[Tevildo]

Round and round the room they raced, tracing and retracing their tangled path. If truth be told, Tevildo was enjoying the chase, but in a short time came to the conclusion that enough was enough. He'd had his fill of running: now it was time to do battle against this bothersome hound.

The decision to change tactics came none too soon, since the animals had exited the Common Room and were rapidly approaching the end of the hallway, a small nook that came to a dead end under the stairs where there was no place to turn right or left. Tevildo spun around, dug in his claws, and hissed loudly, puffing up to twice his size, "You nassty dog! Vermin of the Earth, slave of your mistress, probably even a lover of Elves!" The cat had hurled out the worst insults he could think of.

Over the years, Tevildo had discovered that, even though humans were too dense to understand most of what he said, dogs invariably got the idea. From the look on the hound's face, Tevildo could tell that most of his announcement had registered. It was only the last little bit, the reference to Elves (whom Tevildo truly hated), that had flown over the dog's big, stupid head.

The cat issued his final warning with a ringing salvo that meant something like this: "I am a servant of the great lord Melko. Turn and retreat, or prepare to die." The dog shook his head, looking slightly puzzled, but showed no sign of turning back. Undaunted by his opponent, Tevildo sprang forward through the air, managing to bat the hound on the nose with a resounding slap. Landing adroitly just a few inches away, the cat crouched low and prepared to lunge forward a second time, howling his indignation. But this time the lunge never came...

There was a scurrying noise and loud upset voices as feet came running down the hall. "Where are they?" bellowed the young Hobbit lass to her companion.

"Under the stairs," Mistress Ellie cried out as she ran straight up to Tevildo. With her arm carefully protected by the thick folds of a wrapped apron (she'd had experience with this sort of thing before), Ellie reached down and snatched the squalling cat from the middle of the maelstorm, chiding him as she lifted him up by the scruff of the neck. "Tevildo, you naughty thing. Picking a fight with this nice dog. I'm sure he didn't harm you in the slightest. You'd best behave or Mistress Aman will exile you to the stables, and you won't be able to sit by the warm fire. There's going to be a grand feast here tomorrow, and we can't have all this fuss!"

Screeching and clawing, Tevildo tried very hard to tell Mistress Ellie that Huan was definitely not a nice dog, and that the hound had been the one who had done the first attacking. But no one, not even Mistress Ellie, seemed to be listening to him in the slightest. To his chagrin, he was hauled upstairs by the scruff of the neck and locked inside Mistress Ellie's bedchamber. The room was not very warm; no fire burned in the grate. Tevildo sat shivering on the window sill, feeling very sorry for himself. He gazed sullenly over the courtyard, his tail twitching nervously back and forth while he reflected on how hungry he was.