‘I won’t,’ she ground out, and lurched backwards in the saddle. ‘Get out of my head!’
Shock! Alarm, then the sounds retreated until they were a meaningless buzz — coming from Tobry’s head!
The voice had not been speaking to her. It had been giving orders to Tobry, orders about her. To bring her where? To the murder cellar?
The familiarity crystallised. Rix had been right to be worried — the wrythen had left something in Tobry when it attacked him in the caverns. Now it was trying to take control of him and make him do the job Tinyhead had failed at. The wrythen and her enemy were the same, and if he took command of Tobry, she was lost. Tobry must have been expecting it — that’s why he had refused to help with her magery.
Tali could not see how to block a presence that was within Tobry, not herself. Wait! The wrythen was tracking her via the call, and only after he forced open the shell had he broken through to Tobry. The call had to be blocked before she tried to help Tobry — if she still had the strength to block it.
Tali squeezed her palms around her own head, one hand pressing against her forehead and the other on the back of her skull, as if by doing so she could prevent her enemy from doing to her what he had done to Tinyhead. She squeezed so hard that her thigh wound began to pulse. She had to ignore it; had to turn her enemy aside and block the call before it betrayed her.
Harder she squeezed, and harder, conjuring up the image of the protective shell and forcing it closed with all her driving will.
‘Stop!’ Tobry cried, swaying wildly and almost falling out of the saddle. ‘It’s burning, burning. Tali, help!’
One flailing hand struck her on the cheek, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. She lost concentration for a second, the shell was forced wide and she heard another voice …
The thing in the dark. Shadow and shape, shiftin’, always shiftin’.
A huge, loping creature stopped, stood up on back legs until it would have towered over Rix, and turned in her direction, sniffing the air. Sickle-shaped pupils contracted to points; claws clotted with rancid fat and day-old blood extended; shadows fluttered around it, expanding and contracting. She caught a whiff, or imagined she did, of hot breath tainted with offal and carrion, then the maw opened wide, emitting not the roar she would have expected, but a repeated pinging sound, a false note like some corrupt mimicry of the note that was a distant reply to her call.
Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.
That’s it, said the wrythen. Fix on her. Steady, steady. Take her and you can drink the foul magian’s blood. But do not harm her.
Tobry’s moan, deep in his throat, made her hair stand on end. His cheeks were glowing red in the dark, his eyes taking on the same gleam as Tinyhead’s had before his head had been burnt through, now showing a trace of yellow.
Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.
The sounds rose and fell as though a beam was sweeping across her and back, and sick terror overwhelmed her. She wanted to fling herself off the horse and run, anywhere. Tali struggled to fight it. She could not run. She would be lucky to stand up. And without her, Tobry was going to die. Clamping her hands harder around her skull, she squeezed with all the strength remaining to her.
Pinnnng, pinnnng, pinnnng.
‘Close, close!’ she gasped, forcing physically and mentally at the same time.
With an audible snap, the shell slammed, and both the call, the pinging and the presence in Tobry’s head cut off. So did the sense of that loping creature but she knew it was still out there, searching.
With a little sigh, Tobry toppled sideways out of the saddle. Tali almost followed him, for she was shaking so badly that she could not hang on. Twisting her hands through the stirrup straps, she half fell, half slid down, hit the ground and her bad leg crumpled under her.
Her head was ringing, her hands trembling so violently that she could not hold them against him. She crouched over Tobry and pressed her forehead to his.
‘Heal, heal!’
Normally she could feel the healing force leaving her as she worked, but Tali was so drained that she felt nothing now. She lay beside him, her cold cheek touching his feverish one. From way out in the Seethings echoed an eerie shriek, so uncanny that she could not imagine any normal beast making it.
‘Heal,’ she whispered. ‘Please heal, Tobry, or we’re both dead.’
CHAPTER 55
Tali was lying on hard ground, so drained that she could not move, while the horror hunting her drew ever closer. She thought she saw it fleetingly, a shadow darker than the night, shifting, always shifting from one form to another. Was it shadow, dream or hallucination? In her feverish state she could not tell the difference between reality and imagining, sleeping and waking, normality and nightmare.
Something leaned over her, half lifting and half dragging her. She flinched and tried to beat it off, but even the smallest movement speared jags of pain through her inflamed thigh.
‘Try not to move,’ said a hoarse voice, Tobry’s voice.
‘You’re alive,’ she whispered. She opened her eyes on a night black as a pit.
‘Thanks to you.’
‘I thought he’d got you.’
‘He nearly did.’ The rasping croak sounded as though his throat had been burnt. ‘I don’t know how you saved me, but — ’
‘It’s not over. The shadow-creature is out there, hunting me. For the wrythen. It’s big, Tobry. Bigger than Rix. And fast.’
‘Please, not a caitsthe,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘Was it catlike?’
‘Too dark to tell. Though it seemed hairy rather than furry. And foul — it really stank. And … it … the shadows seemed to transform it from one shape to another.’
Tobry stiffened beside her, then slowly let out his breath.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Tali. ‘What is it?’
‘It sounds like some kind of shifter. And I’m mortally afraid of shifters. What if …?’
He did not speak for a few seconds, but his hands, on her shoulders, were trembling and she could hear his racing heart. She recognised the signs. He was close to panic, and he must not give way to it.
‘Rannilt is all alone,’ she said. ‘We have to find her.’
He gave a muffled sob.
‘What is it?’ she said softly.
‘I’ve only known her a day, yet I love her like a daughter.’
‘She gets under the skin. Cling to it, Tobry. We’re going to save her.’
‘Yes, we will.’ A little strength crept back into his voice.
‘What are shifters?’ Tali asked. ‘I remember you and Rix talking about them.’
‘Men that can change to beast-form. Or sometimes, beasts that can transform to man-shape.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘Not at all. A beast doesn’t gain human intelligence when it shifts, but it makes up for it in cunning, speed and savagery. A man loses some wit when he becomes a beast, yet he’s still more clever than any wild creature. And more vicious. The beast-man kills because he must, but the man-beast kills because he enjoys it.’
Tali pressed up against him. ‘You know a lot about them.’
‘A shifter helped to bring down my house — ’
There came another howl, more shivery than the first.
‘Could you make some light? The dark is suffocating me.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Tobry.
‘The thing I saw has other ways of finding us.’
‘I hope it’s not another caitsthe,’ Tobry croaked. ‘More than anything in the world I hope it’s not a caitsthe.’
‘What’s a caitsthe?’
He told her.
‘But you killed one in the mountains, didn’t you?’