Something spasmed through Enth’s body: her words or the claws of Penthos’s forbiddings. Harathes lunged for him, one hand out to grip the man-spider’s shoulder for a steady aim. If he had been his sober self, with a warrior’s command of the situation, that would have been it. He was half-drunk and half-hungover, though, and all consumed by bitter rage. Enth twisted aside from the blow, taking a long rake down his gray flank, and then slapped Harathes off him. It was a tentative gesture, with barely any force behind it. The warrior took a step back, reevaluating. For a second, the two of them stared at each other, blue eyes to black pools.

Enth had struck Harathes, no matter how lightly. No doom had fallen on him. He was forbidden to hurt any of the company. He was permitted to defend himself. He must obey when given instructions. As Cyrene had instructed him.

Cyrene found other words coming to her mouth, even as she lurched forward. They were all manner of cluttered, confused words, drawn from her own frustrations just as Harathes was being ridden by his.

She did not say, “Kill him.” She caught and strangled the utterance at the border of speech.

Harathes lashed out with the knife, taking a line that would open Enth’s throat and leaving him almost nowhere to move. Enth moved. He thrust out his hands and straight-armed Harathes in the chest hard enough to catapult him back out of the door. There was the sound of smashing furniture from the room beyond, better than any cockcrow to wake men up and draw them in.

“Enth—” Cyrene began, but the creature was already after his quarry, stark naked and running into the realms of men. As she followed, she knew exactly how it would all look. But what could she do? To restrain Enth would be to kill him. To keep him off the leash might be to kill Harathes. To hang back would be to miss what happened.

Enth dropped onto Harathes in a swift pounce, but the warrior had a chair leg in hand and got a solid blow into his chest in mid-jump, sending him tumbling to the side. He landed on his hands and feet, skidding a little on the cluttered floor, with three servants and an off-duty soldier getting well out of the way.

Then the two combatants clashed again, Enth clawing and reaching, trying to bring his strength to bear, Harathes the better warrior, holding distance and landing blows that seemed mostly to bounce from that gray, dense flesh. Cyrene had ceased to shout at them. It was not doing any good.