A Terrible Creature and Poorly Drawn

*** Ok - here's a little flash fiction and an opportunity given over at Chuck Wendig's. He's always good for a read and a few though-provoking things. Enjoy and, as always, honest feedback is always welcome. ***

The morning brought five or six shades of blue to the hills surrounding the old quarry. But the growing day burned that away and turned it mostly to the colors of white oatmeal and clay. The word that came to Randall, as he followed the gravel road around to where he could see things, was immense. A great white square in the earth where trees and soil had been ripped away by some previous generation's earth-movers met his eyes. And, in the center of that, sat a second square; one holding water of an old green stagnation. Large rocks, some the size of cars and others fittingly looking like coffins sat tumbled around the old water. On the ground were smaller slices of stone, sharp like knives or bumpy like small fists.

He dismounted the bicycle and walked it towards the edge of the pool. The quarry was of the legendary type; a place where teenagers were supposed to swim and party in the summers. But, they didn't. There were no old char-pits or cans or squiggled condoms reclining in the soil. Maybe, Randall thought, it had all been forgotten. Maybe something else kept the kids away. Whatever the reason, it was a good place for some of the things Randall liked to do.

Nearing the water, he laid the bike on its side the way he might ease a friend to the ground. Another three steps brought him to the slimy edge of the pool. He always admired the lines and how box-like and definite the digging had been. What were they looking for, he wondered, granite or shale? And why had they stopped working here? He guessed it didn't matter and reached into his pocket.

In the plastic baggie he'd kept the final piece of Elise; something about an eye for an eye. He wondered if there were fish in the water and how the keepsake might fare. There was something funny about the idea of a zip-lock and he smirked and pulled the lips of the bag apart. He reached in and didn't mind holding it. It had dried out some but was still moist and like an old scratched marble, the colors had dimmed.

"Just remember," he said, "you started this."

The water received its gift with a silly and noncommittal little plop and before Randall returned to his bike he admired the openness of where he stood. Atop the bluffs the alders moved in a wind too removed to feel and the sun stared down at him in an unexpected moment of heat. Beyond his sight some bird sang a three-note warble. There was a repetition to all this that Randall failed to notice. Only, he felt like he had something to work out. He just didn't know quite know what it was. He shrugged and guessed then it was finished.

But the thing he'd thrown in the water wouldn't settle. It moved in little starts and dashes through the dark algae and tiny bubbles where the snails and other forgotten creatures of the pool lived beyond sight. By the time Randall made the blacktop it had already begun seeking its own.

The tall grasses along the sides of the road slid by and soon he was back among the houses. The ride gave him time to think. The other parts of Elise were far away and there was no fear of being caught. His legs worked the bike and he wondered about what she'd been looking for. Some sort of thrill, he supposed, remembering how, if not possessive, then pensive she'd been. And, he had given her the show of a lifetime.

Randall always went for the pretty ones. But unlike the others, there was intuitiveness about Elise and only after he'd picked her up the first time did he appreciate how she seemed to know what was going on. Right away, she'd wanted in on the next one. That's how she said it. Like she knew what Randall did with them and what she didn't think he would do to her.

By the time he leaned his bike against the garage, his shirt was soaked. The sun had stared down at him with no clouds. It wasn't supposed to be this hot today. But he shrugged at it, punched the code into the door, and let himself into the house where the air was on. He sat in front of the television and pinched a button on the remote. He watched nothing in particular for a while and then thought he could use a shower.

In the tub he found a conglomeration of red mess and hair had backed up the drain. Randall knew he'd cleaned it before he'd left; his hobby necessitated a certain level of care. Impossible, he thought. He swore at this and dug around under the sink for the snake. When he had it he reached into the drain hole with the little wire on the end and worked it around for a while but whatever plugged the pipe wouldn't give. This didn't make sense. It was only blood. The solid pieces were elsewhere.

He walked to the basement door with a pipe-wrench. The raw-wood steps thudded under his feet. Just like her, he thought. Elise had done nothing but get in the way. She said she'd wanted to help but when he did it in front of her, to that girl whose name he'd never even learned, she'd only stared.

"Stupid," he said, "and never again."

He reached for the string and clicked on the light. The old bulb swung and the shadows of the white plastic drain jerked above him. He sighed, adjusted the wrench, reached up, and gave a hard pull on the nut. There was a relief when it gave and he knew he hadn't broken anything.

With his hand he reached up and unscrewed it the rest of the way, and had only a moment to consider whether or not he'd gone insane.

Pursue That Premise

Ponder that, in November of 1983, Kevin Eastman drew a bipedal turtle, wearing a mask, with nunchucks.  Within a few days, Eastman and his friend, Peter Laird, had created four such turtles, each armed with a different ninja weapon; fast forward thirty plus years and multi-million dollars of franchise later.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are yet alive and well, and making money.  Bless the heroes in the half-shell.

Get that?  Bi-pedal turtles, martial arts, and fighting crime.

I know there was some luck involved.  There always is.  But I also know this:  PT Barnum is accredited with saying, "The American public will buy almost anything."  Ok, Barnum is accredited with saying a sucker is born every minute, but my version is a tad nicer, and no less true.

As writers, or whoever happens to be reading this, let us bow our heads and contemplate that premise may not be as important as we think.  Nor should premise be dismissed because it sounds a bit goofy.  Speaking of which, why does Pluto never get to talk, while Donald is nearly incomprehensible when he does say something (at least in the original)?  Speech impediments and limitations must have been part of the original idea.

What is a writer's premise, or, to become all high-falootin', what is a literary premise?  Ok, never mind the high-falootin (it doesn't sell that well anyway).  But according to a plain old thesaurus, a premise is:  an assumption, hypothesis, thesis, presupposition, postulation, supposition, presumption, surmise, conjecture, so on, and so forth.

A premise is a simple game of 'what-if' the writer plays.  For example, what if I filmed an almost recognizable celebrity spouse swapping places with another sorta-kinda recognizable celebrity spouse?  That would be the premise for Celebrity Wife-Swap.  Titillating, no?  Maybe not so much, but people do watch that crap. And, somebody somewhere probably enjoys making those episodes.  And this, perhaps, is the key.

As a fiction writer, if one does not enjoy one's premise, then what's the point?

