THE HOUND THOUGHT that they must go to Prince George. If there was any hope of fighting the cat man and his cold death, it would have to be with the prince. Yet he had used his great magic only once. Could he learn to control it? How much of the forest would be destroyed by that time?
She and the bear went to the edge of the forest near the castle. It had been months since their transformation, but still the hound was stung at the thought of how easily Marit had gone to a new life without her. Only at the wedding had she been acknowledged, and then with a tiny bow from Marit. Since then neither George nor Marit had come to visit in the forest.
The hound waited for some sign of a friendly face. She could not simply walk up to the castle door and scratch on it, howling for attention. She would be sent away.
At last she caught sight of a group of humans moving toward the forest. The hound recognized George and Marit, along with a handful of others, most young and dressed as little more than peasants.
The hound noticed with some satisfaction that Marit wore practical trousers and a short jacket rather than the floating, gauzy thing she had worn at the wedding. But her face looked troubled.
From her bearing, the hound could see that Marit was bound to her prince and to those around him. These were her pack now.
The bear began to move toward the humans. The hound had to run to catch up with him.
The humans stopped at the edge of the forest, though the hound did not know why. There was no hint of the cold death here. Yet.
Then Prince George saw the bear. He started, then stretched out a hand.
“Bear, it has been too long,” he said, and waved at the bear to come closer.
The other humans were wide-eyed at the sight of a huge bear approaching them, with the exception of one boy, who had very blond hair and a pinched face. He was utterly blank when he looked at the bear, as if he had never felt fear. Or had felt it too much and could feel it no longer.
“Where is—” said Marit suddenly.
And then the hound moved so that she could be seen.
Marit threw her arms up and raced toward the hound, throwing herself to her knees and giving her a fierce embrace.
The hound stared at Marit, so tall and thin. Her red hair, once worn in the long style that her father and his kingdom expected of a noblewoman, was now cut very short. It stuck up all around her ears, but somehow it suited her. It made her look younger, and it fit the freckles that still dominated her face.
“We could not come. The danger of those who hate the animal magic is still so strong—we feared for you if we were seen to seek you,” said Marit in a jumble of words. “We only dare to come into the forest here, at the very edge, and always we are careful to speak to different animals, so there is no pattern that can be seen by our enemies. Even so—” She stopped and turned to Prince George.
Gravely he said, “There has been more than one of those innocents we spoke to who have died. The burned body of one was left at the castle gate, as a clear warning to us. This has been the first chance we have had to come out into the forest in safety.”
“Mar—” Marit started to say to the hound, then checked herself. “I don’t know what to call you now.”
The hound stared blankly. It had been the princess who had insisted on giving her a name. And after George loved her as a hound, she had taken that name for her own. It was confusing, if one cared about names. The hound did not.
Marit sighed. “‘Hound’ will have to do for now, I suppose. But how good it is to see you, truly. You look well.”
The hound supposed it was true. She had more fresh meat now than she had had with the princess. And living in the forest gave her plenty of exercise.
“Ah, Bear,” said Marit, stepping back. “It is good to see you, too.” She put out a hand and touched the bear’s back, then turned back to the hound.
“I must admit, being with you here makes me feel at home in a way that nothing else has.” She took a breath and smiled ruefully. “Not even my own pillow, which George rode all the way to Sarrey to get for me when I mentioned to him once that I missed the smell of it. Three days he was gone, and used up two horses on the way. Just to get me a pillow. Can you imagine?” She shook her head and there was a hint of blush in her cheeks.
The hound remembered the possum the bear had brought to her when she was wounded and unable to move away from the cave herself. For her, too, it was a strange thing to be taken care of.
“Well, let’s introduce them, shall we, George?” she said.
George bowed to her. He looked older and more self-assured, as much a man as a boy. As much a king as a prince, if only of this small part of his kingdom. His shirt was ragged and stained on the cuffs, and he seemed completely unaware of it. He had also put on some pounds around his chest and stomach—not all of it muscle.
“Sometimes I still do not believe my memories of that day, and my magic,” said George. “It is good to see the truth before my face again.”
The bear made a strange low sound.
Prince George moved gingerly closer to him. The bear’s mouth gaped open, showing his huge, sharp teeth. George stared straight at them, then put his arms around the bear’s shoulders and let his head rest there. Suddenly he seemed young again, hardly more than a boy.
He took a deep breath and pulled himself away.
“This is the bear and the hound I have told you about,” he said, turning back to the others in the group.
Turning to the bear, George waved at the humans. “This is the school of magic.”
The hound remembered George’s enthusiasm for the school. But there were only a handful here. Was that all the success he had had?
Along with the blond-haired boy, there was a man with the tattoos on his face of a murderer from the southern kingdom of Thurat. One of the women was missing an eye and a hand, and her face had been burned terribly.
The hound wished she believed more in Marit’s new pack’s strength and loyalty. They did not hold close to her as they should, if the danger Marit and George spoke of was so constant.
“Well,” said George awkwardly.
But the hound had no time to make him comfortable again. George might think his place threatened, but there was much worse to come, as he would know when she told him of the cold death.
“Our home is destroyed,” she began, speaking in the language of the hounds.
“What?” said George, starting.
How many of the others understood her? Not the princess, nor from the looks of them the others. And the blond-haired boy seemed utterly uninterested. His whole body was turned away.
“The bear’s cave, where we have lived since—since the transformation,” she continued.
“But how was it done?” asked George. “There have been no earth rumblings, no lightning strikes. Other animals?”
Of a sort, thought the hound.
She looked toward the bear. She wished that he could tell his part of the story. The bear was far more experienced in magic than she was, and had more of the prince’s trust. But the communication was left to her.
“It is a cat man,” said the hound. She waited a moment to see how the prince would react.
“Cat man,” he echoed.
The hound thought she saw a bit of movement from one of the other humans, but she was focused on the prince. “I think it is a cat, but it has been changed into a man. It brings a cold death with it that spreads through the forest,” she said. It was the best she could do to explain.
“A cat man? I believe I have read an old, old tale of such a creature in this area. But it could not possibly be the same one after all this time, and so long away…” The prince trailed off.
“I do not know about your tale, but I know that this cat man takes life with pleasure. Soon the forest will be consumed.”
George nodded. “I will do what I can with my magic. You have but to show me the way.”
He turned back to Marit and the others. “You should go back to the castle. All of you. There is danger in this.”
Marit grinned, a grin of defiance, of challenge. A hound’s toothy grin, learned from her days in another form. “Is it to do with animal magic?” she asked.
“Yes,” said George.
“Then we should go with you. What are we here for if not to learn about magic, dangerous or not?”
George shook his head. “No,” he said, looking at her belly. “Not now.”
And then the hound stared at Marit again. Her balance was different. And her smell. She should have noticed from the first. The princess was with child. Early still, not enough to show on her tall, thin frame, but it was there.
Yes, the prince would want to protect her.
But the princess would have none of it. “We are a school. If you protect us, we learn nothing.”
The hound thought how a male hound would have reacted to his mate who refused to obey him. A cuff to the ear or a slash at the belly. More, if necessary.
But George was human, and so was the princess.
Far easier to be a hound, she thought. Unless one is not a hound.
George nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. “You will come, then.” He turned back to the hound and spoke to her quietly, under his breath. “The cat man—it is gone now, is it not? You only mean to show us what it left behind with its magic, yes?”
He was asking for the sake of the princess and the unborn child, not for himself.
“I think it has done its work here already,” said the hound.
“Then take us,” said the prince roughly.
The hound turned and led them, the bear following behind.