Thirteen

            A violin’s strings are made from cat gut.  The bow is stung with horse hair.  The party awoke to what sounded like a horse stepping on a cat, with the accompaniment of some dreadful screeching and yowling that may or may not have been a love tune.

            Forge peeked out the window to see a different guy from the day previous.  Not that it especially mattered.  He grabbed an empty bottle and threw it at him.

            Mica saw the bottle arc out to the street and shatter on the cobblestones.

            “Yeah!  Hit him!” she cheered.  It was early, she hadn’t had her bean yet, and she was not in the mood for the annoying courtier.

            Another arced out and hit the street.

            “You got no aim, dwarf!” she hollered.

            Forge grabbed his bow, took aim at the violin, and shot. It pierced the minstrel’s foot, whose singing cut off with a cry of pain.

            “My love bleeds for you, Melissanna!”  The minstrel hopped off clutching his foot.

            Forge unstrung his bow, put it away, and went back to bed.

            Thistlepouch woke to discover Melissana in the room with her.  When the caterwauling began, Melissana sat at rigid attention and shuddered.  At the courtier’s declaration of love, Melissana put her head in her hands, shaking for a bit, and eventually went back to applying a cool compress to Grog’s brow.  Thistlepouch looked up to the lady.

            “Does this happen often?”

            “What?”

            “That.”  She pointed out the window.

            Mica poked her head in the room.  “Hey, Melissana, I’m sorry your friend went away.”

            “He wasn’t a friend.  I barely new him.”  She sounded beyond despondent.  “I wish they’d all just go away.”

            “You have many suitors that you don’t want?” Mica queried.

            “Oh, I suppose I have tons of them.  Doesn’t matter now.”  She got up and trudged out.

            Mica watched her go.  “Friendly this morning, isn’t she?  Maybe she hasn’t had her morning coffee yet.  Come on, Thistlepouch.  Let’s grab breakfast.”

            Forge was already downstairs, having gotten up early to check on his brewing.  Mica fixed a large tankard of coffee with chocolate, milk, and sugar in it as Thistlepouch happily munched on some sticky muffins and cheese.  The priestess handed the mug to the kita.

            “Here, it’s like cocoa, but more fun.”  She was more than a little curious to see what that amount of caffeine would do to the energetic kita.

            Thistlepouch accepted the mug as Mica went to make herself one.  It sat huge in her tiny kita hands, but as soon as she’d sipped it she decided to be glad for its size.  She had every woman’s weakness for chocolate and quickly decided that this was indeed a good beverage.

            “We should see if we can find Bassano,” Mica said as she quality tested her brew.  Perfection.  She smiled.  “We need to ask him if he found out anything about the guys that attacked Grog.”  When they’d all finished breakfast, she snagged a random page.  “Would it be possible for us to arrange to speak with Bassano?”

            “Certainly.  I’ll try to do it from here.”  He waved his hands around.  Thistlepouch watched, intrigued.

            Mica waited a minute before asking, “Are you getting anything?”

            “What?  Hermes’ bottom!  You broke my concentration!”

            Mica briefly considered offering to help him fix it, but he wasn’t that cute.

            “I was trying to contact him, but you confused me!  Never mind.  I can’t work here.”  He stalked off.

            “Let’s check the knife-throwing area,” Forge suggested.  It was a good call -- they found him there, practicing with his sword.  After about five minutes, he finished and sheathed his blade.

            “Yes, can I help you?”

            “I was just wondering if you have any leads on what went on last night?”

            “Nothing much yet.  As near as I can tell, it was a group of thugs who were told there was money to be had on your vessel.  It’s possible that Lockshy informed them, but unfortunately there was no one to question.”

            Mica growled.  “This Lockshy is really getting on my nerves.”

            Bassano smiled mirthlessly.  “He does have a tendency to do that.”

            “Do you have a weapon that I could possibly procure?  My quarterstaff happened to break last night,” Forge said.

            “Certainly.  What type?”

            “Do you have any warhammers?”

            Bassano thought a moment.  “Ah.  .  .  .  not a usual request.”

            “I’m not a usual person.”

            “I’ll have someone check.  Page!”

            An elderly, bent man hobbled up, leaning on a cane.  “Yes?” he asked in a trembling, slightly cracked voice.

            “Old Tom, could you find if there’s a warhammer in the armory?”

            “Certainly.”  He hobbled off.  Forge looked dismayed.  He doubted the geezer could even lift a warhammer.

            Mica, however, had already dismissed him.  “There’s not going to be any.  .  .  technical difficulties.  .  .  with the people killed last night, is there?  We’re not going to get thrown in jail.  .  .  ”

            “Ah.”  Bassano smiled knowingly.  “Legal issues.”

            “Yeah.  Well, the dwarf started it.”

            “What?  Who was the one who beat us to them?”

            “It’s not my fault you can’t run fast.  Life was red.  When life is red, you don’t stop and hesitate.”

            “Fine.  Then don’t blame it on us.”

            “Regarding the potential legal difficulties,” Bassano continued as if the others had not spoken, “I’ve spoken on the matter with Merchant Antonio, and he has agreed to intercede in any potential difficulties.  We do not believe that there will be any problems.  Those in the dock districts were obviously attacking your boat, and those that were farther north in the merchant district were in an area where Antonio has more influence with the local guards.”

            “Please tell the Merchant Antonio that we are very grateful for his interventions and that we would gladly be at his disposal for the favors,” Mica returned thankfully.

            “Certainly.  I will let him know that you are appreciative.  If there is anything else.  .  .  ?”

            Mica nodded to Forge.  “His warhammer.”

            “That.  Well, we sent Old Tom.  Old Tom will be back shortly.”

            Forge looked doubtful.  “Could you give me directions there?”

            Bassano shook his head.  “I’m afraid that the armory is an area that only members of the household can enter.”

            Forge rolled his eyes.  “Oh, great.  It’s gonna be a while.”

            “He’s not as slow as he may look,” Bassano advised the dwarf.

            “Are you finished practicing?” Mica queried.

            “Yes, for the day.  I was about to start my daily briefing.  If you will excuse me?”  At Mica’s nod, he headed off into the house.

            The kita had by then finished her coffee.  The honeyed pocket muffin and cheese delayed the effects a bit, but she was well on her way to being thoroughly wired.

            “I think we should see if we can’t hunt down some more of those locations where Lockshy is supposed to be,” voiced Forge.

            “Good idea,” Mica agreed.  “He attacked my boat.  I’d really like to meet this guy.”

            “So would I,” the kita seconded, bouncing from foot to foot.  “I think it would be a lot of fun and something to do and I’ve got a lot of energy.  What was in this?”

