That wasn't to say that there weren't a few problems. On six separate occasions, he had spats with some of the more adventurous wildlife common in the desert. Those spats were invariably fatal for the hapless inu and kajat that didn't have the sense to back off, that didn't comprehend that they were dealing with something even worse than they were. They had ruled the desert for such a long time that their superiority had been bred into them, as well as the sense that they had no reason to fear anything in their domain. They had never encountered anything like an implacable Were-cat before, and the few who survived marked Tarrin's passing and his scent as that of an enemy to fear. Tarrin had become utterly focused on his impending visitor, to such a point that he became short with animals that he usually would have allowed to get away.
Those encounters gave him something of a taste for inu and kajat. Enough to hunt them down for a meal when the situation presented itself.
Each day had become an established pattern. He would wake up and eat breakfast with Sarraya, usually eating whatever was left of the unfortunate victim from the previous night's hunting. Then they would travel until the hottest part of the day, when they would shelter again to give Sarraya relief from the blistering heat. While she rested, Tarrin practiced with his magic. After the hottest part of the day was over, they travelled again until about an hour before sunset. Then they would find a good campsite that would offer shelter from the Sandmen, Tarrin would track down whatever unlucky animal was nearby for dinner, and they would eat again. Then Tarrin would practice with his magic again until he felt ready to sleep. And the new day would start the cycle over again.
Time was something of of a fluid thing for Tarrin. In cat form, he was utterly unable to keep a sense of time outside of the time of day. If he held the form for more than a few days, he became incapable of remembering what day it was. It was a function of his Cat side, a side that didn't care about the past or the future, a side that only lived in the moment. In his humanoid form, he could keep track of time, but only if that time didn't fall into an established pattern. As soon as it did, it all blurred together in a kind of cloud of sameness, and he had trouble counting back the days to determine how much time had passed. Sarraya had become his timekeeper, telling him that the days were marching on, that the winter in the West was beginning to yield to spring.
Tarrin did have one sense of continuity during their travels. His practice of his magic had given him a gauge of sorts to determine how far they had come. At first, it required a supreme act of will and intense concentration to use his Weavespinner magic, but as he practiced more and more, that level of force and concentration became less and less. He went from having to focus his entire attention on his magic to being able to exercise his magical ability with only a modicum of effort. Much as it had been for him before he lost his power, he became intimately familiar with the process, and that familiarity and the practice he had done had elevated his powers to make them quite nearly as reliable as they had been before the accident. He could again summon up his magic whenever he needed it, and it generally did what he wanted it to do. The practice did what it was intended to do, and that was give him the ability to use Sorcery.
But now he could use it safely and efficiently, something he had not had before. It felt strange to him every time he gathered himself to use his power, that he had no reason to fear it now. But it also felt as if he had been healed of some long injury, and had become what he was meant to be from the beginning.
As the days passed, he came to fully appreciate his power, and how much it had changed. Weavespinner magic worked without the initial stage of building power to weave spells, and that was a significant difference. When he had seen the Sha'Kar woman use her magic, he had been stunned by the unbelievable speed in which she could control her magic. Now that he had begun to use the same kind of magic, he discovered it to be dramatically faster. Weavespinner magic literally moved at the speed of thought, though he still had to concentrate to use his power where the Sha'kar seemed to be able to use it instantly. He understood that a Weavespinner could out-weave any regular Sorcerer so effectively it would nearly be ridiculous. By the time the Sorcerer was ready to use magic, the Weavespinner already had total control of the surrounding Weave. Anything the Sorcerer did could be controlled by the Weavespinner. The only time the Weavespinner was reduced to the same rules was when he or she resorted to High Sorcery, and that gave advantages all its own. Speed was the margin of victory in Weavespinner magic, but raw power prevailed when moving up the rungs of the progression of magical power.
One pitfall he had already identified was the ease of Weavespinner magic. It was almost too easy, and he could already see dangers in becoming too close to the power. He would begin using Sorcery without even realizing it, having his will and wish start to affect the Weave in ways he didn't intend. When he did reach the same level of competency as the Sha'Kar, he would have to keep a tight control on his thoughts, on his desires, else he unconsciously start using Sorcery to try to bring them about. That could be disastrous, especially considering his aggressive indifference to the continued life of the people around him he didn't know, or particularly care about. Stray impulses to have them go away could result in killing magic, and that was something that he knew he had to prevent before it happened, else he could get himself into serious trouble, both mentally and socially.
His sense of the Weave had also increased day by day, becoming more and more acute as time passed. His practice had intensified it even more, until absolutely nothing about the Weave could escape him when he actively concentrated on it. He could feel everything within it, every miniscule shift in its pattern of energy, every pulse of the communal heart that powered the flow of magic through the Weave. He could read the Weave like a book, could sense magic moving through it and determine what kind of magic it was, where it had come from, where it was going, and usually who had summoned it. Even Sarraya's Druidic magic became more clear to him. Not because it went through the Weave, because it didn't, but because when she used it, she created something of an echo on the Weave. And with a little practice, he began to be able to sense what she was going to do before it happened, because of the volume, pitch, and harmonics carried within that echo.
During that time of practice and progression, they had not been bothered much by the Selani. Almost all of the clans were at Gathering, but there were a few Selani left here and there, left behind to guard water supplies and verdant belts, to ensure the flocks had something when they returned. Those sentries didn't interfere with Tarrin, but a few of them had taken up following him, most likely as an entertaining diversion in the monotonous task of guarding plants that don't really try to get up and run away. He could see them sometimes in the morning or after dark, when there was no heat-haze to hide them in the distance. He didn't really care that they followed him, as long as they stayed back there.
All of it had a purpose, and that purpose was Jegojah. The Doomwalker was coming, he could even sense its approach now, and it would be there soon. Days, perhaps, but no more than a ride. Tarrin's hatred and fury over the Doomwalker had not eased over those uncountable days of preparation-in fact, they had become worse. Tarrin would never forgive the Doomwalker for killing Faalken, for trying to kill his sister and his parents, and the thought that it just kept coming back again and again had offended him at the deepest level possible. He was tired of looking over his shoulder for Jegojah, and he was absolutely determined to deal with the Doomwalker for the last time. There would be no quarter, no mercy, in this battle, and it would not end until one of them was destroyed. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, but he wasn't all that concerned. His impulsive nature gave him a bent of creativity, and he was fairly confident that when the time came, he'd think of something, confident that the Goddess would tell him what to do. It was faith, faith in his goddess to protect and watch over him. It was all he had, because days and days and days of endless thought and planning had not yielded a real plan for ridding himself of Jegojah once and for all. Faith was about the only thing he had left, but it was something that he was willing to depend upon. His goddess had yet to fail him, and with a record like that, he was more than willing to put blind trust in her.