A/N1: I have done some rearranging and rewriting of this whole chapter. The first scene is not new. The second one is! I apologize for how short this update is, too. I will try harder on the next one!

Felline watched from the velvet rope as Ben-Gali removed the wrapped oatbuns from the bag and left them on the filthy desk in the office of The Iron Oxen. The sounds of roaring fire, hissing water, and banging hammer from one of the more distant stalls continued without cessation.

"I thought you had to work," she said.

"Thickhide'll live," he replied, but then he let out a rather rueful chuckle as he deposited the last oatbun on the pile. "I might not, though. Let's get out of here before he catches wind of us."

He led the way around the back of the shop and onto a well-worn trail through waist-high grass. With only one moon in the sky—the smallest, pearl-like Panthera—the night darkened quickly around them, drawing close like a cloak. Felline tripped.

"Here." Ben-Gali transferred the bag to his right hand and held out his left to her.

After a slight hesitation, Felline took his hand. It didn't feel natural at all. She could tell he didn't think so, either, but all he said was, "It's not much farther."

Clusters of fireflies burst from the grass as the two cats passed through, winking blue, green, and yellow. It was a beautiful night, the kind that used to call her to her window to moon gaze back in Foret, warm and still and full of the smell of flowers, and soil, and . . . a river?

She swiveled her ears. Yes, or maybe a creek, burbling not far in the distance. Heavy shoes scraping through gravel, Ben-Gali angled away from the water. He led her to a copse, black in the moonlight. He dropped her hand and shuffled around in the dark for a moment, mystifying Felline until he clamped the bag between his teeth, reached up with lean arms, and began to climb the tallest tree. He'd taken off his shoes.

He turned to help her, but she was already there. They shared a grin.

Ben-Gali fished around in the crackling bag and then passed over two sandwiches. He settled against the tree trunk, one leg propped on the branch and the other dangling. He took a surprisingly dainty bite of a third sandwich.

Felline stuffed half of one of hers into her mouth.

He snorted into his eggs. "Good?"

"D'lishish," she said, happily chewing. She swallowed. "Brightheart makes these for you?"

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Me. The lizards."

She took another bite, halving the half, and didn't bother chewing before asking. "And the lizards come here—?"

He looked at her quickly, as if that wasn't the topic he'd expected her to start with, and then relaxed into a smile tinged with belligerence. The same one he'd worn when they'd met that afternoon. "Yeah, they come here. Once a week. They barter for food and other supplies and then they leave. Why? Going to tell your king so you can kill them, too?"

Ben-Gali definitely wasn't like any other cat she knew, although that healthy dose of tiger pride couldn't be mistaken for anything else. "I'll probably mention it, yeah. But Lion-O doesn't want to kill lizards." Didn't. She tried to smother a twinge of doubt when she realized that Lion-O hadn't said anything about lizards in a while. After clashing with Pumyra during the bloody battle to control Avista City, Felline wasn't sure what Lion-O thought of the lizards anymore. "He wants to stop Mumm-Ra. If these lizards come here to barter, chances are good they aren't part of Mumm-Ra's army. We have no quarrel with them. Not anymore."

"Huh," Ben-Gali said. A noncommittal grunt. The Leo moon bloomed over the horizon, its purple and blue stripes swirling around the pair of ever-present, eye-shaped storms. Ben-Gali pulled a twig off the tree and chucked it at the ground. "I thought ThunderCats hated lizards. Their 'ancient enemy' or whatever."

"Lion-O's different." She pulled her knees in and spoke into them. "A lot has happened."

"I suppose getting exiled from your home has something to do with that," he said bitterly. He turned his gaze outward, toward the quiet burbling of the creek, his profile carved from ice in the brightening moonlight.

"Maybe." She liked the way he could look at something so intently, without moving a muscle except to breathe, slow and even. He reminded her of Tygra in that moment, because Lion-O, his brain clicking through a thousand thoughts a minute, could never sit still. "Is that how you feel? Why you say you aren't a ThunderCat? Because you and your mother were exiled from your home, too?"

He laughed and sat forward, smirking sideways at her. "You ask some personal questions, you know that?"

"It's easier to talk to you than I expected."

"Lucky me!"

Felline opened her mouth to say something else, but then she tensed, swiveling her ears. "Someone's coming."

He didn't ask her to clarify. He didn't ask for proof. He dropped out of the tree and landed silently on all fours, staring hard into the firefly-speckled darkness. She was sure he could hear it, too, in spite of his smaller ears. A crashing through the grass. A wheeze, a tremendous sniff, and a cough.

Then a voice, raspy like a lizard's. "Ben! I know you're there."

Ben-Gali made a face, looking like he was suppressing a groan with his entire being. He stood and glanced up at Felline. He pressed a finger to his lips. When she nodded, he said, "Yeah, I'm here, old man. What are you doing out this late?"

"I'm not here for you."

Ben-Gali pffed dismissively. "Of course you are. I'm awesome."

A hooded figure stepped into the moonlight encircling the tree. He lifted his pale hands, grasped the hood, and folded it back.

A shock went through Felline, tingling in her palms and the soles of her feet. He wasn't a lizard—he was a cat! Another survivor!

But how? Why? What was it about this peaceful little town in the middle of nowhere that had funneled them here, now, seeking the one thing that could save them all?

