Chapter 20 - Encounters

So far she had not been impressed by these lands and their people. She was able to communicate a little; enough, she had thought, to warn them of the Elar. People didn't listen to her, though.

Some of them had said something about someone raising an army to keep them safe. Those had been the polite ones. More of the people she had seen had pushed her away. She had been threatened by people who had clearly never held a weapon before, but she had let them have their way, and she had backed away from all of it.

These are all soft people, she told herself. They are helpless. They didn't want her warnings, and they didn't want her around. Even trade had been infrequent, so she had hunted for what she had needed. She skirted away from farmers, not wanting them to think she was after their livestock. The farmers she had encountered had been unfriendly at best.

She watched people mill about on the main street in the town. As always, there were no signs of defenses, or guards. They had no one watching outside of their little encampment, which was why she could get this close and still not be noticed. Her people would have been aware of an approaching stranger a mile or more away from camp.

She decided she would skip this town. If they were going to ignore her warnings, and threaten her to drive her off, then there was no point in stopping. She would look for something that looked different, and try there. She guided the horse to skirt around the town. There were more farms on one side than on the other. She went the other way.

She had heard talk amongst the traders before, of larger buildings of stone that housed the warriors amongst these people. Keeps, she thought she had heard them called. Why they "kept" their warriors and weapons safe behind stone walls instead of out where they could protect the people baffled her. Amongst her kind, the warriors were a vital part of the community and had far more to offer than just protection from enemies. While their farms would provide them with the food that her people hunted for instead, she still wondered how these towns and villages dealt with the animals of prey and the occasional groups of people who would try to take what they had. She had heard of outlaws and brigands amongst these people and wasn't surprised. They are soft, she though again to themselves. They almost deserve it for being so complacent. She thought they must have to wait until the warriors came from the nearest keep to help them. They don't stand a chance against the Elar.

The people wouldn't tell her where to find the nearest keep, however. So she had kept working her way further into their lands. They had roads here, something that was rare to see in her own lands. Occasionally there were trails that were so well-traveled by the tribes that the grasses had become scarce and the dirt became road-like, but here the people pushed back the land and grasses to make way for their horses and wagons. In some areas she had seen where they laid down stone in even patterns with some sort of clay packed between them to keep them in place, and cover the ground beneath, making it smoother for their travel. She felt as if the earth itself must be weeping beneath those roads, unable to grow while hidden away from the sun and rain. Crops and trees here were in orderly rows, as the men tried to tell nature how to best perform to give them what they desired. She found the very nature of these people disheartening.

And yet there was nowhere else to turn. As she had left her own lands, she had seen no one else of her people. She was beginning to wonder if she was the last free person of the tribes. She did not doubt that there were others who'd been captured, as she had been, but she did not expect them to live long in captivity. Vengence kept her going, searching for a way to strike back at the Elar. If she had to use these people, seek out their warriors, she would. Perhaps they would listen. Perhaps the ones toughened by battle would be able to understand her better than these farmers and merchants, soft from their indulgences.

She kept to the roads when between the towns, although tended to veer off when she saw others traveling. Most travelers were more hostile towards her than the people in the village, obviously feeling threatened by her in some way. She had never drawn a weapon on any of them, but they usually pointed one at her. It was her hope, however, that the roads would lead her to one of the keeps and so she continued to use them, keeping track in her mind of how far they had taken her from her homelands, and in which direction.

The farms were starting to thin out, and she wondered if she needed to change directions. She went a couple of days after the last town without seeing another when she saw something that made her stop up short.

There was an Elar banner ahead.

It was a small group, about what she might expect in a raiding force--or a scouting force. She identified the leader right away. There were four archers and six regular soldiers. There were two female captives. They were of her people. They had the darker skin and brown hair, and although their spirits had been subdued--if not broken--they still walked like people in tune with nature, not like the Elar and not like the rest.

They also had a demon. It was not a large one, but that was not a good measure of its power. It appeared to be leading them.

She watched them break camp and start moving. The captives did most of the work, and they moved at a quick pace when they moved. Their horses were not fast ones, so she had no trouble keeping up with them. She followed them through the day, staying back enough to not be seen.

They weren't attacking or raiding anything, which did not make sense. She could only assume that they were going after a specific target. She decided to see if she could stop them. She knew she could not kill the demon, but if she killed enough of the Elar perhaps that would be enough to prevent whatever mission it was they were on. At least it would be something.

She watched them set up camp when they stopped. They set guards but never left their camp. They had no pickets out at any distance. Their fires would keep them from seeing far outside their own camp. It was obvious to her that they were not expecting any form of attack.

Their camp was out in the open where she could not get very close, but she could get close enough without being seen. She watched the archers. She had learned their faces so that when weapons were put down in camp she could tell them apart. The archers were less heavily armored than the others, and about half of them took their armor off for the evening to wash up. I'll teach them not to get comfortable, then, she told herself, readying the first arrow.

She let the first arrow fly, guiding it with her mind. It took one of the archers squarely in the now unarmored chest and he went down. He turned as he fell, and she watched the Elar moving for cover and peering around to find her. The officer pointed off in her general direction. The demon turned and looked towards her, but sat down instead of coming after her. This obviously angered the leader, who turned his back to her to argue with the demon.

He was not wearing his helmet. Perhaps he thinks he is out of range of my arrows, she thought, almost insulted at being so underestimated. She paused a moment, aiming with both her eyes and her mind before letting the next arrow fly. It soared in a graceful arc before landing squarely in the back of the leader's head, low towards the neck. There was a still moment while he stood there, as if nothing had happened. Then he crumpled, falling to one side on the ground. To her surpise, the demon almost seemed amused by it.

