The Demon Awakens

They were readying to attack Weedy Meadow. Elbryan knew that, could hear it in the shriek of every bird, in the movements of squirrels, agitated by the presence of such numbers, by the thunder of a giant's step or the rolling war machines, by the croaks of powrie generals, the eager whines of bloodthirsty goblins.

They were readying to attack Weedy Meadow, and Avelyn and Pony had not been able to convince the townsfolk to leave -- not many, anyway, though now with the storm cloud that was the goblin army hovering about the village, many of the folk began to recognize their folly.

From a high vantage point some two miles south of the village, Elbryan saw the villagers shoring up walls, scrambling about in preparation. None of it would make any difference, the ranger knew. The only hope for Weedy Meadow's four score people was to get out of the village and far away. And with the goblins moving in from all sides, the only possibility of that was with the help of the ranger and his friends.

But Elbryan had so few to work with. Besides Pony and Avelyn, who were somewhere down amid that scrambling group, Elbryan had only the three trappers and Bradwarden. The refugees from End-o'-the-World Were nowhere near ready for another fight; half of them hadn't even uttered a word yet. The one advantage on the ranger's side was his knowledge of the region surrounding Weedy Meadow. The village was nestled in a land of steep hillsides and narrow valleys, where a hundred sneaking people might pass unnoticed only a few dozen yards away. This was a place of natural noises: running streams, cackling birds, and chattering animals. A living forest, with enough pine and spruce to offer cover even now, with winter fast holding the land.

"What're ye thinking?" Bradwarden asked, moving up quietly beside the ranger.

"We have to get them out."

"Not so easy a task, I'd be betting," replied the centaur, "else Avelyn and Pony'd have them far away already." Bradwarden paused, watching Elbryan's pained features as the man continued to stare to the north. The centaur understood what the man was feeling, the sense of his own loss those years before and the helplessness now in the face of a repeat of that disaster. Bradwarden had watched Elbryan closely these last two days, since he had evaded the monsters about End-o'-the-World and had crawled out of the forest. Always had the ranger seemed stoic and often stern, but never as grim as now.

"We'll get Pony and Avelyn, at least," the centaur offered, "and some others, I'm not doubting. Most won't go. Ye know that. They'll be staying with their homes until they see the enemy, then they'll know their doom. Then, it'll be too late for them."

Elbryan cocked an eyebrow. "Will it?" he asked simply.

Bradwarden didn't quite understand. Even if Elbryan and the trappers, all the refugees from End-o'-the-World, and all the folk of Dundalis went in to bolster the defenses of Weedy Meadow, the village would be flattened within an hour. Elbryan knew that as surely as did the centaur, and yet, the sudden gleam of determination on Elbryan's face left the centaur believing that the man had some plan.

"There," Elbryan said, pointing to a position just east of the village, to a pair of two-thousand-foot-tall mountains, their steep sides white with snow, crossed by the dark lines of many leafless trees.

"The valley between those hills is full of boulders and pine groves," the ranger explained. "Cover enough, if we move the folk quickly." Elbryan looked down and patted Symphony's muscled neck, knowing full well that the horse not only understood the plan but would help facilitate it.

"Ye'd choose the low ground for yer escape?" the centaur asked incredulously.

"Too many trees," Elbryan answered without hesitation as the puzzle sorted out before him. "They will get no clear shots or spear throws from above."

"They'll come down like a mass o' swooping hawks," Bradwarden protested.

Elbryan smiled wickedly as he considered those steep hillsides, all of varied angles and deep with virgin snow. He thought of Avelyn and the magic stones and some of the properties the monk had explained to him. He thought of Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk, and their undeniable skills. "Will they?" he said calmly, his tone so even and assured that the centaur sucked in his breath and argued no more.

"How did you get in here?" Pony asked breathlessly, grabbing Elbryan in a hug as soon as she spotted him entering the common room at Weedy Meadow. "We know the goblins are all about."

"Thicker than you believe," Elbryan agreed, returning the hug tenfold. It felt so good to him, so warm and fulfilling, that a very large part of the stoic ranger wanted to whisk Pony away into the night, to run far away from this place and its troubles and just live peacefully and lovingly.

