SEVENTEEN The Hunt

      Among the Old Blood, there are teaching tales that are intended as guides for the very young. They are simple stories that instruct a child in virtues by telling of the animals that exemplify an admirable quality. Those not of Old Blood might be surprised to hear the Wolf praised for his dedication to his family, or the Mouse for her wisdom in providing for the cold winter months ahead. The Gander who keeps watch while the rest of the flock feeds is praised for his unselfishness and the Porcupine for his forbearance in injuring only those who attack him first. The Cat’s attribute is independence. A tale is told of a woman who seeks to bond with a cat. The cat offers to try her companionship for a day or two, if the woman will seek to perform well the tasks given her. The tale relates the duties the cat tries the woman at, stroking her fur, amusing her with string, fetching her cream and so on. The woman complies cheerfully with each request and does each one well. At the end of that time, the Witted woman again proposes that they bond, for she felt they were obviously well suited to one another. The cat refuses, saying, ‘If I bonded with you, you would be the poorer, for you would lose that which you love best about me, for it is that I do not need you, yet I tolerate your company.’ It is, the Old Blood say, a cautionary fable, meant to warn a child not to seek a bond-beast who cannot take as much from the relationship as it gives.

      Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

      Let me just see you.

      You have. I have shown myself to you. Stop nagging me for that, and pay attention. You said you would learn this for me. You promised it to me. It is why I have brought you here, where there are no distractions. Be the cat.

      It’s too hard. Let me see you with my eyes. Please.

      When you are ready. When you can be the cat as easily as you are yourself. Then you will be ready to know me.

      She was ahead of me. I toiled up the hill behind her, every bush catching at me, every dip and every stone catching at my feet. My mouth was dry. The night was cool, but as I pushed my way through the brush, dust and pollen rose to choke me. Wait!

      Prey does not wait. A cat does not cry out ‘wait’ to the one she hunts. Be the cat.

      For an instant, I almost caught a glimpse of her. Then the tall grass closed around her and she was gone. Nothing stirred, I heard no sound. I was no longer sure which way to go. The night was deep beneath the golden moon, the lights of Galeton lost behind me in the rolling hills. I took a breath, and then closed my mouth, resolving to breathe silently if it choked me. I moved forwards, a single gliding step at a time. I did not push branches out of my way, but swayed around them. I eased through the grass, striving to part it with my stride rather than push through it. I eased my weight from one carefully set footstep to the next. What had she bid me? ‘Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For Night is a cat.’ Very well, then. I was night, sleek and black and soundless. I halted under the sheltering branches of an oak. Its leaves were still. I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, striving to capture every bit of light I could. Slowly I turned my head. I flared my nostrils and then took in a deep silent breath through my mouth, trying to taste her on the air. Where was she, which way had she gone?

      I felt a sudden weight, as if a brawny man had clapped both his hands to my shoulders and then sprung back from me. I spun around, but it was only Cat. She had dropped on me like a falling leaf, and then let herself drop to the ground. Now she crouched in the dry grass and ancient leaves under the tree. Belly to the ground, she looked up at me and then away. I crouched down beside her. ‘Which way, Cat? Which way did she go?’

      Here. She is here. She is always here, with me.

      After my love’s deep throaty voice, Cat’s thought in my mind was a reedy purr. I was fond of her, but to have her thoughts touch mine when I was longing instead for my love was almost intolerable. Gently I put her aside from me. I tried to ignore her injured protest that I should do so.

      ‘Here,’ I breathed. ‘I know she is close. But where?’

      Closer than you know. But you shall never know me as long as you set the cat aside. Open to the cat. Be the cat. Prove yourself to me.

      Cat flowed soundlessly away from me. I could not see where she had gone. She was night flowing into night, and it was like trying to discern the water you had poured into a stream. I drew a soundless breath and poised myself to follow, not just with my feet but with my heart. I pushed fear aside and opened myself to the cat.

      Cat was back suddenly, easing out of the darkness to become a richer shadow. She pressed close against my legs. Hunted.

      ‘Yes. We hunt, we hunt for the woman, my love.’

      No. We are hunted. Something scents us, something follows Cat-And-Boy through the night. Up. Climb.

      She suited her words to her thoughts, flowing up the oak tree. Tree to tree. He cannot track us up here. Follow tree to tree. I knew that was what she was doing, and she expected me to follow. I tried. I flung myself at the oak, but the trunk was too large for me to shinny up and yet not coarse enough for my clawless fingers to find purchase. For an instant, I clung, but I could not climb. I slid back, nails bending and clothing snagging as the tree refused me. I could hear the predator coming now. It was a new sensation, one I did not like, to be hunted thus. I’d find a better tree. I turned and ran, sacrificing stealth for speed, but finding neither.

      I chose to go uphill. Some predators, such as bears, could not run well on an uphill slope. If it was a bear, I could outdistance him. I could not think what else it might be that dared to hunt us. Another oak, younger and with lower branches, beckoned me. I ran, I leapt and caught the lowest branch. But even as I pulled myself up, my pursuer reached the bottom of the tree below me. And I had chosen foolishly. There were no other trees close by that I could leap to. The few that touched branches with mine were slender, unreliable things. I was treed.

      Snarling, I looked down at my stalker. I looked into my own eyes looking into my own eyes looking into my own eyes –

      I sat bolt upright, flung from sleep. Sweat sheathed me and my mouth was dry as dust. I rolled out of bed and stood, disoriented. Where was the window, where was the door? And then I recalled that I was not in my own cottage, but in a strange room. I blundered through the darkness to a washstand. I lifted the pitcher there and drank the tepid water in it. I dipped my hand in what little was left and rubbed it around on my face. Work, mind, I bade my struggling brain. It came to me. Nighteyes had Prince Dutiful treed somewhere in the hills behind Galeton. While I had slept, my wolf had found the Prince. But I feared that the Prince had discovered us as well. How much did he know of the Skill? Was he aware that we had been linked? Then all wondering