‘Father?-’
‘Sh-h! Listen!’ Haloch hissed.
Hearing the mournful, chilling sound himself now, Mraan thought mordantly, usually there were wolves at the door . . .
Pran stopped to survey the surrounding landscape. He, Deborah, and Éha, were travelling on foot, leading the horses. They were in a high mountainous region of steep hills, complex interconnected valleys, myriad creeks pouring cold and swiftly down watercourses lined with smooth rounded boulders, and covered overall with a dense forest of great fir trees.
They had reached this region by travelling first east, back through the entrance to the Elf Kingdom, then turning sharply left which took them due north. Their trail then gradually curved slightly westwards once more as they followed the foothills at the end of the mountain range.
Looking to Deborah for some sign, Pran asked her, ‘Is it there anything here that you can recognize?’
She was uncomfortably aware that the enemy was very near now. They had seen nothing as yet, but a constant thrill of tension permeated the air; her senses were almost too alive to its presence, and at times she had visions of herself snapping suddenly and cowering and hiding, or else running and screaming. She tried to choke down her own fear by realising that the safety of all three of them depended on her ability to evade this danger. Éha had offered to fly high above and scout out the terrain, but Pran had discouraged this, thinking her Pixie light might give away their presence, if not their location.