The master of Ailill's hounds took a battered collar from the teeth of the snarling lead dog and bought it back to the three riders who waited on the fringes of the pack. The serpentine form writhed and flowed, snapping at the dogs but unable to escape the tree in which they had brought it to bay. There was little doubting that the unblinking eyes were intelligent as it glared balefully at its death waiting for it. Ailill looked at the collar briefly and passed it politely to Gregory.
    Julian's son had the smooth muscled physique of a distance runner, but he sat easily in the saddle of his restless blood bay. His brown eyes examined the bedraggled scrap of uniform and the bright brass bars. The thin face revealed nothing. He might have been looking at a rather unusual leaf.
    "One of Benedict's captains. He must have strayed too far," said Gregory evenly.
    Ailill looked at the creature for a long moment. He looked at Gregory and across that pommel to Giselle. "Well, what shall we do with him? Leave him be or put him out of his misery?"
    "There's no sport in killing him," Giselle said, a little twinge of sympathy in her voice for the ungainly creature. "He's too poorly made to defend himself properly. It doesn't seem right to leave him like that." She looked at Gregory, but the man wouldn't be drawn out of his neutrality.
    Ailill's eyebrow rose quietly. "He'll remember it."
    "My mother will find me, my darling. I would rather betray myself than have to punish someone for it," Giselle reasoned.
    Ailill stepped down and lifted his lady from her saddle. He held her between his hands for a moment. "Llew, call the dogs."
    Llew haruffed to his pack, and they crept reluctantly away from the tree, growling. Giselle stroked some of the high, savage heads as she passed through them. The hounds' growls quieted under her hands. She took the collar and insignia from the hound who still carried them. Llew all but quivered with joy as she laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a smile.
    "He's dangerous, mistress. Be careful," Llew requested, a low whine in his voice.
    Giselle approached the base of the tree. "It's all right, you can come down," she called.
    The drake hissed, the triangular head weaving. Giselle sat down beneath the tree. She patted the grass beside her.
    "If you behave yourself, Captain, no one will harm you. Now come down," she told the drake gently.
    Slowly, one leg at a time, the drake crept down out of the tree. Giselle stroked the flat, scaled head. The torn monstrosity was shaking with weariness. Exhausted, it laid its head in her lap. She hummed softly to herself as she examined the enchantment.
    "This will take some time to do properly," she told Ailill. "If you'd like to continue hunting or ride back, I'll come along when I'm done."
    "I don't like leaving you alone here," Ailill said. He glanced at Gregory. She'd proven a game, even reckless rider, but there was no doubt that weapons didn't sit as easily in her hands as they did in the hands of her companions.
    "It's been a good day's hunt, why not stop here," suggested Gregory easily. "There's only a half hour of light left anyway, and we've game enough to feed us well, and the dogs too."
    "Then we shall camp here," said Ailill.
    Fae tents rose up out of the gathering evening, gossamer silk in all the shades of twilight. Giselle took a corner among the pillows with the drake, stroking it's rough, scaly hide with her fingertips until the thing was mesmerized. She hummed as she worked. Ailill and Gregory sat talking of the day's hunting, drinking honeyed wine and eating the succulent roast boar yielded by the day's sport. Gradually the drake's bones began to take on human proportions beneath its muscles. As the sky lightened, the scales began to brush away from the drake's skin. The beast was panting in strained, shallow breaths as it's ribs shrank and it's chest cavity flattened.
    "There now, you are a brave soul, Captain," crooned Giselle. "Birth is always a little painful, the second time no less than the first. If you can bear it, all will be well with you."
    She slipped her fingers up under the man-drake's chin, digging her nails in and getting a firm grip on the bloody skin. The thing in her lap spasmed. His clawed hands dug deep into the carpet. With a quick, ruthless jerk, Giselle ripped the skin mask from a man's face. Inch by agonizing inch she peeled the hide away. It hissed and bubbled angrily as it dissolved in the first gray light.
