One I'll slaughter for the sheer joy of it, and one I'll shred to win!"
Katie! Katie! Katie! Katie! The evil whisper echoed about the waterway and everyone sat up straight, eyes darting about.
"Qeteb," said Katie, and burst into tears.
Azhure gathered the girl into her arms, tightening them protectively about her, and looked to SpikeFeather. "What can we do?"
SpikeFeather, and both the ice women, were looking carefully about, checking the dark cavities between the buildings that littered the cavern they currently drifted through.
"Not much, probably," he said. "But I don't think there is any need to worry. Qeteb is now so closely tied to DragonStar and their combat above ground that he can't —"
A cold howl drifted through the cavern.
"Dogs!" Azhure said.
"No," one of the ice sisters replied. "Hounds."
"Hounds?" said SpikeFeather. "But that's impossible. There are no hounds in the —"
"Demons," said one of the sisters.
"Mot and Barzula," said the other.
The baying grew closer, and suddenly Azhure gave a soft cry and pointed.
A pale hound crouched atop the shoulders of a massive statue of a man sitting on a rock with his despairing face in his hands.
As they watched, the hound lifted its head and howled.
It was answered by the other hound some fifty or sixty paces further down the waterway, waiting at the very edge of the canal.
As the punt glided closer, the hound bared its teeth, growled, and crouched as if to spring.
Azhure pushed Katie into the bottom of the punt, sheltering the girl with her body.
Katie! Katie! Katie! Katie!
Qeteb's voice thundered through the waterways, and Azhure wriggled herself as tightly and as protectively about Katie as she could.
SpikeFeather leapt to his feet, rocking the punt wildly, but he was pushed down again by one of the ice sisters.
"Leave this to us," she said, and the next instant both women had leapt for the bank —
transforming into icebears as they did so.
The hounds took one look, then bounded out of sight into the streets and alleyways of the abandoned stone city behind them, the icebears in close pursuit.
The icebears were fast, magically so, but the hounds always kept one breath, one leap, one thought, ahead of them. They ran through great abandoned boulevards with ancient banners, thick with dust, hanging from street lighting and buildings, and they dashed through alleys so narrow the icebears howled as their shoulders and flanks rasped against the confining stone walls.
And always the hounds, slavering and howling as if they were but one breath away from collapse, leaped one pace ahead of the sisters.
Finally, the hounds dashed into a blind square bounded by tall, blank-windowed tenement buildings, scrambling frantically about the confining walls, howling and screeching with fear.
The icebears slowed to a walk, their shoulders hunched with power, their faces curled in snarls so tight their eyes had almost disappeared, placing their paws slowly and deliberately one in front of the other in murderous anticipation.
Both hounds backed against the far wall, their tails between their hind legs, and whimpered.
One of the sisters paced closer, her growls reverberating about the confined space, and she slashed out at the hounds with a massive paw.
Her claws should have torn flesh from bone. Instead, nothing impeded her swing as it glided through shadow and fakery.
She fell silent, her eyes narrowed even further.
She lunged with both teeth and claws, and as she hit both hounds, they faded completely away.
As she collapsed on the ground, her sister pivoted about on her haunches, peering about the square.
But there was nothing. Nothing save the mocking laughter of the demonic enchantment as it literally vanished into thin air.
After a while, Azhure cautiously raised her head. "Are we safe?"
SpikeFeather nodded. "We are safe for the time being. I think we should —"
"Safe?" said a soft, distorted voice. "Safe? Safe from who, pray tell?"
And again the punt rocked wildly, even though neither SpikeFeather nor Azhure had moved.
A pair of hands appeared on either side of the punt, and gripped its sides.