The archers that were still armored were grabbing their bows and nocking arrows to them. It wasn't long before a small rain of arrows thudded into the grass between her and the camp, as their bows proved incapable of managing the range that hers could. She continued to aim and fire upon the unarmored ones as she could, although only managed to fell two more of them before they had managed to organize. Someone else had taken charge, giving orders in the Elar tongue. The swordsmen that were in armor moved forward on foot, towards her, with the archers coming in behind them, still trying to reach her with their arrows. She tried to target the armored opponents, as they now prevented her from finding targets within the camp. However, her arrows bounced uselessly off their heavy metal armor. She made a hasty retreat, back towards the small cluster of trees she had asked the horse to wait in. She called to the animal and it trotted quickly to her, allowing her to mount and urge it into a gallop.

As she rode further out from them, she saw the demon stand again and began to worry. She expected it to fly up into the air and swoop down on her at any moment, and she drew her sword to try and protect herself. She knew it would be useless, but there was no other choice. She had not come this far to die without a fight.

The demon, however, did not take to the sky. She rode a circle around the Elar group, trying to gauge which direction she could possibly take the most cover from the demon in and trying to determine what the demon's tactic was. She saw it spread it's wings, as if to fly, but could see that somehow one wing was injured. Instead of trying to chase after her, the demon seemed to be saying something and waving a hand at her. At first, she thought it was giving orders to the Elar. Then she felt the air around her change, like it felt right before lightning was about to strike. Magic! she thought, dodging to one side with the horse. She wasn't quite in time, as a streak of yellow light sang past, cutting across her left thigh in the process. It seared right through the leather of her pants and burned her leg deep enough to make her cry out.

The horse needed no encouragement to turn and run after that. They galloped away as fast as it's legs could take them, retreating from the danger. It was some time before she finally slowed the horse and took a look at her injury.

It was not bleeding, which she took to be a good sign. It looked like a burn, and it hurt every time she moved her leg. It hurt all the time, but more so when she moved it.

In her homelands she would have known which plants to use to make a poultice to cover it. Here, some plants were the same, but there were some she did not recognize.

It did not appear that the demon was chasing her. The only explanation she could think of was that something had wounded it. It had appeared wounded. She wondered what, or who, had done it, and if they were still alive. If they were, then those were the people she was looking for.

She believed that the demon would likely be out for revenge. If she let them forget about her, or let them believe she had fled completely, then maybe the demon would lead her to whoever had hurt it.

She circled around some, trying to watch for the Elar and their telltale banner. Also she watched the ground. Eventually she came to a small creek. On the banks of it she found a weed she recognized. Here it was smaller, but the leaves were the same. Her people called it milkblood for its milky sap. She wondered what it was called here.

She gingerly climbed down, gritting her teeth against the pain. She used water from the creek to wash the wound. She had no spare cloth for bandaging. She plucked one of the weeds and broke the stalk open. The sap felt cooling on the burn. She collected up several of the plants, carefully pulling them up by the roots to not break any of the stalks.

She found several longer vines and plucked the leaves from them before knotting them together to make some rope. She then cleaned some large, flat leaves and spread some of the sap onto them before using the rope to tie it in place over the wound, threading the rope through under the leather of her pants to help keep it securely in place. She took the extra milkblood plants and rolled them gently into a bundle, tying them with the remainder of the vine rope she had made, leaving a strap to secure it to the pack on her back. There wasn't room left in the pack itself, as that was where she kept what extra food and supplies she had been foraging and hunting so far. She did not want to carry much more, as she worried it might start to hinder her ability to hunt and use her bow. And, unlike the people in these lands, she would not demand that the horse wear a saddle or bags.

The horse had been eating some of the grasses there and was now drinking, so she took a moment to fill her waterskin from the creek before remounting. Then she headed back towards the Elar, keeping to the lines and clusters of trees here and there, to prevent them from seeing her again just yet. They had not moved their camp, but now had patrols moving around it and no one seemed to be unarmored anymore. As darkness fell, she left the horse again and moved closer, taking her time and favoring her injured leg as much as she could. She watched them for a while, observing their watch patterns and movements within the camp, before heading back and making a small camp of her own. She could see that the Elar were taking the opportunity to sleep, and so she slept some herself. Even so, she woke and had eaten her own morning meal before they had begun breaking down their camp.

That day, she began tracking them, keeping her distance so that they would not know she was still there. Let them think they have frightened me, she thought, with determination. Let them become comfortable again. When my wound has healed more, I will strike them again. During the day she watched for herbs as well, and finally found a tree that she recognized as having a bark she could chew to relieve some of the pain in her wound. She stripped a large portion of it off, rolling it and tying it next to the milkblood, thanking the tree for it's kindness. Despite the cooling of the milkblood sap, the constant movement of the horse and her occasional jumps down to inspect the Elar tracks, had left her leg throbbing. She chewed the bark, sipping from her waterskin to help cut the bitterness of the taste and help her swallow the juices she was extracting out of it. After a while, the throbbing dulled some, giving her some relief.

The Elar were more industrious than what she had seen of the locals in these lands. They rode long hours, but not at as quick a pace as her people tended to set. Keeping up with them was almost leisurely.

As they rode, one of them slowly started straggling behind. At first it was only slight. Eventually it was nearly fifty feet. It was unlike them. They were more orderly than that. It was either a trap or an opportunity. She decided to try it.

The soldier's arm was less heavily armored than the rest of him. She decided that wounding them might hamper them more than killing them. She moved closer into range.

