[i]"I'll pretend I did not hear that from you,"[/i] Janius responded during the next brief pause in the fight.

There was no telling exactly why Deerz was near them. He put a pit in Janius' stomach, but he was right; Janius needed to focus on Julan.

Julan was tenacious in the face of his wounds, but Julan feared his brute power might not be enough. Argrei was fighting Julan like a bull. Though Argrei was not perfect, he was wearing Julan down. Julan needed to force Argrei to make an error.

[hr]
Ahnasha was acting far too strangely to shake Fendros off that easily. He stared at her with his head slightly tilted. His moment of thought and worry ended with him sitting down beside Ahnasha. He took her hand between both of his and rested them between them. He looked directly at her lowered eyes.

"I need you to tell me what happened," he said.