He did not know he was watched, and had been watched since well before he climbed off his horse onto the boulders.
When they were sure the boy slept deeply, the foxes slipped into the cave, wary only of the burning lamp, and stood watching him and drinking in his scent. Twelve pale foxes.
They had started following Garit’s band when first the six riders came up off the meadow onto the stony ridge, followed and observed and listened. They knew everything Garit had said, both to the group and to Teb alone. They understood quite well who Teb was, son of the King of Auric, but to make sure they crowded close, now, around him and nosed softly at his arm until, in sleep, he turned it, so they could see the mark.
It was there, yes. The mark of the dragon. They were pleased, and awed.
“He is shivering,” said Pixen. “He has no fur to warm him.”
The foxes stared at Pixen, then began to turn around in little circles, close to Teb. They lay down, one then another, close all around him and over him, across his legs, his stomach, his chest, their bushy tails curled around him. And so they warmed him. One vixen, small and young, nuzzled her nose into the hollow of his neck. Soon he slept quietly, sprawled and abandoned in pure warmth. They sniffed at him with their thin foxy noses and watched him with humor and curiosity, then slept themselves, lightly, alert for noises in the tunnels, guarding as well as warming the prince. But then near dawn they all slipped away, and he was quite alone when he woke.
*
He had no notion how long he had slept or what time of day it might be. It was absolutely dark, for the candle had burned down and gone out. He fumbled in the pack for another, all the time frowning and trying to remember something. A dream? A warm dream, wonderfully cozy, as he used to feel when he was small and his mother cuddled him. But what the dream had been, exactly, he could not remember.
He thought the cave smelled different, a pungent, sharp scent. Was there some creature in here with him? He struck flint and lit the candle quickly. But the cave was empty. He dug out the old candle butt and placed the new one in the holder.
He made a meal of cold mutton and boiled roots. There was also jerky in the pack, and bread and cheese. And eight more candles, he saw with relief. He mustn’t burn one tonight though—he must make everything last as long as he could. I will be out by tonight, he thought, on the coast. He could almost smell the salt of the bay. He felt rested now and eager to get on.
He would have to go back through the narrow tunnels, start at the great cave, and go through the hall of pillars in order to get to the western gate. But first he would go to the high caves and have a look at Sivich’s camp. It seemed much longer than one night since he had sat chained to the oak sapling and drunk from its roots. Where were Garit and Pakkna now? Had they gotten away? Were Sivich’s men following them? Or had they come to the caves?
He did up the pack, shouldered it, slung on the waterskin, then left the little cave to find the spiral tunnel that led to the upper caves. The walls were not carved here but rough, of a reddish stone and wet where springs leaked down, reflecting the lamplight.
When he stood at last in the highest cave, looking out its thin slit of window, the sun hung half up the eastern sky, at midmorning. Below and to the north lay the site of Sivich’s camp, empty now, the circle of grass darker where it had been trampled into the wet earth, a black scar in the center where the campfire had burned. Three dark thin lines led away, the tracery of muddied trails across the clear green grass. One was their own trail, going off toward the ridge. A second followed beside it, as if the trackers had kept the first trail clear, for the jackals to scent along.
The widest trail led away north toward Baylentha, just as Garit had expected. As Teb stood watching the land, he heard a soft noise behind him in the passage, and whirled to look. He saw nothing. Maybe rats, he thought. It came again, a brushing sound very like the wings of a jackal.
He slipped the knife out of the pack and backed into a shadowed corner where the light from the slit window was dimmest. He watched the twisting corridor and the cluster of small arches for a long time, but nothing moved there, and the sound did not come again. Probably only rats. Jackals would already have attacked.
Then when he returned to the wriggling tunnel at last, to make his way back toward the entry and the great cave, his nerve failed him. If he were trapped in there by the jackals attacking from behind him or at his face, there would be no way to fight them.
But they couldn’t have come through; it was too narrow for them.
He took off his clothes and stowed them in the pack, tied the chain tightly around his leg, tied pack and waterskin to the cord and the other end around his waist. Then, knife in one hand and lamp in the other, he lay down and slid into the tunnel.
He wriggled through faster this time. Soon he was out of it, the ordeal behind him, and no sight or sound of the jackals. Only the crawling tunnel remained ahead, and already he could see daylight filtering in. He dressed and went on.
He reached the great cave again, and again held his lamp up. There was power here that drew him, and again in the flicking light all the animals seemed to come alive, the unicorn and foxes, the great wolves and the big cats, the badger hermits and the winging owls and the laughing, gamboling otters. He had no notion how long he had stood looking when he heard again a small shuffling, then a stone dislodged behind him somewhere near Nison-Serth’s entrance. He spun just in time to catch the flash of a small pale shape vanishing beyond the cave door.
It was too small to frighten him, but far bigger than any rat. He followed it, skirting the tall boulders that made the passage wall, then stood staring down the passage and into the four caves he could see. Nothing moved. He started to turn away, and then quite suddenly there were pale creatures all around him come out of the caves like magic, come out of the shadows—foxes, kit foxes crowding all around him, standing on their hind legs to touch him and stare at him. “Tebriel,” they barked. “You are Tebriel.” He fell to his knees and put out his arms, and they crowded close—pale silver foxes, their faces narrow and jaunty and sly, their sharp little mouths open with laughter, their bushy tails waving, a dozen kit foxes as innocent and laughing and welcome as anything a boy could have dreamed. “We welcome you, Tebriel, Tebriel of Auric,” barked the largest dog fox, who surely was their leader. He nuzzled Teb, and stood laughing.
“Yes, I am Tebriel. How did you know?” He hugged and petted them. They were warm and sleek, silky and soft. They licked his face and hands, their teeth as white as new snow, their dark eyes so filled with merriment that Teb laughed out loud and drank in their sharp, foxy smell.
While he crouched there with them, laughing with them for no reason and for every reason, for the sheer delight of their meeting, another fox appeared alone at the portal, a silhouette against the morning sky, a lone sentinel. She yapped once, then ran to them.
“The riders come along the ridge,” she panted. “They have jackals! Stinking jackals!” She went directly to sit before the big dog fox. “The riders follow the boy, as you said they would, Pixen.”
Pixen reared and stood looking around him. “Quickly, into the tunnel of pillars, into the southern den.”
The foxes leaped and pushed at Teb. He ran with them, the light from his lantern swinging in arcs along the cave walls until Pixen barked, “Put the light out.” Teb stopped and blew out the candle. He could see nothing, and was propelled ahead, stumbling, by the foxes pressing and urging him on.