Aide frowned. 'If the Penambrans do come, where can we store the food? They'll need all that space to live in.'

'Easy,' Gil said. 'Put it outside. That's been talked of before - build a giant compound out past the cattle byres and wall it against deer and wolves. The Dark don't eat dead meat or grain.'

'Do you think Alwir will?

'Alwir would love it. He would be tickled to death to know where all the food in the Keep is. Govannin will block it, and they'll start fighting over whether the Keep needs all those nonwarriors.'

Aide looked at her reproachfully. 'Has anyone ever told you that your logic is appalling?

Gil grinned in the dusk. 'Why do you think I never got married?' She stopped, catching Aide's arm to make her halt also. But the sound she'd heard had only been the sigh of wind, rubbing bare branches in the icy cold. She was aware that it was suddenly very dark. They went on, quickening their pace.

'There,' she said as they rounded a curve in the slushy road. Far off against the black flank of the mountains, a square of reddish light was visible. 'They'll have built fires around the doors and left them open.'

'They can't do that!' Aide protested. 'It's against Keep Law! If the Dark came in force...'

'It means they know you're gone,' Gil said quietly and glanced up at the leaden sky. On either side of the road, the trees had faded into misty darkness, forming a

murky cathedral through whose endless mazes of dark pillars an occasional black-flecked beech shone like silver in the gloom. The last fading of the daylight would leave them walking almost blindly.

'But Tir's in there,' Aide insisted. It was like her, Gil thought wryly, to think of her child before her own safety. 'Alwir should have...'

'Oh, come on,' Gil said roughly. 'Do you really think he would?' She stopped again, this time certain. She could feel it in her veins, a rush of electricity that had very little fear in it. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. Like the breath of agelong night, she felt the restless stirring of air on her cheek.