Dedication: Here’s a tip for those of you who like to write with symbols and themes; don’t worry too much about them. Just open your mind and write; the symbols will reveal themselves.

I’d like to dedicate this tale to Dr. Louise Malory-Stienspring, Professor of Theater at Texas Tech University, for giving me exactly that advise when I was busy angsting over what kind of act could possibly follow “An Invisible Knife.”

The Healer

Dahlia did not see the swamp-dragon till it had already struck. One heartbeat her hand was rising to show her companion the patch of tiny white-hearted purple flowers that were sovereign cure for allergies and other mistakes of the bodies curative systems, the next her magical shield was bursting from her heart, hurling the young man whose arm she held into the flower bed, before ichorish black-green bile splattered over the field of magic. Then the dragon blotted out the sun and the healer-mage froze like a rabbit espying a viper. It vanished as quickly as it came, leaving only an image of a reptilian body the size of a draft horse with a snakelike neck just as long, and a tail twice as long again; a moment's image of dagger-long, dirty black talons dripping slime and algae, of bat-like wings that could enfold a human family's house, of black-green crocodile hide resembling nothing so much as human bile. The beast disappeared beyond the next hill in the space of a heartbeat, before the startled birds could rise from their trees, but the disjointed images would remain in the healer's mind with crystalline clarity till her dying day.

The next thing to enter Dahlia's mind froze her blood with a horror to make the last fright seem nothing but a passing spider. Jingo, her friend and suitor since before her earliest memory, lay convulsing amid the wilting flowers. The halfling youth's body was covered in strands of slimy, bile-green ichor. The dragon had spat his poison across the entire glade; even now steam rose from streamers of slime coating springs first pristine growth, plants withered and birds dropped from the sky.

Dahlia's shield reflexively vibrated, splattering the sickly bile from its pristine translucent browns and greens. Her numb mind hated the shield for not protecting Jingo, hated herself for not mastering the skills to make it do so, though few her age could even come close. Hated herself for the protection it afforded her while Jingo lay dying.

While Jingo lies dying. The thought struck the healer like a bucket of icy water and she leapt atop her friend, cursed as the shield forced her away, then grappled instinctively to force the shield in tight around her body, like armor, not a bubble. She wrapped her arms around the halfling and flooded him with all the raw life she could channel, then threw her shoulder back to send them both tumbling down the hill. A tiny corner of the taller maiden's mind still hated the shield for cushioning her tumble so that the hill seemed a feather mattress the stones and roots pillows, for making the tree they crushed into and twisted around to continue tumbling little more than a child's fist while her spirit sight could clearly see her friends bones cracking, blood-vessels rupturing.

The stream closed over them, icy cold and murky from spring runoff, and for an instant reality was stolen as the blackness closed over her. There was only the spirit of the boy above her, whites of purity, yellows of mischief, golds of budding masculinity, all more felt than seen. She could feel his pain and fear as if her own, feel the poison's black's and reds invading his lungs, his skin, rotting tissue like gangrene, reaching out for his hart, his mind, rotting through body into spirit, grasping like razors to sever the connections to his soul.

Yet talk of colors made it all seem so dry and impersonal. This was Jingo above her, communicating to her in a way almost as intimate as lovemaking. She was giving him herself, as his dwindling spirit gave the same to her. Her gratitude that as children he treated her like a brother despite her human parent, that in their blossoming he treated her like a maiden and a friend; to him she was neither littler than the big folk or bigger than the little folk, she was only Dahlia. The way she loved him for it. He alone among all the village youths, even the few other halflingkin, had turned aside from the spring equinox revels to help her gather the herbs of power on this, the day of fertility, when life was strongest.

Dahlia reached deep into the earth, drawing the rich energy of this day, more and more till her body screamed at the power coursing through it, fanning the flames of Jingo's fading spirit, awakening his immune system beyond the levels where it would normally rebel and destroy, all of it futile. She had no power to destroy the poison, barley even a whisper of the ability required to shield his vital centers from it, but shield him she did.

Then, as Dahlia gasped at the effort, her mouth filled with water. The stream had filtered through her contracted shield completely. As the maiden choked she forced her halfling irises to dilate farther open than any human's could, but could see no hint of whether or not her friend was clean. His body was now dying as quickly from the lack of air as from the poison. The halflingkin begged her body for the strength she needed, flooding her blood with adrenaline, to heave herself upright, hoist her friend above the water, and struggle to shore.

Jingo was soaked and blue from cold, but his clothes and body were clear of bile. The halflingkin maiden flexed her will and his lungs contracted, spewing out water. She fed his body power and it filled with heat, fed his lungs and they gasped all the good things from the air.

She didn't hear them, but latter Dahlia would remember the sounds of the dragon roaring, of the whistle of slings and the thrum of bows and crossbows. Then the thunder-like roar of her grandmother’s magic, charging a stone with power till it exploded, perforating the beast with shards of rock. Again and again the roar would ring out, and then the hills would shake as the wyrm crashed to the ground.

But she did not hear it; there was only Jingo and the malevolent corruption of the venom infusing his system. More vile than any disease, it existed only to destroy, motivated not even by procreation. It had suffused the halflings system. It struck against the boy’s heart, and she sent the heart all the power she could to beat it back, it attacked the kidneys and she did the same. Constantly the war raged, silver and green and brown attacking black and red and bileish yellow. The venom writhed within her friend and nothing she could do would more than hold it at bay.

As the minutes stretched by Dahlia's body began to burn, to shiver. Her heart pounded like a marathon runner, bruises began to purple her light brown skin, her breath came faster and faster but it was never enough. I'm killing myself, a quite voice whispered; I'm going to scour the life from my body if I don't release the power.

But like the now long past battle that voice went unheard.

Something wrapped its hands around the maiden, tried to pull her away from her patient, but Dahlia's raw arms convulsed around Jingo's waist. She would not let him die!

Then a soft, calm presence slid into her being, loving and gentle but ancient and stern. I am here now, granddaughter, you do it this way. Power slid into Jingo's body through the channels of her own, vibrant with the strength of two hundred years channeling the earth’s magic, a hill to her pebble, granite to her sandstone. Streams of brown and gray found the poison, enveloped it, and petrified it into harmless dust. Then green of life suffused Jingo to each individual cell, compressed the dead ones into microscopic gravel and granted the living strength enough to replace the dead in seconds.

