The hunters were well ahead of us and moving steadily when we crested a hill. I think the flock of birds we rousted there surprised even Avoin, but everyone reacted quickly. I was too far back to see if a signal released the cats, or if the beasts simply reacted to the game. These were large, heavybodied birds that ran, wings open and beating, before they could lift from the ground. Several never made it into the air, and I saw at least two brought down on the wing by the leaping gruepards. The speed of the cats was heartstopping. They flowed from their cushions, leaping to the ground impactlessly and shooting after the fleeing birds with a speed like a striking snake. One cat actually brought down two birds, seizing one in her jaws even as her clutching paws clasped one to her breast. I had noticed four or five boys on ponies riding behind us. They came forward now, game bags open, to take up the prey. Only one gruepard was reluctant to relinquish her kill, and I understood that she was a young hunter, her training still incomplete.
The birds were shown to Lord Golden before they were bagged. Sydel, who had been riding beside him, pushed her horse closer to see the trophies and exclaim over them. He took tail feathers from several of the birds, and then summoned me to his side. As I accepted the trophy feathers from him, he instructed me, “Put them in the case right away, so they are not marred.”
“The case?”
“The feather case. I showed it to you when we were packing at Buckkeep . . . Sa's Breath, man, you have not left it behind, have you? Ah! Well, you shall have to go back for it. You know the one, of tooled red leather with a feltedwool lining. It is most likely amongst my things at Galekeep, unless you have left it at Buckkeep. Here, give Huntswoman Laurel the feathers to carry until you return. Make haste now, Tom Badgerlock. I need that case!” Lord Golden did not disguise his irritation at his servant's ineptness. There was, indeed, such a case amongst Lord Golden's belongings, but he had never told me it was a feather case, nor told me 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, wheeled Myblack and touched heels to her. 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. 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 toward him no more, but simply put heels to Myblack and leaned forward 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 around 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 Witbonded. 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. 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 traveled tree to tree like a squirrel. She clung like a burr. 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.