LITMIR.BIZ

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suggested Beauty.

      “Slit their throats,” Josh agreed.

      “Surrre,” came a voice behind them. They spun around, Beauty rearing, Josh crouching low. Sitting serenely in a puddle of sunlight, feet tucked under her, eyes half closed, was Isis, the black Cat from the brothel.

      “Isis,” said Josh.

      “Who is that?” demanded Beauty.

      “The Cat in the house last night. Remember? She warned us about Jarl’s men, in the windmill.”

      “Why is she here?”

      Isis stood up, padded over to Josh, leaned her back against his leg, and purred.

      Beauty shook his head. “Dumb animals do love you.”

      Whereupon Isis arched her back, fluffed up to twice her size in fur, and hissed viciously at the Centaur. Beauty raised his eyebrows. Isis quieted, looked sulky, and growled, “Foool.”

      “Got a bit of Human blood in her, I’ll wager,” Beauty laughed. Then, more seriously: “I do not like how easily she found us, though. Or how silently she crept.”

      “Why did you come?” Josh asked the little creature.

      Isis looked down, then up. “We’rre yourrr girrrrl,” she said. She flopped over on her back, played wildly with Joshua’s boot-string for a few seconds, then rolled onto her side, resting her paw lightly on his toe.

      The two hunters laughed. Josh stooped down and scratched the Cat’s belly. She had a delicious spasm around his hand, brought her hind legs up and kicked wildly at his arm, bit him on the back of the wrist, and jumped away. She then stood calmly preening herself as if nothing had happened.

      Beauty pawed the ground. “Your following is faithful, Joshua. But we must go.”

      Isis stopped her preening. “Nooo.”

      “We’ve got to go, Fur-face,” explained Josh. “We’re after the Vampire whose room you were in last night.”

      Isis opened her eyes coyly. “Ohhh,” she purred.

      Beauty pricked up his ears. Josh said, “You know something about them? You know where they went?”

      The Cat nodded.

      “We are not taking a Cat on a hunt,” warned Beauty.

      “But she may know something,” said Josh. “She already helped us at the brothel, and she found us here, so she’s obviously got a good nose. Besides, she’s sneaky. That may come in handy.”

      Beauty looked skeptical. “It will be dangerous, little Cat. Are you ready for that?”

      “Surrre,” she swaggered, strutting between them.

      “It would be easier for you back at the brothel,” added Josh.

      She raised her eyebrows, turned her head to he side, and spoke, as if to the rock that lay in the path, “We’rrre borrred.”

      “And you know which way the Vampire is headed?”

      She shrugged a Yes, as if being asked to repeat herself didn’t deserve further comments.

      “Then let’s go,” said Josh.

      Isis leapt up on Joshua’s chest. Involuntarily his hands came up to hold her there. She hissed in a low sultry voice, “Kissss,” and licked his lower lip. Then she leapt down, ran ten yards into the forest, and stopped and looked back at them, her pupils dilated with dark excitement. Josh and Beauty stared into the subtle strangeness of her Cat face, and realized the same thing at that moment: staring back at them were black round pupils in blue round irises, curving eyelids with black eyelashes. Eyes that were not Cat-eyes, but were Human.

      Isis turned and ran Cat-fast into the forest. Josh and Beauty ran after her.

      “You there, what are you doing?” the Vampire demanded. He had long black hair, and his name was Bal.

      Dicey shook her head bleakly. She was too frightened to speak. Bal strode over to her and pulled her roughly off the floor of the cave. No one else moved. Rose stood still a few feet away, holding a rock behind her. It was in her mind to bash the Vampire’s head in if it looked like he was going to hurt Dicey.

      Bal looked at the ground where the young girl had been sitting. He saw she’d found a piece of chalk, and had been writing a sentence over and over on the stone. He read aloud: “WORD SAVE US. WE ARE FREE.” He laughed, tore the chalk from Dicey’s trembling hand and inserted his own block letters in her writing, so it now read: WORDS ENSLAVE US. WE SCARED. FREEDOM IS AN ILLUSION. He laughed again and walked back among the milling Vampires.

      Rose moved close to Dicey. “It’s okay, it’s over now,” Rose whispered, but Dicey couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t tear her eyes off the marking on the floor and the way Bal had twisted her words.

      Bal was shouting orders to the assembled creatures now. A griffin stood at the Vampire’s side, sharpening his broken beak on a stone. “All right,” Bal called, “time to move out. Get the prisoners and be quick about it, Ice take you. We split up at Southmarsh and rendezvous at the other side of the forest. Step lively, you bloats. Uli, give that Accident a hand.”

      The Accidents and Vampires began herding the Humans into the covered tumbrils. Some of the Vampires exchanged words in the high-frequency beeps they used only when under stress, or very excited. These sounds were inaudible to most other creatures, but not insensible: they caused fear and distraction. Even a sluggish Accident would step lively to get out of range of the signals.

      The dispersal continued. Rose held on tightly to Dicey and Ollie to keep them together in the confusion.

      Dicey couldn’t stop shivering.

      The woods were lovely, dark, and brief. Josh, Beauty, and Isis left them quickly, continuing east and north.

      The area was hilly, covered with a thick brown-purple heather that scratched their legs but had a wonderful spring smell. An exaltation of larks passed flying east - a good omen. Vernal flowers tested the air, and the breeze was a gentle laughter. All in all, a good day for journeying.

      And nobody loved an adventure better than Isis. She was positively exhilarated. She’d race ahead through brier and short grass, outdistancing the other two by a hundred yards. Then some movement or vapor would catch her eye and she’d hunker down, poised, staring intensely at the occult perception. Her back legs would rev up and she’d pounce – have it out with the bramble or grasshopper or molecule she’d focused on. Then Josh and Beauty would catch up and Isis would run ahead.

      Occasionally they passed a totem or a fetish – a pile of bones, a mask of feathers – constructed by some local shaman to ward off passing evil. These affected Isis in strange ways. Some she would approach cautiously, on tiptoe, and sniff all around while some she ignored entirely. One she hissed at, and unceremoniously urinated on it. Josh and Beauty treated them all with equal disinterest – the only significance to them of such signs lay in their state of disrepair, which reflected how long it had been since interested locals had been around.

      They soon crossed a great plain where craters pocked the land. Many battles in many wars had been fought in this area between the sea and the Forest of Accidents. These large holes they passed were scores of years old, for they were smooth and filled with soft yellow grass.

      At the end of the plain they came to a rise which they climbed easily. It was topped by a plateau upon which they rested a minute. The plateau was perhaps fifty feet wide and one hundred feet long, affording a grand view of the plains they’d just left and the valleys beyond.

      At one end of the long table of rock was a small square hut of rusted steel, chipped paint, and broken glass. They walked up to it and stared inside. It was empty. Beside it was a mound of sun-bleached bones. Atop the door of the hut was a series of strange white markings on a faded green board. The travelers stared at the marks a few moments. Beauty turned to Josh

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