He could not do that, could not forsake his duty and the destiny that he had been shown by the Touel'alfar. For every thought of running away with Pony, the ranger held five memories of the tragedy that had befallen his own family and community.

Avelyn bounded over to the pair a moment later, the boisterous monk seeming not so animated now. "Ah, but they wouldn't go," he wailed at Elbryan. "They would not listen to our words, and even now, with darkness looming in the forest, many insist that they will stay and fight."

"Any who choose to stay and fight will surely die," Elbryan said, loud enough for several nearby townsfolk to hear. A pair of grizzly men at a table near the common room entrance stood up, one kicking the table away as he rose. They glared at Elbryan for a long moment, but finally walked away, moving to the other side of the large hall.

Undaunted, Elbryan moved to the long table that served as the bar, and hopped atop it. "I tell you this only one time," the ranger proclaimed, and the score of men and half that number of women in the room looked his way, most disdainfully but some too fearful to show any outrage. "I have just crawled through the ranks of our enemy, deep lines of goblins and giants and powrie dwarves."

"Powries?" one woman echoed.

"Bah, a tale o' lies," someone answered from one corner.

"Your only chance will be to get far from this place," Elbryan said bluntly, tossing the bloodred beret to the floor. "And even now, escape will nor be easy. I will take those that I can with me tonight, soon after the moon has set." The ranger paused and glanced around, locking stares with each of the patrons, letting them see the intensity of his green eyes, the determination on his face. "As for the rest of you, your window through the monstrous force will be small and any hesitation will cost you dearly."

"Who are you to come in here and give orders?" one man demanded. Agreeing protests rang from every corner of the room.

True to his word, the ranger did not repeat his message. He hopped down from the table, gathered Pony and Avelyn in his wake, and bade them follow him outside, where they might talk in private.

Elbryan didn't flinch nor did he look back threateningly when a mug shattered against the wall beside the exit, a missile obviously aimed at the back of his head.

Elbryan conferred with Avelyn first, to confirm the potential of the magical stones. Then he talked more to Pony, who better understood the terrain of this region, with its hilly forests and many streams.

"They, too, will come in through that valley," Pony reasoned as Elbryan laid out the plan before her. "If they are as organized as your description of the assault on End-o'-the-World indicates, they will not leave so open a route behind them. They will come in through that valley, and will take the tops of both hills."

"Not many will make it through," the ranger promised. "The goblin line will be thin, and speed and surprise will be our allies. As for those on the hills, three friends are already preparing for them."

Pony nodded, not doubting the ranger's words, but still, another part of the plan troubled her deeply. "How can we place so much hope on animals?" she asked.

Elbryan looked to Avelyn. "The turquoise," he explained. "It has given me insight into Symphony's thoughts. I can talk to the horse with my mind, and he understands. Of that I am sure."

Avelyn nodded, not doubting the power of the turquoise. The stone; as if it were something sentient, had called to the monk on that day when he had presented it to Elbryan and Symphony, and Avelyn, who had floated down the face of a cliff, who had walked on water and unleashed tremendous fireballs, who had held the power of a thunderstorm in his puny, mortal hands, would not discount any possibilities of its God-given power.

"We have few options," Pony admitted.

"No other," Elbryan replied.

Avelyn saw the look that passed between them and he walked away, at first aimlessly but then turning toward the cabin of the one family -- a widow and her three small children -- that the three friends had agreed should leave with the ranger this night.

Pony and Elbryan spent a long and quiet moment together, ending it wordlessly with a kiss that passed as a promise from Elbryan to the woman that she would not be abandoned, and as a promise from Pony that she and those who would leave would be ready when the moment of opportunity was upon them.

The ranger left Weedy Meadow that night, moving through the winding valley east of the village with the fleeing family. The forest was quiet, but, as Elbryan had suspected, it was not empty.

