Chapter 5
"Tell on, my love," Finnian murmured
"I was alone," said Tuan. "I was so alone that my own shadow
frightened me. I was so alone that the sound of a bird in flight,
or the creaking of a dew-drenched bough, whipped me to cover as a
rabbit is scared to his burrow.
"The creatures of the forest scented me and knew I was alone.
They stole with silken pad behind my back and snarled when I faced
them; the long, grey wolves with hanging tongues and staring eyes
chased me to my cleft rock; there was no creature so weak but it
might hunt me, there was no creature so timid but it might outface
me. And so I lived for two tens of years and two years, until I
knew all that a beast surmises and had forgotten all that a man had
known.
"I could pad as gently as any; I could run as ti
