Lanefenuu walked slowly forward, numb with disbelief. It was an ustuzou, pallid of skin, fur around its middle, fur on its head and face, empty-handed, glowing metal around its neck. The ustuzou Kerrick as Vaintè had described it.

“I have come with a warning,” the ustuzou said, arrogance and insult in its mode of address. Lanefenuu’s crest flared with her instant anger.

“Warning? To me? You ask only for death, ustuzou.”

She strode forward, menace in every movement, but stopped when he framed certainty-of-destruction.

“I bring only death and pain, Eistaa. The death is here already and more will come if you do not listen to that which I will tell you. Death doubled. Death twice.”

There was sudden motion at the ambesed entrance and they both looked at the hurrying Yilanè who appeared, mouth gaping wide with the heat of her rapid movements.

“Death,” the newcomer said, with the same controllers of urgency and strength that Kerrick had used. Lanefenuu was crushed back onto her tail, numbed by shock, silent while the Yilanè shaped what she had to say.

“Sent by Muruspe—urgency of message. The uruketo she command—death. It is dead. Suddenly dead in the night. And another uruketo. Dead. Two dead.”

Lanefenuu’s cry of pain cut the air. She who had commanded an uruketo herself, who had spent her life with and for the great creatures, whose city boasted more and better uruketo than any other. Now. Two of them. Dead. She turned in pain, twisted by pain, to look at the great carving of the uruketo above her, of her likeness high on its fin. Two dead. What had the ustuzou said? She turned slowly to face the terrible creature.

“Two dead” Kerrick said again with the grimmest of controllers. “Now we will talk, Eistaa.”

He signed instant-dismissal to the messenger, from highest to lowest and the Yilanè turned and hurried away. Even this presumption of power in her presence did not disturb Lanefenuu, could not penetrate the grief she felt at her irreplaceable loss.

“Who are you?” she asked, the question muffled by her pain. “What do you want here?”

“I am Kerrick-highest and I am Eistaa of all the Tanu whom you call ustuzou. I have brought you death. Now I will bring you life. It is I who commanded the killing of the uruketo. Those I order did this thing”

“Why?”