The stream seemed the best course of action to follow. The forest was dark and very unwelcoming to the three jellicles and for the better part of three nights they had only slept while one of them stayed awake. This responsibility fell on the shoulders of the two toms who felt it their duty to protect Etcetera who was both younger and a queen. Munkustrap and Mistoffelees took turns sleeping and staying awake and each night there was a fire lit by the conjurer's paw. Food in the forest was plentiful when all three moved silently and stealthily. Though they came across another even more disconcerting fact than this new and almost hostile landscape. The small game they found, rabits and other such creatures, were much much smaller than they were used to. Creatures that had once been close to being of a size with them were now small enough to constitute only half a meal. Munkustrap had the suspicion that somehow they had grown bigger and their ability to appear as four-legged creatures seemed to have disappeared.
Etcetera was quieter than usual. She followed the two toms as silent as a breeze until...
"Munkustrap!" Etcetera cried in a hiss, her voice alarmed. The silver tabby whirled around as fast as lightning to see Etcetera pointing to the other side of the stream. He followed the way she was pointing with his eyes. What he saw made the fur on the back of his neck stand on end.

Small, ugly, humanoid creatures seemed to be milling about at the edge of the stream. There was a group of five, each of them dressed in what looked like crudely shod armour, their stubby fingers clutching black serrated swords. The creatures themselves were grey skinned to the point of looking green, beady eyes wide-set in their toadlike skulls. Their language was gutteral, made of harsh sounds and glottal stops. Mistoffelees was beside him within seconds.

"Munkustrap,"Mistoffelees murmered quietly. A paw on his shoulder startled the tabby out of his observations. "We need to move."
The silver tabby nodded andmotioning that the conjurer should take Etcetera back into the woods where they would not be seen. Mistoffelees moved silently as only a cat could. He took Etcetera's arm and led her back into the forest. Munkustrap waited until he was sure they were out of sight before attempting to follow them.
However, he was not so lucky.

A barrage of frantic sound hit him, the creatures on the other side of the river obviously having spotted him. By the way they brandished those serrated blades Munkustrap was willing to bet that they were not planning on saying a cheerful 'hello'. The creatures surged forward, splashing through the stream. Munkustrap bolted. He ran in a direction away from where Mistoffelees had taken Etcetera, intent on at least sparing those two from the chase.

The silver tabby ran, dodging trees and shrubs with dangerous looking thorns all the while barely managing to keep his head start. For all that the creatures were smaller than he they seemed to have a great deal of stamina. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that he would have to stop and face them.
That decision made, Munkustrap abruptly stopped. He turned to face the oncoming creatures with his teeth bared and his claws extended to their full length. The fur on his shoulders and back puffed up all the way down to his tail, which made him look a great deal larger and feircer than he was.

The creatures did not slow down but ran straight at him with their blades held high. Munkustrap dodged the serrated blades as best he could, lashing out with his clawed forepaws and kicking with his feet. The little humanoids were ferocious fighters. They didn't seem to notice any flesh-wounds they gained and only seemed to stumble when Munkustrap struck at their eyes. Munkustrap knew he was fighting for his life when one of the blades fell sharply across his shoulder, the serrated edge dragging through fur and skin to expose the muscle underneath. Munkustrap roared. Even Macavity's claws did not sting so feircely.
He was forced to extreme action, taking the time to wrest one of the blades from it's owner and scoring a set of jagged teeth marks for his pains. Unfamiliar to handling a weapon, the jellicle slew the first of the creatures with an undignified stab. He used the weapon in place of his claws, and soon found it to be exceptionally more effective. The wound on his shoulder bleeding sluggishly he dispatched the second and third in rapid succession. The fourth put up more of a fight and he was barely able to dodge the swings of the fifth as the last two creatures closed in on him. Munkustrap looked around wildly for an escape... and when there was none to be found, he decapitated one of the creatures with a wild swing of his blade. The fifth ran. Presumably to avoid the same fate.

Munkustrap slumped against a nearby tree. The sword fell limply from his paw. He could feel the sharp sting of his shoulder wound, as well as various scrapes and pains from shallower cuts over his chest an arms. The silver tabby struggled back to the edge of the stream, the only landmark he knew in this peculiar world. He resisted the urge to think back upon the battle he had just fought and his tail trailed limply behind him.

