Lizardman At Arms, and More- "And Then There Were Three"

The year was 742, A.F., and Gwen Surefire, Half-Elf Aeromancer, wasn’t entirely sure she would live to see her next birthday as the ship she traveled on came under arrow attack by a roving band of Lizardman raiders.

She had been traveling along the Martak River from just east of Desanadron for five days, hoping to make good time away from the big city on her way to Palen, where she anticipated receiving instruction from the elusive Great Sage who dwelled there. Her mastery of wind magic was complete, and she hoped that he would invite her to an audience where she would ask to be taught the last spells of Aeromancy, the lost, ancient spells that had remained hidden from all mages throughout the land.

She had left Desanadron to the north and east, through a large shipping port along the river, where she paid a handsome sum of gold to a Jaft shipping captain to bring her on board for the long trip east. The blue-skinned humanoid had warned her that they often encountered raiders along the way, especially when the ship passed on the river through the Allenian Hills region, where Khan routinely tried to smuggle aboard and steal from them. A few of the more honorable Simpa often asked them to stop and sell them any spare supplies they might have, but the more savage Werelion tribes raided them outright, just like the brutal Weretigers.

“I’ll help deal with them,” Gwen had promised. Now, however, as she cowered in the pilot box on deck, she wasn’t so sure she could be much help. Gwen wore light leather armor, and had been skimmed by an arrow loosed by one of the Lizardman raiders. The arrowhead tore through her flimsy armor like parchment, and she didn’t want to be riddled with more of the weapons.

The captain, steering the ship with a lack of concern, looked back and down at where she sat, crouched with her hands over her head.

“Some fucking help you are, Elf,” he spat with clear disdain. “Sorry, half-Elf. Can you steer at least?”

“No,” she yelled over the sound of the first raiders screaming as they leaped on board the deck and started clashing with the other Jaft crewmen, who all attacked the intruders with spears and war hammers.

The Lizardmen, who were of one of the less civilized tribes of their Race, fell swiftly to the skilled and efficient tactics of the blue-fleshed warriors, whose natural stench had taken Gwen a full two days’ time to become accustomed to.

“I have no experience with sailing!” she admitted.

The captain sighed heavily, and veered the boat toward the southern shore of the river.

“Hold on then! I’m going to beach the ship temporarily!”

“I didn’t pay for you to do that,” Gwen shouted, her pride insulted by his clear lack of appreciation for her magical prowess. Then again, she thought, I’m not exactly demonstrating any of that power.

“You didn’t pay me to allow you command of the ship, either, bitch,” he growled back at her over his shoulder. “Now either get out there and start wielding your magic, or prepare to beach!”

Flustered, Gwen stood to her full five feet of height, glared at the grimacing captain, and ducked out onto the deck. She saw with a small measure of relief that the crew had mostly repelled the raiders, but several Lizardmen were sneaking on board from the other side of the deck. They must have used small boats to get to the other side. Well, let's see what they do about me!

Gwen strode confidently forward, whispering words of power and drawing on her magic.

“Suvien shwartz,” she cried, thrusting her spread fingers toward five of the raiders who had drawn weapons.

They had a moment to face her before a tunnel of white wind blasted into them, tossing them screaming overboard to crash into the river.

The Jafts turned to face the unseen assailants, and several of them gave her an appreciative thumb’s up for her effort.

Gwen smiled and nodded at them, seeing the stunned looks on their faces a few moments before she was sent sprawling by a Lizardman who struck her upside her head with a heavily mailed fist.

White light exploded behind her eyes as the reptilian warrior struck her, and as she landed in a limp heap near the opposing railing, the Half-Elf Aeromancer felt a twinge of emotion she wasn’t very familiar with—fury. In all of her years of study of magic, she had rarely been tried by such warriors. Gwen was young for a Half-Elf, only thirty-six years old, but she had trained vigorously in Desanadron to become a master of her chosen art. To be brushed aside like a fly by such a, such a brute, she thought, was not only unacceptable, it was insulting!

Leaping to her feet, her head still throbbing, she heard only the harsh, guttural laughter of the Lizardman who had struck her. He held a wicked scimitar of a blue-tinted steel, and was handily cutting down the Jaft crewmen who came between him and Gwen.

Blood splashed and the crew members fell as the apparent leader of these raiders approached with ease and an unsettling grace.

“Everybody get out of the way,” she screamed, her usually light and lilting voice carrying all of the authority of a regal princess or queen.

The Jafts all seemed to hear her, and probably discerned her intentions from the sudden rush of magic she brought to bear.

The Lizardman raider smiled blithely at her, and brought his scimitar up, licking Jaft blood off of the edge with his forked tongue.

Gwen felt a quiver of illness in her stomach, but bit back the urge to vomit at such a sight. She wove her hands in the air, drawing symbols of arcane power at her sides. Magical power thrummed through her body, and the reptilian warrior paused for a moment, concern and curiosity mixing in his expression. Before he could move to defend himself, Gwen unleashed one of her most powerful spells.

“Singen Jukuhow!” Gwen drew her hands together in a forward clap, bringing the symbols crashing into one another in the air.

From her joined hands came a tremendous thunderclap that rocked the entire boat. A set of three rings of force wavered toward the Lizardman.

The reptilian warrior brought his hands up feebly to ward off the magic, but to no effect. As each wave of power struck, it shredded first his clothes and armor, then his scaled flesh, and finally his muscle tissue, leaving a pile of bones and organs teetering grossly on its feet. The corpse staggered a few feet, and then dropped with a splash of blood and guts to the deck.

A triumphant roar arose from the crewmen, and the rest of the Lizardman raiders, their attention focused solely on their handily slain leader, were tossed overboard by strong Jafts who lifted their quarries by the throats and hauled them over with ease.

Gwen, spent from the amount of mana used in her spell, sat her rear end heavily on the deck.

A large shadow loomed over her after a moment, and she looked up into the face of the captain, who cocked a bald eyebrow at her. “That, was impressive,” he said to her just before Gwen passed out.

* * * *

When the Half-Elf Aeromancer awoke, she found herself swathed in soft, velvet sheets upon a lavish bed she knew was not the one in her assigned quarters. She tried to sit up, but a wave of vertigo halted her efforts.

She closed her eyes, and heard the heavy breathing of someone seated near the head of the bed. She opened her eyes, and saw the captain sitting in a rustic rocking chair, his arms crossed over his huge, bare chest.

“Where am I,” she asked, surprised at the weak quality of her voice.

“You’re in my wife’s quarters, though she is not pleased about it,” said the captain. “I never properly introduced myself when you paid for your passage on board. I am Gronen Mattock. I know you are called Gwen, and I apologize for my harsh words to you up on deck.”

Gwen waved his apology off, finally managing to sit up with help from the captain, Gronen.

“I didn’t know you were married, captain,” she said with a smile as he handed her a mug filled with steaming tea.

Gronen’s face remained in its semi-permanent scowl, and he nodded.

“She is the ship’s cook, if you must know. Her name is Thelma Mattock. You ripped that chieftain apart, by the way,” Gronen said, taking a sip from his own mug, which Gwen could smell was filled with coffee instead of tea. “Where did you learn such powerful magic?”

“I trained with a Guild in Desanadron,” Gwen informed him. She looked down into her mug, and drank half of the contents within. It was sweet, flavored with a drop of honey. The tea warmed her stomach, which she was reminded now was pretty much empty. She hadn’t eaten all day, and would have to request food be brought to her. “I have been studying Aeromancy for quite some time now. I am on my way to Palen to hopefully learn the most ancient of Aeromancy spells from a Great Sage.”

Gronen made a somewhat rude noise from his throat, and spat on the hardwood floor.

“Something wrong,” she asked.

Gronen got to his feet and stalked a few yards away from the bed. “I’ve met this Great Sage you speak of on one occasion,” the Jaft said in his harsh tone of voice, his back to Gwen. His black brigandine pants seemed rather small on him, Gwen noticed, as though the leather and iron-banded trousers could barely contain the musculature of the man wearing them. “He sent a messenger pigeon to our vessel, requesting we ship something for him from Desanadron to Palen. We prefer not to take shipments across land, but he requested that we personally deliver the item in question. When we disembarked, me and a quarter of my crew traveled by arranged horses to Palen, north and east of our port. When we arrived with his package, which was in a large wooden crate, he did not even come out of his manor or to his front gates.

“Four of my men tried to take the crate to his front door, and were torn apart by strange, black magic before they covered a quarter of the distance,” Gronen growled. He half turned toward Gwen, who finished her tea and set the mug on a nightstand near the other side of the bed from the rocker. “The bastard only came out after they were slain, and laughed at us like a lunatic! And do you know what he pulled out of the top of that crate?”

“You didn’t know what it was,” Gwen asked, surprised that the captain of the shipping vessel wouldn’t have inquired.

“We were paid handsomely not to make any inquiries, or open the crate itself,” Gronen muttered. “We gave our word to his servant, and we are Jafts. We are honor-bound to keep our word, Gwen of the Half-Elves.” He reached over to a coat rack and pulled on a chain shirt over his bare upper torso. “He pulled out a scepter of some sort, and swept it with a flourish over the corpses of my men. They arose from the ground, and at first, I was gladdened. However, when they turned to face me, their eyes were empty, soulless orbs lacking any true sight. They followed him into his manor, and I never saw or heard from them again.”

Gronen left the cabin then, slamming the oak door shut behind him.

Gwen used the uncomfortable silence to think over what she had just learned about the man she intended to go learn from.

* * * *

An hour after Gronen left her, Gwen got up from the bed. She was about to head out of the chamber and return to her own assigned quarters, when Thelma Mattock entered the cabin.