Then the power entered Dahlia, soothing cool blue to blunt her screaming nerves, walls of organic stone mending blood vessels, then filled by cells. Pulverizing the blood within bruises, forcing it out through sweating pours. The silver of feminine power found her tattered spirit and reminded it of the patterns it was meant to hold, filled those wounds with earth power till her nature could transmute it into her own aura.

Sleep now.

* * *

It was three days of near constant sleeping and eating before Dahlia roused enough to learn what had happened. The dragon was not a lone hunter from the swamps to the east, but the vanguard of a plague of monsters. Even as she'd been carried towards her home reptilian raiders struck. The now alert halflings had melted away without any further losses, harrying the monstrous lizard-warriors from ambush long enough for the few human shepherds and dwarven miners of the village to reach the shelter of their halfling-style underground homes with much of their livestock intact. Old Maigin Sixtoes had smacked the dragon on the nose to buy his grandchildren and their friends time to escape and been bitten in half for his heroism. Rina Flickerstep, not five years older than Dahlia and glowing from her engagement, and Kyle Witherspoon, hulking even by human standards, had succumbed to the poison before Granny Featherfoot could reach them.

And as if fate were not satisfied with blood Dahlia's beautiful sung-wood quarterstaff, a weapon powerful enough to put her on an equal footing with the weaker of the big folk, had been lost in the chaos.

Now they huddled within their underground homes, nailing shut and barricading or even collapsing the outside doors and communicating with each other through back door tunnels. The sheriff and his deputies would slip out to scout every few eight-days, always finding reptilian camps above, or swamp-dragons hunting the night. One deputy, Shilo Underhill, was almost killed by a giant snake, and whispers spoke of even viler things disgorged from the swamps corrupted heart, a legacy of horrors left by the Unseelie Elves who'd been driven away so long ago.

Messengers moved through back tunnels and old mine shafts to the neighboring villages, finding that the plague had spread across the eastern half of the Carlishar hills. Rumors said they raged across the swamp's other side as well, into the kingdom of Elithiira and across to the sacred valley where Aramina, true daughter of the eight faces of the divine, taught and worked miracles of healing beyond any mortal mages power. The surrounding provinces would not stay silent long. The elfkin king would call for war, would break these beasts with elven magic and human numbers. The Church of the Lords and Ladies would bring crusaders from far and wide. They need only wait.

Dahlia's human mother, once a traveling carnival girl, pushed her skills as minstrel, juggler, comic, and acrobat to the limit keeping the people distracted and sane, while her father and others who had gone roving wrung out their minds for stories they hadn't exhausted during the winter. Bored halflings pushed their pranks and question games to the point where human and dwarven victims who would have gleefully laughed them off a month ago were ready to do murder. Bored cooks prepared feast after feast till the sheriff imposed a ration on the food and halflings almost rioted.

Otherwise nicely adjusted dwarves grumbled at the shortage of ale and distance from their clan. The humans had the worst of it, though, what with half the tunnels and houses built so low even Dahlia had to duck. They grew near to madness in conditions halflings considered signal from the gods to take a few months off and snuggle by the fire while the elders and the rovers told tales.

Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad had this come at midsummer, but with winter barley past Dahlia pined to see the blooming flowers, feel the grass between her fuzzy toes. She tried to sing herself a new staff from roots that roofed one tunnel, but it lacked the vibrance of green leaves and ripe fruit; its power was almost insignificant and it had a thirsty quality, always sucking hungrily at the trickle of power that maintained it; demanding more and more till she burned the thing in frustration and fed it to the mushroom bed.

Mother's songs and father’s tales grew tiresome quickly and the halflingkin found herself spending more and more time with Jingo. They fell into each other’s arms more from boredom than passion and their youthful libidos drove them to make love with a frequency newlyweds would be hard pressed to match. As the eight days passed Dahlia's magic maintained their prowess and soothed their soreness, ‘til even love-play grew dull and Granny Featherfoot muttered about premature marriages and love-blind healers forgetting to shield their womb from their lover’s seed.

Many accounted Dahlia the most sweet tempered and caring maiden in all the Carlishar Hills, but with her courses the tension grew unbearable and even Jingo felt the razor edge of her tongue. Dahlia's quick mind, sociability, and magical empathy gave her vast insight into peoples psyche, insight she usually used to offer comfort and council. Now the sadistic cruelty of the things escaping Dahlia's lips, driving her brothers to tears and Jingo to his knees, sent her fleeing into the deepest tunnels in horror of what she was becoming.

Dahlia's shields began to slip. The emotions of those around her intruded into her spirit, amplifying her tension with their own. Hoping to exhaust herself the maiden began methodically tempering and empowering sling stones, telling herself it was simply a desire to exhaust her self and dull her empathy, but knowing she lied.

When at last she found the courage to make up with Jingo it was as sweet as ever, but inside the knowledge of what she'd done to him, gleefully striking at his deepest insecurities and sorrows, ate at her like a parasitic worm.

With the next council session Dahlia added her voice to the vocal minority calling for guerrilla raids against the invaders.

"Are we Homebodies?" There was no greater insult to Lightfoot Halflings than comparison to their settled, dull as dirt cousins who never got a joke or left their hometown. The sheriff paled when he saw that Dahlia had turned her charisma and empathy against him, fearing an outright rebellion. "Is there a child among us who couldn't tie a ribbon round the tail of one of these lizards and escape unseen? Is an honest sling not weapon enough for you? Well fine, our dwarven friends have brought repeating crossbows that can shoot through a small tree at twenty paces. With a proper stock and shoulder brace I could lean against a tree and fire all seven bolts before the beasts could find me."

"Darius Proudfoot, where are the razor-wire traps you sold the Shalotan border villages? Mina Mungo; whatever happened to your grandmother's tar-pan traps? Our gardens are choking with weeds, our orchards withering for from dragon-bile, our livestock eaten raw by uncouth lizards while we cower beneath our own lands and wait for foreign armies to deliver us. The Tarsins delivered us once. You remember that, Granther Corim, don't you?" The old halfling fingered the stump where his right hand had been. "How they delivered us right into vassalage and forced conversion to the Belisarian religion? Who will deliver us this time?"

