the boot tops and below the knees to protect against snakes.
They pulled on their heavy cloaks and wrapped them close. The
heat of the lower slopes was absent here, and the air-which
they had thought would turn warm as they moved closer to
Killeshan-grew cold. Garth took the lead, deliberately shield-
ing Wren. Shadows moved all about them in the mist, things
that lacked shape and form but were there nevertheless. The
familiar sounds of birds and insects died away, fading into an
expectant hush. Dusk fell early, a draining away of light, and
rain began to fail in steady sheets.
They made their camp at the foot of an ancient koa that
fronted a small clearing. With their backs to the tree, they ate
their dinner and watched the light deepen from smoke to char-
coal. The rain slowed to an intermittent drizzle, and mist began
to creep down the mountainside in probing tendrils. Already the
forest was beginning to turn to jungle, the trees thickly grown
and tangled with vines, the ground damp and soft and yielding.
Slugs and beetles crawled through brush and rotting logs. The
ground was dry beneath the koa, but the dampness in the air
seemed to penetrate everywhere. There was no possibility of a
fire. Wren and Garth hunched within their cloaks and pushed
closer to each other. The night settled down about them, turn-
ing the world an inky black.
Wren offered to stand the first watch, too edgy to sleep.
Garth acquiesced without comment. He pulled up his knees,
put his head on his crossed arms, and was asleep almost imme-
diately.
Wren sat staring into the blackness. The trees and mist
screened away any light from moon and stars, and even after
her eyes had adjusted it was impossible to see more than a dozen
feet from where she kept watch. Shadows drifted at the periph-
ery of her vision, brief, quick, and suggestive. Sounds darted
out of the haze to challenge and tease-the shrill call of night
birds, the click of insects, scrapes and rustlings, huffings and
snarls. The low cough of hunting cats came from somewhere
distant. She could smell faintly the sulfur fumes of Killeshan,
wafting on the air, mingling with the thicker, more pungent
scents of the jungle. All around her an invisible world was wak-
ing up.
Let it, she thought defiantly.
The air grew still as even the drizzle faded away and only
fog remained. Time slipped away. The sounds slowed and soft-
ened, and there was a sense that everything out there in the
blackness lay in wait, that everything watched. She was aware
that the shadows at the edge of the encroaching mist had faded
away. Garth was snoring softly. She shifted her cramped body
but made no effort to rise. She liked the feel of the tree against
her back and Garth pressing close. She hated how the island
made her feel exposed, vulnerable, unprotected. It was the
newness, she told herself. It was the unfamiliarity of the terrain,
the isolation from her own country, the memory of Tiger Ty’s
warning that there were monsters here. It would take time to
adjust . .
She left the thought unfinished as she saw the silhouette of
something huge appear at the edge of the mist. It walked upright
on two legs momentarily, then dropped down on four. It stopped
and she knew it was looking at her. The hair on the back of her
neck prickled, and she edged her hand down until her fingers
closed about the long knife at her waist.
She waited.
The thing that watched did not move. It seemed to be wait-
ing with her.
Then she saw another of the shadows appear, similar to the
first. And another. And a fourth. They gathered in the darkness
and went still, invisible eyes glittering. Wren took slow, deep
breaths. She thought about waking Garth, but told herself over
and over that she would wait just one more minute, just long
enough to see what would happen.
But nothing happened. The minutes crawled past, and the
shadows stayed where they were. Wren wondered how many
were out there. Then she wondered if they were behind her