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.Kelemvor was nowhere to be seen, the young guard realized, even though the fighter's shredded clothing and discarded armor, stained with gore, lay in a pile just beyond the panther.Yarbro stared into the creature's flaring, deep green eyes.They were so much like Kelemvor's.At that moment, the young guard understood, impossible as it may have seemed, that Kelemvor and the panther were one and the same! Just as the creature sprang toward Cabal, the closest of the huntsmen, Yarbro leaped over the side of the bridge and plunged into the Ashaba to save himself.As the panther tore the aging archer apart, the man's screams for mercy echoed around Blackfeather Bridge and over the Ashaba.The two remaining archers, Bursus and Jorah, raised their bows and moved forward.Mikkel, on the other hand, was frozen by fear and held his bow limply at his side.The panther looked up sharply from its bloody feast and bounded toward Bursus and Jorah, as if it sensed their deadly intent.Hands shaking, Jorah aimed and loosed his shaft.It flew high and scraped along the floor of the bridge until it came to a stop a hundred feet away.The slender, auburn-haired archer grabbed another arrow, but he never had a chance to fire it.Standing next to Jorah, Bursus steadied himself on his wounded leg and tried to remain calm as the sleek, powerful cat raced toward him.The black-eyed archer got the creature in his sights, aimed between its eyes, and released his shaft.The panther dodged to the right at the last possible instant, just before it sprang toward Jorah.The sleek beast bowled the archer over with its weight, then clamped its teeth upon Jorah's throat.Bursus stared at the creature in horror as he backed away, reaching for another shaft.His hands shaking as if he had been struck by palsy, the black-eyed dalesman found an arrow just as the panther looked up from the dead man at its feet.The shaft rattled against its sight as Bursus stopped limping backward and readied himself to fire.Before Bursus could let fly another arrow, though, the panther roared again, and the dalesman saw blood and bits of flesh in its open maw.The sight paralyzed him with fear, and the moment of hesitation was all the beast needed as it sprang from Jorah's corpse.The black-eyed archer saw the creature's one huge claw raised above his eyes, and then his world went black.Toward the northern end of the bridge, Mikkel stumbled a few steps backward, away from the carnage.He was moving steadily, if slowly, away from the panther, his bow at his side.Still, he had only managed to travel a half dozen feet toward the end of the bridge when the panther turned and looked in his direction.The green-eyed monster shook with anticipation as it slowly padded toward the fisherman.Fear radiated from the dalesman, and the scent of his panic rankled the beast's senses, filling it with an even greater rage.Mikkel dropped his bow and moved away from the weapon, toward the edge of the bridge.The panther's gaze followed the red-skinned, bald fisherman as the dalesman's sparkling prism earring caught the attention of the beast.The panther's rage slowly melted away as it moved toward the shining object, its limited intellect lost in the multicolored display of light.Noting that the panther had slowed its movement toward him, Mikkel broke into a run and flung himself over the edge of the bridge.There was a last, sparkling burst of light from the prism earring, and then the man was gone.The panther raced to the edge of the bridge and put its front paws up on the railing to search for its prey, but the dalesman was gone, lost in the raging flow of the river.The beast roared and settled back on all fours.In the trees beyond the south end of the bridge, Midnight and Adon felt a chill as they listened to the panther howling only a few dozen yards away from them.They sat huddled beneath a tree, scanning the water for signs of Cyric.As they listened, the panther's cries turned from roars of anger to bellows of pain, and Midnight's concern for their own survival and growing sorrow over Cyric's apparent death were pushed into the background by her concern for Kelemvor.Waves of guilt rushed through her, filling her soul with a horrible sickness
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