The leader picked up a stone; thrown by a man's arm it was almost as dangerous as a crossbow bolt.

She jerked, twisting to the left with the sinuous grace of a snake. But it caught her in the left chest, paralyzing her foreleg at the shoulder. She let out a cry of anguish, half howl, half scream, as she plowed into the stony street. But her legs were already moving, her claws catching at cracks in the paving. The pain-and she realized that the only injury was intense pain-receded and she got her legs under her.

The scratch-faced one was almost on top of her. Throat: too close. Groin: he was a soldier, too much chance he was wearing protection. The sensitive inside of the upper thigh: beautiful-it was his turn to scream. But he had a bigger rock. It grazed the side of her face, almost amputating one ear. She was forced to jump back, and he was on his feet and away but now he was leaving a trail of blood.

To a wolf it might as well have been a trail of burning pitch. She let out a cry, wolf speech, The quarry is just ahead, and heard and smelled rather than saw Maeniel and the rest at the end of the street. The chain striking the stones made a fear-some clatter. Then she took out after them again.

The street rose sharply and turned into a climbing stair.

When she passed the bend, she saw the one she'd marked straggling in a welter of blood. She knew she must have nicked the big artery in his thigh. Almost she pitied him, but then she remembered Itta's eyes looking up at her, open, empty in death, through the clear water, and she knew he must have been the one to push the woman into the water, drive his knife through her ribs, holding her to the muddy bottom in the shallows until she drowned.

Her pity evaporated. She jumped, clearing his struggling body, and continued after the rest. By the nose she knew Maeniel, Robert, and his friends were behind her. That damned chain, what an ungodly racket.

What would they do about that damned chain?

The street was a ramp now and curved outward, looking down on the city. The spear seemed almost leisurely as it arched above her. For a second she slowed and all her muscles jerked. She was thinking it might be aimed at her, but it wasn't, and she could see that clearly once it flashed overhead.

A beautiful throw. Beautiful. She and Maeniel hunted to-gether after the human fashion and she knew how a spear should be handled. Of the four remaining criminals, the two older men were flagging now.

The boys outpaced them.

The spear, at the highest point of its arc, broke, then fell, catching the slowest of the fugitives at the point where the shoulders joined the neck and shearing through the spinal cord. He fell, bonelessly dead even before he hit the ground. Three remained. Wolf kill, cat kill, they kill different ways. The wolf runs its prey into the ground. The cat is agile, the bite a death blow dispatching its victim instantly. But to the beast of mutable flesh and tangible moonlight, both ways were open.

Wolf kill, Regeane thought and loosed her last kick. Deadly, almost as fast as a cheetah, faster than most beasts of the hoof can run, she came, closing the gap between herself and the other straggler. He'd killed the boy and taken pleasure in the deed. The son had been, for all his weedy build, only a child and almostdefenseless, an easy kill.

The broad, shallow-stepped street curved out over the town below with only a low safety wall between the street and a fall into the jumble of red-tiled roofs below. Behind, making the best pace he could, Maeniel felt his heart jump into his throat. He dropped back, ready to take out any man among Robert's friends who loosed another spear, but none among them even looked like trying it. They, as much as the wolf, scented blood and were ready to go hand to hand with the survivors.

Ahead, Regeane paced her chosen prey. He caught sight of her from the corner of his eye. He was running at the outer edge of the street, the safety rail no higher than his knee. He swerved toward it and his knee slammed painfully into the stone curb, but he might have saved himself if her shoulder and snapping jaws hadn't crowded his left side. He lost his balance and went over. The scream was terrible, chilling, but brief. His head contacted a terra-cotta roof tile. It snapped his neck and crushed his skull.

Regeane slowed for the final push. The street had reached the hilltop and the two ahead were counting on being faster than the wolves or Robert and his friends on the downslope. The rain had abated but the wolf warned Regeane that the storm had not ended, since it was growing darker by the mo-ment. The light was failing and a greenish nightmare twilight hung over the city. Lightning flashed, striking close by, and the almost simultaneous explosion of thunder struck terror into the wolf. She almost escaped the woman's control. She slowed drastically. Her hair stood on end as static electricity danced like fire on her pelt, but the woman commanded the wolf. Inexorably, she shook off her fear, and her vision, dazzled by the flash, cleared. But when she was able to see ahead, she found the remaining pair of fugitives had vanished.

