From around the back of the tavern came Chap, lunging hard with legs bent as he used shoulders and haunches to struggle forward as quickly as he could. Cloth was clamped between his teeth as he dragged something across the ground away from the fire.

If Chap had come from the tavern, then Magiere was still inside. Why wasn't the dog in there helping her?

"Chap," Leesil called. "Here, boy."

Leesil dropped the empty crossbow and leaned against the buildings as he struggled forward.

A building-and-a-half away from the tavern now, Chap spotted Leesil and stopped, letting go of his burden. The dog then ran back and forth and around whatever he'd been dragging, barking loudly and unwilling to leave it. When Leesil reached Chap's side, he understood.

Rose's half-conscious form lay on the ground. This was why Chap had left Magiere's side.

"It's all right," he said.

Crouching down, he caught himself from falling with one hand on the ground. Rose lifted her head, face tear streaked.

"Leesil!" she cried, reaching out her hands.

That was good. If she could still talk and move, then whatever had happened, it had likely not caused her any lasting harm. He doubted he could get to Magiere, and the townsfolk were now beyond his help. But he could save Rose.

The dog whined and licked his face. Rose crawled to her feet and grabbed his neck, hanging on tightly. Her slight weight hurt his ribs and back.

"Can you walk?" he panted. "I can't carry you."

She seemed confused, then nodded in comprehension. "Yes, I can."

"Take me to the stable, to the other children," he said.

For one so young and frightened, she grasped his meaning quickly. Leading him by the hand, she hurried toward the stable, moving faster than he could and attempting to pull him along. Chap ranged alongside, ears pricked up at the sights and sounds of people fighting off wolves somewhere down the side streets. The night grew darker as they moved farther from the burning tavern. Leesil ignored everything but the need to keep moving. When they reached the stable door, he managed to jerk it open and then froze.

Two large wolves-one dusty black and the other gray-loped about inside, sniffing and pawing through the floor straw, searching for a way to get to what they smelled below. The children. Both of them lifted their heads and two sets of yellow eyes locked on the new arrivals.

The black wolf snarled, and Chap charged. Furred bodies collided.

"Rose, get up on the hay!" Leesil shouted, casting around for anything to use as a weapon. Every pitchfork and shovel had been cleaned out by the townsfolk earlier that day.

Rose scrambled as high as she could up the loose pile of hay strewn around two stacked bales. Chap and the black wolf rolled across the wooden floor like coiling snakes.

Leesil saw the gray wolf's sharp fangs and tensing muscles as it lunged two steps toward him and attacked. Fear and instinct took over, driving his actions.

One arm shot up to guard his head and throat, as his other swung down hard to his side in a flicking Motion. The strap that held his stiletto in place snapped free and the hilt dropped into his hand. The wolf's teeth snapped closed around his raised arm.

When the animal's forepaws hit his chest, he felt his broken ribs stab deeper into his body, stopping his breath. He let the wolf's weight topple them both to the floor.

The impact sent another shock of pain through his body.

In the same fluid movement with which he'd once pinned Brenden to the tavern floor, he rolled with the wolf's weight, pushing its jaws upward with his forearm to trap its head against the floor. With the last inertia of his roll, he rammed the stiletto down through the animal's eye.

There was a crunch as the blade tip broke through bone and passed into the skull. The furred body spasmed once, then ceased moving. Leesil flopped over to the floor and tried to get air back into his lungs again.

Chap snapped and battered with his paws again and again at the other wolf, the two of them twisting and turning about each other. Leesil tried to move, to help, but nothing happened. His breath came in short sucking gasps that hurt so badly he wanted to stop breathing altogether.

There was no sound from the children below. Either blind fear or good sense had kept them from giving their position away.

Chap caught his opponent's front leg and bit down. A loud snap and a yelp announced the end of the fight, and Leesil felt one small moment of pride. Stout Chap had been running down undeads. Dealing with a mere wolf was only a matter of moments.

The wounded animal stumbled out the stable doors on three legs, moving as fast as it was able. Chap let it go and reached Leesil about the same time that Rose climbed down from the hay.

"Get below," Leesil whispered. "You have to hide with the others."

Rose didn't move. She wouldn't leave him.

"Listen to me-" he hissed in anger, but he didn't finish before darkness filled his head, and he dropped limp and unconscious.

When Magiere held Teesha's head up, she expected to see rage and thirst for vengeance color Rashed's face. With the growing flames between them, she anticipated the satisfaction of driving him to wild action.

At first, absolute incomprehension registered in his crystalline eyes-then horror-and finally something between fear and pain.

"Teesha?" he mouthed as a question, though Magiere could not hear his voice over the sound of the fire.

Magiere felt an unexpected and unwanted sensation of guilt, but swallowed it down.

"Here I am," she called, determined to finish what he had started. "Why don't you come take my head?"

He could not have heard her either, but at those words he cried out incoherently and came crashing through the window, the base of the wall below it giving way before his legs. Burning boards dropped around him, and he gripped his long sword as if it were the only thing that mattered.

Still Magiere felt nothing she expected. Sorrow danced around the edge of his cry, not rage.

"Coward!" he managed to yell before swinging so hard that Magiere dropped Teesha's head and jumped back instead of blocking. His attack now stirred the power and anger she longed for.

With Teesha, she had controlled that rage and how it affected her actions, and she believed she could have done so even now. But she didn't want to, and she let it take her, rushing through her body. The sharpness inside of her mouth was welcome, no longer unsettling. To destroy him, she would become him-one of his kind.

The common room had always felt large and open before, but standing inside the growing fire and forced to back away from Rashed, Magiere suddenly felt trapped in too small a space. His physical presence felt too close, too immediate.

Rashed positioned himself between her and the open wall, standing his ground, waiting. She hated him for the murdering monster that he was, but admired his strategy in the midst of all this madness. He wasn't going to let her out. Whether he killed her with a sword or forced her to burn in the fire didn't matter. Before long, the second floor would cave in.

If that was his plan, then let him try. This time, she charged.

Steel clanked on steel, and Magiere forgot Rashed's grief at seeing Teesha's severed head.

Every move he made was familiar, as if she could feel his intent before the action. They each swung and blocked and swung again. Somewhere in the back of her thoughts a voice whispered that if they didn't run from the tavern soon, they would both burn to death. Did that matter? It didn't seem to matter to him. No, and nothing mattered to her but cleaving Rashed's head from his body.

Heat from the inferno around them caused her to choke, and the flames grew hotter and higher. His blade nearly caught her shoulder as she gulped in scorching air. He jerked his sword up and left himself wide open while attempting to cleave her skull. Instead of opting for a sane, defensive move, she thrust upward, aiming for his stomach.