The moment the speaker’s-stick left Dahlia's hands the gathering erupted into chaos, shouting of the proud tradition of freedom in the Carlishar Hills, of their favorite trap or most trusted sling, but Granny Featherfoot silenced them all by reaching towards the speaker’s-stick. The old rowan-wood first rolled, then skipped up to flip end over end across the audience, into her hand. The ancient healer spoke in the softest, most solemn of voices, and all strained to hear. "My great-granddaughter and apprentice has spoken of guerilla tactics as practiced by any of you who've ever roved beyond these hallowed halls. All of you who practice them have, at one time, seen foreigners enslaved by orcs or Shallottan, maidens raped, children slaughtered. Think carefully on those people you aided, and remember that your own mothers and nephews and daughters were far away in the safety of these hallowed halls. Now imagine how these reptilians will respond if we make a threat of ourselves. Imagine dragons digging open our homes and spewing venom into our children's beds. Imagine reptilian’s sulking through these tunnels, eating your neighbors alive. Great snakes slipping through our nurseries, swallowing our babes. Imagine all of this and know that we only survive because we aren't worth the effort of digging out.”

* * *

Dahlia spent the better part of the next two days weeping. Everything she did was turning to bile. Once she'd been the first person any in the village turned to for comfort, now she wouldn’t council them if they asked. It seemed everything she did caused pain to those she loved, and that pain was a hundred times worse than her own. She could feel Jingo wanting to comfort her, but couldn't look at him without remembering the shattering she'd felt within him at her horrible words. She could feel his pain at his inability to help her but she couldn't face him. It was the same with her parents and the twin whirlwinds of trouble who were her little brothers.

If things stayed the way they were Dahlia would hurt the people she loved, and if she tried to change them the maiden would hurt the people she loved. There was only one thing left to do.

The second night, once she was sure her family slept, Dahlia slipped a hip pack out of her father's chest. Though he'd tried to keep it a secret she knew he meant it as a gift for her roving. Then the halflingkin maiden snuck to the back of her mother's wardrobe and removed two enchanted throwing daggers in spring-loaded wrist sheathes. Hello, Hu and Tad. Mother said uncle Jo found you in an old barrow, named you Hu and Tad, just like his fists. Said you'd be his fists to protect her as she traveled. I'm slipping out to walk in dark places now, and I'm a whole lot smaller than mom. I never knew big uncle Jo, but will you be his fists to protect me?

Back in her room Dahlia stripped down to panties, breast-cups, and rose quartz on silver chain anklet and strapped Hu and Tad to her wrists, drawing a white blouse over that. Hunter green divided skirts of fine and tightly woven wool gave her freedom enough to move and a well-fitted burgundy bodice snuggled her clothing round the huge chest and wide hips of what her father called a "fine halfling figure."

Dahlia shook her head ruefully in the mirror. In father's stories all roving girls were pretty, and a healer could hardly help but being so, but she looked more like a fertility statue than a maiden gone roving. There was little of the halflingkin's slender mother in her curvy, almost plump, nut-brown body, only the chocolate colored eyes and the dimpling smile. "Well, I'm pretty enough for Jingo, even if I do look more like the Mother than the Maiden or the Warrior, and that'll just have to satisfy anyone who decides to spin a tale about me."

With that the halflingkin donned a pouch-covered sash belt of swirled green and burgundy -sudden changes in color tended to catch the eye- and set about making the pockets bulge. Her sling and three pouch-fulls of stones, some tempered by her magic and a few empowered into weapons deadly as any crossbow bolt, tinderbox and some candle stubs. A folding knife, fish-scaler, and scissors set. A spool of fishing line and small leather case of hooks. A handkerchief, and a small purse of silver and copper coins to match the golden one secreted in the back of her blouse. Into the good leather hip-pack she placed smallclothes and breast cups, blouses and handkerchiefs, a sewing kit and new healer's case. Dried fruit, a fresh journal, a scribe’s kit, and a toy snugly-bear. Lastly twelve bracelets and anklets with rose quartz stones to be made into charms to prevent pregnancy. Those could bring coin and bread in the middle of a draught.

Or a war.

What all am I forgetting? Could I carry more if I knew? What to prepare for? How long till I find an inn, a camp, a store, an untainted garden? What if there's a late snowstorm? If I have to slug through the swamp? If the dragons have poisoned all the food...

What if I keep standing here worrying 'till someone wakes up?

Dahlia donned her thick leather jacket; brown stained with greens and umber, letting it cover the trailing length of her wavy black hair, then took up her old staff. She'd sung this weapon from a tree rather than cutting a branch but it hardly qualified as a weapon of power; magically made but not magical, and she'd grown five inches since she made the weapon, making it far to short. Then the halflingkin slipped soundlessly out into the back tunnels, to a place not far from the side of the hill, and began singing softly to the earth.

Slowly, as the minutes past, a three foot high tunnel spread into the wall, little faster than heavy digging, but safer and easier to collapse. She crawled into the tunnel as it passed five feet long in twice as many minutes, and prepared to begin collapsing it behind her.

"Don't be a fool, girl."

Dahlia turned awkwardly around and glared defiantly at her great-grandmother, who stood erect in the tunnel with her hands on her hips. "I won't do anything to call attention to the village. I'm just going to slip into Elithiira. Armies always need more healers."

The old halfling stared into Dahlia with steely eyes twice as gray as her hair. The nut-brown maiden could feel her aura read, every fear and insecurity and weakness, and her grandmother was about to use them all so deftly that she'd crawl back home weeping.

"Well, I guess there's no stopping you."

Dahlia's jaw worked soundlessly then firmed with resolve. She wouldn't be stopped, would she?

"But that," she pointed to the old staff lying in the tunnel, "will do you less good than a sturdy broom." The old woman drew her staff into the tunnel and pressed it into Dahlia's hands. At least, it looked like Granny Featherfoot's staff, living rowan wood with a few leaves and a sprig of mistletoe at the top. Yet it was longer, four and a half feet as Dahlia preferred to wield, just higher than her poofing bangs and swept back hair. The staff thrummed with earth-power, strength enough to more than compensate for the elderly halfling’s tiny frame, but the connection to its maker was gone. The ancient healer had given a portion of her spirit to the staff to make it a permanents weapon of power. "Take it with my blessing, girl. I pray you'll never need it, but I know better." The old woman's aura stretched out in benediction and embrace before she slipped away.