Thelma, like the other females of her Race, did not stink like the men of the crew, and her head was graced with a full pate of luxurious hair. Her stark, raven-black eyes pierced into Gwen’s own, and the Half-Elf felt a tad diminished by the naked glare she was being given.

“Are you finished with mine and my husband’s bed,” Thelma growled with clear anger.

“Yes, and I am most thankful for the use of it,” Gwen stammered, her heart racing. She had barely recovered enough of her mana through rest to defend herself, should the need arise. Thelma seemed highly offended by her very presence, and Gwen skirted past her and out of the cabin, into the hallway below the uppermost deck.

Her own quarters were one more level below, in the bottom deck, where only she and one other crew member had quarters. The cargo hold dominated the bottom deck, and her quarters were pressed in tight all around as a result.

Once she was in the hallway, Gwen wanted to get topside and find out how close to the Allenian Hills they were. She knew she would be needed to defend the vessel again once they were within that region, and she needed to know how much time she had to rest, eat, and recover her mana reserves. Checking herself quickly for her few worn possessions, she headed up to the top deck, into the clean, crisp air of early evening.

Only a dozen or so crewmen were up on deck, most of them adjusting ropes and mounting weapons on the side railings. Two of the men busily and happily swabbed the deck, cleaning it of the blood that had dried to the boards. A group of four rather gloomy-looking chaps were slowly, reverently preparing the bodies of the few Jafts who had suffered wounds too serious to regenerate in the earlier scrap with the Lizardmen raiders.

Deep, searing guilt bore down on Gwen’s conscience. Could that have been prevented, if I had simply helped out earlier on in the battle?

The Aeromancer shook her head to clear it of such thoughts, knowing full well that it would do her little good to dwell on the matter. These Jafts knew the risks of being sailors on the rivers and seas—it came with the job.

Gwen looked to her left, to the pilot box, but didn’t find the captain there. The first mate, a man named Shtur Bonebreaker was at the helm, piloting the ship with a practiced ease as he chuffed away on a pipe. The Aeromancer realized with a start that in the five days she had been on board, the only person she’d really spoken with at any length was Gronen. She had made no other acquaintances on board, and none of the crewmen exactly went out of their way to speak with her.

Suddenly feeling very alone, Gwen headed to the south-facing edge of the ship and leaned on the railing, looking out at the flat grasslands there.

When a crewman came near, checking the surrounding area for signs of any more raiders, she asked him how close they were to the Allenian Hills.

“Still another full day, day and a half, miss,” he replied, and left her to her thoughts and private council.

A few minutes later, Gwen heard the heavy footfalls of another crewmember, and when she turned her head to see, she was surprised to find that it was not a Jaft, but a Human.

The man wore a simple yellow tunic over faded black jeans, and he wore a rapier on his left hip, as well as carrying several vials and pouches on his right side.

Why haven’t I seen this man before, she wondered.

The stranger smiled at her, and his thin, black mustache curled as he did so. She could see that his eyes were a wonderfully deep shade of green, like her own, and his face was otherwise untouched by scars or signs of age.

Gwen blushed slightly as he gave her his charming smile. She was herself rather unattractive, she thought. She had a young girl’s face, with no blemishes at least, but with none of the graceful curves or lines of her mother’s own Elven visage. She had just time enough before the man spoke to also remind herself that unlike her mother, her chest was also just about as flat as her back. She was rather unremarkable, she thought, and so she was puzzled by this stranger’s sudden approach. By and large, by her own observations, Human men only approached women they knew as friends, family, or potential lays. She didn’t know the man, wasn’t related to him in any way she knew of, and so she immediately thought he might be approaching for the latter reason; to get some cheap thrills.

“Greetings, mistress,” he said, his voice husky and pleasant, as he gave her a slight bow.

She turned and pressed her back to the railing then, and flushed completely.

“I am Aaron Horn, a Human as you can plainly see, and a practitioner of Aquamancy,” he said.

Ah, so there’s the tie-in, she thought as he rose to look her in the eyes. A fellow magic-user.

“I saw your earlier spellcasting against the Lizardman raiders, and was thoroughly impressed and intrigued. I would have helped, but as you know, the Jafts have a natural fear of water and ice magic.” His smile revealed a row of perfectly aligned teeth to Gwen, and she found in it a rather disturbing natural attraction.

Behave yourself, girl, she chided herself. You’re on this vessel for business, not pleasure!

“I am Gwen Surefire,” she said, and curtsied politely. “Half-Elf and Aeromancer, Mr. Horn. And I’m sure that captain Gronen would have willingly put aside his discomfort if aid could have been given against the raiders.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll allow me to help if we are set upon by Khan or Simpa in the Allenians.” The Human Aquamancer stepped closer.

Gwen tried to press herself further into the woodwork of the railing but found that it had no give, as she should have expected. Butterflies fluttered around in her stomach, and she felt more blood rush into her cheeks as he neared her. He smelled wonderful to her nostrils, like jasmine and musk blended subtly together. After several solid days of being around the natural rot and body odor of the blue-skinned, bald warriors on board, she supposed any scent was welcome.

“I’m sure he will,” she replied. “Tell me, what business brings you on board?”

Aaron Horn strode up next to her, and leaned forward on the railing, and for a brief moment, Gwen saw the captain out of the corner of her eye, grinning bemusedly at the two of them. Oh, he’s going to have something to say about this, I know it.

“I am heading east, to Palen,” he said.

Gwen’s heart skipped a few beats, and he continued, with Gwen hanging to his every word. “My brother Steven lives there, and has recently lost his wife to a tragic accident.” His voice now dropped a note with regret. “She was an Alchemist, and was experimenting with various poisons, as they often do. While mixing two of these, she formed a gaseous mix, which she inhaled and which then killed her.”

“Oh, my,” Gwen said softly. She put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

Aaron Horn smiled at her, and patted her hand on his shoulder. His touch was icy and frozen, his magical power seemingly contained only by the barest of thresholds.

“I thank you for your kind words,” he said. “But the loss is my brother’s not mine. I go to console him as best I may. What of you, Gwen Surefire? What business brings you on this vessel?”

Gwen withdrew her hand, and leaned over the railing in the same fashion as the man next to her.

“I too head to Palen,” she said. “I go to seek the Great Sage who lives there, to learn the last few ancient spells of Aeromancy not already in my arsenal.”

“The Great Sage,” he asked, giving her a perplexed look. “But I thought that was just a rumor that he lived in Palen!”

Gwen smiled broadly at him and shook her head. “No, it is true, he resides therein, on the eastern border of the City of Magic.” She looked out over the plains once again. She spotted a far off caravan, several covered wagons heading east and slightly south. The failing light of the evening made it impossible for her to see exactly how many people were in the caravan, or of what Race they might be. Probably heading for the trading town in the Allenians, she thought. I hope they’ll be okay. I hope we’ll be okay. “I only pray he will invite me to his manor to learn from him. He only invites a few mages each year to train with him and I am not a resident of the city. I can only hope that he will read a request from me if I send it.”

She heaved a sigh and listened to the sounds of the ship passing through the deep water of the river, feeling a cool, comforting wind pass over her forehead from the south. Aaron remained beside her for a few minutes, and then he excused himself. “A man has to eat,” he said with a grin. “I hope perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to speak again during our trip.” He gave her a grand, sweeping bow, then took his leave and headed below decks, leaving Gwen alone and wistful.

She saw the captain approaching as soon as Aaron Horn was out of sight, and she didn’t care much for the lopsided grin on his blue face.

“Something I can help you with, Captain Gronen?” she asked haughtily, turning once more to the railing. “Or can a girl enjoy the view in peace?”

Gronen laughed at this, and shook his big, hairless head.

“No, no, I just wanted to give you fair warning. This isn’t a cruise ship, Ms. Surefire.” He gestured over his shoulder. “The other passenger, Mr. Horn, may tickle your fancy, but you should be cautious about flings at sea.”

“We’re on a river, captain, not at sea,” she pointed out with a note of scorn. “And as for any ‘fling’ you may infer, I’ll have you know it’s a girl’s prerogative to make herself happy. Given my isolation aboard your ship, I think a spot of Mr. Horn’s company will suit me nicely.” She turned to face the muscular sailor with her hands on her hips. “Or is that sort of behavior not allowed on board?”

Gronen laughed again, a hoarse, gravely sound, throwing his head back and waving his hands defensively.

“Do not misunderstand me, Ms. Surefire.” He wiped a laugh-induced tear from his right eye. “I’d just hate to see you get hurt because of any misunderstandings. That’s all.”

Gwen harrumphed loudly and left the deck, heading down for her private, cramped quarters. She could hear the captain’s laughter in her mind as she lay down on her small, uncomfortable cot.

* * * *

Gronen had taken a nap earlier, so that he could pilot the ship that night as they passed closer to the Allenian Hills.

His wife, Thelma, entered the pilot box at around midnight, smiling gently at her husband and offering him another mug of coffee.

He thanked her, and kissed her lovingly on the cheek.

“I’m sorry about getting mad at you about the Half-Elf girl,” Thelma offered, taking one of the two spots on the bench behind the spoke-riddled wheel.

“It’s understandable, dear.” He took a quick sip of the hot, strong liquid. He set it down on the small, square elm wood table next to the helm, and stared out at the deck.

His navigator signaled down and back to him from the crow’s nest, and the captain turned the wheel accordingly. “I’m worried about her, though.”

“Was she injured worse than we thought?” Thelma asked, genuinely concerned.

Her husband, whom she loved more than the ship and the open seas, looked back at her over his broad shoulder, and she could see the scowl on his face.

“No,” he said, returning his gaze forward and taking another pull of his coffee from its purple ceramic mug. “It’s the other passenger, the Human. I believe she is infatuated with him, and I don’t trust that son of a bitch one bit.”

