What had been an inaudible whisper to the humans in the corridor was a deafening mental shout to the thatz lurking on the ground floor of the hall. Shima was about to bolt up the stairs to go to the aid of his friend, but stopped before making a single bound; all around him, soldiers of the lowlands - against whom the mountain men had warned the circle many times - swung their deadly blades and cut down the resident mountain men. These were the same men who would not abide by any truce and probably swing their blades against him if he even so much as exposed a whisker. It took great effort to keep the roar of frustration that welled up within him to a soft growl to avoid discovery, and then the angry thatz settled even further back into the shadows to wait and see if an opportunity would open for him.

Above him, Shima could hear the sounds of screams of anger and terror - women's screams. He searched for Karinna's mind amidst the psychic chaos but found only a dull ache where his friend's sparkling mind once functioned which told him that she was not conscious. The screams were then from some other woman of the stone hall, a servant or clanswoman perhaps. It became easier to wait, knowing that Karinna still lived and was safely cushioned from pain by the blanket of senselessness.

x

Now that it was over and done with, Fichiku watched in grim satisfaction as the Thaelu forces regrouped themselves and discovered that, although there was a great deal of blood, not many of the wounds were very serious. The Halidu clansmen had suffered a devastating defeat and lost their old Lord as well as both of his sons. One of the conquered clansmen regretfully informed him that the woman whose screams had punctuated the latter minutes of the fighting was that Lady of the Saranth, Ilia, just as a tired soldier planted his clenched fist on her jaw to silence the shrieks.

All in all, the battle had gone exactly as it had been planned: little loss of life on the part of his own men and the clansmen completely subdued. That he had in his control the former wife of the King was an added benefit, one that would no doubt cost him a great deal of thought before he decided how he would deal with her.

At first, Fichiku had been almost disgusted that the lady had not died when his men had crashed through her chamber door; certainly from the looks of the two angry bruises and the size of the lumps growing rapidly on her head, Karinna had come very close to having her skull shattered. But, when it was shown that she was only unconscious, he had vascilated as to what he was going to do with her for the time being. Even now, Cherbin was standing and waiting for an idea of what to tell the men in the former Princess' room.

"Carry her down into the storerooms and put her in with the Lady Ilia," he snapped finally, tired of having to think and wishing to instead send some of his men in search for a crock of the potent shainsa - which he had never before tasted.

Cherbin nodded gratefully and passed the order along to those who were waiting in the chamber. Morchak, by far the huskier and stronger, pushed Viliman out of the way and swung the limp body of the woman over his shoulder the same way he would have a sack of grain.

"As long as she lives still," Fichiku ordered in the direction of Marchak's back as the soldier made his way to the stairs, "be a little careful with her. Until we know His Majesty's pleasure about how to dispose of her, we had better not be any rougher on her than we already have."

Marchak's shoulders shrugged, no great feat since Karinna weighed a great deal less than a sack of grain; and the soldier didn't bother shifting her into a more seemly carrying position but looked carefully as he started down the stairs.

"Cherbin, send one of your men down the mountain to Karem and the nearest bell-tower. His Majesty should be informed of our victory here and the prize we managed to capture." Fichiku didn't wait for Cherbin's departure, but he turned on his heel and stomped into the old Lord's chamber.

Surprisingly, the old Halidu had put up an amazing fight before being killed; Simikar was just finishing tying a strip of the bed-sheet around Topad's arm where Sharhl's sword had sliced a wicked-looking cut through the flesh to the bone. It was obvious that the young man felt very embarrassed to have been wounded by such an old and out-of-shape Halidu; upon spying his commander entering the chamber, he had managed to blush furiously through his pain.

"I don't understand," Simikar remarked to his leader. "If this was supposed to be the Lord of the Clan, you don't suppose that young woman was his daughter?"

"Certainly not his wife," Fichiku answered with confidence. "It wasn't until we killed the son that was sleeping that she started to scream and fight back."

"The son's wife then?"

Fichiku shrugged. "Perhaps. What do we know about the way these savages classify their family relationships?"

"How could anyone sleep through the noise and fighting?" Horvik asked as he leaned against the doorframe tiredly. "A person would have to have been deaf or dead not to have aroused."

