Charn pulled himself behind a rotting log and swiped the sweat from his brow. A single lightning-struck tree, like a beech, loomed over him, partially cored out. Below him some brush rustled at the edge of the clearing, and the one named Forgiveknot slipped into the glade, bolas hanging from his belt. Charn knew him well. He’d misjudged a shot at the old faun years before and given him that scar across the face. He smiled grimly. He so hated to miss.

The sight of him made up Charn’s mind: kill them now, before any more showed up. He slipped the Remington off his shoulder and rested the barrel on the log. He put the front sight on Forgiveknot.

Something clattered in the dead tree over him. There was a chittering and a rustle.

“Assassin!” cried a whurl gazing down at Charn from one branch of the blasted tree. “Save yourselves! A Son of Cain is here to kill you all!”

Charn rolled and swung the barrel up. His sights found the whurl, and he pulled the trigger, and the gun made a flat, tinny click. For a moment he just stared at the old Remington in a kind of blank bewilderment. It was loaded—he had put in a fresh cartridge himself only a few minutes before. A misfire? He didn’t believe it. He cleaned and oiled the gun once a month, whether he used it or not.

He was still trying to come to grips with that awful, dead click when the loop of rope fell. It caught him around the face, and Charn sat up, and as he did, it dropped around his neck and tightened. The lasso yanked. The rope choked off his air, and it jerked him back, over the rotten log and over the edge. He spun as he fell. He hit the earth with enough force to drive all the air out of him. Ribs broke. Pain screamed in his shattered ankle. A thousand black specks wheeled around him, like midges, only they were in his head.

He sprawled on the ground, ten feet from his little door. As his vision cleared, it seemed the sky was lighter, almost lemon-colored. He could see fair clouds in the distance.

His right hand fumbled for the rifle, but just as his shaking fingers scraped the butt, whoever held the other end dragged him away. Charn choked, tried to force his fingers under the rope and couldn’t. He rolled and kicked as he was dragged and wound up on his belly, beneath the single corrupted, dead tree that leaned out over the whole natural amphitheater.

“Rifle wouldn’t do you any good anyway,” Fallows said from above him. Charn stared at his black hooves. “I took the firing pin out last night, while you were upstairs with Christian.”

The tension on the line slackened, and Charn was able to loosen the noose a few centimeters and capture a breath. He stared up at Fallows. His skull was shaved clean to show the stumps of two horns, long since sawed off, and he was backlit by a sky the reddish gold of new-minted copper.