She got no further. Without warning, Henrik leapt from his position, coming at the queen with such ferocity that even she was caught unaware. From out of his sleeve slid a razor-thin blade of ebony barely larger than his palm.

General Marner stood, stunned by the action. Battle-trained reflexes finally took over and he threw himself in front of Troia.

But he needn't have bothered. A pair of hands caught Henrik's wrist, twisting it violently. The blade flew harmlessly away. The traitorous guard snarled and threw a heavy fist at his own attacker.

Juren ducked his blow, but lost his grip on Henrik's wrist. The larger guard used the moment to shove his comrade away and start for the door.

"Stop him!" roared Marner.

The guards near the exit moved to block Henrik's path. At the same time, Juren reached down and seized the fallen blade.

With a roar, Henrik rammed his way into the other soldiers. The three collided against the door, cracking it. One guard fell. The other struggled with the much larger Henrik.

Juren threw the blade.

Troia rose. "No! We want him alive!"

The blade caught its target in the back of the neck, leaving a long, b.l.o.o.d.y gash. It then slipped onto Henrik's armored shoulder, finally dropping to the floor.

The wound, while serious, startled the a.s.sa.s.sin more than it injured him. That, however, proved to be enough. Marner and the second guard joined the first, finally overpowering Henrik.

Arms secured, the prisoner was turned to face his would-be victim and his former commanding officer.

"My life, my soul, belongs to the Ravager," he uttered.

"What's that?" snarled Marner.

Standing, the cat woman eyed Henrik with loathing. "An old Aramite oath. They all swear it in the name of the creature they think a G.o.d."

Henrik spat her direction, his shot falling just short. General Marner rewarded his behavior with a slap across the prisoner's rough face.

Henrik shook his head as if dizzied by the blow, then smiled savagely at his captors.

"So now we have our wolf in the fold." The commander studied Henrik's wound. "Deep, but not too deep. You'll stay alive long enough to be questioned."

The Aramite continued to grin.

Turning to his queen, Marner bent his head. "Your majesty, this is my failure. I should've delved deeper into his past, discovered whether he was the true Henrik."

"The raiders are very devious, general. They pattern themselves after their so-called deity."

"Our Lord Ravager will smite you down!" Henrik rasped. "Your blasphemy will be punished!"

Daring a step closer, Troia replied, "How strong is your G.o.d? He seems to have left you bereft of an empire, Aramite."

The prisoner growled and shook his head. Sweat covered his brow and his skin went pale.

"I think you're undermining his faith a bit, my lady," remarked General Marner. "He's not looking all that confident now."

Despite having already been spat at, Troia moved yet closer. Her large eyes narrowed abruptly and her nose twitched as she sniffed at Henrik. "He's not looking well at all," she announced suddenly. "General, I think I detect-"

Henrik suddenly roared in obvious agony. His eyes widened and flecks of foam spilled from his mouth.

"A healer!" shouted Marner. "Get a-"

But it was already too late. With one tremendous convulsion, the wolf raider folded over. He shivered once, twice . . . and then fell limp in the guards' hands.

Quickly looking around, Troia cried, "Juren! Leave that be!"

The other soldier, just about to pick up the a.s.sa.s.sin's blade, hesitated. "Your majesty?"

"The blade! It carries the Bite of the Ravager! It's poisoned!"

Juren withdrew, staring with dismay at the hand which had wielded the weapon earlier.

Moving lithely for one very pregnant, the queen stepped over to him. She took the hand and inspected palm and back very carefully.

"No cuts," she informed them. "No scratches." Her gaze went to Juren's. "You are safe."

"Likely all that garlic he eats would've killed the poison, anyway," the general commented. Still, he was relieved that Henrik had not managed to take another victim with him. He patted Juren on the back. "You did your job well, lad."

"Thank you, sir . . . but . . . never I thought it'd be Henrik . . . "

"None of us, lad . . . " To the queen, Marner said, "I'll see that the palace guard's tightened up from here on, your majesty. There'll be no more of these curs among us!"

Touching the gem in her pendant, Troia nodded. Her mind was clearly on the a.s.sa.s.sin. "I was still probing. There was a chance he could have pa.s.sed questioning. He had no reason to commit himself so quickly."

"Likely he thought he'd never get a better chance to do you in, my lady. Fanatics, that's how you and the king've described them before."

"Yes. Willing to do anything for a would-be G.o.d who would just as well eat them. Thank goodness, at least the Ravager can do no more harm."

"Why's that, your majesty?" Juren piped up.