In the square, Chiara watched in wide-eyed shock as the mob took up the chase.

"I warned you, dammit, I warned you," Hugo's guest roared.

For a moment Chiara didn't reply, then she said, "At least thank God they're gone."

"Don't bother to thank God. Thank the bishop. If he hadn't spoken up when he did-"

"We might well be dangling from the rafters. The mob was hot to hang someone, and they might have accepted substitutions."

The bishop was standing up. "No," he said to Chiara. "They are not all gone."

The weapons of Desiderius's guard had taken some effect. There were five sodden, bloody bundles left lying on the cobbles. At least three of them were still moving. Even though the sky was growing darker, the rain was abating; the bishop shrugged away his golden cope and robe. He was dressed in a worn linen tunic and trousers. He jumped a bit awkwardly from the porch and began to make the rounds of the wounded. Absolving as well as he could the sins of the living as well as the dead, he began to call out orders.

"You men go fetch litters. There are some in the church. The wounded must be moved to some safer spot. And take up the dead-" The corpses still lay where they had been placed earlier for the king's inspection. "Place them on the porch, sheltered from the rain until they can be given Christian burial."

Gimp, directed by Hugo's guest, and a couple of the other men helped in moving the bodies, while another party, some of them women, ran to the church.

Armine continued to hold a still-trembling Chiara. "Child," he said. "You have seen this day enough to unsettle the souls of grown men. Indeed, I shall not forget it."The bishop returned to the palace porch. Armine gave him a hand up. His clothing was drenched, his sparse hair plas-tered to his scalp, but he looked oddly younger than he had when he had been weighed down with his ceremonial cope and golden robe.

"Two are beyond help. One, I don't know. Badly wounded. The remaining two will likely live if they are taken to shelter and given prompt attention."

Just then two men with a litter arrived. The bishop directed them in moving the wounded to the church.

Chiara pulled free of Armine's grip and ran to the other end of the porch where the corpses now lay. The two youngest were together at the end of the row; they had been placed close to the palace door. Chiara looked down at Mona and her cousin. The skull-crushing wound in the boy's head had been washed by the rain and the mourners. It was a raw, red gash in his livid scalp and face. Mona's slit throat had been sewn together, but her hand showed the stump of a finger where the ring had been cut off.

"They are not more than children," Chiara whispered, reaching down to touch Mona's face.

"She was fourteen, he twelve," Hugo's guest told her.

"How did you know?"

"I heard it being discussed. I hear a lot of things. Now come away. I warned you."

Chiara ground her teeth. "You shut up, you... you... you..."

"What must I do next?" the spirit said, and laughed. "Teach you some mighty oaths?"

"I wish you had a face so I could slap it," Chiara said. "And by the way, what did you mean by that charade in my bed-room last night?"

Before he could answer, Armine arrived. "Dearest daughter, to whom are you speaking?"

Chiara looked around wildly. "Gimp," she more or less suggested.

"He is not here," her father said sternly.

"Hugo?" she said hopefully.

"He is in an absolute spasm of terror, clinging to the bishop's chair."

Down at the other end of the portico the bishop was trying to pry Hugo away from his chair and having little success in his endeavors. Most of the rest were crossing the square on their way to the cathedral.

The rain slowed but the sky was black as night.

"Come, the weather is worsening. Come," Armine said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. He took her hand and began to pull her toward the edge of the porch.

"No," the spirit said. "Don't."

Chiara pulled free and spoke to the empty air in a way that frightened Armine more than the storm or the mob had.

"No," she repeated. "What's going to happen?"

"Be quiet," Hugo's guest said. "I'm listening. One."Chiara glanced around, eyes dilated with terror.

"Two," Hugo's guest said. "Down, down, down," he shrieked. "On... three."

The lightning bolt hit. The whole forum was illuminated with an unearthly blue glow. The church tower, highest struc-ture in the forum, crumbled, the heavy stones punching like nails through the leaded roof of the cathedral. The wooden framing crumbled and burst into flames.