            The priestess smiled down on her.  “It’s called coffee, or bean.  It’s Magickal.”

            “I like it!”

            “We could hit the building you followed him to, or there’s one at the docks,” Forge offered.

            Mica considered.  “Well, since we were attacked by dockworkers...”

            “We could go there.”  Forge nodded.

            “Yeah.  The one I followed him to is pretty nasty, too.  How’s your cousin?”

            “Asleep.”

            Thistlepouch tugged on Mica’s sleeve.  “Before we leave, can I take a bath?  I got slimed by a zombie, and my hair’s all gooey.”

            Forge snagged a passing page.

            “Datuka!” greeted the page.  “That’s hello in dragonish.”

            Forge decided to ignore the page’s eccentricities.  “Could you go check in on my cousin Darwin and make sure he gets a bath?”

            “Niku!”

            Thistlepouch was fascinated.  “Do you know dragon-speak?”

            “Daki!”

            “I think that’s a yes,” she decided.  “So you must’ve met a dragon!”

            At this, the page looked slightly embarrassed.  “Well, actually, I haven’t.  .  .  .  ”

            “Do you know where I could find one?”

            The page was taken aback.  “Find a dragon?”

            “Yeah, I’ve never met a dragon before.  .  .  I’d think it would be kind of interesting -”

            Forge shuffled the page off to Darwin’s room.  Thistlepouch followed.

            “I just found a book on dragons, it had all sorts of stuff on how you could talk to dragons and-”

            “A book?  Where?”

            “I found it at the library.”

            “What was the name of the book?”

            “Dragons.”

            “Dragons.”  Thistlepouch decided humans had really dull names for their interesting books.  Maybe to keep people from stealing them.

            “Yeah, well, actually it was A Complete Historie and Treatesie Upon Wyrms and Other Drageons,” he informed her, complete with weird pronunciations.  “It was really misspelled.”

            “I don’t suppose there’s anybody there who could show me where it is.”

            “Probably.  It was a really neat book.  I learned all sorts of things about dragons, and about how they fly around and eat people and -”

            “I wonder what it would be like to be eaten by a dragon,” the kita mused wistfully.

            The page gave her a weird look and knocked on Darwin’s door.

            Thistlepouch, figuring she wouldn’t get much more out of the lad, went to bathe herself.  She quickly stripped off her pouches and jumped in the large copper tub clothes and all.  After a bit she peeled off her outfit, too, to get the parts it covered.  As she bathed, she could hear Darwin empty a bucket over his head in the next room.  The spluttering and cursing was truly impressive.  Not until she had finished her bath did she realized her clothes were sopping wet again.  She sighed.  She hated dressing like a dwarf, and so wrung everything out and put the clammy, cold clothes back on.

            Mica and Forge heard a squish, squish, squish, squish as a wet, scraggly, smelly Darwin stomped down the stairs.  Mica ran up to her room, grabbed a vial of perfume, ran back down, and doused him from behind.  Darwin coughed and spluttered.

            “Hara’s titties!  What was that?!”  Then, as he got a whiff of himself, “Oh, gods.”

            “Now at least I can go out in public with you,” Mica declared triumphantly.

            “I smell like an elf!”

            “No, you smell like a human,” she corrected.  “A female human, which is better.”

            “Yeah, I’ll grant you that,” the crotchety dwarf allowed.

            Just then Old Tom showed up, dragging the war hammer behind him.  “There you go, sir.”

            “Thank you,” Forge said, hefting it.  It was reasonable quality, not dwarven make, but good enough.

            “My pleasure.”

            Thistlepouch, meanwhile, had decided to air-dry herself on the way back, and so took the route involving the grand banister down to the front hall.  Besides, it’d been fun last time, even if she hadn’t gotten airborne.  She soared down the banister, trailing a wet streak.  She broke her landing colliding with a random page, producing a sodden thump and the musical chime of coins scattering across the floor.  Thistlepouch scrambled off of him.

            “Sorry about that.”

            The page wheezed and coughed, trying to get his breath back.  As he pulled himself up with her help, he looked down to see a kita-shaped wet mark across his livery.  “What are you doing?” he asked, out of breath and bewildered.

            “Air-drying my clothes!” she replied brightly, as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world.  And to her, it was.

            “Um, could you help me.  .  .  .” the page trailed off, not quite sure what to make of the whole situation.

            “Sure!”  Thistlepouch was more than happy to help, especially since humans for some reason -- and most other races, too -- generally didn’t ask for a kita’s help in collecting things off the floor.

            “Thank -” he frowned briefly at the number of coins in his hands, which didn’t look like as many as she’d had at first, but shrugged.  He couldn’t see any more on the floor, so he must have them all.  “Thank you!”  He scurried off.

            A strange jingling followed her as Thistlepouch bounced away.  She paused, puzzled, and searched her pouches.  A large number of coins resided therein, and she vowed to find the owner so she could return them.  It occurred to her that her job would be a lot easier if people would just label their belongings before they so carelessly lost them, but that was humans for you.

            “What happened to you, did you fall in the dunk tank?”  Mica asked upon the kita’s entrance, soaking wet and jingling slightly.

            “I took a bath.”

            Mica raised one eyebrow.  “Usually one takes their clothes off before they do that, dear.”

            Forge pointed at Darwin as an example.

            Thistlepouch shrugged.  “They needed washed, too.”

            Mica looked to Forge, then Thistlepouch.  “You don’t smell. And I don’t have to douse you with perfume.  Unless, of course, you want me to.  Though I suppose you could just rub on him.  .  .  well, no, maybe not.”

            Thistlepouch could smell Darwin from across the way.  .  .  like perfume poured over rotted meat.  She made a rapid decision.  “I don’t want to smell like that.”

            “You ain’t the only one!” Darwin seconded.

            “You know,” Thistlepouch put in, “that guy said he learned about dragons from a book in the library.  I’ll have to see if I can find it when we go find Tusit.”

            “The gnome’s missing all the fun,” observed Mica.  “Well, right now our mission is to go rid ourselves of Lockshy because he’s an annoying little -”

            Forge glared at Mica.  “Hey.  We represent little.”

            “Yeah, but not the other part.”  She went to get her weapons and make sure everyone had their sharp pointy things peace-tied and bows unstrung.  Darwin covered his axe with strips of cloth ripped from his clothes.

            Mica found a random page and sent him with a message to Bassano.  .  .  the page was considerably less than enthusiastic.

            “Yeah, whatever.  I’ll tell him.”

