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saw it and barked aloud with laughter.
    â€œGo ahead, kill me! Why are you waiting? I will kill you as soon as I can. Then your doughty Tassida will be mine for as long as I choose to keep her.”
    â€œBy Sakeema’s blood,” I told him between clenched teeth, “I would like to kill you.”
    â€œBut, dolt that you are, you will not.” Smiling, he raised his bow. “I will kill you and go to Tassida. When I abandon her, she will say it was Dannoc who brought her low.”
    I stood close enough to him to see his eyes, blue as highmountain sky over eversnow, to clearly see his face, very comely, straight brows and a strong chin, and only his leer showing how shadowed was his soul.… And I knew I had been badly mistaken to count on the might of my weapons to cow him, for mine was an empty threat. I could not kill him, and he knew it. I had loved him too much, the good days gone by.… My hands shook so badly that I could not let fly even to maim him. I stood in the clear, nothing nearby to dodge behind. Like the dolt he said I was, like a deer drawn to the deer of straw, I had put myself in deadly peril.
    I saw his blue eyes, so much like mine, like our father’s, saw them glint and narrow to slits as he pulled back his bowstring—
    A growl fit to chill the blood, a graysheen blur, and from the laurel thicket that flanked the crag the wolf leaped, a flash, teeth shining. Fangs struck. Jaws fit to fell an elk closed on Ytan’s right arm, and the wolf snarled into his flesh, tearing at him. The force of the attack nearly knocked him off his feet, wolfs weight pulling him downward, but Ytan was strong. He yelled with fury, flung up his arm—it took the wolf wholly off the ground, but still the creature hung on, eyes blazing, Ytan’s blood splattering its fur. Ytan struck with bow and booted foot to no avail. Then he dropped the bow and fumbled for the stone knife at his belt, left-handed. He found it—
    My own leap had carried me up the crag, and before he could strike I toppled him, laid him prone on the rock, kicked the knife away and held the point of my sword at his throat. The wolf loosed its grip, shook itself, ran its pink tongue around its muzzle, then began hungrily to lap at Ytan’s blood. He cursed it and glared at me, but I would not let him move until the wolf had supped its fill. My brother knew I would not kill him, but by Sakeema he could see it in my eyes that I had in my heart to hurt him exceedingly if he vexed me.… When the wolf turned away, I stepped back, taking care to tread on Ytan’s wooden bow and break it.
    â€œNo need, Dannoc.” He spoke with nothing in his hard blue stare but hatred, poison of Mahela. “I will no longer try to kill you. There are ways to hurt you worse. When I find the woman I will slit her nostrils with my knife, and notch her ears to match yours, and slash her breasts. All this before I have had my way with her. Then—”
    My sword moved in my hand, and for a moment he must have seen something in me that truly frightened him, for with a sharp intake of breath he stopped speaking.
    â€œNo such bold boasts, Ytan,” I told him. “It is true, I am loath to slay you, for I remember the days when we tamed the curly-haired ponies together and scouted the deer. But I might not be so slow to cut off a hand or two, if you menace. Or lop off other parts of you and feed them to my friend here.”
    The wolf panted in wordless approval. But Ytan grinned as toothily as the wolf, for already my bloodthirst had left me, and he could see that. It is a terrible thing to have a brother for an enemy. Always Ytan had been sour and clearseeing. He knew me all too well.
    â€œWhen you threaten, you do not act,” he remarked. “I will threaten no more, as it displeases you, my brother, but quite surely I will act if I find bold Tassida before you do. So prepare to grieve.” He lithely got up and