Thelma laughed aloud, and stood up, putting her arms around her husband’s well sculpted stomach.

“You just don’t like him because he’s handsome, and he’s an Aquamancer,” she chided amiably. She kissed the back of his neck, feeling the tremor that ripped down his body.

“It’s more than that, and please, dear, I’m trying to pilot the ship.” He chuckled lightly. “If you keep that up, I’m going to have to call the first mate up and take you down to our cabin.” He cleared his throat, and attempted to clear his head. Partial success was attained there, which was enough to let him continue. “He’s shifty, Thelma, and what’s more, one of the men caught him snooping around in the cargo hold yesterday. We’re not carrying anything that’s contraband where we’re heading, but I don’t like having anyone but the men in there. You know that.”

He sighed as she gripped him in a fierce, brief embrace from behind.

She released him, took a sip of his coffee, and sat back down on the bench.

“I know dear. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Keep an eye on him.” Gronen once again adjusted the ship’s course by the navigator’s gestures. “And post a guard inside the cargo hold. If he sneaks in again, I want him clapped in irons and locked in his chamber. I’ll have words with him personally after that.”

Thelma got up, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and moved out of the pilot box to carry out his request.

He was left alone then with his thoughts, and he wondered, not for the first time, which he loved more—sailing, or being alone with his wife in their cabin. As always, he chose the latter over the former with a wide smile.

* * * *

Gwen was awakened by a rough shaking on her shoulder. When she opened her eyes with a flutter, she found the first mate looming over her, his face covered with a cold sweat. “Come topside, quickly! The captain wants to have a word with you, and there may be trouble for us all!”

“What’s wrong?” she murmured, hurriedly tossing aside her bed sheets and grabbing her only weapon, a smooth-headed mace that she kept for when her mana reserves dried up. She had only minimal training with the weapon, but its weight on her hip gave her reassurance against her worries, and she followed the first mate up to the top deck of the ship.

He didn’t give her any further explanation, and when she came out of the stairwell to the top deck of the ship, she saw why the captain had sent for her.

The ship’s sails were unfurled, but there was no wind to press the ship onward. Captain Gronen, looking more than a little tired, stood silhouetted against the early morning sunlight that pressed down on the lands surrounding the river. He hastily approached her, and gave her a curt bow of his head. “We normally have the river’s current to carry us along, Mr. Surefire, but our cargo for this trip is too heavy, and we are weighted down too much to continue at more than a turtle’s crawl. We are hoping you can provide us with enough wind current to get us going at full speed again.”

Gwen smiled at the request, confident in her ability to give the captain more than a little boost of speed. “I can give your vessel all the speed it can manage,” she said, heading over to the pilot box’s left side, and climbing a ladder affixed to the side for scouts who would watch for pursuit on the open seas.

Once atop the pilot box, Gwen summoned up her magical power, and sent a powerful gale into the sails, speeding the ship along at twice her normal cruising speed.

Captain Gronen laughed and called up to her. “Slow it down a little, Gwen Surefire! My first mate is a competent pilot, but not so good at such high speeds! You don’t want us to crash, do you?”

She pulled back a little on the magic, a spell simple enough for her to maintain for a number of hours.

“Very good! When you feel a natural wind current again, let go of your power! I’ll be below, getting some rest!”

Gwen gave him her okay, and continued with her task with pleasure. She continued to provide power for three hours, until the natural breezes began to carry them again, and then she released her flow from the sails. The ship continued on at the same pace, and she descended the ladder to find Aaron Horn waiting for her at the bottom.

“Very useful, aren’t we?” he asked with a grin.

Once again Gwen felt her face flush with a quick burst of blood. Her dreams had been full of images of the man, and in these dreams, she was engaged with him in acts she had only heard and read about. She felt a strange rush of energy in her loins, and she found she could not speak.

“I was wondering if you’d like to have an early lunch with me in my quarters,” he asked suddenly.

She nodded mutely.

He took her hand, and guided her below decks.

His own quarters, she noted, were much like the captain’s, and Gwen privately wondered how much he had paid the captain for such accommodations. A meal had already been laid out for them at a lavish elm wood table, and they sat across from one another before the plates and bowls.

They enjoyed the well-prepared meal in comfortable silence, and when they finished, Aaron asked her to tell him more about herself.

“Well, I was born and raised in Desanadron. I’m a Half-Elf, as you are aware, and I’m thirty-six.”

“Pretty young, even for a half-breed,” he commented, taking a swig of mead from his glass mug.

She didn’t care for the term he used, but coming from him, she guessed she didn’t mind so much. He had struck her as handsome during the evening before, and found him even more attractive by the daylight coming in through the portside window of his chambers. I wonder if he’ll ask to bed me, she thought, her heart and stomach aflutter.

“Yes, well, every bird has to leave the nest eventually,” she said, looking away as she blushed. “I joined one of the mage Guilds in the city, the Compass Points Guild. They study, teach and practice the four elemental schools of magic.”

“Compass Points,” he asked. Then his face lit with realization. “Ah, I get it! Four points of the compass, four elemental schools of magic! Very clever.” He took another chug of his ale. “How long did you study with them?”

“Ten years.” She flipped her long hair aside with her left hand. Its chestnut hue glimmered in the light coming into the room, and she wondered for a brief moment if perhaps he found it as pretty as her father had always said it was. “I studied under a Sorcerer Supreme, Ranatome Vukshak, a Gnome Aeromancer. He’s one of the most skilled in all the land of Tamalaria. He knows two of the ancient Aeromancy spells, but he refused to teach them to me. He claimed he did not have the right, and that I, like he, would have to discover them on my own,” she said with a small growl. “I hated that.”

“I can imagine.” He stood with a flourish, heading past her to an oak armoire. ” “Would you like some wine? I brought some of my own for the trip,” He stood with his back to her, opening one door and pulling out a fat bottle of red fluid.

“Um, sure,” she stammered. When did I last have alcohol, she asked herself. It must be months since my last glass of wine. Mom and dad were never keen on me drinking the stuff.

Gwen had lived in the Guildhall for the last two years, but she still obeyed a lot of the rules laid down by her parents during her upbringing, especially those rules set by her father. He never resorted to corporal punishment, but he used the classical guilt trip like no one else she knew, and of all of the emotions in life, she despised feeling guilty the most.

Aaron Horn poured her a glass of wine, and handed it to her. She took a sniff of it as she swished it around in its glass, and her nostrils flared at the wonderful aroma of mixed fruits and berries.

He took his seat once more, and smiled broadly at her. “It’s a fine wine, I assure you.” He finished off his own ale.

She took a sip, and marveled at the light taste of it in her mouth. She could detect no trace of alcohol in it, which pleased her further.

“You can hardly taste the alcohol, can you?”

“Can’t taste it at all,” she said, quaffing the whole glass in another large gulp.

He laughed aloud, and poured her another glass. They continued to talk about their own respective pasts, all the while spied upon by a keen set of eyes and ears.

Thelma watched through the spy hole in the wall between his chamber and one of the crewmen’s rooms, and listened to the two of them prattle on for a while. When the girl was bobbing her head and trilling drunkenly, Thelma moved out of the room. She was going to let her husband, as captain of the ship, decide what to do next.

Because as far as Thelma was concerned, the girl was on the verge of being taken advantage of, and Thelma preferred to watch Gronen hurt people instead of doing it herself.

* * * *

Gronen had been sleeping fitfully, and was already quick to anger when his wife roused him. “What the hell is it?” he asked her gruffly as he swung his legs over the edge of their bed.

“I just thought you’d like to know that Mr. Horn has gotten the girl quite drunk in his private quarters.”

The immediate grimace of fury and concern on her husband’s face caused her to inch away from him.

“I would like to remind you, dear, that you agreed to give him access to the room when he paid, and promised him privacy while on board,” she said, a tad more cautiously.

“To the hells with that,” he groused, standing up and moving swiftly over to where he kept his war hammer hung on the wall. Instead of grabbing the heavy stone weapon, he pulled on his chain shirt and a pair of heavily plated metal gloves. “I promised the girl we’d take care of her as best we could, and I’ll not have her taken advantage of on my ship. Not on my watch.” He headed out of the cabin with Thelma on his heels.

“Gronen, what are you planning to do,” Thelma asked, worried that perhaps she had judged wrongly in coming to her husband with the knowledge of what she’d spied. Her husband was prone to unspeakable violence when it came to defending women, a fact that she enjoyed when certain fools at port insulted her honor. She’d watch with glee as Gronen beat said fools into bloody masses of quivering meat, and he didn’t limit his physical punishment to any one kind of man. He’d slugged it out with skilled Werewolf fighters a few times, and for the most part, came out on top. Only twice had he been bested when someone insulted his wife or offended her otherwise, and in each instance it had been by Minotaurs who had lots of experience with Boxing arts.

But Gronen was also a very clever man, and he gave Thelma a sly grin over his shoulder. “Why, nothing much. I’m going to ask him to come up on deck to prepare for defense against Khan and Simpa raiders. It’s a half truth, so it’ll blow over pretty well,” he said.

Thelma marveled at her husband’s ingenuity, and followed dutifully as he knocked on the Human’s chamber door.

* * * *

Gwen had gotten herself into a state of mind that she often referred to as ‘pleasantly fuzzy’, which essentially meant that she was drunk enough to laugh at anything. Aaron Horn turned out to be somewhat of a comedian, and had her nearly in stitches when there was a knock at his door.

Aaron smiled at her and stood up, heading over to the door as she drained her seventh glass of wine.

Aaron Horn opened the door. There stood captain Gronen with his wife, Thelma, looking somewhat stern next to him.

