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The words shocked Alanna to full consciousness. His arm? If only she could lower her head to see him.
"Broken," commented Natahk. "But it will heal if you live. It is no payment for an eye. I must see that
you are better paid!"
Without warning, Alanna felt herself literally thrown forward. She stumbled a few steps blindly,
somehow managing to keep her feet until someone caught her. She knew it was Diut when he passed her
quickly to someone else.
"You shame my teaching," she heard him mutter. "How could you have missed his other eye?"
She wondered herself. She willed her legs to support her and stood away from whoever held her. Not
until then did she realize that it was Jules. The moment he saw that she was able to stand alone, he
released her.
She looked around for Diut and saw him in the midst of a wide ring of Tehkohn. Just as she focused on
him, he blocked a blow with his left arm, then dodged sharply backward away from a quick second blow
that he could not block. His right arm, Natahk's right eye. The two circled each other warily. They
seemed to spar as though in a friendly mock duel. Diut was limping again, worse this time, and he
looked as though handfuls of his fur had been torn out here and there. Natahk looked unhurt except for
the eye. But the eye was important. Aside from the distracting pain, the agony, that it had to be giving, it
made him nervous and overcautious. And it made him highly protective of the other eye. He could not
take proper advantage of Diut's disability while he was protecting his eye from Diut's potentially deadly
jabs.
Diut kicked sharply, using his feet where he could not use his arm. They danced, every now and then
striking a blow that would have killed anyone else. It looked deceptively simple. Once Natahk went
down, but was on his feet again before the clearly weary Diut could use the advantage.
Then Diut fell, knocked down by £ blow he could neither dodge nor block. Natahk tried to kick him in
the face or throat, but Diut caught his foot one-handed, twisted it, threw him off balance. Natahk fell, got
up limping as Diut rose.
Favoring Natahk's blind side, Diut strove to end the fighting. He drove the Garkohn back, scattering a
group of onlookers.
Abruptly, Natahk stopped running, launched himself at Diut as though at an animal. Natahk's size alone
would have made such a move enough to unnerve a lesser opponent. The two fell together, Natahk
shifting his weight deliberately so that Diut could not help falling on his injured arm.
For the first time, Alanna heard Diut scream in pain. For a moment he lay still, Natahk atop him. Natahk
seized him by the fur of his head, pulled the head back to expose the throat. Unexpectedly, Diut rolled,
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made a sound like an animal snarl as he unseated Natahk. He struck the Garkohn a heavy blow to the
side of the head the blind side. The blow was hard enough to stun anyone else, but it only slowed
Natahk down for a moment. The moment was enough.
Diut stood up. Natahk had just managed to rise to his knees. He looked up at Diut just as Diut drove a
hoof-hard foot into his throat. Natahk flared luminescent yellow, collapsed, and slowly faded to the
mottled death yellow. The last fighting of the battle was over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alanna
My child, a thickly furred, deep green little girl was an instant celebrity. Curious Tehkohn came visiting
as soon as Diut would let them, came looking to see how blue the child was and how different. Her dark
coloring pleased them, but they said it was shaded strangely. They said the shape of her eyes was
strange. They thought her hands and feet were wrong somehow. Then they looked at my hands and feet
and saw where the "wrongness" would probably lead. They visited often, and I grew weary of them,
weary of then- observations. Diut enjoyed their attention but I didn't.
Sometimes I took refuge with Tahneh, taking the child with me Tien, Diut had named her. I wanted to
keep her with me as much as I could before I had to give her up to her nonfighter second-parents. She
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