The Seventen shoved the wick against the wall, her wiry body pinning him so that he was unable to move. She spoke the spell for Skin Crawl first, then muttered Persuasion whilst the man was distracted. He screamed as the sensation of millions of tiny feet itched across his body. The persuasion spell seeped into his mind unnoticed.

"We've heard bad things about you. You and your damned tribe." She hissed. He wriggled from her grasp, but she slammed him back.

Behind her she could hear the cries of other wicks and the struggles that broke out between them and her comrades. She dearly hoped they were on top of the situation. She'd hand picked them on the basis of their history with the red crow tribe. Everybody here had a grudge against them for one reason or another.

"Now listen to me. Me and my friends here, and a good proportion of the Seventen, are, shall we say, much more partial towards the Yellow Eye tribe." She leaned in and sneered, "We always have been, have you noticed?"

Something fell against her. Whipping around she saw a dazed wick on the floor by her feet, and a sheepish looking Seventen standing a couple of metres behind him. She shot the Seventen and piercing glare, then turned back to the man in her grasp.

"You've just overstepped the mark." Her gaze bore into him like a drill, "They told us about their children - what you did to them. You took them." She could feel her voice rise hysterically, "You didn't think a troop of missing children would go unnoticed by us?"

The wick shook his head feebly, but the Persuasion spell made it difficult for him to refute her claims. He was beginning to believe her.

"The yellow eye tribe wanted to make you pay, but had the decency to report it first, to restrain themselves and allow us to deal with it." She snarled, "Not like you, you son of a bitch, starting riots in the street like wild animals."

She could hear the same lines being repeated by the galdori behind her.

"From now on you are the enemy of the Seventen. It is you people who will suffer the consequences for anything that happens by a wicks' hand."

The wick murmured something and tears welled in his eyes. Had they really done something horrible to Yellow Eye's children?

The galdori regarded him for a moment, then released him from her vice-like hold and watched the man slump to the floor.

"You disgust me."


***

Dom was on his back, lifting and lowering an outstretched leg and wincing irritably.

A pot of foul smelling cream was on the floor beside him. After this he was to complete fifty rotations of the knee to strengthen the ligaments that secured it. Then he was to rub on the cream to relax the muscle. Then he was to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables - a ritual he'd neglected doing since his doctor had instructed it five years ago - and then he was to have an early night's sleep, because "You just can't function on two hours a night at your age, Mr. Leon. You're body is under a lot of strain."

My body is under a lot of strain right now, doing your damned excerises, he thought.

I wonder how Deseree is getting along? I can't see how it could go wrong. The plan is infallible. I mean, who is going to find it hard to believe that a telltale Yellow Eye came running to us claiming those things?

Dom had heard something about missing tribe children, and just took the liberty of putting a few words into peoples' mouths, to get it all out into the open. These things need to be brought out into the open.

He wondered whether this was the kind of thing Alstair had in mind.

Well, I had fun. He thought, like a obedient school boy breaking the rules for the first time.

And that's all that matters.