His brother moved swiftly but warily, never suspecting that he was followed, never knowing that his every movement was imitated by a smaller shadow. And when Karls slipped across the stream toward Steeltooth territory, Ar’tor climbed up into the hills, up into his cave, and hid himself there, and cried all night.

Toward dawn, Ar’tor smelled it again. It was a hot, gamy odor, and Ar’tor was suddenly aware that the smell had been with him all the night long. There was something in the cave with him, something alive, and oh, by the gods of Spring—

Ar’tor felt his pants moisten with the sudden shock of his fear, and he opened his mouth to scream a death-scream, and die fighting.

Before a sound could leave his throat, he heard something, only it wasn’t a sound that came through his ears. It came in through his head, directly through his skull, and he was stunned into silence.

Be quiet, manchild. Be quiet and we may yet both live.!!!

They hunt us. They hunt us both. If they find us, both will die. Be silent.

Ar’tor was shaking, yet something unexpected forced its way through the terror: fascination. Vvhat was this? What was happening to him? Legends had spoken of men who could speak to animals, but no man, or animal, in the hills had ever had such ability. Was he dreaming?

If it was a dream, it was a dream hot with fur and sharp with fang, and a dream that seemed a living part of the darkness.

There was yelling outside, jeers and obscene, threatening jests from across the stream. Ar’tor wanted to see, but was terrified to make any noise at all.

Come. But be quiet. Come and see.

Ar’tor wiggled up. As he stuck his head through the lip of the cave mouth, he was careful not to disturb any of the rocks.

It was dark, but in the valley below there were men with torches, and they ran howling. One man was in the vanguard, riding a great black stallion. Ar’tor was startled. Such beasts were rare in the hills! Their legs were far too easily broken in chuckholes.

At first he couldn’t make out faces, then he heard the voice, and it was one that made his hackles rise instantly.

Tluman Carpter.

“Hiiiiya!” he screamed, working his horse down the hill. He, and his men, were herding something. Something that stumbled on two legs toward the safety of the creek.

A word rose irresistibly up in Ar’tor’s throat, almost escaping before the dreadful presence in the cave crushed the breath from him with a paw that felt like the underside of a mountain.

Yes, it is your brother. He is a dead man. Do not cry out, or we all perish. Would he wish you dead?

As Ar’tor watched, Karls staggered to the stream and waded across. Ar’tor held his breath. He'll make it. He’ll make it. Just a few more steps and he will be on our ground, and the Steelteeth—

Tluman hied his horse down into the water, and his sword flashed overhead. Karls dove for the bank, stumbled, and then turned, defiant. The gigantic Tluman dismounted.

“So, boy.” The words carried distantly. “You stand and fight. The better for you.”

“You poisoned my uncle.”

“Of course. That is the end of him, and of you. Perhaps your younger brother will have the sense to give me what I want. In that case I may allow him to live as a figurehead.” He laughed speculatively. “He is not entirely without interest to me. You, however, must die. I give you first thrust.”

“1 see no honor to—”

In the middle of his words, Karls lunged forward, the tip of his spear flashing in at Tluman’s neck.

“Hiiii-ya!!” he screamed. That blow should have severed Tluman’s head from his shoulders.

Karls was larger, and, Ar’tor thought, stronger. But Tluman’s sword parry batted the spear aside effortlessly. With Karls’s second thrust, Tluman gripped his hilt with both hands and swung with preternatural timing. He clove the spearhead from the haft.

Another man might have frozen a fatal beat, but not Ar’tor’s brother.

Karls whipped the butt of his spear into Tluman’s ribs, and Tluman grunted at the crack of ironshod spear against bone. Karls spfln the haft like a quarterstaff, and the end cracked against knee and forehead, missing the temple by an inch.

The haft banged against Tluman’s swordhand, and the blade fell from nerveless fingers. Without hesitation, Tluman leapt forward, seizing the spear. The two men were frozen for a moment, exerting unimaginable strength against that length of banded wood.

Then Karls gasped. Tluman’s teeth glinted in the moonlight. Inch by desperate inch, Karls was forced down. He twisted the staff to the side, wrenched it from Tluman’s grasp. Both hands streaked for the shorter man’s throat. Together, they fell into the stream.

Two bodies rolled in the flashing wet, torqued to and fro, striving wordlessly. Then a great, balled fist rose and fell.

A moment’s pause, and that fist filled with a gleaming blade that plunged down once, with awesome finality.

Karls staggered up to his knees, opened his mouth . . .

As if in some bizarre dream, Ar’tor’s brother toppled over onto his face, the life seeping from his body in a dark tide.

Then the other men gathered around, and their blades rose and fell, rose and fell . . .

Ar’tor started to scream, and then there was no breath. If this is death, I welcome it. . . .

Ar’tor woke slowly. The first impression that pierced his consciousness was a smell. It was a heavy, meat-eater’s aroma, and it swarmed into his mind with hooked tendrils.

But there was no sound to accompany it, and no warmth, and he knew that he was alone.

Ar’tor sat up with a jolt. Even in the cold, sweat was a sticky glacier under his arms, on his browline, in the palms of his hands. His lungs labored in the confined space, made the whisper of his breath a rasping thunder.

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had all been a dream.

He crawled to the opening, clawed his way out, pushed himself out into the snow. He blinked and wiped the frost from his eyes, and choked back a cry of grief.

Ar’tor half tumbled, half ran down the mountainside, toward the small, crumpled form of his brother.

Karls lay hideously mangled. Blood had seeped from his body until the snow beneath was tarry with it. Ar’tor’s head whirled, and he fought to control vertigo. This could be no act of men. It had to have been a beast. A hideously depraved beast.

Old Cat.

Ar’tor sank to his knees. What could he do? If he told his tribe what he had seen, Tluman would merely call him a liar. Tluman would demand a test of steel. Syman had formally declared Ar’tor a man, and he would have to undergo the test—only a man can bear witness against a Warchief of the Hilltribes.

He stood no chance against the Lowlander. He would be killed.

Perhaps the Windrunners would try to stand against the Steelteeth and allied tribes alone. And they would be slaughtered. Or he could bring his brother’s body back, and lie, saying he had found it as it was, allowing them to draw their own conclusions. And in two moons, as the last of Syman’s nephews, he would have to face Tluman.

And die.

Karls’s eyes were still open, staring at him with open accusation. With horror Ar’tor saw that the insects had already begun to investigate.

With shaking fingers he closed those eyes. Then he wrapped his arms around his sides and cried until there were no more tears left. And then sobbed without tears.

For his brother, for his uncle, for his lost honor. For the insanity and death that had so suddenly and unexpectedly descended upon the Hollow.

With trembling hands, Ar’tor broke branches and laid them out in a mat. He crisscrossed and wove them, binding with vine and wood fiber until he had a sled that would bear his brother’s weight.

Still crying, he rolled Karls onto it, then set his heels into the snow, beginning the arduous task of dragging his brother’s body back to the village.