She sighted down the arrow, focusing in on the soldier's arm at the shoulder. There, right at the edge of the man's chestplate. Right where the arrow could lodge in the joint in the shoulder where it would take longer to heal. She let fly.

The arrow followed the same path in the air as it did in her mind, landing just as she wanted it. She wheeled and galloped away, going for distance and circling around.

There was no immediate pursuit, so she kept her distance, not wanting to be seen by the demon. She circled wide around and ahead of them to see if there would be a good spot to plan another strike.

There were ruins of old stone buildings ahead. If they were to stop there for the night she wanted to know the layout in advance. She sped off towards it.

There was one mostly intact tower, and three largely crumbled ones. Someone had been there recently. There were corpses of two creatures, half human half bird. Another tribe hers had traded with had described such creatures once. They were called harpies. Both had been badly burned, and both showed what looked like sword wounds. There were no tracks of any kind. She was at a loss to explain it.

She made a quick survey of the rest of the ruins before the Elar could get close enough to see her there. Inside the tower by the corpses, she found the remnants of a fire and signs that people had camped there recently. She also found the corpses of two wildcats, both dead but neither appearing wounded in any way. She could only assume that they had been killed with magic or a poison of some kind or other. There was not enough time to investigate further, however.

Kyla used the cover of the towers to shield her retreat from the Elar as they approached, taking position in another cluster of trees so she could watch them. They, too, investigated the remains, although they took far more time than she had been able to. Men went out to several areas at once while several stood around in the area where the harpies were lying. The demon also seemed more interested in the dead harpies than anything else. Despite the lateness of the afternoon, they did not stop to make camp within the ruins, however. Instead, she followed them for several miles more before they made their camp. She noted that they seemed to be following the direction that the demon indicated, rather than any tracks on the ground. There were several instances where she saw some of them seeming to look for tracks, but there never seemed to be any indication that they had found something. She began to wonder where they were headed. They acted as if they were tracking someone or something, and yet had no tracks to follow. It occurred to her that she might be better off trying to stay ahead of them instead of following them, but off enough to one side to keep her own tracks from being discovered.

The following day they continued the same direction they had been heading before. She realized she was moving back the way she had already come, towards her own lands again. There were no stragglers this day, although she was keeping watch for such opportunities. If they were heading to bolster the numbers already fighting the tribes, she wanted to be sure to hurt them as much as possible before they had the chance.

She scouted ahead of them, wanting to know what was ahead of them before they did. It would allow her to plan possible ambushes.

There was a group of locals ahead of them. They were slowed by a wagon, and the Elar would catch up to them soon, perhaps tomorrow, she judged. So far the groups were just far enough apart that the wagon people might not have seen the banner behind them. She considered warning them.

There were four of them that she could see, two men and two women. One man drove the wagon, she could not see him very well. The other wore armor and a sword, and had the hard look of a warrior about him. The two women were barely more than girls.

She had cut the Elar archers from four to two, and their swordsmen from six to four. These locals had no archers, and four swordsmen would be too much for them even without the demon. Warning them would do no good. She had no desire to watch another slaughter.

She decided to hold back and watch from behind. The Elar would attack soon. When they did, she would strike them from behind. There was still nothing to be done about the demon, but in the chaos of a fight she would be able to hurt the Elar worse than she could just on her own. Mostly what she did not know was what the demon would do when it was the only one left.

She turned her horse to the side and put some distance between herself and both groups. Now all she had to do was follow the Elar. She took her time circling around them, mostly letting them catch up and pass her by.

As she followed and watched the Elar eventually stop and make their camp, something nagged at her mind. She replayed everything she'd seen that day in her head, trying to figure out what it was she had missed, but nothing came to her. She caught sight of a rabbit nearby and put an arrow in it, making a small fire briefly to cook the meat once she felt it was dark enough to conceal the smoke. She made the fire seperately from where she slept as well, being careful to conceal the tracks between the two spots. She heavily salted the remainder of the meat, so she could eat it the next day, wrapping it in leaves and tucking it in her pack.

She did not sleep well, something still picking at her mind, willing her to remember. When she woke, however, she still had not come up with an answer. She gathered her belongings and followed the Elar again, still keeping her distance. She wondered if there was any chance for the people ahead, as the demon would likely make quick work of them.

The Elar did not catch up with the locals as quickly as she had expected. She began to think that they must already know the Elar were coming, and had broken their camp early in order to try and outrun them, despite the cumbersome wagon. She spotted them, however, long before the Elar did.

They are trying to ambush them?! she thought incredulously. She readied her own bow and moved in closer to behind the Elar party, noting the location of the archers first. She knew she needed to take out the Elar archers first or the locals wouldn't stand even the slightest chance.

The locals had attempted to hide the wagon behind a cluster of trees. It looked as if the two men and one of the women were waiting for the Elar, while the other woman was standing further back with a third man that Kyla had not seen when she had counted them before. They were far enough away that she could not get a good enough look at the man, but from his stature he looked older and frail. Only the swordsman in the group remained on his horse. The other man and woman who waited at the front of the tree cluster stood together. She could now see that the second man also had a sword and armor, but made no move to advance.

When the Elar party saw them, they paused and regrouped. As they moved into position, Kyla looked down at the ground and the tracks the Elar had made as they passed over the grass.

