02 Shadowheart by James Barclay

Author:James Barclay
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
Published: 2010-04-12T20:00:27+00:00

His Claw echoed his slight confusion, even her highly developed receptors having difficulty deciphering what she was scenting on the breeze. Ultimately, her mind cleared and she set off, angling south and west, paws making no sound, head up, constantly checking her direction. He strode behind her, watching the land and the sky, determined that they would not be surprised from the air, or by hidden creatures as their unfortunate kin had been.

They travelled on, leaving the farmhouse far behind, his Claw turning first west and then north-west. He could see the route turning inexorably towards the elven camp. A threat approached the resting elves. They would hunt it down.

The panther increased her pace and he ran too, the scent strong, its masking failing as they closed. Ahead of them, open land rose

gently towards the camp. It was empty but they had been told to trust their noses and disbelieve their eyes.

They ran on, the knowledge of the threat all around them but nothing bar the scent to confirm its presence. They had no clear target and the breeze picked up immediately they hit the open ground. He slowed and stopped in the rise, his Claw circling, growling deep in her throat. They were close, he could feel it. He ignored the emptiness, turning a slow circle himself, the smell all around him but stronger in two areas. They had been told this too. These men did not travel alone.

Beneath his feet, the grass was wet and footfalls quiet upon it. He studied it, looking for the darker trails that would signify the passage of man over the ankle-high grass. And there were trails but they were so many. Animals passed this way and these men were clever, walking in the tracks of the fox or the horse.

His Claw's ears pricked and she stopped in mid stride, paw raised, her whiskers twitching. Her head swivelled round until she was staring at the space right in front of him. Her eyes could discern something his could not. He used them, seeing in the few yards between them, a ghosting over the landscape, a caressing of the grass in the tracks of an animal. Like a mist that moved so slowly it barely blew at all. But move it did.

He flexed his long strong fingers and felt each of his sharpened nails in turn against his thumb. The outline, broken by its spell and reflecting nothing but the night scene around it, was moving away from his Claw and towards him but so slowly.

Perhaps in the brightness and noise of the day, the outline would have been truly invisible but in the stark monochrome of Claw-Bound night sight, any blemish stood out eventually.

He waited, appearing to look away, his Claw's eyes giving him his information. The man, for it was a man, tall like him, stealthy and patient, came closer, closer.

He straightened the fingers of both hands and whipped his left shoulder round, his nails spearing flesh. His right hand followed, fingers gouging deep, nails of both hands clicking as they met within his victim.

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