The Door Into Shadow

(Singers,) it said, looking to the northwest. (The ones with fur.)
"Wolves? Perfect." Herewiss glanced down at Khavrinen, which blazed just long enough to burn the blood off itself. "We won't be climbing the Fane until sunset, since a Sum-moning there works best at twilight. But damned if I'm going to put up with any more Fyrd, in the meantime. I'll go have a word with the wolves and see if I can work something out. Now, how do I manage this—" He frowned, closed his eyes. Fire swirled outward from Khavrinen, hiding both sword and wielder. The pillar of bril-liance shrank as it swirled, and sank close to the ground. When the blue Flame died away it left behind a handsome cream-white wolf with orange-brown points and downturned blue eyes.
(Not bad,) Sunspark remarked, (for a beginner.) (Hmp!) Herewiss said, grinning a wolf-grin. (Stay close till I get back, loved, just in case the Fyrd try again. I won't be long.)
The wolf bounded away through the long grass. Watching him go, Segnbora dug down in her belt-pouch for a square of soft paper, with which she began cleaning off Charriselm's blade. When she had finished, she looked thoughtfully at the Fane. It seemed to gaze back, calm and blind and patient, waiting for something. Fyrd so close to this place — that's unheard of. All ike rate are changing. After this nothing is going to be the way it was.. Not even me, She shook her head uneasily, not entirely understanding the thought,
"You going to stand there all day?" someone shouted at her. Freelorn and the others were in the saddle, getting ready to ride down to the Fane. Segnbora swung up into Steel-sheen's saddle and went, after them,
She sat underneath an old rowan tree near the lakeshore, her 'back, against its trunk,, and watched the long shadows of men, horses, and trees drown in slow dusk. The Fane, a half mile away across Rilthor's water, shone golden as a legend where its heights still caught the sunset. The mirroring water
lay still in the breathless evening, ihe mountain's burning image broken only by the wakes of the gray songswans gliding
by. Truly it's not so impressive, she thought, stretching. The Fane's mountain was a little one, no more than a half mile wide at the base, broad at
the bottom and flat at the top, stippled roughly with brush and scrub pine.
But for all the seeming plainness of the landscape, their camp that day had been abnormally quiet. Freelorn had been pacing and frowning most of the afternoon. Herewiss had come back from his parley with the wolves, reporting success