After taking their leave of Lenia Carras, Morhault's group went out onto the University grounds. The University of Meribia was basically rectangular in shape, with a five-acre park surrounded by buildings that looked like small, stately manor houses but which were undoubtedly classrooms, libraries, research laboratories, student dormitories, and filled the other needs of an educational institution. Scholars and students dressed in a wide variety of fashions dashed by on the meandering paths that wound through the lightly wooded park.

"What do they study here?" Tabren asked.

"Everything," Deane said. The boy glanced at him, thinking he was being flippant, but Morhault quickly corrected that impression.

"No, he's right. The University of Meribia's mission, dating back to its founding in the reign of Mel de Alkirk, is to gather, record, perpetuate, and build upon the sum total of human knowledge. Literature, art, architecture, theology, history, mathematics, law, medicine, biology, alchemy, and engineering are all studied here."

"Wow! Do...do you have to be a noble to be a student?"

"No," Deane told him. "The University is open to anyone. There are even scholarships offered for promising but indigent students."

"Are you thinking of enrolling here, Tabren?" Elia asked.

"Well..." he began, suddenly a bit embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess I was thinking about that. I suppose you need a good education before they'll let you in, though."

Morhault would have guessed the same thing, but apparently that wasn't the case, at least not according to Deane.

"Not at all. Literacy is vital, of course, but as I understand it one of the programs is essentially a generalized basic education course for the younger or less-schooled students to give them the foundation for an advanced course of study, up to three years--or was it four? Leni can be so dreadfully vague sometimes. I can't think where she gets it from."

For some reason which Deane couldn't quite fathom, everyone else seemed to find his last comment hilarious. Oddly enough, though, the laughter served a practical purpose. When Elia threw back her head to laugh, she did something that people rarely do. She looked up.

"What are those?" she asked, pointing at several black shapes circling in the air. They were much too large for birds.

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Morhault said. "They're not coming this way, though, so I'm not sure we should get involved."

"Oh! They're diving!"

She was right; one after the other the winged shapes plunged down, descending towards the far end of the park. Moments later, flashes of blue light shone through the trees.

"That did it," Morhault sighed, drawing his sword. He glanced at Elia, who nodded her agreement. She was technically his employer, after all, and running off to poke into random problems might be considered against her interests, but she seemed more eager to get involved than he was. Tabren and Deane, predictably, were right on their heels as they sprinted towards the source of the light.

Worry nagged at the back of Morhault's mind as they neared the area. They hadn't come prepared for battle in the middle of the city; he'd brought his sword and gauntlet because mercenary bodyguards as a rule never went anywhere unprepared but had left his mail coat behind, and the others had only their ordinary belt daggers. They'd be less effective and very vulnerable.

Unfortunately, battle would be precisely what was needed, from the look of things. The black shapes Elia had spotted proved close up to be monsters of a type Morhault had never seen. Humanoid in shape, they possessed hugely powerful torsos and arms combined with short, almost stunted legs on which they hopped more than truly walked. Each hand was four-fingered and looked something like a raptor's claw, with curving, sickle-shaped talons. Their faces were bestial, snouted and tusked, their entire bodies covered in thick, coarse black fur, and short, batlike wings that shouldn't have been able to support their weight protruded from their shoulders.

The blue light shone from a palely coruscating dome that surrounded a single man. Every so often, one of the beasts would hurl itself against the barrier, the light would flash more intensely, and the creature would stagger back, its flesh and fur smoking where it had made contact with the dome. They would do this in complete silence; the beasts did not bellow cries of rage or anger, nor did they whimper or scream in pain when injured. Indeed, they did not so much as grunt, growl, or breathe heavily, which was most unnerving of all.

Though it was hard to see through the translucent radiance of the barrier, the man appeared to be of the Prairie Tribe, to judge by the cut of his leathers and long, braided hair. His hands held a plain wood staff upright before him, and sweat ran down his cheeks to mingle with his beard.

It took no more than a moment for Morhault to absorb these details, which was all the time he had because the creatures saw the new arrivals almost as soon as the group saw them. Two turned and lunged at the lightly-armored companions while the remaining three continued to try and break through the tribesman's barrier.

One beast charged directly at Morhault, claws outstretched. Its muzzle twisted and frothed as if snarling, but no sound emerged. The fallen knight swung his bastard sword, the heavy blade sweeping out, and the monster paused in its charge, hesitating slightly at the threat of nearly four feet of steel. It wasn't enough of a flinch to actually get it to halt its rush, but it did leave its lunging body off-balance in its attack. Morhault checked his swung, turned his blade, and thrust. The creature's weak legs and unnatural, hopping movement left it unable to stop its fall, and its own weight and momentum did as much as the sharp swordpoint and the warrior's strong arms to drive Morhault's sword into its chest and out again between its wings. Noxious green ichor spurted from the wound, but the monster did not die. It continued to fight forward weakly, dragging itself even further up the blade while reaching out with its claws.

Before the monster could get its talons into Morhault, the renegade raised one foot and slammed it against the beast's chest. Its weak legs did it a disservice again, as not only couldn't it keep from being forced away, but when Morhault pulled his sword free it toppled over onto its back. Another blow from the mercenary cleft its skull.

Elia, meanwhile, had faced the second beast with magic. Extending one hand, she spoke two soft words, made a quick gesture, and sent a tiny burst of flame to explode against its chest. The flame spell did little apparent damage, but it did stagger the beast, and she followed it up with another, then another. In that moment, Tabren and Deane struck from either side, the boy living up to the lessons Morhault had given him while the foppish noble's blow was surprisingly hard and effective. Both Tabren's sturdy knife and Deane's gem-encrusted stiletto struck again and again, making certain that the creature had no time to gather its strength and fight back before it was dead.