No tracks! she realized suddenly, her breath catching in her throat. Those locals weren't leaving tracks! They must be the ones who killed the harpies! Hope suddenly swelled within her as she realized that they might stand a chance with magic on their side. She loosed the first arrow, aiming for one of the two remaining archers. The archers wore no helmets, and she was able to hit him at an angle, just behind the ear. While he did not seem to die outright, he fell, dropping his bow and clutching at the side of his head. It would be enough to keep him out of the battle. She readied the next arrow, focusing on the other archer.

This time, however, Kyla missed. As she let the arrow fly, she was surprised by a sudden flash of light, not unlike the one that had seared across her leg when the demon had come after her. This flash, however, had come from the young woman standing at the treeline, and was aimed at the demon as it advanced towards them. She heard the demon scream as the light hit it, cutting into part of it's body and the undamaged wing. She saw the young woman grab hold of the man, as if feeling faint, while the swordsman began charging the demon on his horse. She quickly readied a third arrow and focused again on the remaining Elar archer.

She let the arrow loose. It sailed through the air and connected in the middle of the man's back, between the shoulder blades. He dropped his bow as he fell.

The demon ran towards the girl sorcerer. It had an odd, loping run. The man at the treeline picked up a shield from the ground. It had a symbol on it, but she did not know what it stood for. The man raised the shield up and suddenly the demon stopped, bouncing back as if it had hit some kind of invisible wall. It pounded a fist on some point in the air, but the fist was clearly stopped some ten or so yards too soon.

The demon growled something she could not make out and the remaining Elar surged forward towards the girl and the man with the shield. Those Elar were more heavily armored. She would be able to do little to them at long range. She moved in quickly. The other local swordsman moved towards them, too.

She fired again, from closer range, and did manage to wound one in the leg where the armor was a little lighter. That Elar fell down, unable to walk with the arrow in the rear of his thigh. That made it three to two, which she thought the local men should be able to handle.

The demon turned to her next. There was no invisible wall protecting her that she knew of. It got halfway to her before another blast from the sorcerer hit it from behind and knocked it to its knees.

She veered to one side, riding away from the demon and around to try and help the mounted swordsman. He was swinging his sword, battling the three remaining Elar. The man had clearly been in battle before, and she watched as he took one of the Elar's arms off, kicking him backwards as he turned towards the remaining two. The Elar's sword went bouncing to the ground with his arm while the Elar himself screamed and fell the opposite direction. She slung her bow back over her shoulder and drew her sword, galloping her horse in to ride by and try and slice one of the remaining two in passing. She focused on the area at the back of the neck, where there was a gap between the helmet and the armor buckled around the Elar's torso and neck.

If I angle the blade just right, she thought to herself. She knew her sword wasn't as heavy or sturdy as the one the local swordsman weilded. Where he could get leverage in his swing that could take off an arm, her sword was better against leather armored or unarmored targets and would never penetrate the heavy steel. She breathed as she rode, raising her blade and focusing with her mind on the spot she wanted to drag it across. She pushed hard when she struck, and at least part of the blade struck the metal armor, causing sparks and a loud metallic noise. She didn't pause, but kept riding instead, wheeling the horse around once she'd cleared and knew they couldn't turn and hit her with their swords right away. The Elar she'd struck had fallen, and the swordsman was pulling his blade back out from deep within the remaining Elar, who clutched at the wound in his abdomen as he fell. The swordsman trampled over the Elar with his horse as he made his way towards the demon, who had risen and was turning again towards the sorceress.

A look at the treeline showed that the other swordsman was kneeling on the ground, shield still raised, holding the girl sorceress who appeared to have fallen to the ground. Kyla watched in horror as a wave of flame moved across the span of space between the demon and the girl, catching the mounted swordsman in the edge of it and then washing over the girl and other swordsman. She saw the other two, back by the wagon, duck for cover, but the flame did not quite reach that far. The trees in the cluster, however, had caught fire from the blast and began to burn on their own.

To her suprise, the sorceress and swordsman with the shield appeared unharmed by the fire, and the grass directly around them remained unscorched. The mounted swordsman was getting to his feet, but looked as if he had taken considerable damage from the flame. His horse lay writhing on the ground in pain, and much of the man's armor and the horse's riding gear appeared burned. Still, the swordsman advanced on the demon, staggering forward with his sword in hand. She switched to her bow again and rode forward, looking for a way to distract the demon and give the swordsman a chance. She aimed at one of the demon's eyes, not knowing whether it would make a difference or not.

I have to try, she thought anxiously. Please, Aldanara, if you've not forsaken my people, then help me now. She pulled the string as far back as her arm possibly could and sent it forward towards the demon with both mind and body.

The arrow hit right where she wanted it to. The demon did not scream or call out in pain. Rather, it reached up and casually pulled the arrow out, discarding it casually. The eye healed immediately.

But the arrow did serve to distract the demon momentarily from the burned swordsman. The man lunged in with his sword, using both hands to bury it deep in the demon's black torso.

The demon cried out and turned. The sword pulled out of the swordsman's hands. The demon clutched at it, trying to pull it out, but seemed unable to grip the hilt. It's clawed hands slipped right off.

The other man came running forward with sword and shield as the burned man fell to his knees. The other man paused for a moment, as if in prayer, and buried his sword in the demon.

This time the demon fell to its knees. The man kept grip on his sword and closed his eyes. The sword glowed, and the demon flesh around it ignited with a white-blue flame. The flame spread until it covered the demon entirely, and then the demon suddenly flew apart into countless pieces. The pieces were all burning, and they burned away completely before any of them touched the ground.

Kyla slid down off her horse. The man with the shield put his sword away and knelt at the burned man's side and said something softly, putting his right hand on the man's chest.