"Goblins," he mouthed silently to the woman, and he held up his open hand to indicate their number at five. The ranger had an arrow ready on Hawkwing, but he didn't want to kill any monsters this night, not in this pass, where any bodies might alert the army to a possible hole in its raiding fines.

So they sat tight and waited, the woman working hard to keep her youngest child, a mere infant, from crying.

The goblins moved close, so close that the five could hear their whining voices, so close that the, crack of a stick underfoot sounded loud to the ranger and the family.

Elbryan kept them down, tried to reassure them all by patting the other two children softly, by showing them his weapons and that he was ready should they be discovered.

The ranger, lying up front, said nothing when a goblin boot stepped firmly on the cold ground barely three feet from his head. Elbryan held his breath and clutched his hand axe, playing out in his mind the quickest and surest attack should the goblin make any sudden move to indicate that it had spotted the group.

But then the moment had passed, the goblins wandering on along their patrol route in the valley, oblivious of the man and his refugees. The goblins' ignorance saved the creatures' lives that night, for death was barely an arm's length away; more important, the goblins' ignorance also saved Elbryan's plan.

* * *

The sky brightened to a dull gray shortly before the dawn, another lazy snowstorm dropping scattered flakes that floated to and fro during their descent. Elbryan and Bradwarden, on that same hill far to the south of Weedy Meadow, watched for the start of it all, for the first signs of the attack they knew would come this day.

"Ye left her there," the centaur said unexpectedly.

Elbryan cocked a curious eyebrow.

"The girl," the centaur explained. "Yer lover."

"More than a lover," Elbryan replied.

"And ye left her there," the centaur went on, "with ten thousand monsters moving her way."

Elbryan continued to stare curiously at his. half-equine friend, not sure whether Bradwarden was congratulating him or criticizing him.

"Ye left the woman ye love in harm's way."

The words hit Elbryan strangely, showed him a perspective that he had hardly considered. "It was Pony's choice to stay, her duty --"

"She could die this day."

"Do you enjoy torturing me with your words?"

Bradwarden looked the ranger squarely in the face and laughed heartily. "Torturing?" he asked. "I'm admiring ye, boy! Ye love the girl, but ye left her in a town that's about to be sacked!"

"I trust her," Elbryan protested, too defensive to understand the centaur's sincerity, "and trust in her."

"So I'm seeing," said Bradwarden. He put a hand on Elbryan's shoulder and gave the man a sincere, admiring look. "And that's yer strength. Too many of yer folk would've forced the girl by their side, to protect her. Ye're smart enough to see that Pony needs little protecting."

Elbryan looked back to the north, to Weedy Meadow.

"She could die this day," Bradwarden said evenly.

"So could we," Elbryan countered.

"So could ten thousand goblins." The centaur laughed.

Elbryan joined in, but the mirth was ended when a streaking line of fire cut across the sky, a ball of flaming pitch, soaring for Weedy Meadow.

"Powrie catapult," Bradwarden said dryly.

"Time to go," replied Elbryan. He gave one last look at the distant village, at the small fire. that had come up. Pony was in there, in harm's way.

Elbryan grimaced and let it go. He looked at the centaur, moving steadily ahead of him, and at first he was angry with Bradwarden for bringing up the grim possibilities. Until this time, Elbryan hadn't even considered the danger to Pony on a personal level, so great was his trust in her. She would lead the people out of Weedy Meadow, he had supposed, and though some of them might be killed, Pony would not.

Bradwarden had made him face the truth of this day, and gradually the ranger's anger became gratitude. He didn't trust Pony any less; he could control his desires to rush to her side and protect her. Bradwarden had shown him the truth of his relationship, the true depth of his love and trust for this woman who had come back into his life. Elbryan nodded and smiled as he regarded the centaur, sincerely grateful.

"Ho, ho, what!" the monk bellowed, running to the newest fire, clutching the sheet of serpentine in his plump hand. Using the magical protection, Avelyn walked right into the midst of the blaze, standing with flames licking to his shoulders but smiling widely, to the amazement of those villagers witnessing the sight.

The monk fell deeper into the magic of the stone, calling forth its shielding powers, expanding its area of influence until this particular fire was smothered.

