Legacy Chapter 8 – Bloodshed

	I remember the first time I fought back.  I was fourteen, and I’d been thinking about it since I was twelve.  You can only watch the man you’re supposed to love and respect beat on your mother so many times before you start to think he might not be worthy of that respect.  
	I’m not sure if it got worse as I got older, or if she shielded me from it more when I was younger.  She used to tell me I’d been too young then to understand, but there’s nothing confusing about what was happening, even to a child.  I loved my mother, even if her passivity frustrated me.  And over time, I’d begun to love her more than my father.  At some point that unbalance reached a tipping point, and I couldn’t endure it any more.
	I don’t even remember what they were fighting over.  I think it was how much rice she’d cooked for dinner.  We never would have had to ration like we did if he hadn’t been drinking away half our coin, but that’s beside the point. 
	It wasn’t even that it was a bad fight, compared to some of their others.  It just happened to be the last one I could stand.
	Thinking back, it’s hard to put it all together into one memory.  I remember moments.  I remember watching them yelling back and forth, then watching him grab her by the forearm.  I’d seen enough of their fights to know what would follow, and by the time he had his fist back, something erupted inside me.  It was like being burnt at the kilns.  White hot, sudden rage.  It wouldn’t be the last time I’d feel that surge of anger.  It’s led me to make countless bad decisions since then.
	But in that moment it gave me the strength to knock my father down from behind.  It’s all in flashes past that point, but I had no skill with my fists at the time, I just hit him until my knuckles ached, and until his momentary surprise passed long enough for him to fight back.  It didn’t take him long after that to subdue me, and give me the beating of my life.  I didn’t wake up until the next morning, to my mother treating my injuries.
	And hers.  He’d resumed where he’d left off with her after I’d blacked out.
	But something changed, after that.  It’s not that I’d won, but I’d made a stand.  I’d showed my father that he wasn’t safe, anymore.  That at least one of us would fight back, and even if I couldn’t yet overpower him, he couldn’t do what he’d been doing anymore without repercussions.  
	I made sure to do the same the next time he raised his hand to my mother.  And the next time.  And each time, I gained some ground.  I was growing up.  Getting bigger, stronger, and heeding my father’s advice from my childhood.  I ate everything put in front of me and worked hard, and unlike my father, I respected my body.  He was once and remained my greatest role-model, if only in memory of who he used to be, before the drink took hold of him.  And I grew into exactly the kind of man he’d wanted me to be.
	By the time I’d married, I’m fairly certain he was afraid of me.  I took no joy in that, but it meant he treated my mother slightly better, and was more careful around me and my wife.  Up to that point I’d still never won in our scuffles, but what mattered wasn’t overpowering him.  What mattered was showing him he’d have a fight on his hands, if he ever tried to hurt us again.
	Sometimes just showing you’re willing to fight is more important than the outcome.

	“Did you know he was using you?!”  I demand of the Aardwolf, as I make my way up the hill towards his moonlight-paled figure.  
	He gives me a confused look for only a few moments, before he seems to understand.  “Ahsan?”  He clarifies.
	“Raja!”  I snap back, before really thinking it over.  Then I balk, “Wait, what do you mean?  Did Ahsan know what Raja was doing?”  
	Lochan only sighs.  “It’s always hard to say, with him,” he says.  “If you’re asking if he knew he was being used, I think he had to have known that.  Raja fixated on him and controlled his every move from the second he took up residence out here.  You’ve been through it yourself, it’s what he does.  He’s king out here, in his own mind.  He makes sure everyone knows it, gets to know every servant in the house just about as well as he has to to figure out if they’re useful to him at all, then gives them some sort of order to follow.”
	“That’s insane!”  I tip my ears back.  “Why did Ahsan listen to him?”
	“He did the same to you,” the Aardwolf points out, “and you did exactly as he said, as well.  Don’t judge the boy, he’s even less interested in taking a beating from the cheetah than you were.”
	I shut my muzzle, finding it dry all of a sudden.  He was right, of course.  Raja had told me to take care of Ahsan for him, and that’s exactly what I’d done.  He’d handed his protection duty for the hyena off to me, while still finding a way to continue using Ahsan.  I’d essentially protected his interests for him.
	My mother had once told me that lions were dangerous because of their power and resources, but cheetahs were dangerous because of their selfishness, and ego.  They travelled great distances, alone, through the deserts and savannah, and only a truly self-centered creature would choose to intentionally deny society for a life spent with only their own thoughts.  At the time, I’d thought she was just specist, but Raja was the first cheetah I’d ever gotten to know well, and he was proving to be one of the most selfish men I’d ever met.
	“If you’re asking if he . . . if Ahsan . . . meant to use me,” the Aardwolf continues, then takes a long pause.  The way his posture weakens a bit and his jowls crinkle makes a sudden uncomfortable pressure settle over my chest, like I’m watching someone be grievously injured.  “I prefer to think he didn’t know of Raja’s plans.  I think he believed what you believed.  That Raja simply wanted extra rations.”
	“You knew you were being used?”  I ask, that discomfort growing.
	“I didn’t want to know,” the Aardwolf replies, trying to keep his tone neutral.  “Any fool could see it from the outside.  You did.  I was just a willing fool.”  I can see how much his pride is hurt by all of this, and to add to that the fact that he earnestly seems to have cared for the boy . . . it would be conceited for me to say I understand how he feels right now.  I couldn’t possibly.
	“I think,” I say, trying to break up the silence, “that if he’d known of Raja’s plan, he’d’ve told me.  And he never did.”
	That seems to comfort the Aardwolf some, and before long, his grey-blue eyes are on mine.  “Yes,” he says.  “Yes, you’re probably right about that.”
	“But you must have suspected,” I press.  “If you knew Raja had pushed him to pursue you.”
	“I didn’t know why,” he says, “until today.  And fucking hell, I most certainly didn’t know the cheetah was planning a revolt.  I knew he’d probably try to use my attachment to Ahsan eventually, but not like this.”
	“I don’t think even Raja knew what his plan was,” I shake my head, “he just seized an opportunity when it came.”
	“It’s not much of one,” Lochan snorts, reaching down to tighten one of the straps of his armor along his calf.  “Any servant revolt is ill-fated, whether they’ve a guardsman or a dozen guardsmen on their side.  Do you know how many manor guards there are?  And that’s only the ones on patrol at night, there are a retinue they’ll call upon that are asleep right now.”