"Of course!" Fichiku shouted, jumping to his feet. "That's why Karinna was here! She came to Heal the son, and I'll wager you glymmettes abounding that the son was the Lord, and not this old chiva."

Topad, his arm not only bound tightly to prevent bleeding but bound close to his body to prevent any movement from disturbing the bandage, looked down at the body of the one he had thought Lord of these clansmen and aimed a weak kick in its direction. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have tried so hard to capture the dung-ball; I would have killed him outright!" His disgust pained him almost as much as his arm, and it showed on his face clearly.

"Yes, but that fellow that stood us off for so long was guarding this door, and not the other," Simikar shook his head in confusion, "and he kept urging his men to “protect Lord Sharhl.” Who was lying?"

"I don't think the Lady Karinna would come to this barren rock of a hall if it weren't very, very important that the person needing help get the best available," Fichiku commented, feeling more sure of his supposition. "Besides, now that I think of it, Commander Persivan said that the Karemu had a trading agreement with Lord Sharhl; so even if this Sharhl weren't Lord now, he was the last time anyone had any dealings with the Halidu. Perhaps we interrupted a power struggle between a father and son - who knows?" He pointed at the body on the floor. "Take him out and put him with the others and clean this chamber up. As commander of this party, I'm laying claim to this chamber as my own."

"What are we to do with all the bodies, sir? The ground is too rocky and hard to bury them."

Fichiku glared at Horvik. This was the part of battle that he detested: cleaning away the blood and disposing of bodies. "Take them out and stack them in the stables for the time being. Then, tomorrow, you and two others can find some wood and build us a pyre."

Horvik heard the impatience and suppressed anger in his commander's voice and decided not to press the man any further. Even he himself was beginning to feel the slow-down as the rush of adrenalin which had carried him through the battle like a keen-edged blade faded away and left him feeling dull and tired. Once those Halidu left alive had been herded into close containment so that only one or two guards would be needed, he too would select himself a chamber and prepare it for a much-needed rest time.

x

Gradually the sounds of fighting died away, and Shima kept himself as still as a thuli tree in the darkness of his shadow. The woman's screaming from somewhere above had ceased suddenly, whether from unconsciousness or death the thatz had no way of knowing. After so long among humans attuned to the minds of the circle, being among untuned minds was an extreme discomfort. The very tip of the huge animal's tail twitched slightly, the only evidence that he was beginning to lose grip on his patience.

The lowland soldiers milled around, disarming the mountain men still living and herding them into small groups with swords drawn. A steady stream of soldiers bore limp bodies - most of them completely lifeless and drenched with their own blood - down the stairs and out the front door of the hall. Shima listened once again to the psychic sounds of human minds and found once again the ache that was Karinna's mind, still cushioned in unconsciousness. There was not much he could do but wait, surrounded by lowland soldiers.

His wait proved to not be very long. The stream of bodies continued from the floors above; and finally one body appeared slung over the shoulder of a soldier that was familiar and well-loved. Karinna's long blonde hair streamed almost to the floor down the back of the soldier that had her in the same grip Shima had seen clansmen use with the large bales of mountaingrass. While his friend was not bleeding from any wound, what became painfully visible once the soldier had reached the ground floor and turned toward the back storerooms was the pale and bloodless color of her face and the vicious and ugly bruises that marred her forehead. She was wearing the warm nightgown Falina had given her only a year before, and her feet were bare and white from the chill of night.

In the mind of the thatz grew an anger and rage that he could no longer restrain, but with it came a realization that there was little he could do to help Karinna without outside aid of his own. He had to get away from this far-flung stone hall and send for help! With a loud roar that startled and amazed those soldiers that had been near his shadow for some length of time already, Shima sprang from his hiding place and knocked three or four of the soldiers from their feet in his headlong rush to escape the hall and enclosing walls. The soldiers were completely unprepared for a nonhuman attack, so they stumbled and scurried to get out of the beast's path.