Avelyn came out of his trance, only to find that another blaze was burning, not so far away. "Ho, ho, what!" he bellowed again, pushing aside the would-be village firefighters so that he could use his much more effective method.

Despite the efforts of the mad friar, the rain of powrie fireballs increased, coupled with bouncing boulders that smashed more than one home to kindling. One fireball hit against the village's east wall, splattering the two men standing nearby with burning pitch. Pony was quick to one, wrapping him in a heavy blanket, and Avelyn got to the other, using the serpentine effectively.

"The gray stone!" Pony cried to the monk, indicating the hematite and the badly burned man on the ground beside her. Avelyn went to him at once and eased his pain, but the monk's expression turned more grim.

He was beginning to admit that he could not keep up with the barrage, and he knew that even this was but a prelude to worse.

Pony left the man in Avelyn's caring hands and ran about the frantic villagers, berating them for their folly in staying and reminding them that a way out might soon be open.

She was not surprised that now, with fireballs slighting structures by the minute and boulders crashing down about them, she found more people willing to listen to Elbryan's plan. Still, despite the flaming evidence, many of the proud and stubborn folk refused to admit that this was more than a simple goblin raid.

"We'll push them back," one man argued to her, "chase them into the woods so far, they'll never find their stinking way out!"

Pony shook her head, trying to argue, but the man had too much support from the five fellows standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him along the wall.

"Goblins!" the man insisted, and he spat at Pony's feet.

The others started grumbling but went strangely silent an instant later, and Pony looked up at them, then followed their gaze across the short field that stood between the village and the edge of the trees.

A pair of fomorian giants, fifteen feet tall and ten times the weight of a heavy man, paced back and forth in the shadows, eager to rush the wall.

"Damn big goblins," Pony replied sarcastically. She looked down at the weapons the group earned -- shovels and pitchforks mostly, with only a single, rusty old sword among them. Pony had given her own sword to the mother who had left with had and now she carried only a slender club and -- a small axe, weapons that looked puny indeed against the sheer bulk of those two giants.

She left the stubborn group with one final reminder. "The east wall," she said grimly.

She found Avelyn near that wall, and paused as she approached, seeing a slight bluish glow among the timbers of the one east gate. She looked at the monk curiously.

Avelyn shrugged. "I did not know that the serpentine could enact a lasting barrier," he said, "nor do I know how long I might maintain it. But be assured that any fires brushing that gate will find no hold."

Pony put a hand to the monk's broad shoulder, glad indeed to have Brother Avelyn on her side.

The pair turned abruptly a moment later when a shout from the north wall told them that the attack was on.

* * * Elbryan was running hard to keep up with Bradwarden; Symphony had taken to the woods, disappearing as a shadow might when the sun goes behind dark clouds.

"I cannot slow!" the centaur called, and then he grunted as the ranger grabbed fast to his tail, the man half running, half flying behind the swift creature.

They came to their base camp, where Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk waited:

"They're filling the valley," Paulson explained, "a long line, goblins mostly, and not so deep."

"Powries on the hills," Cric piped in.

"But the traps are set?" Elbryan asked.

All three nodded eagerly.

Elbryan closed his eyes and sent his thoughts out to Symphony, and heard the horse's response clearly. Satisfied, he looked again at his immediate companions. "We must pick our targets carefully," the ranger explained. "We must thin their line wherever we may, and take out any giants or those monsters that can get out of harm's way." The ranger looked back to the east. "Let Symphony do the rest," he explained.

The group started off quietly, Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk going along the base of the north hill, Elbryan and Bradwarden making their way to the south.

Agile Pony got to the roof quickly and fell flat to her belly, crawling low as spears arched over her, as the monstrous horde came on toward the north gate. She peeked over the edge of the roof, back into the village, and saw that only three of the five at the wall remained alive, and they were fleeing fast.

The two giants banged against the fortified wall for a moment, then simply stepped over it.

Pony held her breath at that dangerous moment, but fortunately the two giants were too concerned with the townsfolk to notice her. They strode past into the village, men and women fleeing before them, screaming, finally admitting their folly in staying.