I posit today that if a premise (any premise at all) has ensnared your imagination, then please, do run with it.  Go ahead and play, 'what if'.  Flesh it out and see what happens.  If it doesn't work, so what?  All that has been lost is a little time.  Make it up in your sleep.  If it does work, then guess what?  Therein lies the tale.  It may be explored and pushed and pulled and turned into something people (at last, or maybe at least, you) will enjoy.

Premise is not story.  Premise is not character.  Premise is only a situation and some of the setting.  The writing is the magic and the magic will tell the tale.  But it order for that to happen, a writer needs to follow-up on a few things.

Writers, let us now place our foreheads on the dirt and ask, 'How many ideas have I rejected because I dismissed the premise as not very good, dull, or stupid?' The answer is probably far too many.  Remember, someone will read it.  That's how the reading public is.  In the meantime, give your imagination a break.  Let us run loose for a while.  One never knows when a great idea has just arrived and to dismiss it out of hand is just a bit premature.  And no one likes to be premature.

Flash Fiction Challenge - Part 5

This is the final edition of the five-part challenge to add 200 words to someone else' story.  I skipped a part or two; apologies…  My addition is at the very end.


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Part 1: Josee De Angelis

Of course it would rain today. It couldn’t be nice and sunny. Perfectly crappy weather for a crappy day. Shane dragged her luggage down the hall, her box of books under her arm, all her hats on her head – good thing the rain hat was the last one she found. What she couldn’t fit in her suitcases she wore. The furniture would have to come later. She couldn’t stand to be in that apartment one minute more.

The rain was coming down hard when Shane opened the front door. It was very dark, as if the clouds decided to play with people’s minds and make it look like nighttime. This did nothing to lighten Shane’s mood. Where would she go? Where could she go? Not going to her parents’ home, that’s for sure. Her sister’s? Only if she wanted all her past choices to be dissected, analyzed and declared wrong. They were wrong, but did she really need to hear it from someone else? Not so much.

Shane decided to walk north to put as much space as she could between herself and the apartment, where she lived moderately happy for six years. That was before everything changed. Before yesterday.


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Part 2: Liz Neering

Yesterday the shadow had appeared. It began as a black spot, hidden away in the corner. But as the day progressed it had bled like spilled ink into the bulk of the room, until by the time she had gone to bed, it had stretched its dark fingers across the bulk of the apartment. She had slept huddled on the sofa, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hands wrapped around her shins to keep her tightly coiled and far away from the blackness coming to claim her.

They would never understand. They would never believe.

Shane pulled her hats down further, tugging them down her forehead until their stacked brims concealed her downcast, black-rimmed eyes. She stopped in the street. Water poured down her hats, splattering fat droplets onto her shoes. She rubbed her eyes until they burned.

“Think,” she said. “Think.”

She felt something; the short hairs on the nape of her neck rose. She turned on her heel.

The blackness was there. It crept towards her, sentient, hungry, writhing like a serpent as it slunk closer. A voice, oily and thick, cut through the air.

“Shane,” it hissed. “Come to us. Be one with us. We understand. We do not judge.”


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Part 3: Ken Crump

That voice, she thought, I know that voice!

Slowly the pieces began to fall into place. Shane spun on her heel, gathered her box of books tightly under her arm and strode toward the Cup of Comfort coffee shop at the north end of the block. Her suitcase rolled smoothly through the gathering puddles, making rhythmic “sslack” sounds as it jumped the sidewalk cracks. Halfway there, a wheel caught in a crack, broke off, and rolled into the street. The suitcase reeled and twisted out of her control. Shane stole a look over her shoulder at the suitcase and then back toward the blackness. It still crept toward her. What had she read about the blackness? She squeezed her books closer to her body, and abandoning the suitcase, she walked on.

That box of books was one of her past choices her sister would undoubtedly dissect and analyze again, given the chance. “You paid how much for those?” she had demanded in that I-know-everything voice that only big sisters have. “They’re so old the covers are all bubbly.”

“The covers are not bubbly,” Shane spat. “They’re anthropodermic!” And she immediately wished she could have unsaid it. Her big sister didn’t need to know the books were bound in human skin.


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Part 4:  Josh Lumis

“Can I get you something?”

Shane blinked. The barista was looking at her pleasantly. For now. When Shane blinked, something else that wasn’t a barista was smiling at her. It was a smile she had seen before, in the shadows, a dark smiling face with eyes like bruning coals and teeth made of knives. Shane blinked again, and saw more of them. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself not to think about the books or the words penned in blood or the macabre images…

“Miss? Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes. She was back in Cup of Comfort. The barista looked more concerned than anything, and Shane tried to smile. It was difficult as the shadows got longer out of the corner of her eye.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I was thinking about my sister. Could I get a cup of coffee, please?”

“Sure.” The barista set about making the drink. “Are you in town to visit your sister?”

Shane swallowed. Her only hope was that, with a few customers in the shop, the darkness would be held at bay, at least for now. She needed time she didn’t have.

“No.” Shane bit her lip. “She’s dead now.”


++++

My addition

"I'll have a double red-eye," she told the young man.

He nodded and winked.  Who winks anymore, she thought, waiting for him to do his coffee-jerk thing.

"Hot now," he told her when he was done.  "Might want to let it cool," again with a wink.

She paid him and turned to find a table.  Juggling her burdens, she stooped to set the box of books at her feet.  When she straightened, Shane saw a ganglia-shaped curl had slopped onto the saucer, only the spilled coffee wasn't behaving like a fluid.  Its shape was that of the innards of a tar-snail, curled and retaining definite surface tension.

Steam, like a morning fog lifted from the mug carrying the odor of something fetid.  Shane gagged and pushed the cup from her.  When she did, the little blob leapt onto her wrist and the steam poured forth to cover the rest of her hand and forearm.

Shane swore then and stood.  Her chair scooted loudly behind her.

"Can't even carry a cup of coffee without spilling it," her sister said.

The barista turned.  The young woman was gone.  She'd left her box of books.  Most were older.  Odd covers too, he thought.

 

Flash Fiction Challenge - Part 3

From last time - the challenge posited over at terribleminds is to first write 200 words of the beginning of a story.  The second part is to pick someone else' story and add 200 words to it.  This is to be done for five weeks.  Here is the third story I picked:

A Million Cats:

Part 1 by Rebecca Douglas:
http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2013/11/wendig-challenge-first-200-words.html

Part 2 by Connie Cockrell:
http://conniesrandomthoughts.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/chuck-wendigs-5-week-challenge-part-2-a-million-cats/

Part 3 (my addition):

Six types of burned tape later, and Keelan not remembering those doomed for not remembering history, I unstrap myself and handhold to the tool closet, next to the cargo’s vapor-lock.  That’s where the real nightmare began.  There’s a certain fragrance wafting past the three layers of polymer-aluminum seals.  Plastic baggie of red electrical twist-caps in hand, I make it back to the cockpit.