	“Well, we should probably talk it out with him,” I sigh.  “Manipulative bastard or no, we may as well join forces at this point.”
	“Why in the hell would we do that?”  Lochan retorts.  
	“For,” I almost stammer, because it seems like the answer should be obvious but that obvious answer isn’t coming out right as I try to say it.  “For mutual-“
	“What about Raja’s behavior so far makes you think he wants this mutual?”  Lochan replies, icily.  “No.  I’ll tell you right now what he’s going to do.  It can go two ways.  Either we join up with him and he uses me as his spearhead to push up the center of whatever asinine plan he has – what is he after, anyway?”
	“Huh?”  I blink.  “Oh.  You didn’t know?”
	“I’m assuming he intends to do more than just run,” the Aardwolf says.  “Or he would have done that already.  He wants something in the manor house.”
	“Running doesn’t work,” I state, with conviction.  I hook a finger under the collar, popping it out from beneath my fur some.  “Not so long as we have these on.  We’ll just be hunted down and returned.”
	“That fact hasn’t stopped men from trying,” he says.  “Myself included.”
	“Obviously, it didn’t work for you either,” I snuff.
	“No it did not.”
	I fix my gaze on his, intently.  “I just thought you would have heard,” I insist.  “Raja says there’s a Liberator in the manor.”
	The Aardwolf’s eyebrows lift.  “I . . .” he goes silent a few beats.
	“Could it be true?”  I ask, my hopes hinging on the answer to the question.
	“I don’t know,” he admits.  “I feel like I would have heard.  But it’s possible.  I don’t know of any servants in the fields whose contracts have been fulfilled, or anyone who’s really even close to release, but the manor servants are not under my watch.  It could be for one of them.”
	“So it’s possible he’s telling the truth?”  I ask again.
	“Or stringing the other servants along with hope,” Lochan says.  “It’s the perfect way to motivate them to do what he wants.”
	“If there isn’t a Liberator inside those walls, why bother attacking them?”  I push.  “Why wouldn’t he just take his chances, use the mob to kill a few guards and run?”
	“That wouldn’t sate his anger,” Lochan’s voice is barely above a low growl now.  “That cat has a lot of rage, and anger that deep can lead you to make terrible decisions.”
	“I’m well aware,” I murmur, my memories nipping at my heels.
	“As I was saying,” Lochan continues, “he either uses me to punch his way into the manor and get what he wants, or we use him, and whatever ill-fated plans he has, as a distraction to go in there and do what we need to do.”
	“Get Ahsan out,” I nod.  Then I think a bit more deeply into what he’s saying, and I frown.  “Lochan, I have . . . I don’t know if you’d call them ‘friends’, but . . . men I’ve worked with, who’ve been at least decent to me, amongst those joining Raja tonight.  Not anyone I’m terribly close to, but I still feel for them, somewhat.  I understand why they’re trying this, even though most of them must know it won’t work.  I don’t know how I feel about using them.”
	“They’re going to try this regardless,” the Aardwolf points out, and judging by the steadily growing clamor I can still hear in the distance from the servant house, he’s about to be extremely right.  There’s no stopping this now.  “I won’t force you to come along with me,” he continues, leaning down to adjust the strap of his scabbard, and check one of his knee guards.  “Join your comrades, if that’s where you feel your heart lies.  I’m going for Ahsan, and I won’t find him mired amidst a revolt, bogged down by all that mindless rage.”  He strides past me, wrapping his scarf once over his shoulders so it trails down his back.  It’s crimson red, and seems too feminine for him.  Ahsan had once told me that it belonged to his sister.
	It’s clear to me that for him, this fight isn’t just about the hyena he’s trying to save.  This is about what happened to his sister . . . what happened to him.  For the men following Raja, it’s much the same.  This is about making a stand against the people and the power that’s subjugated and controlled us, made it impossible to prosper, and trapped us in misery for no other reason than to turn a profit with people’s lives.  
	A year ago, there would have been no question that I’d be right beside them, fighting for the same thing.  Now, I’m not so sure.  I learned a lot in the last few months, and swallowed a lot of truths.  I may have been tricked into this life, but I’ve known since it began, somewhere deep in my mind, that what really put me here were my own decisions.  And what’s kept me here, despite the fact that I could have paid off my meager contract years ago, have also been my own decisions.  I wasn’t bought as a babe, like Ahsan.  I wasn’t sold as a child like Lochan or Raja, or forcibly drugged and hooked into the life like so many of the men here who take the Divine.  I wanted to travel somewhere and I couldn’t afford to pay for it, and I couldn’t read the contract I signed.  That’s it.
	I have plenty of anger, most of it righteous.  But the worst of it, I reserve for myself.  Not even for becoming a Servant.  I hate myself for who I am, and what my mistakes once did to my family.  And the reason I’ve fought and bucked control the whole time I’ve been collared is not because I’ve ever been a freedom fighter, like Raja.  Not even like Lochan, who tried and failed to fix the system from the inside.
	I’ve been punishing myself, all these years.  And I’ve been using the hyenas to do it.
	I don’t really deserve to fight beside either of these men.  Raja is raw, unadulterated anger and outrage, ready to die and go down fighting simply for a chance at freedom.  Lochan is a man beaten down by a terrible life and terrible circumstances, who made a lot of sacrifices to try and improve those circumstances, and in the end made little change that mattered.  
	So, why am I doing this?  Why am I not simply ignoring it all like Chandan, and going back to sleep in the lodge tonight, so I can get up tomorrow and keep working my contract?  I could pay it off in a year and be free, and alive.
	The answer to that question comes immediately, and it makes my next choice very easy.
	I jog up beside Lochan, catching up with his stride and falling into step beside him.
	“Make up your mind?”  The aardwolf asks.
	“I have,” I nod.  “The truth is, you’re a friend to me too, Lochan.”
	He gives me a narrow-eyed stare at that, and I smirk.
	“If you don’t want to be, stop acting like one,” I point out.
	“I wouldn’t have given two shits about you if we hadn’t had a mutual interest in common,” he snorts.  “You’re like any other simple-minded, arrogant canine who’s come through here.  Don’t think for a second you’re anything special.”
	“But you and I both care about him,” I say, and his gaze on the horizon softens a bit at that.  “And he needs us, and I know you’ll make him your priority in all of this.  Not revenge, or looting, or even freedom.  You want to save him from that place.  Because you didn’t,” I pause just a bit before I say it, and drop my tone so he knows it isn’t an accusation, but empathy, “for her.”
