WolfStar turned about and snarled at StarDrifter. Fool! What use did he think to be?

StarDrifter walked slowly forward until he was within a pace or two of WolfStar. His hand was held out in entreaty to the Enchanter-Talon, but his eyes were fixed on Zenith beyond WolfStar.

"If you love her," StarDrifter said, finally looking back at WolfStar, "then give yourself to StarLaughter, and free Zenith."

WolfStar hissed. "Give yourself, you useless fool! I have no use for love."

StarLaughter screamed, hoarse and frightful, and both men whipped about to face her.

"No use for love, WolfStar?" she yelled. "Then you have no use for life!"

"StarLaughter!" WolfStar cried, starting a step towards her.

"Too late!" StarLaughter hissed, and the sky fell in about them.

"Where are they?" Axis asked Urbeth as he mounted Sal.

The bear lifted her nose and scented the air. "There," she indicated, pointing north with her snout.

"Somewhere in a gorge in the hills."

Axis grunted, and would have urged Sal forward save that Urbeth stepped in front of the horse.

"I can smell a darkness in the air," she said, "all warm and bloody, and I do not like it."

Axis dug his heels into Sal's flanks with such a thud the mare jerked from halt to gallop in two strides.

Darkness descended about them, and both WolfStar and StarDrifter instinctively crouched on the ground, their arms and wings protectively wrapped about themselves.

"See," StarLaughter whispered. "See what I have brought you!" So intent was she on WolfStar the rope had loosened about Zenith's neck.

Zenith glanced at StarLaughter leaning over her shoulder, then began very slowly and carefully to work at the knots binding her hands behind her. Thank the Stars StarLaughter was not sailor-taught when it came to knots!

The Hawkchilds encircled WolfStar and StarDrifter in a fence four or five bodies thick.

This is to what they'd been questing for thousands of years.

This is the one who had murdered them, and stolen their heritage.

They whispered and shifted, a mass of feathers and bright eyes and white, grasping hands at the tips of leathery wings.

WolfStar!

WolfStar!

We're coming for you WolfStar!

We're here, WolfStar!

One of them stepped forward. StarGrace, half woman-child, half Hawkchild. Her form shifted from one to the other; now, the limb she extended was a graceful white hand and arm, now twisting leather and talons.

"Uncle," she said, and WolfStar slowly turned to face her.

"I could have had so much," StarGrace said sadly, "but you took it all away from —"

"If you have been drifting four thousand years with nothing but revenge feeding your heart," WolfStar said, "then I pity you. You have become a nothing. An inconsequential."

"For the heavens' sakes," StarDrifter cried, "take him! Kill him once and for all, and then let Zenith

—"

"We care for nothing but our revenge," StarGrace said, her voice cold, and she shifted her eyes to StarDrifter. "Nothing, beyond WolfStar's blood. And everything —"

She shifted forward, and her form became all Hawkchild, leaving nothing of the beautiful girl.

"— that stands between us and our revenge must needs be swept away."

She lunged forward, and StarDrifter screamed as her beak tore into the fleshy part of the arm he'd raised in self-defence.

WolfStar, now certain of his own death, still managed a laugh. "You pretty-feathered, useless fool," he said. "Why are you here? You should have known you would not be able to help —"

And StarGrace's head flashed, and WolfStar screamed and fell to the ground, rolling into a protective huddle around his torn bely.

Desperate, thinking only that if she could get free then she'd somehow be able to save StarDrifter, Zenith finally managed to tear her hands clear of their rope bindings.

In a movement so fast that StarLaughter had no hope of escape, Zenith's hands whipped up and buried themselves in StarLaughter's matted hair.

"Ugh!" Zenith grunted, and thudded StarLaughter's forehead down on the small rocks that littered the ground.

And again and again, until blood splattered over both of them.

And then Zenith found her head seized from behind in a grip so cruel she screamed.

"See?" a small child's voice whispered in her ear. "See what revenge we shall exact from you for your impertinence? StarLaughter is our friend, our mother, our only friend ..."

Zenith stared at where the Hawkchild jerked her face, and then she screamed so hard she convulsed.

StarGrace had taken hold of StarDrifter's golden curls with one hand, and with the other tore off one of his wings, throwing it high into the air, provoking a feeding frenzy among the Hawkchilds closest to where it landed.

Axis rode Sal desperately hard, sliding her forward through rocky chasms and down screes so dangerous that any mount save Sal would have foundered and killed them both at the first challenge.

Axis needed to reach Zenith.

He had failed her previously, but he would not do so now.

All he could think of was the image of Azhure coming to him atop Sigholt's roof one summer's afternoon, and taking his hands, and saying gently, "We are to have another child."

They'd both thought that DragonStar and RiverStar had caused Azhure so much internal damage in their horrendous birth that another child was out of the question.