            Bassano, meanwhile, feeling a little guilty about the previous night’s incident, and so had located Molly and Katrina, two of his best guards, and asked them if they would be willing to lend experienced backup to some “independent contractors.”  The women agreed.  Although Bassano briefed them on the party’s makeup (especially the kita, a rarity in these parts, but not knowing a few crucial tidbits of information could be at the very least vexing) it was a surprise when they got their first sight.  .  .  and smell.  .  .  of a damp kita, a damp, stinky, perfumy smelling dwarf, a dwarf with a brand on his forehead, and -- perhaps the only normal one of the whole bunch -- a female human.

            The party was on its collective way out the door when Bassano walked up, two warriors behind him.  “If you’re willing to have a little assistance, these two are willing to join you, wherever you’re going.  Katrina and Molly.  They’re a couple of my better warriors,” he informed them.  “I thought that since it seems things are getting more difficult for you -”

            Forge grinned.  “Difficult?’

            “Fifteen men attacking your boat, I call that difficult,” Bassano deadpanned.

            “I found it entertaining,” Forge returned.

            Thistlepouch scowled at him.  “I didn’t.  I was the one who had to do all the running.”  Though she certainly had the energy to do it now, she was beginning to feel stiff and sore from the previous day’s exertions.

            “I think it worked nice,” Darwin put in.

            “I liked the numbers,” agreed Forge.  “Fifteen against three.”

            “We didn’t have a whole lot of problems, but the more the merrier,” Mica told him.  “We will definitely not refuse company.”

            Bassano smiled slightly at them.  “Happy hunting,” said he, and walked away.

            Darwin leered at Katrina, tall, beefy, with frizzy red hair and yellow-green eyes.  “Is that a claymore on your back, or are you just happy to see me?”

            She raised one eyebrow.  “If it wasn’t a claymore, would you want me to be happy to see you?”

            He considered.  “Ooh, good point.  Darwin.”

            “Katrina.”

            The kita thrust her tiny hand between them.  “Hi!  I’m Thistlepouch Doorringer!”

            Katrina shook the kita’s hand and (remembering Bassano’s briefing) checked her possessions.  She had to slap a small hand away from her belt dagger, but otherwise everything was in place.

            As introductions went the rest of the way around, Darwin leaned over to his cousin.  “More women?”

            Forge sighed.  “We need more with fur on their faces.”

            “Yeah.  Where are all the good bearded women?”

            Once everyone was introduced around, they headed out, Thistlepouch bouncing at the fore.  Not two steps out the front gate, arrows arced down from the building across the street.  The party dove out of the way, except Mica, preoccupied, who didn’t notice the projectiles until one lodged in her left arm.  She fell to the ground with a cry, clutching the shaft.  It was just sticking out; the arrowhead hadn’t fully penetrated.  She yanked it out, though it hurt like perdition.  Molly dove and rolled behind a wagon hauling rocks.

            Thistlepouch taunted out of pure reflex.  “You shoot worse than a dwarf!”

            “Ahem!”  Forge felt it necessary to put in, but Thistlepouch was too revved to pay much mind.  She shouted another as she joined Molly.

            “And the impression on your mother’s forehead matches your belt-buckle!”

            Forge joined soon after so he could string his bow without presenting a target.

            Katrina ran flat out to the building and Darwin, with a bloodthirsty, somewhat hungover cry, charged forward swinging his two-handed axe in circles, looking like a really fierce potential pincushion.

            Luckily for him, the next volley of arrows was poorly aimed.

            “Your mother’s so fat that when she goes out to sunbathe, men run out and start throwing virgins in her bellybutton and beg another year of mercy from the mountain god!”

            Molly grabbed her daggers and ran for the building.  Mica dodged behind the cart -- Thistlepouch grabbed some fabric from her pouches and tied a bandage on her arm.

            “Hey, Thistlepouch, a good way to stop the bleeding is to tie a turnacuit around her neck!” Forge offered helpfully.

            A chorus of snapping and twangs sounded from the building; as Katrina reached the edifice, a body landed in front of her, both legs probably broken.  Without breaking stride, she knocked him clean out on her way to the door.

            “Damn!” was Darwin’s only comment, quite impressed.

            Katrina slammed open the door.  The front hall, ornately furnished, had no guard.  She headed for the stairs.

            Mica, once bandaged, stumbled to the building, feeling a little weak. The next arrow lodged in her left calf.  She cursed profusely as she dropped to the ground.  Thistlepouch tried to pull her out of the range of fire; between the two of them, they managed to get into the building.

            “Shoot the bastards!” Mica yelled at Forge as she crossed the threshold.

            “I’m trying!” he yelled back, counting only two arrows in the last volley.  A good sign.  Maybe.  He fired another shot.

            Mica checked her wound, probably too deep to rip out.  Thistlepouch bandaged around the arrow and offered a dagger.  “If you rest the shaft on this chair, you could chop it shorter.  That way it wouldn’t get bumped.”

            “Then I won’t bump it.  Let’s just leave it.”

            Thistlepouch shrugged and put the dagger away.  No accounting for humans.

            Mica plopped herself on the chair.  “Hey, Thistlepouch, could you find me something to drink?”

            “Okay,” the kita agreed, glad to be useful, and went off in quest for something alcoholic.

            As soon as Katrina made it to the roof, one of the archers took off running.  The second turned and made it a step before sprouting an arrow in the back of his head.  He tumbled backward into the street.

            Forge broke cover and ran for the building; he arrived to see one unconscious and one -- well, if anyone could be unconscious with that much arrow in the back of his head, he was unconscious, otherwise he was dead.  Congratulating himself on the shot, he began to loot the bodies.

            Molly passed Darwin on her way up the stairs, and as she crested the top step, saw seven figures running off the roofs to the south, Katrina pounding behind.  Molly took off in hot pursuit, dark-brown-almost-black hair streaming behind.  Though smaller than her companion, she pulled even with Katrina and leapt large gaps others skirted.  On the third jump, her compact, muscular form rammed into one guy from behind.  He screamed as he went down; the other six turned, saw, and drew daggers.  Molly caused one to fall clutching a dagger in his shoulder.  The other five advanced, slashing, but she kept them at bay, maneuvering them all between herself and Katrina so the other warrior would have a chance for a wonderful blind attack.

            Katrina pulled out her sword as she ran.  The first man she encountered parted company with his head.  Her sword stuck in the second one, lodged in a couple ribs, but she knew it would finish him shortly.

            Molly gave her opponent a nasty cut on his weapon arm -- he dropped his dagger, shaking his arm with pain.

            “Gods’ balls!  Come on, guys, let’s -”  And turned to discover only himself and two others.  “Zeus!”  He running.  The other two followed.

