Tobin raised the hound at first light, and it stood up the way it always had, as if it had never been down at all.
It came up out of the straw in the Keep yard with its ribs showing under the dull coat and its head low. The wagon had been kind to it. The tarpaulin had kept the dust off, and it had lain still for three days with the feed sacks around it, the same as the boy had asked.
Now it shook itself, once, from ears to tail, and turned to look at Tobin with its good eye.
“Good morning,” said Tobin, very politely, to the hound.
Calen had not expected that. He let it go.
Nell sat on the step of the feed shed with her cloth across her knees. She had asked to watch. She had asked on Day 96, and again at breakfast, and she had not once asked to be let closer. She sat with her back straight and her wrapped palm resting on the cloth, and her breath was slow and even, and she was counting it.
“Three runs,” said Calen. He stood at the edge of the yard by the post, where the stones were worn smooth from a hundred years of boots.
