that wretched horse. Then as I came out of the trees, I fell smack over something lying in the path, and stared at it, on hands and knees.
    The night-cat lay sprawled, mid-jump. One paw was flung up, the snarling mouth wide in the agony of its death. It was still hot. Fleas jumped off it. I reached out cautiously and touched it. The great head slumped; blood clotted the black fur, just congealing. A crossbow bolt stuck out of