Cloud's Rider

He wished there was something he could do to reciprocate. There wasn’t, except if he could guide them to where they could settle the problem of the lorrie-lie or whatever it was. But they weren’t fit for a chase: Burn wasn’t going beyond a walking pace, Guil not favoring any jolting right now, he was well sure, and Burn having done more carrying of his rider than a nighthorse wanted to do on a steep road. There was little chance, Da

Meanwhile they followed his and Carlo’s backtrail to the wide road and followed the road beside the pond, within snow-obscured view of the <tree where he’d seen the nest>—and when they reached the vantage he’d had, the nest was plain to see, covered in snow, a lump in an otherwise symmetrical tree.

They left the road and came to the very foot of it. No tracks led to it, though it stood apart from other trees. Da

A shot went off. Spook went straight up and Carlo grabbed for a double-handed and desperate hold. Tarahad fired, discharged her rifle up into the nest.

Nothing resulted but echoes, a spatter of snow, a fall of shattered twigs.

Bones followed, one pair with blue and white plaid still clinging. The missing man in the village, Da

But that would mean a largehunting range. And a beast that traveled far in its hunting. And didn’t fear a village.

“Damn sure no leaf-eater,” Guil said, sca

But it wasn’t in the nest. There was no blood, no sound, nothing to indicate Tara’s upward shot had hit a living creature.

<Shelter> was Da

“Sorry,” Da

“It’s all right,” Guil said.

“It’s hard to get an image of.” <Sending in the woods. Land rippling in his perception. Carlo—>

He tried not to spill beyond his intention to inform them. But Guil <wanted.>

“Rest of it,” Guil said.

<Rippling sending. Carlo and Spook.>

“It blotted things out,” Tara said. “Damned strong.” Da

“It can blot out another sending,” Guil said. “Take another sending outof the ambient it passes on. A horse can do it.”

“But a horse has to learn,” Tara said. “This thing’s got tricks. Complicated tricks. Like Guil says, it’s smart, it’s a predator, and I hope to hell there’s just one of them. Last thing we need is a colony going.”

Thoughts hitting the ambient were stirring real apprehension now from Spook. <Shadow against the stars. Anger. Ripples and shadows in the ambient. Shadows moving. Ru

“Get ourselves settled in tonight,” Tara said, and they left the place, through a snow-fall that stuck to eyelashes and piled up on clothing and horses’ backs. Tracks were filling in, even the ones they’d made. But there was a trace where something large had crossed the snow, a depression too snowed-over to read much of it.

But the horses didn’t like it, and there were unpleasant images, horses taking information from each other, Da

The seniors were learning from him and Carlo, the same fast, disjointed and sometimes exceedingly accurate way, about the village, the camp, the blacksmith shop—

<Brio

The ambient wasn’t happy about that. Not at all.

“We’d better get over there,” Tara said. “Soon as we can.”

“The camp-boss told me to get Carlo on to Mornay,” Da

“Not a good idea right now,” Guil said.

“More riders at Mornay than Evergreen,” Tara said. “Fewer further on.”

Da

“My fault,” Carlo said, “isn’t it?”

“The pair of us,” Da

The green kid who’d survived up here as far as he had, all on Guil’s advice.

The green kid who didn’t need a senior’s advice to feel the hazard as they came up that logging road and passed beside the shelter.

“Don’t like this,” Carlo said to him quietly. “I really don’t think Spook likes it.”

“They know,” Da

“It’s gotten in,” Tara said, as they passed by the blind wall. “Too big for the chimney.”

“Seems so,” Guil said.

They rounded the corner toward the door itself. The horses weren’t advising them of any presence there. <Vacant shelter> was how it seemed. But the smell was there despite the snow, beyond human noses, maybe, to detect.

The shelter looked normal. The latch-string was out, which would pull the i

“Guil,” Tara said, “you get out of the way. —Da

He didn’t object, though Cloud wasn’t happy. It was just a case of taking no u

The place, he could see even in the gathering dusk, was a shambles.

“It’s gotten in,” he said. He had no trouble at all smelling the creature at this range. Bedding was all over the floor. He hoped that accounted for all the scraps and rags of cloth. “Shall I see if the supplies survived?”

“Got a match?” Guil asked him from the doorway.

He had. He went in as Tara took up a position to the inside of the doorway and Cloud came all the way in, smelling both <bad smell> and <dark in the trees> and on the defensive.

A fire ready to use, the ordinary and courteous condition in which one left a shelter’s fireplace, had been scattered around the hearth. A tin of cooking oil had popped its metal stopper and spilled, and in the expediency of getting a fire going, he opened the flue, stuffed a few pieces of oil-soaked wood and an oil-soaked blanket in and touched a match to it.

It lit the room. The damage was thorough, flour thrown about the walls and ceiling—cots broken, absolute wreckage.