“Mr. Horn, I apologize for the intrusion. I was hoping, however, that you might be able to come topside and prepare to aid us with any raiders, Khan or Simpa, who might come at us within the next few hours. We are almost into the Allenians, but we have been attacked before this close to the region by members of both Races,” Gronen lied, his own face inscrutable.

“Oh,” Aaron said, clearly taken aback. He turned partially and looked at Gwen, who smiled and waved with drunken friendliness at the captain and his wife. “Well, um, I was just talking with Gwen, and we were having a good laugh,” he said, trying quite clearly to cry off of Gronen’s request.

“I understand, and as I said, I apologize for the intrusion. But you did offer to help us defend against raiders, Mr. Horn, and I need to hold you now to that offer,” Gronen said with a small, terse smile.

Aaron Horn slumped his shoulders, and hung his head with a brief sigh. When he looked up, he beamed at the married Jaft couple with his disarming smile, and he nodded.

“Very well. Um, I don’t think Ms. Surefire can help much right now. She’s had a bit of wine, and she’s, well, she’s rather drunk, I’m afraid,” he said bashfully. “Perhaps she should just lie down on my bed, if I’m going to be on deck.”

“I’ll help her back to her own quarters.” Thelma slipped past Aaron Horn and gathered the Half-Elf girl in a fireman’s carry.

Gwen laughed explosively at her, and pounded on her back.

“You two go on ahead. I’ll join you shortly,” Thelma said.

Gronen put a huge arm over Aaron’s shoulders, and led him upstairs as Thelma rushed Gwen down to her quarters.

Once inside, Thelma set her on her bed, laughing and twitching, and produced a yellow pill from one of her pouches. She handed the pill to Gwen, who stared at it with bleary eyes.

“Take it now, Gwen dear,” Thelma said with a soft smile. The Half-Elf Aeromancer swallowed the pill, and a few minutes later, gripped the sides of her head before Thelma handed her a slop bucket to vomit into. “That’s to be expected, dear,” she offered, rubbing Gwen’s back softly.

“Oh, my head.” Gwen felt a deep, throbbing pulse in her temples. She could remember nothing after her second glass of wine, and it troubled her that she had blacked out while remaining completely conscious. She’d seen such a thing happen once with her father, after he’d come home from a tavern rather drunk. He had cooked something awful in the kitchen, devoured it, and passed out in the dining room. Gwen’s mother had left him there to sleep, claiming it would be a ‘learning experience’ for him. And oh, he learned all right, Gwen thought as she clutched the bucket and hurled again into it. He learned that he should never mix certain foods ever again. “What happened,” she asked softly, her voice scratchy from the explosive fit of vomiting.

Thelma continued to rub her back soothingly. “Well, I think you came very close to being taken to bed, dear.”

Gwen gave her a shocked glance before returning her attention once more to the bucket. The last of her lunch escaped her stomach in one final, tidal rush, and she felt very deeply tired afterward.

“Without your knowledge or consent,” Thelma continued.

“Aaron wouldn’t have done that,” Gwen offered weakly, unsure herself of what may have happened. She liked Aaron Horn, was attracted to him physically and because he was a fellow magic-user. Her own mother had a thing for Human men, and apparently, she had passed this liking on to her only daughter. “He’s not like that.”

“Do you want to take a chance on that?” Thelma asked quite seriously. “Relax for now, and get some rest. The pill clears the body of all toxins, and you may need to recover your strength. We will indeed be in the Allenians in a few hours. I’ll send someone down for you then, but until that time, rest.” Thelma eased Gwen back onto her bed and covering her with a blanket. “Perhaps later, without the influence of alcohol on you, you can decide what you want to do with Mr. Horn. But give it some thought, first.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Gwen asked, suddenly a little wary of the woman’s intentions. “When I was in your quarters, you were staring daggers at me.”

Thelma laughed aloud at this, and slapped her own knee with mirth.

“That’s only because I was tired and wanted to rest, dear! Kind of hard to do when there’s a little Half-Elf girl in my bed, isn’t it? Think no more on it, and get to rest, right now,” she admonished with a smile.

Just like mom, Gwen thought as she let sleep claim her. The last words she heard before passing out were, “You’ll need the sleep if we need you.”

* * * *

When the two men got up on deck, Aaron Horn looked around at the surroundings of the vessel, and harrumphed. “I don’t see any raiders.” He turned to face Gronen, who was giving orders to some of his men in their native tongue. “Captain, do you really think we’ll be attacked before entering the Allenian Hills?"

“We might be, Mr. Horn, and I’d rather not risk it,” Gronen said. He felt a little guilty about deceiving the man, but until he knew more about his strength or weakness of character, he wasn’t going to take any risks. “We are naturally wary of your breed of magic, but it could prove very useful. Now, do me a favor, and go up there to my first mate,” he said, pointing to the man he mentioned. “He’s setting up the spear launchers, and I’d like you to lock some spells on the spears themselves before they’re loaded.”

Aaron smiled up at the big man then, and chuckled softly to himself.

“You know about locking spells? Are you a magic wielder yourself, Captain Gronen?”

“No,” the Jaft admitted. “But I’ve had years of experience dealing with them. I may not fully trust Aquamancers, but you seem capable, competent. No please, carry out this request, and make ready in case there are raiders.” Gronen watched with a guilty pleasure as the man sauntered off toward the first mate.

Gronen continued shouting orders until Thelma came up from below. “How is she,” he whispered to her.

“Marga avenso ni cutock men-wha,” she whispered back. ‘The girl was ill, but now is resting’.

“Sapira nu guan do amikana sutocku,” he said aloud. ‘For what reason do you address me in our native tongue’?

“Munoki sumono, tu turmondo si tu siva pleadas.” ‘Because dear one, the Human may have good ears’.

Gronen nodded, understanding his wife’s wariness. He took her by the arm, and headed to the pilot box, relieving the temporary pilot for a few minutes so that they could speak plainly out of the Human’s earshot.

“When we pass the traders’ town in the Allenians, we’ll stop off and ask for a lawman or local magistrate,” he said bluntly, reacting smoothly to the navigator’s signals.

“Why?”

“I want to see if they have any information on this Aaron Horn. He told me that he’d been through the area, and anyone who comes to that town has to register with the local law offices. He claimed to have come through only a couple of years ago, so he’ll still be on file.”

“You’re really quite suspicious of this man, aren’t you?”

“Well, think about it dear. He paid me seven hundred gold pieces for the trip and the use of our finest guest cabin, a fee far beyond what I would have asked for.”

“That’s more than we’re getting for the cargo,” Thelma almost shouted.

He stayed her with one open palm held toward her. “Sorry dear.”

“That’s okay,” Gronen said, staring hard out toward the Human, who was busily locking spells on spearheads being loaded into the launchers. “Yes, I understand your surprise, but I didn’t want to mention how much he paid me until I had reason to suspect the payment. But honestly, who carries around that much gold outside of the safety of a local market? Two kinds of men, dear. There’s your common thieves, or the rare but dangerous sort.”

“You think he might be a wanted criminal or something?” Thelma now wished that she had tossed the man overboard when she came on deck. Somehow, she suspected that he was going to cause trouble not just for the Half-Elf girl, but for everyone aboard the ship.

“It’s possible, I suppose.” Gronen took his hands off of the helm just long enough to crack his gnarled knuckles beneath their armored gloves. “For now, that’s secondary business,” he grumbled, placing his hands on the helm once more. “We’re entering the Allenians.”

Thelma instinctively tensed. She hated this part of their longer trips, because the Allenian Hills were hostile lands, and the river narrowed considerably, though it retained its depth. Their small trading vessel could withstand a lot, but the crew was small in number, and many of them were new recruits, freshly taken on after the last major trip. How would they fare against Khan or Simpa in direct combat, she wondered?

Pretty soon, she would find out.

* * * *

Gwen Surefire awoke on her own at around four in the afternoon, her head clear and her mind sharp. She recalled the majority of her early lunch with Aaron Horn now, and remembered drinking an awful lot of wine. She chided herself silently for being so foolish. She swung out of her small bed, got her mace into its leather loop, and headed topside.

Up on deck, she gasped as she realized that the ship now sailed through the narrow section of river that wound through the Allenian Hills region. The ship might come under heavy attack at any time, but she felt panicked for another reason entirely. She looked at the armed and ready crew aboard the ship’s deck, and knew instinctively that some of the younger men had never seen combat with anything more threatening than a handful of unskilled Humans. If a pack of Khan or Simpa come on board, most of these men will be slain in short order, she thought.

Aaron Horn stood amid the blue-skinned warriors, looking confident with his casual stance, his charming grin constantly in place.

She approached him with her hands behind her back, shy like a schoolgirl. “Greetings, Aaron Horn,” she said as she got within five yards of the Human Aquamancer.

He turned and gasped at the sight of her, and for just a second, his smile seemed to falter.

“Oh, Gwen.” He sounded a tad out of breath.

She felt his magic all around her, much of it coming from the mounted spear launchers on the right-hand railing.

“I didn’t expect you up so soon! You were so drunk, I had to ask the captain to have you taken back to your quarters.”

At the sound of his lie, Gwen shivered a little inside. Why does he lie to me so? To protect my feelings? Or to protect something of his own? Suspicious though she felt, she forced herself to smile winningly at him and stand on her toes for a second. It was one of her nervous gestures, and she could see from the way he reacted to it by grinning once more that this time she he disarmed him.

“I’m really sorry about that, Aaron,” she said, twirling a bit of her chestnut hair around a finger playfully. “I should have warned you that I can’t hold my liquor. It’s been so long, though, that I didn’t want to stop, because I though that might offend you or something.”

