"The balance you're seeking to protect is false, druid," Druz said. "We seek a wolf that has developed a fondness for human flesh."

The druid shook his head slowly and carefully, without any emotion. "I don't care. A wolf will hunt those that hunt it."

"This wolf attacks children, druid." Druz made her voice hard and challenging. "Is that the kind of beast you would protect?"

"Children are lost every day. That is part of nature's balance. Only the strong survive."

"The strong," Druz agreed, "and the clever." She paused for the briefest moment, knowing her decision, but not knowing how the druid would respond. "I won't suffer to let that creature live. I saw three of the children who were mauled by the wolf. They are neither strong nor clever. That's why the wolf has singled them out."

At Druz's side, Kord shifted nervously, anticipating the scimitar's stroke that would open his brother's throat.

"Damn it, woman," Kord snarled anxiously.

The druid's eyes remained locked on Druz's, and for a moment she thought he was so cold and intent that her words wouldn't touch him.

Druz placed her hands on her hips, only inches from the hilts of the throwing daggers she had hidden under her leather armor behind her back. If the druid walked away, she intended to try to kill him. Maybe killing the other wolves they'd encountered hadn't been on her agenda, but slaying the one they'd come to find definitely was.

The time passed almost unbearably.

Druz was acutely conscious of the small sounds in the forest around them. She couldn't help wondering what kinds of creatures might be there, and if they were under the druid's thrall. Warriors who lived outside forests and drank in taverns told horrible stories about the vindictive ways and practices of druids in general and the Emerald Enclave in particular.