weight, and he held her there, arms pinioned to her sides.

"You hellcat!" he muttered against her hair, "Who are you?"

"You know well enough, you murdering lackey! Why don't you kill me and go collect your pay, damn you!" gritted the girl furiously. "Must you manhandle me too?"

Kieron gasped. "I kill you!" He caught the girl's hair and pulled her head back so that her features would catch the faint glow of light from the city below. "Who are you, hellcat?"

The light outlined his own features and the Arms of Valkyr on the clasp of his cloak at his throat. The girl's eyes widened. Slowly the tenseness went out of her and she relaxed against him.

"Kieron! Kieron of Valkyr!"

Kieron was still alert for some trick. Landor could have hired a female assassin just as well as a man.

"You know me?" he asked cautiously.

"Know you!" She laughed suddenly, and it was a silvery sound in the night. "I loved you ... beast!"

"By the Seven Hells, you speak in riddles! Who are you?" the Valkyr demanded irritably.

"And I thought you had come to kill me," mused the girl in self-reproach. "My own Kieron!"

"I'm not your Kieron or anyone else's, Lady," said Kieron rather stiffly, "and you'd better explain why you were watching me in the Hall of Emperors before I'll let you go."

"My father warned me that you would forget me. I did not think you would be so cruel," she taunted.

"I knew your father?"

"Well enough, I think."

"I've had a hundred wenches—and known some of their fathers, too. You can't expect me to...."

"Not this wench, Valkyr!" the girl exploded furiously.

The tone carried such command that Kieron involuntarily stepped back, but still keeping the girl's hands pinned to her sides.

"If you had spoken so on Kaidor, I'd have had the skin stripped from your back, outworld savage!" she cried.

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