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scraped along the roof of the trailer and threatened to take out her mirrors.
    Tinker leaned up. "See if you can check Windwolf. I don't have him strapped down back there."
    Oilcan slid out from under her, squeezed through the window, and called, "He's fine. There are cars coming."
    Reaally? Imagine that!   
    The side mirrors polarized to keep the car's headlights from blinding her completely. "I see them."
    "We're in shit trouble, Tink."
    "I know." She was determined not to be sidetracked into being upset. "We get through this, and then I'll worry about the mess."
    The hospice was two miles in. Luckily the road remained too narrow for the EIA cars to try cutting them off. She geared down to make the turn into the hospice parking lot, swung the flatbed around, and backed up to the hospice's door as the EIA cars swarmed about her like gnats, hemming the truck in on the sides and front.
    A moment later, and EIA men clung to every surface of the truck, pointing guns at her through the windows. Tinker raised her hands.
    They hit her with a police override, and the door locks thunked up. They jerked the door open.
    "I've got a wounded elf in—" she started to say, but finished with a yelp of surprise as they plucked her out of the seat.
    "Tinker!" Oilcan shouted from the back.
    "There's a wounded elf in back!" she said.
    They pushed her up against the flatbed's hot hood, face down, and twisted her hands behind her back. Pain flared from her wounded hand. She couldn't bite back the cry of hurt.
    "Tinker!" Oilcan threw open the back door and was yanked down himself. A moment later he was slammed up against the hood beside her. "She's hurt!" he growled. "Be careful with her!"
    There were elves among the men. She could hear the rapid bark of Elvish. A man was leaning his weight into her back, while frisking her.
    "She's got a shoulder holster on!" the man shouted in warning. "They've got a pistol someplace."
    The gun! Where had she dropped it? It was lost in a blur of events.
    He reached her pants pockets and started to upload them onto the high hood. "Damn, she's carrying a household."
    "We haven't done anything except protect our patient," Tinker said, trying to turn to face him.
    "Shut up, punk." He pulled her backwards and then slammed her against the hood again.
    "Leave her alone!" Oilcan shouted.
    The guard turned, nightstick upraised. Tinker shouted wordlessly in protest.
    Then everything went silent and still. An elf had hold of the nightstick, and there were others, armed and hard-eyed, ringing them.
    "They're not to be harmed," the elf said in Low Elvish. "Wolf Who Rules has placed them under his protection."
    " Naekanain ," Mr. Nightstick said, slurring the word as if he'd learned the phrase by rote. I do not understand.  
    "They have brought Wolf Who Rules here to be cared for," the elf clarified in Low Elvish. "He asked me to protect the young humans. I will not let them be harmed."
    "What's he saying?" Mr. Nightstick asked the woman beside him.
    "He's saying, 'Hands off the kids or we'll break your face.' Get the cuffs off them."
    * * *
    It quickly became apparent that there were two types of armed elves present. Hospice security appeared to be laedin caste, in camouflage green and browns done with elfin flare for fashion. They carried bows and spell-arrows and interceded between the humans of the EIA and Windwolf's personal security—which was all higher-born sekasha caste, armed to the teeth and thoroughly peeved. Even the hospice healers seemed intimidated by the sekasha , taking care to make no threatening moves as Windwolf was shifted off the worktable onto a stretcher and then handed out the trailer. The cousins were kept back, out of the way, as the healers and the sekasha carried the injured elf into the hospice.
    By then, news of the cousins' arrival with Windwolf must have reached the enclaves that lined Elfhome's side of the Rim; elves drifted out of the darkness to gather in the parking lot. They were