pulled you from the brambles of the Arch Wood and tried to cure you of your affliction. Now we offer you one last chance to escape the curse of the beast.'
'But there's a price,' said Tal suspiciously.
'There is indeed a price,' agreed Maleva. She produced a crystal flask from beneath her cloak. A thick, pearlescent liquid glowed within the container. As Tal watched, the stuff seemed to move, undulating like a jellyfish. 'This is moonfire. I have traveled far for the privilege of offering it to you.'
'It can give you control over the beast,' said Feena, 'but only if you have not hunted and devoured your fellow men.'
Tal felt a heavy sigh escape his chest. 'Well, that's where we have a problem. You see-'
'I have seen,' interrupted Feena. 'While mother traveled to the city of Ordulin to beg a fraction of moonfire from Dhauna Myritar, I followed you here, to Selgaunt. In the past two nights, you have slain no one.'
'You must have nodded off,' said Tal. 'This morning there were two dead bodies in my room.' He realized suddenly how easy it would have been to lie, but something about the strange women made him blurt the truth.
Maleva's faint smile told him that he had passed a little test. 'We were not the only ones to follow you,' said Maleva. 'Rusk slew the men who watched over you, then tracked you to your home.'
'Rusk…' said Tal slowly. 'That's the name I heard the night I was attacked.'
'Rusk is a servant of the Beastlord' said Maleva, 'a priest of the god Malar. We children of Selune are charged with checking the atrocities of his kind. It is he who led the attack on your hunting party. Now he claims you as his disciple.'
'He's the werewolf who mauled me?' ventured Tal. The women nodded.
'He rarely ventures from the wood,' said Maleva, 'but something brought him…'
A beam creaked noisily from the rafters above. At the sound, Maleva and Feena stepped back as one, clutching the talismans they wore about their necks, their voices chanting two different spells.
Harsh laughter boomed from the rafters. It wasn't a sound Lommy could have mimicked.
Feena raised her talisman like a shield. A pair of eyes surrounded by stars blazed on the amulet. Before Feena could finish the words to her spell, a great dark figure crushed her to the ground.
It was a huge man, bigger even than Tal. His leather jerkin was open to expose thick gray hair on his muscular chest and arms. A beaded headband kept his unruly locks at bay and held the bronze image of a ragged claw upon his forehead. His mustache grew down either side of his broad mouth, while grizzled stubble covered his cheeks and throat.
He crouched growling over Feena, who moaned and shook her head dazedly. Rusk turned his blazing blue eyes on Tal and made a savage smile.
With a flash, a blue-white blade of light appeared in Maleva's hands. Without a word, she raised the weapon high. Rusk whipped around to face her and spat a single word: 'Stop!'
Tal saw Maleva's arms tremble, but her conjured blade was fixed fast above her head. Rusk stood, towering over the old woman.
'Your powers are weak,' he declared, balling a fist scant inches from her grimacing face. 'Strength lies only within the heart of the beast.'
Rusk punched Maleva in the stomach hard enough to lift her feet from the floor. Her paralysis broken, she fell back hard. Tal heard the crack of her skull on the wooden floor.
'Stop it!' he shouted from the confines of the cage. Real anger empowered his voice, making a weapon of it.
Rusk turned back again. 'Don't worry, brother wolf. I am saving them for your first true hunt.'
'Let them go,' said Tal. He felt powerless within the cage, but he couldn't silently watch Rusk murder the women. He hoped he could buy enough time that Chaney could recover from whatever Maleva and Feena had done to him. He hoped Rusk's melodramatic manner ran true.
'Oh, that I will,' agreed Rusk ominously. He turned to Feena, who was crawling across the floor toward Maleva. Again he spoke a prayer to Malar, the Beastlord, god of hunters. To Feena he said, 'Take your mother and flee.'
Feena obeyed so quickly that Tal knew Rusk's words carried the power of the Beastlord. She dragged Maleva toward the back stage door.
'You, my cub,' said Rusk, turning again to Tal, 'have disappointed me. You ran like a hart last moon, but you must learn to be the hunter as well as the hunted.'
'Then teach me,' said Tal, hoping to buy a few more minutes. Too much, however, and the moon would be upon him, too. He hoped he was a better actor than he thought, and he prayed that Rusk was not the most discerning audience.
Rusk's grin told Tal that the man did not yet trust him. 'This is your last chance, little brother.'
Tal winced at the phrase. He wanted no relation to this monster.
'You must do better than one miserable cat before you can join the great hunt,' snarled Rusk. 'This is the last time I will show you.'
'What about the moonfire?' ventured Tal. 'Shouldn't we take it? The old woman said it would give us control of-'
'A lie!' spat Rusk. 'It is a trick to place you in thrall of their mewling, feeble goddess. It saps the power of the beast and bends your will to theirs. Tonight they shall be our prey.'
'I should have known.' Tal made fists of his hands, a stone of his face. He paused as long as he dared for dramatic effect. 'I never trusted them.'
Rusk glanced sidelong at Tal.
Tal clenched his teeth and thought of all the attempts to control his life: his mother, his father, even Maleva and Feena. He summoned his father's voice. 'I'll take the old bitch first,' he thundered. 'She tried to tame me with her potions, but now she'll feel my teeth on her throat.'
Rusk leered and watched Tal closely.
'Let's stand beneath the naked sky,' rumbled Tal. 'Let the moon come. We'll wash it in blood.'
Tal nodded toward the table, and Rusk found the key. He put it in the cage lock but then paused. 'I'll tear out your heart if you run from me,' he warned.
'No more running,' said Tal. 'It's time to hunt.'
Satisfied, Rusk opened the cage. Tal walked past him, out onto the stage. Rusk followed closely, watching for any sign of weakness. The floor lamps cast unsettling shadows on the faces of both men.
Tal paced the length of the stage, his real anxiety making it easy to appear restless and eager. As he walked across one of the trapdoors, a plan began to form in his mind.
'The moon is coming,' rumbled Rusk. 'Can you feel it?'
Tal noticed the pressure on his ears and eyes. 'Yes,' he said. 'It's like a storm.'
'That's it!' encouraged Rusk. 'Open your heart to it. The beast sends you strength and courage.'
Tal stood squarely on the trapdoor. He couldn't open it himself. Glancing at the open galleries, he peered for some sign of Lommy or Otter. 'Open, heart!' cried Tal. 'Open your depths to the beast!' He hoped the tasloi understood.
Rusk raised his arms toward the sky. 'Malar, Beastlord, Master of the Hunt, hear my prayer and bestow your blessing on my acolyte. Give us your-'
The trapdoor opened, and Tal vanished into the small prop room.
'No!' screamed Rusk. He pounced toward the closing door. His fingers slipped into the crack and prevented the door from closing. 'Fool! Weakling! I'll kill you!'
Tal heard wood popping as Rusk pushed against the trapdoor. He found what he wanted, then ran to another trapdoor across the dark prop room. He pulled the lever and rose back onto the stage.
'Here I am,' Tal called from behind Rusk. He raised the enchanted sword and spoke the words. Hot flames whooshed along the long sword's blade.
Rusk began chanting another spell. Tal rushed to strike him before it could be completed, but he saw the effects before he reached his foe. The man's fingers grew long and thick. The nails extended into sharp, bony knives.
Tal's sword glanced off Rusk's terrible new claws. The scraping vibration made his teeth ache. In his rush to