The burns seemed to withdraw into the man's body as they healed away completely in just a moment.

The sorcerer came up next, but she walked directly to Kyla.

"Hello," she said. "My name is Jetha Hollden. I have been waiting to meet you."

Kyla looked at the young woman in bewilderment. Jetha appeared pale and exhausted, but she was smiling and holding her hand out as the people of these lands did in greeting. She took the offered hand cautiously, unsure if maybe she had misunderstood the girl's words.

"I am Kyla," she said in their tongue. "I am not sure I understand your meaning."

"Is she the other one then?" the swordsman asked, coming up to them. He breathed heavily, somewhat out of breath from the battle. The swordsman with the shield had moved to kneel next to the fallen horse and seemed to be praying over it. Within moments, the horse rose to it's feet, appearing uninjured, despite the burns still evident on one side of the leather gear it wore. Once he was finished, the man picked up his shield again and headed over to join them, leading the horse as he came. She saw the other two were also coming to join them, except it would take them some time as they brought the wagon around the cluster of trees that still burned from the wave of flame. She could see that they had other horses with them as well.

"Yes," Jetha nodded. "She's the other one from my vision. Now we're finally all together."

"I'm Ullden. Well met, young lady." Ullden stretched a large hand out in greeting and Kyla shook it as well. "And well timed too. Your help in that fight was certainly appreciated. There was less of them that we had seen before. Have you been picking them off?"

"I have," she told him. "The Elar have swept across the lands of my people. I have come to warn your kind of them and help fight them."

"A noble path to take," Ullden said with a smile.

"Do not misunderstand," she told him with a frown. "There is nothing noble about it. They do not fight fairly, they use demons to slaughter and enslave my people. I came to avenge the tribes."

"And you can start to do that by helping us," Jetha said. "I saw you before we met, in a vision I had. You are meant to help us defeat the demon that has given the Elar their power. Doing that will help even the ground and make the fighting fair again. The Gods have brought us together to do this task."

"I care nothing for your Gods," she said plainly. "The Goddess Aldanara watches over my people." She didn't mention her worries of Aldanara having forsaken them.

"There are many who believe that your Goddess Aldanara and our Goddess Ardana are actually one and the same," the man with the shield said quietly. He, too, put out a hand in greeting. "I am Father Marus, a priest of the Gods of these lands."

"So that's what the symbol on your shield means," she said.

Her tribe had a shaman to guide the tribe in spirit matters, but he taught all of the tribe to honor Aldanara and the spirits of both the sleeping and waking worlds. He taught the hunters how to really listen, and the ways of the animals. He taught many things. She had heard that these people hoarded knowledge, and restricted access to their gods to their priests, rather than share with everyone. She chose to say nothing.

"What do you know of this demon?" she asked.

"Very little, I'm afraid," Ullden said as the wagon pulled around.

The other girl hopped out of the wagon and helped an older man down. The girl led the man closer.

"This is Niza and Alldeh," Niza explained. "This is Kyla, she's the last one from the vision."

"Hi," Niza said, looking and sounding nervous. Kyla gave a skeptical look at Alldeh, who was absently chewing on his own hand.

"Oh," Niza said. "He's...not all well. Something bad happened to him and his mind is...broken."

Kyla nodded, understanding. Part of the man's soul was missing. Their priest understood physical healing, but did not know to journey the dreaming world with the man to recover the part of his soul that had been lost when the bad thing happened. Rather than risk insulting them, she said nothing. She was not a shaman. She could not help the man either.

"Ullden," Niza said, touching the swordsman on the shoulder. "That one is still alive."

She pointed towards the Elar bodies, to the one that had one of Kyla's arrows in his leg. He had rolled on his side and had pulled some armor off of his leg, showing that the tip of the arrow had broken the skin on the other side of the thigh, having gone clear through next to the bone. He looked as if he was trying to push it so that the rest of the point would be outside the skin. Kyla expected he was planning to break it off and pull the arrow shaft out of himself. She supposed she had to give the Elar credit for the effort. Ullden had his sword halfway out of it's scabbard before Father Marus put a hand out and stopped him.

"He is wounded, and no longer a threat to us, Ullden. There is no reason to just kill the man."

"We're at war, Father," Ullden said, hand still on he hilt of his sword. "And what would we do with a prisoner anyway?"

"Perhaps he can give us more information about our quest," Father Marus pointed out. "Tell us about the demon that is behind all of this. It cannot hurt to try and ask him. Is it not true that knowing more about one's enemy will help you to fight them better?"

"While that is true," Ullden admitted, "we will only have our progress hindered by bringing a wounded prisoner along for the journey. Are we to weigh down the wagon further with him then?"

"Why don't we add the Elar horses to our own?" Niza said, pointing again. The Elar horses had wandered a short distance away and were grazing quietly off to one side.

"And we will need to stop at a town soon anyway," Jetha added. "We can drop the prisoner off there and they can deal with him. We don't need to bring him with us indefinitely."

"Questioning him could be useful," Kyla said. "But you'd be better to kill him once you were done than burden yourself with his upkeep."

She looked around for the two of her people that had been enslaved. They had run off during the fight, and were nowhere to be seen.

"Trust me," she said, "they would not hesitate to kill any of you. They have only two uses for prisoners: slave workers and demon food." Images of aftermath paraded through her mind--both sides of the same battle slaughtered. She wondered if it would have gone any differently if she had not interfered with the conjurer.

"They also are converting people to their gods," Niza said.

"You have seen them?" Kyla asked.

