Tsulgax started back to the inn. The lamplight was gone from the kitchen windows. Then someone came around one end of the building and started toward the road. The rakutu cut him off, and the person stopped.

"You got bed I can rent?" Tsulgax asked, closing in on him.

The person was a kitchen boy in early adolescence, pale and worried looking. "I don't know," he said, then added, "we're closed."

Tsulgax leaned in the boy's face. "What room is Lion in?"

"Lion? The Lion of Farside? I- He- I don't know, but probably one of the single rooms in front. The rooms in back have pallets on the floor, several in each. I don't think he'd want one of them."

"Let me in. I pay. Stay in back room." The rakutu put a large right hand in a pocket. "Got money."

"I can't. It's all locked up."

Tsulgax's left hand shot out and grabbed the boy by the jacket front, jerking him close. This time when he spoke, he dropped the lisp. "You have key. Let me in." He glared intently into the boy's frightened face.

The lad nodded, scared half to death. "Yessir," he said, "since you're a friend of the Lion."

Together they walked around to the kitchen door, which the boy unlocked and held open.

"Go in," said Tsulgax, motioning.

"Sir, I need to go home. My ma'am'll worry if I…"

Tsulgax grabbed the boy's jacket again, thrust him through the door, then closed it behind them. Enough snowlight entered the windows to see by, dimly. "Get candle. Light it."

It seemed to the boy that something very bad was going to happen; he barely whispered his "Yessir." Taking a long splinter from a match pot, he lit it at the fireplace, and with it lit the large candle in a pewter candleholder. The man took the candle from him, then gripped the boy by the jacket again, this time a shoulder.

"Take me to stairs," the man said. "Do not fear. I not harm you."

The boy obeyed. When they got there, the stranger set the candle aside, grabbed him by the throat and crushed his trachea with his thumbs, holding him till he was surely dead.

Macurdy awoke slowly. For a moment he assumed Varia had lit their lamp, perhaps to use the chamber pot. Then realizing she was still in bed beside him, he sat up-to see a large figure looming over him. He felt the jab of a saber through the blankets.

"Lie back down, Montag!"

The order was murmured in thickly accented German. Montag! Macurdy's skin crawled.

"Curtis," Varia said muzzily, "is anything the matter?"

"It's Tsulgax," he answered.

She sat up as if propelled by a spring. "What?"

"He is right." Tsulgax spoke Yuultal this time. "He killed my father and stealed you." He did not remove his eyes from Macurdy's, or his sword tip from Macurdy's belly. "Get from bed, woman. Clothe yourself for travel. If you disobey me, or make difficulty, I kill your lover. Pin him to bed, then kill you. You follow my orders, you live. And he live for a while."

Carefully and without speaking, she slid naked out of bed. Tsulgax gave her not a glance.

Macurdy had examined the weapon threatening him. Single-edged. But even so, held strongly in a determined hand, with the point already in his skin, there was no chance in hell he could knock it away. The angle of thrust would drive it through his guts and into his chest.

"You think I killed your father?" he asked. "How could I have done that, tied and gagged, with a rakutu sitting by me?"

"It is no difference how. You killed him. I told him in Bavaria you were danger to him. Told him again at Voitazosz. He not believed. Now it is happened."

"You thought that even in Bavaria?"

"I never trusted Nazis. If you get what you want, you kill us all. And destroy gate."

"I was no Nazi. I was their enemy. A spy. The Nazis are dead now. My people destroyed them. We had a greater sorcery than the Nazis and their allies."

Tsulgax snorted. "Farside people no sorcerers. No…" He groped for the word. "No talent." Then he spoke to Varia without looking at her. "You ready to leave, woman?"

"I'm ready to scream," she said.

"Do not. It is no good. At first sound, Lion is dead. Then you. You do what I say, I not kill you."

Macurdy spoke as if Tsulgax's exchange with Varia hadn't occurred. "You loved your father, didn't you?" he asked.

"Don't talk to me about love my father! You love yours? My father always kind to me. To Rillissa and me, but more to me. Me he keeped by him. It all right that I not have hive mind. He kind to me anyway. He tell me, Tsulgax, we be always together, you and me."

"And you think I spoiled that."

"I kill you for it. But not yet."

"What do you have in mind? A fight hand to hand? Or a duel, with sabers?"

Tsulgax snorted scornfully. "Duel too quick. I…"

There was a noise from below, hard to identify. Tsulgax frowned. His eyes flicked aside for just an instant.

Varia heard it too. "Excuse me, Tsulgax," she said. "Shall I wear boots for riding or for walking?"

There was a hard heavy thudding from the stairs, then the hall. Tsulgax frowned, and the saber tip bit deeper as his eyes jerked toward the door. Macurdy tensed, readying himself.

Abruptly two hard hooves struck the door, driving it crashing out of the frame, and Vulkan's monstrous head and neck came through, great tusks clacking. Tsulgax jumped back, eyes wide, saber raised in defense. As he did, Macurdy threw off the cover and gestured. Tsulgax screamed, throwing the saber from him. It landed on the foot of the bed, red hot, and the blanket began at once to smolder. At the same time, Macurdy rolled out of bed, into the knees of the distracted Tsulgax. The rakutu jumped back, drawing his belt knife as Macurdy scrambled to his feet. Another gesture, and the knife dropped to the floor-just as Varia, with all her strength, slammed the rakutu on the head from behind, with a heavy oak stool.

She'd always been strong; given the circumstance, her strength was tripled. Tsulgax fell. Ignoring him now, she stepped to the window and pushed it open. Then without pausing, she dragged the covers from the bed, flames flickering at one end. Wadding them roughly, she thrust them out the window, and they fell to the snowy ground. Then she poured the water pitcher onto the featherbed, which was beginning to smolder and stink.

There were excited voices in the hall. With Tsulgax down, Vulkan withdrew his bulk from the doorway and backed toward the stairwell. Wearing a nightshirt to his shanks, the innkeeper looked into the room. Guests peered in past him, their eyes on Macurdy, who was bent buck-naked over a figure on the floor. Before raising the unconscious rakutu, he removed the winter cap, exposing the ears. They were more than four inches long, covered with fine, curly red hair. The terminal three inches were free, voitulike.

Macurdy turned to the men in the doorway. "It's a rakutu," he said matter-of-factly. "Half-blood voitu. He's the son of the invader's commander, Crown Prince Kurqosz. I didn't know he was still alive. He tracked me down to kill me, for revenge."

He turned to Varia. "I'm pretty sure he's dead. His skull's caved in, and stuff's run out his nose and ears."

Varia looked ill but didn't say a thing. Macurdy dragged Tsulgax into the hallway and talked briefly with the innkeeper, who dragged the wet and stinking featherbed away, returning shortly with one in decent shape, and fresh bedding.

Bidding his host goodnight, Macurdy went back into hus room and closed the door. With three volunteers, the innkeeper lugged the corpse of Tsulgax to the woodshed. It would freeze solid by morning.