* * *

The crescent of the moon shone through the trees, broken by a bow covered in cherry blossoms. Her dance partner, a far smaller moon with a particularly azure cast to its crescent arc, hung between the horns of the larger, dancing in her arms. Small, white, night-blooming flowers almost seemed to glow with inner light, argent woven with yellow woven with white covered the ground like snow, matched by the blooms filling the cherry and peach trees that dominated this half-wild orchard. Night birds sang a gentle chorus, disturbed by neither the stalking fox nor the halflingkin emerging soundlessly from her burrow.

Dahlia didn't let herself see anything but the tunnel till it was again hard packed earth covered by even grass, as if sensing that once she did nothing else would matter.

It didn't. Dahlia laughed musically at the beauty around her, halfling eyes drinking in the dim light, turning midnight to evening. She wanted nothing more than sing herself a scanty shift of living leaves, strip off these artificial garments, and dance till dawn. The maiden restrained that impulse but opened her jacket and unlaced her blouse as far as the bodice would allow, baring throat and cleavage to the caress of the night wind. Then she danced, laughing and singing softly at the tickle of grass between her toes, swinging the staff like a dance partner, wishing Jingo were here to celebrate with her, wanting him to see her in the shift of leaves for the first time. Dahlia's joy stretched out, caressing the trees, coaxing new songs from the birds.

Between one spin and the next the Reptilian loomed over her. A detached corner of the healer's mind observed that it looked more like a desert lizard than anything she associated with swamps. The halflingkin's eyes were level with its fang filled maw, but only because the charging creature leaned almost as far forwards as it was tall, balanced there by its more than body length tail. The muscles in its ruffled neck rippled like a giant monitor lizard. Its scales were pebbly like a lizard's but with the raw strength of an alligator's. The creature's distinctly human arms, muscled like a woodcutters, ended in three fingered hands with almost three-inch talons, while its feet were vaguely avian with meat hook claws. One snake-like golden eye studied her while the other was swiveled all the way back to study the night behind it. The charging monster abruptly seemed to topple forwards, head tucked to the side, rolling over it's shoulder, to come to its feet in a complete stop, claws flashing down with the force of the charge still behind them.

Dahlia's scream exploded into the night with the shield, the abruptly closer target foiling the strike, but the lizard barley hesitated at all before tearing at the bubble of earth power with its talons.

The rending of the shield shot up Dahlia's spine like static discharges, giving the shocked maiden her first awareness that two more of the beasts were attacking her from behind. Terror drove the healer to her knees, grasping at grass and gravel as if for comfort while voicing a cry for help as much spiritual as sonic.

The birds answered. A veritable swarm of rival flocks and species racing to the aid of one their primal instincts named as friend. Beaks and talons sought swiveling eyes and lolling tongues, darting forms offering ever shifting targets to claws and tails as the shield collapsed.

Yet Dahlia still huddled there, paralyzed by terror, till she saw a blue jay snapped out of the air by a reptilian’s maw. The tiny echo of the birds death-cry sent flashes of agony through the healer's body and her mind responded with rage that shifted the alchemy of fear, transmuting paralyzing civilized horror to primal strength. The halflingkin's fingers closed over her staff.

The sung wood thrummed with power as Dahlia shot to her feet. As the nut-brown maiden spun into an upward strike the staff amplified her desire, speeding and hardening, striking the reptilian's knee with force enough to bend it sideways. Then Dahlia leapt over the fallen lizard and raced straight into a wild rosebush.

Again the healer cried out for help, silently this time, and with the cry she offered the energy necessary to give the help she desired. The thorn-covered branches parted, forming a tunnel just wide enough for the halflingkin to dart through, then closing to rip at the pursuing lizards. Dahlia made the call a constant flow, pouring into undergrowth ahead of her, pouring back into her subconscious with instructions for waist and feet. The smaller of the lizards foundered in a briar but the larger charged on, crushing through bushes and rolling over stones and logs. Dahlia knew she couldn't keep ahead of it for long, that the spell would quickly grow exhausting.

The nut-brown maiden pretended to stumble, collapsing to the ground and gasping with very real exhaustion. She forced her lips to form a song that served as focus for a new spell, a song extorting the ivy for aid, offering it power, filling it with strength and life.

The plant leapt from tree and boulder to enfold the reptilian, first simply grabbing at it, then binding the thrashing beast like a net, then growing around it, sending fresh creepers between joints, round neck, fresh roots between scales, 'till the beast was bound in a green cocoon.

Dahlia stared for many moments as a numb part of her mind ordered that she tighten the hip pack, walk out her exhaustion, close her jacket, recast her shield, all without ending her horrified contemplation of the beast.

The maiden could feel its fear, its horror at the belief that the ivy was eating it. (It wasn't.) Its desperate flexing of muscles, its even more desperate contemplation, why haven't you killed me yet? You want to savor my fear, don't you? I would. Yours was delicious.

Dahlia found her staff raising, felt the ivy drawing back the monster's head to bare its throat to the killing blow. The reptilian began a low-pitched whine that swelled into a quite keening. The maiden's arms froze. Her hands shook. That thing is a cancer upon this land, over hunting and eating the flesh of intelligent beings. The bones of a family were found up in Braem with theses things teeth marks.

That keen is the way his people cry.

She couldn't do it.

Dahlia drew gently on the energy the earth offered, wincing in exhaustion as a translucent blue beam snaked out of her hand to slide between the creature’s eyes. "Sleep."

The Reptilian shook, fighting against the weariness that oozed through it, but Dahlia offered it peace, forgotten pain, an end to fear, and the monster succumbed, leaning back in the web of ivy.

Behind the nut-brown maiden an owl hooted approvingly. The healer turned to face the large, snowy bird of a breed she wasn't quite familiar with. "You could have helped," she admonished gently.

The owl seemed to laugh friendlily before leaping soundlessly from the branch to be swallowed by the night.