	“I should have thrown caution to the wind and gone for her, long ago,” he growls.  “I kept talking myself out of it, convinced it would be worse for her if I tried.  Nothing can be worse than what happened.  I won’t watch it happen again.”
	“That’s why I’m following you,” I state, with conviction.
	“Don’t think you’re doing me too much of a favor, there,” the aardwolf sighs.  “You’re shit with a blade.”
	“My heart is in this-“
	“That doesn’t fucking matter,” he almost laughs.  “I don’t care how much heart you have, son, all the fire and passion in the world can’t make up for years of rigorous training.  You’re not a warrior.  You’re a man who can take a hit, sort of, and brawls with the occasional underfed field worker.  Even the laziest, greenest, most under-equipped guardsman wields a blade as a profession.  That blade in your hand, you’ve held for less than a day.  Don’t think for a moment you’ll somehow best a career soldier just because you’ve got more at stake.  That’s the stuff of stories, not life.”
	I sniff, trying not to be offended.  “So,” I sigh, “what should I do, then?  I want to help.  You got me this armor.”
	“Oh, you’ll fight,” he says.  “But only when I need it.”
	“Won’t you need help the whole time?”  I ask, perplexed.  “You were saying before how many guards there were, how crazy this is. . . .”
	“I wouldn’t attempt this unless I thought we had some reasonable chance of succeeding,” Lochan says.  
	“Yes you would,” I retort.  “You love him.”
	He stops in his tracks, and turns slowly to look back at me over his shoulder.  It only occurs to me then that I used the word one might use for their wife, not the northern Huudari term for ‘care for’, as in more in a family sense.  He’s probably from the south, so there are subtle differences between the languages, but that word must have carried over.
	It wasn’t entirely what I meant, but at the same time, what else would you call it?  I’m not sure how to regard how two men can care about one another.  Male prostitutes are as common as female prostitutes in most brothels, (except the ones on the coast, all the foreigners prefer females) but I’ve almost never known two men back where I grew up along the Hyronses who were bound as ‘mates’.  I’ve heard the lions have a tradition for it, but they all but have to, considering their tradition of harems.  There are a lot of lone lion men without the resources or land to keep a harem, and not enough lionesses to go around, since the ratio’s all off.
	But men can’t marry, in any society I know of.  Not even amongst lions.  If two men love each other . . . that is, in the way a man and wife can love each other, not just as brothers or comrades . . . what do you call that?  How do they live?
	Now is not a good time to ask.  Lochan is still looking at me with an expression I can’t discern, but it seems caught somewhere between defensive and uncertain, like he’s not sure if I meant what I said as an insult.
	“The Gods say it makes us stronger,” I say, weakly trying to show him I meant no offense.  “Loving someone.  That’s why they bless husbands and wives when they marry.”
	“It isn’t the same for two men.”
	“How is it different?”  I ask, ears perking.  He’s sort of opened the door now, and we’ve begun walking again, so we’ve nothing else to do but talk.
	“Have you ever known two men who lived together as a husband and wife do?”  He asks.
	“No,” I say after a few more moments of thought.
	“That’s how it’s different,” he says, quietly.  “No one recognizes you.  People may know, but they don’t talk of it.  They don’t make words for it.  There is no place for us.”
	I frown.  “Why?”  He’s right, though.  I can’t even think of a word for what he’s describing.  And it seems so obvious now, but I never thought to question it before.  I always knew men could buy other men at a brothel, or that two men might bed one another when their options were limited, but I never even thought for a moment they might want more from one another than that.  I’m not sure why I didn’t ever question that until now.
	It makes me wonder, briefly, what choices I might have made differently if I’d ever thought about it differently.  Things never worked between my wife and I, no matter how hard I tried.  And I’ve always gotten on better with men.  I just always thought when it was a man and a man, it was just. . . 
	. . . about sex.
	“Why?”  I repeat again, because he’s gone silent.  “Why isn’t there a place for men like. . . for men like you?”
	“I don’t know,” he replies, shaking his head.  “But how it is here – it isn’t so bad.  I’ve heard it’s much worse for men like me in other places in the world.  They castrate them, or hang them in the north, in the Dog Lords’ territories.  A sailor I once met said they’ll even burn them alive, if the offenses are repeated.”
	“Well, the Dog Lords are tyrants,” I mutter.  “They steal and make war, it’s what they do.”
	“They also don’t believe in slavery,” he points out.  “Every society is prone to its own evils.”
	“But,” I pause, not sure if I want to come back to the topic or not, but now I have to know if I was right.  “You do love him.  Don’t you?”
	He hesitates, then answers evasively, “My feelings are my own, and possibly his.  It has nothing to do with you, either way.”
	“I’m asking for my own reasons,” I say, quietly.  “I want to know what it’s like.”
	“Between two men?”
	“To be in love,” I press.  “I have a fairly good idea what happens between two men, I’ve lived in same-sex servant’s barracks for several years now.”
	He snorts out a chuckle, then sighs.  “You were married.  Didn’t you love her?”
	“I think so,” I blow out a breath through my nose.  “But I’ve never been entirely certain.  It was never good, between us.  I was never happy.  I could never make her happy.  Can two people who don’t make one another happy be in love?”
	“They can think they are,” the aardwolf replies sagely.  “Answer me this, then.  Far easier.  Would you have done what I’m doing right now for Ahsan, for her?”
	I’m silent a beat, then I nod.  “Yes,” I say.  “Absolutely.  She was my wife.  I made a lot of mistakes in my marriage, but I’d have died to keep her out of this life.”
	“Then you probably loved her,” he says, his voice low, sad.  “More than I loved my sister.”
	“You thought you could save her another way-“
	He shakes his head.  “Love should be reckless.  I know that now.”
	“I made a lot of reckless choices, trying to protect my wife,” I say.  “Mistakes.  Mistakes that chased her away, and my son with her.”
	“Sometimes the world doesn’t give us any good choices,” he growls.  “Sometimes we’re set up to fail, no matter what we do.”
	“Gods, I hope you’re wrong.”
	He laughs at that, a real bark of a laugh with no actual mirth in it.  It’s the most tired laugh I’ve ever heard.  A long silence follows, and tonight, considering we’re a few acres away from what might be our deaths, I feel the need to fill that silence.
	“She . . . didn’t love me back,” I say quietly.  “Of that, I’m certain.”
