In the filmy eggshell brightness of the spring afternoon the old man's blood glared crimson, the warrior's yellow coat in brilliant contrast to the emerald of the grass, the beryl of the close-crowding trees. The knife in the woman's hand blinked like a mirror.

Seeing no point in making a target of himself by crossing the meadow openly, the Icefalcon ducked immediately back into the belt of hazel and chokecherry that ringed the clearing and kept to cover as he worked his way around.

The woman was putting up a good fight. She was as tall as her attacker and of sturdy build, dressed as a man for travel in trousers and a padded wool jacket. Still, the man got the knife away from her, twisted her arm behind her, and seized her thick braids.

The woman cried out in pain-she had not ceased to shriek throughout the encounter-and the Icefalcon simply stepped from behind an elm tree next to the struggling pair, flipped one of his several poignards into his hand, and slit the warrior's throat.

The woman saw him a split second before he grabbed the man around the jaw to pull his head back for the kill.

She screamed in what the Icefalcon considered unreasonable horror-what did she think he was going to do?-as the man's blood soused over her breast and belly in a raw-smelling drench, and jumped away as her attacker collapsed between them. The Icefalcon had already turned, sword in hand, to scan the woods behind.

"Shut up," he instructed. "I can't hear anything." A single bandit was even rarer than a single cockroach.

But there was no second attack. No sound in the woods, at least as far as he could tell over the woman's hooting gasps.

He glanced back at her after the first quick check and pointed out, "Your companion is hurt."