"You shouldn't have come, brother," he rasped-and charged.

Li tried to spin out of his way, tried to dodge back, tried to do anything, but pigs battered at his legs with every step that he attempted. It was all he could do to stay on his feet among the angry, swarming animals! They darted aside for Yu Mao, though. "Ayeh.'"the big man roared. Butterfly swords swept in, one following the other. Li planted his feet and whirled his dao desperately, blocking one sword, then another, and then the first again. He struck back, or tried to; Yu Mao caught the dao on the back of a sword. Li's blade grated along Yu Mao's -right into the hook over the butterfly sword's hilt. Yu Mao twisted, locking the dao. His other sword chopped down from above.

Li brought his arm up and Yu Mao's forearm cracked against his. Before his brother could force the sword down, Li clenched his teeth and punched sideways into his face, hard and precise. Bone cracked. Yu Mao's head snapped around. Li wrenched himself and his dao away and jumped back.

His right foot came down on a pig and the animal writhed away with a squeal of pain. Li flailed his arms, just barely regaining his balance as Yu Mao turned back to him. His cheek was deformed, broken bone pushing it out of shape. He bared his teeth and growled, eyes narrowing for a moment in concentration.

Boar's bristles sprouted and faded in a ripple across his face. For a moment, his entire head changed shape, turning long and heavy, a pig's head on a man's body. The change vanished and Yu Mao was entirely human again. And entirely healed.

"Mother of dogs," choked Li. He brought his dao up again.

Awareness came back to Lander amid frantic slapping and a rain of curses from Brin. "Wake up! Wake up, damn you!" Lander reached over and punched at the halfling. Brin just slid back and kicked at his injured hip. Lander howled and sat up.

His head smacked into a beam and he dropped back down. He stared around through a haze of pain. They were trapped beneath a tangle of wood in a space so low Brin could barely stand up. "We're under the shelter in the sty," the halfling snarled. "Li Chien brought it down on top of us. I don't have the leverage to move anything." He kicked at Lander's hip again. "You have to lift the roof up! I need to get out there!"

Lander shifted himself away from Brin's foot. The noises coming from outside didn't sound promising: shouts, screams, and a lot of squealing pigs. There were tiny holes in the thick thatch that covered the roof of the shelter, presumably torn open by Brin. Through one, Lander could see Mosi Anu and Hanibaz Nassor. Tycho was writhing on the ground before them. Through another, he could see Li Chien as he struggled in the midst of a seething herd of pigs. Facing him was the biggest, hairiest, dirtiest Shou he had ever seen. "Who is that? " he yelped.

"Kuang Yu Mao," spat Brin. "Lift, damn-"

Kuang Yu Mao's head flowed, shifted, and for less than a heartbeat became a boar's. Black Scratch! "Bind me!" howled Lander, shoving himself as far back into thetr little space as he could go. Brin reached out and slapped him again.

"We need to get out there!"

Lander slapped him right back. This time he caught him, and the force of the blow spun him around. "Bind and tar you, Brin!" Lander cursed. "I'm staying right here!"

The halfling glared at him and opened his mouth. Anything he might have said, however, was lost in a sudden, sharp yell from outside, a bellow so loud it shook straw from the broken thatch above them. Lander cursed again and covered his head.

Li felt the sudden cry all the way through his body, from his ears deep into his bones. Magic, it had to be more magic-except that whatever spell had been cast, the wizards seemed to have caught the worst of it. They were staggering, hands pressed over their ears.

He wasn't going to question a lucky break, though. The abrupt noise struck terror into the pigs, fear breaking through Yu Mao's eerie power over them. The animals scattered and ran in panic. Li ran, too. Yu Mao might call the pigs again and he wasn't going to be trapped a second time! In the corner of the sty, a wheelbarrow had been propped up between the tall, plank fence and the wall of the Eel. Li sprinted for it; leaping onto the wheelbarrow; bouncing off a stout fencepost; and vaulting onto the Eel's low, almost-flat roof. Up out of the shadows of the alley, red sunlight caught him, the last light of the day. He dashed away from the edge of the roof and whirled around.

With shocking grace, Yu Mao-following the same route-leaped up onto the roof as well. "Ayeh!" he screamed, shaking his swords.

"Hrah!" shouted Li. His dao flashed bloody light as he whirled toward his brother.

A second volley of Mosi's darts stabbed into Tycho and he writhed with the agony that wracked his body. The Yellow Silk winked at him from his sleeve. A bolt. A lash. Anything to deliver swift retribution to the mage! He stretched and reached, but it seemed as if his arms wouldn't obey him. When he tried to move them, they flopped about like long eels squirming in the bottom of a boat. He looked up. Hanibaz, wand at the ready, and Mosi, still veiled by his fiery shield, were stepping warily closer. Tycho groaned and forced himself to his knees. "Stay back!" he said. Some strength flowed back into his arms and he raised them threateningly. "Stay back or-"

"Or what?" laughed Hanibaz. "What are you going to do to us, bard? " He lifted his wand.

The roaring, musical shout that blasted them was so loud that the force of it swept debris along the ground and set Mosi's robes flapping, so loud that it was an almost-visible rippling in the air. Even on the edge of that power, Tycho howled and covered his ears. Within it, Mosi and Hanibaz were sent staggering. When the shout ended a heartbeat later, their ragged screams filled the seeming silence. He stared at them. What…?

"Tycho!"

A voice filled with music and maybe just a hint of the power that had blasted the wizards called his name. A voice he hadn't heard speak with that strength in two years or more. He whirled around.

Veseene stood on the table as if it were a stage. She stood strong and proud, a hand on Laera's shoulder for balance only. Her body trembled, not with palsy, but with a charged and vibrant energy, like a tuning fork that had just been struck. "Tycho!" she called again.

Her mouth was stained red. A pouch, likewise stained red, lay at her feet. The tea pouch. Empty. Laera's eyes were stunned and frightened.

No wonder Veseene's voice had seemed muffled when he had ordered her to run. No wonder she had fought Laera to stay.

She'd eaten the raw, wet tea herbs at full strength.

A moan forced itself out of Tycho's throat. He staggered to his feet. "Veseene, what have you done?"

"Tycho!" she said a third time, a note of command creeping into her voice. "Come here! Do you have your strilling?" Numbly, he nodded and slid the instrument around from his back. It had acquired a few fresh scratches and one of the tuning pegs was cracked, but a strilling was a sturdy instrument. Veseene smiled and power gleamed in her eyes. "Then come here! I need you!"

She straightened herself, held her head high and began to sing with a force that seemed impossible for her frail body. Tycho froze, caught up in the beauty and strength of her song. It pulled on him like the moon on the tide, a wild and liquid music. Magic swirled among the notes. Even when he'd first met her, before the palsy had set in, he'd never heard Veseene sing like this! For a moment, he could picture her as she must have been at the very height of her power. Veseene the Lark, magic flowing like a second voice in her song.