"It is unsafe to travel this land alone," he said, mounting. "You will not find other defenses as passive as the birch way."

He never used her name. Not even when he slid his man sex into her at night and accepted her tongue into his mouth. He had done her no harm and had guided her safely through the birch way, but she did not know what to make of him. He changed moods too quickly. Only an hour ago he asked for a lock of her hair. Now he was either scaring or threatening her—she couldn't tell which.

"All Far Riders must return to the Heart Fires."

And there it was again, another change. His voice was stiff, but she realized he had spoken to soften his earlier words. She wished it wasn't so confusing. How could he give her so much pleasure at night yet be so cold to her during the day?

She let the falling snow swirl and sparkle between them. After a while decided she had nothing further to say to him, and went to mount her horse.

It was growing late and the gray sky was slowly darkening to blue. The snow captured and held the light, glowing on the forest floor and along the spruce and cedar boughs. The stallion took the lead at canter and the gelding had to stretch itself to keep up. Lan Fallstar rode effortlessly, his back relaxed, his fingers light upon the reins. As he moved in the saddle, the longsword and bow slung crosswise across his back slapped together, beating time.

Ash was glad to be riding. Bending low against the gelding's neck, she savored the warmth of horseflesh against her chest as she raced after the Far Rider. Her lynx fur flared out over the horse's rump and her hair streamed behind her, heavy with melted snow.

She became aware of movement so gradually that it barely registered at first. In her mind it was something black and distant between the trees. As the snow began to ease it occurred to her that the black-ness was on a path to intercept with her own, A muscle below her pit loosened. Shortening the reins, she tent her hill awareness toward the thing that was closing in from the south.

And knew instantly it was maer dan. It sucked at her, like aft dragged into a powerful fire. When she turned her eyes toward it she felt her lenses elongate.

"Lan," she called. The Far Rider had not slowed his pace and was some distance ahead of her, easily navigating a path between a giant spruce and a cedar that was growing around a felled stump like a squid on a rock. He did not hear her, so called again, louder. «Lan» It felt strange saying his name.

The Far Rider turned and looked at her. Whatever he saw on her face was enough for him to bring the stallion to a banking halt. Clods of dirt and snow sprayed the trees. Lan's eyes met hers and she was surprised to see a question in them. He was Sull She had assumed somehow he would have known.

"Something is coming from the south," she murmured, her wet hair sending icy trickles down her spine. "Maer dan."

Shadowflesh. Lan continued to look at her, his pupils enlarging. She had a memory of Mal Navsayer drawing his sword at suck a moment his face hard and terrible, his eyes burning like the cold blue stars at the farthest edge of the sky. She recalled feeling…not safe exactly, but protected. If anything wanted to reach her it would have to get past the Naysayer and his foot longsword, first. Lan Fallstar reached for his bow. "Point," he demanded, his voice terse. Light reflecting off the snow illuminated the hollows of his cheecks and the space under his jaw. With a fluid motion, he drew his first arrow. It had a hole drilled into its steel head, she noticed, but had no idea why.

Ash drew her own weapon, the sickle knife and weighted chain. "This way," she cried, kicking the gelding into motion. She'd be damned if she was going to point.

The creature poured like liquid through the trees. It was accelerating, and she had the sense of powerful muscles bunching and unbundling. Something howled in a long single note that made the metal in her hand vibrate. Ash caught sight of a glistening flash of blackness plunging through shadows cast by the prehistoric pines. It was massive, and it had never been human. Not even close.

It moved on four limbs and it had thick shoulders and a small, frighteningly sleek head. She was reminded of hyenas and lam-mergeier—carrion feeders who plunged their entire heads into organ flesh. Its eyes were slits. Its clawed footpads ripped up the snow.

Ash made an uneasy adjustment to the reins, transferring them into one hand so she could be free to swing the chain. The gelding flicked back its ears but held its course. The creature was moving as fast as a big cat, its hip bone springing in a wavelike motion. Its howls hurt Ash's ears. Carefully, as Ark had taught her, she raised the sickle knife above her head. The peridot weight bounced once against her buttocks before she whipped the chain into motion.

The creature was not heading toward her, she realized as the chain built up speed and began to whumpf. It was coming straight for Lan Fallstar. The Far Rider had followed her at a slower pace; she could hear the sound of his stallion blowing out air and the jingle of harness metal. Perhaps he was aiming the bow. She did not look round.

Squeezing the gelding with her thighs, she shifted her course. The chain was spinning so fast it had passed into invisibility. The peridots in the weight scribed a green circle in the air. As she judged distance and time, the creature closed in. Its elongated jaws sprang apart, revealing dense layers of inward slanting teeth.

Ash stood in the stirrups and yanked the weight forward— The beast leapt its muscular hind legs propelling its body like springs. Shocked by to speed, she realized her shot had fallen short Hot pun coursed along her shoulder as the weight reached the end of ife tether with momentum to spare. It snapped with a crack— The chain crumpled in the middle as the weight shot back toward her. Ash flicked her wrist with force, sending tension back into the chain and throwing the weight wide of herself and her horse. As she did this she was aware of a series of soft retorts.

Thuc. Thuc. Thuc.

Three arrows were loosed in quick succession. The creature dropped as soon as the first one hit, collapsing into the snow with a dull thud. Its flesh began to hiss as the other two arrows struck the big ridge of muscle on its shoulder. The creature rippled. The outline of its body softened, as if it were somehow losing its form. Air crackled like a sheet of breaking ice. Ash breathed it in and wished she hadn't. It was empty of whatever her lungs required for fuel.

A soft hiss escaped from the creature's gut. All was still for a moment, and then shadow discharged from its carcass in an explosive rolling ring. The shock wave blasted Ash's face and riffled through the fur on her cloak. It was cold in different ways than the snow, coating her skin with the substance of another world. Even as she struggled to make sense of it, the substance smoked away to nothing, tingling as it ceased to exist. It smelled like the thin air-starved atmosphere at the top of mountains.

Shivering, she turned her horse. Lan Fallstar stood on his stallion's stirrups, resting his eared longbow. His chest was pumping rapidly. He had a fourth arrow ready and unused in his hand. He sat back in the saddle as Ash looked on and scooped up the reins from his horse's neck. Slinging the bow over his shoulder, he said to her, "It was foolish to get so close." His voice was low and loose, and she was glad to hear the fear in it. It made her like him better.

"It was a good shot. The first one. Must have been a heart-kill."

His eyes went blank for the briefest moment before he nodded. 'This Sull had a good arrow."

Ash smiled at his modesty. She had traveled with Raif Sevrance: she knew all about the cost and difficulty of heart kills. "Come," she said, drawing abreast of him. "Let's make camp away from this place."