And Ridley's claw tightened. Slowly, so slowly, Komali's protests dropped off, dizzy and weakly struggling, not to get free, but just to breathe. He was looking at her, reaching out, straining for that strong woman who had walked beside him before. His lips moved.

Help....help me...

A rib broke, and the pain wrung a strangled scream out of the child. Another and it punctured a lung. Suddenly there was blood in his mouth and his eyes were closed, cringing away from the pain until the pressure became too much and he fell limp and dead, blood draining from beak and nostrils, and the wounds that had opened under Ridley's claws.