"Because, thanks to my husband and other powers, the Aramites' lord is sealed in a hidden place, never to be released. Only the king and those who imprisoned the Ravager there know its location."

General Marner glared at Henrik's p.r.o.ne form. "Well, there's one less who'll try to avenge that beast. That'll be a lesson to the rest, mark me."

Troia nodded, but her eyes disagreed with the commander's evaluation. "Let us hope so. Let us hope so."

VI.

Voices. They were the first thing to penetrate the darkness that had swallowed the Gryphon. Most of them were incomprehensible but recognizable, the savage hoots of the hulking Quel.

The lone human voice barely rose above a whisper, but its toneless quality immediately set his nerves on edge. He knew that voice, a voice of the dead.

"I could care less whether he slew two or two dozen of you," the speaker remarked. "You know the key is for him to live, for now. That's why I punished the one in charge of the attack. He let fury override reason. There will be vengeance, but calculated, timed."

As the Gryphon stirred to waking, the injuries caused by the Quel also awoke, nearly making him cry out. Only decades of life as a hardened mercenary enabled the Gryphon to keep still, pretend that he lay unconscious.

"He will reveal what I desire and lead you to what you desire. That was our agreement," continued the voice. A Quel hooted, then the voice added, "Yes, he should be."

The sound of footsteps echoed, growing nearer. The Gryphon did not move, did not alter his breathing. He had often fooled his adversaries into thinking he was unconscious. Perhaps again- "Enough games," murmured the uncaring voice.

Something touched the Gryphon on the shoulder. A horrific shock tore through him, one that made the injuries insignificant by comparison. This time, the king of Penacles could not keep from shouting. His roar of pain repeated endlessly in the glittering cavern.

And through tear-drenched eyes both avian and leonine, he beheld the bland face of a corpse.

Injury had weathered the shaven countenance more than the past few years had warranted, but there was no denying the emotionless expression, the burning eyes.

There was no denying that Orril D'Marr hovered over him.

In the one hand revealed by the figure's dark cloak, Orril D'Marr wielded a frightening recreation of his favored weapon. The magical mace had been designed for both battle and torture and the Aramite had used it for the latter reason quite often. In a true moment of irony, he had been grabbing for a handhold during the final moments of Legar's destruction and had instead gripped the head, at last suffering a taste of what his victims had endured.

But the mace had been destroyed, lost in the devastation. In fact, when last he had seen the Aramite officer, D'Marr, too, had been tumbling into the great crevice formed by the collapse of tons of earth upon the Quel's stronghold. The wolf raider should have been mangled to a pulp, his body crushed under the earth and rock.

"My Lord Ravager watches over me," D'Marr remarked, as if reading his prisoner's thoughts. "I suffered some injury, but nothing that could not be healed . . . " Just for a moment, a flicker of bitterness touched the mask that was his face. " . . . nothing, save what you did to me."

Handing the mace to, of all creatures, a Quel, he threw back the thick cloak he wore, revealing the twisted, maimed remnant of his other arm. The flesh was even more pale that that of the face. The hand, if it could still be called such, resembled a scaly set of skeletal talons.

"When the Quel found me, miraculously whole despite all, they chose, for reasons of their own, to allow me to live. For their needs, they required my health and so they used their magic . . . at the same time enhancing me where necessary." He paused, as if expecting his captive audience to ask just how. When the Gryphon remained stonily silent, D'Marr shrugged and went on. "But they could do nothing for this." With effort, he raised the arm slightly at the shoulder. "The full force of my power mace went through it, burning away most of the muscle, the nerve. The rest atrophied from inability to use it." Utter hatred radiated in the eyes, a monstrous contrast to the rest of the frozen visage. "A few seconds longer gripping the head and I would've died."

From behind him came a second, larger Quel. This one had a slight crest atop his elongated head and as he neared, the Gryphon noted how the creature holding D'Marr's weapon moved respectfully aside.

The Quel leader hooted, the same call that the Gryphon had first heard upon awaking.

"You're absolutely right," Orril D'Marr replied to the beast, his gaze never leaving the Gryphon. "He is probably wondering."

A cry burst from somewhere behind the king. The Gryphon immediately tried to turn, only then registering that his arms and legs were bound by thick, iron manacles. The manacles were attached to short chains nailed into the rock upon which he lay. Try as he might, he could not pull them free.

"You did come for your son, didn't you?" mocked the wolf raider. "Your second son, that is?"

Another of the armored Quel carried a struggling bundle before the prisoner. Darot saw his father and both relief and fear filled his eyes. He had clearly been crying for some time, but the Gryphon could hardly fault the child for that.

