He crashed through Duinn's door and stood among the shambles, nose quivering, tail swishing, forelocks out of place and ears flat. Duinn looked down from his perch halfway up the wall, mouth agape.
"You ninny!" Duinn shouted, climbing down gingerly. "Now look what you've done!" Mournfully he crouched over the remnants of the door and fingered the splinters. "It must have taken the craftsman weeks to carve this door alone, and you destroyed it." He looked like he might weep.
Picket was forced to shift back to two legs to explain. "There's more wrong here than we thought," he said. "There are no priests about. Where is Finnbhear? How did we get to our rooms after the Moonstone? Where did the black assassins come from? What--"
"Wait," Duinn said, raising a gnarled hand for silence. "You're
