Do as he might, fear of the waiting-time ahead was creeping over Hardcastle like the tide of a quiet sea. Each word of Nita’s reached him—as she meant it should—with an overmastering sense of prophecy and doom.
He took Causleen’s hand in his, and together they went, with slow, nagging caution, along the twisting track, Storm following. To light a candle now was to waste what would be needed later on, and would make them a plain mark for pursuit. They had to feel like blind people for the rocky spears descending from the roof. They stumbled on rubble dropped from the same roof, and every now and then a bat brushed their faces with a sudden, silky dread.
Hardcastle halted often to ask Storm if he heard aught behind them, and the dog gave a gruff “all’s well.” Then, as a roar of waters soun
