Even though none of us knew anything about navigation through the wilderness, the way we approached it was so simple that even a child could do it. I heard a couple of scouts talking once after they had found a child lost in the woods nearby. Well, they found most of the child. It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? The men who do dangerous things usually develop a dark sense of humor. Anyway, these men said that children would always go downhill when they were lost because it was easier. Our group of four friends planned to do the same thing that child did, and it was no less dangerous. We were like children in the woods, and we didn’t know it.

  We did indeed find a stream through the foothills going south, and we followed it downhill. There was a game trail close to the water that was easy to follow. We kept our eyes open for danger because we knew that where there was a trail there were game animals, and where there were game animals there were predators.

  We were hiking a couple of hours after lunch when Bandit made one of her weird little noises and burrowed deeper into Mira’s pack. Bran heard her and called a halt. We all scanned the area around us until Bran saw something on the path ahead. His eyes were glued to a patch of ground that had a pile of sticks close to the trail about two dozen paces ahead of us.

  “I see it,” I said.

  The others readied their shields, drew weapons, and stood side by side.

  “Care to do the honors?” Bran asked.

  I nodded. It was definitely a pit spider’s trap door. There was a tiny gap under some of the front sticks that it would probably be peeking through. With focus through the pain and a little power from the source, I conjured an arrow made of fire, then hurled it straight through the little gap. There was a shriek from under the sticks, and suddenly two chitinous tentacles shot out directly towards us. We were too far away for it to have snared us so easily, though. The tentacles retracted like they were never there, and the trap door rested completely on the ground.

  “Wait for it…” I said.

  Sure enough, a few moments later, the trap door eased up again ever so slightly. I threw another arrow fire into the gap, and this time the monster within gave a much louder response. As it climbed nimbly out of its covered pit, it was revealed to be a giant spider with a body six or eight feet in diameter. It had massive, hairy, black legs that propelled it rapidly towards us, and it waved its segmented tentacles erratically as it crawled.

  Normally pit spiders didn’t leave their burrows, but I made it angry, as evidenced by its ruined right eye. I focused my will and drew enough power to hit it with a powerful and focused concussive blast. The attack smashed it squarely in its nasty, slimy mandibles with enough force to send it flying backwards to land on its back ten feet away. I followed that with a cone of fire and cooked it to a crisp from a safe distance. A minute after it stopped moving, I ceased channeling the fire to see that the leaves around the spider thing were aflame.

  “Well, don’t burn down the forest!” Elle said. She quickly advanced to stomp the fires out. The rest of us were shamed into helping her.

  “Hey, you weren’t complaining a second ago when that monster was burning,” I said in my defense as I stomped on burning leaves.

  “Kick the burning ones onto the corpse!” Elle said, stomping and kicking furiously.

  “Don’t you know any magic to put the fires out?” Mira complained.

  “Don’t you?” I shot back.

  After a few more minutes of frantic activity, we halted the spread of the fire.

  “Well, that was fun,” Mira said.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I said, “but practice is something I’ve never had. I’ve spent my effort hiding what I am, not developing my skills. I’m like a two-trick pony right now. If you want something dead, I’m your guy, but I’ll be damned if I know anything about conjuring water.”

  “All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Mira said.

  She could see that I was genuinely upset, and that I was only trying to help. Still, looking back on this, I can see that she wasn’t really sorry. She was just saying that to soothe my feelings. In general, women don’t apologize, I’ve noticed, even when they’re in the wrong. I think it has something to do with women wanting a certain response from men, and there being no better method to get what they want. It was all about pulling levers to make a man give them something or do something they want.

  “Let’s go. The smell will certainly attract stroks or something worse.” Bran said.

  We had carefully walked another few hours when we found a copse of spruce trees that would likely make a good spot for a campsite. The trees in the center were big enough that we could set up our two gray tents underneath after hacking off the lowest branches, and the smaller trees at the edges would screen us from view. We decided a cook fire was not necessary, and the weather would be mild until it started raining tomorrow morning. Having a cook fire would just get us eaten. We set the watch order in two-hour increments, then the three of us not on duty got some sleep while we could. Wearing armor while sleeping makes for a really lousy night’s rest, but every soldier knew you just didn’t take your armor off while you were outside a city’s walls.