Chiara saw the bishop flung away from Hugo as if by a push from a gigantic hand. Hugo was looking up at the sky, his mouth hanging open, and then a split second later, Chiara realized Hugo could see nothing.

Only the whites of his eyes were showing, and then he collapsed like a rag doll.

Armine somehow stayed upright, clinging to his daughter tightly. The bishop spun 'round and 'round until he, too, somehow ended up in Armine's arms. The explosion of thunder was simply deafening, the worst sound Armine had ever heard since the time he had only just barely escaped an avalanche in the Alps some years before. In fact, this sound was even worse.

The rain struck right behind the lightning, sheets and sheets of wild, wind-driven, blinding rain. Rain so thick that it was now impossible to see across the square. Rain that ex-tinguished the fire in the belfry.

Armine was a big, powerful man. He circled Chiara and the bishop in his arms and shel-tered them against the blast until both wind and rain died down enough for them to flee the palace porch into the half-ruined cathedral. It was of Roman construction, stone and concrete, and, except for a few holes in the roof on one side, it remained hospitable, warm and dry.

A second later, Regeane reached the hilltop herself. Both of the men she had been pursuing were gone.

She had expected to see them on the downslope leading to the gate. The same blinding rain hit that had struck the square, slowing the wolf again.

Where? Where had they gone? One side of the street was a wall supporting a villa on a still-higher hill, but on the right side what had been a drop had become a tree-covered slope- steep to be sure, but climbable-that led down to a marshy swamp the river flooded every spring.

Regeane slowed, the wind and rain lashed her, soaking her fur and chilling her body. But her blood was up and she longed for the kill. The ancient dreams of females in wolf packs long ago commanded her, called out to her heart. 0 little one, new one, for this you were born. When there were no humans, when we ruled and roamed the earth's hardest, most difficult places, glaciers, deserts of snow and ice, plains where grass dies in the scorching summer heat and fuels wildfires that darken the sky, forests, green forests where rain never stops, once in all of these we ruled and prospered. Strong and without fear. O most dangerous of mortals, drive your prey before you and strike it down.

Yes, there they were! Forging their way down the slope through the brush. Weeds, blackberry, canes, wild roses, scrub pine, birch, and low-growing oak were making travel difficult. But if they could gain the river... She saw several small boats moored in the shallows; if they managed to get to one of those, they might escape. Once downstream they could lose themselves in the vast wetlands-only half tamed even in Roman times-of the Po valley.

Not even the wolves could trail them into the endless thickets of reeds, cattails, scattered islands, and tiny water-ways formed by the river. Beyond lay the coast and ships that could take them away forever from any possible pursuit.

No, Regeane thought. No.

She leaped the low stone curb separating the street from the slope. Down she went, half running, halfsliding through mud churned by freshets started by the teeming rain pouring down the slope. She half slid, half ran until the hill grew less steep, and she found better footing on grass and tall weeds, golden broom stitched with the thorny canes of wild roses.

The blow took her by surprise. One of them had turned and broken a heavy cudgel from a scrub oak.

She staggered and he thrust the branch in her face, trying for her eyes. Enraged, she went for his throat, failed, and fell back as one of the sharp branches pierced her shoulder. She cried out in pain, trying to get her legs under her, but something that felt like the effective end of a battering ram slammed into her.

Maeniel, coming in hard, fast, and murderous. He ham-strung the man and tore out his throat.

Robert was hard on Maeniel's heels. He spared his foe's jerking body only a glance and closed on the last of the mur-derers, the boy who had confessed in the square.

He turned at bay, back to a thick, twisted willow trunk. Robert was upon him.

The two wolves simply watched. The mercenary had one last trick. He threw up his hands and said, "No!" as if in ab-ject surrender. Then he went for Robert's eyes with two fin-gers of one hand and-somehow he had a knife-he went for Robert's belly, an underhand slash, with the other.

Robert, still coming down the slope, wasn't fooled for a moment. He tucked in his chin, half turned, and drove his own knife up through the diaphragm, through one lobe of the lung, and into the pericardium of his foe. In return, he took a wicked slash through the muscles of his left side below the ribs. But then his elbow snapped back, tearing the knife from the mercenary's hand, leaving him staring down at Robert's dagger protruding from just below his ribs. Robert backed away.

