"He's not so bad. He's just all cut up and his fur's all matted with dried blood. He'll look a lot better when I've had a chance to clean him up."

"Now that we've got him, what're we going to do with him?"

"I want to keep him, father. And don't you ever call him ‘Tlad's tery' again," she said with mock severity. "He's mine now."

"I don't know about that. Look at the size of him — the muscles in those arms. If he should ever turn on you…"

"He won't," she said, and meant it. "He knows I'm his friend. I could see it in the way he looked at me when I started washing off his wounds."

"Well, we'll see."

"Father," she said after a pause while she tied a knot in the bandage, "are Kitru's men hunting and exterminating the forest teries, too?"

She remembered how all the teries in and around the town had been killed or driven off by the Overlord's decree. That had been awful, but at least the soldiers had not gone hunting through the forests for them. That had changed now, it seemed.

Komak squatted beside her. "Yes, I'm afraid they are. Overlord Mekk's new decree applies not only to us but to the forest teries and even to some of the more bizarre plants — at least that's what Rab told us."

"And where is this Rab fellow everybody talks about?"

"I don't know." He let his body slip back and rested on his buttocks. "But I wish he'd get here."

With a slow, almost painful motion, he lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. Adriel stopped her ministrations to the tery and watched her father with concern.

"Tired?"

"Exhausted. I'm not cut out for this. I didn't want to be leader of the group. When I agreed to the position, I thought it was only for a few days…only until Rab showed up. Now it's been months."

"Where could he be? Do you think he got caught?"

"Possibly. When he warned us, he said we didn't have much time to get away from the keep. Maybe he tarried too long trying to make sure everybody got out."