Catania gutted her quarry and set off towards Tyre’s tower, just outside Syrelia’s wall—at least two miles from her hunting-ground. The tower was built on a high thrust of wooded land, over-shadowing the curving road that curled in a rough circle around the city wall. The young elf scrambled easily into a tree, and from its branches onto the tor. The tall tower was made of stone. It was crowned by a wide battlement, open to the sky, from which Catania knew Tyre watched the stars. She climbed into one of the trees that stood around the tower on the ledge. From one of its high branches she could see a long stretch of the road. She sat down on a high branch, and dangled her legs while she waited for Tyre to appear on the road below.

Finally she saw him come trotting around the bend—the centaur’s tall form was unmistakable. She swung herself down and started for the road. She stepped cautiously out into the open when she reached it. The flagstones felt—like always—startlingly smooth and hard under her feet, after the rough tussocks of the forest-floor. Tyre—in exchange for meat, of course—had procured her boots several years ago; but she had decided shoes wore out or were grown out of too quickly, and were too hard to come by. The young elf simply wrapped strips of untanned leather from her game around her light elf-feet to relieve the first bite of thorns and stinging bugs. She did the same around the first three fingers of her draw-hand to keep her bowstring from giving her blisters, but she still wore on her arms the bracers Tyre had procured for her.