"Gavril!" she cried out, and swung back at Brot'an with one blade. "Mother, help him!"

Brot'an ducked Cuirin'nen'a's swing, and Gavril glanced back when she shouted.

The lunging cat landed on the man, one forepaw against his throat, and he went down. When he hit the ground, the animal's claws raked open his throat and the underside of his jaw.

Gavril's stilettos rolled from his hands. Blood spattered his face. He lay twitching with his eyes still open.

"No!" Cuirin'nen'a cried out.

She tried to jerk her cloak free from Brot'an's grip as Eillean rushed at the cat perched upon Gavril.

The second cat leaped for Cuirin'nen'a's back. It slammed her down upon the mulch.

Brpt'an stumbled as her cloak tore from his grip, and Cuirin'nen'a's head bounced hard against the earth. The animal's large paws ground into her back. Its claws bit through her cloak and shirt into her skin. She neither cried out nor moved.

Eillean called out from somewhere to Brot'an's right. Before he looked for her, twin stilettos tumbled through the air at the cat atop her daughter. Neither struck true, and both fell away, but the animal twisted its head with a snarl. Brot'an took in everything in that instant and hope died.

Eillean thrashed beneath the cat that had killed the human male. Leaves and twigs flew up around her as she tried to fend it off without her blades. Her dark cowl shredded beneath its claws. The cat upon Cuirin'nen'a swung its head back to its own prey.

Brot'an could not save them both.

He leaped upward from the earth and pushed off a nearby tree with his left foot. High in the night air, he watched the cat atop Cuirin'nen'a turn to look frantically about, trying to find him.

Brot'an became still and silent as his ascent slowed above the animal. Stiletto hilt gripped hand over hand, he focused upon the cat's neck just behind its skull. He began to descend on top of it.

The cat glanced upward.

The tree that Brot'an had pushed off from was too far out of reach. The cat pivoted to get from under him. He had to fold his left leg before his foot struck its back. His knee and shin hit instead.

He drove the blade down, but the cat twisted sideways under his weight. The blade seemed to skim off of its head. The animal slapped at him with a forepaw as it screamed out in pain.

Brot'an saw claws pass before his face. He toppled from the cat and pushed off against its side to throw himself clear. He landed atop Cuirin'nen'a, rolled away, and came up crouched above her. The right side of his face stung, and his heart pounded as he steeled himself for the cat's lunge.

Instead, it writhed upon the ground, screeching.

The sting in Brot'an's face grew to a burning as he saw that the cat's left ear was completely gone. The fur around that side of its dark head glistened as if wet, and dead leaves and pine needles clung to it. Something warm and wet ran down Brot'an's face into his own right eye.

For an instant he thought it was sweat, blinking his eye to clear it. But this only darkened and blurred his vision more. There was blood running into his eye.

He had not escaped the claws altogether and felt searing lines in his forehead and right cheek. He crouched and heaved Cuirin'nen'a over one shoulder then ran back through the trees at the road's edge. Within the thick branches of a fir tree, he crawled up along its trunk.

The cat's screaming subsided to a rolling yowl that he heard coming closer.

Brot'an braced himself among the branches, with Cuirin'nen'a's limp form draped over his bent legs. He pressed the branches slowly apart enough to see out and wiped at his right eye with the back of his hand.

The maimed cat pounded about the forest below but never found where he had gone. It turned back to join its mate, and Brot'an watched in anxious fascination.

The two felines writhed upon forest mulch beside each other.

Their bodies rippled into two naked forms-a man and woman of dusky skin and dark hair. The male held the side of his head, still kneeling in pain. They whispered to each other, gestures wild with panic, and both stared at Eillean's torn face and body. When they set upon her, Brot'an went rigid. His back pressed into the tree's trunk, and it ground into his spine.

They sawed at her neck with one of her own blades and severed her head.

Eillean had thrown away her life trying to save a human who was already lost.

They severed Gavril's head next and ran off into the forest with their trophies.

Brot'an saw no more of them. By the time he could bring himself to climb down, he no longer heard their running feet. He set Cuirin'nen'a's unconscious form on the ground. He crouched over Eillean's headless corpse, at a loss over what he could do for her so far from their homeland.

Chap understood what Ventina and Faris had done. In fear of punishment, they stripped the skulls of flesh and presented these tokens to Dar-mouth. Their lord knew of only one elven female, and an elf's skull was proof enough of the couple's success.

This token of death had deceived Darmouth. And Brot'an had used it again to goad Leesil's rage. In turn, master and slave set upon each other. All for the skull of the wrong woman…

The last remains of Eillean, Leesil's grandmother.

In the aftermath of the crypt battle, the memory of Most Aged Father's withered face surfaced in Brot'an's memory… along with the request made by the patriarch. Brot'an knew he could not fight his way past both Leesil and Magiere to reach Darmouth. Magiere had wounded him too badly. But he was determined to preserve Most Aged Father's trust. The only way was to force Leesil to murder the warlord.

Chap shook off Brot'an's memories and snarled again. He could not give these memories to Leesil and only recalled Cuirin'nen'a's-Nein'a's- face over and over as he barked twice for "no." Leesil cowered away, covering his ears.

"Enough!" Magiere ordered. "Stop this-now, Chap!"

Chap glared at her. He kept his eyes locked straight into hers, then nosed the skull toward her. He barked twice for "no" and slowly swung his head back and forth.

Magiere held Leesil close in her arms, but anger faded from her face. She looked down to the skull between Chap's paws.

"No?" she whispered, her head shifting slightly side to side, mimicking Chap's own. "Not… Nein'a?"

Chap barked once for "yes." He lay down, his head upon the skull of the woman who had first brought him to Leesil, and closed his eyes. Magiere's dawning awareness of the truth was no relief to him.

"Wynn…" Magiere said, voice hesitant, and then she shouted in panic. "Wynn, get the talking hide… get it now!"

As dawn approached, Chane crawled into a forest thicket and buried himself with dead leaves, tree needles and snow-crusted earth. He had tried to get back into the city, but the gates were sealed in the night. Soldiers openly patrolled the rampart with loaded crossbows.

Hunger kept him from settling into full dormancy. Even hidden and shielded, the sting of sunlight crawled over his flesh like biting insects as he thought of Wynn. He lingered in discomfort until the sun finally set, and then crawled out shuddering, as if once again rising from that second grave. He was covered in cold earth and mulch. It was no less unsettling. When he neared the gates of Venjetz once more, hunger squelched his unpleasant memories.

But he could not release Wynn from his thoughts. Had she even truly seen him in the keep?

A few wagons and peasants on foot gathered before the city's main entrance, but the gate was still shut tight. A soldier upon the wall beside the gatehouse shouted down that "Captain" Omasta had closed the city until further notice. No one was allowed in or out.