In the Eye of Heaven

Chapter One The Path of Knots Traveler's Night was coming on, and the horses were uneasy. It was almost as if they knew the numbering of days. Durand scratched the back of his neck, peering through drizzle and branches. He was meant to be riding home, guiding his lord up familiar tracks, but now he couldn't see for trees, and every breath of wind had the old forest alive with a sound like whispers. In an hour, it would be dark, and they would be caught on the road. On Traveler's Night, no one slept outdoors. Sir Kieren joked, "If I had known your father lived so far up in these wilds, I would have said, 'No reason to climb the forests of Gireth for your father's handouts, we'll have you knighted in the clothes you're wearing.' It isn't fine linen that makes a knight, after all. Now, I begin to wonder. In these wilds, a baron will have a house? Walls? Will he have a roof? Lad, if it's a bear's den, I won't think any worse of youso long as I know." Durand glanced back. They called old Kieren "the Fox" and he looked the part: A small-boned man, he sported silver-tipped red mustaches that made him look as if a pair of the creatures had just jumped up his nostrils. It had been Sir Kieren's idea to make the journey, and, from the glint in the man's eye, Durand judged that the Fox knew how lost they were. "He's not quite a bear, Sir Kieren," Durand said. "And this village? Your inheritance? I would like to see little Gravenholm, I think. And meet this poor old Osseric whose grief gets you your fiefdom. The man whose son was lost upon the waves. Who lives alone in his forest hall knowing that his lord's obdurate youngest boy will have every stone of it one day." "Not this time, Sir Kieren." Durand meant to give Gravenholm a wide berth and head straight for his father's stronghold. The tracks he'd chosen would lead them leagues from Gravenholm. "I knew you had come down from the wilds," Kieren was saying, "but now I wonder what sort ofHost of Heaven!" As his master swore, Durand's head crashed into the branches. Brag, his big bay hunter, screamed and pawed the air so that only a wrestler's grip kept Durand in the saddle. He fought the maddened animal for a look at what had spooked it and caught a glimpse of a pair of yellow eyes flashing up from the track. Then Brag was rearing, and it was all Durand could do to hang on. After a moment, he found a better grip and took a look. Something had appeared between Brag's hooves: a pup, mottled leaf red and iron gray, and he could see the little fellow looking up with those yellow eyes, shrinking against the earth as hooves chopped down around it. "Come on, Brag," Durand said. "Come on. Calm now." And, though Brag was no warhorse, the steady pressure of Durand's voice calmed the hunter enough that he could step back. The pup shivered against the clammy track and looked up as Durand smeared bark and grit from his face. Suddenly he was not so sure the beast was a dog after all. He turned to say: "You know" And the monster must have stepped out just then, for Durand found the Fox's face stiff and pale, his blue eyes fixed on something. Slowly, Durand turned back. Gray and more massive than a man, a wolf flowed into the track only a few paces away. Never had Durand seen such a beast at closeKeck, David is the author of 'In the Eye of Heaven ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765351692 and ISBN 0765351692.