Page 105 of Lake of Sorrow

Her neck fur bristled, and her tail swished in agitation. Could she sense that something was wrong?

“More Kar’ruk?” Kaylina whispered, glancing to either side of the highway and toward the looming peaks with trepidation. “If they’re invisible, I’m depending on your nose to find them.”

Levitke stopped at the base of the tower where the door stood ajar. It hadn’t been that way before.

The taybarri sniffed, then pointed her snout into the shadows between fires. A dark lump lay unmoving on the ground.

“A body?” Grim, Kaylina slid to the ground.

After lighting her lantern, she went to investigate, afraid it was the ranger. To her surprise, the body belonged to a horned Kar’ruk male. His throat had been slit by a dagger or sword. Maybe the ranger was alive after all.

“Watch for trouble, please,” Kaylina told Levitke, who was sniffing in the middle of the highway.

Trusting the taybarri would, Kaylina eased into the tower. A bedroom and small kitchen occupied the bottom floor. After finding them empty, she climbed stairs that followed the exterior wall, winding upward.

On the top floor, its slitted windows looking out in all directions, Kaylina found another body. The black-clad ranger lay dead beside a desk, a logbook open in which he’d been recording times and conditions in the mountains.

“Damn,” she whispered.

The ranger had died with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. She was surprised it had only charred the wooden floorboards where he’d fallen, not burned down the tower. It looked like he’d been trying to light a premade signal fire in an iron pit by the window facing the city, but he’d run out of time.

“Either you and the dead guy outside dealt each other fatal blows…” Kaylina picked up the torch. “Or there are more Kar’ruk around.”

She pushed the torch into the nest of wood shavings and kindling. She would light the signal fire.

While she waited for it to catch, she picked up a pen on the desk and wrote a note on a blank page in the logbook. She explained the magical silver powder and the location of the press. She was about to add more about the Kar’ruk she’d battled there, but Levitke roared.

Kaylina dropped the pen.

The screeches of a large feline answered her from the woods nearby. Maybe several large felines.

“What now?” Kaylina grumbled.

Though she wanted to check on Levitke, she made herself return to the signal fire, prodding and blowing to ensure the flames caught fully. She had the uneasy feeling that the fate of the city might depend on this.

Levitke roared again, then shared a vision with Kaylina. It showed not only giant crag cougars attacking her—Kaylina had seen illustrations of the thousand-pound animals in the ranger handbook—but shadowy Kar’ruk striding out of the darkness.

Had they trained the powerful cats to obey their commands? Or simply uncaged them and trusted they would attack a taybarri?

The scuffs and growls of a battle engaged wafted up to the tower window. With the kindling burning, Kaylina backed away from the pit, hoping she’d done enough. She looked around for a weapon more deadly than her sling and spotted the ranger’s sword.

Though she had no experience with such a blade, she grabbed it. She needed something that could hurt these enemies.

Kar’ruk roars now accompanied the feline screeches. Levitke grunted, then whined with pain.

Intent on helping her, Kaylina charged down the stairs and past the kitchen and bedroom without glancing into them.

A Kar’ruk stepped out of the shadows behind her. Before she could spin toward him, he wrapped a muscular arm around her and hefted her over his shoulder.

Kaylina swung the blade, but it clunked against the wall. She had no leverage in the awkward position, and the Kar’ruk knew it. He strode toward the door without concern.

Twisting and bucking, Kaylina managed to slam an elbow into her captor’s ear, but the Kar’ruk might as well have been made from metal for all his kind yielded when struck. Her knee hit the warrior’s chest, but his armor ensured that hurt her more than him.

He walked outside with her still captive. The roars and screeches continued, but Levitke had been driven back from the tower. One of the huge crag cougars lay dead in the road, its tan fur matted with blood, but numerous more harried her.

And there were more Kar’ruk as well. Hulking males who weren’t camouflaged in any way. Five of them. Six? Far too many to fight, especially with the powerful felines working with them.

But Kaylina couldn’t give up. She couldn’t let Levitke be killed. Again, she tried to squirm free, thinking that if they could escape, even for a little while, the signal fire would bring help.

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