Her skin was a shade darker than before, from weeks of soot and grease no cold-water scrubbing could remove. It hadn't lost any of its beauty, though. Her silver-white pubic triangle stood out like a beacon. The sunlight shining through the trees overhead turned the drops of water on her skin into sparkling jewels and threw moving patterns of light and shade on her throat, shoulders, and breasts. Riyannah might not be at home in the wilderness, but she certainly looked enough like a wild creature of the forest and the waters.

At last Riyannah stopped posing, got dressed, and sat down on a boulder with her rifle across her knees. Blade's rifle rested muzzle up against the boulder. Blade stripped off his clothes, except for the knife in a sheath on his right ankle, and plunged into the stream.

The biting chill took his breath away, as it always did at first. He went deep, letting the current carry him downstream, then swept upward toward the sunlight and the air.

As his head broke surface, Riyannah screamed. Blade shot half clear of the water like a leaping dolphin, then turned toward Riyannah.

Three bat-cats were gliding out of the sky at her. Their tails were rigid, their membranes fully spread, their forepaws reaching out, and their eyes fixed hungrily. Blade was twenty yards downstream from Riyannah and nearly on the opposite bank. The bat-cats were too intent on Riyannah to care about any other prey. He ducked under and churned toward the woman.

Her rifle went off, the sound distorted by the water, a bat-cat screamed, and the rifle fired three more times. Blade surfaced, and a bat-cat plunged into the stream almost on top of him. He drew his knife, then saw that half the beast's head was blown away by Riyannah's bullets.

Then the rifle jammed. As the second bat-cat came at her, Riyannah thrust at it with the bayonet.