“If Aurian hurts herself up there . . .” Shia’s long black tail switched back and forth, and she growled deep in her throat. Unable to endure another moment sitting still, she rose to her feet and began to pace back and forth across the cavern mouth with long, lithe strides. What was wrong with her? There was an unaccustomed tension in her spine and tail, and she burned all over, as though there was a prickling itch beneath the surface of her skin.
Before she knew what was happening, Shia was on her back on the floor, rolling and writhing In the dust. Suddenly she became aware of a new smell—a heady musk that she had not previously noticed. She iked up to see Khanu, stalking around her stiff-legged, his brushed up along his spine and his throat vibrating with a rumbling thunder of his purr. Oh no, she thought. I can’t believe this! Of all the inconvenient . . . Then another of Khanu’s musk rolled over her, and her senses were merged in the compelling imperatives of the moment. Uttering seductive little croons, the cat continued to roll, opting her suitor; daring him to approach. With a bound he was on her—and Shia’s paw lashed out, her claws catching a glancing blow across the nose.—Then she was on her feet, blazing; circling, snarling; watching him rub his nose and away, his face furrowed with puzzlement. But she knew it her own lure was too powerful; that her voluptuous liqent would draw him back toward her.... Shia darted away from the mouth of the cavern and the sleeping humans within. This was no time to be near the puny two-legged ones! Khanu pursued her, catching up with her in grove of pines near the pool. Cunningly, the cat turned back on him, her head and forepaws pressed low to the ground. She sneaked a coy look behind her, to see Khanu stalk-closer, his glowing eyes, shining with reflected moonlight, two smaller moons come down to earth. Just as he came reach, Shia bounded away with a derisive yowl, and to face him, ears flat and fur abristle; one forepaw raised, claws extended.
She spat—he leapt. There was a tussle: a blur of motion so that it was over before Shia had time to register what was happening. Then she was free again—speeding up the steeping side of the valley, devouring the ground in great leaps, with Khanu hurtling after her, only a claw’s behind the end of her streaming tail. Together they went up the mountain like a whirlwind: turning, biting, spinning, whirling, clawing dodging tussling—until finally, Shia tempted Khanu once too much—or maybe she was tiring now, and couldn’t dodge so it. She had ducked around a rocky outcrop and was waiting him on the other side, uttering coy little croons; head down, hindquarters raised, tail waving alluringly. As he rounded boulder, she whisked to one side—but too late. Khanu’s might came pressing down on her, and his teeth met, gently firmly, in the loose skin at the back of her neck.
Shia yowled and scuffled with her claws, but she was frozen in position by his hold. With a howl of triumph he entered her, and she braced herself, half-snarling, half-purring, as he began to thrust vigorously. Then it was over—with a squall, he emptied himself into her, and leapt backward. As they pulled apart, a white-hot pain shot through Shia’s vitals and she gave an earsplitting screech, turning to claw viciously at her mate once more.—For a moment both cats stood, glaring and bristling; then a languor stole over them, and bit by bit they began to relax, shaking their heads and looking around them in a dazed fashion as the world came back into focus. Khanu, blood dripping from one torn ear, came purring to rub heads with her, but Shia suddenly stiffened beneath his caress. “Khanu!” she cried in dismay. “Have you seen where we are?”
Khanu looked around him—and his purr stopped abruptly, as though his throat had been cut. “Let’s get away from here—quick!”
But it was too late. The cats’ wild chase had brought them, all unknowing, across the Dragon’s Tail. They were on the forbidden slopes of Steelclaw—and something was aware of them.
Aurian stiffened when she first heard the yowling that came faint and far-off on the wind. Shia was in trouble. One hand slipped from its hold, and she scrabbled frantically to regain her balance on the narrow ledge. Once secure, she pressed herself hard against the stone, trembling all over, her heart racing so that her blood sounded like distant surf in her ears. As soon as she had calmed herself sufficiently, she reached out with her mind to the great cat—and met with such a turmoil of raw emotion that she snatched her consciousness back quickly, as though she had been burned.
“Well well!” Despite her precarious position, the Mage chuckled to herself, with relief as much as amusement. So Shia’s howls stemmed from passion, not danger. Aurian smiled fondly at the thought of little fuzzy black cubs, though she was aware that it made her mission even more urgent. All too well she remembered her own grim pregnancy in the mountains, and did not want Shia to suffer the same discomforts and dangers.
Recollecting her own current discomfort and danger, Aurian pulled her thoughts away from the cats and returned her attention to the task at hand. Surely she must be nearly there by now? But when she looked across the void at the pinnacle that soared beside her, only three arms’ length away from the cliff, she realized that she still had quite some distance to climb. Bitterly, she remembered the last time she had been here, when Ibis and Kestrel had transported Anvar and herself to the top of the spire—and she had watched Chiamh scramble, fly-footed, up this thread of a goat track as though it had been the broadest of highways. “How did he manage it?” Aurian muttered to herself wrathfully. “It’s just not fair!” With effort, she pulled herself together. I’m more than halfway now, she thought, trying to boost her sinking courage. That in itself is quite a feat for a Mage who’s terrified of heights.—Why, I’ll be at the top in no time!
Aurian needed every scrap of her courage. She was crawling up the narrow, steeply sloping ledge, not daring to stand so her knees were bruised and cut, and her hands torn and bleeding. Despite the cold night, she was drenched in a sweaty terror and exertion that kept trickling down into her eyes, blurring her vision and stinging like perdition. To increase her discomfort, the Staff of Earth was poking into her ribs with every move she made: a painful and perilous distraction when perforce she must keep all her attention on the trail.
Between the cliff and the pinnacle, a chasm yawned, so dark, deep, and narrow that even her Mage’s sight could not plumb the bottom. In one sense, it helped not being able to see how far she might fall; yet where her eyesight stopped, her imagination had an unpleasant tendency to take over; furthermore, long stretches of the ledge were also obscured in the deep, deceptive shadow, forcing her to creep slowly along, inch by inch, shaking all over, until the danger had been passed.
Aurian kept her eyes on the narrow trail one step ahead of her bleeding hands, gritted her teeth, and just kept crawling, trying not to stop. Every time she was forced to halt, it grew increasingly difficult to move again....
“Keep going, Aurian—you’re almost there.” The Windeye’s soft voice came out of nowhere.
The Mage raised her head and shook it to flick the straggling, sweat-drenched hair out of her eyes. Just beyond her flight hand was a tangled webbing of slender rope that stretched across the chasm, made fast to the cliff by rusted iron spikes driven deep into the rock. Since the pinnacle narrowed toward the top, the distance between it and the cliff had widened now, to a distance of about five yards. Aurian already fought her mouth was very dry. Now, her throat closed up completely, as her mind refused to even consider the possibility of crossing the chasm on those fragile strands.
“Honestly,” Chiamh coaxed, “it’s not as difficult as it looks. You just put your feet on the lower ropes, hold on to the upper strands, and just inch your way along. It’s practically impossible to fall.”