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arrived only ignorant peasants really believed in most
such perils of the night and the wild. Educated folk at Khang Phi
and Quang Ninh had been stunned by what the boy had summoned from
the shadows.
    I glanced at the spear above the door. One-Eye had worked on
that for decades. It was as much work of art as weapon. “Hon.
Didn’t One-Eye start crafting that spear because of
Bowalk?”
    She paused in her knitting, stared up at the spear, mused,
“Seems to me Murgen wrote that One-Eye intended to use it on
one of the Shadowmasters but ended up sticking Bowalk with it
instead. During the siege. Or was
that? . . . ”
    My knees creaked as I rose. “Whatever. Just in
case.” I took the spear down. “Damn. It’s
heavy.”
    “If the monster does get this far, try to keep in mind
that we’d rather catch it than kill it.”
    “I know. It was my bright idea.” The wisdom of which
I had begun to doubt. I thought it might be interesting to see what
would happen if we could force it to change back into the woman it
had been before it had become fixed in its cat shape. I wanted to
ask her questions about Khatovar.
    Always assuming that the invader was the dread forvalaka, Lisa
Daele Bowalk.
    I sat down again. “Sleepy says she’s ready to send
spies and scouts across.”
    “Uhm?”
    “We’ve been avoiding the facts a long time.”
This was hard. It had taken me an age to work up to it. “The
girl . . . Our
child . . . ”
    “Booboo?”
    “You, too?”
    “We have to call her something. The Daughter of Night is
so unwieldy. Booboo works without being an emotional
calthrop.”
    “We have to make some decisions.”
    “She’ll . . . ”
    Black Hounds, Cat Sith, Big Ears and numerous other hidden folk
began to give voice. I said, “That’s inside the
wall.”
    “Headed this way.” She set her knitting aside.
    One-Eye’s head rose.
    The door exploded inward before I finished turning to face
it.
    A plank floated toward me in slow motion, slapped me across the
belly hard enough to set me down on the floor on my butt. Something
huge and black with blazing angry eyes followed the board but lost
interest in me in midleap. Still falling backward onto my back I
scored its flank with One-Eye’s spear. Flesh parted. Rib
bones appeared. I tried to thrust on into the beast’s belly
but did not have enough leverage. It screamed but could not alter
its momentum.
    Burning pain seared deep into my left shoulder, not three inches
from the side of my neck. The forvalaka was not responsible,
though. Friendly fire was. My sweet wife had discharged a fireball
projector while I was between her and her target. There was plenty
of fire left, though, when that ball, its flight path altered,
clipped the panther’s tail two inches from its root.
    The monster’s scream continued. It flung its head back
while still airborne. Its whole frame was in the position heralds
call rampant.
    It hit One-Eye.
    The old man made no obvious effort to defend himself. His chair
went over. It shattered into kindling wood. One-Eye skidded along the dirt floor. The forvalaka ploughed into
Gota, tipping the table on which she had been laid out. Lady loosed
another fireball. It missed. I fought to get around onto my hands
and knees, then to get the head of the spear up, between me and the
monster. It fought for its footing while trying to turn at the same
time. It slammed into the far wall. I got my feet under me, started
to stumble around.
    Lady missed again.
    “No!” I shrieked. My feet tangled. I came close to
landing on my face again. I tried to do three things at once and,
naturally, did none of them well. I wanted to get hold of One-Eye,
I wanted to get my spearhead back up, I wanted to get the hell out
of that house.
    Lady did not miss again. But this fireball was a puny one, a
near dud. It hit the monster right between the eyes. And just
ricocheted off, taking a few square inches of skin along with it,
leaving a patch of skull bone