The sun was beginning to sink. A cool breeze began, hinting of a chilly night to come. My ward was snoring once more, so I decided to sprint most of the remaining distance. I did not like the feeling that this forest after dark might become a place crawling with unclean denizens of some damned Circle that I knew nothing about, but who seemed to be on the make when it came to this particular piece of real estate.
So I ran through lengthening shadows, dismissing rising notions of pursuit, ambush, surveillance, until I could do so no longer. They had achieved the strength of a premonition, and then I heard the noises at my back: a soft pat-pat-pat, as of footfalls.
I set the stretcher down, and I drew my blade as I turned.
There were two of them, cats.
Their markings were precisely those of Siamese cats, only these were the size of tigers. Their eyes were of a solid, sun-bright yellow, pupilless. They seated themselves on their haunches as I turned, and they stared at me and did not blink.
They were about thirty paces away. I stood sideways between them and the stretcher, my blade raised.
Then the one to the left opened its mouth. I did not know whether to expect a purr or a roar. Instead, it spoke. It said, “Man, most mortal.” The voice was not human-sounding. It was too high-pitched.
“Yet still it lives,” said the second, sounding much like the first.
“Slay it here,” said the first.
“What of the one who guards it with the blade I like not at all?”
“Mortal man?”
“Come find out,” I said, softly.
“It is thin, and perhaps it is old.”
“Yet it bore the other from the cairn to this place, rapidly and without rest. Let us flank it.”
I sprang forward as they moved, and the one to my right leaped toward me.
My blade split its skull and continued on into the shoulder. As I turned, yanking it free, the other swept past me, heading toward the stretcher. I swung wildly.
My blade fell upon its back and passed completely through its body. It emitted a shriek that grated like chalk on a blackboard as it fell in two pieces and began to bum. The other was burning also.
But the one I had halved was not yet dead. Its head turned toward me and those blazing eyes met my own and held them.
“I die the final death,” it said, “and so I know you, Opener. Why do you slay us?” And then the flames consumed its head.
I turned, cleaned my blade and sheathed it, picked up the stretcher, ignored all questions, and continued on.
A small knowledge had begun within me, as to what the thing was, what it had meant.
And I still sometimes see that burning cat head in dreams, and then I awaken, wet and shivering, and the night seems darker, and filled with shapes I cannot define.
The Keep of Ganelon had a moat about it, and a drawbridge, which was raised. There was a tower at each of the four comers where its high walls met. From within those walls many other towers reached even higher, tickling the bellies of low, dark clouds, occluding the early stars, casting shadows of jet down the high hill the place occupied. Several of the towers were already lighted, and the wind bore me the faint sound of voices.
I stood before the drawbridge, lowered my charge to the ground, cupped my hands about my mouth, and called out:
“Hola! Ganelon! Two travelers are stranded in the night!”
I heard the clink of metal on stone. I felt that I was being studied from somewhere above. I squinted upward, but my eyes were still far from normal.
“Who is there?” the voice came down, big and booming.
“Lance, who is wounded, and I, Corey of Cabra, who bore him here.”
I waited as he called this information to another sentry, and I heard more voices raised as the message was passed along the line.
After a pause of several minutes, a reply came back in the same manner.