  The next day we marched through the rain for a couple of hours. We hit the coastline then, and since none of us had seen the ocean before, we walked just outside the tree line to take a look. There was a sandy beach bordering rough gray seas with tall waves crashing to the shore in the wind and rain. We couldn’t see very far because of the rain, but what I saw made me question the wisdom of taking a ship anywhere. I thought I’d trust my own two feet over this tempest any day of the week. Bran led us back into the forest where there was a bit more shelter from the wind. We made sure our canteens were full of fresh water before we struck out to the west, away from the stream we had followed. It was a pretty miserable Threeday, but necessity made us persevere.

  Fourday began with the sun shining brightly on our campsite, which was under a large oak tree this time. We had breakfast, packed up, and marched for four hours or so when we saw a pretty inviting spot to pause for lunch. We came across a small stream that fed a pool of crystal-clear water from a small waterfall on the north side of the pool. There were songbirds singing a merry tune in the trees surrounding us.

  “Oh, this is beautiful!” Elle exclaimed. “We’re stopping here, Bran.”

  “Sounds great to me, Elle,” Bran said, already taking his backpack off.

  There was a large, mostly flat rock close to the pool that we sat down on to eat. Bandit climbed out of Mira’s pack to take a look around. She listened to the birds for a moment, then ambled into the woods, presumably to relieve herself. The four of us had our lunch and made small talk.

  “Elle, give me a hand with my armor, will you?” Mira asked.

  “Sure… Um. What’re you doing?” Elle asked as she began unbuckling Mira’s pauldron.

  “I’m gonna take a bath, that’s what. I smell like a dung heap, and I can still taste that demon’s puke. I’ve got to get that smell off of me, and our two meat shields are gonna keep watch. FACING THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. If I catch one of you peeking, I’ll shoot you dead,” Mira stated.

  “I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Elle said. “We’re outside the walls!”

  “Look around. This is a really peaceful spot. Surely no monsters are close by, or Bandit would have sniffed them out already,” Mira said. “Besides, you need this bath worse than I do. Now don’t be such a spoil sport.”

  Elle considered it while she helped Mira with her breastplate. She wrinkled her nose.

  “You know, I think a bath would do me wonders, too,” Elle said. “I normally wouldn’t do something so reckless outside, but that horrible smell’s still here, even after you cleaned it.”

  “Into the tree line, you two,” Mira said.

  Bran and I shared a look. “Looks like we’re on guard duty,” I said, shaking my head.

  I couldn’t tell you how disappointed I was. Elle and Mira were going to be stripping naked outside for the whole world to see, and I couldn’t even look. Bran was thinking the same thing, but he didn’t complain, either. Bran and I got up and moved a few paces into the wood line, our heads firmly fixed with our gaze into the trees. I could hear the pieces of armor being lightly set on the rocks, and a short bit later the light splashing of water as the girls waded into the pool. Oh, the temptation.

  “Be strong, brother,” Bran said. “We can get through this.”

  “Easier said than done,” I replied. I kept my gaze straight forward, though. Elle was one of the most beautiful young women I’d ever seen, and I’d been trying to imagine what both of them looked like without clothes for a number of years now. It was extremely difficult to keep myself from peeking. After all, they probably wouldn’t know. But Bran would, and he’d feel guilty, and then he’d tell Elle. Then she’d tell Mira, then it would be open season for practical jokes on me. There were consequences to peeking, so I just kept my back to the pool.

  The girls were pretty quiet, so I could hear very little over the sound of the waterfall, but a contented sigh did reach my ears once. I needed to think of something else to avoid the temptation of looking. The foulest thing I could think of was that demon’s breath hitting me in the face. That’ll do it, I thought. It was one of the nastiest things I’d ever smelled, and Stonekeep has both tanneries and pig sties, so the standard was set pretty high already. A few minutes went by as the struggle within me continued.

  “Hey! Where’s our stuff?!” Mira shouted at us.