Banedon walked casually beside Lone Wold as the pair tramped through the underbrush to the stream. Both young men were silent, Lone Wolf lost in his own thoughts, and the magician simply content to enjoy the calm of the forest. Banedon spared a thought for the damage to his robe that this treck was no doubt doing, and with the work of a thought carefully spelled the bottom half of his magician's robe impervious to harm from dirt and leaves. The spell was a frivolous one, but it was better use of his time than having to patch the hem of the robe that marked him a magician from the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star.
Both Lone Wolf and Banedon carried large earthenware jars which they would fill with water from the stream to take back tot he Kai monastery. The young kai remained taciturn and wan in the face of Qinefer's disappearance, but Banedon was glad that his friend could still be brought to leave the monastery (and the Book of the Magnakai) and stop moping for a while. Even if it was to do such a menial thing as carry water.

As they neared the stream, Banedon found himself with a frown upon his face. Something was causing a mental twinge in the back of his mind, an unfamiliar itch. Upon seeing the stream - and the creature that knelt beside it - the feeling was immediately explained.
The creature was large. If it were standing upright it would have easily towered over the both of them. It was humanoid, and sported a long striped tail, twitching catlike ears, and was covered from head to toe in glossy fur. Its body was mostly gray, but black stripes slashed here and there as though it were nothing more than an overgrown tabby cat. yet it was a quite definate cross between man and feline.
Lone Wolf spotted it at the same time that he did, and both men stopped to stare at it. Lone Wolf's hand strayed to the hilt of the Sommerswerd, which he had taken to carrying everywhere with him for the past few days. At the movement the creature's head jerked up and its ears swivelled in their direction. It seemed to have been caught in the act of rinsing out a particularly nasty gash upon its left shoulder. Lamplike yellow eyes flashed in their direction, the creature's ears falling back. Breifly Banedon wondered at the sudden creativity of the forces of darkness. Was this... cat-man merely a servant of Naar unfortunate enough to have run across some trouble on its way to attack the Kai? Banedon dismissed the idea after no longer than the barest of moments. The creature looked just as startled to see them as they were to see it.

Lone Wolf took a step forward, his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of the Sommerswerd in case of any sudden movements. In response the creature drew back a little and both men could see that its torso was covered in shallow wounds as if it had suffered through a very recent battle.
"I would say," murmered Banedon to his companion, "that it seems a great deal more frightened of us than we are of it."
"Yes," agreed Lone Wolf, and the kai's hand fell from his sword. "But is it peaceable?"
The kai lord raised his hands to show that he was unarmed, trying to remember if he had heard of any references to catlike creatures living anywhere in Magnamund. All that came to mind were the noodnics of Durenor, creatures that at first glance looked like nothing more than peculiarly large rats. "Well met, friend," Lone Wolf spoke. He kept his voice friendly, so that even if the creature did not understand the language it would at least recognise the tone. "I am Lone Wolf. My companion's name is Banedon. Who might you be?"

The creature raised itself up on its hind legs, which gave the men time to note that the creature was in fact a male. It tilted its head to the side and spoke. Words that neither man had ever heard the like of passed from the felinoid's lips in a voice that seemed to be half a purr and half a growl. Inhuman, but in no way unfriendly. Lone Wolf frowned, as unable to decipher the creature's meaning as Banedon was. He was about to attempt to use the kai discipline of Animal Kingship to try and communicate with it - the creature being half cat after all - when the cat-creature seemed to sway dangerously on his feet before collapsing.

Banedon crossed the stream, Lone Wolf close behind him. "Shock," the magician pronounced. "That wound," Lone wolf indicated the still-bleeding gash that parted the creature's fur, "was inflicted by a giak blade. He was wise to try and clean it."
Banedon frowned, attempting to come to a decision. "Well, old friend," he adressed Lone Wolf, far more cheerfully than he felt, "what do we do with him? We can't very well leave him here without knowing what he's up to."
"And I suspsect there's more to this creature than there seems," agreed Lone Wolf. "It's the least we can do to try and find where he comes from."

For Banedon, it was the work of second to craft a spell that would bring he, his friend, and the unconscious creature back to the monastery. For the moment, they would treat the cat-man as an ally. There would be plenty of time to discover his true alliances when he woke up.