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prey.
    As both shapes vanished up the slope toward the heart of the prince’s encampment, Tiamak stood in stunned amazement. It took some moments for him to realize who the first shape had been.
    The Sitha-woman! he thought. Chased by a hawk or an owl?
    It made no sense, but then she—Aditu was her name—made little sense to Tiamak either. She was like nothing he had ever seen and, in fact, frightened him a little. But what could be chasing her? From the look on her face she had been running from something dreadful.
    Or to something dreadful, he realized, and felt his stomach clench. She had been heading toward the camp.
    He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed as he set out, protect me-protect us all frorn evil. His heart was beating swiftly now, faster than the pace of his running feet. This is an ill-omened year!
     
    For a moment, as he reached the nearest edge of the vast field of tents, he was reassured. It was quiet, and few campfires burned. But there was too much quiet, he decided a moment later. It was not early, but still well before midnight. People should be about, or at least there should be some noise from those not yet asleep. What could be wrong?
    It had been long moments since he had caught his most recent glimpse of the swooping bird—he was certain now it was an owl—and he hobbled on in the direction he had last seen it, his breath now coming in harsh gasps. His injured leg was not used to running, and it burned him, throbbed. He did his best to ignore it.
    Quiet, quiet—it was still as a stagnant pond here. The tents stood, dark and lifeless as the stones drylanders set in fields where they buried their dead.
    But there! Tiamak felt his stomach turn again. There was movement! One of the tents not far away shook as though in a wind, and some light inside it threw strange moving shadows onto the walls.
    Even as he saw it he felt a tickling in his nostrils, a sort of burning, and with it came a sweet, musky scent. He sneezed convulsively and almost tripped, but caught himself before falling to the ground. He limped toward the tent, which pulsed with light and shadow as though some monstrous thing was being born inside. He tried to raise his voice to cry out that he was coming and to raise an alarm, for his fear was rising higher and higher—but he could not make a sound. Even the painful rasp of his breathing had become faint and whispery.
    The tent, too, was strangely silent. Pushing down his fright, he caught at the flap and threw it back.
    At first he could see nothing more than dark shapes and bright light, almost an exact reflection of the shadow puppets on the outside walls of the tent. Within a few instants, the moving images began to come clear.
    At the tent’s far wall stood Camaris. He seemed to have been struck, for blood rilled from some cut on his head, staining his cheek and hair black, and he reeled as though his wits had been addled. Still, bowed and leaning against the fabric for support, he was yet fierce, like a bear beset by hounds. He had no blade, but held a piece of firewood clenched in one fist and waved it back and forth, holding off a menacing shape that was almost all black but for a flash of white hands and something that glinted in one of those hands.
    Kicking near Camaris’ feet was an even less decipherable muddle, although Tiamak thought he saw more black-clothed limbs, as well as the pale nimbus of Aditu’s hair. A third dark-clad attacker huddled in the corner, warding off a swooping, fluttering shadow.
    Terrified, Tiamak tried to raise his voice to call for help, but could make no sound. Indeed, despite what seemed to be life-or-death struggles, the entice tent was silent but for the muffled sounds of the two combatants on the floor and the hectic flapping of wings.
    Why can’t I hear? Tiamak thought desperately. Why can’t I make a sound?
    Frantic, he searched the floor for something to use as a weapon, cursing himself that he had carelessly left his knife