Once away from the walls of the stone hall, Shima's black fur hid him completely in the black of darknight. The thatz nosed his way around boulders and across the rough terrain back to the road he and Karinna had come up just that very day. Once sure of his path, the thatz broke into a lope that would quickly eat up the distance between himself and the nearest circle. Only the circle would be able to get the message to Choran and Rhyls'hyl the quickest, passing it from tiku to tiku southward.

x

Ilia squinted as if the action would pull more light from the darkness and enable her to see where it was that she had been taken, and she groaned as the muscles in her face protested sharply where the soldier had struck her jaw. There was no light to pull from the darkness, and that in itself told her that most likely she had been locked in one of the storerooms in the very back of the hyl. She rolled to her knees and stood carefully, extending her arms and hands so as to feel her way around and find the limits of the room.

She had taken but two or three steps when something on the floor made her stumble and fall, something soft and giving as she fell on it: the body of someone else. Ilia scrambled off of the body and sat back on her knees, extending her hands down to feel it. Whoever it was still lived; the chest moved in an out, and there was the soft sound of deep breathing if she listened very carefully. Her hands searched farther, up the arm of the person and to the neck, the head. Hair, long and tangled, wrapped around her gently searching fingers. A woman? Who would they have thrown in with her; who would they consider important enough to put with her?

Ilia settled herself on the floor of the storeroom and pulled the head of the unconscious woman into her lap, smoothing the hair away from the face. Her sensitive fingers touched raised lumps on the forehead, making the woman in her lap moan and shift weakly.

From the depths of her unconscious state Karinna felt those fingers touch the place on her forehead where her head had cracked so wickedly against door and furniture as if knives sharp and cruel had thrust down at her from the unknown. Like a mallet striking a bell, her head began ringing with a blinding pain, causing her to shift in her weakness and moan softly in complaint. She sought to find refuge by sinking deeper into the blackness, but the pain had found her and refused to allow her escape. Even as her senses began to bob toward the surface of her mind, there was no escape from the deep blackness, and she moaned again in fear as she opened her eyes slowly and found that the blackness had followed her.

"Don't try to move," a soft, woman's voice urged her, and a hand rested against her throat to prevent her effort to sit up. "From what I can tell, you have a couple of very nasty bumps on your head."

Karinna moaned her acquiescence and lay back, just as glad to be told not to make the effort. "Wh...Where are we?" she whispered painfully.

Ilia looked around her, unable to see anything. "I'm fairly certain we're in one of the hyl storerooms at the back against the mountain. That's why it's so dark; there are no windows back here, so no light could come in." She paused for a moment. "Who are you?"

"Karinna Rhyl," Karinna replied as she carefully lifted one hand to her forehead to gingerly brush one of the stabbingly painful lumps. "And you?"

"I am Ilia Saranth, Lady," Ilia sighed sadly. She caught her breath back in a sob. "Oh, Lady, I'm so sorry you came all this way just for this!"

"Just what happened?" Karinna asked softly, stifling a yelp as she probed the other lump. "I... I was just opening the door to see what the noise was about..."

"You were lucky to have missed it all, Lady Karinna," Ilia voice was hard and tragic. "It was a company of lowland soldiers. They killed Syran." The woman sobbed softly at the memory. "They killed my husband as he lay there helpless!"

"What?" Karinna sat up in surprise and fear, only to lay back down just as quickly when the blackness tipped and whirled around her. "Who?"

"Lowlanders," Ilia sobbed again.

"But, they couldn't have found a way into the Halidem; the bridges are all down!" Karinna was grateful to think about something other than her headache, which was pounding and still blinding. Sitting up had made all kinds of sparks of light shoot off behind her eyes that were almost as painful as the lumps that had caused them.

"Syran thought so too, or at least it was to check that story that sent him down the road on that snarking burri the day he was..." Ilia's narrative halted as finally the puzzle began to make sense. "So it wasn't an accident! I thought not!"

Karinna lay back, forcing her mind to function around the pain. "At least a message will get through about this - if they didn't find Shima."

"What are you talking about?" Ilia's voice sounded as if it were swimming through a sea of tears. "The attack was a complete surprise, and I doubt anyone got away from the hyl alive. And who is Shima?"