	“Love isn’t always mutual,” Lochan murmurs.   
	I fall silent at that, because I know what he’s thinking.  And worse yet, I know there’s a good chance he’s right.  I can’t even hate Ahsan for it, if he really was using the older aardwolf all this time.  My mother’s family came from the coast, and she used to say, when a storm comes, you cling to the nearest strong tree and hope its roots are deep.  I know exactly what Ahsan saw in Lochan when he first came to know him.  A strong tree with deep roots.  And he may not have survived in that place, let alone escaped it, if he hadn’t clung to him.
	But at some point, he must have known what I was seeing now.  If I could see it from an outsider’s view, it had to have been obvious to the empathetic hyena.  Lochan wasn’t just protecting him and feeding him anymore.  He was in love – not brotherly, not the kind that they say you should have for your fellows in your neighborhood, or the men you work your ass off with every day – but the kind that mates are supposed to have.  I might have been a simple jackal from the kilns, but even I knew it when I saw it.
	It was like watching sand crumble, to see it in his eyes.  Even if we got out of here tonight, even if we all survived, I almost didn’t want to know the outcome.  Because even though I’ve come to respect the old guard, and care for Ahsan, I . . . .
	I don’t want them to be together.  That’s what this feeling is.  It wasn’t just the age difference, or the fact that for a long time, I’d felt one was using the other.  At this point I wasn’t sure who’d been using who.
	But it wasn’t that.
	I don’t want to be alone.  And Ahsan and Lochan are the last people left in the world who have any real reason to give a damn about me, or remember my name if I die in a patch of red sand.  I don’t want to be one of their memories, and little more.
	I have no legacy.  I’ve left even less in the world than my father did.  I want to matter to someone.  I want to accomplish something.  I’ve lead a nothing life, and ultimately chased away and destroyed everything my family once was, generations back and going forward.  I don’t want to disappear like this.
	“I’m afraid to die,” I blurt out, suddenly.  I’m not even sure why I said it, and I’m humiliated the second the words leave my mouth.
	“Every living thing is,” Lochan replies, without even turning to regard me.  “Fear is a good motivator.  Use it to hold on to your blade, this time.  Remember it’s your life-line, like I was telling you.”
	He doesn’t know any of my inner thoughts, I have to remind myself.  He doesn’t know all the selfish shit I’ve been thinking.  How I’m afraid my only two comrades will find happiness together and I’ll no longer matter to either of them.  Lochan’s mind is still on the task ahead.
	And that’s where mine should be.  I try to clear my thoughts, try to find that resolve I had in the field, when I picked up the shotel.  I’m overthinking this.  None of my fears about what will happen after this matter now.  At this moment, I’m still a collared servant and Ahsan is probably locked in that room, reliving the worst parts of his childhood.  Or something far worse.
	“Tell me about the manor,” I say, trying to chase away with conversation what I can’t seem to stop thinking about any other way.  “How are you planning to get in?”
	“Quietly,” he replies, in a cool tone.  “And we’ll time our entrance with Raja’s attack.”  
	“Right,” I nod, “avoid the guards, go in while they’re distracted.”
	“We can’t avoid them all,” he states, flatly.  “Anala isn’t stupid.  She runs her shifts like a true professional, this isn’t the first or the biggest clan hold she’s protected.  She has rotating perimeter guards that intentionally check in every circuit around the building, so if any of them go missing she’ll know.  All of the stationed door guards have a specific warning cry, so the others will know exactly which door’s been attacked.  And she’ll never pull everyone from any one area of the perimeter, no matter how much of a mess Raja makes of the grounds.”
	“ ‘Anala’?”  I quirk an ear.  “The . . . fire goddess?”  My knowledge of the hyena pantheon is rudimentary, but even I know the name.  
	“Fire, and war,” he corrects me.  “And Anala is an Al’Dahia, a priestess of the goddess of fire.  They all take her name, to represent the swords held in her many hands.”
	“You sound worried,” I notice.
	“She’s a devout, professional warrior from a sect who believes they are literally charged with their duties by a goddess whose most infamous act was setting her own husband afire while he was still alive,” Lochan says, glaring back at me.
	“I am now worried,” I mutter.
	“Pray we don’t run afoul of her personally,” he lets out a long breath.  “Most any guard in the manor house, I have over a decade’s experience on, and I’m fairly certain of my abilities in one-on-one with them.  Provided it’s only one at a time, I think I can get us past most of them to the inner walls.”
	“What happens if it’s more than one at a time?”  I ask, uncertainly.
	“Then things get complicated, and I may need your help.”
	“What happens if it’s her?”  I press, and he stops.  I nearly run into the back of him.  I back up a step or two, and blink.  “That bad?”
	“I have experience on her,” he says, resting his palm lightly over the hilt of his scimitar, before turning to regard me.  “But the Al’Dahia are easily as well-trained as gladiators, and she’s far younger than I am.  She refuses to spar with anyone other than her fellow priestesses - I don’t honestly know how I’d fare.”  He turns back around after that to stare off towards the horizon.  “And I’d rather not ever find out, to be honest with you.”

	The manor looms enormous and dark across the rice fields, its wrought iron gates and intimidating fences a reminder to me how truly impenetrable this place would be to me were it not for the rogue Guardmaster on my right.  He’s gone over the general layout of the grounds, and which route we’ll be taking to get inside – a gardener’s path to the servant staff’s housing in the kitchens, where they bring in fruits and vegetables.  From there we can make our way through servant’s stairs and passageways, there are apparently a whole network of them through the house meant to be out of the way and invisible to the clan hyenas and their guests.  They don’t like to have to see us as we work for them.  For women like the Matron, it’s probably just because we’re disgusting to her, but for some of them I’d like to think it might just make them feel a bit guilty.  It’s easier to reap the rewards of slave labor when you don’t have to stare them in the eyes every day.
	“I’m curious what Raja’s plan would have been if we’d accompanied him,” I question.  “It doesn’t sound like we could get many people through the route you’re planning.”
	“I’m certain he didn’t think it through much,” Lochan snorts.  “If all he’d wanted was information about the inside of the manor, he could have asked Ahsan.  He probably just wanted the muscle, and access to my weapons.”
	“They’re doomed,” I murmur.  “I’m starting to feel even worse about abandoning them all.”
	“Don’t be.  He gets what he wants either way,” Lochan tells me.  “We can wait here all night for that mob to make it here and tear down the gates, but that’s just a game of chicken.  And it’s one we’ll lose.”
