 Just be patient."
	"You know, I feel better," she said sincerely, looking into his eyes.  "I guess I felt that if you knew what I was feeling, you'd take advantage of me.  Not that I'd mind," she remarked unconsciously.  "And right now, I feel, well....indignant.  It's like I'm saying 'here I am, come take me,' and you don't even twitch."
	Tarrin chuckled.  "That's your ego," he told her.  "Were-cat females take rejection about as well as human women do."
	"It's embarassing."
	"It will pass," he said.  "You'll feel much different tomorrow."
	"I hope so."  She glanced at him.  "You mean it does affect you?"
	"I'm not dead, cub," he told her.  "That's why it's called instinct.  Responsive females produce an instinctive reaction in the male she is trying to catch.  It's basic biology."
	"But unlike me, you can control it."  She chuckled ruefully.  "It's madness.  I know you don't really like me and I don't have a prayer, but I still can't help feeling...well, sexual."
	"Welcome to the world of instincts," he told her, standing up.  "Even with yours suppressed, do you see how they can affect you?  Even without you knowing it."
	"Yes, I do," she replied honestly.  "I feel like a slut."
	"That's a human misconception," he said dismissively.  "Now you get a lesson in one thing that all Were-cats learn."
	"What?"
	"How to let an instinct affect you without letting it overwhelm you," he replied.  "This was actually good timing.  Letting you cope with being in heat is good practice for you."
	"I'm so glad you think this is such a good thing," she fumed, standing up.  "You don't feel frustrated."
	"And if I succumbed?" he asked.  "What if I did take you for mate.  What do you think would happen then?"
	"I have no idea."
	"You'd feel that your instincts would have to be satisfied," he replied.  "It would hurt you more in the long run, because you'd just be teaching yourself to submit to them whenever they became uncomfortable."
	She blinked, then gave him a long look.  "I guess you're right," she admitted.
	"I think that's about enough on that," he said, looking down at her.  "Are you ready to go?"
	"Let's go," she replied, rubbing her paws together.
	There was very little more instructional conversation for the rest of the night.  Tarrin led Jula around, and together, they sought out and discovered twelve more ancient objects.  He observed her during that time, watching as she practiced jumping from roof to roof, snuck about people's homes with surprising stealth, learned the joy that her body and its abilities could bring.  She seemed to adapt very quickly, as he knew she would.  Alot of what he could do was an instinctive understanding of himself, and though her instincts were suppressed, it still managed to show in her.  She was a bit more tentative, maybe even clumsier, than an experienced Were-cat, but that too was natural.  Cubs rarely had the same grace as their elders.  Though he was only Were for a little under a year, his reliance on his nature for his very survival had given him an ease with himself that surpassed naturally born Were-cats five times his age.  Jula seemed to sense this, and she strove greatly to match his effortless grace and elegance in movement.  She failed, but he knew she would fail.  It was the trying that mattered.  Just like an animal's cub, she was copying what she saw in her parent, mimicking him in preparation for the day when she would be on her own.
	The games ended on a rooftop deep in the city, about an hour before dawn.  Tarrin had stopped to take out the medallion and gauge their distance from the object it had discovered.  Jula was behind him, paws on knees and catching her breath.  She wasn't used to such activity.  She had the strength of her blood, but she had burned out her endurance nearly an hour ago.  She didn't exercise that much before she went mad, and it showed in her weak constitution; her strength would never wane, but her ability to apply that strength over time would weaken if it wasn't exercised regularly.  Her regenerative recovery was slowing as she tired.  She was also hungry, and in her delicate mindset, letting her go hungry too long would be very bad for her.  He knew it was nearly time to go back, so she could eat and rest, and reflect on what she'd learned that night.
	That was when the scent reached him.  It was strangely canine in texture, but there was an unnatural pall laying atop it, infusing it, a horrible smell that he likened to burning ashes and sulfur.  And beneath that was that same smell of corruption, of evil, that he had smelled once before.
	"Tarrin?  I smell..."
	"Quiet!" Tarrin snapped, standing up and putting the medallion away.  That canine component to the scent marked them as those Hellhounds that Camara Tal had seen.  He scanned the streets below, seeking with his nose and his ears.  The scent was coming in on the wind, and the wind was coming from directly ahead.  The area before them was rather old houses stacked beside one another, almost like one continuously long building facing the street running left and right.  They had to be on another street, and since he'd never smelled them before, he wasn't sure how far away they were.
