And it was an Ellyl, of course, who spotted the scout.

“Anlaith cysgoddyn!” It was like an Ellylon curse, only sung, in his musical voice. He stood in the stirrups, one finely shaped hand outflung, pointing. “Were!”

She saw; they all did. A grey, slinking figure, ears flattened to its head, ducking behind a thick pine trunk. Once sighted, it moved in a blur, dropping low to the earth, fleeing in swift, leaping bounds. Patches of sunlight dappled the fur on its gaunt flanks as it lunged for deeper shadow.

Aracus Altorus gave a single, terse order. “Shoot it!”

“Wait!” Lilias cried out in instinctive protest, too late.

A half dozen bowstrings twanged in chorus. Most were Ellylon; one was not. Oronin’s Bow sounded a deep, anguished note, belling like a beast at bay. This time, it shot true against its maker’s Children. The same fierce light that suffused the eyes of the Rivenlost lit the Archer’s face as she turned sideways in the saddle, following her arrow’s flight with her gaze. Its path ended in a howl of pain, cut short in a whimper. The underbrush rustled where its victim writhed.

“Blaise,”Aracus said implacably. “See what we have caught.”

“Stay here,” Blaise muttered to Lilias, relinquishing the reins of her mount and dismounting in haste.

Since there was nowhere to go, she did. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she watched as he beckoned to other Borderguardsmen, as their dun cloaks faded into the underbrush. And, sitting in the saddle, she watched as they tracked down their prey and brought him back.

He was slung between them like a hunter’s quarry, a Borderguardsman attached to each outspread limb. It was a pathetic sight, a Were stripped of all his shifting glamour. The haft of a yellow-fletched arrow protruded from the right side of his narrow, hairy breast. His chest heaved with each shallow breath, the wound burbling. Where they passed, crimson droplets of blood clung to the pineneedles.

“Phraotes!” Lilias whispered.

The one-time Were ambassador was panting. He hung in his captors’ grip, jaws agape. His amber eyes, meeting hers, rolled. There were foam and blood on his muzzle. “Sorceress,” he gasped. “It seems, perhaps, I should not have fled.”

Aracus Altorus raised his eyebrows. “You know this creature?”

“Yes.” A tide of anger rose in her. “Yes!” she spat. “I know him, and I know he has done you no harm! He is the Grey Dam’s ambassador to Beshtanag, O King of the West, and he brought to me the news that his folk would do nothing to oppose your passage. Nothing.” Lilias drew a breath. “What harm has he done you now, that you would slay him out of hand? Nothing!”

“Lilias,” Blaise said. One of four, he maintained a cruel grip on Phraotes’ right foreleg, keeping the Were’s hairy limbs stretched taut. “Enough.”