"You have injured the game, Pyr," the Braith with the laser commented from the other side of the tunnel.

"Not overly, I would hope," said the heavy man.

"Are you going to kill me?" Dirk asked. The words came with remarkable ease, considering what they were. He was finally beginning to recover from the kick.

Gwen raised her eyes when he spoke. "Eventually they'll kill you," she said in a hopeless voice. "It won't be an easy end. I'm sorry, Dirk."

"Silence, betheyn-bitch," said the heavy man, the one called Pyr. Dirk was vaguely conscious of having heard the name before. The man glanced at her casually as he spoke, then looked back toward Dirk.

"What does she mean?" Dirk said nervously. He was pressing himself hard against the stone and trying to tense his muscles inconspicuously. Pyr stood less than a meter away. The Braith seemed cocky and off-guard, but Dirk wondered how true an impression that might be. The man was holding the torch aloft in his left hand, but his right held something else-a baton about a meter long, of some dark wood, with a round hardwood knob at one end and a short blade at the other. He held it lightly between his fingers, his hand around the center shaft, tapping it rhythmically against his leg.

"You have led us a spirited chase, mockman," Pyr said. "I do not say this lightly, or in jape. Few are my equals in the old high hunt. None are my superior. Even Lorimaar high-Braith Arkellor has only half my trophy count. So when I tell you that this hunt has been extraordinary, you know I say truth. I am elated that it is not over."

"What?" Dirk said. "Not over?" The man was so close-he wondered if he could get Pyr between himself and the other man, the one with the laser, and maybe wrest the bladed baton away from him. Perhaps he could even get Pyr's holstered sidearm.

"There is no sport in taking a sleeping mockman, nor is there honor. You will run again, Dirk t'Larien."

"He'll make you his personal korariel," Gwen said angrily, looking at the two Braiths with calculated defiance. "No one will be able to hunt you except him and his teyn."

Pyr turned toward her again. "I said silence!"

She laughed at him. "Knowing Pyr," she continued, "the hunt will be pure tradition. You'll be cut loose in the forests, probably naked. These two will put away their lasers and aircars and come after you on foot, with knives and throwing-swords and hounds. After they deliver me to my masters, of course."

Pyr was frowning. The other Braith raised his pistol and used it to give Gwen a sharp crack across the mouth.

Dirk tensed, hesitated an instant too long, and jumped.

Even a meter was too far; Pyr was smiling as his head turned again. The baton came up with frightening speed, and the knob caught Dirk square in the gut. He staggered and doubled up and somehow tried to keep going. Pyr stepped daintily backwards and brought his stick around hard, into Dirk's groin. The world vanished in a red haze.

He was vaguely conscious of Pyr standing over him once more after he had collapsed. Then the Braith struck him a third time, an almost casual blow to the side of his head, and then there was nothing.

He hurt. That was the first thing he knew. That was all he knew. He hurt. His head spun and throbbed and shuddered in a strange sort of rhythm; his stomach ached as well, and below that he felt numb. Pain and dizziness were the boundaries of Dirk's world. For the longest time, that was everything.

Gradually, though, a blurred sort of awareness returned to him. He began to notice things. The pain first-it came and went in waves. Up and down it went, up and down. He was going up and down too, he finally realized, jouncing and bouncing. He was lying on something. Being dragged or carried. He moved his hands, or tried to. It was hard. The pain seemed to wipe away all normal sensation. His mouth was full of blood. His ears were ringing, buzzing, burning.

He was being carried, yes. There were voices; he could hear voices, talking and buzzing. The words would not come clear. Ahead, somewhere, a light danced and wavered; everything else was a gray mist.

Little by little the buzzing dwindled. Finally the words began to come.

"… not be happy," said a voice he did hot know. He did not think he knew it, anyway. It was hard to tell. Everything was so terribly distant, and he was bouncing, and the pain came and went, came and went, came and went.

"Yes," said another voice, heavy, clipped, sure.

More buzzing-several voices at once. Dirk understood nothing.

Then one man silenced the others. "Enough," he said. This voice was more removed even than the first two; it came from somewhere ahead, from the wavering light. Pyr? Pyr. "I have no fear of Bretan Braith Lantry, Roseph. You forget who I am. I had taken three heads in the wilds when Bretan Braith was still sucking women's teats. The mockman is mine by all the old rights."

"Truth," the first unknown voice replied. "If you had taken him in the tunnels, none would deny your right. Yet you did not."

"I wish a pure hunt, of the oldest kind." Someone said something in Old Kavalar. There was a laugh.

"Many the time we hunted together in our youth, Pyr," the strange voice said. "Had you only felt differently about women, we might well have become teyn-and-teyn, we two. I would not speak you wrong. Bretan Braith Lantry wants this man badly."

"He is no man, he is mockman. You ruled him so yourself, Roseph. The wants of Bretan Braith are nothing to me."

"I did rule him mockman, and so he is. To you and me, he is only one such, one among many. We have the jelly children to hunt, the Emereli, and others. You do not need him, Pyr. Bretan Braith feels differently. He came to the death-square and was made a fool when the man he challenged was no man at all."

"That is truth, but it is not the whole of it. T'Larien is a special sort of prey. Two of our kethi are dead at his hands, and Koraat lies dying with a broken spine. No mockman has ever run that way before. I will take him, as is my right. I found him, I alone."

"Yes," said the second new voice, the heavy, clipped one. "That is truth enough, Pyr. How did you discover him?"

Pyr was glad enough of a chance to boast. "I was not misled by the aircar, as you were, and you, and even Lorimaar. He had been too clever, this mockman, and the betheyn-bitch who ran at his side. They would not let the car sit like a pointer to the place they had gone. When you had all taken your hounds and fanned out down the corridor, my teyn and I began to search the mall by torchlight, looking for a trail. I knew the hounds would be useless. No need for them. I am a better tracker than any hound or hound master. I have tracked mockmen over the bare stone of the Lameraan Hills, through the blasted dead cities, even into the abandoned holdfasts of Taal and Bronzefist and the Glowstone Mountain. These two were pitifully easy. We checked each corridor for a distance of several meters, then moved on to check the next. We found the trail. Scuffmarks on the floor outside a subway ramp, then veritable road signs in the dust. The track vanished when they began to use their flying toys, of course, but by then we had only two possible directions to consider. I feared they might try to fly all the way to Esvoch or Kryne Lamiya, but such was not the truth. It took us most of the day and long walking, yet we caught them."

Dirk was almost alert by then, though his body was still wrapped in a gauze of pain and he doubted that it would respond very efficiently if he tried to move. He could see quite clearly. Pyr Braith was walking in front with the hand torch, talking to a smaller man in white and purple, who must be Roseph, the arbiter of the duels that never were. Between them was Gwen, walking under her own power, her hands still bound. She was silent. Dirk wondered if they had gagged her, but it was impossible to tell, since he could only see her back.