Karinna sighed. "A thatz. My friend who insisted on coming with me to protect me. Thara grant that he was outside the hyl when this all happened!"

x

The sun was just a pink glow over the far western peaks when Shima's seeking mind finally touched the minds of the northernmost tiku, giving in terse detail a description of what had occurred and where and adding a plea to both circle and humans for aid. Without even waiting for an answer, he turned and began the long run back toward the stone hall, in case there might be any way he could help Karinna even at this late date.

That tiku quickly passed the message on to the next one after rousing completely, and then all six began loping north in answer to their brother's call. In that manner, the message sped down the spine of the mountain range, quicker even than any of the human mirror-messages had been known to travel. All along the way, tikus passed the message along and turned their heads north; all had profited by the intervention of this one human, and all owed her some kind of aid.

The task of relaying the message to the humans in the southern stone hall fell willingly on the haunches of Grrai, who had had occasion to work closely with the clansmen in the recent past and was no longer uncomfortable entering the gates of the hall. Wrrowya and the others followed the other tikus northward without waiting, knowing that a message would pass north before long telling of the human's plans.

The watcher at the gates of Rhyls'hyl was used to seeing one of the black beasts appear from the edge of the gorge suddenly, but not to having the creature reach out immediately and touch his mind. "Go for your leader! Quickly!" the thatz shot mentally at the man even before nearing the gate, and the young clansman turned and shouted a call in an unthinking response.

By the time Byrol had bolted from his midday meal, Grrai stood in the courtyard waiting for him, tail swishing from one side to the other rapidly in impatience. The mountain Lord recognized the authoritative thatz immediately and wondered at the tenseness in its body and slashing tail. Grrai wasted no time in spelling out the message in detail just as Shima had only hours before, in exactly the same words the young thatz had used in the original message.

"Spirits!!" Byrol breathed, shocked and angered. He didn't even bother to thank the thatz, but turned and bellowed for Choran and Gyrl to join him in the office as he trotted quickly back inside. Grrai did not hesitate to follow at Byrol's heels, understanding that the emotions of these humans was bound to be high and excusing the mountain man for his lapse. They were met at the door of the office by Gyrl, who came careening around the corner of the hallway and nearly ran straight into Byrol.

"What in the name of the One is the matter?!" Gyrl frowned in concern and worry, having never heard from Byrol before the tone of dread and shock that had been contained in that shout.

"Father?" Choran panted up to the group, breathless from his dash from the upper floor and Karinna's children.

Byrol looked at both men, not knowing exactly how to tell them the news. Grrai had none of his reticence. "I received word from Shima that there has been an attack on the stone hall that your Karinna-human is visiting. He says that a large group of lowland soldiers captured control of the hall during the darknight and killed many clansmen, but that Karinna was only injured and not killed. He calls for aid, and bid us carry the message here first before coming to his aid as well."

"Thara!" "Spirits!! Karinna!" Choran and Gyrl were stunned and enraged by the news.

Byrol grabbed his son on the shoulder. "We will get her back for you, Choran," he comforted in a determined tone. "But we need clear heads to think this through."

Gyrl, meanwhile, began pacing up and down. "Lowland soldiers; that means that there is still clear passage into the mountains from the plains." He looked at Byrol, rage pulling his brows together like storm clouds. "Sharhl! He never had that bridge down after all!"

Byrol clapped Choran's shoulder. "Go to the message tower and send off word to Harryhl and the rest of what has happened - get everyone in motion. It is the beginning of what we've been waiting for!" He pushed at his son. "Go!"

"The circle also answers Shima's call," Grrai's even voice in the minds of the two remaining men reminded them. "But we wait word of what you would have us do."

Byrol paced opposite Gyrl, thinking. He stopped. "Get some onto the roads out of the hall and prevent anyone - clansman or lowlander - from leaving. We can't let the King know that his move has been successful."

Gyrl stopped his pacing and headed for the office door. "Call to arms, Byrol; and have the burris saddled for those who have them. I will grind the bones of the man who dared harm my daughter!" He didn't look back, but broke into a fast walk down the hall toward where all the weapons in the hyl were stored.

Falina, her hands black with the ink she was mixing, moved quickly aside and let the former Lord-General pass her in the hallway and then came quickly to her husband's side. "What in the name of all the spirits is all the shouting about?" she asked, eyes wide when she saw that Grrai waited patiently still near the door with glowing eyes focused on Byrol's every move.

