Scritch, scritch. I had almost fallen back asleep when something rancid wafted across my nose, the smell of vermin or decay. I was questioning my own hygiene when the noise came again, a soft snuffling noise and the scratch of claws against a hard surface. I raised my head, listening. These caves were never silent; water dripped and flowed, and any noise at all reverberated, echoing off hard stone surfaces. In the early mornings, nesting bats chittered to their young. The man-dragons clomped across the stone corridors, the empty spaces repeating their footfalls and voices as they called back and forth, infiltrating my dreams with their racket. All these I had heard before. This was new. Not a noise to which I was accustomed. I almost convinced myself that I was making an acorn into an oak when I heard raspy breathing. Chris stirred restlessly in her sleep, flinging out an arm. The noise stopped. I strained, listening into the black of the cave, holding my breath. Was something there? Under the cover of my blanket, I searched for my knife.