Dahlia moved on quickly then. A blind dwarf could have followed the trail that beast had left, and the all to familiar lethargy of magical exhaustion sank into the halflingkin's bones. Channeling anything more than the gentlest empathic communications now would be mutilating herself as surely as if slashed her wrists with her mother’s daggers. The nut-brown maiden moved properly this time, gliding softly from bush to log to stone. At times she heard twigs snap, or leaves rustle, or simply the birds going quite, and froze as smoothly as if she'd never been moving, as still as if turned to stone, her breath nothing but the night breeze, her stomach's rise and fall concealed beneath the jacket. Dahlia caught site of hunting reptilians sometimes, once one passed so close she could have touched it and a hysterical giggle welled into her throat at the thought of tying a ribbon round its tail. There would be no stabbing these creatures in the back, not with their independently swiveling eyes watching backwards and forwards at once, and she might need a crossbow to make the beast feel pain through those pebbly scales.

As the moons sunk low the patrols came further and further apart, the fear churning Dahlia’s bile began to slowly ebb.

The world darkened as the moons sank beneath the tree line. Then something trembled out of the earth and up her legs, like a tunnel collapsing a few villages over; subtle vibrations only an earthmage would consciously notice, but with them came terror more primal than anything she'd ever experienced. The nut-brown maiden's blood froze as the shaking came again. Halfling instinct drew enough earthpower to freeze her bowels before soiling herself could spread her scent across a half mile of hills and valleys; locked her watering joints in place. The sharp pain behind the maiden's eyes went unfelt by her numb mind and body. It was out there. It was hunting. The trembling grew stronger, rustling leaves and rippling spring pools, ‘til they were almost audible in the crypt-like silence of the night. Footfalls. The steps of a creature larger than any giant, drawing nearer, bringing horror nearer. Empathic waves that communicated absolute mastery, absolute hunger, absolute evil.

It was hunting her!

Dahlia screamed and raced mindlessly through the woods, hurling up her shield to keep back the unseen beast which raced towards her now, pebbles were hurled into the air by the rhythmic crashing, yet there were no snapping branches or crashing trees. That impossible mass, drawing nearer by the instant, was passing through the woods as if it didn’t exist.

Up ahead a moonbeam illuminated the entrance to a badger den and Dahlia leapt into it, more than ready to welcome the grumpy creatures wrath; yet the frightened eyes at the back of the cave were almost welcoming. The halflingkin forced herself to scramble around and face the oncoming beast.

The voice was the most beautiful she’d ever heard, soft as a night breeze and musical as an organ, masculine as a dream-lover and brave as a prince. “Listen carefully and do exactly as I say, for that beast hates and hungers for people like you above all others and only I can hide you. Disperse your shield and spread it out to your left as far as you can.

Dahlia obeyed, blinking tears from her eyes. The maiden saw motes of earthpower drift to her left in a cloud before slowly beginning to cycle back into the world. She was truly defenseless now.

The oncoming monster paused.

“Good, now you have to be still and quite. Bite your jacket so you don’t scream. I’m going to mask your aura but it knows your scent. Think about the most logical, dry, boring thing you can. I used multiplication tables when I was your age.”

Dahlia did as instructed, blinking away tears every few seconds as she asked herself sevens and threes. The trembling grew closer and a head appeared above the canopy of trees, all reptilian muzzle with scimitar fangs and beady, hate filled eyes. While the head seemed a cross between a bulldog and an alligator the neck was slender and supple. The body resembled a Reptilian, a Reptilian taller than the trees, and, while its footsteps struck the earth like thunder, its body passed through the trees like wind leaving behind blackened leaves that curled up and died. Nostrils flared, drinking the wind. The monster bent low and Dahlia swallowed a scream, forced herself not to breath, forced all her trembling into her spine. The monster sniffed deeply at the earth seven feet to her left, yellow fangs curling over a muzzle that could swallow her whole, flowers wilting at its breath.

The monsters head swung slowly left, then right, snuffling like a blacksmith’s bellows. An arm thicker than Dahlia wrapped around a tree and pulled it down. The maiden’s teeth pierced a layer of her jacket to stop from whimpering as the creature listened to panicked birds racing through the air.

Then it simply faded away.

The Lioness

The only man among the crusaders sent from Shallotte to liberate Aramina’s valley who hadn't questioned the newly freed slave's sanity was a nobleman magus who'd become enamored of her white half-sister. They all knew the magus thought it, though.

It began with the word "no." Lydia, the former slave, seemed unable to say it. She stammered, stuttered, spent almost a minute looking quite the fool when asked by her former mistress to bring bacon to flavor the campfire beans. When at last the mocha-skinned woman managed to gasp out the word she convulsed in manic laughter. The two white noblewomen stared at their friend in shock, jaws working soundlessly, as Lydia barked out the word again, her laughter stretching on as tears soaked her smooth brown cheeks, till the blonde women realized they where laughing as well. Minutes latter the three friends where rolling in the dust, barley able to draw breath, as the guffaws converted into sobs, yet it was not former slave who wept this time, but former masters. Lydia stared at them, lost in wracking sobs, and wondered for the first time if her bondage had demeaned them as much as herself.

The noblewomen's names were Quinterra of house Winterstar and Lienessa of house Whitefire, though Lydia abruptly found it easier to call them Quin and Lioness. (The second was a grand joke for, while slave-born warrior and Winterstar paladin were as sleek and powerful as they were beautiful, the sorceress was distinctly petite and delicate, bearing no resemblance to her black half-sister save for a certain height and delicacy of the cheekbones and dimples.)

Then it was hair.

The next morning, just before the crusaders descended into the wooded foothills that began Elithiira proper, Lydia refused Quin's help in brushing her waist length, velvety curls. The men who saw that shook their head in puzzlement, but Quinterra recoiled in horror at the raw chaos in her former slave’s eyes. The paladin found her cheeks dampening as she watched her cursing friend jerk her ivory brush through more tangles than the silver-haired paladin faced in most weeks, realizing that what she'd thought was a friendly morning ritual had effectively enforced her fashion sense upon her best friend. What other hated habits had she forced on Lydia in innocent ignorance? Should she offer to help cut the hair or would that just be another unintended order? How could she have been so blind? How could she talk to her dearest friend when any word could come out as an imperious order; when any preference she expressed could be rejected just to spite "Massa Quinterra?" How could she maker her friend feel loved without making her feel owned?

