happen.
Siveni stared at the Hound. It looked at her out of hungry eyes, growled again,
and licked its chops. Where its saliva dripped, the stone underfoot bubbled and
smoked.
The answering growl startled Mriga as Tyr shouldered past her and Siveni. “Tyr
!” she said, but Tyr, bristling, walked straight up to the Hound and snarled in
its face.
The Hound reared up, its jaws wide….
“Tyr, no!” Siveni cried, and slipped forward, raising her spear. Too late: Tyr
had already leapt. But the growling and snarling and roaring that began, the
rolling around and scrabbling and biting, didn’t have quite the sound any of
them expected. And it all stopped quite suddenly to reveal the Hound on its
back, its belly showing, its tail between its legs, and Tyr, flaming-eyed,
holding it by the throat. It was as if a rabbit held a lion pinned, but the
rabbit seemed unconcerned with such details. Tyr snarled again and somehow
seized that throat, as wide and heavy as a treetrunk, in her teeth; lifted the
Hound and shook it, snarling, as she would have shaken a rat; then flung the
whole huge monster away. “Yi, yi, yi, yi, yi!” shrieked the chief of the Hounds
of Hell, the Eater of the Sun, as it scrambled desperately to its feet, away
from the little dark-furred dog, and ran for the walls. It went right into one,
and through it, and was gone.
Tyr panted for a moment, then shook herself all over, sat down, and scratched.
Mriga and Siveni stared at each other, then at Ischade. “I don’t understand it,”
Mriga said to her. “Perhaps you do.”