"Ho, ho, what!" came a familiar cry, and Pony looked past the giants to see Brother Avelyn standing steady before them.

A spear nearly got the distracted woman. She spun about as a goblin's head appeared above the edge of the roof. Pony's club sent the monster tumbling away, but she noted that a hundred more were climbing all about the wall, eager for human blood. With a growl, the woman threw her club into the face of the closest one, and it, too, fell back. Then she gave a quick glance to the east, which was still quiet.

"Damn," the woman muttered and she put her legs under her and ran for the southwestern corner of the roof, leaping far into the air and grabbing the closest giant by the hair. Her momentum brought her right in front of the monster, their faces inches apart, and Pony wasted no time in planting her axe into that gruesome visage.

The giant howled, the woman fell away, landing in a roll, and the second giant turned to her, ready to squash her flat.

"Ho, ho, what!" Avelyn bellowed his signature cry, one he used now to release the mounting energies of the graphite he held.

A forked blast of blue-white lightning erupted from the monk's hand, one finger of the bolt striking each giant. The one Pony had hit in the face, its hands up to cover the wound, went flying backward, hitting the wall waist high and flipping right over it, crushing a goblin in the process. The other giant, its foot high to stamp Pony, jolted straight and stood trembling, too stunned to react as its intended victim ran off.

Pony rushed to Avelyn. She looked all about desperately. Goblins were crawling over the walls like ants; hundreds and hundreds, their sheer numbers burying any townsfolk who stood to challenge them.

"Fighting in the east!" one man yelled, running to Pony and Avelyn. "Where is your plan?" he added sarcastically, hopelessly.

Pony ran with him back toward the eastern gate, while Avelyn held the rear guard, loosing another lighting bolt that launched a dozen goblins from the rooftop Pony had just abandoned.

A powrie crawled atop the eastern wall directly in front of Pony and the villager, not so far from the gate.

"Where is your plan?" the man demanded again of Pony, his desperate question echoing off the anxious faces of all the villagers gathered near the wall.

The powrie stood tall on the eastern wall, but then kept moving forward, curiously, falling headlong over the structure and landing in the dirt, very still.

A long arrow protruded from its back, an arrow with fletchings familiar to the woman.

"There is my plan," she replied confidently.

A moment later came the thunder of hoofbeats to the east, many hoofbeats accompanied by the screams of those unfortunate goblins caught in front of the wild horse stampede.

"Avelyn!" Pony yelled.

"Ho, ho, what!" the monk replied, loosing yet another lightning bolt, this time into the ground at the feet of a horde of goblins that were charging straight for him. The jolt sent the entire group of monsters two feet off the ground.

Pony grabbed a pitchfork from one of the men nearby and ran to the eastern gate, bravely throwing it open.

There stood a pair of goblins, stunned that the gate had opened before them. Pony took one in the throat with the pitchfork. The other turned to flee, but was cut down almost immediately, an arrow striking it right between the eyes. Pony looked back and spotted Elbryan sitting on a low branch of a tree on the northern side of the ravine. Below the ranger, Bradwarden ran back and forth, trampling goblins and powries or bashing them down with his heavy cudgel. The centaur tapped one powrie on the head, then scooped up the dazed dwarf and dropped it into a sack.

Pony didn't have time to consider the move, for the thunder approached, led by powerful Symphony. Goblins and powries scattered or were crushed beneath the charge, a hundred wild horses stampeding along the ravine.

"Avelyn!" Pony cried, and the monk rushed past her; she noted that he was glowing slightly, that same bluish hue as the eastern gate.

Pony held the townsfolk back as Avelyn ran out among the goblins. Most were too confused and frightened to attack, but some did charge.

Avelyn held forth his hand -- Pony caught sight of a red sparkle from within his grasp.

A huge ball of fire encircled the monk and consumed all the nearby monsters. A hot wind brushed Pony's face and blew into the stunned villagers standing beside her.

When the flames dissipated an instant later, Avelyn stood alone and the way was open.

