Keritanima had things well in hand. He had every confidence in her, mainly because she was doing it all without letting the katzh-dashi know what was going on. That spy was still in the Tower, and she could warn the ki'zadun that the Sulasians knew that the army's target was Suld. She had Miranda and that one fellow called Jervis, and they had quite effectively locked the katzh-dashi out of the loop of information. Only the Keeper was being kept informed of what was going on, and she deferred to Keritanima, since she had to use Keritanima's spies, messengers, and resources to do anything regarding the invasion. Keritanima was the real power in the Tower now, the Keeper in everything but name, and that suited him just fine.
There was also bad news. Jula had been set loose to track down the spy, but so far she had had no luck. Tarrin had felt the fringes of her frustration from time to time, skulking the Tower in search of her elusive prey, but Tarrin had confidence in his bond-child. Jula was smart, resourceful, and now she had the Were-cat temper to give her a fearsome reputation. It would only be a matter of time before her quarry made a mistake, and that one mistake would be all it would take. Jula would have her then, and Keritanima and the Keeper could move their preparations out of the secret closets and into the public eye.
But bad news often held good news. Triana had told Keritanima to tell him that Jula was about as stable as she was going to get. Triana had requested for a Druid to come and evaluate Jula, and Triana had high hopes for her. Jula had managed to find her balance, just as Tarrin had done, and it looked very hopeful that she would be the third of the turned Were-cats to be accepted into Fae-da'Nar. Jula was alot like Tarrin, relatively feral thanks to her treatment by the ki'zadun, but she had managed to stave off the madness. He knew that she could do it. Jula was an iron-willed woman, all she had required was someone to teach her how to keep control over her instincts. Triana was the best teacher in the world at that kind of thing, teaching what the instincts meant as well as how to keep them in check. With a better understanding of herself, Jula would be able to maintain the laws of Fae-da'Nar, and not be a danger to herself or others. At least no more of a danger than any other Were-cat, anyway.
Tarrin had the feeling that Triana had grown somewhat attached to his bond-child, but he knew that Triana would never admit to it.
Denai nudged at his arm and pointed towards the forest, where a very large, dark shape moved behind the initial treeline, then disappeared. "We've been noticed," she told him. "You know how kajats are. If he thinks he can chase us down, he'll try."
"Let him," Tarrin grunted, dropping down to the base of the small escarpment. "He'll only try once."
Denai laughed. "You'll have to teach me how to kill kajats."
"Easy. All it takes is insanity."
"Or the ability to jump twenty spans," Sarraya chuckled.
They stayed about a longspan away from the forest, skirting its edge, and they kept one eye on the trees, and the other on the surrounding rocky, scrubby terrain. Tarrin could smell the kajat and the inu, both old tracks and fresh trails, and their prints were visible between the low, fluffy bushes that grew near the forest, soaking up the water that seemed to be more abundant in this small area. Their prints as well as chisa, sukk, and a few tracks and scents he didn't know. There were also Selani tracks, their soft-soled boots leaving those distinctive marks in the ground as they moved towards or away from the forest, from north to south.
"It's getting pretty hot," Denai complained, fanning the top of her loose shirt. "Strange for it to be so hot this far north."
"I didn't notice," Tarrin replied absently. "I hope that doesn't mean it's getting warm in the West," he added with a grunt.
"I'm sure your Wikuni will let us know if something important happens," Sarraya told him. "Are we going to stop for the midday?"
"No," Denai said before Tarrin. "We'd be crazy to stop this close to the forest. I don't want to stop until we have an entire afternoon between us and the forest."
"Good plan," Tarrin agreed, slowing to a stop and looking at a skull laying near a bush. It was a large, narrow skull, the skull of an inu. It had a hole in the side of it skull, and there were deep gouges near the base of it, the signs that the skull had been raked by sharp teeth. The bone was still slightly pinkish, a sign that it hadn't been dead very long. "That's fresh."
"Looks like an inu wasn't paying attention," Denai mused. "Those teethmarks look like a kajat."
"A small one," Tarrin agreed, looking towards the forest when a slight sound reached his ears. Those cat ears picked up, turning towards the sound, locking in on it. "There's something moving around over there."
"It's not stupid enough to attack us here," Denai scoffed. "It would have to run over a longspan just to reach us!"
The sound was a strange rumbling, not the thudding of feet or the rustling of trees. "It's not that, it's something else," he said, opening his senses. It was indeed a rumbling, a low-sounded rumbling, like the rumble of thunder moving through the ground rather than through the air. As he opened his senses, his sense of the Weave also expanded, allowing him to feel more and more of it. Whatever it was was affecting the Weave as well, causing it to shudder and vibrate as if being shaken.
He could feel it in the pads of his feet now, a vibration in the ground. Tarrin knelt down and put the palm of his paw on the ground, feeling that strange rumbling. It was coming from the ground.
"I think it's-" Sarraya began, then everything suddenly got turned on its ear.
The ground suddenly heaved violently. Tarrin, who was already squatting down, put his other paw down to stabilize himself as the ground rocked and swayed underneath him, and the sound of it became a loud crackling, the sound of breaking stone. Denai gave out a cry and tumbled over onto her back, then rolled over on her belly and covered her head with her hands. Tarrin turned and looked to the south, and saw the escarpment suddenly buckle, then heave and buckle again, rising up visibly as the ground shuddered horrendously.
It was an earthquake! And what was bad luck, it was a natural earthquake!
"It's an earthquake!" Sarraya shouted as a cloud of dust began to rise from the quivering ground. "Stay down, don't move! That escarpment is a fault line!"
Tarrin watched in a kind of nervous curiosity as the escarpment seemed to undulate wildly, growing higher and lower visibly, until the shuddering and the motion ground itself to a halt. The ground still shook and grumbled, until that too began to die away, as a cloud of dust rose up around them.
Denai began to laugh. "You are bad luck, Tarrin!" she jibed at him. "It had to be an earthquake, didn't it! It couldn't have been something simple, like a kajat attack. No, you just had to go and bring an earthquake with you!"