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you will know what I mean. A bitter day. You must harden your heart against
that day "
"No man will ever win my heart," Allysa said. "But Renor has yours. Tell me
why you think you will not marry him!"
Leis looked at Allysa closely, her pale blue eyes moving over Allysa's face.
Her colorless lips parted, and Allysa leaned closer to hear her sister's words.
Then Leis jerked back her head and shouted, "No! I cannot!"
She ran out of the cottage, though she wore neither cloak nor boots, only the
dress and slippers a woman wears in her home. The setting sun stained her
yellow dress red before she disappeared from Allysa's sight.
Allysa recovered from her astonishment. "Leis, you'll freeze!" she cried, and
ran out the door. She realized she still held Nath's spear.
Leis was running up the street toward the palisade gate, which stood open,
awaiting the return of the hunters from the forest. Allysa's legs were not
hindered by a long skirt, as her sister's were, yet her surprise at the older
girl's flight had delayed her sufficiently that she could not catch up with Leis
before she ran past the guard and through the gate.
"Leis, it's sunset!" Allysa cried as she neared the gate. "Have you forgotten
the night-beast? Come back!"
The gate-keeper grabbed her left arm. She kept running and he didn't let go;
they spun around and fell in the snow. "This is no time for girls to venture out
of the village!" the man said, shaking her. She tried to pull her arm free but
failed. "Where do you think you're going?"
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"To get my sister, whom you did not stop!" Allysa cried, and rapped his
elbow with the spear. He yelped and his hand went slack. She sprang up in a
spray of snow and ran into the forest.
"Leis!" she cried as she followed her sister's deep,
shadow-filled footprints up a hunting trail. "Come back! You are not dressed
for the cold!"
The heavy, snow-laden boughs of pine and fir blocked the slanting light of
the sun, and Allysa found herself suddenly aware of the cold. She pulled her
gloves out of her belt and drew them on and, clutching the spear in both
hands, pressed onward; The shadows thickened, clotting like blood, until she
could not see Leis' footprints, or her own hand in front of her face. Night had
come, the time of the murderous unnatural beast. Allysa was frightened, but
she pushed on, shouting for her sister.
"Leis! We must get out of the forest! Leis! The night-beast!"
Night had come. Her sister might be dead.
Allysa had a spear, she had a knife, but she might die, too.
She pushed forward, toward a paleness in the dark, and found herself at a
clearing, before an expanse of snow that shone like silver under the waxing
moon. No footprints broke the smooth surface. Had Leis left the hunting trail,
pushing into the prickly fir-boughs and thick undergrowth? No, she could not
have done so, wearing only her thin dress. "Leis!" Allysa shouted. Her breath
was a white fog in the darkness. "Where are you? Answer me!"
A roar shivered the trees and the moon, a horrendous harsh cry that rose to
an ear-shredding shriek. Allysa turned toward the sound and saw a long,
white-furred beast running toward her, running on two legs like a man but
howling from a gaping muzzle like a wolf. The fangs were longer than a wolf's,
the hair on the body was white and shaggy, the eyes were white and wild, and
the forepaws no, hands were upraised, and armed with claws that gleamed
in the moonlight.
The night-beast leaped like a wolf, rising off the trail toward Allysa, leaping
toward her as it had surely leaped upon Leis. With a hate-filled scream Allysa
braced the spear against the ground so the point would pierce the monster's
body. The night-beast might not die immediately; even if she pierced its heart,
it might be able to tear her to pieces before its life fled. But though Allysa
must die, she would make sure the winter-colored monster died, too.
One long-fingered, long-taloned hand swept out and struck the spear aside,
and the sturdy ash-wood snapped
like the thinnest twig. Then the hurtling body struck Allysa and bore her
down into the snow. Claws sank into her shoulders like heated nails, and the
air rushed out of her lungs, replaced with pain like white-hot liquid iron. She
stared up into the gaping fanged jaws and burning white eyes of the night-
beast.
The white-furred misshapen head and long dripping fangs drew close to
Allysa's neck as she fumbled for her dagger, and she saw the eyes were not
white, but a pale blue, as faintly colored as ice. Then she realized the jaws had
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stopped their approach; the head was no closer. The head cocked, as if the
night-beast were puzzled, and the pale eyes regarded Allysa.
Then the dagger was free of its sheath, and Allysa thrust upward. Perhaps
the monster's hide was too tough for spear or knife blade, but pray to the
Gods its eyes were vulnerable.
The night-beast raised its head, jerking away from the dagger-point. Allysa
lunged up on her left elbow, against the weight of the monster, against the
talons sunk into her shoulder, to extend the thrust. The dagger pierced the
pale eye. It vanished in a dark fountain, and blood splashed Allysa's face like
molten copper.
The night-beast screamed in pain. The scream became a moan, and the moan
a word, as the jaws shrank, seeming to recede into the monstrous face, and
the fangs withdrew into the gums, and the talons withdrew from the wounds
in Allysa's shoulders, and the monstrous head altered its shape as the fur
vanished from the face and then from the entire body. And the word the
shape-changing monster spoke as it slumped forward was "Allysa."
"Leis!" Allysa screamed. Her sister lay motionless atop her. She shook the
bare white form, shook it violently, but Leis did not respond. "Leis!" Allysa
groaned. "Oh, Gods forgive me! I killed my sister!"
Weeping, she raised the dagger-point to her own breast. But if she killed
herself, her parents would have lost both their children, their only hope of
grandchildren and the continuance of their family.
She had killed her own sister. That was greater evil than any family should
know.
"Why did you not tell me, Leis?" Allysa asked the dead woman. "I would have
helped you!"
Leis had recognized Allysa, despite the murderous madness of the monster-
body; Allysa could have helped Leis. But what could she have done to help?
Released sheep into the street for her sister to slaughter as she roamed the
village in a monster's body? Ranged ahead of her sister to make sure no one
else was in the night-dark streets?
Allysa knew now why Leis had driven Renor away, why Leis had decided she
could not marry and told Allysa she must not either. Leis had believed their
babies would become monsters. She would not create more monsters to
slaughter her friends and neighbors.
How long had she been a shape-changer? The slaughter was a new thing, had
started a month ago Leis had not always been a shape-changer, Allysa
realized, and terror cased her heart in ice. Leis had asked Allysa whether her
moon-times had started; this meant the shape-changing had started when
Leis had started the woman's bleeding.
"Allysa!" a voice broke the silence of the night. A man's voice; Nath's voice,
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