[Tevildo]

Tevildo sat at the top of the old stone wall, glowering miserably at anyone who dared approach him. He was not in a very good mood. Snowy Owl had told all the animals to hide, but the cat was not going to listen to the prattlings of a pushy bird. He should just take off on his own, he reasoned, like the other cats in his party who had left the Inn a few hours before. He could race across the meadow into the thicket and leave this sorry scene behind. Tevildo knew enough of the ways of Wraiths that he felt confident in his ability to keep hidden from the shadowy nemesis that was terrorizing the countryside. Let the others manage on their own.

With that comforting thought, Tevildo settled in for a short snooze. Curling up so that he resembled a large white puffball, he nestled his head on his paws and wrapped his tail around his body. Soon his eyes were closed. Within a moment he was dreaming......

In his dream, there were the usual flashes of glory that he had earned as the hunter for the household of Melko so many years before. He saw himself curled up victoriously at the Dark Lord's feet while the latter bent down to stroke his head and speak kind words about Tevildo's ability to leap out and dismember any prey. He had been a great deal larger then, and the two-leggeds had no trouble understanding his speech. Such a pity, he thought, that the two-leggeds in this age were so blind and dumb.

Usually, the dream stopped at this point, and Tevildo awoke, feeling good about himself. But this time, it was different. The cat found himself walking down a large dark tunnel in the very lowest level of Melko's great fortress. It was not a place he cared to visit. There were usually screams and shrieks coming from behind the heavy stone doors, hideous reflections of an ugliness that even Tevildo preferred not to probe. Elves were taken down into these chambers. The cat did not know what happened to them but he had never seen any emerge alive. Still, these were Elves and their misfortune did not really concern him.

This time, one of the stone doors had been left open an inch or two. Tevildo could hear noises coming from inside the room, but these did not seem to be from Elves or Humans. Rather the dreadful shrieks and howls could only have come from a cat who is being pulled apart limb from limb or turned into a ball of flame. Too curious for his own good, Tevildo crept through the opening and hid behind a large barrell that someone had set down near the door.

Peering out from his hiding place, Tevildo saw the greatest of the Lord's wraiths sitting with a large cloth sack. His regular job was apparently done, and he was now stopping to relax. Inside the sack were ten kittens piteously meowing. One by one, the Wraith removed the animals from the sack and proceded to have his sport with them. Those images had embedded themselves on Tevildo's mind. One kitten lay broken and bleeding, his eyes separated from his head. Another had its tail cut off, still another had been set on fire, and a fourth lay disemboweled. By the time the Wraith finished with his play the only sound heard inside the chamber was that of his own raucous laughter.

At this point Tevildo could take no more. What a terrible waste of talent! Those kittens would have made fine hunters in just a little while. He wished he was large and fierce enough to make this murderer go up in smoke the same way that the Wraith had set the small grey kitten on fire.

Then Tevildo did a very foolish thing. He gathered all his courage and emerged from behind the barrell racing straight for the shrouded figure, attempting to clamp his front claws into the torturer's shadowy body. The hideous creature stared down in disdain, howled in laughter, and tossed Tevildo across the room with great force. The cat smashed against the cold stone wall; his body instantly went limp. He awoke several hours later, with one front leg broken and a bloody gash across his chest.

It was at this point that Tevildo pushed back his own wall of sleep, shaking like a young green leaf that has been pushed from a tree too early by a terrible windstorm. He had made a decision. He was not going to take off across the field. That thing approaching the village was the same thing he had seen in the dungeon that day. The terror in the eyes of the human victims was the same terror he had seen mirrored in the eyes of the kitten. Tevildo was absolutely certain of who this creature was, and he wanted to make him pay.