Keelan looks up, preparing yet another type of tape for the splicing.  I hand him the caps and ask, “Smell anything?”

He smiles.  “Just burnt tape.  What’s up?”

The question lingers as I buckle in and run a quick ambient contaminant scan.  Sure enough, we’ve got an increasing level of uric acid, sodium chloride, male cat steroids, and several unidentified detoxified substances.  I point to the screen.

“What’s FUS?” he wants to know.  Keelan never reads the fine print; always quick to say he’s the idea man.  Sometimes I want to strangle him.

“Feline Urinary Scent.”  I leave it at that.  The projection trend shows we’ll need air-masks by the time we arrive at Exillion, assuming drive fires in the next several minutes.  We’ll need new air filters and a fumigation of the entire ship.  Credits, schmedits!

Flash Fiction Challenge - Part 2

Ok - the last post was the first 200 words of start of a story I wrote.  NOW THEN - what's next are the first 200 words of a story someone else wrote, followed by my addition.  There are going to be five of these in total.  Enjoy:

*****

Part 1 (original, not mine - but available here):

Lee’s seen a lot of terrible things in her day, but this is the worst.  She can’t exactly put a finger on why it’s the worst; she’s seen more gory, more brutal, more degrading.  But this one makes her knees weak and her gorge rise and the skin on her face crawl.  This one just about sends her vomiting in a corner like the rookie who just dashed outside. 

It’s the nails.  Long nails, their round, waffle-patterned heads out of balance with the length of their bodies.  A number of them are drowning in the pool of spilled blood like teeth knocked loose in a fight.  More tumble out of upended boxes near the corpse. And fifty-six of them are buried in the corpse itself.  Some deeper than others. Some are reduced to dark circles on his skin, weird birthmarks; others turn him into the world’s biggest voodoo doll.  No part of him has been spared.  Lee shudders.  There are signs of struggle, but mostly in the immediate area around the body.  Like someone sat on him and just started hammering.  Patiently, carefully, nail after nail. 

“Officer.”

Lee’s almost glad to see that Charlie’s as pale as she is.

PART 2 (my addition):

The nail gun didn't make sense, 400 PSI concrete nailer to be exact.  Charlie found it in the plastic case, bloody tip, no prints, next to a belt-sander and an upended circular saw.  "Everybody," Charlie tells Lee, "knows nail guns are belt-fed, canister-fed, spring-loaded.  Automated is the word."  Lee looks puzzled.  "Or maybe girls don't know these things."  He tries not to look at the body as he tells her this.

"Whatever," she says.  And the boxes of nails?  Single-shot hatred.  Somebody really didn't like the guy.

The only good news was the deposit receipt from Karls' Rentals on Alpine.  Looked like Karl was out $135, minus the damage deposit.  Alpine's a borderline street.  On one side the houses are nicer and the lawns are mowed.  On the other side, graffiti crawls up alley walls like new ivy.

The shop has a bell on the door and bars on the windows.  A nuanced odor of oil, electrical tape, and old man lingers about the place.  A retiree with a white mustache sits behind the counter on a gunmetal colored stool.  He looks up from a suduko booklet and asks, "Help ya?"

Lee shows him the receipt and asks about the nail gun.

Delmer's Fiddle

This here is a start of a short-story experiment I'm doing as part of a challenge over at Terrribleminds (Terribleminds contains some cussin' so don't go there if that bothers you).

Little Delmar played his fiddle and the clean lonely sound of it filled the house.

Momma called him scrawny with his skinny arms like the frame of a homemade kite and his shoulders that tilted in impossible ways.  That’s what caught him and held him back that night.

After momma tucked him under the quilt, he snuck outside through the kitchen door to go to the pond and try to catch something.  What he sought on these excursions varied; sometimes frogs, sometimes fireflies.  Once, he snuck out to see the box of still blind kittens on the other side of the carport, near the brick pile.

But that last time, momma’d locked the door and Little Delmar, forever so named, stuck his head and twisted his spine just so to go through the doggie door.  He’d done it before.  But momma heard him.

She grabbed the claw hammer from under her mattress and ran down the hall, her nightgown flapping like a great and terrible angel.  Delmar tried backing out and got his neck caught on the heavy plastic flap.  In the dark, momma threw the hammer and knocked a nice chunk of the boys’ skull out of place.

A Small Story About Big Things

Tape-Measure got his knick-name when he was very little, about eight or nine.  When he was that age he put a vinyl case on his belt and instead of a cell-phone, which he didn’t have, he carried a tape-measure.

He said he could see the invisible man.  No one believed a word he said.

“I can tell you exactly what is going to happen,” he said.

“Shut up Tape-Measure,” said Clarence.  Clarence was an older boy who said he was going to bust a light-bulb the next time there was a fire-drill.

“You bust that light bulb and you are going to get into trouble.”

“Shut up Tape-Measure,” Clarence said.  “You don’t know nothing.”

At the next fire drill, amid the noise and the students getting into their lines, Clarence broke the bulb on the small lamp that sat upon Mrs. Hendrick’s desk.  Of course Mrs. Hendrick saw, and Clarence was sent to the office.

Tape-Measure was also known to measure people.  Allison, who knew for certain she was four-foot tall, measured to an exact three-foot ten inches.  But after he pushed the button and the measure coiled itself with a snap, Tape-Measure told her, “Not really.  You aren’t really that tall.”

Allison swore at him and the other girls laughed.  Later, in the eighth grade, Allison got pregnant and left school.

Morning Television

FREE FICTION -  WOO-HOO!    

Here's  how it ended:  Mel racked the twelve-gauge and blew the television and some of the wall behind it into tiny pieces.  He never could convince anybody about why.  After the evaluation they let him go home, but they kept his gun.