The two men's eyes met.

"It is mortal," the boy said, his hands clutching at Robert's knife.

"You will live until I pull it free," Robert told him.

"Have I killed you, too?" the boy asked.

For the first time Robert realized he was wounded. He ex-plored the gash with the fingers of his right hand. "No, it is into the meat," he said.

"I'm glad," the boy said. "Enough has been done. I began it. I saw her when we crossed the river to take Desiderius's pay. I worked on the minds of the others. She smiled at me. She was beautiful. I hated you.

I knew I would never have anything like that for my own. I don't know you; but I hated you."

Robert's hand reached forward and snapped shut around the hilt of his knife.

"Watch out."

Regeane heard the outcry from behind her and saw those remaining friends of Robert's were standing on the road looking down.

"I think not," Maeniel said. He was human and was trying to untangle his chain from a bush.

Robert placed his left arm like a bar across his foe's chest.

"Forgive me?" the boy asked.

"No," Robert said. "But I will let you ask God's forgive-ness. I would not have you burn in hell. Youhave but a moment."

"I know," the boy said. "My heart stutters. My chest is filled with blood. Wait." He closed his eyes.

They waited, Robert, the men standing in the road, Regeane, and Maeniel. He was now wolf again. Then the boy's eyes opened. He grabbed Robert's wrist and jerked his hand back, pulling the knife free. It was followed by a terrible gush of blood.

The boy's eyes widened. A look of surprise spread over his features. "It doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would," he said, and then slumped down and died.

Robert staggered back a few paces, then sat down among the reeds in the muddy water and rested his forehead on his knees.

Regeane and Maeniel continued down the slope. Regeane was frightened for Maeniel. If he tried to swim the river with the chain around his neck, he might drown. But when they reached the bottom, Robert seized the collar around Mae-niel's neck and tried to bend it open bare-handed. At first he had no success, but then suddenly, aided by a massive thrust of raw power, the collar twisted open in his hands.

Robert didn't know how he'd done what he'd done, but Regeane and Maeniel both heard the bear's voice.

"Go ahead, run away, I can't stop you. And I certainly don't want you to drown. I want that fine body of yours undamaged-and your wife. I'll get her, too. Just you wait and see if I don't."

Maeniel vanished into the reeds and thick water plants at the river's edge. Robert hugged Regeane. For a moment, she rested her muzzle on his shoulder, then she, too, pulled away and was gone.

Inside the cathedral the bishop was occupied with the wounded. He was testy, cranky, and in very bad humor. Armine was helping him. This particular man was whining and moaning about an arrow sticking in his upper arm.

"It will mortify and I will die. The archers smear poison on them," the man cried. "Please, please, tell me I won't die."

"Shut up, Avoid," the bishop snapped. "There's no poison on these arrows. The archers the king hires are too frightened of the stuff and too plain bone lazy to bother."

"You know a lot about this," Armine said.

"Yes," the bishop told him. "In my youth I was a notable warrior until the last king, the one preceding the present de-vious crook on the throne, decided he needed a bishop he was sure would not be a servant of the pope as head of this see."

At just this moment, the man the bishop was examining let out a blood-curdling scream. Not surprising, as the bishop had pushed the arrowhead through his shoulder and out the other side, then snapped the shaft, thus removing it all.

The bishop threw away the broken arrow, saying, "Now you're cured. Shut up."

When Armine tried to staunch the blood flowing from his patient's shoulder, the bishop snapped, "No, no. Let it stop of itself. The blood will carry away any poison still left in the wound. Then put a clean bandage on him and send him home. There he can annoy his wife instead of me." Then the bishop moved on to the next casualty.This one was quiet, pale, and very still. He seemed deeply unconscious. "Oh, God," the bishop whispered. "The only compensation I have had in my stint as the king's bishop is not to have to look at this sort of thing very often. He is gut shot and will almost surely die. All I can do is prepare opium and give it to his wife." The bishop shook his head and rose to his feet.