"I want the mongrel Mondyalitko and his bitch found!
Darmouth's voice echoed across the entryway, and Leesil pulled back into hiding.
The only way Chap could silence his adversary was to rip the man's throat out, but he hesitated. Killing made the predator instincts of his animal body rise up. It was unsettling, and he needed to remain aware of all around him. The soldier he had pinned kept swearing and swinging, and Chap ducked and snapped at the man's face.
Emel appeared at Chap's side, and smashed the hilt of his straight saber down on the soldier's forehead. The man dropped unconscious, and Chap wheeled away toward Magiere.
He grew anxious the instant he saw her.
Her irises were black, and it seemed her nails had lengthened. The soldier she fought looked openly horrified. Magiere sank her fingernails into his hauberk and slung him sideways into the corridor wall. Before he could right himself, she rushed in. She punched him so hard in the face that his head slammed back into the stone wall. The shortsword toppled from his grip as he slumped down to the floor.
"Magiere?" Emel said, stepping toward her. "Are you all right?"
Chap advanced quickly as Emel looked into Magiere's face. The baron had seen her change at the lake while diving in the icy water. But here, up close, she was a disturbing sight to anyone who did not know what she was.
Magiere breathed hard, and Chap wished he had time to give her calming memories he had gathered from her thoughts over the years. He heard footsteps down the corridor and looked.
Faris appeared with Ventina on his heels.
"You?" Faris snapped at the sight of Magiere.
Chap growled. These two had expected to find someone else here. Faris eyed Emel, and his expression filled with contempt.
"I knew your head would end up on a spike," he said. "No one sincere can grovel that well. Where has your consort taken my daughter?"
Ventina stepped close behind Paris, and her voice cracked with hysteria. "Where is she, Emel?"
"I do not know," Emel answered. "I came for Hedi."
Faris shook his head slowly. Your lord and master will clear that foggy memory. Move toward the counsel hall!"
"I don't think so," Magiere said.
Chap sidestepped in front of Magiere, hearing her breath coming hard. She was fighting for self-control, and there was nothing he could do to help her. He kept his eyes on Darmouth's servants. Anyone unarmed who gave orders so easily made him wary.
The first ripple passed through Ventina's flesh.
Her face darkened as short brown-black hairs sprouted across it. She dropped to all fours. Hands and feet swelled, and fingers shortened into heavy paws with sharp claws. Her shoulders arched, filling out until her shirt and dress split. Faris writhed and changed beside her.
Chap heard Magiere's falchion slide from its sheath. He now faced two great predator cats taller than himself. They were black in color, but wherever the hallways brazier light touched them, their fur shimmered a deep brown. Their large eyes were the same hue as their fur, and the only way Chap could tell them apart was by Faris's one missing ear. For an instant, they stood like two sentinel statues blocking the passage, then Faris snarled, exposing yellow-white teeth and long fangs. A yowl of rage rolled out of his throat and reverberated off the stone walls. It struck Chap's ear like the combined roll of thunder and the crack of lightning splitting the air.
"Into the stairwell!" Emel shouted, backing up. "Get behind the door."
Ventina roared, and Chap whirled, trying to shove Magiere back. Magiere ran for the door. She shot through it, and Chap followed.
Emel tried to slam the door closed. It bucked against him before he finished, and Chap ducked aside as the baron pitched backward, nearly knocking Magiere down the stairs.
"Down! Down!" Emel yelled.
Magiere descended, taking the steps three at a time. As they rushed into the lower corridor, Chap ducked into an archway along the passage and whirled about, looking for Emel.
The baron ran down the corridor toward Chap, and then he pitched sharply forward to sprawl on the stone floor.
Faris crouched atop him. Out of the dark passage, Ventina leaped over her mate. Her front paws touched down, and she swerved through the first archway toward Magiere.
Chap let his canine nature take hold. He bared his teeth and lunged forward into Faris's snarling face.
Darmouth couldn't remember a night of so much stupidity. Even Omasta had failed him, and he was one of the few to whom Darmouth gave his full trust. The raid on Byrd's inn found the place empty. Now some lack-beard guard from the bridge burst in with a muddled message of escaped prisoners and a breach of the keep.
"What-Lady Progae is gone?" Darmouth shouted. "And what breach? Make sense!"
The young man cowered, lowering his eyes. "Faris came running out to see if we'd admitted or released anyone. I told him Devid brought in that count and his manservant, but they never came back out. When Devid came out, he rushed off into the city, saying that you'd sent for him.
"How, if I'm still here?" Darmouth asked, and his voice grew louder in frustration, "Where is Faris? Where is that useless trash? Find him!"
Omasta stepped to the hall's archway, looking out. "My lord, if the keep is breached, we must get you to safety."
"No-I want Andraso," Darmouth growled. "That outlander and his servant are the only breach here. Andraso must be working with the hunter, and Emel will answer for it. And Devid will be crows' food on the city wall!"
Darmouth pushed past Omasta toward the archway. A bestial roar and hiss echoed through the keep from the south corridor.
Omasta raised his arm in front of Darmouth. "My lord, please. If Faris… He wouldn't take such action inside the keep, in plain sight, without great need. We must get you to safety."
Omasta's concern did move Darmouth. It was the reason he'd never punished his lieutenant, even when the man faltered. And his bastard son's failures were rare. Omasta was sensible and skilled, like his sire.
"Take six more men oft" the keep walls," Darmouth said. "You'll need them."
"And you will let me secure you away?" Omasta insisted. "In time! Now call those guards."
When Westiel felt certain he was safe from discovery, he silently stepped down the stairway behind the counsel hall's tapestry. The wolfhounds followed.
At the bottom was an opening covered by a heavy cloth. He touched it, realized it was the backside of another tapestry, and let his senses reach beyond the fabric. He detected nothing living beyond and lifted the tapestry aside. The hounds trotted out ahead of him.
Welstiel stood in an empty room with a door in the far wail. I here was only an old wooden chair and a table strewn with broken quills. The tapestry was too faded and worn to make out anything but the oak-leaf pattern along its border. Then he heard snarls and cries, and the roar of a predator.
Welstiel reached the door and slid open its metal peephole shutter to look out. He tensed at the scream of a raging cat. It took two blinks to truly grasp what he saw.
Magiere rolled across a stone floor between stacked crates and barrels, tangled with an enormous brown-black cat. Lees was nowhere in sight, but to the right through a set of archways, Chap lunged into a second feline. The two animals tumbled off the back of Baron Milea.
Welstiel looked back to Magiere.
She snarled as savagely as the beast that grappled with her. One upper arm bled through claw tears in her wool sleeve beneath the hauberk. She had abandoned her sword and stabbed at the cat with a dagger. The cat thrashed so rapidly it countered every swing of her blade.
The baron regained his feet but looked unsteady.
Welstiel could lose Magiere here and now, but he could not allow himself to be seen. He looked about the room for anything he might use, and his gaze fell upon the wolfhounds.