     It started when the handsome morning news show announcer of indiscriminate late middle-age said, "Later this morning, after the break, we'll be interviewing Betty Booboobsky."  Betty was the star in a zany new comedy about drug trafficking and prostitution.  There was a nude scene and they were going to ask her about it.  The announcer told people they didn't want to miss the interview.  The same parent company who owned the morning news show's network also owned the movie company that helped propel Betty to fame.  If she survived, in about six years Betty would bemoan the fact that there were so few roles for mature actresses.  In the meantime, and in the remaining few days before the release of the movie, the viewers at home would be kept up to date on Betty's fashion choices.  Betty would try to help leggings and short scarves make a come-back.  Mel knew the choices weren't really  hers.  Her style consultant received freebies and checks from a clothing designer with tie-ins to the movie producer.
     After the interview with Betty, the morning show had a segment about the dangers from some type of bat in Baja California.  The morning news show went out to the entire nation.  But there was no reason for people in places other than those two towns in Baja California to worry about the bats.  The station pushed fear the way a casino-man pushed plastic chips.  There was a lot of fear in the world that didn't have to be there.
     Mel watched all this thinking about the topics the morning news show didn't report. Why didn't they talk about the NSA an how every email, phone call, and bank transaction from every person in the country were being logged and recorded and, on occasion, simply looked through by some employee somewhere?  And why didn't the morning news mention the spate of mob violence in five major cities over the weekend or about how more people died in the streets of Chicago  during the last three days than American soldiers died during the last three weeks in Afghanistan?  And how come, to hear it from the broadcasters, the nation was in the throes of early 1960's Selma, Alabama-style segregation and racism?  On it went.  These were some of the things Mel knew.
     When Mel told people these things they mostly looked at him and secretly wondered why he was such a critical man and how come he couldn't just relax, even in the mornings.
     He liked it quiet in the morning.  But his wife had it on for the noise; she had to have the noise.  "How about some music instead?"  She ignored him.
     He picked up his plate with the toast and with his other hand carried the cup of coffee to the living room where he could still hear the morning news show but at least he didn't have to see it.  They started an interview with some expert explaining how taxes were going to have to be raised in order to keep critical serves operating for the next five  months.  Mel thought of waste.
     He finished his toast and coffee and returned to the kitchen.  Some boy-band was playing on a stage outside the broadcast studios.  They wore ridiculous fedoras and strange combinations of facial hair.  They dressed in what looked like pajama bottoms and sleeveless vests.  They sang about having sex with teen girls.  The words were a bit lofty, but that's what it was about.
     Mel sat his plate and cup in the sink and went to the bedroom and took the twelve-gauge from under the bed.

Under A Cloven Moon: Book 1

BIG, SHAMELESS, AND SELF-PROMOTIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! 

Please turn your eyeballs to the right and gaze upon my newest book.  Now, slowly reach for your credit card or go to the ebook vendor where you have an existing account.... You know what to do.

Under a Cloven Moon:  The Satanta Run is available at both Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com!  As with my other novels, UaCM:TSR is less than the price of a medium Starbucks.

Acknowledgements go to:

StreetlightGraphics:  professional, courteous, and responsive.  I recommend them to anyone looking for help in ebook formatting, design, and artwork creation.  Their work-ethic restored in me a little hope for the world.  They did the cover and what a great cover it is.

My two beta readers:  Nancy for her critical eye and honest questions, even though my sense is, this genre isn't her favorite cup of tea, she still did a great job -- thank you so much.  Some day when I use bundles of five-dollar-bills for kindling, you'll be on permanent retainer.  And to Tracy, who devoured books like this.  I can only hope he appreciated how much his feedback helped.  Unfortunately, Tracy passed away earlier this summer after years of struggle with many health problems.  He was a high school friend and those of you who are the praying sort, please remember his family.

Myself:  The big technical deal for this book is the fact that I formatted them to meet both .epub and .mobi standards for the different platforms used by various ereader devices.

Lihturary Commentary (ahem…):

The book is styled after some older school Science-Fiction / fantasy forms.  There is as much narrative in the work as there is dialog and the scope of the story is expansive. As the first work in a series, I thought this appropriate.  There is plenty of room to grow, and it will grow.  There are quite a number of characters readers will be introduced to and in some ways this is a character driven story, though the plot provides the highway.  The plot also provides plenty of areas of tension and bloody battles.  Thematically, if you're interested in such things, keep an eye on the clash of cultures and notice the fancy-dancy symbolism of the moon being nearly split as representative of this.  There are three dominant cultures and one minor cultural outlook portrayed in this novel. The intrinsic tension happens as these cultures encounter and struggle against one another.  AND - if none of that makes sense or matters very much, it's still, I hope, at least, a well-told tale.

Finally, anyone interested in being a beta reader, please contact me.  You will have to hunt for my email address in the 'About Me' section over at the bottom on the right column.  It's a bit obtuse because I hate spammers.  But send me an email and we'll talk.  I have a number of works that aren't done cooking and they would benefit greatly from a fresh set of eyes.  We can go over the details as things progress.

Three books I'm currently working on:  The second book of the Cloven Moon series, a near-future science fiction work called Shareware, and a weird, very contemporary, book about a man named Frank who's a combo sociopath/slacker.  If any of those sound interesting, and if you're willing to read them and then allow me to pick your brain, drop me a line.  At this point, the beta-reader position is a pro-bono position.  Alas… the labor of love.  Or, we might barter something.  If you live close enough I can drive over and wash your car.  I also make a mean box of plain peanut butter cookies.  I could next-day them to your house.

Happy Landings

FREE FICTION - WOO-HOO!
***

Five blood-faced vultures hunched like priests in their cowls, arranged on the branches of a lone tree that had been stripped of its leaves by lightening early last Spring.  A short figure dressed in a leather vest, breeches and buckskin boots approached from the south-east, walking the dust trail that passed for a road.  He interrupted their feast and now they stared down at him, patient as only carrion can be.  The traveler gave the birds no mind as he squatted next to a white-skulled carcass.

He drew an iron knife, as long as the span of his hand, from a plain leather scabbard on the inside of his boot.  With it he slowly lifted the foreleg of a dead goat.  He held his other hand, palm down, over the chest-cavity and felt a slight heat still rising.  He thought this odd because the head was stripped of all hair and flesh, as dead and aged as the tree.  Even the eye sockets were dry, as though bleached in the sun for a summer.  Yet everything else told a tale of new death; even in the goat’s stomach, beneath the blue and red gut ropes that had been pulled out by the vultures, was a cud of new chewed grass.  It was green and individual blades were evident in the silvery slime ball.