    Naked, wet as a new babe, the man lay with his head in Giselle's lap , his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. He sobbed, burying his face in her skirts like a child as the pink rays of dawn played over his body.
    "Shhh, shhh, it's over now, my brave Captain. It's over," she murmured to him.
    She looked up to see the ghost of Ailill's smile as her lover passed her a goblet of warm, spiced milk. Gently, Giselle wrapped her cloak around the shivering human and helped him sip the steaming drink.
    Their guest was somewhere in human middle age, with a fit soldier's body and dusky skin. Perhaps his hair had been black, but it was threaded through now with unnatural silver streaks. His shaking slowly stopped. He looked around him, taking in the silken pavilion, the tall men standing over him; one as fae as the night air all in midnight and blue, the other with something faintly more human about him in his green with a white hart leaping across his chest.
    "Speak to us, brave Captain. How do you feel?" asked Giselle.
    "I," the mortal rasped, cleared his throat and started again. "I feel new."
    "Do you remember?" she asked.
    "Yes." He closed his eyes and shuddered. "Unicorn help me, yes."
    Giselle's fingers were like a mother's as she stroked his short-cropped hair. "There, there, my Captain, be easy. I am Giselle. Do you remember who you are?"
    "I'm. Captain Luther Singh of the Kashfan Flank, assigned to Heart Oak Patrol."
    "Can you tell us how you came to be a drake?"
    "My unit. We were fording a stream and they were sinking. They were sinking and this woman said she could save them. And she did. but she, she wanted Philip. To eat." His hands on the cup grew steadier even as his voice filled with horror.
    "Who is Philip?" prompted Giselle.
    "He's my squire. I fought with her, and she changed me." Luther Singh fought down another shudder and gulped the rest of the hot milk.
    "And what happened then?" asked Gregory.
    "Once I was a monster, I killed her. The men ran from me, and I couldn't seem to find my way out to the trail again. I, I think I. ate her."
    Perhaps Gregory's lips tightened a bit. It might have been imagined, the gesture was so small. Many men, mortal men, went mad from less terrible recollections.
    "Captain, if I were you I'd try not to think about it too much," Giselle advised, smoothing a hand across his brow.
Luther Singh's face relaxed. "Oh thank you," he whispered, on the verge of tears as the memory wafted away.
    Wordlessly, Gregory put the man's uniform insignia in his hands and folded the shaking hands around them.
    "You need a bath, and some clothes, I think. Would you like to go back to your unit?" asked Giselle kindly.
    The mortal drew himself up straighter. "I have to report, Lady; so yes, thank you."
    "Then it shall be as you wish. Take this." Giselle took a ribbon from her hair. A tiny, winking bauble hung from it. She tied the ribbon behind the Captain's neck. "It is a passport, of a kind. It will not work for anyone else, so there's no point in getting someone else killed," she added. Humans were remarkably stupid about such things sometimes.
    "Thank you, Lady, but I will not come back. I will keep it as a memento of your kindness."
    Standing quietly over by Jettison's sleek black head, Gair, the little human groom with the long red and silver hair, smiled a faint, sad smile and put a little more elbow into brushing away the bridal mark.
    "Follow the trail outside, Captain. It will take you to an Arden road. Do not leave the path," advised Ailill. "I would dislike having my lady's efforts go for naught."
    Giselle crossed the tent to Ailill, laying her head on his shoulder.
    "Forgive me, my lord, but I would retire. It has been a long night and I'm tired," said Giselle. She glanced back at the mortal man. "Fare well where ever you walk, Captain. Gair, please find the Captain some clothes to go home in."
    "Your lodging will be that way," Ailill told Gregory, nodding toward another tent.
    Captain Singh bowed, and watched the pair, light and darkness, vanish through the hangings into the middle of the great pavilion. "By all that's holy, a merciful lady," he murmured.
    "Go, Captain. You can take the bay outside. Heed the warning that the Waymaster gave you. Do not leave the path." Julian's son bowed and went to his own tent.