Moving quickly, Morhault strode forward and hacked at the back of one of the remaining monsters. The last two were knocked away from the barrier once more, and the tribesman took his chance. He raised his staff, and the light of his defenses shrank in on themselves, coalescing into a single, intense point of radiance. He leveled the staff at one of the beasts and the light exploded outward again at a word of command. It swept outward like a wave of brilliant azure, seeming to erode down to nothing the monster caught in its path.

Sweat was pouring down Elia's face, but she merely wiped the perspiration from her eyes on the back of her sleeve and cast her spell again, jolting one of the last two beasts with flame. The Prairie Tribesman struck quickly, again abetting his own rescue, cracking his staff across the back of the creature's knees. Its own weight carried it over onto its back, and the man slammed the iron-shod butt of his staff down onto its face with brutal effectiveness.

Morhault, meanwhile, had never given the last monster a chance to recover from his first attack; it fell under repeated strokes. Attacking from behind might not have been chivalrous, but neither were five-to-one odds, and after all, he was a notorious villain.

"What were those things?" Tabren exclaimed.

"I don't know," Deane replied, "but they seem intent on having their revenge on my second-best boots!" Already, the five corpses were starting to collapse in on themselves, dissolving into stinking pools of greenish-brown goo. Deane lightly skipped out of the way, keeping any of the slime from getting on his footwear.

"They're winged grues," Elia answered, which caused all three of her friends to look at her in surprise. The man they'd rescued, though, just nodded.

"Creatures spawned of sorcery."

"So they were sent by a conjuror?" Morhault asked. Both Elia and the stranger shook their heads.

"No, these are minions of the Vile Tribe's cursed powers, not common conjury," the tribesman said.

"They're created from a powerful mazoku's life essence," Elia agreed, the magician providing the technical details of magic. "They 'live' and 'die' as shadows of their creator, with their life span limited by the magic put into them, unlike conjured monsters, which appear to be actual creatures."

"So this 'false life' is why they collapsed into goop after death?"

The two magic-wielders nodded.

"Winged grues are superb trackers, but prefer to fight from the air, where their weak legs are no disadvantage."

Morhault didn't need to ask why they'd fought on the ground during the battle; the shock of hitting the tribesman's mystic barrier would have knocked them from the sky on their initial swoop.

Stroking his short, neatly-trimmed beard, the stranger continued, "Be that as it may, I owe you a debt of thanks for saving me. I doubt I'd have been able to stand them off alone."

"You were doing pretty well," Morhault said, "and kept on doing so. Two of them fell at your hand."

"Only because you gave me the opportunity. My defenses were adequate, yes, but without your intervention I'd have had no chance to do anything else but maintain the mystic shield, and sooner or later I'd have tired."

"In that case, you're welcome."

"I say," Deane piped up, "if I followed you correctly, this means that one of the Vile Tribe sent those monsters after you!"

He sounded almost elated, probably because he might get a chance to try out his crossbow after all. Morhault didn't share his excitement, though. He'd gone his entire life without butting heads with the Vile Tribe, and now it was twice in just over a month. It didn't feel right, not at all.

"That's what it sounded like to me, too. What has them after you...?" He left the question hanging, prompting the tribesman to give his name.

"Alynd."

"And what rank priest would that be?" Morhault asked. When the tribesman gave a start he added, "If you don't want people to know you're a churchman, don't go using holy magic in such dramatic fashion."

Alynd grinned. He looked to be around thirty, five years shy of Morhault's own age, and had a strong, handsome face to go with a rangy, slender by wiry form. His hair was light brown, his eyes the same color.

"Just an ordinary priest, if you must know. Though to be fair, without my priestly robes and holy symbol most people would just assume I was a magician." His eyes narrowed. "I must say, you're curiously knowledgeable about such things, and your arrival was most timely."

"Well, it might be that the attack on you was staged to let us work our way into your confidence, or it might be that you staged it so that you could get close to us. Instead, how about we give the paranoia a rest and take each other at face value?" Morhault extended his hand to the priest, and after a moment's reflection Alynd smiled and took it.

"Those after me," he said, "would simply kill me. There would be no point in using subterfuge where force would suffice."

"Too, it's unlikely that one of the Burning Hand out for vengeance would be calling upon Althena's power."

"The Burning Hand? It seems we have an enemy in common. Perhaps the will of the Goddess has guided this meeting."

Morhault grinned sardonically.

"I'm sure someone has been responsible for my luck lately. But given the current situation, maybe we should get together and compare notes."

Alynd frowned.

"I'm afraid that I have pressing business of my own."

"Yes, but we might be of help," Elia offered. "You've already been attacked once, and if they try again, at least there's strength in numbers."

"And you must admit," Deane contributed, "that no one would think of looking for a fugitive in a merchant House's mansion. Everyone knows that men on the run lurk in low dives and back alleys, not in the heart of Society."

Morhault laughed.

"Did I say something funny?"

"In a way. You see, you're absolutely right."

"Oh, indeed? How marvelous!"

Turning to Alynd, Morhault expanded on Deane's argument. "You're obviously on the run, or you wouldn't be hiding your vocation. Presumably, it's the Burning Hand that's hunting you, and we've already tangled with them, so you wouldn't have to worry about dragging innocents into a fight with the Vile Tribe. Plus, Elia's right. There is strength in numbers."

Alynd thought it over. It obviously went against his grain, both as a priest and as a man with all the fierce independence the Prairie Tribe was known for. He was the type to give help, not ask it of others. He was also, however, obviously intelligent enough to recognize his best interests.

"A noble's mansion? Something tells me we'll be exchanging some intriguing stories tonight over dinner."