The Elves of Cintra (Book 2 of The Genesis of Shannara)

“Go on, get out of here,” Logan muttered.

He continued on, trying to ignore the cat, turning his attention to the task at hand. The dome loomed ahead, a dark monolith against the skyline. He was close enough to it by now that storefronts and warehouses had replaced the residences of earlier. He began searching for signs of what he needed, but nothing useful revealed itself. Most of the stores had seen their doors and windows broken out and their fixtures and contents smashed. The warehouses were in similar condition. If there was anything to be found, it was probably only because it was well hidden. Medicines and bandages were the first things people took once the plagues and chemical poisonings began in earnest, after the governments had collapsed and the demons and the once-men had surfaced. It seemed unlikely that anything was left after this long.

The cat made a series of sudden hops until it had drawn even with him, and then it gave a mournful cry that stopped him in his tracks.

“Shhh! Don’t do that!” he snapped. He looked around in dismay. Everything within a hundred yards must have heard! The cat regarded him intently, and then did it again—a longer, deeper, more poignant cry. It held it for an impossibly long time, as if it might be trying for a record.

Logan started for it, brandishing his staff, and the cat was gone in a blur of black and brindle. In the space of a heartbeat, it had disappeared. and Logan was left alone.

“Just as well,” he muttered reproachfully.

He walked on alone, upset by the encounter for reasons he couldn’t explain.

He guessed it was the strangeness of the cat’s behavior, the way it was willing to approach him so boldly when most creatures, even larger ones, would have kept their distance. Maybe he felt a sense of kinship with it, a creature at once both aloof and unafraid. Maybe it was something about the way it had cried out, the sound so disturbing.

Whatever the case, he had just managed to put the cat out of his mind when it was back again, walking a few paces behind, its familiar amble punctuated by the peculiar hopping motion. Logan glanced over his shoulder at it without slowing, smiling to himself at its persistence. It probably thought he had food. In fact, he realized abruptly, he did. He was carrying a piece of a packaged ration he had stuffed in his pocket before leaving. The cat must have smelled it.

“Aren’t you the clever one,” he said, turning.

He reached into his pocket, extracted the food, broke off a chunk, and tossed it toward the animal. The cat watched the offering hit the ground and roll to a stop. It examined it without moving, and then looked up at Logan as if to say, What am I supposed to do with this? Logan shook his head. Feral cats; they learned early on how to be cautious or they ended up dead. They didn’t trust anyone. Besides, this one didn’t look particularly hungry. If anything, it looked overfed.

He shrugged. “Fine, don’t eat it, then. Not my problem.”

“She doesn’t ever eat food from strangers,” a voice said.

Logan had been surprised enough times in his life to not jump out of his skin at unexpected voices, but he was startled nevertheless. He looked around without seeing anyone. “She doesn’t?”

“She likes you, though. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t bother following you. She is very particular.”

A girl not yet a woman, he guessed from the sound of her voice. He kept looking, and then saw her detach herself from the tree against which she had been leaning. Before, she had been part of the trunk, so closely assimilated that he had missed her. Even now, she was barely recognizable. She was cloaked and hooded, and her features were hidden. She stood facing him and made no move to come closer.

“Is this your cat?” he asked her.

“She thinks so. Her name is Rabbit. Mine is Catalya, sometimes Cat for short. What’s yours?”

“Logan Tom.” He paused. “Your name is Cat and your cat’s name is Rabbit.

Your cat acts like a rabbit. It makes me wonder.”

She regarded him in silence for a moment. “What are you looking for?”

He shook his head. “Supplies.”

Rabbit moved over to her and began rubbing up against her legs with her grizzled face as if to scratch an itch. Catalya reached down and tickled the cat’s ears. She was still concealed within the shadows of her cloak and hood. “What kind of supplies?”

“Medical. Plague medicine.”

She did not flinch or back away. She kept tickling Rabbit’s ears as if what he had said was no more significant than a comment about the weather.

“Why are you out here by yourself?” he asked her.

“Who says I am?”

The reply was quick and certain, not sharp or defensive. He resisted the urge to search the surrounding shadows. If he hadn’t been able to detect her, he might have missed detecting others who were with her.