Over stallion, rider and wolf, moving west with them against the stars, flew a winged black soaring thing.
"There was something on the stallion's back when I came!" Li Kin exclaimed. "An eagle or other great bird — it's queer!"
"It's more than queer," rasped Eric Nelson. He gripped the slashed forearm that was beginning to throb and burn. "Come on — I want to see this man Shan Kar!"
Li Kin kept recurring to the beasts as they slogged hastily through dark dusty streets toward the inn.
"She spoke to them, as though they were people! She was like a witch, a mistress of kuei, with her familiars!"
"Will you forget those animals?" Nelson snapped.
He was angry and he was angry because he was a little afraid. He had been afraid before, many times, but not of something as uncanny as this, not of a girl and three beasts and a dream.
* * *
The dark courtyard of the inn echoed with the stamping and trampling of scores of hoofs. Shaggy little ponies were squealing and biting in protest as Nick Sloan and Lefty and Van Voss loaded the heavy packs from the arsenal onto them.
Nelson found Shan Kar in the corner of the courtyard, a dark, tense figure impatiently watching the hurried preparations.