Argulor took the bait; the fierce instinct of his ancestors would not allow him to do otherwise. The eagle launched from his perch with a blood-chilling screech, diving like a great winged missile at his insolent tormentor.

Tsarmina danced triumphantly and laughed aloud at the sight of the half-blind eagle smashing against the barred window. “Haha, you blundering old feather mattress. Dozy farmyard fowl.”

Argulor struggled awkwardly on the narrow window ledge, trying to marshal his wings into a proper flying position to regain what was left of his dignity. The great eagle slipped from the sill, landing on the ground. He had to resort to an ungainly lopsided shuffling run to attain flight.

Tsarmina purred aloud and dug her claws into a rug, opening and closing them, reveling in the pretense of pinioning helpless woodlanders in her needlelike grip, puncturing imaginary hides. Suddenly she whirled over, tossing the rug high in the air. Leaping upon it, she rent it fiercely with her savage strength. Fragments of the flayed rug flew about the room as she ripped and slashed. Hairs and fibers floated in the sunlit shafts from the bars, dancing with golden dust motes on their way to the floor.

Filled with exuberance, the big cat paced restlessly. Soon a bunch of woodlanders would be marched in, sniveling and bound, to await her pleasure.

And what pleasure! Some she would deal with personally; otters, yes, she would take them down to the Gloomer’s lake and see how well they would swim bound up and weighted with stones—that would teach them manners. There were one or two squirrels that could do with jumping lessons from the battlemented roof of Kotir. As for the rest, well, there were always plenty of good hard work and the cells.

* * *

Tsarmina sprang down the stairways and the dripping passages of her fortress, heading for the cells, where sunlight seldom penetrated. Two stoat guards tried hastily to come to attention as their Queen hurtled past, but they were knocked spinning sideways.

Picking himself up from a pool of slimy water, one of the stoats rubbed his head where it had banged against the wall.

“By the fang! What d’you suppose is wrong with her, this time?”

His companion felt gingerly at the sore beginnings of a lump on his snout. “Huh, your guess is as good as mine. One thing I do know, she’s not down here for the good of our health. We’d better get straightened up before she comes back this way.”

Tsarmina ran from cell to cell, peering through the bars at the hostile interiors as she muttered aloud, “Yes, good, this is ideal. They’ll soon learn obedience down here. Males in one cell, females in another and young ones in a special prison all of their own, where they can be heard but not seen by their parents. Haha, I must remember that: heard but not seen. Well, what have we here, all alone in the darkness?”

Gingivere was fading into a gaunt skeleton. The once glossy coat was ragged and graying, his whole body had an air of neglect and decay about it, except the eyes. They fixed Tsarmina with such a burning intensity that she was forced to look away.