But he also knew that she did not move of her own strength. Not anymore.
Though her heart beat with mad terror, Daylily ran, her teeth set in a snarl and her hair flying behind her. Sun Eagle came after, but he could not catch her, for the thrill of the hunt was not so new in him. He shouted warnings that he knew she would not hear, then stopped wasting his breath. They pursued the panther all the way back across the fields of his little demesne, and the villagers, after one glimpse of their oppressor thus pursued by the red girl and her dark companion, hid in their homes and caves, shielding their faces from the sight.
Tocho’s eyes fixed only upon the peak of Skymount Watch, his totem, his haven. If he could only reach it, he lied to himself, he would be safe. They’d not touch him there!
Already he could feel the bite of the Bronze in his flesh. No! He was Tocho the Panther! He could not die!
Up the incline he raced, on all fours now as he scrabbled up the rocks, sending many larger stones hurtling down at his hunters. Daylily was struck in the cheek by one small stone and narrowly put up her hand to protect herself from another, which bounced off the Bronze and shattered into tiny pieces behind her. She was so close, she could feel the pound of his heart, and she wanted him gone from her country like she had wanted nothing before in her life.
She wanted him dead. By her hand, not Sun Eagle’s.
Tocho leapt. He caught the top of the carved likeness, and he pulled himself up, up to that stone watch from which he had ruled and feasted for years he did not count. Whirling to face his enemies at last, he crouched, his hands clutching the stone, his feet braced, all his claws out and gleaming. He snarled, his face splitting with teeth and a great pink tongue.
Daylily saw him and screamed inside, but she could not have said whether it was a scream of fear or of hunger now, so strong was the drive to kill. Her feet slipped on the stones shifting beneath her, but she caught herself, tearing her hands, and crawled the last few paces to the base of the stone.
Tocho looked down at her and snarled again.
But it wasn’t Tocho.
I will fight you! roared the red wolf. For it was she whom Daylily saw upon the stone, the heavy bindings about her neck and limbs dangling, for the moment, uselessly.
Daylily went white in a wash of freezing cold. “How did you get free?” she whispered in a breath.
I will fight you! roared the wolf, saliva dripping from her jaws. You will never be rid of me!
“No!” Daylily screamed.
Tocho, standing above, forgot his own fear as he stared down at her, this vicious warrior woman screaming and collapsing to her knees below him. She feared him after all! His big cat’s leer turned to a smile, and his tail lashed a moment as he caught his balance.
Then he leapt.
He landed atop Daylily, wrapping his mighty limbs about her, and she felt the heat of his breath upon her face, her neck, in her hair. But it was the wolf, not Tocho, who fought her in her addled mind, and she shrieked and dropped the Bronze as they grappled together down the stony hill. She caught the cat by the throat, and for a moment, when they reached a flat place and paused in their tumble, she was on top, her hands at the beast’s throat, her knee pressed into his heart.
The wolf in her mind, whom she believed she held in her grasp, gagged: You are not a killer!
“You are!” Daylily screamed. “You’ll kill us all!”
Tocho, not understanding what was being shouted in his face by this wild creature, tried to smack her off with a swipe of his claws. But she was empowered by a force far stronger than any he had ever known, and somehow he could not land a hit, though his claws tore through her hair and tangled there. He managed to overbalance them, however, and once more they fell down the incline.
Sun Eagle, watching all as he advanced from below, yelled a feral battle cry from the days of his youth long ages ago. Even as the girl and the Faerie beast rolled in brutal embrace toward him, he leapt as swiftly as his own long-dead fighting dog had once leapt into the fray at his command. And his Bronze fang sank home, deadly and accurate.
Tocho screamed. Then he went limp in a heap of silky fur, Daylily’s arm pinned beneath him.
Sun Eagle stood, withdrew the Bronze stone, and quietly retied it, stained and dripping, about his neck. Only then did he kneel and push the heavy bulk of the dead Faerie beast off the girl. Daylily lay wide-eyed, struggling to gasp a breath. Sun Eagle felt her for wounds and broken bones but found nothing.
“Get up, Crescent Woman,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment and therefore angry. “Get up. Why do you tremble so?”
Daylily could not move. Her head and neck quivered as she tried to speak, to swallow. Shaking his head, Sun Eagle took her in his arms and hauled her upright. But her limbs would not support her, and she fell again, landing on the dead hulk of her so-recent prey.
Sun Eagle narrowed his eyes.