"It is over," he said briefly, and dragged a heavy weight from her skirt.
Pulling herself to her feet, she leaned dizzily against a tree, staring down at the strange monster that had the shape of a cat and the size of a hound.
"You choked him?" she whispered.
The Swordless One nodded. "There was no other way. Last week I saw him leap down upon a deer and suck the blood from its throat. I thought then that my hands on his throat would be my only chance if ever we had dealings together. Yet I did not think that he would come so near the wall."
"It is God's miracle that you also chanced to be near it," she breathed.
"It is not all chance," he answered. "I have been here more than one night since they began to set the tables under the trees. Torchlight attracts other things besides sharks. It is like watching the red lights of the North, to watch the cook-fires shine on the branches; and when the men sing over their wine, the sound reaches out here so that it is almost the same as though I were among—" He came slowly to self-consciousness, and turned away and gave his attention to sopping with his ragged cloak the blood trickling from his torn limbs.
With no other weapon than his bare brown hands.