"Kerri, get out of here!" Tarrin snapped, laying his ears back and giving the Wikuni in front of him a murderous look. "Get back to Binter! Go!" He half-turned towards her, motioning at her to run-

– -and then something struck him in the chest solidly. And then there was nothing but darkness.

Keritanima stared for a moment in dumb shock, then she gave out a strangled cry.

Tarrin was splayed out on the ground, with a crossbow quarrel sticking out of his chest, which twitched sickeningly with every beat of his heart. And he wasn't moving.

Kneeling, mindless of the pool of blood forming around his chest, staining her fur, Keritanima put her hands on his chest and realized that he wasn't breathing. He wasn't breathing! The quarrel shouldn't have hurt him! She'd seen him take worse injuries and not even flinch!

In a panic, Keritanima grabbed the quarrel and yanked it out violently, feeling his body jump, hearing him take in a ragged, shallow breath, staring at the bloody head in horror.

It was silver.

"No!" she said in strangled tone, putting both hands down to stop that flow of red from his chest. "No! Don't you die on me, Tarrin Kael! I won't let you!" she screamed hysterically, touching the Weave. Powerful healing energies welled up in her, and she sent them into him quickly, carefully. But the truth became clear to her after only the briefest assensing of him. The silver had wounded him horrifically, had struck as close to his heart as it could without piercing it, and his body wouldn't survive the stress that healing would place on it, even if she had the time and the power to try.

Tarrin was going to die.

She was only dimly aware of Binter and Sisska, of Azakar, surrounding her and Miranda with weapons drawn, holding off a large formation of Marines. Tears streaming from her eyes, she concentrated all her energy on Tarrin, trying to heal him despite the fact that his body couldn't withstand it, desperate to do anything to try and save her brother.

And found that the wound resisted any attempt to heal it. She remembered numbly the stitches in Tarrin's arm. Dolanna hadn't healed it, because she couldn't.

Silver was bane to Were-creatures, and the wounds it inflicted couldn't be healed by magic.

"No!" she wailed. "You bastards!" she shrieked in rage, jumping up and running at the officer in charge of the Wikuni Marines, hands flaming with fire, fully intent to kill the lot of them. But Azakar grabbed her around the middle and pulled her back, standing resolute as flaming hands burned him every time she grabbed at his wrist.

"Your father wants a word with you, Princess Keritanima," the officer said bluntly. "Surrender, or we kill everyone on the ship."

Keritanima glared at the raccoon Wikuni, her lips passing horrible promises and curses. "Why?" she finally managed to scream. "Why did you shoot him!?"

"Because we were fully aware of how dangerous he was," the officer said calmly. "Any attempt to recover you meant that he had to be, removed."

"I'll show you dangerous!" she screamed, raising her hands. A vicious blast of fire erupted from her hands, and it hit the Wikuni officer dead in the chest. The Wikuni managed to scream only once before he was reduced to a smoldering pile of melted steel and ash.

"This is not the time, Kerri!" Azakar said, squeezing her around the middle. "If you start killing them, they will start killing us!"

"They killed Tarrin!" she screamed. "They killed my brother!"

"And you're going to lose your sister if you don't stop!" he said in a powerful voice. "Look around you! They have us surrounded, and Tarrin wouldn't approve if you got everyone else killed!"

Keritanima looked around. There was Allia, a murderous look in her eyes, but her head was tipped back with a dagger point held to her throat. Dolanna was laying on the wharf, and Keritanima didn't know if she was dead or unconscious. Dar had a bear Wikuni holding him in a powerful grip, a claw at his throat, and Faalken had his hands raised with muskets pointed at him, looking at Dolanna in clear worry and concern.

"Bring them, quickly!" someone shouted from the ship. Wikuni started jabbing at Keritanima and those around her with the bayonets fixed to the barrels of their muskets. They were herded, Azakar still carrying Keritanima, to the gangplank of the ship, where what looked to be an Admiral or other very high-ranking officer stood at the top. He was a leopard Wikuni, with spots over each of his yellow eyes and a scar running on the right side of his muzzle, the scarline devoid of fur. "Come quietly, and we leave those behind alive," he said in a strong voice. "Resist us, and we'll leave them all like your friend over there, but either way, you will be coming with us. Even if we have to drag you back in chains."

Keritanima glared her rage at the officer, but she remained silent. Rage had overtaken grief, but she kept enough control of herself to know that it was not the time to fight back. The lives of everyone else depended on her good behavior. "Alright, but I promise you this," she said in a hissing voice. "You will pay for killing my brother. I swear it on Kikalli's spear."

"Then blame Jander," the man said, staring right at her. "He's the one who told us where you were, where you were going, and how to deal with the Were-cat so he couldn't destroy us before we could get control of you."

"Jander!" Miranda gasped. "Jander sold us out?"

"I prefer to think of it as doing his patriotic duty," the man said idly. "Take them below, and cast off. Leave the others unharmed, so long as her Highness here behaves herself." He turned and started walking away. "And one more thing, your Highness. We have operatives here. If you start misbehaving once we're at sea, I'll have them kill your friends. Keep that in mind before you start hatching your little schemes."

Keritanima looked back as someone grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her out of Azakar's arms, looked back to the dock, looked back to soemthing that would forever be burned into her soul.

Tarrin, laying in a pool of his own blood. He laid there, and he was all alone. That hurt her as much as seeing him like that, seeing that nobody was there to comfort him as he breathed his last. And it felt like she was leaving a part of her own soul with him.

GoTo: Title EoF

Chapter 9

The mood in the small cabin was grim.

Dolanna sat on the edge of the bunk, holding a shirt to the grievous wound in Tarrin's chest, flanked by Faalken and Allia, who held his paw in her delicate hands as both stared down at him in grief-stricken worry. He had lost so much blood, laying there on the dock! The Wikuni wouldn't let anyone get close to him until well after the clipper and its accompanying frigate were a good distance away. And then they let everyone go and retreated, without hurting anyone else. The entire time, Tarrin lay there and bled onto the wharf, losing precious moments and precious blood, dying in front of them. She was amazed that he had survived for so long. But Tarrin was strong, and his will to live was formidable. That was the only thing keeping him alive now.

There was nothing else she could do. She felt so helpless! The wound had been inflicted by a silver arrowhead, and that made it unhealable by anything other than time. But time was the one thing that Tarrin did not have. His life hung by a thread, and Dolanna had seen enough to know that the wound was mortal. No matter what she did, it would not be enough. Without magical healing, Tarrin would eventually give up, and then he would die. His stubbornness was the only thing making his heart beat. He was already pale, the pallor of death, losing the blood that helped color his skin, and looked dead already.

"Dolanna, how is he?" Faalken asked in a very worried voice, looking down at him.