	"What is that?" Jula asked plaintively, putting her paw over her nose.  "It smells awful!"
	"Hellhound is my guess," Tarrin told her grimly, squatting down and scanning the street that ran from side to side below them.  "Look behind us, Jula.  They may just be diverting us.  They'd never come at me from upwind unless they did it on purpose."
	Jula turned around, and gasped immediately.  "There are men coming up behind us," she said quickly.  "Men in black cloaks.  Tarrin, look at them!"
	Tarrin turned to look, and he saw them.  Four men wearing black cloaks, and they were dancing from rooftop to rooftop with a speed and a jumping ability that defied human limitations.  They were about two blocks away, and they were coming up on them fast.
	Tarrin didn't like this.  Four men, who may not be men, and those Hellhounds to deal with as well.  If that wasn't bad enough, he had Jula with him, and he'd have to worry about her safety.  Trying to go around them wasn't an option; they were too far away, and could change their direction to intercept.  That only left going forward, but the owners of those unnatural scents were in front of him, and they were an unknown enemy.
	"Listen to me," he said in a quiet tone, his eyes igniting from within as he prepared to either fight or flee.  "I'm going to lead them off.  The first time you see an opening, run.  Go back to Dolanna."
	"I'm not leaving you!" she protested, her own eyes flaring into radiance, and she extended her claws.
	"You stupid cub!" Tarrin said hotly, turning on Jula as the first of the four men hit the roof only one away from theirs.  "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you!"  Tarrin lunged forward as that first one crossed his roof and vaulted into the air to land on the roof Tarrin and Jula occupied.  The move seemed to startle the airborne man, almost as much as when Tarrin reached the edge of the roof, turned his body sideways and put his arm straight out behind him, then whipped that arm over his body to impact the man in the shoulder just short of the edge of the roof.  It was vast overhanded blow, instantly changing the man's momentum from forward to straight down, and it sent the man rocketing into the alley between the two buildings, smashing into a pile of old stones and debris with a loud crash.  The other three skidded to a stop when they realized that Tarrin could prevent them from landing on the roof, looking between them.  Tarrin saw that they all had exactly similar facial features; they were triplets.  They had a handsome face with swarthy Arakite skin, black hair, and were tall and sleek.  Their scents reached him, and they seemed human...almost.  There was human in it, but there was also something else, something that seemed faintly similar to what he smelled off the Empress of Arak.  A smell of wrongness, but nowhere near as strong as it was in her.
	The three of them hesitated, and that turned out to be a fatal mistake.  A sizzling blast of lightning issued forth from behind him, and it struck the one in the middle squarely in the chest.  He was blown off his feet by the power of the magical assault, crashing to the roof as an ear-splitting boom of thunder rocked the neighborhood.  Tarrin glanced behind him, and saw Jula, lightning crackling around her paws as she wove together the flows that generated lightning attacks, Air, Water, and Divine power, turn her stance and raise her paws against the one on her left.  She was about to loose on him, but the one she'd struck bounced back to his feet, seemingly unharmed by her magical attack.  A shadow appeared to his side, and to Tarrin's shock, the fourth man, his features identical to his companion's, vaulted from the ground just before him, holding a sword with a black blade.
	He just barely managed to recognize the danger.  He brought up an arm in time to deflect the slicing blade of that black sword, hitting his manacle as Tarrin's arm whipped up, parrying the blade high and away from him.  The man's feet touched the roof, and Tarrin turned on him with shocking speed, reversing his arm and ripping his claws across the man's chest, a move that would have torn ribs out of a human.  His claws sliced through the man's black doublet, but could not penetrate his skin.  The physical force of the blow staggered the man back, making him tumble off the roof once again, but it did him no real harm.
	Fear crept into him as he backed up from the edge of the roof, towards Jula, who looked on in shocked confusion.  They couldn't be harmed!  Tarrin's claws could hurt anything because he was a magical creature, but they had been repulsed by that strange near-human's skin!  And Jula's Sorcery had done little more than blacken the man's shirt!  Surely, the physical impact of the blow knocked him down, but it did no injury at all!
	Tarrin stepped back in awe.  They were Demons!
