Stalking Darkness

another deep-throated cry he set his face to the wind and bounded onward.
    Moon shadow patterns slid across his broad back as he ran and his human mind gradually began to marvel at the sensation of this startling new body. He could feel the strain and bunch of the stag’s muscles as he sprang, the pumping of its great heart, the weight of the heavy rack that it bore with no more thought than he’d ever given to a hat.
    The familiar scents of sea and forest took on a new richness beyond human perception. Pausing to drink at a flowing spring, he couldn’t resist the aroma of young mallow shoots growing around it. The wet green taste of them filled his mouth like honeycomb. A little grey owl winged across his path with a soft rush of feathers as he set off again.
    The coastline grew more desolate as he moved north, and in the distance he could see a solitary peak jutting up against the stars. The ledges were broader here, extending out into the sea and cleft with crevasses and bands of darker stone. Farther up, where rock met grassland, mats of crowberry and lichen sent up a sweet aroma as he trampled across.
    The sea slowly retreated down the rocks toward the low mark, leaving behind glistening tide pools that shone like black mirrorsin the darkness. The moon sank into the sea and the stars danced toward home. As the wind shifted and night scents began to fade he smelled horses and men. Picking his way down into a gully, he stood motionless, sniffing the breeze, until they’d passed him and disappeared to the north.
    Alec sensed the coming dawn long before the first tinge of it appeared in the sky. The pellucid light of the false dawn welled up behind the mountains, waking flotillas of gulls and ducks that had ridden the waves out beyond the pull of the breakers. Something in the change of light tugged at his memory, but consumed by the irresistible pull of instinct and the summons, he could not recall what it was.
    The first ray of true dawn touched him as he sprang across a foaming cleft in the rocks. The stag form blurred in midair, leaving in its place a thin, naked youth.
    Sheer momentum carried Alec across. He landed awkwardly, skinning his knees and elbows. Still reeling from the transformation, he sprawled on his back and blinked up at the marbled gold sky, wondering dully where he was and how he’d come to be there.
    Waves surged up the cleft he’d just jumped, flinging glittering white spray across his bare skin. As Alec struggled to his knees, he realized he was still wearing the ivory vial he’d taken from Vargûl Ashnazai. Prying it open, he emptied the contents into his palm, a few dark slivers of wood.
    A blinding flash of memory rocked him—Ashnazai toying with the vial as he wove his tortures aboard the
Kormados
, the look of satisfaction on his face when he cut Seregil’s throat, Thero’s last despairing cry as it mingled with the howl of whatever had been unleashed against them after their escape. With a choked sob, he flung the pieces into the sea and screamed his sorrow after them.
    But even as he mourned, the summons was still there, fainter somehow but still clear enough.
    North
.
    The first Plenimaran scouts reached the temple site just after dawn. Micum was on watch and heard their horses in time to hide in the underbrush next to the track. He waited until they passedhim, heading toward the white stone, then hurried back to the pine shelter to warn the others.
    “They’re on their way,” he whispered, crawling under the screen of branches. “Two Plenimaran scouts just went by on the road, headed north.”
    “It is fortunate that they keep to the road,” Nysander murmured, stroking his chin absently.
    “Why is that?” asked Seregil.
    Nysander sighed heavily, then looked up at his two companions. “Alec is on his way to us. He is keeping to the shoreline, so it is fortunate that the Plenimarans take the road.”
    “He’s on his way?” Micum gasped, incredulous. “How do you know?
When
did you know?”
    Seregil said nothing, but Micum saw the sudden tension in him, and the hectic spots of color that leapt into his sunken cheeks.
    “I sensed him just after midnight last night,” replied Nysander.
    “You
knew
he was out there and you didn’t tell us?” Seregil hissed. “Illior’s Light, Nysander, why not?”
    “You would only have charged off in the darkness with very little hope of accomplishing anything but damage to yourselves. He was too far away for you to reach