— It was not a smell, or a feeling, or a vision precisely, that started to creep up on her. Segnbora stood up straight, glanc-ing around at the others. None of them sensed what she had. Herewiss and Freelorn were leaning against Lorn's dun, Blackmane, together, speaking quietly; Moris and Dritt had walked off a little way to look southwest at the Fane; Lang was rubbing down the perpetually sweaty Gyrfalcon; Harald was seeing to yellow-coated Swallow's cinches. Sunspark had dis-appeared on some mysterious errand of its own. She turned and looked east, her hand unconsciously drop-ping to Charriselm's hilt. There it was again, another flash of sight — vague and odd, focus bizarrely rounded, colors all awry. And smell too, acrid, terrible, enraging. That's familiar, I know that — Then the memory found her: that one time in the Precincts when the novices, carefully supervised, were al-lowed to shapechange and feel what a beast's body was like.
"Herewiss!" she said, turning to him in alarm. He put his head up to the wind, gazing eastward as she had, but saw nothing. "You just did a wreaking," she said. "You may still be overloaded. Taste it!"
The fear in her voice brought unease to his eyes. He closed them and reached out his undersenses. She did too, standing swaying in the long grass, and caught the impression again, stronger this time. Now there was something even more un-nerving added to the flash of skewed viewpoint: thought, stunted and twisted and bizarre, but thought. And it was all of hate.
The mind she touched bounded above the whipping grass for a moment. It saw forms on the horizon, the source of a maddening stench.
She heard a cough, opened her eyes to see Herewiss chok-ing briefly. His empathy must have been more profound than hers, for the
remembered shape of the runner's throat was not letting his words out.
"Fyrd!" he managed to croak, and pushed away from Black-mane, unsheathing Khavrinen hurriedly.
The word took Segnbora by surprise. "But that was think-ing! Fyrd are Shadow-twisted, but they're just of dumb animal stock. They don't think!" She let the rest of her protest drop then. There was no mistaking what she had felt.
"My move was anticipated," Herewiss said bitterly. He swung Khavrinen sideways, whipping a great brilliance of Fire angrily down the blade. "It's a step ahead of me — and mock-ing me, too."
Segnbora understood. At Bluepeak, long ago, the Shadow had driven down that first terrible breed of thinking Fyrd into the Kingdoms. Far more dangerous than the noxious things It had twisted out of the beasts of ancient days, these Fyrd had the cunning of warriors. It had taken the Transformation, in which Earn and Healhra burned away their very forms and their mortality, to exterminate that breed. And now, for Here-wiss, here they were again—
Steel scraped out of sheaths all around as movement be-came visible in the high grass to the east. Segnbora's under-senses brought her more and more clearly the experience of their hungry rage. They knew their quarry was human, and they hated them. They had come to murder.
"Dammit," Herewiss muttered, "Sunspark, where are you when I need you?!" But no answering thought came, and Herewiss hefted Khavrinen grimly. Only two days forged, and already the sword would be tasting blood.
There was little time to prepare. One moment the dark backs were jolting through the tall grass and the next, with a wave of grunts and screeches, the Fyrd were upon them. Segnbora found herself holding her blade too high to guard against a maw that was suddenly springing at her throat. She
threw herself sideways. Jaws went mick! above her, in the air where she had been. She hit the ground, rolled, found her footing and sprang up again. The maw hit the turf where she had been. For a moment it tore the ground with teeth and talons, its hunched back to her. That was all she needed. Chosing her spot she swung Charriselm up, sliced through thick flesh to the shock of bone. The maw writhed and screamed once, as its half-severed head flopped into the grass. She paid it no more heed, simply whipped the blood off Charriselm and swung around to find another foe. There were certain to be plenty—