"Chlin has finally made the move we feared," Byrol explained quickly, putting an arm around Falina in a sudden fit of tenderness. "A company has taken control of Sarans'hyl, and Shima has sent word asking for aid."

Falina's brow furrowed briefly, and then she stared up at Byrol in shock. "Karinna!"

"Shima says she's injured."

"What do we do?"

Byrol gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek. "I will be depending on you to keep things running here while the men and I go up to see what can be done at Sarans'hyl. Choran is sending the mirror-message north right now, and Gyrl is breaking out our supply of swords and daggers to be handed out."

Falina's hand flew to her mouth in sudden worry. "The war?" She grasped at her husband's sleeve. "Oh, Byrol, not now!"

"Chlin has decided the when of this battle and the where." Byrol's tone was final. "We cannot let him dance merrily into one of the halls of the Seven Clans and take control with his swords and soldiers. We can't let him have Karinna back."

"He wouldn't..."

"We can't be sure of what he would or wouldn't do with her, n'ainya," Byrol warned. "The sooner we act, the less damage his minions will have a chance to do." x

Fichiku nodded satisfaction as the last of the piled bodies had been tossed on the roaring fire just outside the gates of the hall. He turned to Cherbin. "As soon as that burns down, scatter the ashes over the hillside." He wrinkled his nose in distaste and fought a wave of nausea when a breeze wafted a puff of foul-smelling smoke toward him. "Thara, but I hate that!"

Cherbin held his nose to avoid the stench. "At least it goes away faster than if we just let everyone lie where they fell."

Fichiku choked at the thought. "What about the messenger? Did you send someone back down the mountain to Karem with my report?"

Cherbin nodded vigorously, mouth and nose closed tightly as the breeze again thrust some of the stench in their direction.

Fichiku turned his back on the fire and, with Cherbin keeping pace with him, strode back into the hall and closed the heavy doors tightly. "How long ago did he leave?"

"I sent him at first light, thinking he could use a good rest period before the long hike down the mountain again."

"Good." Fichiku felt more secure, knowing that soon the rest of Thaelia and his comrades in the Palace especially would know of his triumph.

Horvik marched into the foyer from the back of the hall and snapped his commander a smart salute. "Excuse me, sir; but what do you plan to do with the two women in the storeroom? Do we feed them?"

Fichiku shook his head. "They're surrounded with food of one sort or another. Set them a bucket of water so they won't die of thirst, but let them fend for themselves as far as food goes."

"What are you going to do with them?" Horvik insisted. "We can't just let them go, and we would be animals if we kept them stuck in that place for too very long."

"Then let us be animals then," Fichiku snapped. "As far as I'm concerned, I will keep them alive until I receive word on what the King wants me to do with them - specifically the Lady Karinna. Once her fate is decided, we'll just apply the same treatment to the other Lady."

"But the Lady Karinna..."

"Is a prisoner, Horvik," Fichiku reminded his sergeant firmly, "and a rather dangerous one if you think about the trouble her having those babies of hers up here has caused. She stays where she is." He saw the unforgiving look in Horvik's eyes. "Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she wouldn't stab you in the back if she had the opportunity."

Horvik snapped another salute and marched away without answering, his mind in a turmoil. As a cadet in the Palace guard injured severely in a training exercise, he had been privileged to have been treated by the Master Healer herself; he knew of her ways far better than Fichiku, who had been lucky enough never to have been injured at all. To treat such a lady with such cruelty was against his better nature, but he could understand the position Fichiku was occupying: just about anything he did from now on very well would be considered either too lenient or harsh by the King, depending on his mood at the time.

Still, the sergeant mused to himself, there had to be some way to ease her confinement without compromising his commander's orders. Horvik scratched his head in deep thought and kept on walking back to his post at the storeroom door. Whatever he did, it would have to be at night when only one guard would be set at the locked door.

x

Karinna didn't realize when she slipped off into slumber, for the sparks and lights continued dancing behind her eyes even in her troubled dreams. Her sleep was deep enough, however, that she did not rouse when Horvik followed his commander's orders about providing the women with a bucket of water for drinking. Ilia shushed him when he tried to speak to the slumbering woman in her lap, glaring angrily at one of the monstrous lowlanders.

