strike the first blow, he opened his guard far too wide.
Rusk swept a backhanded slash across Tal's belly, ripping through fabric and flesh. Tal gasped at the pain and tried to restore his guard.
The beast man pressed the attack, slashing furiously with both gigantic hands. Tal felt a horrible looseness in his guts as he struggled to sustain a defense, parrying left and right as he backed across the stage.
Even through the pain, Tal felt another keen sensation. The hairs all over his body pricked up, and his joints ached. The transformation was starting.
Rusk felt it also, and he stopped to howl at the sky. Tal felt a wild scream rising in his own breast, but he fought to keep it down. Rusk lowered his eyes to meet Tal's. He approached slowly, savoring the fear he saw in his prey.
Tal retreated until he ran out of stage. The pain in his belly sprang to agonizing life. He wondered briefly if he'd live long enough to die as a wolf. Part of him hoped he would die first.
Then he noticed the springboard.
A mad grin stretched across Tal's face. Win or lose, he would finish this fight on his own terms. Clutching the flaming sword in both hands, he ran toward his enemy.
Rusk braced for a headlong attack, his god-granted talons spread before him in a shield of blades. Tal hit the springboard with both feet and flew high above Rusk's bony shields, flipping forward as he guided the sword in a great overhead arc.
Rusk moved just in time to save his skull. The sword swept past the werewolf's cheek to cleave through the meat and bone of his shoulder.
Tal collapsed heavily before his enemy, defeated. He felt his guts spilling through his belly but didn't even have the strength to clutch at them. He raised his head to face his death.
He looked up just in time to see Rusk's severed arm fall away from his body. The arterial spray was black in the yellow light.
Rusk's agonized howl was deafening as Tal fell backward onto the stage. Their blood mingled in a widening pool.
Tal's second convalescence was much more painful than the first. Maleva and Feena returned in time to save his life, but they had yet to use Selune's power to heal him properly. When they returned to his tallhouse the next day, they found Chaney and Eckert at his side.
After they'd mended his wounds, Maleva produced the moonfire. Tal had already told Chaney and Eckart his story. The servant was especially quiet this morning, still angry at having spent the night trussed and locked in the closet beside the captured lockpick. His cold glare followed the unrepentant Chaney wherever he went.
'At last,' said Chaney, admiring the vial of moonfire. 'Here's the solution to all your trouble.'
'No,' said Tal. 'I don't want it.'
Feena's eyebrows jumped, but Maleva seemed nonplussed.
'But sir,' said Eckart, breaking his silence at last, 'how else can you put an end to this curse?'
'That stuff won't work for me unless I pledge myself to Selune. Right?'
'That is true,' replied Maleva evenly.
'I can't see you as a priest,' said Chaney with a little whimsy.
'Neither can I,' agreed Tal.
'There are many ways to serve Selune,' said Maleva. 'All that is required is devotion.'
'You mean obedience.'
Maleva inclined her head with a little smile.
'The difference between you and Rusk is only the purpose you intend for me. You both demand my obedience.'
'Rusk sought to turn you into a beast, like him,' said Feena.
'I've been wondering about that,' interjected Chaney. 'There were more than a dozen of us in that hunting party. None of this 'Hunt' came after me or the others who escaped. Why are they so interested in Tal?'
'It is strange that he followed you to the city,' allowed Maleva. She looked Tal in the face as if considering him for the first time. 'He has a special interest in you, Talbot Uskevren.'
'He isn't done, either,' said Feena. They had found a trail of blood leading to the theater entrance, but Rusk had escaped. 'You would be wise to trust in Selune. She offers the power to oppose his kind.'
'I appreciate what you've done,' said Tal. 'Eckart will see that you're well paid for healing me. But I'll need more time to consider this business of the moonfire and Selune.'
'If you let the beast rule your heart,' warned Feena, 'you must be destroyed.' The heat in her voice was startling.
'I'll find a way,' promised Tal. 'But I'll find my own way.'
'Sometimes that is the best course,' said Maleva. 'We will remain in Selgaunt until you have found that way.'
Feena gave Tal a long look to emphasize her mother's point, a threat mingled with some other emotion in her steady gaze. 'We'll be watching you,' she said.
'I understand,' said Tal. He knew Maleva and Feena would deal harshly with him if he surrendered to the monster Rusk had placed inside him. 'I have thirty days.'
THE BUTLER
Paul S. Kemp
Cale sprinted down the alley, flattened himself against the wall, and shot a nervous glance behind. No one- just darkness and empty cobblestones. Winded from the run, his lungs heaved like a bellows. He sucked in the stink of the alley, a sour reek of urine and vomit, and blew it out in a cloud of frozen mist.
Take it easy, he ordered himself. But that was easier thought than done. Someone was following him; someone had been since he had left Stormweather Towers. But who? And why?
He slid along the wall until he reached a shallow, garbage-strewn recess hewn from the bricks. Blanketing himself in shadow, he concentrated on slowing his heart and steadying his breathing. He knew a cloud of exhaled breath would betray his location as surely as a shout. With an effort of will, he calmed himself.
The roughness of the bricks at his back tempted him to try climbing, but he quickly dismissed the idea as too risky. If his pursuer caught up to him while he hung helpless on the wall…
Blowing out a soft, tense sigh, he quietly eased his dagger from its belt sheath and peered through the darkness behind him. Still no one. Perhaps he had lost A silhouette suddenly appeared at the mouth of the alley, a short, wiry body framed by the light of a street torch. Cale froze and held his breath. The figure wavered uncertainly for a moment, as though sniffing for a trap, then stalked down the alley. The soft sshhk of a blade being drawn rang loud in Cale's ears. He gripped his own dagger in a sweating fist and tried to sink deeper into the shadows.
The figure prowled down the narrow alley with short sword drawn. Its wary gaze swept the shadowy recess where Cale hid but passed over without a pause. Still holding his breath, Cale studied the man. Darkness hid his features, but Cale nevertheless recognized the ready blade and deft movements of a professional killer. An old adage he had learned back in the pirate city of Westgate popped into his head-only an assassin knows an assassin.
The man stopped mere feet from Cale's recess and peered ahead into the darkness. Apparently satisfied, he muttered something under his breath and started to stalk farther down the alley Cale leaped out and smashed a fist into his jaw. The impact dislodged teeth and knocked the man across the alley.
Cale easily sidestepped the dazed assassin's retaliatory stab and landed another vicious punch, this one to the nose. Bone shattered like eggshell, and blood exploded from the assassin's face in a spray of crimson. Stunned,