	Demons!  Beings not of this world, who could not be hurt by anything of this world!  They were defenseless against these monsters!  The only thing they could do was knock them down!  Tarrin got in front of Jula protectively as the three on the other roof jumped over to theirs, and the fourth joined them a second later.  They stood there, smiling malevontly as the howling bays of the Hellhounds picked up, chilling his soul.
	In that instant, he realized one important truth.  The Empress of Arak was a Demon.  And since she was in such a position of power, these had to be under her control.
	There was nothing he could do.  They were invulnerable.  There was no way to fight them.  Flight was the only option, but they were very close, too close.  And he couldn't get all four engaged at once.  One of them would surely split off and chase Jula, who was tired from the long night.  His own safety wasn't all that important, but Jula's safety was entirely another matter.  She was his responsibility, his child, and he had to protect her.
	The other three drew their black-bladed swords, and they slowly started walking towards them.  They took their time, and the evil smiles on their faces told him they were enjoying the shock and fear of their quarry.
	Physical impact.  The Demon had been knocked down by impact, even if it did him no harm.  Physical impact!
	His green eyes changing to white, Tarrin opened himself to the Weave.  Its power flooded into him, engulfed him, sought to devour him.  Magelight appeared around his paws as he raised them, the power blinding him to the danger as he struggled to contain it, to focus it.  He narrowed down his focus, found his way in that moment.  It was not the mindless fury of rage that gave him the power to stand in the face of that tidal wave and control it, it was the very rational need to protect, to defend Jula, his child, against these deadly opponents.  His protective nature exploded within him, granting him the power to control the raging torrent of power that infused him.  With a primal scream, Tarrin wove together a weave of pure Air, a weave of monstrous proportions.  And with a backhanded whip of his arm, he released it against the four Demons, a white arc of Sorcery that suddenly exploded outward, away from the Were-cats.
	The result was a hammer's blow of solid Air, an arc of magical power that raced away from him at supersonic speeds, slashing across his assailants and catching them up with its power.  The wave of Air grew as it moved away from him, travelling hundreds of spans in the blink of an eye, and behind it cracked an ear-shattering boom as the air was literally ripped asunder by the power of his magic.  The buildings in front of him shuddered when the shockwave hit them, then simply disintegrated against the might of the spell.  The debris and the Demons were picked up by the wave of air and sent flying forwards as the weave dissipated, showering the buildings beyond the terminus of the spell with huge chunks of masonry.  The roof beneath them suddenly cracked from the extreme force applied against it as the weave expanded as it moved outward, and the entire building began to sway and crack, readying to collapse.
	Unable to comprehend that, Tarrin wilted to the cracking rooftop, struggling to find a way to let go of the Weave.  It built up inside him out of control, raging into him and through him, trying to burn him away as the entirety of the Weave attempted to flow into him.  It was too much to even try to break free, the flow was too great to curtail.  He was not truly in a rage, he didn't have that self-destructive, burning need to use the power, which was what gave him the power to control his magic.  Almost without emotion, he realized that this time, he had gone too far.  He couldn't let go of the Weave, and it had already filled him to a point where he felt his insides begin to burn.  He couldn't form the concentration needed to use the power drowning him.  And without being able to expend it, it would destroy him.
	And then Sarraya was there.  Her tiny body rising over him, she spread her arms out and used her Druidic powers.  A scythe cut through the connection that existed between Tarrin and the Weave, severing the link through which the power flowed into him.  The energy within him shuddered at that attack, and then it dissipated quickly, evaporating like smoke, generating a backlash that all but put him on his back.  Tarrin panted heavily as the pain surged through him, knees and paws on the unstable roof, but then the searing throb began to ease as his regenerative powers healed him of the damage the Weave had done.
	"Jula, get him off of there before it goes!" he heard Sarraya bark in an authoratative voice.
	He felt an arm wrap around his stomach, and he was being physically hauled into the air.  He heard the roof on which they had just been standing collapse as Jula fled from it.  She landed on another roof and put him back down, but Tarrin felt well enough to stand.  The pain had eased inside him, and though he felt a bit weak-kneed, he felt ready enough to move.  They weren't safe yet.  That attack didn't harm those Demons.  It would only slow them down, and those Hellhounds were still out there.
	"Sarraya," he panted as he stood, "what are you doing here?"
	"I've been following you two all night," she said directly.  "The others didn't want you alone with her."  She glanced at the destroyed section of the city.  "Those are Demons, Tarrin.  We have to get out of here!"
