K'Tathi continued to cling to his wrist, mercifully refraining from using his wings to keep his balance. One strong buffet to the head from those powerful wings would lay Skif out over Cymry's rump before he knew what had hit him. Instead, the owl hunched down on the wrist, making himself as small as possible, leaning into the wind of their passing.
Skif tried to bring him in close to his body, but he wasn't sure how much K'Tathi would tolerate.
"What in-: Skif began.
A pack of something, that scented us and is hunting up our backtrail," Cymry answered shortly. "Not something we've seen before, but something Wintermoon and the others know. Worse than wolves, worse than Changewolves.
And smart-we're running for a place where we can defend ourselves.
K'Tathi found it just before Corwith sighted the pack." He could only hope that an owl's idea of what was defensible and theirs was the same; sheer cliffs were fine if you could scale them, and a hole in a tree would be all right if the tree was the size of a house, but otherwise they'd be better off making a back-to-back stand.
And he hoped his idea of "nearby" and the owl's was the same, too.
For behind him, he heard an uncanny keening sound; not baying, not howling, not wailing-something like all three together. The noise gave him chills and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and it sounded as if it was coming from at least eight or nine throats. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw nothing, but his imagination populated the darkness. If he heard eight, how many were really in the pack?
Twelve? Twenty? Fifty?
K'Tathi clutched his wrist a little harder, and the deadly talons pricked him through the leather. This was not a good way to carry the bird, but there was no way to turn K'Tathi loose to fly. The dyheli were nearly a match for a Companion in speed, and they were going flat-out; neither owl could have hoped to keep up with them by flying through the canopy, which was why both birds were clinging desperately to their perches on his wrist and Wintermoon's. But K'Tathi, at least, was having a lot of trouble holding on. If the owl exerted a little more pressure: Cymry! Can you talk to K'Tathi?" he asked Cymry, frantically.
Her mind-voice was colored with surprise and annoyance at what probably seemed like a supremely inappropriate question. "Yes, but this is no time-: He interrupted her. "Tell him not to move, I'm going to try something with him, before he goes through my wrist." He pulled his arm to his chest, and brought the bird in close to his ty, sheltered against his body. This left the owl unbalanced, with its ac~e shoved against his tunic, but K'Tathi displayed his agility and intelligence; somehow he managed to get himself reversed, so that his head faced forward and his tail and wings were tucked down between Skif's wrist and his chest. Now the bird wasn't having to fight the wind by himself, he was braced against Skif. The painful pressure on Skif's wrist relaxed. that takes care of one problem.
Cymry's muscles bunched and flexed under his legs, the sound of hooves drowning out anything else except the chilling cries behind them.
The wailing behind them seemed closer. Skif didn't ask Cymry if it was; it wouldn't make any difference. They'd either reach safety in time, or not.
He just wished he knew how far it was to that promise of "safety." If he knew, he might be able to guess whether they had any chance of making it, or whether it might be better to turn and make a stand.
And he wished that he had Wintermoon's night-sight, far superior to his own. To him, the moon-filled night was full of shadows his eyes couldn't penetrate. There could be nothing in those patches of darkness, or an enemy, or a hiding place. Though the moon was bright, there were still enough leaves on the trees to keep most of the light from reaching the ground.
The pack behind them cried again; this time there was no doubt in his mind about the peril of their situation. They were closer; if he looked back, he might be able to see them. The brush obscuring the path behind them didn't seem to be slowing the pack at all. In fact, they were probably breaking a trail for the pursuers to follow along. He'd learned long ago that being the pursued in a chase was more difficult than being the pursuer.
He crouched a little lower over Cymry's neck; as low as he could without flattening the owl. K'Tathi seemed to realize what he was doing, and didn't object or struggle, only giving him a warning stab with his talons when he crouched too low for the owl's comfort. Soft feathers pressed against his chin, and K'Tathi hunched down on his wrist so that the bird's chest-feathers warmed his hand.
He glanced up; saw the gray bulk of a rock formation looming ahead of them through the trees. In this light, it looked very like the one in which he and Elspeth had sheltered when they first arrived in Tayledras territory. A moment later, he saw that this one was bisected by a goodsized crack. just like the one he and Elspeth had used.
He seemed to spend a lot of time hiding in rock crevices lately.
Whatever had happened to hiding in rooms, behind drapes, or under furniture?
He had a moment to think-oh, no, not again-and then Cymry braced all four legs for a sudden stop, skidding to a halt beside the dyheli. At least the owls did seem to have some idea of what constituted a good shelter for the rest of the party. The crevice would be a little crowded for three plus the two humans, but it was better than facing what howled on their backtrail with nothing to protect their backs!
All three of them crowded into the narrow crevice between two halves of a huge boulder; the rock was easily two stories tall, and the crevice ended in the stone face of a second stone that was even taller. There was barely enough room for Cymry to turn around, but that was fine; less room for them meant less room for those things out there to try to get past them.
A strangled hoot and the booting of K'Tathi's head against his chest reminded him to turn the poor owl loose. He raised his arm and launched it clumsily into the air, thrown off by the confined quarters and the fact that the owl was considerably heavier than a merlin. It wasn't much of a launch, or much help to the owl in gaining the air; K'Tathi hit him in the side of the head with a wing, recovered, and got free of the crevice, just as the pack reached them.
Skif looked up when a note of triumph entered the wailing. A strange, yellowish flood burst through the bushes and into the area around the rocks. Dear gods-He needn't wish for night-sight after all. The damned things glowed.
Now that he saw them, he wished, perversely, he didn't have quite such a good view.
They looked-superficially-like dogs; they had the lean, long-legged bodies of greyhounds, the close-cropped ears, the long, snaky tails and pointed muzzles. But their faintly-glowing, pale yellow hides were covered with scales, each scale outlined by a darker yellow. Their heads, shaped like an unholy cross between dog and viper, held eyes that burned a sulfurous yellow much brighter than the bodies, and rows of sharply pointed fangs.
They flowed, they didn't run; they drifted to a halt outside the entrance to the crevice and wound around each other in a vicious, impatient, ever-moving tangle. A snarl of ropes, with teeth at one end. A ball of vipers. They confused the eye and baffled the senses with their hypnotic restlessness. Wintermoon slid off the back of his mount; Skif followed his example a moment later.