cattle had been famous. But now finally they were coming onto the spine of the land, the curved ridge of mountains that ran through the middle of the island from Black Giant in the south to Scourtop above them, a line of jagged peaks and glaciers.
They had not been harmed, despite the twenty or so lycanthropes the Savage had killed when they attacked the skiff. Perhaps their own lives had no more valueto them than other people’s. They had left their dead unburied or else floating in the water, and they had pulled their prisoners into the fen, along a track through the cold mud.
But Marikke couldn’t run like that, all night like a wolf. Gasping for breath, she had collapsed on a dry island in the middle of the swamp, where Kip and the elf faked a weariness they didn’t feel. Unspoken was the need to delay, to allow Lukas and the genasi to catch up.
But the lycanthropes weren’t having any of that. Already half their number had split away north, while the rest had alternately dragged and chased and lashed their prisoners west toward higher ground. Under the full moon they gathered under an oak tree, its bark stripped and cut with claw marks. The ones who still had human faces muttered and complained, while the rest snarled and howled. Scanning them with his bright cat’s eyes, the boy could see that there were pigs among the lycanthropes, sows and boars. And there were cats, like him or partly like him. Kip wondered what emergency or cause had brought them together and made them forget their natural antipathy—the leader, a wolf lord with a reddish coat, led into the slavering circle a troika of great pigs, who caught the prisoners up in their strong, peculiarly joined arms and flung them up across their backs. Then they could make time.
Naturally fastidious, at first Kip had been happy to be carried, happy to get his feet out of the mud. But the journey had quickly proved uncomfortable. They had tied his wrists and ankles, and flung him up likea sack of grain for the hard, jolting ride. And when they stopped to light a fire or make food, that had been worse—the lycanthropes had discovered quickly that his nature was similar to theirs. But because his form and his understanding were so much more refined, so much closer to a human being’s, they hated and resented him, mocked him out of jealousy, and called him names. The ripped-up, bloody offal they had given him to eat, he had not been able to touch.
Now was the third morning, and as the stars grew pale, Kip found himself where they had flung him, curled up against the pig-creature’s broad, hairy back. The lycanthropes slept in piles, tangled together with their own kind. As always, their animal nature prevailed during slumber. The boy, also, felt the subtle, tiny shift like an electric charge in his mouth, hands, and feet, as his teeth and nails receded. He savored the feeling, as he did every morning upon waking.
But he did not stir. He didn’t want to disturb the animals who lay around him. He wanted information, and after he had opened his eyes briefly to examine the heaped-up embers of the fire, he shut them again, and instead allowed his gaze to turn inward, focusing now on his connection with the creature beside him, whom he was touching through his face, arm, and breast. He felt under his cheek the stiff, shiny, mottled bristle, the long muscles underneath, the occasional tremor or twitch. All that was like the skin of water on the surface of a pond, and he was the fisher cat, crouching by the shore, claws outstretched, hating the water yetfascinated also, looking down and down for the small fish, slow and sluggish in the cold depths, because the animal was asleep. A flash of yellow, and he had it on the bank, had slit its cold belly and spread it out, a map of entrails, and in it Kip could see a world of enemies as the pig-man perceived them, the hostile islands of Oman and Norland and Gwynneth and Alaron, where lycanthropes were hunted and
They had not been harmed, despite the twenty or so lycanthropes the Savage had killed when they attacked the skiff. Perhaps their own lives had no more valueto them than other people’s. They had left their dead unburied or else floating in the water, and they had pulled their prisoners into the fen, along a track through the cold mud.
But Marikke couldn’t run like that, all night like a wolf. Gasping for breath, she had collapsed on a dry island in the middle of the swamp, where Kip and the elf faked a weariness they didn’t feel. Unspoken was the need to delay, to allow Lukas and the genasi to catch up.
But the lycanthropes weren’t having any of that. Already half their number had split away north, while the rest had alternately dragged and chased and lashed their prisoners west toward higher ground. Under the full moon they gathered under an oak tree, its bark stripped and cut with claw marks. The ones who still had human faces muttered and complained, while the rest snarled and howled. Scanning them with his bright cat’s eyes, the boy could see that there were pigs among the lycanthropes, sows and boars. And there were cats, like him or partly like him. Kip wondered what emergency or cause had brought them together and made them forget their natural antipathy—the leader, a wolf lord with a reddish coat, led into the slavering circle a troika of great pigs, who caught the prisoners up in their strong, peculiarly joined arms and flung them up across their backs. Then they could make time.
Naturally fastidious, at first Kip had been happy to be carried, happy to get his feet out of the mud. But the journey had quickly proved uncomfortable. They had tied his wrists and ankles, and flung him up likea sack of grain for the hard, jolting ride. And when they stopped to light a fire or make food, that had been worse—the lycanthropes had discovered quickly that his nature was similar to theirs. But because his form and his understanding were so much more refined, so much closer to a human being’s, they hated and resented him, mocked him out of jealousy, and called him names. The ripped-up, bloody offal they had given him to eat, he had not been able to touch.
Now was the third morning, and as the stars grew pale, Kip found himself where they had flung him, curled up against the pig-creature’s broad, hairy back. The lycanthropes slept in piles, tangled together with their own kind. As always, their animal nature prevailed during slumber. The boy, also, felt the subtle, tiny shift like an electric charge in his mouth, hands, and feet, as his teeth and nails receded. He savored the feeling, as he did every morning upon waking.
But he did not stir. He didn’t want to disturb the animals who lay around him. He wanted information, and after he had opened his eyes briefly to examine the heaped-up embers of the fire, he shut them again, and instead allowed his gaze to turn inward, focusing now on his connection with the creature beside him, whom he was touching through his face, arm, and breast. He felt under his cheek the stiff, shiny, mottled bristle, the long muscles underneath, the occasional tremor or twitch. All that was like the skin of water on the surface of a pond, and he was the fisher cat, crouching by the shore, claws outstretched, hating the water yetfascinated also, looking down and down for the small fish, slow and sluggish in the cold depths, because the animal was asleep. A flash of yellow, and he had it on the bank, had slit its cold belly and spread it out, a map of entrails, and in it Kip could see a world of enemies as the pig-man perceived them, the hostile islands of Oman and Norland and Gwynneth and Alaron, where lycanthropes were hunted and
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