	"Demons!" Jula gasped.  "No wonder!"  She put a paw on his arm.  "Do you need help?" she asked.
	"I'm alright.  Just go!" he barked, standing tall and straight, pointing in the direction he wanted her to go.
	They scrambled from roof to roof as the people behind them came out to see what had happened, what had destroyed about fifty homes.  The eerie howling of the monstrous Hellhounds followed them on the streets below, making it obvious that they were tracking the two Were-cats, leading those human-like Demons to them.
	"Sarraya, it may come down to a fight!" he told her as he vaulted to another roof.  He was just behind Jula; he intended to keep himself between her and any danger, and he could be there in case she began to weaken.  Jula was tired, and using her Sorcery had taken more out of her than she was letting on.  He could see it in how her knees shook every time she landed.
	"We can't fight them, Tarrin!" she said adamantly, flying just beside him.  "We can't hurt them!"
	"We don't have to hurt them," he called back to her.  "If they close in, we'll team up on them, so you can let me control what I'm doing.  If I have control, I can send them to the moon!  Can you get my staff?"
	"It won't hurt them!"
	"No, but it will keep them from hurting us!" he told her sharply.  "I'm not going to face them again without a weapon!"
	"There they are!" Jula said fearfully, pointing behind them even as they ran.
	Tarrin glanced over his shoulder.   All four of them were back, racing along the rooftops, catching up with the trio.  "They're catching up to us," he told Jula as they jumped a wide avenue.  Jula very nearly didn't make the roof, teetering backwards as she scrambled to get her balance; Tarrin had to catch her and pull her back up as he landed right beside her.  "We're both too tired to outrun them.  We have to make a stand, right here, where they have to jump a long ways to get here.  Sarraya, can you get my staff?"
	Sarraya's hands stretched out, what she did when she did her Druidic magic, and his staff simply appeared in front of him, on the roof.  Sarraya's ability to conjure items, or summon forth existing items she had previously touched, was extemely useful.  Tarrin reached down and picked up his staff.  "Alright, just stay behind us, Jula," Tarrin told her quickly.
	"What are you going to do?"
	"Sarraya is going to choke off my Sorcery, can I can use it safely," he replied quickly, gripping his staff in his paws, feeling its comforting weight and feel.  He always felt more confident when he had his staff.  "If I have control, I can send those four flying into the sea.  We'll be long gone before they get back to shore."
	"Maybe we'll get lucky, and they'll drown," Jula snorted, but it was obvious she was afraid.
	Tarrin's ears picked up, and his eyes lit.  What an eminently simple idea!  "Sarraya!" he said quickly, "could we do that?"
	"Drown them?  I doubt it," she replied.  "But do they breathe?  If they do--"
	"If they breathe, we can kill them," he said with an ominous gleam in his eye.  "Jula, if this works, I'm going to kiss you," he told her, getting between her and the quickly advancing four pursuers.  "Now stay back, cub, you've done your part.  Let us do the rest."
	The four Demons lined up on the rooftop opposing Tarrin, Jula, and Sarraya.  The Faerie was hovering over Tarrin's head, and she had her arms spread.  Tarrin was hunched down with his staff in his paws, squaring off against the four of them with Jula safely behind him.  He was not afraid.  He had his staff, and he had a plan.  With Sarraya with him, there was no way they could endanger his cub.  But now he was looking to do more than simply toss them a few longspans.  He studied them closely with his narrowed eyes, looking at their chests, looking for signs that these monsters breathed.
	And they were!  Their chests were moving, and he could hear their breathing from across the wide avenue separating them!  With a malicious smile, Tarrin raised his staff in his paw, sensing the barrier Sarraya had placed between him and the Weave.  He reached through it and made contact, and felt the power of Sorcery flow into him at a much more managable rate than the first time.  Sarraya seemed to sense his power, and adjusted her control of the energy flowing into him automatically, allowing him to take in power at a very fast rate, but without hurting him.  His paws limned over with the radiance of High Sorcery, and that made all four of them take a step back and draw their weapons, readying for some other kind of magical attack.  They did not scramble.  They stayed together.
	They made it easy.
	First, Tarrin wove a barrier of Divine power, a mystical border that appeared all around the four Demons, reaching down to the roof upon which they stood.  The four of them glanced at the softly glowing dome of magical power, designed to create a physical barrier that would prevent them from escaping.  Before they could respond to it test its power, Tarrin struck with the second weave, a reversed weave of Air.
