Togi swung his ax in a gentle practice swing. Around him he could hear dozens of axes impacting on wood as the other lumbermen began the arduous task of clearing the valley. Togi’s ax rebounded off the fargi’s hard bark and he braced himself, legs apart, to deliver a powerful stroke to the tree. The ax blade was slicing deep into the bark when a far off scream suddenly rent the air. Togi jerked his ax out of the fargi and gazed around. The other lumbermen looked startled and had also halted their swings. The Squad Leader began pulling his sword from its sheath as if contemplating punishment for the work stoppage when a soldier ran out of the forest, his long braids flying behind him and his scimitar clasped tightly in his fist. The soldier talked briefly in hushed tones with the Squad Leader, who immediately hurried off in the direction of that first scream. Togi watched as the nervous soldier visibly calmed himself, smoothing his tunic, before issuing orders for the workers to move into the center of the clearing.

Screams started coming from every direction and were accompanied by clashes of metal upon metal. Togi dropped his ax and slid covertly into a pile of leaves as his fellow workers returned to the clearing. The tale of the last massacre indicated that the Chula would kill everybody they found, not just the soldiers, and Togi wasn’t ready to die just yet. He quickly decided that he would rather risk the wrath of the Situ soldiers for disobeying an order than die at the hands of the cat people.

Togi lay completely covered with leaves and breathed shallowly. Even under the leaves the screams and growls sounded closer than before. The lumberman tried placing his hands over his ears to shut out the horrible sounds of men dying, but it did no good. A grunt, followed by a scream, preceded the impact Togi felt when a body fell on top of him. His breathing became ragged and he felt small particles of decaying leaves being sucked into his mouth, but the body above him stopped thrashing and lay still.