Then came the one you call Tluman. A renegade, a mumbling mindspeaker, one who came after my separation from the men of the Horseclans. He had done something terrible, and failed the Test of the Cat. He hated my kind, and when he found that I lived in the hills, he hunted me. By the Great Cat, how he hunted me. And at last he caught my mate, and my cubs, and he skinned them slowly, trying to bring me out. And I did not come, because I knew that my only chance to kill him would be to use stealth. I would kill him in my own time, in my own way.

Old Cat looked at Ar’tor. This is my time. You are my way.

“What did men call you when you walked among them?”

They called me Yelloweye.

Ar’tor crouched in the brush, watching. On the other side of the clearing, Old Cat was moving. He didn’t know where; the hunter had disappeared into the snow three minutes before, and Ar’tor had since seen no sign of it—of him—since. Yelloweye was a male, from his story.

Here the bushes were odd, twisted white lumps in an icy, flowing carpet. But between two of the lumps, nibbling through to a bit of twigs, a small doe was in sight. She stopped eating even as the thought doe crossed his mind. Her slender brown head quivered, the black rings of her nostrils quivering as she tested the air.

Ar’tor held his breath. A dozen trees separated him from the deer. Thirty yards behind her, trees broke from the snow, forming Yelloweye’s closest possible cover.

The deer turned back to the twig, stripping away a scrap of bark. Then her head snapped up again, and Yelloweye exploded from the snow. Somehow, in a manner that Ar’tor couldn’t quite understand, he had worked his way ten yards closer than the nearest tree. The doe panicked, bolting directly toward Ar’tor.

Ar’tor exhaled and leapt as he heard the hooves pounding against the snow. One part of his mind screamed, Too soon! Wait until \ou can see her! Another listened to the sound of the feet, working from some instinctive timing more precise than vision.

Ar’tor catapulted smack into the doe. Her hooves struck him in the face, but he managed to snake an arm around her neck and drag her to the ground. The terrified creature bit and kicked as Ar’tor found his grip on the knife, twisted so that he wouldn’t stab himself in the buttock, and drove the blade in.

The deer’s convulsions tore the blade from Ar’tor’s hands. The two of them lay on the ground, panting, as Old Cat padded up. A great victory. Will you live?

“Long enough to wish your worms a hearty appetite.” Ar’tor got to his knees and pulled out the knife, cutting the deer’s throat. He set to stripping away the meat.

/ liked that. You did well.

Despite his punctures and scrapes, Ar’tor smiled as he worked.

Ar’tor sat on the lips of the plateau and looked down over the valley. Distantly, he could make out the cookfires of the Hollow. The night was impossibly crisp and clear, and it seemed as if he could see to the edge of the world.

Karls would have liked the view. He would have made a joke about how far one could cast a spear from here, but it wouldn’t have fooled Ar’tor. Karls would have found great beauty, would have asked Ar’tor to write a poem for it. A poem Karls would later give to Eloi.

Ar’tor felt suddenly, terribly alone. He took his bone pipe from its bag, slid his fingers gently across its polished surface, and plucked the first low, cool note.

He was immediately lost in the song, something slow and lonely. He barely noticed when Yelloweye walked up to sit behind him.

The big feline began to growl along with him, the sound climbing to a howl. At last Ar’tor reached out to feel the warm scruff of Old Cat’s neck. Old Cat rolled against him, and together they sang to the moon. The sounds mingled with the wind itself, was carried across the valley. And those few who heard that wind wondered what form of demons haunted these hills.

The weeks passed. They spent their days fighting and running and hunting. Sometimes Ar’tor would abandon the knife and wrestle with the big cat.

Yelloweye’s reflexes were impossibly quick. In twisting and flashing from beneath the paws, Ar’tor found himself moving faster and faster. Working with a blunt stick instead of a knife, Ar’tor found that he could dart in and out, and that he could touch Yelloweye now and again.

And the cat would scowl, and leap, brushing the knife aside, and the two of them would wrestle. On the few occasions Ar’tor won, Yelloweye gave a huge cat grin, letting him know the victory was a gift. And sometimes Old Cat would pin the young man and sit there with his paws atop Ar’tor’s shoulders, pin him to the ground, and lick his face.

My cub, Yelloweye said once, impulsively. Then, as if embarrassed, turned and stalked away, tail twitching.

Ar’tor came up from behind him. There was no pity in his heart, none in his mind. As he sat down next to Yelloweye, he slipped his arm around the big cat’s shoulders, and the two of them sat there for a while. And when he leaned his head over against Yelloweye’s shoulder, the cat didn’t move away.

The moon came and went, and as it did, Ar’tor felt the changes in him. He ran the short sprint, feeling his lungs stronger, his heart more powerful by the day. He climbed, and he fought for hours, under Yelloweye’s watchful tutelage.

And they hunted. Skies above, how they hunted. They roamed the hills, and stalked as man and animal had hunted together in a more ancient place and time. Never had such hunts been seen in the hills, and the harvests were bountiful.

Then, one day, they were hunting a goat, using Yelloweye’s pincer maneuver. Ar’tor saw Yelloweye moving into position, and a sliver of shadow flew out, hitting the old cat just below the ear.

Ar’tor would have screamed, but for the warnings imprinted in his mind by Yelloweye over the past weeks. He knew that there was an enemy near, but didn’t know if he had been seen.

Without conscious thought, Ar'tor suddenly ceased thinking in words or sounds. His world became one of images, of feelings, of smells and shapes.

Had he been seen? And if so, by whom? He tried not to breathe, not even to think too loudly. Just became a part of the leaves and the trees for moment after long, achingly vulnerable moment.

Then finally there was movement, and sound.

From the opposite side of the glen, two men stood. Ar’tor recognized one of them as the man who had accompanied Tluman Carpter to their camp, Carraign.

Here? In the depths of Windrunner territory?

Ar’tor grinned mirthlessly. He could see what they could not—the arrow in Yelloweye’s neck still moved slightly. His friend was alive.

Ar’tor had no bow and arrow, only the knife. Never had he learned to throw it, and to attempt such an insane thing now would accomplish nothing. It would merely disarm him at the same time it alerted his enemies. No. This called for something very different. Gingerly, he peeled his shirt back and smeared a generous handful of mud over his chest. He carefully tucked his knife out of sight at the back of his belt.

The two men stood over Yelloweye’s motionless body, and one laughed, and made a motion with his sword.

Ar’tor rose from his cover and sang out, “Oh-hoo! Great and wise are they! Oh-hoo! Powerful and keen of eye, swift of foot, are the slayers of Old Cat!”

He spun as he stood, dancing as if drunken.

Carraign’s bow whipped up instantly, fixing it on him, and what a sight he must have been! A half-naked mud-daubed boy dancing through the reeds, singing as if mad.

“What in the . . . ?” The arrow point remained steady. The other man with him finally put his hand on Carraign’s arm. “Don’t bother. It’s clear that the boy is crazed.”

Ar’tor danced closer. “Aye! And they are sweet, and strong, their forms pleasing to boy or beast. The beasts must fall, and the boys yearn to submit. ...”