He wiped the blade on the ground and sheathed it, raised to a half-crouch and squinted at the ground.  Seeing no tracks and nothing to bear the blame, he stood fully and stared up the path, to the northwest.  His hand rested on his second weapon, another blade of iron, this one as long as his forearm, hanging from his belt in its own scuffed and unadorned scabbard.  The trail faded into the vast miles of hills and grain-lands that most simply called the meadows.  He reckoned to have another twenty leagues before any town would be large enough to let a goblin hide in its alleys.

“Until then,” the goblin said aloud to himself, “I’ll just have to be slim enough to survive.”

He closed his eyes and drew air deep inside his hooked nose.  All he detected were the molts and droppings of the vultures, and the new shed blood and intestines from the goat.  He muttered an obscenity, ran a hand through his greasy black hair and smacked his lips from thirst.

“To your lunch then,” he told the birds, and continued his trek.

 

Travel is always dangerous, especially alone.  But since the death, three days earlier, of his companion, Girok had walked alone.  He and his half-brother Kuune had emerged from the brackish swamps surrounding their home village long enough to first learn of and then thieve through four of the seven cities of men.  All went well until a certain merchant, well-off enough to employ guardsmen, offered a bounty on both their heads.

Two summers they spent in the civilized lands, burglaring houses and rolling drunks inside the walls of the men-cities.  Kuune had been taller and slower, especially when noising through alleys.  And so it was, perhaps a two-step behind, Kuune caught the bolt from a crossbow in the back of his neck.  Since, Girok thought often of the last slobbery gulp of air his brother had made and then of his face-first slump into the slimy mud of that particular back street.

“No matter,” he said aloud to himself.  “No matter,” and nothing indicated the haunting of his memory would cease.

The sun crossed the midpoint on its journey to nightfall.  The sky was a deep crème blue and the light hurt Girok’s eyes.  That he traveled in the open, at day, was testimony to the fact that fear of capture outweighed the unnaturalness gnawing at his goblin instincts to lay low until dark.

Men, he had learned, were persistent and loved their rules and a thief’s head was a prize that would pay.  So he kept walking, aware of the lack of heft in his coin pouch as well as the emptiness of the water gourds half-slapping his back with each step.  Before him, the dust trail parted last year’s brown grass like the scalp line along the poorly parted hair of a village child.

It curved up a gentle slope.  New grass was just beginning to form green shadows under the browns left by winter.  At the top, Girok paused and looked behind him.  He saw no pursuit.

Ahead of him he saw an equally gentle downward slope.  Off to the left, towards the south and at the bottom of an easy valley, a creek meandered and there, along its side, sat a small yurt with clay-red colored walls.  From the top of the round tent, a scribble of white smoke floated and then faded into the air.  The tent sat off the path by, perhaps, two bow-shots.

Girok squatted to his haunches, craned his neck, and surveyed more carefully.  He saw two mottled and shaggy ponies tethered near the creek.  Their heads were down, grazing.

Thirst first, he decided.  He would get a drink of water, fill his gourds, and only then explore the situation.

With his knees up to his shoulders and his arms extended for balance he looked like a crab, extending first one leg and then the other, edging away from the path and down the hill towards the creek.  Last year’s grass, up to his nose, he hoped, adequately covered him from view.

Slinking like that, it took him an hour to get to the creek where he stopped and lay on his back, extending his cramped legs and waiting for blood to ease the aching in his thighs.

The water was clear and the sand and pebbles on the bottom told the goblin this creek ran most of the year.  It was two hops across in most places and perhaps waist deep in the middle.  Girok removed his boots and spent just a while picking four or five fleas from his ankles. Then he dunked his feet into the cold water until they ached.  He filled his gourds and buried them in a place where he would not forget.

As he covered their hiding place with a final palm-sized stone, he looked up in time to see a tabby cat; a town cat of indeterminate grey, brown, and that odd other color that cats that fat sometimes acquire.  The cat, the size of two green melons and not skinny at all, sat by a clump of reeds, several arm reaches away.  It seemed half-interested, not at all alarmed, and completely delicious.  Girok reached over for his boot knife.  He was a great thrower and confident only a quick jerk and snap of the wrist kept him from an early supper.

The boot joggled but he managed with his fingertips to slide the knife from its scabbard.  He moved his hand back behind his head and, as if on queue, the cat leapt behind the reeds.  Girok called himself a filthy name for being too slow and then scrambled, all knees, elbows and bare feet, over to where the cat had been.  Other than paw prints, he saw no sign.

He closed his eyes, sniffed and listened.  He smelled only the creek, its rocks and pebbles, and the cool mould of loam.

“To the yurt then,” he whispered and shrugged.  He went back to his boots and slipped them on.

Following the creek he again slinked up to a point where he could see the round tent.  There was no sound from within, yet still the strand of white smoke twisted from the tent to unravel in the air.  It reminded him again of how hungry he was.  The ponies were on the other side and showed no alarm.  From this vantage he stopped and lay flat like an old log.  He put a hand to the sun and splayed his fingers under it to guess that, perhaps, two hours of light remained.  Resting his head on his arm, he napped.

 

When he awoke it was much cooler, and dark.  Night crept in and were it possible, the evening was even more still than the day.  The silver stars blinked at him from the feather-black night sky.  A dew was already forming and he flexed his hands and toes to awaken their nimble abilities.  He listened and slowly raised his head to look at the yurt.  No commotion nor movement came from it.  Yet the smoke still floated, nearly straight, into the sky.

As silently as the moon sliding along its path, Girok edged himself closer and then closer to the yurt.  So cautious he was that even the stands of dry grass yielded without noise.  Yet, Girok felt he must be announcing his approach because, as goblins go, he was a middling sneaker.

At midnight, he finally reached the hide-wall of the tent.  He closed his eyes and slowly drew the night air.  He smelled horses, then smoke and food, the old tannic of the hides, and lastly, from within, a light musky odor, female.  Yet nothing noised.

Slowly he lifted the lip of the hide before him and peaked into the structure.  He saw a small stove in the middle of the round, with a pipe of metal leading to the top.  Along the walls and hanging from wooden pegs were no end of pouches, bundles of dried plants, and curious things he had never seen before.  And there, to his left, on a mat of blankets and hides, lay a form, asleep he gauged, by her breathing.  He could tell little of her, wrapped as she was in her blankets.

