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to drag himself, but the snow-slicked stone denied him enough purchase. The sword remained out of reach.
    Powered by his anger, Richard staggered to his feet. Still clutching him with both scaled arms, the mriswith slithered a leg around his. Richard crashed face-first to the ground, the weight of the mriswith on his back driving the wind from his lungs. The mriswith’s second knife hovered inches from his face.
    Grunting with effort, Richard pushed himself up with one arm and with the other hand seized the wrist that held the knife. In one smooth, mighty movement, he heaved the mriswith back, ducked under the arm, and, as he came back up, wrenched it around one full turn. Bone popped. With his other hand, Richard brought his belt knife to the creature’s chest. The mriswith, cape and all, flushed to a sickening, weak greenish color.
    “ Who sent you!” When it didn’t answer, Richard twisted its arm, pinning it behind the beast’s back. “Who sent you!”
    The mriswith sagged. “The dreamssss walker,” it hissed.
    “ Who’s the dream walker? Why are you here?”
    Waves of waxy yellow suffused the mriswith. Its eyes widened as it struggled anew to escape. “Greeneyesss!”
    A sudden blow slammed Richard back. A flash of dark fur snatched the mriswith. Claws yanked its head back. Fangs sank into its neck. A powerful jerk ripped the throat away. Startled, Richard gasped for air.
    Before he could catch his breath, the gar, his green eyes wild, lunged at him. Richard threw his arms up as the huge beast smashed into him. The knife flew from his hand. The sheer size of the gar was smothering, his awesome strength overpowering. Richard might as well as have been trying to hold back a mountain that was falling on him. Dripping fangs drove for his face.
    “ Gratch!” He snatched fistfuls of fur. “Gratch! It’s me, Richard!” The snarling face drew back a bit. Vapor huffed out with each breath, reeking of the putrid stench of mriswith blood. The glowing green eyes blinked. Richard stroked the heaving chest. “It’s all right, Gratch. It’s over. Calm down.”
    The iron-hard muscles of the arms that held him slackened. The snarl wrinkled into a grin. Tears welling in his eyes, Gratch crushed Richard to his chest.
    “ Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”
    Patting the gar’s back, Richard struggled to get air into his lungs. “I love you too, Gratch.”
    Gratch, the green gleam back in his eyes, held Richard out for a critical inspection, as if to assure himself that his friend was intact. He let out a purling gurgle that bespoke his relief, whether at finding Richard safe or at having stopped before tearing him apart, Richard wasn’t sure, but he did know that he, too, was relieved that it was over. His muscles, the fear, anger, and fury of the fight abruptly gone from them, throbbed with a dull ache.
    Richard took a deep breath at the heady feeling of having survived the sudden attack, but he was unsettled by the mutability of Gratch’s usual gentle disposition into such deadly ferocity. He glanced around at the startling amount of foul-smelling gore spilled across the snow. Gratch hadn’t done it all. As he put down the last vestige of the magic’s anger, it struck him that perhaps Gratch saw him in a similar light. Just as Richard, Gratch had risen to the threat.
    “ Gratch, you knew they were here, didn’t you?”
    Gratch nodded enthusiastically, adding a bit of a growl to make his point. It occurred to Richard that when he had last seen Gratch growling with such vehemence, outside the Hagen Woods, it must have been because he sensed the presence of the mriswith.
    The Sisters of the Light had told him that occasionally the mriswith strayed from the Hagen Woods, and that no one, not Sisters of the Light—sorceresses—or even wizards, had been able to perceive their presence, or had ever survived an encounter with them. Richard had been able to sense them because he was the first in near to three thousand