"Yes, they took Riverport, the city I'm from. They have a demon there. I've seen some people fed to it. The people who convert...have their minds changed somehow. They become like different people. My own best friend betrayed me..."

"I am sorry to hear," Kyla said. "I did not know they were beyond our lands and into yours already, other than this small party here."

"Yes," the priest said. "They are coming from many directions at once. We have a special artifact of theirs. With it there is a spell we can use against them. Will you help us?"

"Anything that helps stop the Elar is an action worth taking," she answered. "I will come with you and help as I can."

"Fair enough," Ullden said. "Now let's check their supplies. They will have food and other things we can use."

First, they secured the Elar prisoner, who had just managed to pull the arrow from his leg and was trying to crawl away as they approached. It was still hard for Kyla to determine the expression on the strange half-human faces of the Elar, but she thought he looked afraid. Ullden bound him tightly and there was a brief arguement over whether or not Father Marus would attempt to heal his wounds or not. In the end, it seemed the Elar's life was to be spared in exchange for Marus not trying to heal him. The priest still cleaned and bandaged the wound as the others began to root through the Elar party's belongings.

It was interesting to see what the locals thought was important amongst the supplies the Elar group had carried. The girl, Jetha, seemed to want to bring nearly everything along with them, arguing that they could pack quite a bit onto the horses. The other girl, Niza, seemed content claiming a few items for herself, mostly clothing. Father Marus collected herbs and medicines primarily, while Ullden mostly looked at food supplies and bits of armor he seemed to want to use in repairing his own. Kyla picked through, adding a small pack she could secure to the one she already had, and putting some food and medicinal herbs she recognized into it. She was unwilling to burden herself with much more.

"Can he not ride a horse?" she asked of the older man, who had curled up on the grass to take a nap. "That wagon is slowing your progress considerably."

"No, I'm afraid that is not a good idea," Marus replied.

"No," Ullden also said, in a resigned voice. "He has wandered off before as it is. A horse would only make it more difficult to keep track of him."

"Why do you not leave him in the care of one of your villages then?" she asked.

"Somewhere in Alldeh's mind," Father Marus said quietly, "are the answers we need to cast the spell we must use to stop the Elar. He has been in my care for some time now, and trusts me to an extent. But it can be difficult to communicate certain things to him. He is also physically frail enough that I'm not sure he could ride the long hours we've been riding these days either."

"I see," she replied, thinking again of the shaman of her tribe. She said nothing more, however, deciding to wait and see how the group handled itself in general before speaking further. While they had managed against the Elar scout party, she was not sure that they were as organized as she might have hoped. Ullden seemed to be the only real warrior among them, but she could tell he had not had much contact with her people before, if any. She wanted to understand their ways a little more before saying much about them.

She did grab up and reclaim the arrow the Elar had discarded. She checked through the arrows their archers had carried. They were poorly made, but the tips were worth keeping. She collected up the arrows and bundled them together.

Ullden explained that they had needed supplies, and what they gathered from the Elar would help that. He added that with the extra horses they would have something to trade at the next village.

Once they started moving again she asked them if they had killed the harpies. Ullden told the story of how smoke had flushed the group out of the tower to be attacked by the harpies. Jetha's fire spells and Ullden's sword had done the killing.

"So what killed the wildcats?" she asked.

"Killed them?" Ullden asked. "Maybe the smoke?"

"I saw them dead on the ground near the harpies. I saw no signs of wounds on them."

"Hurm," Ullden said in reply. She could only assume he had no real answer as they rode on without discussing it further.

"I could scout the land ahead of you," she offered eventually. "It's what I did for my tribe. Do you know anything about what you're looking for?"

"Well... no," Ullden said, looking back at the Elar prisoner who'd been tied over the back of one of the Elar horses. "Maybe we'll get some answers out of him when we make camp tonight."

"I don't understand..." Kyla looked to one of the others for an answer. "Where is your destination? No one has given you details with which to find the place?"

"We don't actually know where our destination is," Father Marus said. "We suspect Alldeh might know, as he kept trying to get us to go in this direction. I am sure we will be given a sign of some kind when we arrive."

"A sign?" she asked, pulling the horse to a stop and looking at the group incredulously. "Do you mean you don't know where you are supposed to be going? You're just wandering in a direction until you happen to find... what exactly are you supposed to find?"

The others stopped their horses and turned to look at her, each with a slightly different expression on their face ranging from Ullden's frustration to an almost guilty look from Jetha. It was a moment before anyone spoke again.

"We have been given many signs along the way already, to guide our path," Father Marus finally said. "Jetha has been given premonitions that the six of us would journey together. Niza was led to the scepter we must use for the spell that will be cast. Ullden's friend, a seer, foresaw his part in this, and the Bishop, a high priest of our Gods, had the Gods themselves tell him of my part in this. Alldeh has given us information already that has helped us head in this direction and helped Jetha to learn new ways to use her magic. Without that information, we might not have defeated the demon today. You, too, have been led here to join us on this quest, whether you realize it or not. If so many of your people have already been killed by the Elar, then how have you been spared? Why? I believe your Goddess, Aldanara and our Goddess Ardana are one and the same, and that she has been guiding you here, protecting you, all along."

There was a long pause while nobody spoke, the priests words hanging in the air. She realized she was looking at him with her mouth dropped open. She closed it, but that didn't change the feeling that these locals were going blindly forth on a fool's errand. She was wondering if she should really have agreed to join them after all.

"There's a cave," Niza said quietly. "The scepter gives me dreams sometimes. As if showing me possible future events. It seems as if the spellcasting is always trying to happen in a cave."