In Girok beat the heart of a thief, as many of his kind are.  Like a hunger, the lust of coveting made his fingers involuntarily clench at the thought of taking some of the things arrayed along the walls.  Then, from a darker place, the thought of murdering the woman in her sleep surfaced.  Perhaps he would, perhaps he would not.  By then he had his head and both shoulders into the sturdy tent.

Then the yeowl of a cat ripped through the still of the night.  He looked to where it came from, where the woman lay, only now she was not there and in her place was the tabby he had seen along the creek-bank.  He shook his head and blinked hard.  Still the woman was gone and the cat stood on her blankets.

Superstition was no stranger to Girok and he felt the thick hairs on his back stand up against his jerkin.  The capillaries along his arms tightened and his thick skin goose-bumped.

“Well goblin,” spoke the cat, “what do you want?”

Though well he believed of men who turned to wolves under the gaze of full moons; women who turned to cats for no reason whatsoevers was something he never considered.  At best, such things were tales told to entertain children.

“Was it not enough I let you live, though you drew your knife?” the cat asked.

“Had I known…” he said, continuing to edge forward.

She laughed.  “Do you see anything you want here?”  Still eyeing the goblin, the cat turned so that her entire length was to him.  She swished her tail and asked, “Isn’t that what you are here to do?  Steal?”

“I am hungry, and that is all,” he lied.  “And I have coin to pay.”  Girok eased himself further into the tent and only his legs remained on the outside.  When he looked up the cat was gone and in its place stood a woman.  Again the hairs on his arms and back stood up.

She was bare footed, wearing a simple, unbelted, black smock that hung to her knees.  Her white arms stood in contrast to the dim of the room and black of her garment.  She smiled and was not unpretty.  Her hair was black to match her garment and fell about her shoulders in loose ringlets.  It was too dim for him to make the color of her eyes.  They rested outside the light, in the shadow of her brow.

“I have no need of coin.”  She took another step towards the stove as Girok pulled his legs inside the tent.  He now crouched on the ground before her.  His knees again up to his shoulders, his eyes followed her.

“What is your name,” he asked, “if I may?”

A corner of her mouth curled into a smirk and she looked down at him.  Even were he standing she would be the taller.  “I am Euthena.”

“Euthena, then, if you need no coin, perhaps a servant?  I am not without skills.”  He bowed his head to the ground, ears perked for her movements.  Humans, he learned, could be lured to danger by their own egos.  He heard nothing in answer and so raised his head.  The tabby had reappeared, now on the other side of the stove.

“Can you do this?” she asked, taking another step.

“No,” he guessed she spoke of turning into a cat.

“Then of what use are your skills to me?”  The cat continued walking.  Girok noticed a wooden box against the yurt wall.  That was where she seemed to be moving.

He stood, eyes intent on the cat, and took a step towards the box.  Some element long-lost to man, deeper than an intuition he could articulate, connected something and Girok followed the voiceless cunning within himself.  He knew his path led to either doom or escape.

The cat stopped, “Where are you going?” she asked.

Girok pulled his long knife from its scabbard on his hip.  “I looked away from you once and missed my mark.  I will not look away again.”

 

The cat turned knowing, somehow, her secret lay open to the goblin.  It was true, Euthena was a witch with the most remarkable power to turn herself into a cat and back again to a human and other spells she had, some even more powerful.  Yet that spell could not be undone while someone was watching.  The goblin had guessed and now, as a cat, she was unable to perform any other spell and he, until she left his sight and only until then, would be free to do as he wished.

“What’s in that box?” he asked.

Euthena turned and walked back to the stove, hoping for a blind spot.

“Do not,” he said, “take another step.  I am more than fair at knifing.”

Something rang true in the timbre of his words.  She stopped and faced him.  “What will you?”

Knowing how easily tables turn, Girok did not gloat, though the burglar in him would have something.  “Food,” he said, “and this.”  Still eyeing the cat, he reached his hand to the wood box.  It clutched the surface like a drunken spider until it pinched the thing he thought she had been moving towards.  Not daring to look, he felt a thin, light length of wood.

“I can give you more than that, goblin,” Euthena said, almost immediately.  “But to do so I must turn back.”

He took a step towards the cat.  “At what assurance?”

“I give you my word?”

“What word?  Spell it out,” he took another step and could have struck her with the long-knife, had he chosen to do so.

Euthena the cat sighed.  “I give you my word that this night I will not try to harm you.”

“Or?”

“Or kill you.”

“Upon what?”  Girok knew very little about witches and only guessed that an oath upon something important would stay her hand.  What he had seen of humanity had been, towers, weapons, and pouches of gold not withstanding, without honor.

Euthena cleared her throat.  “I give you my word, upon my order, that this night I will neither try to harm or kill you.”

At that, and still following the voiceless cunning that was as much a part of him as the blood in his veins, Girok bowed his head and raised his arms.  When he looked up, Euthena the human stood before him.

“That,” she pointed to his hand, “is but a trifle.”

He looked to see he had grabbed a slender bit of wood, thicker than a twig but not by much.  In the dim light it was hard to tell but it seemed the color of ash and was as long as the dagger in his boot.  “What is it?” he asked.

“Sit,” she said, ignoring the question and holding out her hand.  “I will bring you food and wine.”  She did not move, her hand was still out to him.

“Not yet,” he grinned.

Without further waiting she turned and walked to a mound of pouches on the other side of the yurt.  Her feet were soundless as the floor was padded by thick hides, similar in color to the outside of the tent.  “Where were you going?” she asked, “Before you decided to sneak into my tent?”

He watched and noted she moved quickly, and with confidence – even in the semi-darkness.  That was rare for a human.

She looked over her shoulder at him.  “What’s the matter, a cat have your tongue?”  She grinned and went back to the food pouches.

It was indeed a good question.  Hitherto, Girok had not given much thought concerning what he was moving to.  He and Kuune planned on visiting the next walled man-city.  Although his departure from the previous city was mostly unplanned, he supposed that was where he would eventually go.  Though he knew he must first go through a smaller town, a place called Rylar’s Crossing.  “I travel to Rylar’s,” he said, splitting the difference.

Euthena stood and turned, with a cup in one hand and a bundle of something in the other.  “I see,” she said, walking towards him.  “Sit, please,” she nodded to the floor.

“I’ll stand.”

“As you will.”  She held the cup to him.  “But something will have to go.”