Ilia was, however, grateful for the water. She tore a piece from her own nightgown and dipped it in the bucket the lowland soldier had placed conveniently within her reach and then laid the cloth gently across the brow of the injured Healer. Karinna stirred under her makeshift ministrations without waking, and Ilia wondered yet again just how seriously the young woman was injured. Karinna's attention span had been very short; and if Ilia's ears had not failed her, Karinna had dosed off and on during what short conversations they had had.

Ilia's stomach growled hungrily, and the sound was echoed by Karinna's as well. The Saranth woman decided that the next time Karinna awoke, she would get up and start looking about the storeroom for some of the food that must be there. If either of them was to get out of this danger alive, it would not do for them to be weak from hunger. x

Beyond the sight of any lowlander who might be watching from the towers of the stone hall, the hills swarmed with sleek, black, furry bodies. The many tikus had begun arriving late that afternoon, finding Shima without much difficulty and then fanning out amid roadside boulders and ravines to comply with the suggestion from the south that nobody be allowed to leave the hall. Once his fellow thatz had begun arriving, Shima finally allowed himself one short nap. He had not slept since first sighting the invaders gathering near the hall almost a full two days before.

A message from the south stirred the surface of the collective psyche of the thatz: a reassurance that the greater share of the clansmen from Rhyls'hyl north were rallying and riding hard to come to Karinna's aid as well as defend the Mountains from the invaders. Those scattered and on watch sent back their own reassurances that none of the invading soldiers had attempted to leave.

Shima raised his head at the circle's call, and he shook himself tiredly before trotting across the hillside to where the elders of all the assembled tikus sat waiting for him. Wrrowya moved aside slightly to make room for his young circle-mate, and Shima settled down to hear the discussion.

"The question has been raised, young Shima," the old Vrraiyow began solemnly, "as to the extent we should take part in the conflict between these two groups of humans. Let us hear from you; tell us what you think the boundaries should be between our loyalties to the human who brought us truce and our loyalties to our age-old Traditions."

Shima rose until he was sitting up a full head and shoulders over the other crouching thatz, as he had seen other thatz do when important questions needing thought and wisdom were set them. "I can only defend my own, elders. The human Karinna is my own; she raised me from a small cub orphaned and left to die without a tiku and took on the role my own dam had. We have always defended our own when attacked."

"How can a human be considered part of the circle?" the sarcastic Ffzai hissed. "We do not interfere with the workings of the Law of Nature among our own kind - when the time has come for one to pass beyond this world, one passes on without complaint or howl of regret. Why should we break for the second time the Law of Nature and help this weak human female?"

Shima's ears tipped back angrily, but he forbore hissing his anger at Ffzai and offending the counsel circle; he did let his tail state his anger for him by flashing back and forth and raising a small cloud of dust from the ground. "If this human had not been aided in the first place, we would not now be able to hunt our mountainsides assured that the clansmen who come upon us will not kill us for sport or fear," he grumbled. "She is part of my circle. What you decide to do will be up to you. I will do what I must, whether I have the help of the circle or not."

"Do not bristle at our hesitation, young Shima," Vrraiyow purred soothingly. "You have lived amongst these humans and absorbed some of their ways. In that your judgment may be biased. We must make a choice that will affect the way we deal with the humans from now on."

"Karinna spoke of the way humans used to hunt us for payment of harm done to other humans, remember?" Wrrowya's voice too was calming and rational. "We did not understand this at the time, but now perhaps we are faced with just that type of choice. Shima's reasons are rational under those rules of conduct; and we must choose if the circle as a whole will begin living under those rules from now on."

Shima crouched down again, avoiding looking at Ffzai. "My advise is to let each of the circle make his or her own choice in the matter." He looked around the circling muzzles. "I also advise we wait until the humans come and advise us of their plans before we commit ourselves to a decision one way or the other."

"The suggestion we prevent any lowlander from leaving will remain in effect until the clansmen arrive," Vrraiyow announced. "We all shall think over what has been stated here and make a choice later based on the information to come."

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