	In an instantaneous pop and rush, Tarrin sucked all the air out of the dome of power.
	The four of them shuddered, and wide-eyed shock appeared on their faces.  They made no sound--there was no air within to carry it--clutching at their throats with wide eyes.  Misty vapors issued forth from their mouths as the air inside their lungs was pulled out by the vacuum, and it too was pulled outside the dome by Tarrin's sustained weave.  One of them staggered and fell to his knees, but another managed to lunge forward jerkily, and he came in contact with the dome's border.  He pushed at it inexoribly, and to Tarrin's shock and dismay, it parted before him, allowing him to push through and back to the air.  He took in a deep breath, and then he hurtled over the empty air between that roof and Tarrin's, sword raised and an ugly sneer of hatred twisting his face.
	Tarrin divided his attention between holding his two weaves and dealing with the physical threat approaching him.  Grabbing his staff in both paws, he parried the sword as it drove towards his chest as the Demon landed.  It staggered past him and turned, but Tarrin was on top of it immediately.  It wouldn't get past him, it wasn't about to threaten his child!  A furious assault made the Demon stumble backwards, desperately parrying Tarrin's staff as the Were-cat unleashed a fast staccato of slaps and jabs with the staff's ends, a routine designed to confuse an opponent and open his defense.  That opening came as Tarrin smacked its weapon wide, then he spun into the shallow slash, let go of the staff with one paw, and whipped it around him as he came back around, giving the staff horrific force.  It slammed into the Demon's side, picking it up as it folded around his weapon, and sending it crashing to the other side of the roof.
	It didn't just jump back up.  It held its side tightly, and it finally made a sound.  A ragged intake of breath, followed by spitting out a mouthful of what looked like black blood.
	Tarrin stared in shock as the Demon struggled back to its feet.  It was wounded!  He had hurt it!  No, he hadn't hurt it.  The staff did!
	There's a bit of magic hiding in the staff, a magic that gives the wood its unusual properties, that short, bald human Sorcerer had said back in the Tower, the botanist that had been studying his staff.  Something about the Demon was causing that magic to come forth, causing it to inflict true injury to the Demon.  At first, he dismissed the staff's abilities and unusual attributes as merely curious, but now, now it mattered.  The wood had injured to the Demon, and the Demon was afraid of it.  That had to be it.  Why would it bother parrying the staff, when it could do it no harm?  It should have simply allowed Tarrin to hit him, then stabbed him with the sword.  It was what Tarrin would have done, if he was facing a human with a non-magical steel sword.  But it didn't.  It seemed to sense that the staff was dangerous, even when Tarrin could not.
	Was the wood unworldly?  Could that be where it got its unusual magical properties from?  It was possible.  Ironwood was dreadfully rare.  It only grew in the forests surrounding Aldreth, and finding a tree was a search that sometimes took months to accomplish.  Maybe it was that rare because it had come from some other world, and had only just begun to spread on this one.  If that were so, then it could harm the Demon.
	There was one way to find out, one way or another.
	Ears laying back, Tarrin exploded into motion, moving with the speed of a striking viper.  He closed the distance on the Demon before it had the chance to react to his blazing eruption of activity, staff low and wide.  It did manage to raise its sword when he was on top of it, but Tarrin had the longer weapon.  Holding the staff in both hands, he drove it before him, past the sword, allowing its greater reach to strike the Demon before the Demon's sword could reach him.   With eerie ease, Tarrin drove the tip of his staff like a spear, and thrusted it against the chest of his startled opponent.  An opponent that made no attempt to defend itself.
	The effect was immediate and dramatic.  The staff encountered no resistance as it made contact with the Demon's chest, and it kept going.  The staff erupted from the back of the Demon's cloak, pushing it out as the end drove out of its back.  Tarrin had to twist his head aside as the distance between the two of them disappeared, and the Demon's weapon very nearly plunged through his left eye.  He had expected, at the very least, that the staff would hit it and push it back.  He didn't expect it to blow through the Demon's chest like a red-hot brand through ice.  The Demon's eyes widened, and then a gush of horrible black ichor spewed from its mouth.  He felt it sag against the weapon, the only thing holding it up, and the sword slipped from its limp fingers.