"You'll note that he's quite well and almost untouched. You may wonder why that is."

The Gryphon eyed his nemesis, but said nothing.

"The Quel and I . . . we came to an understanding. Thanks to you and that wizard, Bedlam, you accomplished what their mortal foes, the Seekers, never could." The Seekers were an avian race that had supplanted the underdwellers as rulers of the land before the coming of the Dragon Kings. The two races had battled long and hard against one another. "You destroyed their world."

The Crystal Dragon had actually done that, but the Gryphon, Cabe Bedlam, and the enigmatic Darkhorse had contributed to the chaos, if not by choice. Of course, neither the Aramites nor the Quel would see it that way.

"My armored friends, they would finally rid themselves of the Dragon King, but with their numbers reduced and their home in . . . shall we say 'disarray'? . . . they lack the strength."

"And they think to gain it from you?" the captive finally said. Despite the situation, he eyed the wolf raider with disdain. "A squalid pack of mongrels with barely a place to call their den? What strength could you add that could deal with a Dragon King, especially the Lord of Legar?"

Orril D'Marr almost reached for his mace, but then evidently thought better of it. To the Gryphon, he quietly replied, "The strength of a G.o.d."

The fur and feathers on the back of the Gryphon's neck stiffened. It had been more than vengeance that had sent the Aramite after him.

"You were there." D'Marr snapped his fingers and the Quel brought Darot closer. "You were there when our Lord Ravager was tricked into imprisonment. You know where he is kept . . . "

"And where he'll stay for eternity."

Darot suddenly cried out through his gag. The Gryphon's eyes burned red as he watched the creature holding his son rake huge claws ever so lightly over the youth's cheek. A hint of blood trickled down.

The Gryphon tried to draw upon his magic, but immediately sensed a dulling of his powers. At the same time, he noticed many of the gems filling the cavern flicker as if alive.

"No wizardry here, misfit. Not unless it falls into Quel wizardry."

"My son has no part in this. Release him."

The frost-haired figure glanced at the child. "I can do that, misfit. I can let this son live, where the other didn't."

Memories of the limp body of Demion filled the Gryphon's thoughts. Darot's brother had been older, old enough to see battle. His parents had kept him secreted as well as they could, but the Aramites had come across him.

And without compunction, Orril D'Marr had killed him.

He would do the same to Darot. The Gryphon could not imagine losing a second child, not even with a third on the way. "I won't fight you, wolf, You and your grotesque friends can do with me as you please. The boy deserves better."

"You know what we want. Give us that and I promise your get will be sent to his mother."

Something about the way D'Marr said it, as devoid of emotion as it was, set the Gryphon even more on edge. "What do you mean by that?"

The Aramite looked at his Quel comrades. "They are creature directly to the point. They would torture your child or you right now, using straightforward methods." D'Marr gave him an empty smile. "I, being civilized, prefer a more mentally-debilitating method first."

"That burrower touches my son again and they'll find nothing left of him but a sc.r.a.ped-out sh.e.l.l . . . " He eyed the creature hold Darot, letting the Quel read his meaning.

The huge beast drew ever so slightly into his sh.e.l.l.

"Look at him . . . " Orril D'Marr commented to the Quel leader. "Even now he can make one of your minions cringe. You see why we do it my way?"

The Quel nodded, responding with a slight, drawn-out hoot.

"Oh, yes, it will work. He just has to decide how much he values his family and who, if necessary, he wishes to lose less."

Darot whimpered.

"Speak plainly . . . if you can, cur!" snapped the Gryphon.

This time, D'Marr did reach for the mace. The head flared as he brought it toward the Gryphon. The latter did not flinch, knowing that that was exactly what the Aramite desired.

Finally retracting the sinister weapon, D'Marr whispered, "Speak plainly? Very well, I'll speak very plainly." He pointed the mace to the left, where the grim figure of another wolf raider materialized from the darkness. Dust still covered the ebony armor. Here was one of those who had transported Darot.

In the Aramite's hands sat a peculiar-looking and ominous crystal arrangement about the size of a small cat. Ten, small blue stones hovered magically above a crimson one that fit snugly in an oval, bronze tray set in the human's palms. As the Gryphon studied the blue gems, he noticed that they slowly shifted position, creating a descending spiral.

"Set it directly between the two of them."

Another soldier, also covered in dust, brought forth a wooden stand, which he placed several yards before the Gryphon. At the same time, the Quel holding Darot positioned the child on a rock across from his father. With impressive efficiency, the armored beast used its huge clawed digits to bind the Gryphon's son to the rock.