She awoke before the caull, alerted by the rustle of its legs as it stirred from its own sleep. Her wishsong already coming into play, she rose and waited for its eyes to open. When its head lifted, she ordered it to rise. It did so, lurching to its feet, big and menacing in the fading light. It was twice the size it had been, with a thickened neck and huge shoulders, its body re-formed for fighting and running. Its head was a broad, flat shelf of bone, wedge-shaped from pointed ears to snout. Its muzzle split as it panted, revealing a double row of razor-sharp teeth made for rending and tearing. Its legs had shortened to give it a splay-footed stance, and the digits of its paws had lengthened and spread like fingers to end in hooked claws. Sleek gray hair layered its body, less fur than skin, a tough coarse hide that even brambles could not scratch. It wheeled this way and that, as if anxious to test its newfound strength, and in its maddened eyes glittered an unmistakable bloodlust.
She watched it carefully, pleased with her handiwork, certain that with this creature to aid her, she would be more than a match for the wiles of the shape-shifter and his young accomplice. She had learned to fashion caulls while practicing her magic with the Morgawr. But she had discovered the shape of this one on her own. Hundreds of years ago, there had been another, a monster out of Faerie called a Jachyra that had stalked and killed a Druid. She didn’t need the real thing. A close approximation would be sufficient to serve her needs.
“Relentless,” she hissed at the caull. It swung its flat, heavy head toward her watchfully. “That is what you will be for me in your search for those I hunt. Unstoppable.”
The jaws split in what might have been a smile if the beast had been capable of understanding what a smile was. It was enough to satisfy the Ilse Witch. If it accomplished what she wished, she would do the smiling for them both.
Bek trailed Truls Rohk as they entered a meadow filled with blue and yellow wildflowers. He was already beginning to tire from the pace the shape-shifter was setting, sweat coating his face and drenching his tunic. The sun was high in the midday sky and the air warm. Truls Rohk loped to the center of the meadow and stopped, looking back.
“Far enough,” he said, his ravaged face a shadow within his cowl, barely seen even in the bright midday sun. He looked back in the direction from which they had come. “We can’t outrun her forever. Sooner or later, she’ll wear us down. Something else is needed.”
Bek blew out his breath wearily and took a fresh gulp, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. “Maybe she’ll give up if we keep going.”
“Not likely. Think about it. She put aside her hunt for the Druid, her mortal enemy, to come in search of you. She put everything aside, the whole of her purpose in coming on this voyage, because of you. You think you didn’t reach her with your words and arguments, but I think maybe you did. Enough at least to make her wonder.”
Bek shook his head. “It didn’t feel like it at the time.” Truls Rohk didn’t even seem to be breathing hard, his body still and composed within his cloak, not a ripple of movement, not a stir.
“She’s tracking us with her magic, reading our passing with it. I saw the way she walked, head up, eyes forward. She wasn’t studying signs or searching for prints.” He cast about for a moment, looking off into the distance in all directions, taking in the lay of the land. “We have to throw her off, boy. Now, before this gets any tighter, before she’s so close nothing will slow her.”
He faced the boy squarely, broad-shouldered and threatening. “Time to take some responsibility for yourself. Your magic against hers-that might be the answer. It lacks power and subtlety both, but it has its uses even so. Listen to me. She’s probably reading our body heat, our movement from place to place. See if you can do the same. Watch me closely. When I disappear, track me. Use your voice, like you did on Mephitic.”