By the spring trough, Pip jerked upright on all six legs.
On its left flank, the forked white-door mark—grown at the collapsed stone-swift bridge when it first learned to locate a frightened creature it had previously sheltered—flared with a sudden, needle-sharp tug. Two days ago, Rethi had tucked both his frost-nipped hands into the warm lined fold on Pip’s side while his mother mended his mittens, laughing when the heated tissue tickled his wrists.
Now the child’s terror hit that link like a jerked wire. Somewhere less than two hundred paces north in the blinding fog, Rethi’s boots were slipping in hot, sour silt and his breath was coming in short, strangled gasps.
Pip did not look at Ysabet. It did not wait for Iskren’s staff or Chaska’s rope. Every habit formed on the road from Bent Reed snapped shut at once: someone it had sheltered was afraid, and fear meant Pip had to run until its own body stood between the frightened thing and the dark.
With its green interior lights blazing through the sleet, Pip scrambled over the low stone wall, ducked under the tether rail, and tore into the northern mist on all six legs.
“Pip!” Ysabet shouted. “Wait for the poles!”
