The Wild - 1301 - early Summer - dawn
(The following morning.)
Dawn.
We lie up in a cave that looks eastward and smells of wolf. In the predawn gray we crossed the path of a treecat that offered no confrontation, but slunk away with its ears flat and its tail twitching. The pack’s superior numbers? Or something else?
The cave looks east. I tell myself that I will sleep once I have seen the sun. I no longer know where we are. I imagine the long valley of my adopted home, of Simindâr rising silver and gray to the east, of the flat plains of the coast east of the forest that are now the domain of humankind. I see the cities and farms of men, spread out to the south and enclosing the forest from all sides, with their roads and fences and lines of trees. It all fits together, my land and theirs.
But this wild place, ignored even by those who live on its edge, does not. More than ever I am aware of that divide, now that I am on the other side of it.
Something is happening to me. Did this happen to Talana, too? Will I become insensible as she has—and who will come looking for me?
I could still fight my way clear, I think. And yet I do not. We are still tending
generally south, and from that direction comes a presence unlike anything I have ever known. My
suspicions as to the nature of the being that rules this place are all but confirmed, and now my
question is this: how could he remain hidden for so long, on the very border of the lands of men?
I sat for awhile, pen in hand, thinking of what to add to that. There is nothing else that I dare write. Not yet.