            Katrina hacked the leg off one in mid-stride.  He flopped to the ground and tried to drag himself away.

            Molly winged a dagger at the one with the biggest head start, and he collapsed with a dagger in his back, still alive, but not for long.

            Katrina made a mental note of the last one’s face, but the women didn’t bother running him down.  They stood amongst the carnage for a moment, fierce and bloody, before looting the bodies.  Molly, blue-gray eyes sparkling with the joy of the kill, went primarily for daggers, but Katrina took the arrows and one dagger.  Katrina tied up the kocked-out guy with some rope she kept in her pouch.

            Darwin finally made it to the roof.  “Damn!”  Then, suddenly skeptical, “hey, you left a live one.”

            “Yeah, for questions,” Katrina informed him.  “They’re easier to question when they’re alive.”

            Darwin frowned, grumbling to himself as he stalked off.

            Katrina grabbed the back of her captive’s shirt and started hauling him downstairs.  Molly strode away triumphantly, eyes shining with the joy of the kill.  Katrina had been at this longer -- it no longer held the same kind of jubilance for her.  Just another job.  She decided to leave the rest up and tell Bassano, who would know what to do to prevent a messy situation.

*                      *                      *

            Thistlepouch’s quest for a strong, bracing drink took a bit as she searched through the building -- she didn’t know why it was deserted; there were lots of things lying around that people just shouldn’t leave out like that.  Someone might steal them.  She decided she’d better take care of several of the more interesting ones for their negligent owners.  A short time and several bulging pouches later, she arrived at the kitchen and a cabinet full of bottles.  She pulled out the corks and sniffed them.  Definitely alcoholic, some mild wines, but she was looking for something -- woah!  That one knocked her back half a step off the fumes -- perfect.  She took it.  Luckily for Mica, she was too wired for any of her distractions to last long, but she still managed to run across some dried fruits (a special weakness of hers) and even some pickles (another weakness, a close second to the fruits).  She grabbed some spare aprons -- extra cloth is always useful.

            After what seemed like an eternity, Thistlepouch returned bearing a good sized bottle of whiskey, to which Mica helped herself.

            Forge backed through the front door, dragging a body.  Mica was too busy helping herself to the bottle to see the first one, but she nearly spat out a mouthful when she saw him drag in the second.  She scrunched up her face.  “Ick!  Don’t bring those in here!”

            Forge ignored her.  “I’m gonna go check out the rest of the house.”

            “Aw, I wanna come too!”

            “Then break off the arrow, you wimp!”

            Mica gave him a Look.  “I can’t walk anyway -- there’s an arrow in my muscle!”

            Forge walked over to her.  “Here, use my shoulder as a support.  .  .  no, wait, you have a quarterstaff.  Use the quarterstaff as a crutch!”

            Thistlepouch suspected he was big softy and just didn’t want to get caught at it.

            Darwin stomped down the stairs.

            “Hey, Darwin, you wanna explore the house with me?  There might be more people,” Forge tempted.  “Stuff to break.”

            “Hmm.  .  .  yeah. Might as well.”  The cousins ambled off.

            Molly was next down, and Katrina towing another body by his shirt, which had begun to tear.  She set him down and picked him up by his belt.  Though he had been on the verge of coming around, the pressure on his privates put him out again.

            Mica imbibed a couple healthy swigs and asked Katrina to break the arrow.

            Katrina hesitated slightly.  “This is gonna hurt a lot,” she warned.

            Mica took another swing and preyed quietly to Athena.  “See what I go through for you?  I get shot with arrows and have them ripped out of my flesh -”

            “Hey, guys, get her some alcohol!” Katrina called.

            Darwin’s voice floated back.  “Elf piss or real trash?”

            “We don’t wanna kill her!” Katrina returned.  “She’s already been drinking some -”

            “Why would I need more?” Mica asked, pretty well on her way to getting smashed.  “I’ve got half a bottle left.”

            Forge went looking for the strongest human stuff he could find -- or the weakest dwarven.

            Mica felt no pain.  She looked unsteadily up at Katrina.  “Pull the gods-be-farted thing out.”

            Katrina pointed to the kita.  “Hold her legs still.”

            Thistlepouch knew Mica could bench press more than she weighed, but obediently sat on them.

            Katrina undid the bandages, heated her dagger in a nearby lit candle, and made small incisions on either side of the wound to make the arrow easier to remove.

            “I don’t get into candle wax, thanks,” Mica told her blearily.

            Thistlepouch cocked an eyebrow -- Mica sure was toasted -- she didn’t make any sense at all!

            Katrina yanked out the arrow; Thistlepouch winced as it opened the wound more.

            Mica’s world went red, then black, then came back in fuzzy.  Really fuzzy.

            “Sorry about that,” Katrina apologized.

            “Is she going to need stitches?” Thistlepouch asked.  “I’ve got a needle and thread.”

            “No, no more poking,” Mica protested drunkenly.  “You stay the hades away from me.  My leg was not this bloody to begin with.”

            “The arrow was plugging it, Mica,” Thistlepouch told her.  “Here, take another drink.”

            Katrina put herself so Mica couldn’t see what she was doing, sterilized the needle, and sewed her shut.  Unskillfully.  Mica gurgled, then got really quiet.  Katrina got off as soon as she finished bandaging, which was a good thing, because Mica was about ready to start pull her sword.

*                      *                      *

            “You know, Forge,” Darwin commented, “I think I’m glad I’m not back there.  I’ve been hearing some nasty-sounding screams.”

            “Hey, at least she can’t blame us.  Come on, let’s go break some stuff.”

            There certainly were enough targets -- the rooms were full of fancy furnishings.  No sign that anyone had left in a hurry, though.  Forge kept his eyes out for any sign that would indicate why the place was open and unprotected, but he didn’t find anything.  Darwin just wandered around breaking things.  Forge went back to the others.

            “Hey, Thistlepouch, you wanna go check out the lock?  See if anyone damaged it, picked it?”

            “I could see if somebody broke it, but if somebody just picked the lock, it wouldn’t show any more than a key going in would,” she said, and went off to take a look.  And wondered why Forge had needed her to do the looking; the damage was really obvious.  “Someone went after this with something bigger than a lockpick.  A large, blunt object, maybe.”

            Forge went to check on the unconscious people.

            “Oh, gods, what the -” the man that had gone down outside groaned, then caught sight of the two short, squat figures staring down at him.  “DWARVES!  Venus’ short-hairs, don’t scare me like that.”

            “Wake up,” Forge commanded.

            “I’m shagged, aren’t I?” observed the man.

