"It got me in the lung. I thought I was going to die."

"Your internal injuries were not that severe. Perhaps Triana healed you before she allowed Azakar to take you."

"Druids can heal?"

"Yes. Their healing is crude by a Sorcerer's standards, but they do have some ability."

"What's the difference?"

"A Sorcerer returns the body to its original condition," she explained. "We cannot heal diseases as Priests can, nor can we heal those who are so weak that their body cannot withstand the healing, but any type of injury or wounding can be healed. Druids only accelerate the body's natural healing process. If an injury does not set or heal correctly, there is nothing more they can do. Their healing also leaves scars, where ours does not."

"I guess that makes sense. Sevren once told me that Druidic magic is the magic of nature, so their healing would depend on the natural healing of the one being healed."

"Correct," she smiled. "I see you paid more attention in class than I previously believed."

"I tried," he said with a small smile.

"You may get up and move about, but do not exert yourself. You may also go up on deck, but I do not have to-"

"I'll be careful," he promised.

"Renoit left you these," she said, patting a set of leathers sitting on the nightstand. "He noticed that your other clothes are all getting a bit shaggy."

"It's the claws," he said casually, throwing the covers aside. He was nude beneath them, but he had no reservations about it. Dolanna had seen him without his clothes more times than he could count, and it didn't bother him in the slightest to appear before others unclad.

Dolanna stood up. "I will see you on deck, dear one. If you feel up to it, join us for our daily lesson in Sorcery. At least after I drag my students away from Renoit's performers."

Tarrin tested the fit of the leathers after putting them on. There hadn't been a hole for his tail, but a claw fixed that problem. They fit rather well, a pair of brown leather trousers and a simple brown sleeveless vest that left his torso, upper arms, and chest bare, and showed his brands to the world. They were usually hidden beneath the cotton shirts he preferred to wear.

Going up on deck, he ignored the looks and the stares from the performers, breathing in the fresh air. Miranda and Keritanima seemed to excuse themselves from their dancing and start towards him. Allia, much closer to him, rushed over and hugged him, and kissed him on the cheek. "Dolanna said you were well," she said in Selani. "She told us to come up and train. I nearly spit her on my sword."

"I'm alright, sister," he assured her.

He embraced Keritanima, then took Miranda's hand gently as the Princess slapped him several times on the chest and shoulder. "Stop doing that to me!" she demanded. "What possessed you to run off and fight that thing alone?"

"You have no idea what it is and what it can do, Kerri," he told her seriously. "Leaving you behind probably saved your life."

"I think you think I can't carry my own weight," she said scathingly.

"Kerri, I wouldn't even let Allia fight that thing. What do you think that means for you?"

Allia gave him a penetrating look, and Keritanima laughed ruefully. "I hate being the low girl in this totem pole," she said to them.

"When I face it one on one, I know exactly what it's going to do. If I'd have had others with me, it would have been unpredictable. Trust me, sisters, the best way to go about it was to do exactly what I did."

"I guess we must bow to your experience in this matter, my brother," Allia said. "But I do not like it. You dishonor me by treating me like a child."

"No, sister, I'm keeping you alive," he told her. "It can't be hurt by weapons that aren't enchanted by magic. There's nothing you can really do against it other than be a target."

"I can defeat you without magical weapons," she snorted.

"I also feel pain, sister. That thing is already dead. It doesn't feel pain and it doesn't have any fear. I ripped its arm off, something that would stop almost anything else, and it didn't affect it any more than using harsh language. Kick me in the head, and I get stunned. Kick it in the head, and it'll turn around and cut out your liver."

"You have a point," she acceded.

"I'm sorry if I worried you, but I did what I did for all of us, not just for me," he explained.

"Your reunion, it is over, yes?" Renoit shouted at them from the stern. "Practice, my performers! There is only eight days to Shoran's Fork!"

"I'm going to-" Keritanima started with a growl.

"You're going to go practice," Tarrin cut her off. "I'll still be here tonight, sister."

"Alright," Keritanima chuckled.

Tarrin watched his sisters and friend go back to their practice, sighing a bit. He was just glad they were alright. He'd fight the Doomwalker fifty times in a row if it meant keeping those he held dear out of danger. He knew they'd all have to fight together at some point, but the longer that took, the happier he was.

Tarrin went the rail and stared out at the landline on the horizon, a greenish-brown strip near the horizon. He was still a little surprised that Triana had spared him. The look in her eyes, the complete emotionlessness of her stare, it had convinced him that she was going to stand there and watch him die, to make sure of it. But she had spared him. The Goddess said that what he had to say to Triana would decide whether he would live or die, and it had come true. He didn't remember what he said to her, but whatever it was, it had to have been effective.

He hated it. He didn't hate Triana. She was strong, commanding, and just the sight of her seemed to both terrify him and bring to him a strange pride. He knew she didn't hate him. She was just doing her duty. It was just like it was with Jesmind, but Jesmind had had a more intimate interest in him. He wanted to learn from Triana, to get to know her, but fate had cast them down on opposite sides of a line in the sand. He didn't want to fight the Fae-da'Nar, but he didn't have the time to stop and learn what they wanted to teach.

It had been a hard choice, but it really was no choice at all.

In a way, Fae-da'Nar and the Were-cats were a part of his family. Jesmind had been his bond-mother, responsible for him, then she had become something more. Part of him still yearned for her. It hurt in the strangest way to reject them, to force them to have to try to kill him. He had no animosity towards any of them, but they just wouldn't listen. They were all too stubborn, too wrapped up in their law to understand that it only took a little bending of it to make everything alright. Jesmind's pride had made them enemies, and now Triana's ferocious tenacity was doing the same. Nobody would listen to him, listen to his side in their dispute, and that both frustrated and saddened him.

To them, he was just a child. Perhaps that made them think that they knew what was best for him.

Jegojah was another matter. At least he understood what the Doomwalker was doing now. He would see it again. And again, and again. It would keep coming back until it finally destroyed him. Jegojah was an enemy, but again, there was a curious lack of hatred in him for it. It was a powerful fighter, cunning and highly skilled, and Tarrin had the oddest respect for his supernatural opponent. He wondered where it had come from, what it had done when it was alive to learn what it had learned.

Fighting the Doomwalker was going to be suicide. It was just too skilled with its weapons. They were nearly evenly matched now, because of the training he had received from Allia and Binter since the first battle between them. The law of averages said that it was just a matter of time until Jegojah won a match. And if it did, there wouldn't be another. Sorcery could affect it, so that had to be his primary focus. He had to get a handle on his power, to be able to use it. Even if only for a moment or two, long enough to be able to deal with Jegojah the next time they crossed swords. Tarrin would eventually run out of tricks, or run out of luck. He needed to even the battleground between him and the Doomwalker to gain the advantage. Tarrin's Sorcery was alot more powerful than Jegojah's magic. He knew it, it knew it. It was simple fact when he told it that if they both used magic, then the Doomwalker would lose.