  Neither Bran nor I’d done anything but stand there on guard duty, and we had no idea what she was talking about. We couldn’t help but turn around to see what Mira was talking about. Elle and Mira were up to their necks in the water, and though the water was crystal clear, they were moving their arms around, agitating the surface so we couldn’t see what was underneath. More disappointment. When it became obvious that neither Bran nor I were looking at the shore, Mira gestured angrily at the shoreline again, which was conspicuously devoid of clothing and arms.

  “It’s not funny!” Mira shouted. “Where’s our stuff?!”

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  We were both about to protest our innocence when there was a splash in the water behind the girls. A huge snake had surfaced there, and was thrashing its way towards the very vulnerable young ladies. Sure, we could face down a demon in its creepy lair, but snakes induce panic in everyone that suddenly sees one close by. Predictably, they screamed and came running out of the water immediately as Bran and I drew our weapons. Completely naked. I wasn’t even looking at the snake anymore, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. The girls ran right by us, but were afraid to go into the woods.

  I conjured an arrow made of fire and hurled it at the snake without effect. I must have missed, I thought, so I conjured a blast of fire that boiled water in the whole area. After a few seconds, I halted the flow of fire and found steaming water that was almost completely still. The snake was gone. We all waited a minute or so for the water to still itself enough to see underneath, but there was no sign of the snake anywhere. I blinked, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, and glanced at Bran. He was looking around in wider swivels of his head. There was no trace of a snake anywhere.

  “What the hell?!” Mira said angrily.

  That caused me to turn and look behind me. Elle had a befuddled expression on her face as she stared at the pool, and when she saw Bran looking, she quickly brought her hands up to cover herself as best she could. Mira was standing there without thought of her state of dress, and her face turned red as she turned around to look in the woods.

  “Bandit! Where are you? That was you, wasn’t it?!” Mira almost shouted.

  “Bandit?” I was thinking. What did a raccoon have to do with anything? Then I saw Bandit. The little troublemaker was rolling on her back at the edge of the woods and seemed to be laughing silently, her little paws holding her belly like a person would. Mira looked really mad as she marched over to confront the furry little troublemaker. She was in really good shape, too. Beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, Elle was the kind of woman every other woman dreamed of looking like, and her perfect figure was already etched into my mind. I gulped, then turned slightly to face Mira as she fumed at Bandit. Suddenly, Bandit transformed into a tiny little woman about a foot tall with copper colored hair, pale skin, and a dress made from what looked like tulip petals. She had butterfly wings that were almost completely transparent and flickered with a prism of colors. Bandit laughed in little musical fits, pointing at Mira and Elle, completely unable to help herself. I was privately shocked at the transformation, then started to feel foolish that I was so dense.

  “What the hell was that?” Mira demanded. She seemed careless of the fact that she was standing there completely nude, dripping wet.

  Bandit calmed enough to gasp for a breath. “Oh, you should have seen your faces!”

  Then she burst into another laughing fit. All the while, I was glancing back and forth between Elle and Mira, trying to etch every second of this into my memory.

  “Very funny,” Mira said ruefully. Then she saw me gawking and put her fists on her hips. “Having a good look are we, boys? Turn around!”

  Mira didn’t have the kinds of curves that Elle had, but she still had a very nice figure, and she looked fantastic. They were both very athletic. I tore my eyes away and turned towards the pool. Bran was already turned that way. Apparently, he had more willpower than I did.

  “Where’s our stuff?!” Elle yelled at Bandit.

  Bandit was still laughing, but she was able to point to a spot a dozen paces away. There was an illusion of a rock there that faded away to reveal the girls’ gear all piled up. Elle dashed over and began sorting through it as quickly as she could, looking for her undergarments. Mira walked over a bit more casually and began getting dressed. I got the impression that there was a part of Mira that liked the attention, however much she tried to indicate otherwise.

  “You know how dangerous it is in the wild. This was a bad time for a trick like that,” Mira said.

  “Oh, poo,” Bandit said in a musical little voice. She got up to her feet, still wiping the tears from her green eyes. “I knew there was no danger nearby. The birdies all told me so. Besides, I’ve been waiting years for an opportunity like that! It’s your own fault!” Bandit looked at Mira with a grin that barely fit on her petite, slightly freckled face.

  I could hear Mira and Elle as they started putting their clothes back on, all thoughts of getting back in the water completely out of their minds.

