— and a sore throat from much howling. Now he sat under an alder with Khavrinen flaming in his lap, meditating; for hours he hadn't moved, gazing across at the Fane with an expression that was half wonder and half fear. Harald and Moris had been keeping so close to one another that one might have thought they had been lovers for only a week or so, rather than several years. Dritt and Lang had become almost obsessive about caring for their horses, and the otherwise fearless Lang had been looking over his shoulder a great deal. Even Sunspark, while in its horse-shape, had been cribbing quietly at an elm tree, leaving small scorched places bitten out of the bark.

She laughed at herself then, a mere breath of merriment. And me. All this time on the trail, all this time I've been a hunted woman — look what kind of watch I'm keeping. My back turned to open country, where Goddess knows what could be coming up from behind — and me sitting here staring at this silly kill as if it's going to jump out of the water and come after me! Yet that silent benevolence kept watching her, kept waiting.

She shivered with expectation. Practically at the same mo-ment, a clear melodious sound like the night Ending its voice rose up in the distance — then was joined in the long note by another voice wavering downward a third, and yet another, higher by a fourth. The unsettling harmony sent a delighted shiver down her spine. The wolves were on post as their rearguard, singing to while away the watch. The Goddess's dogs, she thought, the old affectionate name for them — votaries who sang to Her mirror, the Moon, through all its phases, silent only when She was dark and dangerous. Where is the Moon tonight, Segnbora wondered,