So they did the only thing they could. Lienessa wished she could say she thought of it, but as usual Quin explained what she knew to be necessary and, deep inside, the tourmaline-eyed sorceress cursed herself for a fool for not thinking of it. They took a full third of their coin, gold and platinum enough to buy a hundred acre farm and a years labor to work it, placed the purse on Lydia's packhorse, and told her all of that was hers.

The silence grew between them; blondes afraid that anything they said would drive Lydia away. Five agonizing days later Quin made the first mistake and Lioness hated herself for tiny corner of her mind that crowed at this proof of the seemingly perfect paladin's fallibility.

There'd been a dwarven metal smith’s shop in the small Elithiiran city, and Lydia walked into their inn room with a new bastard sword slung over her back to replace the one the kobold destroyed. The mocha-skinned swordmaid gave it the same loving contemplation Lioness might have offered a new kitten as it slept. It took the petite sorceress a few moments of contemplation to realize that this was the first weapon that Lydia had ever purchased, a blade bought with her own coin, by her own right.

A few minutes later Quin entered with a dwarf forged bastard sword with a jeweled hilt under her arm and Lydia went pale with rage. The paladin realized her mistake instantly and stammered something about wanting to learn proper use of the bastard sword for heavily armored enemies, and could Lydia please help her? But the mocha skinned woman just glared, tears iridescing in the corners of blazing tawny eyes, before pulling the dagger looted from the kobold out of her sleeve with deliberate slowness, gathering her hair, and slashing it all off at the nape of the neck with a single stroke. Then she stalked out of the room and wasn't seen again till morning.

It was almost enough to make Lienessa forget her own problems at first, but latter made them all the more terrifying. The platinum blonde sorceress had been as fervent a dreamer as any of the Silver Swordmaid’s Tomboys when growing up, but on the crusade she found that, at the core, she was very much the pampered lady. Sleeping on the ground gave her backaches, and she sunburned faster than most people began to darken. The boiled leather that protected her delicate waist, breasts, and womanhood chafed terribly despite the silk shift beneath it. The armor was hotter and stuffier than a royal ball gown at midsummer beneath a fur cloak, and the sorceress swore she was developing a rash. To top that off it reminded the slightly claustrophobic young woman of the corsets larger women wore to imitate her ethereal figure, and how one such garment had almost killed her mother. Likewise the gorget around her delicate throat, though attractively silver plated to dampen the iron alloy beneath, gave Lienessa the insidious feeling that she shouldn't be able to breath while filling her with memories of farm slaves lead to market, all collared to the same rope.

Back in the mountains a group of orc raiders had tested their defenses and the so called Lioness had cowered within her shield, watching the hooting beasts, their features blurred by her poor vision, hurl spears and charge down the mountainside. Somewhere inside a voice chanted the focus for a spell to call a protective whirlwind, deflecting incoming missiles, but her lips were too numb to form the words, her throat too tight, her mind too busy gibbering that they were all about to die.

Lydia and Quin shouted witty insults and lobed crossbows quarrels at the orcs, laughing like it was all grand fun, till a javelin took Quin in the chest.

The sorceress let out a scream as her friend was knocked down, convinced her inaction had killed the paladin, but of course she sprang to her feet and loosed a final bolt at the retreating orcs, her cold iron breastplate had collected it’s first crack.

Lydia woke every morning to a nightmare of the beasts reaching her, or of standing frozen while they tore out the throat of the sister she could not bring herself to acknowledge as such. Only the thought of Quin and Lydia defending her had kept Lienessa from slipping away at the first Elithiiran town they reached. Goddess, what would she do if Lydia left them altogether?

Should she confide these fears to Lydia? Would that help them remember how to share their feelings, to be the friends they were, or would she be met with contempt, deliberately abandoned? Goddess, what a wreck their lives had become!

The weeks stretched on till they didn't speak to each other at all. Handsome Marius was the only solace Lienessa could find; yet the sorceress could see how her affection for a slave baffled him. Nor did she dare confide her terror to the older man, to the veteran battle mage who treated her like an equal, any more than she could wear her spectacles around him, let him know they were for anything but reading.

Four days from the front Lienessa realized that she would never know if Lydia was would abandon them because she was going to do it first. In the town they'd reach tomorrow she was going to resign and sit tight till she could hire a carriage in a caravan to take her home. The ethereal sorceress couldn't endure the nightmares of orcs and reptilians any longer, couldn't stand the certain knowledge that she would freeze again, helpless, and her friends would die. Couldn't bear to face the reality of her cowardice.

The next morning, well before sunup as Quin began to boil the morning porridge, Lienessa found herself moving towards where sat Lydia on her bedroll, recovering from her morning workout. The tourmaline-eyed sorceress couldn't let it end like this, for surely her friend would never return to Shallotte and she would never leave again. She had to say something to her... to her sister. If only to say the word neither of them had ever dared to say.

The seated swordmaid's chocolate eyes went fierce and tawny when the ethereal sorceress arrived. She jerked the new dagger from her chainmail-sleeve and flung herself to her feet, shoulder knocking Lienessa to the ground. The dagger spun furiously, speed amplified by the force of the rising, to lodge in the ruff of a reptilian's neck.

The monster did not fall as the alarm cries went up around the camp. Quinterra's dagger flew true close behind it, piercing the reptilian's chest shallowly before falling out. Lydia hadn't the time to extend a hand or an apology, only to look down with fierce laughter turning her brown eyes to gold. "To battle, shieldmate, I'll guard your casting." Then the mocha-skinned swordmaid raced forwards calling, "The Raven and the Owl!"

As Lioness jerked to a seated position, shield flickering out a moment before a bone-headed javelin bounced from it, her own lips formed the war cry, "Whitefire and Winterstar! The Raven and the Owl!' Raven was the silver warrior’s bird, and owl the champion she sent to aid her knights in Shallotte. The sorceress sprang to her feet as if flying, as if moving in a dream. It was a dream; a fantasy of adventure shared in the basement salon over cordials, not a waking nightmare of screams and steel with death a moment away. Lydia had returned; the trio was whole again. There could be nothing to fear, and Lydia was the Whitefire whose name she cried.