	With a flick of his staff, Tarrin tossed the unmoving form off the end of his staff, off the roof.  It tumbled thirty spans to land in a heap on the street, and it did not move again.
	The other three were all free of his dome and vacuum; they must have freed themselves while he was busy with their brother.  Tarrin rose up and stared at them challengingly, brandishing his staff.  Then he levelled the tip at them, his expression again an emotionless, stony mask.  "You'll never get over here," he called over to them.  "I'll gut you as you land.  You might be able to make it alive if you all jump at once, but I'll kill at least one of you in the bargain.  Which one of you wants to die?"
	They all looked at one another, and it was clear that they were afraid.  Then, as one, they turned and fled back the way they came, abandoning their Were-cat prey.
	Prey that had become the predator.
	Blowing out his breath, he immediately gagged at the horrid smell assaulting him.  The ichor and black blood that had come out of the body of the Demon were bubbling and sizzling on the roof, eating into it like an acid.  The smell was ghastly.  Tarrin retreated from that smell, from the acrid smoke issuing from just in front of his feet, and his worry turned to the staff.   Could it be eating it away as well?  He looked at it, and saw, to his relief, that it was completely clean.  As if it had never been plunged through the chest of an unworldy opponent.
	"Tarrin, did you do that?" Jula asked in wonder, as she and Sarraya came over to him.
	"Do what?"
	"Kill that thing!"
	"It was the staff!" Sarraya said.  "It hurt the Demon!"
	"I think Ironwood didn't come from this world," he surmised calmly, looking at his treasured weapon with respect and appreciation.  "Thank the Goddess I've managed to keep this.  It just saved our butts."  He looked at them. "Thanks, Sarraya."
	"Thank Camara Tal and Allia," she replied.  "They're the ones that threatened to tear off my wings if I didn't follow you.  Are you alright?"
	"It didn't even touch me," he answered her.
	They looked over the edge of the roof, to the avenue below.  The body of the Demon was dissolving even as they watched, turning into a grisly black spoor that melted and burned the cobblestones, eating them away and sending a greasy, acrid smoke rising from it.  A Demon.  They had faced Demons, and thanks to his staff, his precious staff, they had surived.  They had even won.  He never dreamed his staff had that kind of power, he never dreamed that it could be so critical.  He'd had it for so long, he never associated it with anything special or amazing, outside of the fact that it was Ironwood.
	"We'd better get back," Sarraya said.  "Dolanna needs to know about this.  And your kitten there looks about ready to fall over."
	Quiet, his expression giving nothing away, he reached over and put his paw to the side of Jula's cheek.  She seemed surprised when he pulled her close, then leaned in and kissed her on the other cheek.  "I always keep my word," he told her with the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes.  "Let's get back.  We have alot of things to sort out."
	"And I want a look at that staff," Sarraya stated as she turned and started back towards the circus.  "Follow me!  I know the way!"
	Holding his staff in one paw, Tarrin herded Jula in front of him with a paw pushing against her shoulder, and then followed her as she started after the airborne Faerie.
	Behind them, the eerie, hair-raising baying of the Hellhounds ceased.  In its place rose a mournful howl, a howl that froze the marrow in Tarrin's bones.
	It was far from over, but at least now he knew who would be sending them.
	None other than the Empress of Arak.

	A tent never looked so good.
	Tarrin sat on the floor, what was left of a bowl of Deward's stew in his lap, sitting beside Jula.  She had already devoured her stew, soaking up the gravy with a thick slice of bread.  He had his staff right beside him, and he wasn't about to let it out of his sight, for quite a while.  They were both tired, very tired.  Using High Sorcery the first time had wiped him out, and using it again with Sarraya's help didn't do him much good.  Jula had been pushed to her physical limit, then turned around and used Sorcery on top of it, which places a large demand on the body.
	Jula.  The cub had alot of guts.  She didn't obey him, she stuck with him instead.  She even attacked the Demons--before she knew what they were--to help him.  He had the feeling that if they would have threatened her, she would have fought them, fought them as fanatically as she had fought against him when they battled.  She probably would have lost, but she wouldn't back down, and she wouldn't run.  And now that he thought about it, she could have easily put that lightning in his back rather than using it against the Demons.  Her act of loyalty had raised his opinion of her several notches in his mind.  If she was willing to fight with him, fight for him, behave when he was forced to place trus