The Gates of Thorbardin

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Even here, in this cold crevasse split deep and narrow into living mountain stone… even here, where he could go no farther, where his aching body squeezed so tightly between serrated walls of cutting stone that his back was raw and bleeding… even here, where no roads came and the only trails were paths of small things passing…

Even here, he knew they would find him.

At least one of them would come, drawn by the scent of his blood — would come up through the riven rock and find him cornered. There were too many of them on the slopes below, too well spread as they hunted upward, for all of them to miss him where he hid. One would come. One would come to kill him.

He had watched them coursing the field like a hunter's pack. From a ledge where the tumbled stone lay grotesque in the shadows of the sheers above, he had seen them lose his scent. They had spread wide, casting about almost as wolves might, seeking movement, great blunt noses dipping to sweep the ground and rising to test the air, thick, sleek tails swishing graceful arcs as they wound and curved through the diminishing brush of the mountain slope. Long and lithe, immensely powerful and as graceful as dark zephyrs on the wind, they moved upward in silent unison, missing nothing as they came. Sunlight on the black fur rippling over mighty muscles was a tapestry of iridescence.

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