  “So, all this time, you had us thinking Bandit was a raccoon, and you never told us?” I asked.

  “Hey, it wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, if everyone knew who was playing the practical jokes, it may have endangered her,” Mira said. “People try to catch pixies for their dust, and I didn’t want Bandit to end up in a cage for the rest of her miserable life.”

  “Fair enough,” I said after I considered it. The pieces were coming together for me. The tack on my chair. The pebble in my shoe. “The itchy powder in my underwear was you, Bandit?” I had to laugh. “I thought that was Mira.”

  “I haven’t been completely innocent,” Mira said, fastening her pants while my back was turned.

  “Bandit, I didn’t want to be undressed in front of everyone,” Elle said as she hurriedly dressed. “That wasn’t nice.”

  “Well, Bran thought it was pretty nice,” Bandit said with a snicker. “You should have seen his face!”

  I knew Bran was glad to have his helmet on and his back turned, or he may have actually died from the embarrassment of the truth of that statement. I waited until I heard the armor being moved around before I said anything.

  “Are you decent yet?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you can turn around now. Thanks for being gentlemen about it,” Elle said.

  Rolling my shoulders, I loosened up a little bit as I made sure my pack was in order. I think everyone was a little embarrassed still, so I asked about something that had been on my mind.

  “Bandit, was that you who conjured the tongues of fire in the demon’s lair?” I asked.

  “Yep. The entangling chains was my doing, too,” Bandit said proudly. “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Sure was. Without those few seconds the chains afforded us, the demon may have killed Elle. Then probably all of us. That was a really big help. Thanks,” I said sincerely.

  Bandit beamed at the compliment. “Aw, it was nothing,” she said.

  We talked to Bandit a lot during lunch, trying to get a feel for the real Bandit. It was strange to have another person in our midst that we didn’t know was a person. It was kind of like getting to know someone you already knew. Bandit, who wanted us to continue calling her Bandit, had all kinds of stories to tell, too. And she was just so cute as she told them. She kind of danced around and flitted here and there as she spoke, wherever whim took her. She possessed a very innocent sort of chaos, and it was impossible to dislike her.

  After lunch, we had our canteens filled and were ready to march in record time. When he saw that everyone else was ready, Bran led the way into the woods without saying anything. Bandit flitted here and there with a little trail of sparkling dust following her wherever she flew. She looked happy to be stretching her wings.

  I couldn’t help but remember the way the girls looked as I walked. A part of me wished I had joined them. I was glad I didn’t though. It would have led to dishonor. Imagine how their future husbands would have thought about their bathing with Bran and me. All our lives, Nora and Dortham taught us to live with strong morals and to save intimate moments for when we got married. At Stonekeep, young men and women generally found potential spouses after our military training when we turned twenty. Then we courted in the presence of each other’s families for a year or so, and then we got married if things worked out well. The fathers made those decisions, though. The patriarchs usually listened if their son or daughter didn’t like their intended match, but not always. It was all done very carefully, though. Stonekeepers didn’t want to end up like Fellton. That place had a complete breakdown of family values, and as a result their society was a completely broken mess.

  I couldn’t help but wonder about Mira’s situation. She didn’t speak to her father anymore. I’d bet she could marry anyone she liked. Did she favor anyone? I hoped she liked me. I could never be sure around her, as I was often the target of her pranks. I thought of the times when we were smaller, and she used to hide around the house and throw something at me when I least expected it. She did that to “hone my reflexes and practice my shielding spell,” or so she said. It worked, though. Maybe Mira played jokes on the objects of her affection. Some girls did that. I really hoped so, anyway.

  -----

  Kromwell smiled in satisfaction as he left the trees behind and laid eyes on the fields surrounding Fellton. The cries of the slaves chained to the stone pillars were like a balm to him. He was home again. The thousands of ogres and goblins marching behind him seemed to pick up the pace when they saw the easy pickings here, though they all knew this was not a place to be plundered. The results of the last time they had tried to sack Fellton were so bad that they had become a racial memory, ingrained into their collective psyche. Still, it was their nature to kill and destroy. Kromwell had made it painfully clear what the price of disobedience was, and the lesson was fresh enough in their minds that he knew no one would dare disobey.