Almost open; a powrie came rushing out from behind a stone, its hair burned away, its face blackened, its club no more than a withered arid charred stick. But the dwarf was very much alive, and very angry. It howled and whooped and charged Avelyn, ready to throttle the monk with its bare hands.

In his other hand, Avelyn clutched a third stone, brown and striped with black-tiger's paw, it was called. Now the monk fell into this stone's magic, letting go the fire shield of the serpentine. A moment later, Avelyn was screaming in agony, not from the powrie -- that enemy hadn't caught up to him yet -- but from the work of his own transforming magic that was bending and breaking the bones in Avelyn's left arm. Fingers crunched and shortened, fingernails narrowed and slipped back under the knuckles, and then came a great itching as orange and black fur erupted all along the length of the arm.

The powrie got to the monk, but Avelyn had recovered now. He was whole again -- except that his left arm was no longer the arm of Brother Avelyn but that of a powerful tiger.

With a mere thought, Avelyn extended his claws and raked them across, taking the face off of the stunned powrie.

Now the way was clear.

From further down the valley, Symphony charged in, followed by his equine minions. The stampede came to a skidding halt, the wild horses accepting riders, villagers. Pony climbed atop Symphony, and Avelyn, standing with Elbryan as the ranger ran in, waited behind to cover the retreat.

Both Pony and Elbryan sucked in their breath at the sight of Avelyn's arm, but neither spoke of it at that desperate moment.

Then away thundered Symphony and the hundred horses, fifty of Weedy Meadow's eighty inhabitants holding fast to manes, terrified, and scores of goblins and powries scrambling to the hills, trying to get out of the way.

Down those hills came the powries, outraged by the apparent escape, but Paulson, Cric, and Chipmunk had done their work well. Deadfalls, pit traps, and jaw traps stopped many; in one place a dropping pile of logs triggered a small avalanche of loose snow and rock.

Those monsters that did make it down found Bradwarden and his cudgel waiting for them, the centaur kicking and smashing with abandon. Avelyn's graphite shot out again, back toward Weedy Meadow's eastern gate, scattering those goblins coming in close pursuit and opening the way for Elbryan, who insisted that he go back for any stragglers.

The ranger found a giant coming hard his way, stomping across the village, outraged and already hurt by one of the monk's lightning blasts.

Hawkwing's bowstring hummed repeatedly, an arrow thudding into the giant's chest, followed by one to its belly, another to its chest, and then a third nicking off huge ribs, and then a second in the belly.

Each hit slowed the behemoth a bit more, allowed Elbryan yet another devastating shot. Finally, the stubborn monster slumped down.

Several frightened men ran right over its back as it tumbled, a horde of shrieking goblins close on their heels.

Elbryan knelt by the gate, taking careful aim and picking off the closest monsters one by one.

"Avelyn, I need you!" the ranger cried. The situation was even more desperate than Elbryan initially believed, as he discovered when he looked up to see a goblin standing atop the wall, some five feet to the side of the gate, ready to pounce upon him.

But Avelyn couldn't immediately help, the monk preoccupied with a group of powries coming hard down the south hill, having dodged the trappers' pitfalls.

Elbryan turned to meet the pounce, but even as the goblin came on, silver flickers caught the ranger's eye. The monster landed right beside the ranger, but it was dead before it hit the ground, three daggers sticking from the side of its neck and chest. Elbryan glanced back to a smiling Chipmunk, the man running off to engage another confused powrie.

"Avelyn!" Elbryan called again, more insistently. The ranger put up his bow and cut down one more goblin as the group of men ran out the gate and scrambled past him.

Elbryan fell back in a roll; goblins filled the gate and poured out.

Avelyn's lightning blast laid them low.

Then they were off and running, all of them, Elbryan and the three trappers, Bradwarden and Avelyn, and all the latest refugees of Weedy Meadow, following the tentative trail opened to them by the horse stampede.

They ran all the morning, fighting often, but only quick skirmishes. They followed the obvious trail and were guided along even more cunning ways by Elbryan, the ranger following Symphony's call.

