“Master!” Death Shadow flapped madly and clawed at the branches, trying in vain to break Zu free. Zu would have lent his strength to his familiar, but the demonic presence of the tree sapped his strength and pressed in on him. When he tried to offer his strength to Death Shadow the tree sucked it all away and then some, drawing on the connection it had usurped to pull more and more of Zu’s strength away.

Death Shadow fought valiantly, but the tree was too fast for him. It snared him as well, wrapping him in its branches and pulling it in toward the trunk to bind him beside Zu.

Zu struggled and threatened, while the demonic tree cooed in his ear and whispered all the things it would do with him before he finally shriveled and died. He didn’t like the sound of any of them. They were moving as she spoke, gliding along through the trees at a swift pace, Zu wrapped tightly to her trunk and unable to more than twitch feebly. A branch leaned down to brush gently against Zu’s cheek. “You are a beautiful one. We will have such fun, and your children will be unmatched in either earth or the underworld.”

“Look, if I’m going to be in a relationship, I’m the one who should be in charge,” Zu insisted. “You can’t kidnap me and expect me to play along with your weird fantasies!”

“Let go of your pride,” the tree murmured. “Trust me. You’ll enjoy this just as much as I will.”

“No, no, no! You’re insane! Let me go and I won’t kill you.”

“You want to kill me? I? Alahira Inferna, eldest daughter of the forests, will not be felled by your hand, or by any man’s.”

“You have been before and you will be again,” swore Zu Mari. “If you do not release me, I will return and kill you every time until you give up!”

“There will be no return from where we’re going,” purred the tree.

“You can’t do this to me.”

The demon tree laughed. “Who’s going to stop me?”

A spear came out of nowhere and sheared off one of her larger branches.

“I will.”

Zu had never in his life imagined he would be so relieved to see Xashu Cougar, in all his stupidly over-muscled glory, standing with hands on his hips. Yet compared to the torments Alahira planned to inflict upon him, death at the hands of his first nemesis would be a thousand times more preferable.

“You have not been given leave to hunt in our lands, Alahira,” Xashu warned. “Now release your prey and go back to your cave.”

“No, this one is mine!” All her branches curved in, forming a possessive cocoon around Zu, so thick that he could barely see out. “You have no right to deny me. He came to me. Attacked me. In my own territory.”

“We’ve been over this before, Alahira. These are Chartreuse Cougar lands, and without our leave you possess nothing here. Release him, or prepare to be ended.”

Alahira snarled and hissed, but then her branches opened wide and she flung Zu at Xashu, tossing Death Shadow along as an afterthought, then slunk away with her branches whipping irritably.

Zu found himself trembling with rage as he got to his feet. He wanted to run after Alahira and chop her into a thousand thousand pieces for daring to assault him so, for subjecting him to her delusional desires, for making him imagine her twisted fantasies. He shivered and clenched the hilt of Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death reflexively as though to never let go.

“I saw you come in,” Xashu said with a slight bow. “Well done deflecting my spear. Most people who wander in don’t survive my Sudden Spear of Superb Speed. If you hadn’t immediately gotten yourself snared by the mad demon tree, I’d almost say you’re worth respecting.”

“You will know my name and tremble one day,” Zu said. “But today, I have other matters to attend to.”

He beckoned to Death Shadow, and the owl weakly fluttered up to rest on Zu’s shoulder.

“That’s an awfully big owl to have on your shoulder,” Xashu said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that color before either.”

“He is my familiar, Death Shadow.”

Death Shadow hooted politely in greeting.

“So, what brings you to Chartreuse Cougar territory?” Xashu asked.

“I am hunting a man who seeks to kill me. He calls himself Ozyri Tori.”

Xashu laughed. “Tori? That fool? What do you need him for? He’s just a useless outcast.”

Zu was taken aback by Xashu’s casual tone. “Ozyri Tori… is an outcast?” Surely the Chartreuse Cougars were not so mighty that they would throw away someone so obviously powerful. If he was advanced enough to hold his memories within himself then he had clearly attained a level of basic mastery beyond the average. Even Xashu, for all his strength in combat, could not recall the turnings of time as it recoiled upon itself again and again.

Could it be that Ozyri had hidden his true strength? But then…

“How is it that Ozyri Tori came to be exiled?”

“He was sent to us by his family as a child. The Tori clan always had more children than it could support. Sometimes it felt like their biggest export was useless brats. So we took Ozyri without expecting much from him, but he worked passably hard and progressed at a medium rate. Lower than myself, who is far from the peak, but not by a lot.”

“You know him well?”

“We trained together for some years under the same masters. I wouldn’t say I know him well, but I know about him.”

“And his exile?”

“When his training was complete, he was sent back to his family as agreed upon, ordered never to return. We’ve had that happen in the past, children refusing to move on, trying to dilute our Cougar blood with their inferior paltry existence. So we formally exiled him and sent him off back to Tori.”

Xashu sighed deeply. “That’s when things went wrong. No more than three days later, he returned. Covered in blood, with some crazy story about his whole clan being wiped out by a divine spirit beast that he defeated in single combat. Begging us to come with him and rebuild the village. What do we care about the Tori clan? They were business partners, nothing more. And he was clearly making up wild tales to get our sympathy and respect. Well, we’re not one of those fluff-headed groups that take in strays, so we made him an outcast a second time.” Xashu shrugged. “The sort of person who runs away from a fight with stories about beating divine creatures on his own? Clearly useless.”

Then Ozyri Tori’s voice rang out from above.

“I am not useless.”