            “Yeah.  What the hades are you doing?  Who sent you?  And if you don’t talk, my cousin here gets to have fun” jerking his thumb to Darwin.

            Not a word.

            “Darwin?”

            Thistlepouch closed her ears.  And her eyes.  And leaned her forehead against the wall.  She didn’t like Darwin’s idea of fun.  Maybe they deserved it for attacking her friends, but it didn’t make the screams easier to hear.

            Darwin chuckled gleefully.  “Actually, let’s wake the other one up.”

            “Um, okay.”

            Darwin kicked the other guy until he came around.  He wasn’t as surprised about his situation.  In fact, he didn’t say word one.  Forge went over to the guy with the broken legs and kicked them.  He screamed in agony.

            “So, care to talk?”

            No response.

            Kick.

            Scream.

            “Care to talk?”

            “They’ll kill me!”

            “Yeah, so will we.”  Kick.  “But we’ll spend more time at it.”

            “Hey guys, maybe we should do this across the street where we’re invited,” Katrina suggested.  “If anyone comes, they might think we were the ones to break the doors down.”

            “Fine!”  Forge picked the guy up, roughly; the captive screamed and passed out from the pain.  Darwin grabbed the other one. Thistlepouch was just glad they’d left.

            Once back at Antonio’s, they ran across a tall, rangy page.

            “Do you have a room where I could get him to talk?” Forge asked.

            As the page led them to a basement room with thick walls -- probably once a meat locker -- Katrina and Molly headed for the room where Bassano held morning briefings.  The Guard Captain spotted them over the guards’ heads.  He paused, did a double-take.

            “.  .  .  and, I believe that will conclude the briefing for the day.  Be careful out there.”  He made a beeline through the guards to Katrina and Molly.

            “We were attacked outside the gates,” Katrina informed them.

            “I see.  Well, that’s a new record.”

            “We’ve got two being interrogated at this point in time, one we marked and allowed to escape so we could find him again, and six killed, five on the roofs and one inside the building.  It was forced open, there was no sign of the guard, and the attackers were on the roof.”

            “Interesting.  Well, I will quickly join you for interrogation.  Do you have any suspicions?”

            “You mentioned that the group was having trouble with Lockshy.  It was definitely planned.  They were waiting for us, there’s no question.  They all had arrows; there were three volleys before their bows all broke.”

            Bassano raised his eyebrows.  “My.  Ineffective bunch.”

            “The only other weapon they carried that we saw were daggers,” she continued, showing him one.

            He examined it.  “Hmmm.  Standard.”

            “However, the two being interrogated have yet to speak, which isn’t standard.”

            “Yes.  Usually they scream at the first hint of pain.”

            “One of them has two broken legs and still hasn’t spoken.”

            “Have they mentioned a price for their talking?”

            “Not that I’ve heard.  The only thing I heard was ‘they’ll kill me’ -- and then he passed out from the pain.”

            “Pain?”

            “We were bumping his legs.”

            “Ah, I understand.  Very well.  I’ll join you for the interrogation.”

*                      *                      *

            Mica really wanted a doctor -- she was fairly sure the arrows were poisoned and the whole world was in on it.  Thistlepouch, seeing her quite wobbly and in no position to defend herself, made herself available for a support.  Slowly, haltingly, hobblingly, they made it to Antonio’s manor.  As they stepped across the threshold a servant passed by, covered with muck and gunk and crawling bugs.  The women stepped out of his way.

            He took one look at Mica and screamed.  “You’ve been hurt!”

            “Yeah.”

            “I can’t stand the sight of blood!”  He scurried off yelling, “Doctor!  Help!  Murder!  Murder!  Maiming!  Gods help us!”

            Another page, drawn by the excitement, swayed up and peered drunkenly at Mica.  “Caihelp you?”

            “You look almost as bad as I do,” Mica observed, and handed him the bottle.

            “Youcahelp me!”  He took the bottle, glugged twice, and passed out.

            Mica slid down her quarterstaff and sat on the floor feeling miserable.

            From the direction the infested creature had run, a young lad appeared.

            “Are you hurt?  Do you need a doctor?  I can go get the doctor for you!”  And ran off.

            Mica looked dazedly to the kita.  “Thistlepouch, did I imagine that one?”

            “Well, if you did, I think we both imagined it together.”  She felt considerably less energetic now that the brew Mica fixed her had started wearing off -- and she was developing a nasty headache to boot.  “Is there anything left in that bottle?”

            “If you can pry it away from the drunk one.  You might have to suck it off his lips.”  The mental image sent the inebriated warrior priestess into gigglefits.

            Thistlepouch looked at the drunkard.  She knew she shouldn’t throw stones, but.  .  .  well, he just wasn’t cute enough to consider sucking it off his lips.  She grabbed the bottle out of his hand before the last of it could spill on the floor -- a strong-smelling puddle had formed around the neck of the bottle.  She swigged the remnants and choked as it burned all the way down.  Almost immediately the world tilted.  She slumped next to Mica to support her injured comrade.  .  .  or because Mica made a good backrest, Thistlepouch wasn’t sure which.

            After what seemed like an amazingly short period of time, though it could’ve been longer -- Mica’s world had been fading in and out -- the imaginary page was there again.

            “See?  Here, they’re here!”

            Black. Back in.  A doctor was bent over her leg.

            “Which page are you?” she asked fuzzily.

            “I’m the doctor, ma’am, looking over your leg.  .  .  oh, my.  .  .”

            “I know.  It looks like the Enterprise.  Shut up.”

            “The who?”  Then he thought better of his question.  She was obviously drunk.  “Never mind.”

            “I’ve got one up here, too,” she said, fumbling at the bandage on her arm.

            “We need them in beds.  This one.  .  .”  He started looking over the kita, trying to find her wound.  That got her attention.  She squirmed, trying to fend him off.

            “Hey!”

            “Sorry, ma’am, just trying to determine where you’re wounded.”

            “I’m not,” the kita informed him testily.  “I’m taking care of her.”

            “I see.”  A pause.  “Bed for this one as well.  And what happened to -?  Oh, never mind.  Someone bring Roedrig back to his bed and keep him out of the liquor cabinet.  Pages, come.”

            Someone picked Thistlepouch up; she felt the world traveling beneath her.  .  .

            She didn’t remember much after that.

*                      *                      *

            The tall, lanky page Forge had sent for smelling salts returned and handed the vial way, way down to the dwarf.  About then, Bassano entered with Katrina and Molly.  Forge woke up the one with the broken legs, got right in his face, and smiled unpleasantly.

            “Just kill me now,” the man pleaded.

            “Nope.  I’m gonna make it long.  .  .  and painful.  .  .  unless you give us the information we want.”

