A sudden rustling among the branches directly overhead caused him to look up in alarm, just as a crushing weight struck full upon his shoulders and drove him to his knees. Steel fingers sought and instantly found a hold on his neck, choking back an instinctive cry for help. Jotan was a powerful, fully trained warrior, with muscles superior to most of his kind. Yet in the first few seconds of struggle he realized with sinking heart that his strength was as a child's when compared to that of the unseen and silent creature on his back. A film began to form before his protruding eyes, his senses reeled, his laboring lungs fought for air--then blackness poured into his brain. ... Slowly the fog of unconsciousness left Jotan of Ammad and at last he opened his eyes. At sight of the half-naked man crouched over him instant recognition dawned in his expression. "You!" he gasped. "I," said Tharn impassively, "Where is she?" "I do not know." "You lie!" The cave lord's hand shot out and sank incredibly powerful fingers into the Ammadian's bare arm. "Tell me where she is or I will kill you!" Jotan raised a shaking hand and massaged the aching muscles of his throat where those mighty fingers had left their mark. He saw now that he was high in the branches of a tree, that sitting on a branch behind his captor was another cave man--a youth, rather--who was watching him from inscrutable eyes. "She never really believed you were dead," the Ammadian said slowly, almost as though thinking aloud. "I tried to tell her no man comes through the Games of the God alive. Even now I can hardly believe that you are actually here." Tharn was not to be side-tracked. "Where is she?" he growled. "For the last time--or do I choke the information from you?" "That will not be necessary, my friend," Jotan said sadly. "For all I know Dylara may be dead." Nothing changed in Tharn's expression but his fingers bit sharply into Jotan's arm bringing an involuntary cry to the Ammadian's lips. "What do you mean?" Whereupon the young nobleman of Ammad recounted the events of that terrible night when the lions had fallen upon his followers and sent Dylara racing for the safety of the trees. Tharn heard him out, his face as empty of emotion as though carved from granite. "For three suns," Jotan said in closing, "we searched the jungle for a sign of her. But to no avail. Either the lions got her or she is somewhere to the north, making her way back to the caves of her people. Two suns ago my men and I gave up and we were on our way back to rejoin the rest of our party when you found me." "Where is this place from which Dylara fled Sadu?" "A sun's march to the south." Tharn nodded. "You may return to your friends," he said. "If she is still alive I will find her. If she is dead, or if I find her alive and learn that you have harmed her, I will come back and kill you!"