32
The Throne of Bones
As the Nightdwellers appeared in the dimming circle of light from the fading lightwand, Amlinn made one small, involuntary movement toward the knife she had just placed in her belt. Then she froze. She would never live to draw it.
She didn’t expect to live anyway. The three Nightdwellers were big, bigger than Petra. The largest, black-furred and with a jagged lightning-like scar on one cheek below a tattered ear, loomed bigger than her Grandfather. Of the others, one was dark grey, the other silver-furred like the wounded boy. Sleek, muscular, aggressively male in their unashamed nakedness, they terrified her. She suddenly couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her paralyzed chest.
The Nightdwellers looked from her and Petra to the boy on the ground. A rapid-fire