            “Nope.”

            Forge tapped his knee -- the busted one -- then went over to the other and woke him up.

            “Aw, bugger.  .  .  Joe, we ain’t gonna get paid.  .  .”

            “Shut up!”

            Forge perked up slightly.  “Who’s paying you?  Tell you what, you know your friend Joe over there?  We’ll do to you what we do to him if you don’t talk.  Hey, Darwin, touch the spot.”

            Darwin’s face lit with evil glee as he jabbed the broken spot.  Joe screamed in agony and passed out.

            The man got a look of utter terror on his face.  “Zeus!  Kay, look, tell you what.  You get me passage on a boat out of here to Dennik, like Flora on Dennik, and I’ll tell you everything.”

            Forge looked at Bassano, who shrugged.  It could be done.

            “How do we know this information’s for real?” Katrina asked.

            “Tell you what,” Forge bargained.  “You talk, we’ll decide afterward.  We’ll get you someplace.  Out of town, at least.”

            “Not outta town.  It’s gotta be west, ‘cause east is bad, man, east is bad.  You don’t wanna know what’s east.”

            “Okay, we’ll get you west,” Forge said.  “Start talking.”

            “You swear?”

            “Swear.”

            “How do I know I can trust you?”

            “Well, you don’t have anyone else to trust,” Forge informed him matter-of-factly.

            “Swear by whatever it is you got hanging around your neck there.”

            “Fine.  I swear by trahnesI, Dwarven God of forges, curses, spirits, eyesight, and whatever the shag else we need him for, I swear that we will get you west.”

            “Okay.  We were hired by this guy, Lockshy, said we had to come here and basically do some work for him.  We’re like, bow guys, so we just do shooting, but he brought us here from this place down by the docks where we’re staying -”

            Forge couldn’t place his accent.  “Where are you from?”

            “East.”

            “Where.”

            “Is it that important?”  The man sounded exasperated.

            “Yup.  We want all the information.”

            “From Palargo.”

            Forge looked to Bassano, who shrugged.

            “Go on,” the dwarf instructed.

            “So he hires us from Palargo, and we’re staying in this bunk place he’s got us -”

            “How many?” Katrina cut in.

            “There was twenty of us he hired, but I don’t know where the rest of them are gone.  Cuz he’s been taking out groups of us, sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t, it’s scary.  And he’s got some weird trash on the second floor, I don’t know what’s up there, he sometimes brings up food for it, but I ain’t never heard nobody up there, except for that one, he’s like this kid that goes up there, but I don’t know what that’s all about.  It’s like this weird freakin’ kid.  You don’t wanna know what’s up there.  But anyway, you know, he brings us to this house and tells us to jimmy the lock and then go up to the building and we’re suppose to shoot these people come out, he basically tells us that a group with either a short little gnome guy -- I ain’t never seen what a gnome was, but he told us bout it -- shoot one of them if we saw them.  And these two guys -- you, dwarves -- and this short little, looks like an elf thing, but shorter.  And then this human woman, this chic, who was apparently, he gave us a description, and we weren’t sure exactly about her, but when we saw the chic with you guys -”

            Forge smacked him across the face.  “Watch your mouth.”

            “Damnation, man!  Okay, okay, enough with the chic -”

            Forge punched him in the gut.

            “He doesn’t like that term,” Katrina informed the thug pleasantly.

            “If this is how you treat your friends, I hate to see -”

            “Oh, he’s being nice to you,” Katrina assured him.

            “We have knees over there.”  Forge hefted his hammer.

            “Hey, hey, I’m talking here, right?  I’m bein’ nice, right?”

            Forge nodded, put down the hammer.

            “Okay.  So we go over to, and there’s nobody in the house, which is really weird, and so we see you guys come out and we shoot you.  You know, nothing personal.”

            “So where’s your boss at?” Katrina asked.

            “Back at the warehouse.”

            “Give us directions.”

            He did.

            Katrina pulled Forge aside.  “Do you know what he looks like?”

            “Lockshy?  Yeah.”

            “Do you know why he’s doing this?”

            “Kill us?  I dunno.  He’s been after me since I got into the town.”  Forge turned back to the man.  “We’ll keep you here until we verify your directions.  Give you food, water -”

            The hoodlum panicked.  “Keep me here?  No, man, he’s got ways of finding me -”

            The dwarf looked to the Guard Captain.  “Bassano?  Could you keep this place secure for him?”

            “Secure my arse!” the man cried.

            Katrina donned a sardonic grin.  “Do you really want me to?”

            “If he knows I’m here, I’m dead.”

            Forge decided to end the conversation.  He punched the guy in the face to knock him out.

            He yelled in pain.  “Hey!  Aw, dammit, you broke my nose or something!”

            Katrina smacked him on the back of the head.  He protested loudly.  Molly cuffed him hard on the temple, and was as effective as her two predecessors.

            Forge, feeling a little embarrassed over the whole thing, turned to the Guard Captain.  “Um.  .  .  Bassano, do us the pleasure, please.  .  .”

            “This really isn’t my forte.  .  .”  He shrugged and slugged him.

            The ruffian moaned.

            “Darwin?” Forge offered.

            Katrina tried again -- finally, this time, he went out.  .  .  with a broken nose, a huge bruise across the side of his face, two nasty lumps on the back of his head, and one right on the back that put him under.

            “Should we just keep these two here, give ‘em food, get the doctors to keep ‘em alive at least until we’re done with ‘em?” Forge asked.

            “Yeah,” Katrina put in, “we do need to show the other one what’s going on.”

            Forge turned back to Bassano.  “Well, since they’re firing at your house, can I assume we’ve got help?”

            “You’ve got us,” Katrina reminded.

            “That’s all I can afford to offer at this time,” Bassano told him.

            Forge nodded shortly and went in search of the other women.

*                      *                      *

            Mica, meanwhile, was dealing with difficult people as well.  Or, at least, a difficult person.  Okay, she was the one being difficult, but it’s really hard dealing with yourself sometimes.

            “I can’t lay in bed all day -”

            “I’m sorry, miss,” said the doctor in the tone one uses when one has had to say something quite a few times, “but you’re far too wounded to be about.  You really should be -”

            This was not the answer Mica wanted to hear.  “Piss off!  What do you know?”

            “I’m a doctor!” he cried, highly indignant.  “You should stay in bed for at least another three days.”

            “You’re way too old for me.  Go away.”  She turned her attention to her god, figuring a divine power must be more reasonable.  “Excuse me for my inebriated state; I felt it necessary to reduce pain and have the arrow removed from my leg.  I’d really like to go find the man who hired these guys to shoot me and get him back, so please fill my hands with your healing powers so I can get up and do what I need to do.”

