Blackbeak Bluff and i whisper "my wife,"

if it's gone, it's gone indeed; iliksis shared a silent look with the still sniggering buffalo -- what that look conveyed, only they knew. it was not the answer that granted this woman passage free of injury, but whatever clandestine exchange existed between buffalo's intensely mismatched eyes and the dull yellow of iliksis' had other decrees.

the wraith sneered, shouldered his companion, and the two moved on without another word to the woman.