The Sentinels some used your na[m]e for glory, some used it for their gain

she shouted but her struggling had lacerated deeply the flesh about her own throat in a horrid ring of raw flesh and jagged sinew. lasher savaged her flesh with deliberate clenchings of his teeth, snarling at her attempt to triumph. she drew him but a handful of inches before he gave a second large jerk of his muzzle and away her head came, to bounce among the thorns. perhaps they would pierce her eyes, her nose. score her unfeeling flesh -- lasher did not care.

the body fell away, his grasp released; he stumbled over it in his attempt to snap for the head again, to seize it up in his teeth! to slam it clumsily into the tree again and again and again until a welter of gore and blood burst from the severed neck and from the ears and the nostrils, until he heard the skull crack.

then and only then did taltos toss the head away with the last of his strength and whine for his snowy little witch, peering through the thorns, shuddering them with the pawing of his feet; her flank rose and fell; she lived, but would she wake? the alpha gave a terrible wail and sought to press his muzzle through the briars much as the woman had done, wincing as they caught his ears and his cheeks, even tearing thin stripes of pain along his eyelids. "deirdre."