to bring it. I managed to look suitably chastened at my negligence as I bobbed my head to his orders.
So simply was I cut free from the hunt. Obedient to my master, I wheeled my horse and touched heels to Myblack. I put two rolling hills between the hunting party and us before I reached out cautiously to Nighteyes. I come.
Better late than never, I suppose, was the grudging reply.
I pulled in my horse and sat still. Wrongness flooded me. I closed my eyes, and saw through the wolf’s. It was a nondescript area, just like every hill and dale I had ridden through that morning. Oak trees in the draws and dusty scrub brush and yellow grass on the hillsides. But I knew where he was somehow and how to get to where he was. It was as Nighteyes described it: I knew where I itched before I scratched. I also knew, without his telling me, that there was a reason for his stillness. I quested towards him no more, but simply put heels to Myblack and leaned forwards to urge her on. She was a runner for level terrain, not these rolling hills, but she did well enough. I soon looked down on the dale where I knew Nighteyes waited.
I longed to rush straight down to him. His stillness was as ominous as flies buzzing round blood. I forced myself to cut a wide path around the dale and go slowly, reading the ground and breathing deep for any scents that might linger. I found the tracks of two shod horses, and a moment later cut the same tracks going in the opposite direction. Horses had come and gone from the copse of oak trees, and not long ago. I could restrain myself no longer. I rode into the welcoming shade of the trees as if I were running my head into a snare. Nighteyes.
Here. Hush.
He lay, panting heavily, in the dry shade of the oaks. Old leaves were stuck to the bloody gashes on his muzzle and flank. I flung myself from my horse and ran to him. I set my hands to his coat and his thoughts flowed silently into mine in the quietest possible sharing of the Wit.
They worked together against me.
The boy and the cat? I was surprised that he was surprised at that. The boy and the cat were Wit-bonded. Of course they would act together.
The cat and the horseman who brought the horses. I was watching the boy up the tree the whole while. I sensed nothing from him, not even that he called to the cat for help. But just after dawn broke, the damned cat attacked me. Dropped right out of a tree onto me, and I hadn’t even known she was coming. She must have travelled tree to tree like a squirrel. She clung like a burr. I thought I was winning when I flung her to the ground, but she wrapped her front paws around me and tried to disembowel me with her hind claws. Nearly succeeded, too. Just then, the man came up with the horses. The boy climbed down into the saddle, and then like a flash the cat was on the horse behind him. They galloped off and left me here.
Let me see your belly.
Water, first, before you poke at me.
Myblack annoyed me by dancing away from me twice before I caught her reins. I tied her securely to a bush after that, and then brought both water and food to Nighteyes. I let him drink from my cupped hands, and then we shared the food between us. I wanted to wash the blood from the gashes I could see, but I knew he wouldn’t allow it. Leave them to close themselves. I’ve already licked them clean.
At least, let me see the ones on your belly.
He was not happy about it, but he complied. The damage was much worse there, for the cat had obviously pulled him close, and his belly lacked the thick fur that had somewhat protected his back. They were not clean slashes, but jagged tears that were already festering. The only good aspect was that the claws had not penetrated the wall of his belly. I had feared to see bulging entrails; all I saw was lacerated flesh. I cursed myself for not having any salve to comfort the wounds. It had been too long since I had had to worry about things such as this; I had grown careless in the precautions I took.
Why didn’t you call for me to come and help you?
You were too far away to get here in time. And – uneasiness tinged his thoughts – I thought they wanted me to call you. The man on the big horse and the cat. They listened, as if my call to you were game they sought to beat out of hiding.
Not the Prince.
No. My brother, there is something very strange here. He was surprised when the horseman came with the extra mount. Yet I sensed the cat was not, the cat expected the man and the horses. The Prince does not perceive all that his bond-partner does. He goes blindly into his bond. It is … uneven. One commits and the other accepts the commitment, but does not return it in full. And the cat is … wrong.
He could make it no clearer than that to me. I sat for a time, my fingers buried deep in his coat, pondering what to do next. The Prince was gone. Someone he had not summoned had arrived to carry him away from the wolf, at precisely the moment that the cat was diverting the wolf. Carry him away to where?
I chased them for a time. But it is as you said. I cannot keep up with a running horse any more.
You never could.
Well. Neither could you. You couldn’t even keep up with a running wolf for long.
True. That’s very true. I smoothed his coat, and tried to pluck a dead leaf from one of his scabs.
Leave that alone! I’ll bite your hand off! And he could have. Fast as a snake, he seized my wrist in his jaws. He squeezed it, then let me go. It isn’t bleeding, so leave it alone. Stop picking at me and go after them.
And do what?
Begin by killing the cat. It was a vindictive suggestion with no heart in it. He knew as well as I did what it would do to the Prince if we killed his bond-animal.
I do. A pity he does not share your scruples about killing your bond-brother.
He doesn’t know you are bonded to me.
They knew I was bonded to somebody, and would have liked to discover just whom. That knowledge did not dissuade them from hurting me. I sensed his thoughts racing ahead of mine, pondering a situation I had not deciphered yet. Be careful, Changer. I recognize this pattern of old. You think this is a game of some kind, with limits and rules. You seek to bring the Prince back as a mother carries an errant cub back to the den. You have not even considered that you might have to injure him, or kill the cat to do so. Even farther from your thoughts is that they might kill you to prevent you from taking the Prince back. So I change my advice to you. Do not go after them now, alone. Give me until this evening to get past my soreness. And when we track them, let us take the Scentless One with us. He is clever, in a human sort of way.
Do you think the Prince has that in him? To kill me before letting me take him back to Buckkeep? The thought appalled me. Yet, I had been younger than Prince Dutiful when I first killed on Chade’s orders. I had not especially enjoyed it, but I had not deeply pondered the right or wrong of it. Chade was my conscience then, and I had trusted his discretion. I wondered. Was there such a person in the Prince’s life, someone whose counsel was enough to make him suspend his own judgement?
Stop thinking that you are dealing with a young prince. You are not. Nor is it the cat we must fear. This is something deeper and stranger, my brother, and we are best to go very, very carefully.
He drank the rest of my water. Then I left him there under the oaks, though I did not like to. I did not attempt to follow their trail, but returned to the Bresinga manor at Galeton, found the feather-case, and rode back to the hunt. They had