            The wound tingled, and Mica could feel the muscles knitting under the scar, like worms crawling under her skin.  She gritted her teeth and thanked Athena for her blessed healing.  Just as it finished, Forge, Molly, Katrina, and Darwin walked in.  Mica threw off the covers and stood up.

            “Shall we go get Lockshy?” Forge asked.  “You look better.”

            “I’m feeling muuuuch better now.”

            Forge looked over at the next bunk where Thistlepouch was curled up like a little wild animal, fast asleep.  Forge handed his accouterments to Darwin and scooped her up.  The party embarked.

            “I wonder if there’s a back way out of here,” Mica pondered aloud.

            “There is,” Katrina told her.

            “Oh, good.”

            Forge’s beard tickled Thistlepouch's nose; she sneezed.  He patted her on the head.  About half way to their destination, he jostled her a little and set her down, hoping she’d have enough time to wake up before trouble hit.  She wandered after.  Forge soon noticed that she wasn’t even close to keeping pace and hoisted her up on his shoulders and kept going.  Thistlepouch decided she liked the view from up there -- she was almost Mica’s height.  She knew he was just a big softie, anyway.

            They stopped in front of a simple, rickety wooden warehouse.

            “You guys know this place?” Forge asked.

            Katrina shook her head.  “Not our territory.”

            They circled around to see if there was a back door -- there wasn’t.

            “Shall we knock it down, or should we be polite about this?” Forge deliberated.

            “Break it down,” Mica voiced.

            “Maybe we should be polite,” Katrina suggested.  “No one’ll expect that.”

            Forge set the kita down.  “You wanna go check the door locks?”

            “Okay.”

            The dwarf got his stuff back from Darwin.  The companions readied themselves for battle.

            There weren’t any locks, so Thistlepouch supposed he must’ve meant for her to take a quick look inside.  She grabbed the handle of the large double door and leaned back hard to open it up a crack.  It was dark in there.  She said as much.

            “They’re waiting for us,” Mica observed.

            “Shall we open?” asked Forge.

            “Sure,” said Mica.  “Who’re we to be late to a party?”

            Mica went over to help Thistlepouch open one door while Forge kicked the other door open -- or tried to, forgetting temporarily that the doors opened outward.  So much for a flashy entrance.  Darwin looked at him like he was an utter idiot, and it was not often Darwin gave him that look. 

            Forge stopped kicking.  “Anybody got a torch?”  No one did, so he ripped apart a barrel for planks and made a couple on his own.  Molly took one, as did Thistlepouch. 

            When they went up to the door again, the side walls inside were visible, but the back was lost in darkness.  Rows of cots with footlockers lined the walls -- sixteen or so visible, but a safe bet there were more further on.  Forge slung his bow over his shoulder in preparation to explore.

            A volley of arrows arced from the darkness.

            Katrina dodged to the left, saw an arrow coming right for her -- and fortuitously tripped, causing her to strategically retreat to the floor.  It missed.  Everyone else, too.  Since she was already on the floor, she rolled to the nearest cot.

            Mica dove for the nearest footlocker, as did Molly -- though the torch still made her an easy target.  Forge ducked behind one in the opposite direction, trying to get away from torches so his heat-source vision could kick in.  Thistlepouch ducked behind a footlocker, too, and lined up insults.

            Darwin charged.  Thistlepouch decided he was insane.  He caught an arrow in the shoulder, though he didn’t seem to care.

            “I didn’t think anyone’d be stupid enough to mate with an orc, but evidently your father was -- and he’s still smarter than you!” Thistlepouch called to the enemy.

            Forge, once away from the heat, could make out six figures at the back of the warehouse

            “How many are there?” Mica called.

            “Six!”  He fired a shot -- it missed.

            Thistlepouch wondered how long it would be before they ran out of arrows -- she had no desire to wind up looking like Mica.

            Darwin, still charging, was luckily enough of a moving target that everyone missed him. Katrina picked up a cot and used it as a shield as she charged.  Mica, especially since her luck seemed to be running low, took a more subtle route and snuck forward, keeping close to cover so she could dodge if need be.  Forge aimed another arrow and closed his eyes.

            “Hey, Thistlepouch, give me a light!”

            Thistlepouch applied her torch to his arrow.  “Lit!”

            He released; it flamed through the air in a blaze, hit the ground, and continued burning.  That done, the dwarven archer charged forward, bow on back, hammer in hand.

            “Not even a Terrentian trollop would sleep with you!” the kita taunted, but had a feeling it wouldn’t have much effect.  She felt a little off -- probably, she supposed, from all the strange things she’d had to drink.  Deciding combat might fare better, she started running.

            Darwin hacked into one, eliciting a the first scream of pain to fill the warehouse.

            It was not the last.

            Katrina, just approaching, saw shadowy figures dropping bows and the glint of fire off daggers.  She dropped the cot and brought her claymore down in an overhand smash that her opponent ducked away from.  She noticed, however, her blade’s glint had been dulled by blood.  The man had grunted, but not screamed, so it probably wasn’t that good of a hit.

            Another strangled cry from Darwin’s area.  A group of figures converged on the dwarf.

            Molly stabbed into someone -- he twisted away and the dagger pulled from her hand, but she was pretty sure she’d gotten a gut wound in.

            An opponent’s dagger barely blocked Mica's blade.

            Katrina and Forge scored lightly.  Darwin’s opponent nearly threw himself on the dwarf’s axe.

            Forge missed and just barely avoided the guy’s dagger when all of a sudden a bundle of energy appeared beside him and thrust a torch into the enemy’s face.  As he staggered backwards, a dagger darted in to make a slice along his gut.  He was dead by the time he hit the pile his intestines had made on the floor.

            “Piece of elf muck,” Forge grumbled.

            “You’re welcome!” returned a cheery voice, and the kita was off again.

            Molly slipped a dagger between the shoulderblades of the chap intending to stab Darwin; the hoodlum down without a sound.

            Katrina and Mica took out the remaining thugs.

            The kita bent to wipe her little black-hilted dagger on a dead man’s cloak.  As she straightened, she noticed a set of wooden stairs built against the side of the building in the back.

            Heavy footsteps began to descend.

            Forge readied his bow.

            “You want me to light it?” Thistlepouch offered.

            “Not yet.”

            Mica moved behind the stairs; Thistlepouch handed off her torch and readied her staff.

            The footfalls thudded down to the accompaniment of clanging metal and a deep, almost echoing voice:

            “De lacka shahi, kahuta!”