Aaron Horn laughed harshly at this, and waved a hand in dismissal at her.

“I wouldn’t have been at all offended, dear,” he said. “Ah, I believe the captain wants a word with you.” He pointed toward the pilot box.

Gwen turned and saw Gronen motioning for her to approach him.

“Something you wanted, captain,” she asked, looking from Gronen at the helm to Thelma, on the bench behind him.

“I need to know that you’re well enough to help us defend the ship,” he said flatly. “And don’t guess at it; the Khan certainly won’t if they show up first. The Simpa are generally more reasonable, and honorable, but the tiger men always present a problem when they get near the ship. They’ll set the ship aflame if they have to.”

Gwen considered the question a moment, and tapped into her reserves of mana. She found an ample stock of magical energy at hand.

“I’m able and willing, captain,” she said confidently. “It won’t be like last time if something happens, I promise. I won’t hesitate.”

He looked away from the helm for a moment and gave her a fierce smile.

“Good, because the last time was just practice, miss. I assure you, Lizardmen attacking when we’re still in the wide parts of the river are nothing compared to the Khan that may set upon us. And if we’re unfortunate enough to run into the savage Simpa tribes, expect no mercy. They’re powerful and ruthless.” He faced out of the pilot box again. “Take up a position, and make sure you and Mr. Horn don’t get in each other’s way. You don’t want to create a crossfire situation.”

Gwen nodded, gave him a shallow bow, and headed out on deck, her magic brewing inside.

As the sun set in the distance at around eight in the evening, the navigator spotted the first raiders of the region and called down to the crew to prepare for an attack. “Khan warriors, a pack of ten or eleven stro—” He was struck in the head by a long javelin thrown from the shore.

The navigator fell from his perch to the deck below, his brains and blood spraying across the wood as he struck with the weapon still in his skull.

Three fully-grown Khan in thick chain armor leaped on board, and the first of this trio was brutally smashed in the chest with a stone war hammer by the ship’s first mate. The Jaft warrior reared back his weapon for a second blow, and when the dazed Khan finished shaking off the impact of the first strike, the first mate crushed his skull flat with his hammer. Blood sprayed across onto each of the Khan’s companions, who dashed past on either side of the Jaft, raking his sides with their long, curved claws.

The Khan on Gwen’s right tore straight for a pair of the new recruits, the Jafts raising their weapons fearlessly like all members of their Race.

When the Khan stood a few yards away, the Jaft men roared mightily and charged forward.

The Khan warrior leaped up past them, and tore their throats out with the talons on his bare feet.

Both crewmen fell dead to the deck.

Gwen stood paralyzed with shock and fear; so fast, so powerful, she thought as she started to back away from the Khan, who identified her as easy prey. The Weretiger snarled and snapped his jagged jaws at her, and when he lunged, instinct alone saved the Half-Elf.

“Vera Dopna,” she whispered, pointing one finger at him and releasing a disk of concentrated wind.

It flew at the Khan and cleaved his head in half, leaving everything from the flaring nostrils down to shuffle forward one step, then two, and finally drop limply to the side.

Thick, coppery-scented blood spurted from the gaping hole that had been its head as Gwen shook violently with fearful tremors. Unlike with the Lizardmen, however, she kept her wits about her, and stayed alert for more assailants.

Gwen looked over toward the opposite railing and found Aaron Horn forming a barrier of ice around a Khan and then kicking him overboard, to either break his neck on land, or drown in the river. He moved around the deck with a natural ease as the melee flowed around him. Even the new recruits moved with a little discomfort, so how did he move with such unerring footfalls? She’d have to ask him about it later, if they had the chance to get together again.

The third Khan, she saw as she looked away from Aaron, had fallen under Gronen’s brutal, unarmed assault. The large Jaft captain punched the unfortunate Khan over and over in the face and chest, finally landing a solid blow to the tiger man’s stomach. As the lycanthrope doubled over, clutching his gut, Gronen doubled his fists together and drove them down against the Khan's spine.

There issued from the body a horrible crunch, followed by the dropping of the Khan to the deck as it screamed bloody murder and started to drool. The Khan’s eyes rolled around in its head, and its body thrashed about the deck violently, the legs and arms going this way and that as they were wracked by involuntary death spasms. Finally it lay still, blood and saliva dripping out of its upturned face, which seemed to stare in death at Gwen.

Unsettled by this image though she was, the Half-Elf Aeromancer had the presence of mind to duck when one of the crewmen called out to her, pointing over her shoulder.

A long sword’s blade whooshed over her head, and she spun on her crouched heels and sent a gust of wind into the new Khan assailant’s body, tossing him overboard. She sprinted for the railing, and saw three more Khan getting close enough to make the leap onboard.

Gwen Surefire summoned forth another of her more devastating spells, and brought a small tornado down onto the group of Khan.

They screamed soundlessly in the torrential spin of the tornado’s cone, deprived of oxygen, clutching at their throats as they suffocated and were slammed into one another and the nearby hillside mercilessly.

Gwen felt a surge of dark glee as they died by her hands, and she turned back toward Gronen, who gave her a silent thumb’s up from across the deck.

With the remainder of the raiders blocked by her tornado, the ship sailed onward, down the river, toward the central stretch of the Allenian Hills. The crew’s first encounter with raiders had only garnered them two fatalities, a total that Gronen still found unacceptable.

* * * *

Gronen and Thelma warned the two magic-using passengers they might be called on again shortly, then watched them head below deck.

Gwen seemed to shy away from another encounter while Aaron Horn seemed thrilled at the prospect.

His crewmen complained about being terrified of his magic, but Gronen assured them that it was a calculated and necessary risk. “His magic is on all of the spears in the launchers. However, if we’re boarded again, we’ll need him a second time.”

“She released a tornado from above,” Thelma said as she took his place once more at the helm, while Gronen sat on the bench behind her. “She’s quite powerful for one so young.”

“So was Androna Melika, and it didn’t get him very far, now did it,” the Jaft captain said. Androna had been one of the two Jaft recruits slain during the attack, and though he was indeed a powerful magic user with healing spells, he didn’t have a single offensive spell in his arsenal. He had stupidly charged into the Khan attack, and now the crew was out of a healer for the rest of the trip. Gronen thumped the bench hard with a mailed fist. “These trips through the Allenians cost us more lives every time, Thelma! What are we to do?”

“Well, we could try bypassing them by taking the southern rivers, Gronen,” she offered, to which he waved his hand impatiently. “Of course, that would take us weeks out of our way, and we’re paid to be swift. Perhaps it’s time we seriously considered a bigger ship and a larger crew. You know, sail the oceans like we’ve talked about.”

Gronen muttered darkly to himself and crossed his arms over his chest, sulking.

“This is my fault,” the Jaft captain said to himself. “If I had just refused the job and taken some time off, we wouldn’t have lost those men.”

“And then our new recruits would have quit, or asked you for money for their own time off,” she pointed out, steering deftly in tune with the backup navigator’s directions. “And Gronen? We lost three men, not two. Sostho didn’t recover from his head wound.”

“Hellfire,” Gronen swore. “Piss and blood, we are cursed with this route! Thelma.” He came to a decision. “You are correct. After this trip, we take the men to Ja-Wen, and we leave the boat behind. Perhaps we’ll find someone looking to buy it off of us at port.” He felt unhopeful about their chances of finding a buyer so directly.

The ship sailed on.

* * * *

Gwen lay naked and shivering in the large bed next to Aaron Horn, who had already fallen asleep. She’d wanted to speak with him after their lovemaking, but he had closed his eyes and passed out, snoring, almost immediately. They’d barely spoken a word to one another on the way to his quarters, their bodies still thrumming with adrenaline from the combat above. It was her first time, and though she didn’t know what the hell she was doing, Aaron made it quite clear that he knew his way around a young woman’s body. At first there had been pleasure, then a bit of pain as the act got underway proper, and then pleasure resurfaced once more. Her nerves still tingled, and now she felt a strange compulsion to express her emotions properly with him.

But he was asleep. When she brought her arm over his torso, he rolled his back toward her.

Gwen felt a twinge of pain at this, but thought twice about her discomfort. He’s tired from the use of magic, and the sex, that’s all, she reasoned. She slipped quietly from the bed, used his shower stall in his bathroom, and dressed herself, heading up topside.

When she surfaced, she saw that it was perhaps a couple of hours past midnight. Gwen felt the cooling night breeze sweep past her forehead, and enjoyed the feel of it through her freshly washed hair.

She looked out at the surrounding hills, and her heart sank as she saw a large movement off to the north. “More raiders,” she wondered aloud. She looked up at the crow’s nest, and saw that the navigator was busy looking south with his spyglass, in the direction that the Khan had come from before. She hustled to the pilot box, where the first mate was at the helm. “Possible raiders, from the north,” she panted as she burst into the box.

“Right.” He barked out orders in his people’s tongue, and the top deck turned into a roiling flurry of movement as runners were sent below to summon the rest of the ship’s defenders.

In minutes the Jaft warriors were all set to defend their ship from either side, and the navigator suddenly barked something loud from above. The first mate shouted something back that Gwen still couldn’t understand, and the men on deck drew their weapons and shields.

When at last the first Simpa flew up onto the low deck of the ship, he carried an air of authority and nobility. “Groma sudnamei,” he said, using the Jaft speech and holding his empty hands out toward them. “Summa su nocknet shumpatha, eh?”

The Jafts on deck lowered their weapons, but kept them in hand. A runner was sent below, and Gwen cocked her head toward the first mate, who scowled suspiciously at the large Werelion.

“What did he just say,” the Half-Elf Aeromancer asked the first mate, not taking her eyes off of the big, golden-furred man.

