arrive in the western part of Sunside already aloft and in the heights. But because of the dangers and arduous nature of the route (which seemed far more difficult than the one by which he'd descended to the swamps), it wasn't until the twilight before the night, and after several camps, that at last he arrived over Sunside; and even then not nearly as high on the mountain flanks as he had intended.
The twilight before the night: a dull orange afterglow slowly fading over the far furnace desert, and the sky to the south banded from amethyst on the horizon to a dark indigo in the vault of the sky, where several stars were already evident. While over Starside the skies were long since jet, whose stars seemed like chunks of ice frozen in their orbits; but Starside itself was obscured by virtue of the mountain peaks. A myriad of Sunside's tiny bats, along with a handful of a larger species, whooshed and whirred on the air where they hunted, while down in the woods the scattered fires of Szgany camps lit the night, sending aromatic odours drifting on thermals of their own making.
And there was a conflict of longings in Radu hard to describe: the need to be among men again, oh yes - but good men, brothers, men he could trust - and the need to avoid them at all costs, for this was surely Zirescu territory. The need to sit in the glow and warmth of a campfire, and chew on a joint of meat with its juices hot and dripping, washed down with a jug of good Szgany wine ... and the dark desire to glimpse a startled face by starlight (that of Ion or Lexandru, perhaps? Or Rakhi or Lagula?) and squeeze off an ironwood bolt at point-blank range. Oh, a medley of longings, wishes, desires and urges; but the certain knowledge, too, that to surrender to them must bring about the worst possible result, when he would not only be a loner but an outcast, too, from all men and for the rest of his days.
Well, and wasn't that his way? And wouldn't it suit him well enough? To be a loner, yes, but not to be pursued as a murderer, when in fact he would be an avenger of the weeping dead. (For in Radu's mind and memory, and in his dreams, his father and sister were given to weeping, causing him to cry, too).
And so, as always, he put it from his mind, climbing up into the mountains while yet there was the light for it. And Singer with him as ever, but a Singer changed now and almost unknown to him. For now when she hunted the great white she-wolf kept her kill, and now when he would hug her she backed off from him, whining and showing her fangs. And whatever it was that was at odds between them, Radu knew that the difference wasn't in him.
Not yet, at least ...
It happened quickly. Radu made camp that night in a delve in a cliff high over the foothills, where a great boulder had weathered free of the bedrock, rolled away and left a hollow behind. Scarcely a cave, still it was dry and would shelter him if the rains came. Soft heather made a passable bed, and a cured skin was his blanket; it would suffice. Normally he would have Singer, too, to snuggle close and keep him warm. But the she-wolf didn't want that now, and truth to tell, neither did Radu. She had a look about her, a light in her eyes, a flattening of her ears, that warned of further changes in the offing -
- Which came as he slept.
It was a sound that woke him: a whine, a snarl, a cough or grunt. One or all of these things, but a sound anyway ... made by Singer. And sitting up in his bed of heather, backing away from her, Radu was astonished and horrified by this picture of a dog of the wild so patently torn between loyalty and strange, alien emotions. She crept towards him, shied away, whined as in some inexpressible agony ... and was at once drawn back to him, slavering and showing her scythe teeth, where the soft leather of her muzzle was drawn quiveringly back. And Radu understood that she now saw him as prey of sorts - yet remembered him as her friend and master! He sensed that