The King

CHAPTER 18

The location of the beast was not a matter of coincidence, not after the first moments.

It was incredibly alert, every sense sharp and alive, like needles, tense with excitement.

In its belly burned the cold rage of hunger.

Such creatures did not hibernate, even in the month of Igon. It had survived eight winters on the plains of Barrionuevo.

Little more than its eyes and nostrils could now be detected, had one known where to look and what to look for, it lying still, in the snow.

The wind was blowing, softly, doing little more than stirring the snow at the summit of drifts.

The odor of horses, and of Heruls, and men, was brought to the broad, dilating nostrils of the beast. These odors were as discernible, and unmistakable, to the beast as a sighting would have been to a more visually oriented form of life. The direction of the wind, contrariwise, predictably, would not carry its own scent to the horses.

It moved in the direction from which the odors were wafted, its body low, little more than a wrinkle, or a shifting crest, stirred by the wind, of snow.

It moved a little and stopped, and moved a little, again, and stopped, again.

While it stopped there was almost no movement, save for the infrequent opening and closing of the eyes, large, and green, with their black, narrow, vertical pupils, better than two inches in height, and an occasional, small, agitated movement of the tail, white, whiplike, in the snow, betraying its excitement.

Then, more than two hundred yards away, as it lay eager, and trembling, and silken and white, almost flat in the snow, almost invisible, white on white, little more than its eyes and nostrils showing, it saw dark shapes moving about, shapes which stood out, clearly, even to its vision, at this distance, from the background, from the snow, which shapes, clearly, were the sources of the maddeningly exhilarating, irresistible odors, odors such that, in the month of Igon, they might drive such a beast mad. The smallest of contented, purring sounds escaped its great throat. It waited until none of the shapes was turned its way, and then it moved forward again, a little closer.