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out.”
    “No!” the san roared. “I refuse to be beaten by an animal. The san are superior, and I will prove it!”
    His eyes blazed with power now. Eurik could feel the heat from where he was. The ground around Chizuho started to crack and steam as what little water was there boiled away. The san's mouth opened, perhaps in triumph, or perhaps he had noticed the same thing Eurik now saw.
    Light spilled from his mouth, his eyes, followed by wisps of smoke. A pillar of flame shot up into the sky, dying out as swiftly as it had appeared leaving behind the charred remains of Chizuho.
    'Path of the Sun brings great power, but also great danger. You can't turn to stone by taking in Earth chiri , you can't drown from Water chiri . Only Fire has that danger. That's why most san learn that Way last.'
    Those thoughts meandered through Eurik's mind as he stared at the remains of his opponent. He'd declared he would kill Eurik, had tried to kill him, but Eurik himself hadn't been ready to respond in kind. Yet there Chizuho laid, dead.
    Turning away, ignoring the growing approval of the crowd, Eurik walked back to Misthell.
     
    ***
     
    Leraine got up, rearranging her weapons. “Let's go.”
    “Oh, saw something you liked?” her teacher teased.
    “I'm more worried about what he knows. Judging from the sword he carries, he might be Puma. If he returns to them and teaches what he knows ... You know as well as I do that the Truce has been fraying as of late. People no longer view the Linesans as a threat; grievances have been festering. We need to know who he is, and if he is a threat to our tribe.”
    “Always so serious, Fangling,” Irelith sighed as she got up as well. She slid her long blade, which had lain across her knees while they'd been watching the fights, back into place at her side. “But you have a point.”
    Irelith the Viper lead the way through the crowd of Linesans who had no intention of leaving yet. 'This is going to take forever.'

Chapter 5
    The hunt begins
     
    It turned out not to take forever, but the sun still hung too low in the sky for Leraine's taste by the time they finally stood outside the arena. It was getting darker already among the tall buildings of this city.
    Trailing the outcast proved a frustrating undertaking. He stood out enough that people remembered seeing him, but finding Linesans willing to talk to them was hard. This obstacle meant that while they didn't lose his scent, they weren't really gaining on him either. They'd crossed one arm of the Endria already and twilight was setting in, when Leraine spotted him.
    The crowds thinned as they came up to him. She noticed he carried the blade on his back and had to shake her head at that amateur move. 'He can't be clan-trained, or he put it there to reassure these people that he wouldn't be drawing his blade in the city.'
    A closer look at the markings on the blade nearly stopped her in her tracks. 'Those are Snake runes, and Puma's. How did he get a blade that has both?'
    Leraine got an even bigger shock when the sword opened its eye and looked right back at her. “Looks like you got fans,” the blade remarked.
     
    ***
     
    Turning around to see what Misthell was talking about, two women dressed quite differently from anybody else he'd seen today confronted him. Trousers, soft leather boots, and some sort of vest underneath a steel cuirass. And both had a skin tone more like his own than anybody else Eurik had ever met.
    The older one, carrying a single slender blade at her left hip, had graying hair and a scar that ran up her cheek and ended at the corner of her right eye. Most of her hair was short, except on the left side where it had been twisted into a long braid that contained several colorful beads and a little ivory snake.
    The younger woman, who had one sword on her right and a long dagger on her left, also wore bracers. Her nose was a little crooked and her bright, green eyes stared at him intently.
    “Can I help you?” Eurik