The Simpa wore no upper clothing, but only a set of black baggy trousers over his legs. He bore no weapons, and a moment later, two more armored and weapon-bearing warriors landed next to him. They were each about a full foot shorter than he, who stood easily as tall as Gronen at seven feet.

“He asked us to stay steady,” the first mate replied, signaling for the men closest to the main mast to furl the main sails, so as to slow the ship’s pace. “He then asked us to bring up the captain, for he assumed that he was not among us.”

Good assumption, then, Gwen thought. She was glad that at least there seemed to be no hostility in the Simpa. They were not only huge, much larger than their hated Khan enemies, but they appeared much more disciplined and trained.

Gronen came up on deck then, and he stalked directly to the leader of the Simpa group. “My runner tells me you speak our tongue, lion man,” Gronen said aloud, so that all could hear. “Why is that?”

“Because,” the Simpa leader said, his thick, tempered voice rumbling from his chest. “My tribe does regular business with the sailors of your Race that pass through these hills on this river. Would you do trade with us?”

“We have little aboard for regular trade. We take orders from afar, and ship the requested goods directly.” Gronen motioned behind him for his men to sheath their weapons and return to their assigned duties.

Those who had been summoned from rest remained in place, their weapons put away for the time being. Gwen stepped out of the pilot box, and approached the captain. She had an idea, and thought she might be of some help in this situation.

“Excuse me, captain?” She approached the group skipping, making light of her presence here in these clearly serious and tense negotiations. Gronen gave her a worried and disturbed look, like she’d lost her mind. “I may be of some help!”

“How say you in this, Elf?” The large Simpa turned his leonine head to look at her.

“Half-Elf,” she said, pulling back her hair and pointing to her partially pointed ears. “Well, I’m an Aeromancer. I could lock some spells on your weapons in exchange for whatever you can offer the captain.”

Gronen smiled at her warmly then, and nodded at the Simpa chieftain.

“Is she skilled?” the Simpa asked, turning his attention back to the Jaft captain.

He nodded silently, and the Simpa turned toward her again. “Very well. These men are two of my personal guards. There are five more awaiting my order to board with pelts, weapons and armor. Lock some of your most potent spells on their swords and axes, and we have a deal.”

The Simpa and Gronen shook hands on the matter, and one of the two guards handed Gwen a long bladed sword. She sat down on the deck, and locked one of her Wind Cutter spells onto it, handing it back.

She repeated the process with each of the guards’ weapons as they came on deck and approached. By the time she was finished, Gwen felt ready to fall asleep on the hardwood deck, her physical energy drained from the earlier combat and sexual encounter, her mana depleted from locking spells on weapons. She used twice the normal mana to lock a spell than to cast it instantly, and she gave each weapon a few uses of magic. She bowed to the captain when he thanked her, and she headed back below decks for Aaron’s chamber.

When she stepped inside, she found that he was nowhere to be seen.

* * * *

Aaron Horn watched the guard leave the cargo hold from the doorway to Gwen’s quarters, and slipped inside as soon as the Jaft was up to the second deck. He closed the door softly behind him, and looked around at the ship’s cargo. He headed to one of the crates, opened its hinged top, and peered inside. “Well, that’s interesting,” he said, shutting the box on its contents. “Wonder who ordered this stuff.”

Inside of this second crate, he found something infinitely more interesting, and more importantly, valuable. “Ah, here we are. I knew this was going to be worth it.” He threw the lid open and pulling out two large gemstones. Gronen had taken them aboard to be shipped and taken to a Gnome jeweler in Ja-Wen who was to set them into a necklace for someone’s mother. The estimated value, according to Aaron’s eyepiece and his little jeweler’s book, was around six thousand gold pieces per gem. “Oh, this was so worth it.”

* * * *

Gwen was so deeply asleep that she almost didn’t notice when Aaron came back into bed fully dressed. She didn’t come fully awake, and didn’t say a word to him until the next morning. “Hello, dear,” she said as she woke with the sun. Aaron Horn was sitting on the edge of the bed, making notes in a small notebook, which he swiftly placed in an inner pocket of his blue leather vest.

“Good morning,” he said with his trademark grin. “So, you think we’ll be much longer in the Allenians?”

“Gods, I hope not,” she joked, standing up and stretching. “I’m going to go fetch something to eat. Do you want anything?”

He told her no, thanks anyway, but he had some reading to catch up on. His tone was distant, distracted, and Gwen worried that perhaps he was regretting what they had done the evening before. She exited his quarters, and made it halfway to the kitchen when Gronen called down the hall to her.

“Hello, captain. A fine morning, yes?”

He gave her a quizzical look, and glanced at Aaron Horn’s door.

“You slept with him, didn’t you?” he asked rather bluntly, his expression flat and devoid of humor, or any other emotion for that matter. He looked tired and haggard, with heavy bags under his eyes. Probably stayed up all night to steer the ship, she thought.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” she said, bristling at his inquiry. “I don’t see as it’s any of your business, Captain. I paid for the ride, not the company of the crew,” she said in a huff, and retreated down the hall away from him. How dare he, she fumed internally. He has no right to ask such a thing! And he doesn’t know Aaron like I do, she thought, suddenly defensive and possessive. She entered the kitchen, and found Thelma behind the counter, handing a platter of food to one of the crewmen.

“Ah, I see you’re awake,” Thelma said from her side of the counter. She spooned eggs and oatmeal onto a plate and bowl, and then placed three sausage links on her platter alongside. “Here, a hearty meal for you. We’re almost through the Allenians, making record time, Miss. We’re stopping at the trading outpost this morning, and then we’ll be off again. If you need anything from the town, get yourself ready when you finish breakfast.”

“Thank you.” Gwen gave her a small grin and took her tray down to Aaron’s room. When she tried the knob, she found that he had locked the door. She knocked twice, and called out to him. “Aaron? Can I come in?”

“I need some time to go over a few things in my books,” he called through the door.

Her heart sank a little, but she cheered up right away when he said, “I’ll come get you when I’m done in here, okay?”

“All right.” She headed down to her own quarters.

After she finished, she headed up to the top deck, and felt the ship slowing as they came upon a small docking area at the trading outpost that was the Allenians’ only neutral territory. She spotted several dozen Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Jafts from the crew already milling about in the streets of the small trading town.

She readily walked down the extended plank off of the ship, glad to be on dry, solid land for the first time in over a week.

She looked back over her shoulder, and hustled into the trading outpost when she saw the captain preparing to disembark.

* * * *

“Stupid girl,” Gronen said to himself as he set off on dry land into the trading town. She had seen him and scowled, sprinting off into the trading outpost away from him.

“Brendon?”

One of the ranking veterans of his crew came up to him and saluted smartly.

“Keep an eye on the ship until I get back. Get that guard back down to the cargo hold too. Myself and another crewman will relieve you when we’re done in town.”

“Aye sir.” The other Jaft saluted again.

Gronen waited for Thelma to join him, and when she did a few minutes later, he was pleased to see that she had changed from her cook’s uniform into her battle raiment. Her war mattock was slung on her hip through a simple leather loop.

“Why dear, you look good enough to take out on the town,” Gronen said with a broad, loving smile to his wife.

“And after our business with the Watch, that’s just what you’re going to do.” She took him by the hand and led Gronen directly down the dock steps toward the trading town proper.

It took only five minutes for them to force their way through the clustered throngs in the narrow streets to the Office of the Watch. The building itself was squat and narrow, only two stories high, housing a total of only twenty lawmen. Gronen knew, however, that this Office of the Watch routinely received transcriptions and reports of major criminal activity from both the Ja-Wen region, and the Desanadron city-state.

A familiar Dwarven gent in chain armor and coif sat at the sign-in desk, and when he looked up from his paperwork, he and Gronen smiled and clasped hands over the desk.

“Gronen, it’s good ta see ya, mate,” the Dwarf said.

“Likewise, Thromir,” the captain said. “You remember my wife, Thelma?”

Thromir nodded, shook her hand as well, and lowered himself once more to his seat.

“Thromir, we need a favor from you. We need you to look up a man by the name of Aaron Horn. He’s an Aquamancer on board our vessel, and I’d like to know if he’s got any warrants.”

“Wot’s ‘e look loik?”

The Dwarf jotted down Gronen’s description of the man to the last detail. He tore off the sheet from his pad, and shuffled off to the file room in the back.

When he did not immediately return, Gronen felt a pit open up in his stomach, and Thelma gripped his hand tightly.

Fifteen full minutes later, Thromir returned with a thick binder with an artist’s rendition of their passenger on the cover. The name on the binder said Erin Thorn.

“This is yer lad, I believe,” the Dwarf constable said.

Gronen didn’t know how exactly to react; he didn’t want to gloat, but at the same time, he had to confirm the whole thing and bring any relevant facts to light for Gwen.

Gronen opened the binder to the first page. When he saw the hotsheet, which posted the criminal in question’s most frequent crime, he showed it to Thelma. The two of them set the binder down, thanked the Dwarf, and sped out of the station. As soon as they were back out into the crush of people, Gronen stopped to take a deep, steadying breath. “Piracy,” was the only word he uttered.

* * * *

Gwen agreed to go into the town with Aaron, and instead of taking her directly to a diner for a decent meal, he told her that he had to hit up a pawnshop first, in order to get money for the meal. “I spent most of my money on my quarters, dear,” he explained sweetly.

She understood, of course; he wanted to travel in comfort while he thought over his poor brother’s situation in Palen.

And so she smiled amiably at traders as they passed by her on their way here and there, many of them filled with anxiety to get out of the Allenian Hills region on the safe roads as fast as possible. She waited patiently while Aaron conducted his business inside, and even managed a small smile to captain Gronen and Thelma when she saw them dash past her on their way back to the ship. Probably off to enjoy some ‘alone time’, she thought. Perhaps I should apologize to Gronen. I’m sure he has my best interests in mind.