The cat lifted his head, his nostrils flaring and white mustache fluttering as he noisily inhaled. The bridge of his nose was both wide and angled sharply, as though it had been broken at least once. The tails of a sweat-stained bandanna lifted in the light breeze that ruffled his white mane. His tufted ears, though positioned on the sides of his head, were larger and more feline than not. Two eyes stared upward, the irises and pupils filmed over with gray. They drifted, sightless, yet the ruddy-faced cat pointed his nose at Felline. "I can smell you there, she-cat. I want you to take me to your king."

..::~*~::..

By the time someone thought to bring her food, Pumyra had slipped into a seeming trance. She watched the ever-present rain drip through the mass of leaves twined around the bars of her cage. In thoughtless rage she had thrown herself at them, grasping them tight in her fists, intending to rip them down—but the hardness of metal and the prickle of microscopic thorns had stopped her. At the sleepiness that had washed through her, she had released vines and bars with a hiss.

She reclined on a pile of waxy fronds, her mouth slack. Only her eyes moved, following the food tray all the way down to the wet ground. Her lowered lashes hid the predatory glint in her gaze. As soon as the wooden tray clicked into a puddle, Pumyra was in motion.

Her hand shot between the leafy bars. Tiny thorns carded her fur and pierced her skin, flooding her with more plant toxin, but her aim was true. Her claws sank into the soft, pale hide of her captor's inner wrist. She yanked, pulling the lizard's arm into her cage, listening in satisfaction as the side of the lizard's fanned face slammed into the bars. The lizard's flailing tail smacked the tray, and the food went flying. One bulbous, pink-irised eye glared at her as the raindrops found the bridge of the lizard's nose and trickled down her pastel scales. Then the eye closed, and the arm slackened.

Pumyra instantly hauled the limp body closer, checking its loose clothing for a key, a weapon, anything. Tepid water dripped down her feverish forehead, getting in her eyes, blurring her vision. That must have been why she didn't see the others coming until three fishbone darts struck her. Pumyra fell back and landed like a bundle of sticks, able to see and breathe but otherwise paralyzed.

"You shouldn't have brought her here," said a dry, sibilant voice, insidious as snake scales sliding over mud. "She will only complicate matters."

"I had no choisse. I wass not able to convinsse Mumm-Ra to let me come alone." That was Slithe, grumpy as a toad with gas. He shuffled into view, yellow eyes sullen. A much taller lizard woman stood with him. She was thin and straight, her bearing regal, her neck, wrists, and ankles frilled with feathers and flowers, her gaze disdainful.

"She will not be a problem," Slithe said. "The sserum will cloud her recollection. She will not be able to report our location to Mumm-Ra. Asss far asss she knows, we will have ssimply arrived too late to accomplish our objective."

The tall lizard lifted a frill of skin around her head, and then smoothed it flat again. "Why are you here, Slithe?"

"To sstop the sscourge of the Ever-Living from ensslaving our entire people, Hesssith. The ThunderCatss have crosssed the Greater Barrier. Not for uss. It iss coinssidensse that brought them here. They sseek an artifact that Mumm-Ra wantss, but you do not know them asss I do. If they learn of uss, they will come. Wherever they go, the Ever-Living followss."

So. Slithe meant to betray their Master. Even this small, indirect act was one of rebellion, and could not be condoned. They may have Pumyra incapacitated now, but unless they killed her, she would repeat every word of this betrayal to Him, and then she would tear that miserable reptilian mutant limb from limb.

"You did not hesitate to fall to your knees before the Ever-Living once before," Hessith said coldly. "What could be going through your mind now?"

"Mumm-Ra made promissess he hass no intention of keeping. I have done more harm to our people in my attempt to free uss of oppresssion. Thiss iss . . . my atonement."

Atonement! More like cowardice! Furious, Pumyra managed a pathetic growl that neither lizard acknowledged. Hessith tilted her head. The folds of hide under her snakelike jaw undulated, drooping over the feathers at her collar.

"Very well," she hissed at last. "Perhaps we can correct your past mistakes. After, you will take her and go, and never return. You are no longer welcome here."

Slithe bowed his wedge-shaped head, unhappy but unprotesting. "Asss you ssay, Water-Talker."

"I'm glad we understand one another." Hessith toed the spilled food tray. It scraped across the rocky floor. "Increase the guards. Do not let that creature pull another stunt like this."

Hessith and Slithe turned away, leaving Pumyra lying on the ground like a bug too stupid to evade winter's frost. Her growl stuttered to a halt, but the fire in her breast burned as hot as the core of a volcano. Slithe, a betrayer. A piece of scum. A fool.

She was going to make him pay for this.

All she had to do was wait for the opportunity to present itself.

A/N2: My friends! Trust me, I have not forgotten you or this story! I can't apologize enough for letting this story languish. I can only express my gratitude and my love for all of you who have waited all this time for me.

In case you're wondering what the heck I'm doing with apparently reuploading this chapter, I decided that having the lizard (Kask) POV was slowing the story down. It was a hard decision to remove it (because I really enjoyed it, darnit!) but I think it's far more important to get to the point, which is seeking the Hammer. So if you have already reviewed this chapter, you won't be able to again, and that's all right with me. I accept PMs if you want to let me know what you think!

I hope to see you all again soon!

Anne