	“What?”  I glance his way.
	“Raja can afford to wait all night for us to make the first move,” Lochan sighs.  “He might have a little trouble keeping the men in check, but he will.  He’s not going to make himself the first target.  He’s going to wait for us to move in first, until we inevitably alert the guards.  Then he’ll come at the place from whatever side we’re not on.”
	“Why aren’t we waiting him out?”  I ask, incredulously.  It seemed to me like Lochan and I could muster a lot more patience than the cheetah.
	“Because Ahsan is in there,” he replies evenly, “and we don’t know what’s happening to him.”
	I take a deep breath, then narrow my eyes.  “Right.”
	“We do this quiet, for as long as we can manage,” he says, standing up from our crouching position behind a long row of scrub grass.  I hear his knee pop, and he winces, then gives a rough chuckle.  “I’m too old for this shit.”
	“How do we do this quietly?”  I ask, my eyes searching the perimeter of the gates.  Even from here, I can see at least five silhouettes of guards moving around the fences.  And those are just the ones on walking rotations.  Lochan’s already assured me there are guards at every entrance, and nearly every single door and threshold within.  The Sura family is one of the richest in the area, and servant revolts are the least of their concerns.  This manor is meant to defend against groups of well-armed raiders, assassins, even other clan attacks.
	“Follow me,” he commands lowly, and starts making his way down a row, towards the east side of the estate.  I follow, mindful of everything he’s told me so far.  I don’t want to be the reason we fail here today.
	I go over everything in my head.  Stay behind Lochan on his left side, it’s his weak side.  Stay back unless I see an opening he isn’t defending, and if I feel it’s time to step in, keep my blade at least five feet clear of him.  Do not swing at any opponent locking swords with him, and if he tells me to stay back, no matter what, stay back.  I’m willing to trust that the man knows what he’s talking about, and I hate feeling like the weak link, but I also know my pride can’t fill in for my lack of skills.  Right now, I need to listen to him, and do as he says.  
	I’m surprised by how brazenly we’re approaching one of the many back gates.  Lochan isn’t attempting to hide or obscure himself in any way as we near the grounds.  I’d expected we’d at least attempt to sneak in close before charging whoever’s there.
	Something occurs to me then, and in retrospect it seems obscenely obvious.  Lochan is a guard.  Of course we don’t have to hide.
	“Is your blade still tied to your hip?”  He asks me quietly, as we approach.
	We hadn’t had anything designed for the shotel, so we’d simply lashed a small twine loop to my belt, to fit the handle through.  I could feel it there still, a pressure against my hip, and a reminder of the one fight I’d had already tonight that I’d failed to triumph in.
	“I have it,” I assure him.
	“Move it to the small of your back,” he commands me.  
	“They’ll see it when they let us through the door,” I point out.
	“They’re not going to let anyone through that door,” he says.  “Past sunset, no one comes in or out, unless they retrieve permission from inside the house to let them through.  We can’t bluff our way in.  Trust me, I thought of it.”
	“Shit,” I sigh.  “For a moment there I thought this was actually going to be easy.”
	“I told you,” Lochan says.  “They’re wary of assassins.  The fennecs in particular favor night attacks.”
	“So how are we doing this?”  I ask, as I see a guard take notice of us in the distance.  He begins making his way towards us, taking his time, but every step he takes makes my heart race just a bit faster.  This is happening.
	“Shhht,” he shushes me sharply, and stops along the path, as the spotted hyena closes the distance between us.  He looks like any other nondescript manor guard I’ve seen, thankfully . . . not a warrior priestess.
	“Oh,” is what the hyena ultimately says when he finally sees us up close.  His eyes shine just vaguely red in the moonlight, as they flick between the two of us.  “I thought the lanky bitch there was Vikram, seeing’m from a distance.  Who’s the jackal, Aardwolf?”
	I’m thankful at that moment that Lochan’s spare armor includes a hood, because right now it’s bunched around my neck, obscuring my collar.  As servants, we’re forbidden from wearing anything that covers our collars from view, so he must have gotten even this armor after he won his freedom.
	“New in from the pits,” Lochan says.  “Field guard.  Anala said she wanted to look him over before we hired him official.”
	“I’ll have to confirm that,” the hyena mutters, sounding annoyed.  “Can’t we just do this tomorrow?”
	“She wanted it done tonight,” Lochan states firmly.
	The guard shrinks back a bit, his ears flicking behind him to the manor.  “Well . . . I’ll still have to confirm it.”
	“That’s fine,” Lochan nods.
	We start approaching the gate, and as we close in, the first of my fears tonight is realized.  There’s another guard at the gate, a female this time.  She also doesn’t look like a warrior priestess, let alone one who’s supposed to be younger than Lochan, so there’s that, but she’s another guard.  Lochan said two at a time could be tough, and it looks like that’s how we’re starting off.  
	But what’s his plan to get past these two?
	“Krisna, we’ve got two to the barracks,” the male guard says as we approach, and she gives us a once-over, before yawning.  
	“The Guardmaster’s dealing with a disturbance in the manor right now,” she says around a set of particularly fat jowls.  “Can’t it wait?”
	“That’s what I said.”
	My ears perk at what she said.  A disturbance in the manor?  Inside . . . could it be . . . .
	“Krisna,” Lochan speaks up, and steps up to her, within her personal space.  She momentarily seems put-off, but then he lowers his voice, and leans in close, whispering something so quietly near her ear that even I can’t hear it.  The male guard takes a slight step towards them, craning his ears towards the conversation, too.  
	I’m curious what the hell he could be saying to her, when I catch the glint of steel slipping from a small sheath on his right side, blocked from sight of the other guard by his own body.  The woman he’s talking to catches it a moment too late, her eyes widening.
	He brings the blade up just underneath her chin in a snapping motion, sinking the whole of it to the hilt up through her throat.  The blade is barely half a foot long and thin, but her throat isn’t armored, and all that escapes her mouth in the seconds following is a surprised gurgle.
	The male guard hasn’t even seen it yet.  He’s about to though, and I know I have to do something.  Lochan’s released the hilt of the dagger, leaving it in her, and he’s going for his sword, but all that guard has to do is send up a warning cry and we’ve blown it right out of the gate.
