Mel ran through her door as Ty was putting on her breeches. "Gang," he gasped. There was a deep gash on his throat. Ty motioned him toward Sabi, who was rummaging the corner for the healing potion. Mel panted as he lowered himself to her bed and she pulled the strings on her breeches tight about her to make them fit more tightly about her hips.
"Where?" she growled. This was the third hit of the week, god's all willing they could find out what was going on before the superiors got wind of this. They had been attacked progressively closer to the Page's Wings, but always far enough from it that if the gang had to run, which they often did, they would be near enough to the forest that they could dive into it an disappear. This was frustrating enough for the Panther, but the fact that her pack were becoming heavily scarred was not to Ty's temper any kind of help. It was a knife in the ribs. When she got her hands on them…oh, she would castrate them all.
"Left Own Wing," he grated. His breath was becoming harder as he fought to breathe. Ty placed a warm hand under his jaw and said, quietly, "not a word to the others." Slipping a hand behind her back, she took hold of a braid and pooled her magic into her most loyal cub. It took her a moment to heal the artery that was dripping liters of blood into his windpipe, but a moment was all she had.
A great crash was heard in the direction of the Left Wing. Motioning to Sabi, Ty closed Mel's eyes and dashed in the direction of the noise. Pages were emerging from either side of the corridors. Ty leaped for the ceiling and summoned the panther, asking for the greatest speed possible. Together they sprinted the distance to the Left Wing in less than three minutes Ty dropped from the ceiling, grabbed Otian's limp body with one arm and groaning with his unexpected weight, she took hold of Leej with her other arm and whistled for Terry, who was still able to run though in bad shape, to run with her. Kehel was sitting spy in the Lower City that night. Ticking off all the names on her list, she took to the ceiling and dashed to the cross-point between the hall that lead to the wing of Mel and the others and the one that lead to her own.
Calling an owl call, she caught Terry's attention. She motioned for him to dash to the boy's rooms and patch them up with haste, then let the bodies fall onto the Shang. She then rushed to her room, directed Mel through a hidden door on her floor to his room, and made to look as if she'd been asleep. Sabi slipped into her cot at Ty's left and made to look as if asleep, then dashed to clear the air so that the strong smell of the potion could not be felt and leaped into bed again. Nodding to the child, she made to look as if asleep for when the Own burst through her door as they had through the other doors in the Wing.
Muttering something mindless, she made herself look groggy. The man in her doorway shut her door muttering apologies and rushed to check the other rooms. It was then that Ty sat bolt upright.
"Kehel!" she gasped, and Sabi leaped from her bed and into the closet's tiny trapdoor that lead to Kehel's room. Minutes later she came back, signaling that the Own had assumed she was Kehel. Kissing her forehead, Ty signaled the child to sleep.
As she made to really sleep, Ty allowed the Panther to growl within her. This was enough. The Tehea was going to the Lower City to find out what this is about—and wasn't going to leave without answers.
The weeks passed. The hits became more frequent and dropped the pretense of being unplanned. They were constant, planned—but quiet. Hit and run was the procedure. This frustrated Ty out of rationality. She needed prisoners, but none hung around long enough to be caught.
Sabi had proved to be a very important part of the pack after all. She had named herself their healer and, true to her word, cared for all their wounds save Ty's, who would let no one do it for obvious reasons—she could heal on her very own, thank you very much.
The other members of the pack had proved to be exceptional in their own way as well. Though Otian gave the impression of being weak of arms and strong of build, he was the strength within the pack. His arms were the strongest Ty had ever seen—he had, after all, lifted her six-hundred pound desk with one arm and not even broken a sweat—and his build was almost rock—as was his stomach, they all discovered—so they allowed him to test meals for poison before tucking in. they knew people of the Lower City worked in the kitchens, they were unwilling to take their chances on poisoned food when they needed to be well-fed in order to fight.
Terry was all he had been praised to be by the Wildcat—an incredible lad with a great deal of skill with hand combat, irregular blades, a staff and—to their very great surprise—a peculiar talent with lock-picks, all save Ty's own, which melted his picks whenever he tried to find out why her room remained locked at all hours.
Mel had proved to be more than just a good speaker and leader—he was their weapons master. Pages—for good reasons obvious to the pack—were forbidden weapons with metal of any kind unless they were in the armory. Staffs were allowed, but no others. Mel had—by a ways that Ty had no idea and suspected she would not want to know—found a way to smuggle a certain stash of good knives, daggers and glaives of origin unknown into a small area under a loose plank.
Leej, proud Bazhir for more reasons than one, was clever—and perhaps mad—enough to know where and when the enemy would strike. He had asked Ty for the responsibility of spying on the Lower City and she had given it to him, seeing how after two weeks of watching he had their entire mentality figured out. He could predict them as much as any cock could predict when the sun would rise.
Kehel was famous enough for being tall—and well behaved enough for the superiors to avoid their notice and suspicion—that he could gather news from all over. He was not a spy, but more than just a gossip—he knew and held the secrets of the entire palace and most of Corus. Whatever brawl happened, Kehel would know. He was, in a way, a great success of a gossip—which he reminded them always that he was not a gossip—and was in charge with knowing what the enemy knew and what he did not, and was in charge of keeping their operations secret. Moreover, he had the sturdiest hand on a sword Ty had seen for many years and a genius with sciences and arithmetic, something none of the others could grasp and was thus what kept their studies afloat at all.
Ty's position went beyond Tehea. She was the leader, the planner, the schemer, the thinker of the group. Quiet, silent, unscrupulous, she could outwit them all and always had a trick or two up her sleeve. Her skill was not only the keeping of the pack, but also any blade that was not too heavy and was flexible to such a point that the Wildcat would look at her and ask if she was made of rubber. She mastered all that required thinking.
With Otian as strength, Leej as strategist, Sabi as healer, Terry as fighter, Kehel as academic, Mel as weapon's master and Ty as leader, there was no way they were going to be defeated. If, for any reason, the pack's mood went to the ground…well, there always was Otian's sense of humor—either grand or terrible to the point that all begged him to remain quiet—he always managed to keep the pack together.