  The last rays of the setting sun hit the dark stone of the highest towers of Fellton as the army emerged from the forested road. Ogres and goblins were nocturnal, and it was difficult to force the army to march during the day. It was necessary to march in the day for this part of the journey, though, and they were none too pleased that the sun was still up after leaving the dark forest behind. Of course, Kromwell had slowed his pace a tiny bit in order to reach this spot at this time. If he got here too soon, the ranks would be rebellious. If he got here too late, then his rivals in the city would miss the spectacle of the army at his sole command.

  Kromwell looked to his right and saw the massive clearing on the south side of Fellton’s fields that had been recently cut from the forest for him to use. He could still smell the tree sap, and the logs and limbs themselves were piled here and there around the area. The fields closest to the new marshaling grounds were empty of crops, but the pillars were still there, along with hundreds of the dregs of Fellton’s society chained to them. When they saw the army emerge from the dark forest, it was suddenly clear to them why they were chained here with no crops to tend. A collective cry of dismay came from the slaves, which rose to full throated screams when the goblins and ogres broke into a run straight for them. Kromwell ignored the lack of discipline, allowing his army to get a taste of the things to come. Sated bloodlust would make them more compliant, after all. For a time, at least.

  While the chaos raged around him, Kromwell guided his ogrish war beast towards the clearing. It was a massive animal, bred by the ogres to carry them in battle, and it resembled a huge ox with long horns jutting sideways from its skull than it did anything else. It was a truly huge, daunting steed, and the one he now rode was the biggest of the lot. He had taken it as the spoils of a duel with the previous chieftain of the Split Skull Tribe. He replayed his victory again in his mind, reveling in the bloodshed and violence of it. A group of soldiers left the city gates on horseback, riding towards the clearing as Kromwell daydreamed. He subtly increased his pace in order to get to the clearing before the human riders did. Not only was it a psychological victory to receive them as if they were coming to him, but he wanted the shock of the sight of men and women being devoured alive to increase the fear of the officers. Kromwell got to the clearing and guided his war beast to block the road going back to the city. The riders approached, and Kromwell could see that they were members of the Fell Legion’s engineer corps by their tabards. The captain in the lead reigned in his horse ten paces from Kromwell.

  “Welcome back, Lord Surekeel,” the captain said without a trace of warmth in his voice. He flinched when a crunching sound and a particularly loud shriek sounded behind him.

  Kromwell looked down on him from his high perch. The war beast grunted at the horsemen and tossed its head, making their mounts shy back a bit. “Have you completed your preparations for the assault?”

  “Aye, sir,” the captain said. He gestured at the wagons full of boxes close to the road on the other side of the clearing. “The specialized pieces of the siege engines are within the city, but they’re ready to move out at your command.”

  “Good. I expect to have the rest of my supplies delivered here shortly. Surely you can see why,” Kromwell said with a bit of menace.

  The captain checked behind him and let out a breath he had been holding when he saw the train of wagons coming from the city already. “They’re coming now, sir.”

  “Excellent. You will supervise their unloading.”

  “How would you like the supplies distributed, sir?”

  “Just dump it on the ground and get away as quickly as you can. The distribution will happen in the ogrish way,” Kromwell said. They all knew full well that ogres did not wait placidly in line for food.

  “We will be breaking camp two hours before dawn. Your engineering company will bring up the rear, after the supply train. Make sure the first of your wagons stay ten horse lengths behind the last supply wagon.”

  “Yes, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?’

  “You have your orders. Relay them to those supply wagons immediately,” Kromwell said with a dismissive wave. The supply wagons had stopped when they witnessed the carnage the ogres wrought, and they would need to be “encouraged” to complete their delivery. Kromwell would see how much control the captain really had.

  It was close now. With the army at his command plus the logistical support of Fellton’s engineers, he would smash through Stonekeep’s defenses almost before they knew what hit them. Almost before. He wanted them to know despair before he turned his army loose to do as it would. They had no idea their doom was so close at hand. Behind his demonic visor, Kromwell smiled. He would avenge his father in the most brutal way he could devise. Finally, his time was so close he could almost taste it.