	I’m about to go for a tackle from behind, hoping to get my hands over his muzzle or at least knock him down and knock the wind out of him, when Lochan takes a step towards the man and draws his scimitar in the same movement.  I’ve seen it before, when he was sparring with the lioness.  He’s going to swing for the man in the same motion he uses to pull his weapon from its sheath.
	And he connects.  The hyena had a few seconds to do something, anything, and all he ultimately did was open his mouth and put up a hand.  The scimitar leaves a spray of blood in its wake, although not as much as I expected for a neck wound, and the hyena vainly thrashes at the air with one hand and tries to go for his weapon with the other.  When he does make a noise, it’s as wet and useless as the woman’s, and empties more blood from the enormous gash through his neck.
	He falls to the ground clutching at the wound, and Lochan steps over him, planting a foot on either side of his body and reaching down to grab him by his head scruff, before bringing the blade down on the opposite side of his neck. . . several more times.  Until I hear a crack.
	A few seconds later, he does the same to the woman.
	I force back a wave of nausea and fight a dry throat, at last managing a quiet, “Why always the neck?”  To him.  I’m not even sure why I’m asking.  Does it matter how you kill someone?
	“I don’t like to hear what people say when they’re dying,” the Aardwolf replies, his tone seemingly cold, but I can tell something about all of this still bothers him, no matter how long he’s been doing it.  “And right now, it benefits us if we kill quietly, regardless.”
	“Did you . . .” I swallow, making my way around the man’s body, “. . . know . . . them?”
	“I know every man and woman who works on the guard force,” he says, kneeling down to inspect the fallen woman, specifically around her belt.  “And I’ll kill every one of them if I have to.”  He produces something from her belt with a few metallic notes in each movement – a set of keys.  He then reaches down to her side and tugs her shield free of her stiffening hand, before standing again and staring my way, evenly.
	“They’re paid to die,” he says.  “Just like I once was.  This is how they earn their wage, and they accepted the risks when they took the work.”
	“It’s just . . .” I can’t find the right word.  Cold?
	He turns and starts sorting through the keys, trying out one after another.  “I learned long ago you can’t examine killing too closely, or you’ll go mad,” he murmurs.  “There’s never a good enough excuse to take a life, if you bring morality into it.  Just accept that sometimes to live, you have to kill.”  The lock clicks, and he turns it slowly, the metal gate creaking open.
	He steps back, and leans down to pluck his dagger from the woman’s neck, wiping it on his thigh before re-sheathing it, then turning back to look at me.  “Someday, it will be our turns.  And I doubt it will come as quickly or mercifully, for us.”
	I follow him into the gardens, paranoid and bracing for whatever’s to come next.
	“Why take the shield?”  I ask him quietly, as we walk along a row where they’re growing these big red vegetables dangling nearly in the dirt.  I’ve seen them in the market before but I never had the money to eat things like this.
	“Better to have it than not,” he states simply.  
	“I’ve just never seen you fight with one before.”
	“I used to sword and board in the arena whenever I was up against multiple opponents,” he says.  “You can only fight from one side – or at least, that’s the best I can manage - best to cover your other, if you possibly can.  I’ll admit it’s not my strong suit.”
	“I can cover your other side,” I insist.
	“You can do that, too,” he says, then opens his muzzle to say something else, and just as quickly shuts it, grabbing for my shoulder and forcing me down behind a mass of gnarled vegetable bushes.  A moment later, a small group of men round the corner just past us.  Judging by the buckets and the shabby clothing, they’re likely workers.  We wait a time to let them pass, then slowly rise and start making our way into the orchard.
	I vaguely remember some of this from the one time I visited, and when we see the stables on the other side of the tree line I begin to get my bearings.  I twist my ears as we move, mostly hearing the horses in the stalls beyond, stirring in their sleep or moving about, still awake.  I can hear what are definitely paws moving around in the hay, but judging by the lightness of their footsteps it’s probably a servant, some kind of smaller species, tending to the animals.
	We skirt the barn, hugging the side, and I’m about to mention the servant inside to Lochan just so he’s aware and we don’t surprise anyone, when someone surprises us.
	Rounding the corner, we nearly run headlong into a wandering guard, a striped hyena with a falchion slung over his back.  Unlike the gate guard, this one takes those few crucial steps back when he sees us, rather than panicking.  He begins to go for his blade and lifts his head to bay, a short bark making it past his teeth before Lochan is on him, smashing his shield up into the side of his muzzle and cutting short the noise into a sharp yelp, instead.  The hyena is knocked off-balance and shakes his head dizzily, bringing out his falchion with enough time to block Lochan’s next swing.  	
	I begin to circle around the man, cutting off his escape and pulling out my shotel, ready to step in if need be.  But the fight moves faster than I expected – all of these fights have been over in seconds, which makes me wonder how anyone gets any pleasure out of blood sport.
	Lochan presses in close with the man and easily deflects his next swing, and before the hyena can open his muzzle again, there’s a scimitar through it, cleaving through flesh and bone.  The first wound is hideous enough that I can barely watch, but the aardwolf follows up with two more cleaving blows in succession once he’s got the man reeling.
	I’m amazed and somewhat horrified by how unyielding he is when he presses his advantage.  He has what I lacked – resolve.  Each first blow is followed by a series of faster, more certain, more devastating blows.  Killing blows.
	I watch, and commit everything to memory.  Even if it’s hard.
	The yelp got the attention of another guard nearby, and Lochan wastes no time, gesturing for me to follow as we hurry across the manicured yard towards the ornamental gardens.  A woman steps from between two of the statues, and this time I know we can’t stop her.  Her warning cry, a distinct multi-toned cackle, carries out across the yard, and it’s not long before it’s answered in the darkness, by several others.
	“Come on!”  Lochan snaps, charging forward for the woman.  
	This one puts up more of a fight, likely because she had more time to ready herself, but it isn’t long before she’s down in the dirt, leaking her life out into the cracks in the cobbled ground.  An enraged shriek comes from around the nearby hedge, and we have very little reprieve this time, immediately beset upon by the other guard who must have been on rotation with her.  Lochan blocks her charge with his shield and gives her a hard enough shove that she nearly topples, skipping back on one foot in a desperate attempt to catch her balance.
	He shouts my name, and since he gave her a firm shove in my direction, I figure that’s my cue to step in.  Steeling myself, I squeeze my fingers tightly around the shotel’s hilt, and repeat again and again the two things I’ve been told in the last day about the weapon.  Use it like I would if I were reaping a field, and don’t let go.
