Book One – Chapter 17

Tirran had remained at the edge. He remained for a moment longer, as if weighting the ker’s gesture. Then he stepped off the platform and onto the first stair. Then onto the next. And the next. With each step that he moved farther from the orb light and descended deeper into the storm’s darkness, it was like the dark peeled something off him. He dissolved into it, and the guard, the semblance of reason and restraint, was stripped like discarded skin. The creature beneath straightened, and Tirran’s shape changed as it rose. His shoulders rolled back and his head dropped forward, as though his very bones shifted beneath his skin. Tirran did not become terrifying; he simply allowed the horror that already dwelled within to surface and suddenly, he was the most terrifying thing on the mountain, right in their midst.

“This is their guild,” the ker said. “We respect the rules. We shall argue no more.”

The beastkin’s ears flicked up, then down, and his eyes shifted from Tirran to the ground. He exhaled a shivering breath, and the fight leaked out of him like steam. He retreated backwards with his shoulders slumped and his tail tucked low between his legs.

The ker did not take his eyes off Tirran, nor did he lower his hand, though it was no longer the krynn who needed stopping. “The mountain is watching,” the ker murmured.

The thing that came out of Tirran halted before him. A crooked tilt to its head. A low whisper from its throat. “Is it?”

“May we pass through for the Barnstream Path?”

“You may not.”

Though Yu could only see Tirran’s back, he felt the words — a vibration under his skin, the pulsing terror that thrummed through prey just before the killing blow.

“Very well,” the ker never turned away from Tirran, not even when speaking to the others. “We leave. Let’s go.”

The beastkin hurried to gather his pack and retreated. The witch backed away. Then the ker, still facing Tirran, took a slow step backward.

“No,” it was the borman who refused.