'Anything stirring?' she whispered.
Alyss shook her head and replied in the same lowered tone. 'Nothing. The pig was awake about twenty minutes ago but he went back to sleep.'
They both peered down through the branches, across the clearing to where the pig was tethered. The little animal lay sleeping beside the tree.
'Seems peaceful enough now,' Evanlyn said. 'Maybe he was having a pigmare.' She shuffled towards the edge of the platform, picking up the coiled rope. Alyss caught her by the arm. Even though she still spoke in a whisper, Evanlyn could hear the urgency in her tone.
'What d'you think you're up to?'
Evanlyn blushed, although in the dim light Alyss was unaware of the fact.
'Call of nature,' she said. 'I drank too much from my water bottle when we ate. The pickles made me thirsty.' She grinned sheepishly.
Firmly, Alyss took the coiled rope from her grasp and placed it away from the edge of the platform.
'Put up with it,' she said. 'Neither of us is going down that rope before daylight.'
'Alyss, be reasonable. If the Terror was anywhere in the area, that pig would be squealing and snuffling in terror. I'm sure it's perfectly safe. We haven't heard anything in hours.'
'Neither did the seventeen Hasanu that this creature killed. Three of them were taken from the middle of a camp where others were sleeping, remember? Evanlyn, the only place that's safe is this platform. And I'm not even totally sure about that.'
Evanlyn hesitated. Nimatsu had told them some hair-raising stories about the Terror, that was true. As Alyss pointed out, some of its victims had been taken while surrounded by dozens of sleeping comrades – none of whom ever heard a sound.
'Well…all right,' she said, feigning a reluctance she no longer felt. The idea that the Terror might be somewhere close to them, creeping towards the tree where they perched, set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. But she wasn't about to admit that to Alyss. 'You go to sleep. I'll keep watch.'
Alyss eyed her carefully. 'Don't go sneaking off once I'm asleep,' she warned.
Evanlyn shook her head. 'I won't.'
Alyss lay down, pulling her cloak around her shoulders. She seemed to fall asleep much sooner than Evanlyn had managed. Within a few minutes her breathing was deep and regular, punctuated by occasional soft snorts of complaint as she shifted to ease the discomfort of a badly trimmed knot on the branches below her.
Evanlyn sat, bored and cramped, as the moon arced up and over them, eventually descending and leaving the forest black and silent once more. The bird and animal noises had died away. There was only the wind now. Once, just before dawn, it seemed to gust more strongly than before and Evanlyn sat up a little straighter, peering around nervously. But then she realised it had only been a stray gust and she sank back into her bleary-eyed vigil. She yawned mightily. Her eyelids drooped and she jerked upright, realising that her head had dropped to one side and, for a few seconds, she had been asleep. She shook her head to clear it, breathing deeply, then surveyed the dimly lit ground beneath her. The dark form of the pig was still visible in the snow. There was nothing else to be seen.
Shuffling to the edge of the platform, she peered straight down. But she could see nothing there, either.
She yawned again. There was a thin layer of snow on the branches around her. She scooped some up and rubbed the freezing wetness across her face and eyes. For a few minutes, she was refreshed and alert. Then her eyelids and head sagged again. She forced them open, yawned again and wished she hadn't drunk all that water the night before.
She had never in her life been so grateful to see the dawn. The first grey light stole through the trees and she realised that she could make out details now, instead of just seeing vague outlines. Then she began to make out a red glow from the east, faintly visible through the trunks and upper branches.
Then, without her noticing the exact moment when it happened, a steel grey daylight stole over the forest and the clearing above which they sat. Funny, she thought, how daylight made things seem less threatening.
Alyss stirred, then rolled over and sat up, rubbing her eyes.
'Anything happen?' she asked, although she knew that if it had, Evanlyn would have woken her.
'Nothing. We seemed to have picked the most boring stretch of forest possible. There was nothing but the insects and the birds and even they became bored after a while and went to sleep. I think we're going to have to -'
Evanlyn stopped. Alyss's hand was gripping her forearm tightly – so tightly that it was hurting.
'Look,' the Courier said. 'Look at the pig.'
Evanlyn followed her gaze and felt her blood freeze. The snow around the little animal was stained red. Alyss grabbed the climbing rope and moved to the edge of the platform, preparing to let it drop to the forest floor below them. But she stopped, then hurriedly moved away from the edge.
'Look down there,' she said in a barely audible voice. 'Don't stand up!' she cautioned. 'You might fall!'
On hands and knees, Evanlyn moved to the edge of the platform and looked down through the lower branches to the ground below. The snow around the base of their tree was patterned with multiple tracks, where a large animal had circled the trunk repeatedly. Off to one side was an indentation in the snow, where that same animal had lain, waiting for them, watching them.
'You heard nothing?' Alyss asked and Evanlyn, her eyes wide with horror, shook her head.
'Not a thing,' she said, then remembered, 'Once, just before the dawn, I thought the wind seemed to gust a little louder. But that was all.' She indicated the carcass of the pig. 'I never heard that happen! And I swear I was awake all night.'
She trembled with fear as she recalled how she had wanted to climb down from the platform during the night.
'My god!' she said softly. 'I wanted to climb down! It could have been waiting then!'
Alyss nodded. Her stomach was tight with fear as well. They had no way of knowing how long the huge creature – whatever it was – had been lying watching them from the base of the tree.
Eventually, gathering their courage, they climbed down from their perch and studied the tracks in the snow.
'It looks like some kind of giant cat,' Evanlyn said. She couldn't stop glancing back over her shoulder as she studied the paw marks. Alyss had moved to look at the depression where the creature had lain in the snow.
'It must be at least four metres in length,' she mused. 'I wish Will was here. He'd make more sense out of these tracks.'
'I wish he was here too,' Evanlyn said. But she was thinking more about the reassurance that Will's powerful longbow and grey-shafted arrows could provide. Alyss glanced quickly at her, then, as she understood Evanlyn's meaning, the suspicious frown on her face cleared. She rose and moved across to where the pig lay, stiff and cold now. Evanlyn followed her nervously, her hand on the hilt of the sword she wore. Alyss prodded the pig with the haft of one of her spears. It seemed to have been killed by one raking sweep of giant claws across its throat.
'The Terror killed it. But it didn't try to eat it,' she muttered. 'Or take the carcass with it.'
Evanlyn glanced at her fearfully. 'What does that mean?' she asked, although she thought she knew the answer.
'The Terror didn't want the pig raising the alarm. Aside from that, it wasn't interested in the pig. It was stalking us.'
'Next time,' Halt said, 'we won't get off so lightly.' They had lost only six men in the battle, with another dozen wounded, four badly. In contrast, they had captured over seventy swords, armour breastplates and helmets from the fallen Senshi – and there were many more of Arisaka's men injured as well.
As Shigeru's Senshi and the Kikori warriors were retreating up the narrow pass, Halt had detailed Mikeru and a dozen of his followers to obliterate the tracks leading back to the mouth of the secret entrance. The teenagers did this by dragging large pieces of canvas, sourced from the enemy's abandoned tents, across the snow over a wide area in front of the gully. Mikeru was a very handy person to have around, Halt reflected. He was keen, energetic and he used his initiative. A small group of Senshi from Shigeru's bodyguard remained on watch in the narrow gully, in case the enemy happened to stumble over the entrance.