No sooner had the Jaft couple disappeared than Aaron came out of the rusty screen door of the pawnbroker’s store. He had two heavy sacks of coins on his hips, and he positively radiated as he smiled at her.

“Come along, dear Gwen,” he said, twirling her unexpectedly, eliciting a high, trilling laugh from her as he dipped her toward the street.

Passersby smiled and pointed warmly in their direction, and Gwen blushed a deep sanguine color. He lifted her up to him then, and gave her a strong, smooth kiss. “We’re going to have a fine meal, and perhaps some entertainment. And you know what else?” he said.

“What’s that?” She draped her arms over his strong shoulders. For a magic user, he’s very burly, she thought. Maybe that’s my attraction to him. He’s so, well, safe.

“The trade roads leading out of the Allenians only take a couple of days’ travel from here, Gwen. You and I should enjoy each other’s company and make the rest of the trip out on foot.”

Gwen gasped at such a proposal, because she wanted to make quick time to Palen, and shouldn’t Aaron do so as well?

“We can hire a coach at the nearest village out of the region, and have it take us all the way to Palen! It would take about a week’s extra time, but it would be time well spent.”

Gwen wondered why he would suddenly want to travel for a week over the road with her, when he had seemed so distant the day before and that morning. But he was her first love, and she truly hoped, in her youthful ignorance, that they could stay together for a long, long time.

Before she could think her response through with any degree of certainty, she blurted out, “Of course, my love! Let’s do it! Those Jafts are getting into some heavy traffic anyway, and they’re all a bit stiff, aren’t they?” She was ashamed as soon as she let the words fly. “Oh, but our luggage! It’s still on board!”

“Not to worry too much, dear.” Aaron wrapped an arm around her waist and led her to the only diner in the port town that didn’t look excessively dingy.

When they were seated, they each took up a menu, and Gwen’s heart fluttered away again as she looked at his handsome face around the corner of her menu.

“I’ll tell you what; when we finish the meal, I’ll wait outside of this diner for you. Head back, grab your luggage, and return to me here. Then I’ll go back and fetch mine,” he said. “While you’re fetching your things, I can make arrangements for travel or maybe post inquiries to the local inns about short-term stays, just until we can find something more permanent.”

Gwen quickly agreed, and they ordered the most expensive items on the menu, Aaron assuring her that they had plenty of money to spend now.

Now, she thought as she started to eat her meal slowly. He said we had plenty of money now. What did he pawn off that could have taken him from being destitute, to having plenty of money to eat, get entertained, and then hire a coach to go to Palen? Something of great value, I’m sure. But what?

* * * *

“I don’t understand.” Gronen opened yet another crate in the cargo hold.

The guard had received orders to only let him and Thelma in, and when they had rushed the hold, he’d flung the door open and stood aside. The married Jaft couple had gone through almost every crate, and had narrowed down their search to two crates, each one holding the items they had been paid the richest fee to transport. Thelma pried open the crate containing several well-preserved body parts for a Necromancer in Ja-Wen, who had ensured the safe shipment of them with an arranged payment of twelve-hundred gold pieces upon delivery. However, the items in the other crate worried Gronen the most.

Two Gems of Entombment, magical items that could imprison the souls of living creatures upon their death, had been placed in his care to transport to Ja-Wen, where a gifted Enchanter expected to receive them. False orders had been planted in the shipping crate to conceal their true purpose, a careful code arranged by the client in the event some half-wit should get their hands on the shipment. Such a person would only think they were nabbing some very pretty jewelry pieces, but Gronen’s client had greater intentions for the bits of sparkle. He planned to set the gems, with the help of a skilled smithy, into a sword for a very special client. Gronen had been promised ten-thousand gold pieces and a fleet-class vessel of his own, which would be waiting for him on the eastern shore only a short way from Ja-Wen.

When he opened the lid of the crate, he found the Gems of Entombment gone from their protective casing. “Fucking pirates,” he groused.

* * * *

Aaron Horn stood just outside of the diner as Gwen disappeared into the crowds heading toward the docking area of the trading post. A thick fog started to bank into the town from the north, and as soon as he felt certain she couldn’t look back and see him, he sprinted off toward the land exit of the town.

Aaron Horn, using his real name for the first time in many years, had arranged for his own crew to wait for him just outside of this very port town on the river. He assured them via messenger pigeon that the ship would stop in the trading outpost, and that he would take something from onboard of value. He’d quickly pawn it, hopefully garnering a nice sized profit from the exchange. He’d spent a great deal to get the private cabin, but in return, he’d been given fifty ryo, coins worth one hundred gold pieces per coin. Considering the payment of only seven hundred gold for the private cabin, he felt pretty good about his profit margin.

The pirate darted through the streets, and made his getaway as fast as he could.

* * * *

When Gwen returned to the diner, panting and out of breath, barely having avoided delay with a conversation with Gronen and Thelma onboard the ship, she was puzzled by Aaron’s absence. Perhaps he’s gone inside to use the privy, she reasoned. He’ll be out soon enough. I’m sure he will. Mayhap he’s gone to make those inquiries at the inns. Yet when fifteen minutes passed with no sign of his return, Gwen finally began having solid doubts.

Before she had the chance to check inside, a powerful, familiar hand grabbed her by the shoulder. Pain lanced through her as Captain Gronen dug his fingers into her.

When she looked up to yell at him to let her go, she froze. In his eyes she saw such unmatched fury that nothing she said, shouted or hollered would be able to match the malevolence.

“Captain Gronen, I, I,” she stammered.

Gronen heaved off on her, pinning the Half-Elf Aeromancer against the wall of the diner as Thelma came up behind him from the direction of the ship.

“Were you working with him, girl,” he growled, pressing his horrid smelling, blunt face only an inch or so away from her nose. He had a hand on either side of her head, leaning forward menacingly. “Tell me!”

“Gronen,” Thelma gasped as she finally got up next to her husband. “Stop this now, of course she is not working with him.”

Gwen’s heart and mind twirled away in an internal cyclone not of her making, but tempered with her own sudden realization of her foolishness. When she spoke finally to the big Jaft captain, she burst into uncontrollable sobbing.

“I gave myself to him.” She unleashed the flood of tears that had welled up within her.

Gronen, shocked and very awkward, looked to his wife, who was glaring daggers at her husband.

“Oh Gods above, what was I thinking,” Gwen sobbed as Thelma pulled her close and started stroking her hair, patting her back to console her. Gwen pressed her face against the ample chest of the blue-skinned woman who rocked her easily back and forth.

Gronen, flushed but still wary and in a mild panic, looked around at the faces of the scores of men and women bustling by. He rubbed the back of his bald head, and shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to think of what to do next.

A few minutes later, when Gwen had finally released most of her despair, she felt greatly relieved to be rid of her emotional torrent, and in the presence of two capable people.

They can tell me what I should do now, Gwen thought, wiping the last of her tears away and laughing a little at the pattern of dampness on Thelma’s vest.

The Jaft woman looked down at her vest and blouse and shook her head, grinning. “It’s nothing to worry about, dear. I don’t wear these clothes that often anyway. Now, my husband should probably apologize,” she said, kicking back at Gronen’s shin, barking him a good one and making him growl as he hopped on his other leg for a moment.

He bowed slightly to Gwen. “I am most sorry, Ms. Surefire,” he said, straightening out again quickly. He scanned the crowds once more for some sign of the pirate. “Gwen, we need to find Aaron. He is not who he seems.”

“I’d figured that much,” she said, her breath hitching up one last time in her chest. “He’s some sort of criminal, isn’t he?”

Thelma and Gronen nodded, and Gwen felt a sudden surge of inspiration. “Wait a minute! He said he spent most of his money on getting the private cabin onboard the ship, but he went into that pawnshop and came back out with two heavy sacks of coins,” she said, pointing up the street a short distance to the pawnshop.

Gronen, his face suddenly alight, nodded to Thelma, and darted through the crowds toward the store, pushing and shoving people out of his way.

“What are we going to do now?” Gwen asked Thelma, her voice still quavering.

“Well, that partially depends on you, honey,”

Thelma’s words sent a cringe through Gwen. She didn’t like being addressed like a child, though right now, she did feel about as foolish as one. Besides, Gwen thought, I’ll bet she talks to everyone like that. I wonder if they’ve ever had any children?

“Gronen will probably want to just get the gems back and head out of port. Of course, we’ve never been stolen from before so stealthily, or handily. He’s just as liable to want to go after the man, especially since he’s going to have to pay out of pocket to recover our stolen shipment.”

“What did he steal,” Gwen asked, curious about what could have garnered Aaron so much money. He’d paid for their meal with a coin worth one hundred gold pieces, a type of currency she’d only seen once before, at the Guild.

Thelma looked away from her and cleared her throat, reluctant to answer her question.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me,” Gwen said in a rush.

Thelma turned her smile back on Gwen, and patted her on the shoulder.

“Business has to be kept discreet, right?”

“That’s right, honey. Now hush up for a minute, and let’s listen to what the captain has to say. That’s him barreling back toward us.”

* * * *

Captain Gronen always kept a handy supply of money on hand for his business trips, for expenses incurred during travel. Most often these reserves of coins purchased repairs for the ship, supplies of food for the men, or helped go toward damages caused by his men in the rougher taverns of port townships and villages. Now, thanks to the machinations of a low life pirate by the name of Aaron Horn, the entirety of his reserve fund was being spent to re-secure items for shipment to Ja-Wen.