            Thistlepouch’s eyes lit up -- it sounded a bit like the dragonspeak the page had used; maybe they were about to meet a real, live dragon!

            Metal-clad feet appeared in the torchlight.  Thistlepouch snuck up the stairs.

            Mica tried to Achilles heel him with a slice and saw blood on her blade -- and welling from the gap in the armor.  The stranger cried out and stumbled down, caught himself before he fell, and drew himself up.  He was about six feet tall -- twice the kita’s height -- and encased entirely in metal.  Quite obviously a foreigner; no one from the archipelago wore armor like that.  He turned around, unsheathed a two-handed sword.

            “From behind.  .  .  poor,” he said haltingly, as if searching for the correct words.  “I accept not.”

            As he began his swing, Thistlepouch put her staff between his legs with just the right leverage that his step forward overbalanced him horribly and he crashed to the floor.

            Katrina’s claymore arced down and hit at the back of the neck.  The armor buckled inward.  Uncomfortable, probably, but not enough to wound.

            Forge and Molly, figuring their friends had it all under control, went upstairs to see if there was anybody more up there, but soon discovered absolutely nothing of interest.

            The warrior struggled to his feet.  Darwin charged forward with his axe and made a nasty gash along the torso of his armor.

            “Save some for me!” Forge hollered as he pounded down the steps.

            Molly flying tackled him from the top of the stairs.  She impacted -- he staggered backwards.  She slid down, stunned and in pain.

            Mica swung for his legs and missed.  She swung again, but he got his sword up to block.

            Thistlepouch tried to trip him again, but it didn’t work.

            The warrior swung and missed everyone except Darwin, who lunged forward with his axe, tripped, and caught a sword slice across the chest nasty enough to see ribs.  He fell to the ground and did not rise.  Katrina dragged him out of the field of combat.  He was doing pretty bad -- cracked a couple ribs, but luckily hadn’t punctured a lung.  She tried to staunch the bleeding.

            Molly managed a stab into a tender locale -- one of the greaves in his arm.  She pulled it out.  He bled badly from that arm and was obviously favoring it.  Still staggering from the wound on his foot, he backed himself against a wall.

            Thistlepouch grabbed a torch and applied it to the foe’s steel codpiece.  The warrior, unhappy at this, bent down to slice at her, but she got off with a scratch across her forearm.  Forge, enraged over his cousin’s wound, smashed the warrior’s groin as he reached down.  He doubled over with a groan, and Forge smashed him in the head.  The helmet split, and Forge saw the skull tattooed human face underneath before his head splooted like a melon.

            The kita was extremely disappointed that he was not a dragon.

            Instead of falling to the ground like a good corpse, the warrior stood back up with swing that everyone fortunately managed to avoid despite the fact that they weren’t anticipating it in the least.  Where his head should have been glowed green.

            The kita had a pretty good suspicion Hades wouldn’t be happy about this.  “Forge, use your amulet!”  She dropped her staff, kicked it out of the field of combat, and awaited an opening to jump on his back.

            Once Darwin’s bleeding slowed and he was no longer in mortal danger, Katrina got up to attack.

            Molly plunged a dagger into his neck -- the shock of the glowing green energy caused her to immediately let go.  The dagger glowed with green energy and shot off little green firefly-like sparks.

            Mica exchanged blows with the headless opponent, but neither got a hit in.  He missed everyone else, too.  Though they had to admit he was really good with his sword -- the best dead guy they’d ever met.

            “Somebody lock his elbows with a dagger!” Forge instructed, backing out of the battle so he could attach his medallion to the hammer.

            The warrior swung and buried his sword into the dirt.  Mica got her sword into his greaves.

             Katrina’s sword pierced his gut, rupturing his stomach but not his heart.

            Molly thrust a dagger into his elbow and pulled it out.  He bled from that wound, now, too.

            Thistlepouch, with a mighty leap, wrapped one hand around the dagger in his neck and the other arm over his shoulder.  She looked down his neck --  she could see organs.  His heart pulsed and glowed bright green.  She maneuvered her torch over his heart on the outside to see if it would change colors.

            “Hey, guys!  I can see his guts!”

            “Move it!” Mica warned.

            Though wrenched his sword free from the dirt, the unholy warrior did not hit anyone.

            Katrina hit him in the back, drew blood, but didn’t sever his spinal cord.

            Molly went for the gut, but it bounced off the armor.

            Forge made a powerful overhand swing.  The hammer flew out of his hand.  The hammer was tied to the amulet.  The amulet was not leaving his hand.  He yelped in pain -- the amulet chain dangled from his fingers, cutting into flesh.  He tried to get the hammer back and reposition the setup.

            Thistlepouch, still busy and quite fascinated watching his heart, didn’t see any effect.

            “Thistlepouch, stick the torch down his neck!” Mica suggested.

            “I can’t!  I’d have to let go!  Hey, do you know his heart’s green?”

            “Eeew,” the priestess commented, wrinkling her nose.

            The warrior ignored the kita.  He had more pressing problems.

            Molly couldn’t get close enough to attack.

            Katrina hacked his back.  The armor buckled away -- she could see bones.  One more good hack would take him out.

            Mica’s sword dug deep into the armor at the back of his knee -- glowing light emanated from that wound.  It slowly traveled up his leg, encasing his armor.

            “Athena!”

            Katrina took half a step back -- she’d never seen anything like it before.  Definitely new.  Of course, so was the dead guy walking around.

            Thistlepouch pushed herself up on the blade; it sank into his neck and nearly pierced his heart.

            “My dagger!” Molly cried.

            Forge, finally situated, got a nice hammer blow to his adversary’s left hip, producing a crunching sound that would’ve warmed Darwin’s heart, had he been conscious to hear it.  The armor glowed black and crumbled at the point of impact.

            Katrina’s slice cut right through his spinal cord.  He slowly collapsed.

            Molly’s dagger found an opening -- Thistlepouch watched it near his heart.

            Mica’s cut sliced into his arm, and it began to glow brightly, too.

            Just as Thistlepouch drew another dagger to try and pound the one in his neck further down, the black glow, the bright glow, and both daggers converged on the warrior’s heart.

            It turned white.

            It turned black.

            It burst.

            The body melted into a pile of goo and oozed in all direction.  Thistlepouch managed to skip out of the way, but everyone else got undead warrior on their boots.

            Mica went to retrieve her daggers.  It reminded Thistlepouch of Tusit.

            Darwin was bleeding but alive -- they managed to get him outside.  Forge set both torches to the warehouse on his way out.

***

Disclaimer: No samari tin cans were wounded  during the creation of this chapter.  It took a while to pound the dents out of the armor, though.