I guess it’s the widening of her eyes that warns him. I never saw it coming, and it seems no one else was looking either. Only Anwatan. But we all see it now: there’s Minisino taking a swing at his head with a weighted club he’s pulled from his belt.

Joe turns, but he’s not quick enough. The business end of that club catches him in the back of the head—hard—and he goes down.

The rest of us aren’t much quicker than Joe in our reaction times. Cassie got out a late warning cry, but too late. The other cerva and humans don’t seem aware of what’s happening until it’s over. Raven and Ayabe stare, motionless, too surprised to immediately respond.

I understand perfectly.

There are a lot of things I don’t admire about Minisino, but the last thing I expected from him was such a cowardly attack.

Only Jack’s instincts are good. He doesn’t think, he just acts.

At the instant the club connects with Joe’s skull, a big grey coyote is already closing the distance between himself and Minisino, launching himself at the war chief’s throat. Minisino manages to turn just enough to protect his throat, but the coyote gets a hold of his shoulder and his weight throws Minisino off-balance. The two go down. Minisino closes a big hand around the coyote’s throat and raises his club.

But that’s as far as he gets.

We’ve all started forward, but Raven gets there first. He just picks Minisino up, like the big buffalo has no more weight than a child, and gives him a shake. We all hear the sharp crack as his neck snaps.

Raven drops the body and turns to Jack. The coyote’s gone and Jack gets up, brushing dirt from his clothes.

“How’s Joe?” Jack asks.

We turn to find Cassie kneeling beside him, cradling his head on her lap. She has her hand on the open wound and blood streams from between her fingers.

It might look worse than it really is, I try to tell myself. Head wounds always bleed a lot.

But his brown complexion’s got a grey cast to it and there’s a bad feeling in the air. I reach out to send him some positive thoughts, but they just dissipate in the air because there’s nothing there to receive them. Like there’s no one home.

Cassie lifts her head to look at Raven.

“Do something!” she cries.

He lifts his head and roars the word into the sky: “Healers!”

I put my hands on my ears, but it doesn’t diminish the howling call because he’s sending a thought demand that’s louder than the physical cry.

“Oh, crap,” Jack says at my side. “This doesn’t look good.”

Jilly