He strode briskly outside.

Tsarmina dodged inside, slamming the gates and bolting them.

Bane was puzzled momentarily. “Hoi, what’s the matter with you, Tsarmina?”

There was no reply. Tsarmina was racing across the parade ground to watch from her high window.

Suddenly Bane sensed he had been tricked, but it was too late.

* * *

Argulor had already launched himself from his perch. He homed in on the red-cloaked figure like a bolt from the blue.

On the other side of Kotir, Bane’s mercenaries worked away on the scullery door, blissfully unaware of what was taking place outside.

Bane did not see the eagle swoop; he was trying to find pawholds as he clambered up the oaken gates.

Argulor struck him hard from behind, burying powerful talons and vicious hooked beak in the prey that had eluded him for so long. The fox was transfixed, frozen with cruel agony; but as the eagle started to carry him off, Bane’s fighting instincts took over. Freeing his curved sword, he struck upward at the feathered enemy.

The sword hit Argulor, once, twice!

Doggedly the great eagle sank talons and beak deeper into his prey. Beating the air with his massive wing-spread as he did, both hunter and quarry rose skyward.

Tsarmina at her window danced up and down in fiendish glee. Attracted by the screams, the occupants of Kotir looked up. Bane slashed wildly with his sword; Argulor stabbed madly with his beak. All the while the combatants rose higher, and soon they were above the treetops.

Chibb fluttered in circles some distance away. He watched the amazing sight as eagle and fox rose into the sky.

Far above Mossflower, Argulor won the battle. Bane gave a final shudder and went limp, the curved sword falling from his lifeless paws. The ancient eagle felt cheated; this was no pine marten, it was a fox. Argulor’s heart sank in his breast. It did not rise again. The rheumy eyes shut in the same instant as the great wings folded in death, and only the talons remained fixed deep into the dead fox.

Tsarmina watched as both creatures plunged earthward.

Two enemies defeated in a single brilliant stroke.

* * *

Ratflank dashed for the gate. Brogg shouted after him, “Where d’you think you’re off to?”

“Ha, to get that cloak, of course. That’s a good bit of velvet. It can be repaired, y’know.”

“Get back here, frogbrain. See what happened to the fox—he wore the cloak. D’you want the same thing happening to you?”

“Frogbrain yourself, dimwit. Can’t you see the eagle’s dead? Any creature can wear that cloak now.”

“Hoi! Don’t you call me dimwit, droopywhiskers.”

“I’ll call you what I like, dimwit. Nitears! Fatnose!”

* * *

Tsarmina smiled inwardly, a third victory today. Now that she heard Ratflank shouting she could identify the insolent voice that had often insulted her from the protection of the ranks or the bottom of a curved stairwell.

Later that day, she instructed Brogg.