It was very tempting to stop and bask in the rising sun, but the cat felt compelled to continue forward. It was a strange sensation to her. She had often felt hunger and the desire to kill to survive, but the motivation pushing her to follow the woman in front of her was something she had never experienced before.
A tom-cat darted out from among the forest of human legs that were swarming past her. He smelled of salt and rotten fish. She pushed past him, eager to keep the woman in sight. The tom-cat twirled around and followed her, pushing against her and begging for attention. She spun around, hissing and lashing out at the other cat. Startled, he backed away and scurried into the crowd.
The cat faced back towards the woman. She was gone, lost behind the throng of human bodies. Panicked, the cat scrambled forward after the woman. She dodged around legs, hooves, and cartwheels. Racing forward, the cat glanced to the left and saw the woman. She began to change her direction to follow, but suddenly felt a dull shock to her head as she collided with a man’s leg. She skidded into a furry ball at his feet.
Quickly shaking off the impact she scanned the crowd, looking for the woman. The cat found her again and was springing into a run when two human hands closed around her, picking her off her feet and into the air. The cat twisted around to view her captor and found herself staring face to face with a fourteen year old boy. Contorting her body and slashing with her claws, the cat struggled to free herself.
Suddenly, she became very still. There, further up the docks, she noticed eleven horses. Each carried a grey-cloaked rider. On the last horse were two riders. One was a large man. The other was a little girl.
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