"I saw a cave in my vision as well," Jetha added. "But the cave I saw was one where Alldeh had cast a spell once before. I'm not sure if it's the same cave or not, but perhaps this spell must be cast in a specific cave in order for it to work."

"Normally, I'd agree with the look on your face, Kyla," Ullden said with a sigh. "This isn't the type of journey I'm normally like to set out on. But I've already seen some things that have surprised me. And this lot needs some help. The Elar are after them, regardless, and I can't ignore that. If nothing else, they seem to want that damned scepter back pretty bad. Seems enough just to keep them from having it, if it's so important to them."

"Then I am with you," she told them, thinking of the old shaman and what he would say. He would have told her that not all quests make sense in the waking world.

They rode through the day, stopping briefly for Ullden to pass out some dried food things she had trouble identifying. She shook her head sadly, but accepted it and ate it. It had very little flavor, and was hard to chew.

For the evening they stopped and made camp. She watched with quiet amusement while Ullden tried to teach the priest to use a sword. She kept silent during it, not wanting to offend Ullden. He seemed so sure he knew what he was doing.

Jetha studied some book with strange writing in it. She hoped Jetha would find clues in it that would give them a better idea what they were looking for.

The next day, while scouting a little ahead of them, she found fresh deer tracks. They ran in a similar path to the direction they were headed. She had little trouble convincing the group to veer a little for fresh meat.

She found the deer a few hours later. She shot it and it ran off. Arrows never killed deer straight away. She ran after the deer, knowing it would not get far. She allowed it to run. It was the deer's nature to run, and to want to die running. She did not interfere.

When it fell she moved in. It was not quite dead yet, but it was not far off. By that point it had lost too much blood to run. She slid off her horse and moved in. She thanked the deer for following its nature.

"Run free in the dream world," she said, drawing her knife. She pet the deer's head softly. Soon the animal would panic if left alone. She kept the gleam of the knife blade out of the deer's sight. She spoke in soothing tones while she cut its throat. It died with a few spasmatic kicks, and not with great fearful thrashing.

She said a prayer over it and brought it back to the group to skin and prepare it that evening.

Jetha seemed unable to watch as Kyla prepared the meat for cooking. Niza, on the other hand, asked questions and offered to help. Even Niza seemed to have a little difficulty while Kyla was removing the animal's organs, however, despite the interest she seemed to have as Kyla explained the different uses that could be made out of the various parts of the deer other than the meat itself.

The two girls were in charge of the cooking while Ullden tried to show Marus more about using his sword. Kyla found herself intervening again, as it was obvious that Jetha, especially, had had little experience cooking over an open fire before. She showed them several different ways to cook the meat that allowed them some for that night and gave longer preservation to other pieces for future meals. Jetha showed her the food supplies that they were carrying and Kyla found that there were many things that she did not recognize. Some things smelled to her as if they should have been discarded long ago. She wondered how they could survive on such fare and why they would try to when nature offered fresh food in such abundance. She again kept her thoughts to herself, however, not wishing to offend them.

She watched the man, Alldeh, the most, wondering where in the dreaming world the missing part of his soul was at. There were moments when it almost seemed as if it returned to him, and he spoke as if there was nothing wrong with him at all. One such moment happened that night, shortly after dinner, while she was sitting by the fire sewing the tear in her pants leg back together. She was surprised to find the man looking at her as he spoke.

"You look so much like her," he said quietly. She looked up to find him looking at her with sadness in his eyes.

"What?" she asked, realizing with some shock that he was speaking to her in her own tongue, instead of the language the others used.

"Senya," he told her. "Her name was Senya. She left her tribe, and her daughter, behind to guide us there. She stood the longest when they came, protecting us from the mundane forces while we were vulnerable casting the spell. She won against them in the end, saved my life. But I could not save hers in return. I had nothing left with which to heal her. I could not bring her back to little Minya."

A cold chill ran down Kyla's spine as she listened to him speak. The names he used were familiar to her. Her mother had been Minya, and her grandmother Senya. She knew that her grandmother had died while her mother was still young, while helping guide a group of outlanders to somewhere near the mountains at the edge of the tribal lands. When she hadn't returned, a party had been sent by the tribe that had found the bodies. Kyla's mother had been raised by another of the tribe after that, as was their custom when both parents were dead. Minya's father had died shortly after Minya's birth, in a tribal dispute.

"What sorcery is this?" she asked, alarmed. It seemed impossible to her that this man could have known her grandmother. She suspected some magic was being used.

"You must take them there. To where your grandmother died," he said. His voice was nearly a whisper and filled with an urgency that frightened her. "You know the way, can follow the paths of your ancestors. This time it will work. It must work. I will not allow her death to have been in vain." Tears flowed down the man's worn face as he looked down at his hands. She followed his gaze and gasped in alarm as she realized he'd somehow gotten hold of her knife and was cutting long, deep lines across his palm.

"Red," he said, speaking again in the local language. She reached over and snatched the blade out of his hand before he could do more damage to himself.

"Father Marus," Jetha called out. "Alldeh needs your healing. He's hurt himself."

Kyla looked over to find the girl watching her, the book of strange symbols sitting in her lap. She seemed oddly calm as Alldeh dipped his finger in the blood on his palm and drew circles on his pants with it, despite her previous revulsion when Kyla had been skinning the deer.

"What did he say to you?" she asked, pulling a fresh piece of paper from a bag next to her and looking ready to write with the pencil she held. "It could be important."

She hesitated, both trying to take it all in and trying to decide what to say. She looked at Alldeh, confused.

