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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 Deale 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 exposed.
    The forvalaka screamed again.
    Then One-Eye’s still blew up. Which is what I had expected from the moment Lady’s fireball had gone through the wall.

8

Taglios:
Trouble Follows
    M ogaba knew there was trouble seconds