It was lonely on the far reaches of shoreline to the north of Salamandastron. Night had fallen over the restless sea. A flood tide was rising, claiming back the flotsam and jetsam it had cast up on its previous visit. How long Ungatt Trunn had lain there, he could not tell. Salt water crusted the wildcat’s eyes, slopping bitterly into his half-open mouth. He could not move his body. Most of it was numb, frozen solid, as if encased in a block of ice. But his chest, head and neck were on fire with unearthly pain. The last thing he could recall was the Badger Lord, crimson-eyed as they came face-to-face, snarling at him. “Now I see your face, Ungatt Trunn. Look upon me!” Beyond that, everything was a blank and unknown void.

But the wildcat was not dead. He recovered consciousness slowly, sodden, freezing cold and grunting in agony every time a wave smashed over his helpless body, moving him down the slope of the shore. Damp seaweed and the sharp edge of a shell pressed against his cheek. Something small and spiny scuttled across his face. From the corner of one eye he could see a half-moon and the star-scattered skies. Another wave buffeted him. Now he could see the sand and a rocky outcrop. Realization invaded his senses with a shock of terror as his awful position dawned upon him. He was lying at the mercy of the sea. Flood tide was drawing him back into the waves, where he would be swept out into the vast, unknown deeps.

Hissing like a huge reptile, another wave crashed over him, rolling his broken body into the shallows. The wildcat turned his gaze landward, and gave an agonized groan. Then he saw something. Two footpaws and a bushy tail. Somebeast, a fox, was sitting on the rocks, watching him. Karangool, it had to be Karangool! His own voice sounded distant, strange to him, as he croaked out, “Please . . . ’elp . . . mmmee!”

The fox came down off the rocks and crouched before him. Trunn managed one word before the fox pushed him further into the water.

“Groddil?”

Then he was swept away on the current, drawn out to sea with rollers lifting him high on their crests and tossing him down into their troughs.

Groddil watched the bobbing object until it became a far-out speck amid the night sea. He was chanting aloud, though his former master was beyond hearing the crippled fox magician whom he had bullied and tormented for so long. Nonetheless, Groddil chanted on.

“These are the days of Ungatt Trunn the Fearsome Beast! O Mighty One, he who makes the stars fall! Conqueror, Earth Shaker, son of King Mortspear, brother to Verdauga! Lord of all the Blue Hordes, who are as many as the leaves of autumn! O All Powerful Ungatt Trunn!”

Turning his back upon the sea, the crippled fox limped away and was never seen in those lands again.