Page 106 of Swordheart
The hillside began to dim as twilight settled over the Vagrant Hills. Something whooped and shrieked in the distance, causing Sarkis to jerk upright and set his hand on his sword. Brindle’s ears flicked back, but he did not slow the ox.
“I don’t like that,” said Zale.
“You and me both, priest.”
“A gnole doesn’t like it, either.”
The shrieking came again and was joined by another one, a series of high sounds like someone laughing.
“Some animal you have here in the south?” asked Sarkis.
Halla shook her head. “I suppose it could be a coyote,” she said, a bit doubtfully, but then the whooping modulated until it sounded almost like words. It trailed off into silence.
“Nota coyote,” said Zale, their dark eyes wide.
“There are hyenas that sound almost like that in the Sunlost Plains,” said Sarkis. “Do you have hyenas here?”
“Not that I know of, but in these Hills…” Zale spread their hands helplessly.
Brindle pushed the ox on for two or three hundred yards more, then stopped. “Here,” said the gnole, sliding down from the wagon seat. “An ox can bed down between a wagon and those trees.”
“Will it be safe there?” asked Halla. “Can anything get through the trees?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know how wide a thing in the woods is.”
This was the sort of statement that made a little space in the air around it, as everyone’s imaginations bent to the task.
None of them slept well that night. The wagon walls did not keep out the sounds of alien laughter. They discussed the merits of a fire warding things off vs. attracting attention, and finally Brindle simply lit one, and said, “Hills already know.”
The ox slept practically under the wagon. Brindle and Sarkis sat by the fire, half-wakeful, waiting.
It was after midnight, by Sarkis’s reckoning, when Brindle murmured, “Things in the sky, sword-man.”
Sarkis looked up. For a few moments, all he saw was stars, and then something passed overhead, not solid but transparent, so that the stars swam in his vision, as if seen through a coat of oil.
“I don’t like that,” Sarkis said.
“A gnole isn’t fond of it, either.”
The whooping sounds stopped. The fire had died down to embers and Sarkis wished that it would die even lower.
The oily sky-swimmer passed overhead again. Sarkis was reminded of the manta rays that swam in the Bay of Sandweight, the same undulating motion. Those had been harmless. This…
“Did your relative ever mention this?” asked Sarkis softly. Brindle shook his head.
“Nyaaaaa-aaa-ah-ah-ah!” shrieked something, practically in Sarkis’s ear.
He dove to one side, rolling and grabbing for his sword. The ox awoke with a snort. Brindle dropped to all fours, mouth open and enormous teeth bared.
“Nyaa-ah-ah!”
“Where is it?” hissed Sarkis, looking around wildly.
Brindle looked past him, then burst into snickering gnole laughter. He pointed.
An animal about the size of a squirrel clung to a tree near where Sarkis had been sitting. It had huge eyes and short, fluffy fur and vast, ridiculous ears.
“Nya-ah?”