Girok’s hands were still full.  He walked back to the wooden box and placed the stick of wood atop it.  Euthena’s black eyebrows raised ever so slightly.  Still with the long knife in hand, he turned and took the cup.  He sniffed it, a rich drink smelling of raisins.  A port, he had learned in the taverns.  Another thing about the humans, they liked their drink and had as many different types as a goblin sow has children.  He took a mouth of the blood-colored vintage and swallowed.  His throat tightened as the doubly fermented wine, with just a drop of something else, burned its way down.

"I will keep my word,” she said.  “You can sheath your knife.”

Girok considered this and then did.  Already the port eased his thinking.  He was hungry, hadn’t eaten in two days of heavy walking.  He looked into the witch’s dark eyes and she smiled, handing him the bundle of food.  He smelled both bread and meat and he began eating the first thing his hand found inside the pouch.

“Would it be a fair trade,” she began, “if I were to get you to the Crossing quicker than you could make it by foot.”

“I don’t know.  How far is it?”

"It is yet five days.  But I can get you to the outskirts before dawn.”

He considered this, gulped more port and began chewing a strap of dried meat, of some sort.  He’d had no real encounters with magic, aside from his village shaman, and that had been entirely different.  He finished the meat as Euthena waited for him to finish the cup.  “That would be fair,” he managed to say before taking a final drink, after which he held it out for more.  It would, if true, throw, finally, any pursuers from the city.

That’s a funny way to think it, he mused, and soon became lost in a meandering trail of thought.  The witch faded as a threat and he became consumed by his own failure to think through what he was trying to think.

“A little sleep never hurt anyone,” Euthena said.

 

And so it happened that in the morning Girok the goblin found himself outside the yurt, straddling three long boughs of dried sassafras bound together with coarse twine.  He held the unleaved ends in his hands, like a child would hold a stick-pony.  Behind him, Euthena anointed the branched ends with a green pungent; a snot-like goo of henbane, yarrow, and who knew what else.  She said it was a flying salve.

“Hang on,” she said, “and you will soon be on your way.”  In her left hand was the wand the goblin hand nearly taken.  “If we meet again,” she told him, “I’ll scald the meat from your bones.”

Setting the clay pot on the ground she stepped back.  “Now lift your feet,” she commanded, and he did.

Several things happened at the same time.  He and the impromptu broom were immediately airborne.  He gasped and felt his innards pull back into themselves.  His hands tightened on the thin stalks of wood as the air rushed into his face so that his eyes began to water and a terrible, horrible, dizziness spun all around him.  He pitched hard to the left and then rolled completely over.  He hung upside down with his knees and elbows locked around the wood while he hurtled at an unknown angle from the ground.

After the first moments of this he looked over his shoulder and through the water in his eyes could see very little.  He thought he saw the ground but was unable to spot the yurt and, indeed, its presence was a small concern.  Suddenly very sober, and of all things, Girok remembered his buried water gourds and knew they were lost for good.

He tightened his grip on the wooden stalks and cried out to Grimpse the Unfair to, just this once, keep him from harm.

 

Euthena understood much better the physics involved with her flying salve and how she crafted her brooms, though, of course, she did not call it physics in any true sense of the word.  For that part of her craft, she was a very good, albeit illiterate, cannoneer.  She knew, for example, an approximate trajectory, and for this broom an even less approximate duration of flight for the amount of salve she had used.  Euthena did, at least to herself, keep her word and barring things like wind and fatal landings, the Goblin would be within a long day’s hike of the town.  Whether or not he had the wherewithal to find the village once he landed, well, that would be his problem.

This was her final thought on the matter as she went back inside her tent, hoping to salvage some type of sleep with what remained of the night.

The Dire Pup

a Tale from Ivy’s Youth

            “A wolf is a wolf,” said the elder Wood-Mage.

Ivy, the young tracker who had gone to the trouble of capturing the cub, did not understand.  She wondered, Is this good or bad?  Two days prior she had proudly led the cub into the village on a twine leash she herself had woven.  It was no small matter to divert the two grown females guarding the litter. But, she smirked, nothing the scent of a new slain boar could not overcome.  After she was certain the females were gone into the vale to investigate the new death she had run near-silently to where the pups were at play.

Not being choosy, she grabbed the first she could from the litter of three.  The other pups watched her trot away into the tall grasses and then disappear, the gangly legs of their brother angling oddly under her arm.  She swept into the reed-cover, her movements soundless as the wind.  One day more was spent in a stand of oak perhaps a league upwind, to make sure the adults were not tracking their lost child.

By then the pup had a name.  She called him Tumas, after the marshes near where he had been born.  Following the usual boasting and envy getting among those her own age, concerns from the elders clouded her pleasure and made her the center of a different sort of attention.  Council was called and now both she and the young dire-wolf were before them.

For his part, Tumas was still bound by the leash.  Only now it was attached to a stake in the earth.  He lay in the dust before them, black eyes watching the proceedings.  His pelt was already beginning to grow long and the ends were matting with dirt and dense tangles of fur.

“Perhaps three moons old,” Albayth continued, “and as tall as a lamb.”  Others near him nodded.

Was this good or bad?  Of course a wolf is a wolf.

“Return him,” he said.  “He is out of place.”  Again, the others nodded.

She swore a little to herself and before thinking asked, “How?  The pack may have moved by now.  They must be wary.”

“The bringer must learn to bring forth again.”  And then, “Set out tomorrow.”

This, she decided, is not fair.

“He is now a risk.  And you brought it to us.  A wolf is a wolf.  These kind speak among themselves.  Already last night he howled for long minutes.  Who knows but what could hear those cries?  Who knows but what shall answer.”

When she had been allowed to go to the human town last summer, the children there had pets; dogs on ropes, birds in wicker cages, one family even had a goat used neither for cheese nor milk.  This luxury she wanted, a pet.  But humans slept easily in their town, in their houses of lumber and stone.  It was gated and surrounded by wall.  Her village had not that luxury, either.

Albayth’s eyes widened.  Ivy nodded, no more questions.

She woke before dawn, dressed, slipped her small traveler's pouch over her shoulder and took only the thin-hafted javelin, same as before.  She went to where Tumas lay, near the center of the elder’s yurts.  He had howled again during much of the early evening.  She untied the cord from the stake.  The pup stretched itself and yawned. Knowing both the positions and the wariness of the night wards, she left the village on the same path she had used days before.

