ady be
inside the castle.

I slid through the doorway, every muscle tense. Miela had brought the
knife from Baar's shack, and with it clenched in her hand was close beside
me. I wanted to make her stay outside, where she could fly away if danger
threatened, but she pleaded to follow me, and I let her come. I needed
her, since I had no idea of the interior arrangements of the building.

We passed along a dim hallway and up a narrow flight of stone steps. Not a
sound came to us; the interior of the castle was silent as a tomb. At the
top of the steps we came almost directly into the inner patio of the
building. Across a bed of tall flowers, nodding gently in a little morning
breeze that swept down from above, I saw the head and shoulders of a man
standing in the center of the courtyard; the lower part of his body was
hidden by the flowers. I tried to duck out of sight, but he had seen me.

He was not over forty feet away. I stepped back, believing I could reach
him in a single leap; but Miela held me.

"Not you, Alan. He would cry out. The noise would bring others." She
raised her knife, and her eyes blazed into mine. "Never have I thought to
kill a human. But now I--a woman--must kill. Stand quiet, Alan."

She flew swiftly up and poised over the man. He had started toward us.
Evidently he was, so far, as anxious for silence as we, for he made no
sound. I saw now he was one of those who had come to Baar's shack. His
naked shoulders, his thick neck, and bullet head were all that showed
above the flower stems as he plowed his way through them directly toward
me; but the hand he swung aloft to aid his progress held a knife.

He glanced up at Miela, poised in the air above him, and saw the weapon in
her hand. At this new enemy he stopped, confused.

Miela swooped down at him, and he struck at her with his knife; but she
avoided it with an incredibly swift turn, and a second later had passed
him and was crossing the courtyard.

Round and round she flew, her great wings flapping audibly, a giant bird
circling its prey. The man turned continually to face her. Several times
she swooped toward him, and as swiftly avoided his blow. From every side
she threatened. The man stood now bewildered, striking wild in a frenzy,
as one strikes at a darting wasp. At last, with an agonized cry, he turned
and ran. Instantly she dropped upon him; there was a flash of her white
arm; the man's body crumpled and lay still among the flowers.