"Hissune?"

The voice came from behind him. "Who is it?" Hissune called, without looking around.

"Alsimir." A knight-initiate from Peritole, a year or two older than he was.

"Are you all right?" Hissune asked.

"I'm hurt. Malorn stung me."

"Hurt bad?"

"My arm's puffing up. Venomous."

"I'll be there right away. But first—"

"Watch out. It jumps."

And indeed the malorn seemed to be flexing its legs for a leap. Hissune waited, balancing on the balls of his feet, rocking lightly. For an infinitely long moment nothing happened. Time itself seemed frozen: and Hissune stared patiently at the malorn. He was perfectly calm. He left no room in his mind for fear, for uncertainty, for speculation on what might happen next.

Then the strange stasis broke and suddenly the creature was aloft, kicking itself into the air with a great thrust of all its legs; and in the same moment Hissune rushed forward, scrambling down the ridge toward the soaring malorn, so that the beast in its mighty leap would overshoot him.

As the malorn coursed through the air just above Hissune's head he threw himself to the ground to avoid the stabbing swipes of the deadly tail. Holding the cudgel in both his hands, he jabbed fiercely upward, ramming it as hard as he could into the creature's underbelly. There was a whooshing sound of expelled air and the malorn's legs flailed in anguish in all directions. Its claws came close to grazing Hissune as it fell.

The malorn landed on its back a few feet away. Hissune went to it and danced forward between the thrashing legs to bring the cudgel down into the malorn's belly twice more. Then he stepped back. The malorn was still moving feebly. Hissune found the biggest boulder he could lift, held it high above the malorn, let it fall. The thrashing legs grew still. Hissune turned away, trembling now, sweating, and leaned on his cudgel. His stomach churned wildly and heaved; and then, after a moment, he was calm again.

Alsimir lay some fifty feet up the ridge, with his right hand clasped to his left shoulder, which seemed swollen to twice its normal size. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy.

Hissune knelt beside him. "Give me your dagger. I've lost mine."

"It's over there."

Swiftly Hissune cut away Alsimir's sleeve, revealing a star-shaped wound just above the biceps. With the tip of the dagger he cut a cross over the star, squeezed, drew blood, sucked it, spat, squeezed again.

Alsimir trembled, whimpered, cried out once or twice. After a time Hissune wiped the wound clean and rummaged in his pack for a bandage.

"That might do it," he said. "With luck you'll be in Ertsud Grand by this time tomorrow and you can get proper treatment."

Alsimir stared in horror at the fallen malorn. "I was trying to edge around it, same as you—and suddenly it jumped at me and bit me. I think it was waiting for me to die before it ate me—but then you came along."