Her shieldmates hit the reptilian from opposite flanks, but it leapt as they approached and spun to lash its tail at Quinterra. The paladin reversed her short, precise fencers steps and jerked her arms high, elbows back, so that the tip of the reptilian's tail whipped noisily over the breastplate. Then the silver-haired paladin skipped in two steps to lunge at the monster's left eye.

In the same moment the reptilian struck downwards with its claws while landing. Lydia tilted her rectangular shield to catch both attacks while her front leg stepped to the lizard’s right. Taking the two blows at such an awkward angle from so powerful a beast crushed Lydia’s arm into her chest, but the mocha-skinned swordsmaid's blade was clear of the tangle; her circling back foot put the whole weight of a six foot woman behind the strike.

It was exactly as the Tomboys had practiced a thousand times. The rapier strike, which most likely would have contacted scales even her enchanted blade would be hard pressed to pierce, forced the beast to flinch away, straight into Lydia's far heavier, and almost as sharp, bastard sword. The blade cleaved a quarter way through the monster's neck, deep enough to reach its air passage, and the reptilian collapsed, blood gushing through its dirty fangs.

Other battle cries pierced the night as reptilians poured from the trees on either side of the what passed for a road in this wilderness kingdom. "The Eagle and the Wolf!" men cried; banner of Shallotte’s paladins of the Golden Warrior. "Shallotte and the Warrior!" "Silver and Gold!" the paladin across the wagons called, acknowledging both Lord and Lady in this endeavor even as he called encouragement to the Tomboys, and, this being a dream, they resolved to thank him with a kiss. Marius's armsmen bellowed, "Razorwind and the Lady!" Still others, "Firehawk and Shallotte!"

A gardener’s throat was ripped out before he could join the other craftsmen and drovers in the center of the wagons. The party’s second magus, the healer, threw a wall of wind around the non-combatants before turning to send a jolt of lightning at the reptilian striking his shield.

As the murderous reptilian moved past the gardener it had slaughtered from behind the a whirlwind abruptly engulfed the monster and gathered grit, condensed into three spiraling, razor thin streamers of air moving near to the speed of sound. These contracted to slice the creature like a ham. Marius Razorwind focused on his house spell, directing it to whip out toward multiple monsters while his two armsmen stood inside his shield, loosing bolt after bolt from their crossbows.

Lioness had her crossbow now and moved to stand in the lee of Lydia as two more reptilians found the ladies, one with a large shield of turtle shell, the other armed with a trident. The ethereal sorceress loosed at the armed monster and watched dispassionately as she missed by a half yard at seven paces. Her eyes were lovely, living tourmalines first bright green, then yellow or gold or even violate, but jewels were poor compensation for a world that resembled abstract art within a yard and beyond a limit of four. Looking back Lioness would curse herself as no true Tomboy, but now she calmly observed that her magic might turn this fight and tuned out her shieldmates enough to focus on the mighty gleam of air power floating on the night wind, reciting formula in Old Reeman. "Warrior wind, true from the east, to my hand I call thee." -The energy flowed through her, into the crossbow bolt- "Take my rage," -Her half-sight focused on the monster's throat, perfectly centered. A questing tentacle of wind power stretched out from the crossbow- "...take my blow," -The Lioness let out a short shriek as her shield shattered. The agony of cold iron, like ice so cold it burned, oozed through her temples in an instant. The emerald-eyed sorceress spun to see a reptilian with blood on its maw raising a Shalotan cold iron mace. Its nostril slits flared to relish her fear as the air-channel dove beneath its chin, - "and to my enemy go!"- and snapped straight!-

Lioness loosed and the Reptilian dropped, crossbow quarrel protruding from the top of its head.

"Earth, water, air, fire, to my soul I call thee. My shelter and sanctuary be!"

Relief escaped the tourmaline-eyed sorceress's throat in a bubbling giggle as a new shield swirled into being around her, then spun to see if her friends still stood.

When the reptilians first struck one caught Quin's rapier thrust on its turtle shell shield and forced the silver-haired paladin back while raking and snapping at Lydia.

Quin maneuvered around the reptilian towards its back, jabbing at neck and back to keep the things attention. She continued ‘round the beasts, taking tail-strikes on her breastplate or hopping over them. Lilac eyes could see Lydia forced further and further onto the defensive, blocking trident strikes with her shield, slashing at claws as they struck to force them back or yielding to the blow so that it could grind over her chainmail.

Then Quin reached the trident wielders left flank and began stabbing at the beasts shoulder over and over. The reptilian disengaged from Lydia and spun to strike at the silver haired paladin, but she circled it as fast as she could, parrying with main gauche and taking a bruising glance on her armored thigh, till the shoulder was a bare patch of muscle with no covering save for the slick sheen of blood.

The circling had stolen all but the most cursory awareness of Quin's surroundings. She was near to dizzy from the circular moving. As the monster slapped its trident perpendicular to protect the shoulder Quin jabbed over the wounded limb, locked her blade with the trident, and shoved in till she forced the monster to straighten up, then swung her main gauche into its belly with all her formidable strength.

The weapon embedded, piercing bowels, but Quin could not bring it to tear the hide and spill the monsters guts. The Reptilian's neck arched down and teeth closed over Quinterra's head as she dropped, scraping off skin and hair, soaking silver with crimson. As the screaming paladin cleared the jaws, dropping into a backwards roll, she saw Lydia's sword take the overbalanced creature in the throat even as the monster with the turtle shell struck from behind to score her shieldmate's cheek.

Rage burned into Quin, awakening the silver flame of her goddess 'till it danced in her lilac eyes. As Lydia tore into two monsters that came at the swordmaids from behind Quin glided calmly towards the reptilian, making deliberately slower than usual strikes at the monster’s eyes.

The reptilian backed away, batting at the slender blade, then abruptly found it was holding the weapon!

Quin's forwards roll brought her inside the creatures guard, jerking daggers from her boots as she went. Silver fire raced up the blades as the paladin drove them into either side of the creature's belly and ripped inwards and downwards.