The land descended through tall fir and pine.  The needles amassed on the ground and masked the noise of their passage.  At the bottoms, she held to a cliff-line of shale and flint and then descended further into a sharp ravine.  That morning a brace of pixies saw only a slender elf maid, gold-skinned by sun and wind, hair youth-brown, not yet auburn, leading as it were a tall dog on a leash through early morning mists.

The forests gave way to the grasslands where Pepper trees and oak began to grow.  She paused at a stream and they both drank.  And at this point she was standing on the edge of the truly wild lands.  Ivy examined the ground for tracks.  Her quick grey eyes noted nothing unfamiliar or dangerous.  She broke and ate a portion of pemmican, offered some to Tumas.  He would not have it.  She picked it from the ground and put it back in her pouch.

From the stream she could see the small bump on the horizon that was the copse of trees where she had slept three nights earlier with her new pup.  From there she knew it was a long morning’s walk to where the pack roamed.  If they were searching they could easily be nearby. She looked at Tumas who stared back at her, his eyes shining like small pots of black ink.

They crossed the creek and made for the trees.  The scrub gave way to the grasses that were as tall as she.  The air warmed and changed, she smelled the swamps to the west.  It was a bright day and the sky was rich blue, the king in His robes of blessing.  The clouds were a thin spray of gauze and her thoughts wondered over many things as they walked.

By late afternoon she again sat in the woven stand, built into the tallest tree.  From that height she felt she could see everything.  Behind her was the tree-line of the forest and further to the west the dark line of marsh.  To the south was a small valley where she had slain the boar and to the north the grass extended and widened as a sea whose limits she did not know.  Nightfall was near.  She pet Tumas and pulled bits of dirt from his coat.  They napped.

She awoke in the dark with inspiration.  She hefted the cub and climbed from the tree.  She untied the rope from his collar and stood.  Tumas looked at her, shook himself, and walked in the direction he knew as home.

Simple as that.  This bringer has brought forth again, she said aloud to herself.  One night in a tree, then home I’ll be, an old proverb taught to the children.  She returned to the stand and sat.  She ate another half of pemmican cake.  It was dry and she wished for water.  But that will have to wait until tomorrow.  And it was thoughts such as these that distracted her so that she did not see the rustling grass moving in a long arc around the trees.

She heard a yip and a heavy wet growl.  Ivy peeked over the edge of her nest and saw Tumas directly below.  Points of silver shine stared at her.  He turned his head behind him and growled quick.

Then there was an even deeper howl, and then another, a third, and fourth.  She stared beneath her and watched them emerge; three females and male, he as tall as a horse.  Their thick manes of matted fir bristled nearly straight from their necks to their tails.  The eight black eyes with pin-pricks of red stared at her.  One of the females, a young Ivy guessed, jumped at the tree but fell short by half.  They circled and growled, yapping in almost vulgar snarls.  She saw their white teeth and blood-red tongues and she wept.

After a while she lay down in the middle of the stand.  She did not sleep but did not look down. Ivy played endless variations in her head.  How they would leave, how Tumas might speak to them on her behalf, how that something would happen and they might be satisfied to merely frighten her.

At dawn, with the first fingers of sun, she looked again.  Carefully, as carefully as she might, peeking over the edge of the stand and her heart quickened.  Two of the females were still there, both as tall as she.

Ivy had no illusions of outrunning them.  She had no illusions of killing them with her javelin.  She looked at the spear, less thick around than her wrist, and doubted even a village warrior could kill a dire-wolf with such a thing.  Her mouth was dry and small trembles made her close her fingers into fists.

Strips of clouds came from the north though at times the sun blasted through them, creating wedges of gold on the land.  During the day she ate pemmican.  The adult wolves were never far and at times the grass would move where the pups played and roamed.

This is my second day without water.  I have but one more.  She collected her options but could find only three.  She could sit, or run, or fight.  Each led to the same conclusion.

Once during the last hour of the day the male and the other female returned.  They growled and snarled among themselves.  The pups lay on their haunches to the side.  She could no longer discern the one she named Tumas.  As the final bars of light closed over the west, the pack trotted into the grasses.

Ivy closed her eyes and listened.  She heard nothing, not even a night bug, not even a cicada.  Pins of gold, fireflies, darted in clumps before they too darkened.  Peeking once again over the edge of the stand, she saw nothing.  Rising a little she scanned in each direction.  Neither motion nor creatures were to be seen.

She clutched her javelin and after a deep breath descended.  She paused on the ground, knowing how quick they were.  Seeing nothing she set off at a trot towards the tree line.  At a good pace it would take her a third of a night’s passage to reach the creek.  She was nearing three-hundred steps when she heard a deep growl behind her and she swore.

Behind her heart, fear grew wings like a spreading net and she sprinted as hard as she could.  But no matter.  To her side she saw one of the females, loping at half-speed.  She heard rusting grass along the other side and behind her more sounds of padded feet.  After perhaps another fifty steps she stopped.  Before her, less than a javelin cast distant, was the hulk of the male, head down, the black rim of his mouth upturned.

Ivy gulped great draughts of night air thinking how strange it would be if her last thoughts were of thirst.  With her javelin before her she turned and turned again.  But the wolves did not advance.

Then, from the grasses, approached the pups.  Their fur bristled and in half-crouches they roamed within the boundaries set by the adults.  They snarled and yapped among themselves.  The elders sat back like dogs, grinning.  Ivy knew but could not articulate it; they were letting the young ones kill her.

Tumas, she said. Just then one of them ran and leapt at her throat.  She pushed him back with her javelin.  He rolled and came back to his feet.  Then a second, hoping to pin her from behind, leapt.  Ivy stepped to the side and turned in the direction of the third, hearing the jaw snap close to her ear, and then felt the spittle splay on the back of her neck.  Ivy thought, I’m not going to be able to do this.  This one prepared to leap full upon her and she knew the others would join.

It seemed at the last, though perhaps she had a few more moments, there stood Albayth, long curved blade in hand.  He spoke new words, words she had never heard before, “Aarngmafell Aaringus Slidalsk,” and then was a sound like pottery crumbling.  The two elves were suddenly on the other side of a receding wind. The fur of the dire-wolves pushed back gently and they began to look to one another.

There were slight bird-like yelps from them.  They turned their heads to either side, looked away into the night sky, and then loped off into the grasses.

Ivy felt the Wood-Mage take her hand in his.  “We must yet run.  This will hold only for a while.”  He sheathed his blade and they set off together through the night.

“How?” she asked.

“At the village," he said to her, "save your breath for the village.”