"Good, where are you going to be?"

"With Karlin and our so-called 'archers. They'll need direction when the fighting starts."

Magiere blinked. "Leesil, you can barely walk."

"I'll be all right. Caleb made me chew some foul-smelling bark that deadens pain. Tasted even worse than it smelled. I only need to make it through the next few hours."

Every instinct told her that she should track him and knock him out cold from behind. She could hide him below the stable with Rose. But he was right. The others would need direction and someone with clear wits to hold them together. Half of them would probably run at the first sight of Rashed.

Leesil was so calm, and he'd put up with so much.

"Be careful," she said simply.

"You, too."

When Rashed woke, his senses told him sunset had long passed. The hull floor felt hard. He turned over and pushed himself up. He was alone.

"Teesha?" He scrambled to his feet, instantly awake. 'Teesha?" he called louder.

Crawling through the trapdoor to the boat's deck, he cast out with his thoughts for any trace of her presence. He'd never been able to sense another of his own kind, except his brother, Parko, but he tried it just the same. Only the background tingle of forest life answered him.

Caution abandoned, Rashed dropped to the shore, calling aloud and not caring who heard him. "Teesha!"

"She's gone," a hollow voice whispered.

The tragic visage of Edwan materialized beside him. Although Rashed could not help feeling some pity for the ghost, he disliked having to speak with Teesha's dead husband. Worry now overrode such personal distaste.

"Where?" he asked.

"Into town, to defend you." Edwan sneered in open hatred, the twist of his mouth awkward looking on his tilted head.

A jolt ran through Rashed. At first, he did not recognize the sensation, smothered in astonishment as it was. Then it cleared, and he could feel the fear.

"Why didn't you stop her?" he demanded.

"Me? Stop her?" Edwan's transparent features were vacant, not from lack of feeling, but from anger and hate turned bitterly cold. "She listens to no one but you, cares for no one but you. Did you see her shed sorrow over Ratboy's departure?"

Rashed bit back a retort, suddenly pitying Edwan. He regretted Corische's act of executing a helpless bartender, but such sentiments were trivial-a mere shadow compared to Teesha's safety.

"Where has she gone?" he asked with as much calm as he could feign.

For the first time in Rashed's memory, Edwan's manner altered to one of obvious desperation. His long yellow hair seemed to float on an invisible wind, and his voice pleaded.

"Listen to me. That hunter is not mortal. Do you understand? She is half Noble Dead-half of your kind." He faltered. "Teesha cares nothing for revenge. Find her and leave this place, please. I have never asked you for anything and never expected anything. I ask this of you now."

Rashed crossed his arms in frustration.

"Edwan," he tried to sound patient, "I can not. If I leave that hunter alive, we will never be safe."

"I think… I was wrong about the hunter's intentions!" the ghost cried. "She was counseled by the stranger living in the cellar of The Velvet Rose. And now you and she are caught up in playing some tit-for-tat game of revenge.

Someone else has been urging her on and, in turn, you keep coming back to her. You are each blindly convinced the other is an enemy seeking a battle. Can you not see that? Find Teesha and take her away. No one will follow."

Rashed strapped on his long sword, picked up an unlit torch he'd prepared the night before, and then waved one hand in dismissal. "Go. You are no help to me."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the ghost's form began slowly spinning around, its image warping in the air with frustration. At first, Rashed thought the spirit was trying to do something, use some new ability never before displayed. The whirl of mist continued, and it became clear to Rashed that the ghost was merely entangled in its own rage and helplessness.

"You are a fool!" Edwan cried.

Rashed left him there and ran into the woods, leaving the boat and all his tools behind. Dark trees around him pulsed with life, and near the edge of the forest, he stopped and closed his eyes, seeking outward. Although Teesha's mental abilities were more defined than his, he possessed a few strong talents that he'd rarely used. His own thoughts were now stained with the sensations of a hunt-urgency, the smell of a prey's trail tainted with fear, the rush of hunger as the chase closed, and all the other things that called to a predator.

From far away, a sound reached his ears. It was so distant and faint that no one else might have noticed it among the soft night noises.

A wolf let go a long, throated howl.

"Children of the hunt," he whispered, concentrating. "Come now."

Leesil leaned against the front wall of a candle maker's shop just across the street from the tavern. He wondered how much longer he could stay on his feet.

Karlin the baker stood nearby, anxiously peering this way and that. Leesil tried to hide his own physical condition as well as he could. The pain in his chest and back had long since spread to a numb rebellion throughout his whole body. He feared his legs would buckle and betray him, but he had to keep going.

Magiere was inside the tavern, donning her armor while he carried out his part of the plan. Sensible in its simplicity, it entailed arming the townsfolk with bows, if possible, and pitchforks and shovels when necessary. He'd placed most of them on watch inside homes, shacks, and small buildings in a perimeter around The Sea Lion, as too many on the roofs or outside would give them away. He'd wanted to prepare a firetrap ahead of time, but rejected the idea as too easy for the enemy to spot. Instead, he had women armed with dry boards, flasks of oil, and flint with makeshift lines of tinder and wood between buildings, ready to be ignited quickly if needed.

The whole point was to keep the vampires inside the perimeter and not allow them to escape once they entered. He had no idea what more these creatures were capable of, but hoped he'd already seen all they could do. There were childhood tales he remembered of undeads that flew or transformed into beasts large and small. He said nothing of this to the townsfolk.

To their advantage, four of Ellinwood's patrol guards-Darien among them-had offered their help. Leesil had positioned them in an old storehouse close to the tavern. Two of them were even properly armed and looked capable of hard fighting. Perhaps, like Darien, they had lost loved ones, or they were just disconcerted by Ellinwood's disappearance and looking for leadership. Leesil didn't care which. He was just slightly relieved to have anyone besides bakers, weavers, townsfolk, and merchants to hold things together.

Strangely enough, his right hand and most dependable "soldier" was Karlin. The man's resourcefulness was astonishing. Between Karlin's ability to organize a band of frightened laborers and find a wealth of tools to serve as weapons, Leesil could not have managed without him. Now the two of them moved to stand outside the tavern, occasionally seeing one of the townsfolk peering out a window.

"Everyone ready?" Leesil asked, not remembering until too late that he'd already asked this same question twice before.

Karlin nodded, and for a moment he reminded Leesil of Brenden. Although he was beardless, the baker's solid, yet massive, form and matter-of-fact countenance were familiar. He was also considerate of others and had brought Leesil a heavy, dark blue shirt which hid the half-elf's injuries and helped him blend into the night. Leesil tied his hair under a long black scarf, the last wrap of which he pulled across his face, leaving only his eyes exposed. He could vanish into the night shadows if need be.