	I try to aim for her neck, but my swing catches her lower, hooking beneath and behind her right arm as she raises it.  I encounter far more resistance than I thought I would, jerk it up across her back and snag it on her armor, and though I smell blood, the wound is probably superficial at best.  
	She makes the mistake of turning to see who else is attacking her though, and that’s all the opening the aardwolf needs.  He bulls into her and knocks her down, before bringing the blade down just over her gut, beneath the seam of the armor that runs across her chest.  She screams and wretches up blood, and I begin to close in to finish her off, when I remember what he told me about swinging at someone locked in combat with him.
	Considering my accuracy, there’s a pretty good chance I’d catch him in the arc of my swing if I even try.  So, I catch myself, taking a step back.  
	He wrenches himself to his feet, apparently not bothering to put this one out of her pain.  I’m not sure if it’s a personal grievance or if he’s just in more of a hurry now, but I don’t argue when we take off sprinting again.
	“She was Al’Dahia,” Lochan explains, panting as we run, “if Anala finds her she might take a moment to put her out of her misery.  They have an oath about that.  Buys us just that much more time.  Damnit, where is the- there,” he suddenly stops, and gestures towards the back wall of the main house, a few hundred yards away.  “Near where those fancy windows are.  Around that wall is the servant’s entrance.”
	A chorus of distant hyena cries goes up, piercing the night air.  But these sound much too far away to be the guards in the garden.  They’re further out, near the wall.  And over the sharp smell of blood in the air I’ve begun to sense something else on the wind.  Panic, and fear.
	“Raja is attacking,” Lochan states with certainty.  “Sounds like they’re at the main gate.”
	“Stupid,” I snarl.
	“It’s what I would have done, in his position,” he shakes his head.  “Anywhere else and a mob that size would be bottlenecked.  They could pick them off with crossbows or those revolting thundering weapons from the north.”
	“They have those?”  I ask, shocked.
	“They buy them mostly to resell, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the clansmen decided to dishonor themselves by carrying one.”  He snuffs, and shakes his blade free of some of the blood on it.  “Come on.”
	We take off along the wall of windows, which look to lead into a hallway in the main manor.  I have no idea what area of the house we’re near, but I’m sure Lochan does, so I let him lead.  Soon enough, we’ve rounded the corner and come to a far less opulent, plain back wall of the estate.  It’s clear this isn’t the side the Clan’s guests are meant to see, considering the chipped paint and lack of landscape.  There’s a distant well pump, a few lines strung up with limp, tattered clothing drying in the cold night air, and a lot of worn dirt trails that are obviously well-travelled.  This is what amounts to the servant’s housing here inside the manor.  
	It’s still far nicer than what we have out in the fields, I can’t help but notice.
	The doorways here have no actual doors on them, and there aren’t any guards I can see.  Lochan takes a moment, scanning the yard to make sure, before we round the corner.  The sky is just starting to lighten in the distance, thin bands of gold criss-crossing against an otherwise washed blue slate where the meager rays have begun to fall.  If we were in the servant housing, we’d be waking up in an hour or so, but the servants here must be on an earlier schedule, because I can already hear the sounds of some of them milling around inside.
	A horrible thought occurs to me.
	“We’re not going to kill any of the servants, are we?”  I ask Lochan.
	“Not unless any of them get stupid on us,” he mutters.  “But don’t worry, they won’t.  These people are used to staying out of the way.”
	As it turns out, when you wave around a scimitar at most people, they do in fact get out of the way.  Lochan and I make our way through the small doorway and emerge into a crowded, cluttered, dingy room, one of the kitchens by the look of it.  I’m guessing by the stink of familiar porridge being prepared in their pots that this is a kitchen for the servant’s food, though, not the one for the Clan member’s meals.  An older female rat drops a pot as we enter, and the squirrel plucking a chicken near the doorway screams.
	It takes me a minute to realize why.  At first I thought Lochan might go about this as he did at the gate, and just pretend to be a guard on duty.  These people have every reason to listen to the guards here and they probably don’t know them all from one another all that well.
	But we’re covered in blood.  Even I am, I realize, being caught in the spray of my own shotel and Lochan’s repeated near-beheadings.  
	“All of you, take refuge somewhere,” Lochan calls out, loud enough that I can already see a few others peering around from the next doorway, more rats by the look of it.  “There’s a revolt at the main gate, and we don’t know how far into the grounds they’ll be able to make it.”
	The old rat wastes no time, bolting into the next room and grabbing at two of the younger rats who were poking their heads around the corner.  The squirrel, however, twists her ears towards the yard and seems to consider her options for a moment.
	Lochan isn’t wasting time, he’s already making his way towards the next room and I have no choice but to follow.  I wish I could stop and see if the squirrel wanted to come with us, though.  If she joins in the revolt, odds are, she’ll die.  I turn to look over my shoulder as we make our way through the next doorway, and I see her looking down towards a knife block, and one of the large pairing knives there.  
	We move through three other small rooms, one of which is a sleeping area and still houses quite a few occupied beds.  Lochan gives the same warning to all of them, but it’s almost unnecessary by now.  I can hear the hyenas baying in the distance, and so must they.  It’s clear the place is under attack.
	When we shoulder through a slim hallway towards what looks to be a more lantern-lit, golden area, I can tell by the scent of incense that we must be nearing the inner walls.  Lochan’s ears twist, and he takes a sharp turn into a small supply closet suddenly, grabbing at my armor to force me in there with him.  A moment later, what look to be the silhouettes of three guards run past, in the hallway we were about to enter.
	“These are the inner walls,” he whispers fiercely.  “I’m going to take us the most direct route I can think of to the bedrooms, because I’m guessing that’s where he is.  But from here on out it gets a lot worse.  Some of the guards here never leave their posts, even in an attack.”  He turns towards me, baring his one good fang.  “If I’m injured too badly to move, you keep going on your own.  I can try and give you directions.”
	“That’s not going to happen,” I insist.  
	“Just so as I say,” he snaps, then turns and listens again for a few beats, before nodding at me and slowly making his way towards the golden hallway beyond.
	When we reach it, I realize it’s that long expanse we saw from outside, with the intricate windows.  The lantern light isn’t the only reason it’s brighter in here.  These windows face the sunrise, and it’s just starting to crawl its way in.  It’s surreal to walk down such a beautiful corridor.  I feel intensely out-of-place, my paws tracking in the dust from the fields, and the blood from Lochan’s many kills.  This place really is like a different world, crafted by the Clans.  It’s no wonder they feel so above all of us that live in the dirt.  To someone like me, this place may as well have been built by Gods.  I can’t imagine how much wealth, how much manpower, how much sheer brutality must be necessary to live like this.
