much about the Elves,” she said, hastening after. “Or how it is
that you can talk, for that matter. Does everything on Morrow-
indl talk?”
Stresa glanced back, a cat look, sharp and knowing.
“Rraarggh-did I forget to tell you? The reason I can talk is that
the Elves made me, too. Hsssstt.” The Splinterscat turned away.
“Enough questions for now. Better if we keep still for a while.”
He moved rapidly into the trees, as silent as smoke, leaving
Wren with Garth to follow, pondering her confusion and dis-
belief.
CHAPTER
7
THEY FLED SWIFTLY, silently through the In Ju. The Splin-
terscat led, his brownish quilled body shambling
through brush and into grasses, under brambles and
over logs as if they were all one, a single obstacle that
required the same amount of effort to surmount. Wren and
Garth followed, forced to skirt the heavier undergrowth, to pick
their way more cautiously, to test the ground before they walked
upon it. They managed to keep pace only because Stresa had
sufficient presence of mind to look back for them now and again
and wait until they caught up.
None of them spoke as they hastened on, but they all lis-
tened carefully for sounds of the Wisteron’s pursuit.
The jungle grew darker and webs began to appear every-
where. Many were trailers from snares long since sprung or worn
away, yet an equal number were triggers to nets stretched
through the treetops, across brush, even over pits in the earth.
The webbing was clear and invisible except where leaves or dirt
had become attached and gave color and definition, and even
then it was hard to detect. Wren soon gave up searching for
anything else, concentrating solely on the dangerous nets. A
spider would spin webs such as these, she thought to herself,
and pictured the Wisteron so in her mind.
They had been fleeing for only a handful of minutes when
she finally heard it moving. The sound reached her clearly-
brush and scrub thrashing, the limbs of trees snapping, bark
scraping, and water splashing and churning. The Wisteron was
big and it was making no effort to hide its coming. It sounded
as if a juggernaut were rolling over everything, implacable, in-
escapable. The In Ju was a monstrous green cathedral in which
the silence had been snatched away. Wren was suddenly very
afraid.
They passed through a broad clearing in which a lake had
formed, forcing them to change direction. After a moment’s hes-
itation, they skirted right along a low ridge on which a thick
patch of brambles grew. Stresa tunneled ahead, oblivious. Wren
and Garth followed bravely, ignoring the scrapes and cuts they
received, the sounds of the Wisteron’s coming growing louder
behind them.
Then abruptly the sounds disappeared.
Stresa stopped instantly, freezing in place. The Rovers did
so as well. Wren listened, motionless. Garth put his hands against
the earth. All was still. The trees hovered motionless about them,
the misted half-light a curtain of gauze. The only sound was a
rustling of the wind . . . Except that there was no wind. Wren
went cold. The air was as still as death. She looked quickly at
Stresa. The Splinterscat was looking up.
The Wisteron was moving through the trees.
Garth was on his feet again, his long knife sliding free. Wren
searched the canopy of limbs and branches overhead in a fran-
tic, futile effort to catch sight of something. The rustling was
closer, more recognizable, no longer the whisper of wind against
leaves but the movement of something huge.
Stresa began to run, an odd-shaped chunk of prickly earth
skimming toward a stand of koa, silent somehow, but frantic as
well. Wren and Garth went, too, unbidden, unquestioning.
Wren was sweating freely beneath her clothes, and her body
ached from the effort to remain still. She moved in a crouch,
afraid now to look back, to look up, or to look anywhere but
ahead to where the Splinterscat raced. The rustling of leaves
filled her ears, and there was a snapping of branches. Birds darted
through the cavernous forest, spurts of color and movement that
were gone in the blink of an eye. The jungle shimmered damp