At first, he had offered the Lizardman shop owner half of his reserve fund, a full three thousand gold pieces. The reptilian man had laughed, and told him that he wouldn’t accept double that price.

As the Lizardman cackled, Gronen’s face split into a wicked smile of his own. As with most pawnshops throughout Tamalaria, this particular businessman had a thick wooden wall and a set of iron bars separating himself from the customers, in case they should get volatile. The problem with this arrangement was that, although it kept sore customers out, it also kept the shopkeeper in.

Gronen didn’t know where the back door to this place might be, and at the moment, he didn’t have the time to care. Instead of going outside and searching for it as the Lizardman laughed one last burst at him and returned to his chair off to one side of the transaction window, Gronen hefted his war hammer off of his back. He glared balefully at the wooden wall next to the window, opposite the Lizardman, who buried his nose in a book of some kind, his back to the area that Gronen was looking at.

The Jaft turned around, engaged the deadbolt on the front door softly, and flipped the sign silently from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. He’d done this sort of thing before.

With the shopkeeper’s back to him, Gronen hefted his war hammer, and switched his grip, the head of the stone weapon just over his left hand. He brought the weapon back low, at around his hip level, and gave it a swift, powerful torque, smashing the wooden retainer wall apart. Wooden splinters flew into the back wall of the shopkeeper’s area, and he gave a startled yelp, jumping up from his chair and facing the monstrously muscled Jaft sailor who was even now kicking the lower wooden shards over as he stepped through into his area.

The Lizardman put his hands up in a pathetic defensive plea for mercy, waving them back and forth as he stumbled back into his chair. “Hey buddy, take it easy,” the pawnshop owner/operator said as Gronen, his mind an utter blank now that he’d decided on a course of action, took two gaping, stalking steps forward, holding the war hammer with its head down near his left knee.

Dust swirled through the air, giving him a hazy, otherworldly appearance, like Death given flesh and purpose.

“Look, I’ll give you anything you want, just don’t kill me,” the Lizardman bawled, curling up his legs and covering his head with his hands.

His reptilian eyes squeezed shut, he didn’t see Gronen put the war hammer back in its holster on his back, but he did hear the heavy thud of something on his side of the transaction window. When the shop owner opened his eye to see if he had been struck without feeling it, he saw the Jaft’s money pouches on the counter.

“I want those Gems, now,” Gronen rumbled, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into gnarled fists. “I’m going to pay you, because I’m not some thug or thief. That’s all the money I have on me at this time, six thousand and two hundred gold pieces.”

The Lizardman did not doubt him. There were three huge sacks of money on his side of the window/counter, and he felt certain that it would cover his losses for purchasing the Gems of Entombment, and the repairs to his retainer wall. He looked up at the blue-fleshed humanoid, and took in once again his thickly muscled frame.

The Lizardman dropped off of his chair and rolled it aside, fumbling with the lock on his stash safe, where he’d placed the items. He should have known that the Human could not have gained such priceless magical items through honest means. He should have known, and now his ignorance had cost him his wall. He’d have to close up shop and pay the nearby carpenter to repair the wall, which would lose him time and business as well.

He opened the safe, handed the Jaft the Gems of Entombment, and when Gronen was gone, the Lizardman breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

* * * *

“I’ve got them back,” Gronen said to Thelma and Gwen, who both smiled gently at this news. Gronen saw something in the girl’s eyes, however, something that unsettled him greatly. Pain coiled in her soul, a pain that was plain to him, and which would eat away at her until the cause of her pain could be dealt with. Aw, crap, he thought, rolling his eyes at himself. Looks like we’re not going to be on schedule anymore.

“We’re ready to get going again, dear,” Thelma said, putting her arms around one of Gronen’s well-sculpted biceps. But he shook his head, and handed her the Gems of Entombment.

“What’s the matter dear? Oh, did you still want to have a little fun in town with me first.” Thelma squeezed his arms before taking the Gems from him and stuffing them into one of her pouches.

“No, dear,” he said, grumbling even as he spoke. “We’re going to take those back to the ship, and we’re going to tell the first mate to depart without us.”

His words elicited gasps from both Thelma and Gwen.

“The three of us are going after our absent friend, Mr. Horn, and we’re going to take back what he owes us… in blood,” Gronen growled.

Gwen’s heart lifted at the idea, and she felt her magic twitching in her blood to be released, to be brought fully to bear. “What he owes all three of us.”

* * * *

“Oh, don’t bitch about it,” Aaron Horn said to his men as they made camp by the side of the trading road through the Allenians. They were still in safe, neutral territory, and Aaron was trying to divide up the profits among himself and his five men fairly. “We all put in about a hundred gold pieces toward this little enterprise, and we’re coming away with almost a thousand apiece. You men have nothing to complain about.”

He leaned back against a tree log and tore into a piece of dark bread, enjoying the warmth of the fire, the closeness of his comrades, and the feel of a job well done. “So, did ye take anything else of value, captain,” one of the scruffy, gangly Humans of his crew asked with a nearly toothless smile. Aaron sat up, and smiled broadly at him.

“Oh yeah. I took myself a sweet little thing, Salty Jim, a perky little Half-Elf girl,” he said, enjoying the harsh laughter of his mates. “Nothing much for tits on her, but she felt great I’ll tell ya.” He chuckled a bit himself. “I think I may have popped her cherry, gentlemen!”

“Three cheers fer the cap’n,” Salty Jim said, and they all hip-hip-hoorayed the Aquamancer. On the third and final hooray, Aaron’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest as the stone head of a war hammer came down atop Salty Jim’s head, spraying bone, brains and blood all over the rest of the company of pirates.

“Holy shit,” one of the men screamed, turning to see a tall, muscular Jaft man holding the weapon that had just killed one of their team members. A woman of the same Race brought a heavy axe down at an angle into this second man’s face, finishing his last thoughts, which had been We’re all gonna die! Truth is greatest in the face of death.

“Magra vak shu,” a high, feminine voice chanted, a voice that Aaron had become intimately familiar with.

A wall of wind force slammed into him, sending him flying several dozen yards from the fire, into the side of the nearby hillock.

When he landed with a groan, he pried his eyes open, and found Gwen Surefire using the spell of Limited Flight to fly through the air toward him, an expression of pure hatred on her face. He grinned his disarming little grin, and thrust his own palm out toward her as she closed the distance.

“Noseum ishrack! Ice Needles,” he cried, summoning a fleet of tiny shards of razor-sharp ice to fly from his palm into her.

Gwen cried out in pain as the first of these tore into her cheeks and legs, causing her to crash hard into the ground to avoid further damage.

Aaron got to his feet, looked down the hill, and waved his right hand up to the side of his head, and then whipped it in an arc down toward her. “Wash Away,” he murmured.

A flood of water charged up from mystical space behind him, and it struck Gwen as she got haltingly to her hands and knees, carrying her down toward his men and the Jafts, who had dealt death to at least three of them already.

Got to get away, was Aaron’s only thought now, and he listened to it carefully, running east and back down to the trading route.

No good to get away from them and run into a Khan or Simpa in non-neutral territory. He sprinted as swiftly as he could, lamenting the loss not of his men, but of the money they had on them.

He could always go back to their corpses later, he reasoned, and pumped his arms and legs.

Gwen finally finished up a few yards away from Gronen, who had backed away from the magically charged water as he smashed another pirate in the knees, breaking his legs cleanly and felling him.

Gronen reached down, and Gwen took his hand, sending a Wind Cutter just past his left ear to cut into the pirate who had taken the opportunity to try to get him from behind.

Gwen nodded to Gronen, who smiled. “Go, get him,” Gronen said to her, and turned back to the last two pirates, who were assailing his wife without quarter. They’d drawn blood in a couple of places, and Gwen hesitated. She wanted to help the married Jaft couple, who had done her no wrong, in the end, but Gronen’s words stuck in her mind. Get him.

Using her spell of Limited Flight again, she gave hot pursuit, following the road as it turned, curved, and bent here and there around hills and small, sudden rises in the landscape.

It took her ten full minutes to finally catch up, but when she did, she was ambushed by a flying spear of ice. It clipped her side and knocked her out of the air, crashing once again into the road.

Aaron Horn had stopped a few minutes before, and waited for her, because he knew that washing her away wouldn’t finish the job. He watched her crash land, and thought vehemently, Shit, that should have taken her in the fucking head! What’s wrong with my aim today?

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Gwen,” he cooed, mocking her as he backed away up the road, bringing more of his magic to bear as she got to her feet, clutching the bleeding wound in her side. “Did I hurt you there? I assure you, I didn’t mean to.” He formed another spear of ice magic to hover next to him. “I meant to kill you!”

When she saw the second spear forming, Gwen looked down, hearing his words but not really registering them. Her own magic acted partially on its own, forming a barrier of wind in front of her, and when the spear flew at her, she looked up, and saw it stop, held perfectly still in the air.

Aaron’s face was a bloodless mask of shock, and he started backing away again down the road.

Gwen twitched her magic, and used the simplest Aeromancer spell ever learned to send the weapon back at him.

“Push Off,” she muttered, sending the spear flying at blinding speed through Aaron Horn’s chest. Blood sprayed out around the magical weapon, which began to melt as soon as it pierced his heart, killing him almost instantly.

Satisfied, Gwen stalked on foot back down the road toward Gronen and Thelma. When she arrived, she found them sitting around the pirates’ fire, eating from their supplies.

She sat down heavily across from them, and Thelma dressed and bandaged her wounds.

“Well, I guess we’ll be on the road together for a few days,” she said weakly.

“Yes indeed, but at least the company’s good.” Gronen dug into a container of some sort of potato-based salad. He made a face, at which both of the women present laughed gaily. Yes, Gwen thought, at least the company’s good.