The lilac-eyed swordmaid heaved the collapsing body aside. It landed atop her rapier.

A javelin in the armored back nearly knocked the silver-haired paladin over as she turned, saw Lydia trying to defend from a reptilian on either side while Lienessa let out a shriek of frustration as a spell, designed to make the monster hesitate by disrupting its biological balance, failed to bring any effect other than a belch for a second time, then chanted madly, calling the North Star to her hand.

The lilac-eyed swordmaid tried to rush to their aid but fell to her knees, muscles cramping, grappling for the air her exhausted body needed to continue. The paladin cursed and struggled for her feet, but they cramped again. So, rather than struggle vainly, Quin let her body go limp and focused on catching her breath, tears of fear that she'd take to long shining in lilac eyes.

Lienessa gathered the glimmer-bolt in her hand, a croquet-ball sized sphere of power that shimmered through hundreds of colors. She could see the sweat coating Lydia's brow, strong hands shaking, tawny eyes loosing focus. Her sister was mere seconds away from a fatal mistake.

"Take this!" The bolt streaked from the Lioness's hands to take a reptilian in the snout, impact blowing a starburst of blood and flesh through the night. The monster bellowed in pain, the eye on her promising death, but it did not slow. "Oh shit," the sorceress sobbed.

Quinterra whimpered as the javelin thrower stalked nearer. Blademaster Vinchento had always instructed her to count three deep, proper breaths, less and she would cramp and be slain, more and the exhaustion would overwhelm her. Each inhalation seemed to take an hour as Lydia's guard grew weaker. The reptilians were toying with the mocha-skinned swordsmaid now, wearing her down deliberately rather than risk a serious assault. Lioness was crying. Six fresh reptilians broke from the tree line and raced across the road to join the fray. Three monsters approached from the right, and to their left a group of men was going down under seven of the beasts. "Not in anyway good," the lilac-eyed swordmaid growled with her third exhalation and rose to her feet, knees steady.

The wall that encircled the camp seemed made of pure, shimmering light. One beast flinched a moment at the spectacle of swirling colors as its claws approached Lydia's throat, giving the mocha skinned swordmaid an instant to bring her own blade in line and gash open the monster’s arm.

Beyond the wall moonbeams solidified into curved blades, two scimitars connected at the hilt, which whirled outwards into the night, vivisecting reptilians and shredding trees.

A lizard raised his spear to impale a young, golden haired paladin when its head flew from its shoulders. The elf was there then, as if he'd been there all along and was only just now being noticed. The smoky quartz of his slender, one-edged hand-and-a-half blade and sleeve shield seemed to ripple from one jewel to another as it echoed the light of the wall. It flashed ruby every time a Reptilian fell, burning in counterpoint to the luminous emeralds that were the fey warrior's eyes. Two of the beasts fell before they could reacted to his presence. A subtle step sideways cleared a trident thrust as three other beasts leapt at the elf only to end tangled with each other, none quite sure how he'd evaded them or when his blade had disemboweled the largest. Next the elf allowed the trident to contact his fluttering cloak and be shattered by a starburst of azure and madder-violate and crimson as he beheaded the tangled reptilians with two precise, angled strikes and moved to stab the trident wielder through the eye while it was still reeling from the flash that destroyed its weapon.

The elf raced towards the Tomboys then, there and gone in an instant but leaving five reptilians dead and three young women with an image that would last 'till their dying day. He was slender as an a blade, supple as silk, graceful beyond imagining. His skin was flawless indigo; his arcing eyebrows and floating waves of hair raw gold. The elf’s arms were as slender as elm bows and rippled with tightly sculpted muscle twice as dense; bands of solid ruby flashed fire round each supple wrist. A sleeveless, white silk shirt flickering argent hinted at more of the same beneath, as did the loosely laced neck, and tight pants of black leather flowed with his lower body as supply as the silk.

The Silver Warrior’s Tomboys sagged together, in shock from twisting emotions. "Oh my Lord," Lioness and Lydia breathed in voices nearly identical despite one being alto, the other soprano.

"Ladies," Quin whispered, "I have seen the Golden Warrior." The three sagged farther together, stomachs fluttering and heads spinning, adrenaline converting to such wild lust that, had the elf still been in sight, they might have torn his clothes half off before getting hold of themselves, willing or not.

Lydia's blood leaking down to Quin's hand brought the young women to their senses. The lilac-eyed swordmaid cupped her shieldmate's cheek and silver fire caressed from one into the other, clotting and scabbing and purifying the wound, numbing pain, mending muscle, and awakening the mocha skinned swordmaid's own healing prowess. Lienessa realized she was wet in the middle of a pile of corpses and doubled over retching. Lydia held the ethereal sorceress with one hand while the other kept a crossbow ready as the paladin neglected her own wounds to move among the fallen, seeing whom her powers might save.

Two lives latter, with the energies the Silver Warrior offered nearly exhausted, Quin moved towards a man disemboweled but still rasping for breath, barley able to inflate his lungs. As she watched the man’s bleeding stopped and viscera wormed back into his body. For an instant a green skinned maiden appeared, winked a ruby-colored, cat-like eye, and was gone.

A few minutes latter the wall dropped, revealing a circle of shattered trees and reptilian body parts three hundred paces across. At least a hundred of the lizards had attacked them twenty-five miles from the front.

The elf introduced himself as Deiryan Rigel, a bard of some repute. Many of them had heard the name before, though he had not performed in Shallotte since most of their parents were young. He gave their commander a letter from King Shamnaratch, explained that the monsters were being contained as reinforcements were gathered but Aramina’s Valley and the Carlishar Hills had fallen. His healer would remain with them to see they were all in one piece once they reached the rendezvous at Lirmain's stand in two days, though sixteen of their fifty-three were dead. The indigo elf was authorized to recruit volunteers for a special mission.

Deiryan walked among them, "you," a paladin, "you," a lowly armsman with suspiciously dark skin. "You," Marius and his two retainers. Then he approached The Silver Warrior's Tomboys and again they found their hearts fluttering. His eyes were living emeralds, lightly luminous, peering through slits of textured obsidian. Lioness met his eyes and was torn between rapture and shame. Though he looked no older than herself this elf must have honed his magic for hundreds, maybe thousands o