She turned to the monster on the left and signed, “Good Dog.”
Its tail came up and its ears pricked. Softly, it whined. But its sibling snarled and snapped at its ear. Both lowered their heads and growled deep in their throats. Then they turned and marched at a sedate pace back up the street. One paused and looked around, its eyes beckoning.
Imraldera understood. She could not pretend otherwise. She rose quietly, careful not to disturb either the poet or the captain. Somehow she knew they would have slept on even had she kicked them. The Midnight carried with it an enchantment of stealth. The Black Dogs wanted her and no other.
She wondered if the Dogs led her away to devour her as she should have been devoured long ago. She almost hoped so. The Midnight was so heavy as she followed her guides that she could scarcely make out the street. But at last the Dogs came to a tower identical to the other towers, except perhaps more blackened than some.
They trotted up the outside staircase, which spiraled high into the gloom. Imraldera followed without question. Round and round, higher and higher. Her heart beat fiercely from fear and exhaustion. She must follow; no more flight.
The stairway ended. Imraldera found herself standing on a flat, circular rooftop. She turned about, observing the whole city from here, both the dark patches where Midnight lingered, and on to the outer stretches, where the red burning sky arched over all. The city went on for miles and miles on all sides, but from this vantage, her vision extended just as far. She saw all the way to the city’s edge, where the crumbled towers trailed off into . . . nothing.
What an isolated world this was, Imraldera thought vaguely. More isolated even than her homeland. Her bare feet moved silently across the flat roof, feeling the way in the dark. She stubbed her toe on something and heard a tiny voice shout, “I say! Watch where you’re going, blundering mortal oaf.”
Imraldera knelt and peered between the iron bars of a birdcage. It was difficult to discern the inhabitant, but she heard the rustle of wings and thought she glimpsed a furious, sputtering songbird.
Lady Gleamdren, she thought.
“Stop staring at me!” the songbird chirped and was suddenly not a bird but a tiny woman shaking her fists at Imraldera’s nose. “Stop staring! Go back where you came from and tell Eanrin that if he wants to rescue me, he’d jolly well better do it without the aid of a sniveling mortal wench! What have you to say for yourself? Speak up, witch, or I’ll—”
“Pay no attention to my prisoner.”
Imraldera sat upright and turned at the deep voice speaking from the shadows. She had never before heard such a voice. It was ancient and dark, bound in a body it was not meant to inhabit. A figure stepped into view, slight, rag clothed, and flanked by the Black Dogs. Those monsters made the figure seem smaller, though she stood a full head taller than Imraldera.
She was a woman.
Imraldera stared, not believing her eyes or her ears. Leaping to her feet, she bowed after the fashion of her people and made the sign for “chieftain,” for what other word could describe this person before her. A woman! A woman who spoke in a voice both like and unlike a man’s! There never was such a marvel, such a horror. Imraldera, dizzy with both fear and hunger, feared that she might faint. And what a dreadful fate would that be, to display such weakness before a woman of such power!
The Dragonwitch smiled. “Perhaps I should speak to you in your own language,” she said. Then she raised her hands and formed the words known only to the silent women.
“You are from the Land Behind the Mountains.”
Imraldera gasped.
18
SHE HAS PROBABLY BETRAYED US. You know how mortals are.”
Eanrin and Glomar sat in the street in their animal forms, staring at the fresh footprints of the enormous Dogs heavily pressed into the dirt along with the lighter prints of Imraldera. They had slept so long and so deeply that by the time they woke, the Midnight had already lifted on the street, and Imraldera’s scent was fading.
The poet-cat fixed a glare upon the badger, his ears twisted back irritably. “Idiot,” he growled. “If she’d betrayed us, we’d be dragged off to the Netherworld by now. She’s been kidnapped.”
Glomar stood, taking his man’s form as he stretched. He tested his weight on his ankle. The men of Rudiobus heal quickly. Sure enough, he found his ankle almost as good as new. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said to the cat, who was eyeing him with a blend of disinterest and dislike. “I saw how she was with the Dog yesterday. Wee little girl like her, and she forced one of those brutes to the ground! I could break her arm between two fingers! Either of the Black Dogs could swallow her whole without a thought. But she bullied it and made it obey her. That’s witch work.”