It came out of the hall on all fours, and then it stood up.
Northern had to tip his head back to follow it. It was a Forest Hunter the way a mountain is a hill. It had the same long limbs and the same lean, corded body, but it stood four times the height of the Hunters around it, and its skin was no longer dusk-blue.
Age had turned it grey, the grey of old bark, and it had cracked like old bark too. Deep fissures ran down its chest and arms, with moss growing in them. Along its ribs, on both sides, long slits opened and closed as it breathed, and out of every one of them came the mist.
Its eyes were golden, like the others, and very old, and clouded over at the edges like a blind man's. They were not blind. They found Northern on top of his heap at once and stayed there.
The ranks of the Hunters parted for it without a sound.
Northern let Shingan look.