	A guard’s shadow steps out into the arched doorway at the end of the long hallway, and unlike many of the others, this one doesn’t call out right away when she sees us.  She doesn’t do much of anything for a long moment, actually, simply stands there in the doorway.  
	Lochan stops as well, and I hear him hiss between his teeth.  The two take a few moments to regard one another, and then she steps into the hallway, and my heart jumps into my throat.
	The woman is a spotted hyena like many of the others, with a regal bearing and similar armor to most of the other guards we’ve encountered, save more intricate burnt patterns in the camel hide.  But it’s not that that sets her apart.  It’s the shaved fur around her eyes, and the tattooed red skin beneath.  I’ve seen it before, the red mask on the statues of the goddess Anala.
	“Guardmaster,” she greets him, in an even tone.
	“Guardmaster,” he greets back, between his teeth.
	“You’re part of this foolishness at the gates, then?”  She queries.
	“No,” he states.  “But I am still your enemy.”
	She tilts her head at him a moment, then lifts her nose.  “Every living thing is my enemy,” she replies coolly, pulling her own scimitar from her side.  The blade and its ornate hilt gleam with fresh polish in the dim sunlight.  I know little about weapons, but I can tell even from a glance that her weapon is better made than his.  I can also tell from his labored breaths that he’s already tired.  She, on the other hand, looks fresh.
	“You are just my enemy today,” she says, as she advances slowly towards us.  
	“I just want Ahsan,” he says, bringing his blade and his shield up.  “Go deal with the disturbance at the gates, and protect your Matron.  Just let me have the boy.  That’s all I came for.”
	“That is unfortunate,” she says, “because he is with my Matron.  So, I am where I am most needed, right now.  You’re a greater threat to her than a few ragged field workers ever will be.”
	I step back a pace or two from him, giving him his distance.  Giving the both of them distance.  I’m not sure what I should do, here.  Will he want my assistance fighting her?  I feel like I should at least try, given what he told me about her.
	“When we lock blades,” he whispers roughly to me, “get around to the other side of her.”
	I’m thankful he seems to have sensed my indecision, and I give him a wide arc.  When she’s about five feet from him, she pushes off on one foot and charges the aardwolf.  She’s not bothering to use a shield, but I see immediately what Lochan was so afraid of as she closes in.  
	The woman is fast.  Her blade is at least as large as his, and she swings it near effortlessly, coming down on him hard and fast.  He barely manages to get his shield up in time to block the first blow, then swings his own sword out in an arc to try and catch her while she’s close.  It’s easy to see, now that they’re next to one another, the discrepancy in their swings.  What had seemed so quick and precise outside, against the less skilled guards, now seems achingly slow in comparison to her.
	She side-steps his swing easily and moves in a V, back-stepping then lunging in at him again, forcing him to pivot his body to face her.  His shield arm doesn’t come up fast enough this time, and for a moment I’m afraid I’m about to see her bisect him, but he catches her blade with his own.
	In a contest of strength, he seems after a few moments to have her beaten, pushing her slowly  back, the blades shrieking against one another.  I remember what he said and use the chance to move around the two of them, getting in behind her.  
	He glances over her shoulder, waiting until I’m safely around them, then gives her a monumental shove, forcing her to hop back lest she get clubbed by his shield arm.  He’s using it almost like a weapon, like I saw the big lioness doing when she was fighting him.  I have to wonder if he learned that from her, or if he’s the one who taught her how to do it.
	“Kadar!”  He shouts, and I wait for my command to attack.
	Instead, he takes a wild, wide swing at her, which even to me looks like it wasn’t meant to connect.  It does force her to step even further back though, snarling at him in a way that looks far too much to me like she’s enjoying this.
	When she tries to press back in, rather than blocking or parrying her like he’s prone to, he instead tries to dodge her, putting his shield up to cover his flight out of her path.  He catches the edge of her first swing, but she twirls as he ducks past her, and suddenly he’s got his back to her, and I can feel the hit before it lands.
	He winces as the scimitar connects with his back, somewhere on his right side.  I stand my ground, staring at him slack-jawed as he rushes towards me, not turning around to face her again.
	“What the hell are y-“ I begin.
	He shoves me with his shield, barking a quick, “RUN!” and pushing me ahead of him.
	“What?!”  I ask incredulously.  He isn’t giving me much option though, and even the hyena, who also seemed dumbfounded by his sudden flight, is recovering from her moment of shock and starting towards us again.
	We take off down the hallway, towards the distant open doorway into . . . more of the manor, I can only assume.  I jog up beside him and easily pull ahead, having to check myself to keep up with the older man.
	“She is faster than us!”  I point out the obvious.
	“Shut up and run!”  He shouts, and shoves me through the doorway when we reach it.  I can hear the woman hot on our tails.
	Once Lochan moves through the doorway behind me, he grabs for something near the wall . . . a brass handle . . . and slams shut the door I didn’t even realize was there.  A second later the door shudders, as the hyena bulls into it from the other side, and I shoulder up alongside him, digging my claws into the grout between the tiles of the floor, helping the older man shove it shut with all our might.
	Once the door is entirely shut, the aardwolf drops his shield and goes to his belt, grabbing at the set of keys he stole earlier, and fishing through it for a moment.  There’s another shudder as the hyena on the other side makes a second attempt, and my heart is racing.  “Sooner would be better,” I grit out.
	“I thought you were strong, jackal,” Lochan taunts, as he finally pulls up one of the keys, looking it over just to be sure, then shoves it into the lock, and turns.
	The door shudders again, the handle twisting, but this time nothing gives.  I slowly stand back from it, disbelievingly.
	“I . . . thought . . . .”  I utter, breathlessly.
	“That I was going to fight her?”  Lochan snorts, reaching back to run his palm along his back, and side, where I can see a thin line of blood seeping out from beneath his armor.  “Why the hell would I do that if I could avoid it?”
	“Are you alright?”  I ask.
	“Graze,” he assures me, reaching down with a wince and grabbing up his shield again.  “Now let’s go.  She’s not omnipotent . . . she can’t break down a hardwood door, but she’ll find another way around.”
	He frees the rest of the key ring from the key in the door, and we move.