“Oh, the slave sniffed out the little cavern where her clan keep their disreputable boats. He speaks their tongue, but they lied to him in the village about you, Vazkor. They told us you had gone by them on the trek north. If it had not been for the slave’s sharp eyes and mine, seeing that pin-head of beacon fire last night, we should never have dreamed where you might be. When I am done with you, my brother and I shall revisit this bitch’s tribe, and roast them in their huts.”

Just then I saw a bright orange marker in the grass—the tail tip of Hwenit’s red cat. Next moment, yowling, the cat sprang up Zrenn’s booted leg and bit him in the thigh and sprang away. Zrenn yelled and half whirled about, slashing with his knife after the cat, which had already been too quick for him and was gone. Instantly Hwenit darted from his grasp, but, unlike the cat, not quick enough.

Zrenn moved fast as a lash and caught her by her hair as she was running from him, and reeled her about. His face was crazy with a white fury of pain, irritation, and maleficence, and full in this dangerous face Hwenit spit, and with a single movement of his arm, unpremeditated, directed by spite alone, Zrenn hammered his knife into her side.

Then came stasis, Zrenn letting slip between his fingers, like the motivating strings of a puppet, the black stands of Hwenit’s hair. As she gradually loosened and slid toward the ground, his expression altered to total disbelief. He had played the wrong game piece, and too soon.

I discovered myself already spinning around, crashing my fist hard into Orek’s arm so his blade went flying, smashing the other fist into his belly. He folded soundlessly away into the weeds, neat as a lady’s fan.

When I looked back, Zrenn had recovered himself.

He waited for me, part crouching, his red knife flickering, eyes bright. But I was done fighting. I did not glance at the shape of the woman; my guts were knotted up, but I kept her lessoning.

“Zrenn,” I said.

“Fight me, warrior.”

His eyes, white-hot, the blue sucked away by the heat, danced at me. Then the dance went out of them. Confronting mine, they fixed like enamel in the kiln. It took three breaths to mesmerize him, this lord of the silver, even for one new to the practice. He looked as small to me as a gnat. It was no difficulty for me to take control of him.

“Zrenn,” I said, “come closer.”

“No,” he muttered, but he came.

I took the knife from his fingers and he could not prevent it. His face worked and struggled all about his calcined eyes, to tell me I must not hurt him. To no avail.

I held his rat’s-skin hair, and cut his throat. He gargled in blood; it reminded me of his laughter. It is a vile death, but brief.