"He said that one of my people had guided him to where we are going before. He said that I would know the way. I think he had cared for her, and she died saving his life when something tried to stop them casting the spell they were casting."

Father Marus had come over. "Oh, dear," he said, sighing. He did not sound worried or surprised at what Alldeh had done. She looked down, noticing the symbol he had drawn on his pants.

"I have seen that symbol before," she said.

"Where?" Jetha asked eagerly.

"Our tribal father had a large hide with a map painted on it. That symbol marked an area of mountains north of here. He said the symbol was there to remind us to never go there."

"Why? What's there?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why you weren't supposed to go there?" Ullden asked.

"No, there was never any reason to ask," she explained.

"That sounds about right," said Ullden, with a slight edge in his voice. "So north it is. We still need to stop at a town along the way, but at least we have a more definitive direction now. Perhaps we will find someone along the way who knows what we might expect to find when we get there."

"There is a reason we are not supposed to go there," Kyla protested. "It would not be marked that way without one. Just because he happens to know the symbol it is marked with does not mean it is where we should go."

Father Marus looked up, having finished healing Alldeh's hand.

"Just because his mind has been broken, does not mean that Alldeh is misleading us at the points he is able to give us information. I have to agree with Ullden. If this symbol is used on a map, it is likely the place we need to go. We all know that this journey could be a dangerous one. It does not surprise me at all to find that our destination could be treacherous in some way. If the information we have so far is correct, Alldeh was there once before, trying to cast a similar spell to what we are going to do. We believe he was the only one to survive the journey. He's said they bought time, somehow, but did not succeed with their spell. Jetha has seen visions of Alldeh that showed others dying by bursting into flames and burning alive. I'd expect that such an event would lead to a place being labelled as cursed or evil in some way."

"Does this 'quest' of yours even have a chance of succeeding?" Kyla asked bluntly. "Do not misunderstand, I am not afraid of danger. But if it has failed once before - "

"We have a chance," Jetha interrupted her. "We have to have a chance. The Gods would not have sent us if we didn't. And even if you don't believe that, if we don't believe that we can at least try to do this, then the Elar have won already. My mother and younger brother are back home, preparing to head away from the front lines, while my father and older brother are getting ready to try and fight the Elar in a battle they probably can't win as it stands right now. If doing this will turn the balance and give them a chance to win, then I have to try. I am afraid. But I'm not going to throw away this chance, no matter how complicated it all seems."

Kyla could see that the girl had drawn the map symbol onto the paper, along with some writing. The look on Jetha's face was determined, despite the tears that were welling up in her eyes at the same time.

"Well said, Jetha," Marus said quietly as he stood up. He gave Jetha a gentle pat on the shoulder and she looked down at her papers again, hastily wiping her eyes with a sleeve. "Niza, would you mind cleaning Alldeh up for me so Ullden and I can finish our practice?"

"Of course, Father Marus," Niza said. She stood up and fetched some water and a cloth before kneeling next to Alldeh and beginning to clean the blood off of him. Ullden and Marus moved back away from the fire and began their swordplay again.

She watched all of them, not quite sure what to say. They all had the same determined look--except for Alldeh, of course. The priest had no talent for fighting, but was obviously putting his all into learning. He did appear to be learning, although the pace of his progress seemed slow.

Jetha had other books of strange symbols and drawings, and was studying those intently. Niza cleaned up Alldeh and tended to the camp. She could see that Niza understood surviving. She wondered what kind of place it was she had grown up in. The concept of their cities was difficult for her to wrap her mind around.

On a sudden whim she stood up and walked away from camp a little. She found a tree standing alone, and sat at the bottom of it, facing it. There were some stones nearby, and she gathered up all the ones she could reach without getting up.

There were six total. She placed them in a small circle. It was small enough that each of them touched to make a connected ring. She pulled a feather from a pouch. She had salvaged it from an Elar arrow along with several others like it. She set the feather into the soft ground so that it stood up in the center of the ring.

She quietly chanted a prayer asking for strength and wisdom. Those two things were a warrior's best traits, and she knew she would need both.

When she was done, she noticed that the clanging sounds of the sword practice had stopped. She thanked the land for the gift of the stones and the feather. She left them in place and stood to walk back to camp.

The others were turning in, so she did as well. She felt better having taken the moment to remember and honor the ways of her people. She went to sleep wondering just what was ahead.

"Now what is this, I wonder," Ullden muttered, swinging himself up onto his horse. He moved his mount forward, a few steps ahead of the rest of the group, putting himself between the newcomers and the wagon. Kyla brought her horse around to one side of Ullden's, so Niza moved hers to the other side of him, thinking it seemed like the right place for her to be. Marus and Jetha began taking the rest of the bags and putting them into the wagon, after Marus had confirmed that Alldeh wasn't in any trouble.

The men came forward and stopped about fifty feet ahead of them in the road. One of the men, tall, skinny, and slightly balding at the crown of his head, stepped forward with an axe in his hands. It looked like the kind of axe one might use to chop wood, and it looked a bit heavy for him the way he was holding it.

"Halt right there!" the man yelled. "You've plagued this road enough, you... you brigands!" Despite the wavering in the leader's voice, the rest of the men took up a chorus of agreement, and waved their weapons in the air angrily. Niza heard Ullden sigh next to her.

"I'm starting to think I've been cursed," he muttered before edging his horse forward a few feet and putting up his hands towards the group of men.

"Gentlemen, please," Ullden said, loud enough for them all to hear. "We are not brigands, we are merely travelers on this road. We did, however, encounter the brigands ourselves. We can show you where their camp is if you like."