Opening his eyes, he gasped, "Why aren't I dead?"

"Because a strong heart breeds strong friends." Magfire couldn't explain to her confused sibling, for she broke down crying.

"Listen!" called Heath.

Orders barked in a foreign tongue. The nearest legionnaires dropped back in the haze.

New to combat, Jasmine croaked, "Did we win?"

"Reinforcements must've arrived," explained Murdoch. "They'll switch and come at us again with fresh troops."

In the odd lull, pirates and foresters saw only glimpses of the enemy through the pall of smoke and dust. Veterans checked their blades, straightened tackle, sipped water, awaited orders, and talked of small things to banish fear. For soon they would die.

Murdoch bobbed his looted black sword in the air. "I wish I had my shield. That's how we trained in Yerkoy's Royal Army, sword and shield together, attack and defend. This one-handed steel-slinging is for high-faluting mercenaries or fog-headed fools."

"You're a mercenary yourself," said Sister Wilemina. Even with one arm in a sling, she checked her bowstring for frays. "Thanks to me. I recommended Adira adopt you back in Palmyra. I wish I were there now."

"I wish I had my own arrows. Pheasant feathers don't compare to good goose quills." Heath bound up his bleeding knee, his bow and quiver near at hand. "I can sink a shaft in a crow's eye at a mile with my own handwork. These arrows are sticks glued with eiderdown. Still, it was kind of Magfire's people to give us them. I wish I'd thanked them all properly."

"I wish I knew a spell so frightening it would scare even me." Jasmine Boreal fidgeted with her antique bronze knife. "But without my oddments this far underground, who knows what works? May the Virgin, Mother, and Crone pity me. I wish I'd paid them more fealty."

"Wishes are regrets glimpsed in yesterday's mirror," quoted Heath obscurely. "One of you women rouse Adira, will you? Time speeds."

Whistledove Kithkin was as tall standing as was Adira kneeling over her dead lieutenant. The brownie touched her chief's shoulder gently.

"Adira? We're sorry about Simone, but we need you. The legionnaires regroup. We've got to gird and break through their line, or we'll never leave this cavern alive."

"Aye, aye." Hovering over dead Simone, Adira tried to think of a benediction, but failed. As leader, she could only succor the living. Planting a final kiss on Simone's cold brow, Adira swabbed blood off her black blade with her sash.

Ducking low among boulders, treading yellow-clad corpses strewn mostly by Jedit, Adira positioned her mercenaries and Magfire's foresters, then summoned Jedit. Measuring the odds and comparing her resources, Adira fell into old patterns as if Simone had never existed.

In less than a minute Adira formed a loose phalanx with right- and left-handed swordbearers spaced apart and spear- wielders ranged behind. It gave her a bitter satisfaction that this two-tier rank had been used by Johan to raid Bryce and Palmyra. Such a formation just might break through the legionnaires' line and escape into the tunnels. Once in the twisting corridors, they could run hell-for-leather while guarding their rear. They didn't have to destroy the legionnaires, after all, only outrun them.

She finished, "Jedit, you take point."

"Yes, captain." The tiger looked a nightmare. Blood and dust matted his fur in clumps. His broad breast was more red than white. One ear was slit, his whiskers were splintered, gore dripped from lacerations on his long arms, and he listed to port from a ferocious leg wound hastily bound with rags. Yet, Adira noted, when she needed unquestioning loyalty, he gave it. Much like Simone.

For a second Adira felt her throat seize up, then nodded. "When you're ready, go."

Without a word Jedit Ojanen spun in place, tail flying like a bullwhip, and bounded over a boulder toward the still-forming enemy. Pirates and pine warriors ran just to keep up.

Ahead through haze and dust waited a long yellow-black line of Akron Legionnaires, as if Jedit charged a hornet's nest. This suicidal charge into slaughter would make a fine heroic saga, thought the cat warrior. Hoxv sad no tigers would ever sing it. Briefly, in the never-ending seconds hanging before combat, Jedit thought of his homeland Efrava, of his mother Musata, of Hestia and her affectionate teasing, of his doughty opponent Ruko, of all the tigers he'd abandoned for a life of adventure and a desire to follow in his father's footsteps. And of his father, Jaeger, who'd pursued Johan and never been seen again. Despite his predicament, the battle-mad brute grinned so fangs winked below his striped muzzle.

Jedit murmured aloud, "Promises to keep, hurts to mend, wounds to avenge. Best I not be killed so far from home. Too many people need harassing."

There was no sign of the vampire Shauku, but her bodyguards were ready. Time to strike. Sucking wind into his belly, Jedit extended claws on all four limbs, gave a bloodcurdling roar like a volcano exploding, and entered the fight of his life.

Twin claws snagged two black leather hoods and raked faces to bone. Blinded, spitting and drowning in blood, the legionnaires barely blubbered and screamed before they crashed to earth and died. With waspy blades whisking all around, Jedit's huge head butted three men flat. His claws slashed from high to low to cripple the greatest number the quickest. The tiger bit a man in the belly, shearing through his yellow tunic and leather armor, disemboweling the victim with a wrench of his thick neck. To the right he clawed a man's neck so bright frothy blood geysered, then slashed another's arm, so his sword clanged on stone, then ripped a third across the kidneys, so he spun against his comrades. And on and on, an orgy of destruction.

Shouting vile oaths and die names of gods, Adira and Magfire's troops charged in Jedit's wake like a school of sharks.

Heath shot away all his and Wilemina's arrows, then threw his bow to his left hand, so fast did he need his sword. Stabbing straight, he tunked a wooden shield, then flipped his blade sideways to harass the enemy's face. But two legionnaires tackled him as a team. Even as one shied from Heath's scything blade, the other knocked it high. The archer tried to block the partner's jab, but his ebony bow only skidded down keen steel. Heath gasped as his side was pierced, but rather than give ground and invite attack, he bit down on pain and hacked. Quick reflexes and an archer's iron forearms saved his life, for he beat back the legionnaire who'd pinked him and swatted the other off-stride. Still, the two soldiers bounced back and lunged, twin blades flickering like adders' tongues.

Scenting death on the wind, Heath caroled, "Ye dryads and naiads, prepare your bowers!"

Murdoch slung his borrowed blade against scaly black leather backed by wood, for some legionnaires plied shields. The ex-sergeant sidestepped to avoid being impaled and to make a smaller target, then he actually crowded behind the thrusting legionnaire's shield, so the man was temporarily blockaded. Slinging his left elbow, Murdoch slammed the man's jaw and hacked small. His slim blade slashed the legionnaire's elbow to sever tendons and grate on bone. As the arm fell slack, Murdoch stripped the leather straps from the man's forearm and stole his shield.

Spitting at his enemies, Murdoch crowed, "Step up to the sergeant, you slackarse sluggards! I'll teach you how to spell slaughter!"

Wilemina, Jasmine, and Whistledove clung together, hoping their collective strength would offset weaknesses. Falling rump to rump to shoulder, they were instantly bracketed by legionnaires bearing naked steel.

Holding her bow and sword in her good left hand, Sister Wilemina shrieked, "For Lady Caleria!" and stabbed straight. Her sword was clipped by a shield, knocked upward and away. But the archer's bow functioned like a part of her arm. Heedless of his blade, Wilemina banged the ornate bow atop of the man's shield and jabbed at the leather hood's eye slit with the horn tip. The legionnaire hooked his head back to save his eyes. In that second, Whistledove scooted low as a cockroach and stabbed high. Her dagger point slid under the man's kneecap. Writhing, he jerked the leg and kicked the brownie, but Wilemina sent her bow singing in a long arc that whacked his temple and laid him out cold.