One stubborn group of thirty powries stayed with them all the way, hooting and hollering, throwing daggers and axes whenever they got close enough, and only crying out with more fervor whenever Elbryan or Bradwarden paused and let fly an arrow, inevitably taking one of the dwarves down.

Avelyn, huffing and puffing; and too weary to attempt another stone use, moaned and complained that the others should leave his fat body behind. Elbryan would hear none of that, of course, and neither would Bradwarden. The powerful centaur was still carrying the sack with the kicking powrie, and somehow managing to put his great bow to use every so often, but he still had enough strength to allow the fat monk up on his back.

The horse trail continued to the east, but Elbryan called for a turn to the south, leading his group, more sliding than running, down a thickly wooded hillside that ended in a half-frozen stream and a field covered with snow beyond that. They splashed across and ran on, the powries coming in furious pursuit now that their prey was in the open.

"Why'd we go this way?" one villager crud out in desperation, seeing the stubborn, untiring dwarves gaining steadily.

The man got his answer as grim-faced Pony, sitting tall atop Symphony, came out of the trees across the way, flanked on each side by a score of angry villagers and their spirited mounts.

Elbryan's group ran on; the powries skidded to an abrupt halt and tried to turn.

Pony led the thunderous charge and not a dwarf got off that field alive -- except for the unfortunate one kicking futilely in Bradwarden's sack.

The encampment that night, closer to Dundalis than to Weedy Meadow, was filled with a bittersweet atmosphere. More than sixty of the village's eighty folk had escaped, but that meant that nearly a score had died, and all their homes were lost.

"You sent him away?" Pony asked Elbryan as the ranger approached the campfire she and Avelyn shared.

"I could not tolerate that in the camp," Elbryan explained.

"How could you tolerate it at all?" Avelyn asked.

"How could I stop it?" Elbryan was quick to reply.

"Good point," the monk conceded. "Ho, ho, what!"

Elbryan looked at Pony, and each shuddered, thinking of brutal Bradwarden and his planned meal. Elbryan had interrogated the captured powrie, getting no information of any value, and then the centaur had claimed the dwarf as his catch -- and as his dinner.

He had promised Elbryan that he would kill the wretched creature quickly, at least.

The ranger had to be satisfied with that; he and the refugees were in no position to take on a prisoner, especially one as fierce and stupidly bold as that powrie.

"We did well," Avelyn remarked, handing a bowl to Elbryan and motioning to a cauldron not so far away.

The ranger held up his hand, having little appetite this night.

Avelyn only shrugged and went back to his meal.

"You did well," Elbryan remarked to the man. "Your fireball opened the way for Symphony -- and even the help of the horses would not have been possible without the magic of the turquoise. And your lightning bolts saved many lives, my own included."

"And mine," Pony added, rubbing the fat monk's back.

Avelyn looked at her, then at Elbryan, his expression truly content. He even forgot his food for a moment, just sat back and considered the events and the role he and his God-given stones had played.

"For years I have wondered if I chose correctly in taking the stones," Avelyn explained a moment later. "Always have I been followed by doubts, by fears that my actions were not truly in the spirit of God but only in my own misguided interpretation of that spirit."

"Today proves you right, then," Elbryan said quietly.

Avelyn nodded, feeling truly vindicated. A moment later, he caught the look that passed between Elbryan and Pony, and politely excused himself. There were many wounded in the encampment that night, including some who might need further help from Avelyn and his hematite.

"I could not save Weedy Meadow," Elbryan said to the woman when they were alone.

Pony looked all around, leading Elbryan's gaze to the men and women, to the children who would have surely died this day had not the ranger and his friends ushered them away.

"I am satisfied," Elbryan admitted. "The town could not be saved, but so different this is from the day of our own tragedy."

"We did not have a ranger to look over us," Pony replied with a grin.

That smile could not hold, though, lost in the bittersweet blend of tragedy present and tragedy past. The two moved closer together, huddled in each other's arms before the fire, and said not another word, each lost in their memories of their own loss but with the satisfaction that this day, they had been the difference.