Light flashed. I whirled. Two castle creatures stood at the side of the black lump, frozen in midstep, in the act of rushing us. Shed cursed. Asa shrieked. Kingpin zipped past me and drove his blade deep into a chest. I did the same, so rattled I did not recall the difficulty I'd had during our previous encounter.

We both hit the same one. We both yanked out weapons free. "The neck," I gasped. "Go for the vein in the neck."

One-Eye was up again, ready for action. He told me later he had glimpsed motion in the corner of his eye, jumped just in time to evade something thrown. They had known who to take first. Who was most potent.

Hagop came up from behind as the things started moving, added his blade to the contest. As did Shed, to my surprise. He jumped in with a knife about a foot long, got low, went for a hamstring.

It was brief. One-Eye had given us the moment we needed. They were stubborn about it, but they died. The last to go looked up at Shed, smiled, and said, "Marron Shed. You will be remembered." Shed started shaking. Asa said, "He knew you, Shed." "He's the one I delivered bodies to. Every time but one."

"Wait a minute," I countered. "Only one creature got away at Juniper. Don't seem likely it would be the one who knew you. ..." I stopped. I had noticed something disturbing. The two creatures were identical. Even to a scar across the chest when I peeled back their dark clothing. The creature the Lieutenant and I had hauled down the hill, after having slain it before the castle gate, had had such a scar.

While everyone else was suffering post-combat shakes, One-Eye asked Hagop, "You see anything silver around Old Bones? When you were checking first?" "Uh. . . ."

One-Eye held up Shed's necklace. "It might have looked something like this. It was what killed him."

Hagop gulped and dug into a pocket. He handed over a necklace identical to Shed's, except that the serpents had no eyes.

"Yeah," One-Eye said, and again held Shed's necklace to the light. "Yeah. The eyes it was. When the time was right. Time and place."

I was more interested in what else might come out of the black lump. I pulled Hagop around the side, found the entrance. It looked like the entrance to a mud hut. I supposed it wouldn't become a real gate till the place grew up. I indicated the tracks. "What do they tell you?"

"They tell me it's busy and we ought to get out of here. There's more of them."

"Yeah."

We rejoined the others. One-Eye was wrapping Shed's necklace in a piece of cloth. "We get back to town, I'm sealing this in something made of steel and sinking it in the harbor.''

"Destroy it, One-Eye. Evil always finds its way back. The Dominator is a perfect example."