Destiny полностью

Shock rocked the Lioness back on her heels, and Sa’ida immediately realized she had not known her own state. The priestess apologized for having delivered the news so bluntly.

“How can you know?” Kerian asked hoarsely.

Sa’ida shrugged. “I am the high priestess of Elir-Sana.”

Kerian walked on trembling legs to a nearby log and sat down. A child! Her head moved in a denial, but she knew Sa’ida wouldn’t mislead her about so important a fact.

The priestess’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Don’t look so frightened,” she said kindly. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

Natural for some, but for the Lioness? The foundations of her world were shifting under her feet, and Kerian wondered how she would cope.

“Motherhood,” she said, and the word sounded as strange to her as anything she’d encountered in Inath-Wakenti.

Outside the ring of standing stones and bonfires, unfriendly eyes surveyed the camp. Black tongue lolling, the beast who was Prince Shobbat crouched by a small tree. His belly ached with hunger. Before he’d come into the valley, he’d hunted rabbits and squirrels. In the valley there was nothing. He was sure the laddad would have food. Sneaking in would not be easy. Laddad senses were far keener than a human’s, but so were his, and he was much stealthier than when he’d been human.

He did not debate the question long. His empty belly overruled any qualms. Rising from his crouch, he trotted through the widely spaced trees. It was very early in the morning, and the high mountains shadowed the valley, but he kept to the low places so as not to risk showing a silhouette to elf eyes. Unfortunately, he could find no easy access. The ramparts surrounding the laddad camp were uniformly patrolled.

At a barricade spanning the gap between two lofty monoliths, the pair of elves on watch leaned casually on their spears. Their attention was half-hearted at best. Since the Speaker’s encounter with the will-o’-the-wisps several nights back, the ghosts of Inath-Wakenti had not reappeared. Eerie silence still cloaked the valley, but the absence of specters went a long way toward lulling elf fears. For the civilian volunteers, guard duty became routine. The hardest part of the job was staying awake.

One sentinel stood straighter and pushed his helmet back from his forehead.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

His comrade had seen nothing but his own drooping eyelids. “What?” he mumbled.

The first sentinel pointed at a gully about thirty yards away. “It went in there,” he said. “It looked like a dog. A big one!”

An argument ensued. Both elves knew there were no dogs in Inath-Wakenti, but the first insisted he had not been mistaken. Whatever it was, he had seen something. The discussion grew heated, but he remained adamant. He went to find the captain of the night watch and report the sighting.

The beast noted the departure of the sentinel. Only one elf remained, and the barrier at that spot was only chest-high, made of loose stones. He couldn’t hope for better odds than that. Belly low to the turf, he crept forward. Soon he was close enough to hear the crackle of bonfires and to smell wood burning. He could smell laddad too. Unlike the pungency of unwashed humans, laddad scent was redolent of dry grass, like a haymow.

Gathering his long legs beneath him, Shobbat sprang.

He hit the laddad sentinel in the back, and the two of them went down in a heap. Shobbat’s jaws locked Onto the laddad’s throat. How easy it would be to tear the elf apart. Part of him wanted to taste the hot blood flowing, but enough of his humanity remained to resist that savagery He held on until the laddad succumbed to lack of air and lost consciousness.

Pressing on, Shobbat kept to the shadows, avoiding bonfires and the packs of alert laddad patrolling the camp. His keen nose detected the aroma of smoked meat. He tracked the tantalizing odor. Once he almost blundered into the path of several mounted warriors. The riders didn’t notice him, but their horses did. The front pair reared and lashed out with their shod hooves. Shobbat withdrew quickly into the deep shadows between two large tents. The riders calmed their mounts and moved on.

Shobbat’s nose led him at last to a round tent with a conical roof. It was guarded by a pair of spear-armed laddad who walked around it in opposite directions. Getting past them was simple He waited until they met and moved on; then he sprinted for the tent. He put his nose under the fabric and shoved himself beneath.