The Four Dragons, Verse 3 (Patreon)

Verse 3, A Killer Performance

Many, if not all in the Adventuring lifestyle must face seemingly daily challenges that the people who live comfortably in cities, towns, and villages are blissfully unaware and spared of.  The challenges of the road are many: freak thunderstorms, rock slides, bridges badly in need of repair just happening to break and fall into a rushing ravine, no blame at all of perhaps a spellcasting Bard trying to look macho in front of a group of warriors.  Just as a…totally non-specific example…

All right but in my defense, the bridge was going to break eventually anyway, and I completely saved all our skins.  Could I have done better?  Perhaps, but such is the life of an Adventurer, where the lucky ones get to ponder better options instead of winding up dead.  As you may have surmised, the unfortunate series of events that led to our party’s encounter with a group of Pyrelings, high in the eastern slopes of the Aldhyte mountain range, are still but rather mundane obstacles on the Road.

Oh, did I forget to mention monsters?  So too are they so commonplace in the wandering, wild life of an adventurer that the horror or bizarreness of the many varying species of creatures, cretins, creeps, and all manner of crawling, biting, clawing, flapping, or scuttling things that plague the less civilized areas of the world, pretty much become as mundane as sudden rain or stale rations.  They at least, the monsters, make for wonderful filler to pass the long, drudging, boring hours of seemingly endless marching, and they spice up tavern tales of such exploits.

For what kind of quest is complete without a roadside ambush by Goblins who refuse to live in the Landsrayd and instead devolve back into sneak-thief raiders?  What kind of mountain-climbing adventure was considered a profound one without some wild Chimera whirling around overhead on leathery wings, firing barbed spines and roaring its scaly, cat-like head off as it was denied an easy meal of warm meat?  Battle and bloodshed are as much hallmarks of an adventurer’s life and career as much as the roadside taverns, hedges, abandoned farmhouses, and caves where we rest our heads.

Now you may wonder, what place does a Bard, teller of tales, plier of tricks and performances, have in such a wild, dangerous, all-too deadly place as the Road?  Even fellow adventurers sometimes voice such questions, queries, or doubts.  And to that I say: not all magic is music, nor are the swords at my side for show.

Today’s episodic occurrence of such random, furious combat involves, as I said, a fair amount of misfortune, a little misinformation, maybe an overreaction or two, and quite a bit of dramatic flair.

“You missed one. On your left!”  The broadsword described a brilliant arc of sunlight along its blade as it rose and fell.  The Pyreling was split in half by the force of the blow, cut from foul, bat-like head to its pointed, barbed tail.  It fell to the valley below in a spray of dark black bile and blood, but not a drop stained that fearsome sword.

“I saw that one!”  the Half-Orc snarled.  Her large hands flexed and the dual pair of axes in them spun in deadly, perfectly-mirrored circles.  She lengthened her grip on the now split handles, slowly spinning the right-hand weapon faster and faster in ever increasingly large circular arcs.  The chain connecting the two jingled as she wound up for another strike, timing it just right to fling the chained axe out through the air, cutting the winged arms from her latest target in mid flight just as it came into her considerable range.  Abruptly wingless, it fell with a scream, and she recovered her weapon with a deft flick of the chain, snapping it back into her grasp with practiced ease.

“If you saw it, you should have dealt with it sooner.  Pardon me for trying to help you get caught up.”  Ajax gave her a savage, scar-twisted grin.  “Those fancy little axe and chain tricks of yours are slowing you down.”

“Burn your own ass, Draach, I’m counting nine so far.”

“Don’t pierce your tongue on your tusks, Orcling.”  He shot back.  A heavy-handed bash of his shield sent yet another foul, squabbling Pyreling sailing off the side of the dilapidated bridge, its tiny form screaming, skull deformed, as it vanished into the river flowing fast and white far beneath them.  “Because that’s a dozen for Ajax.”

“A dozen?  I’m surprised you can even count that high.  And stop talking about yourself in third person!”

“Do you think they enjoy taunting each other like that?”  Oborro wondered as he glanced over at the two such distinctly different warriors.

“Not the time, Oborro!”  Another creature scurried towards Artemesia, fangs bared, large lantern-like eyes shining in the gloom.  “No, no, no!  Bad Pyreling, bad!  Don’t you even think of getting near me!”  She warned, slashing with a hand, but the thorn-covered vine that she summoned from the rotting wood of the bridge’s planks was too slow to nab the ugly little thing.  It was almost on top of her.

Oborro glanced back at her, panic coming momentarily to his eyes.  Could he reach her in time to help?  Pyrelings may not be all that tough, but they were tenacious, and tended to not have much self preservation.  If its squat little body took the Druid off her feet, she could very easily fall into the rushing waters below to join so many of its fellows.

The Bard needed not have worried.  Delicate hands, more suited to weaving or cooking, gripped the wood of her staff and her gleaming, witchlight purple eyes flared with irritation as she poured power into it.  “I warned you…” she growled under her breath as the Pyreling lifted into the air on its winged arms, sailing through the air towards her with fangs and claws bared.  Timing her swing just right, the magically hardened staff swung with the force of a giant’s club for that moment.

It struck the Pyreling square between its bulbous eyes and it was sent flying backwards with a pained squeal of chittering sounds, skull thoroughly dented.  Oborro saw it coming and impaled it neatly on the blade of his rapier, flicking its cumbersome little body off and away from him to roll off the bridge into the waters below.

“And here I thought all Druids venerated life,” taunted Oborro cheekily as he went back to slashing and stabbing wildly into the surrounding masses of the Pyreling pack.  His flickering blade kept them at bay, the flashes of light off of the steel helping to mesmerize their tiny, warped minds.  The Worldsong blazed in the back of his mind, a steady tempo and beat he conducted with the tip of Andsing, his magical blade.

“We venerate natural life,” she corrected hotly.  “Not little alchemically created aberrations of Malig’s dark fantasies leftover from his rule.  Now burn!”  The growling edge to her normally sweet, carefree voice, combined with the crackle of Arcane energy in the air, ripe with the smell of ozone, gave Oborro just enough warning to hop back out of the way.  Barely a second later, a blast of formless lightning ripped through the creatures he had been entrancing.

They screamed as they fried, skeletons showing through from beneath their scaly hide for brief moments before they all fell to ash.  Looking back at the Druid, he could feel the latent hum of her spell still singing in the air around her.  The flow of Arcane mysteries mixed with her more ancient magic always lent an interesting tune.  Maybe someday he might learn how to do that too if she was kind enough to teach him; magic was magic after all, and with enough practice he might unlock yet more secret songs of other cultures.

He gave the female Mage a brief round of applause, mostly just the clapping of one hand against the basket hilt of his sword, to which she responded with a weary but still genuine curtsy.  With their lesser group of enemies dispatched, there were no more to fight. He whirled away, springing back across the creaking bridge towards the other two, still embattled by the horde of savage, literally bloodthirsty monstrosities.

“Hold fast, comrades!” he shouted gallantly.  “A new blade joins the fray!”  He needn’t have bothered.  Without magic, the swarm of needle-toothed creatures were troublesome to deal with even by veteran adventurers, but Ajax and Lykopis were leagues above even the mightiest of those Oborro had ever met, easily holding their own.  What was more, they were still seemingly engrossed in their competition.

“Stay back Bard,” commanded the Draach warrior confidently as he struck down three with one swing of his large blade.  Oborro slid to a stop immediately, frowning over at the huge, armor-clad Warrior.  “This is killing work and work I like!  Even if it is against such pitiful, cowardly foes.”  He bellowed with laughter at the creatures around him, the sight of him slaying so many coupled with his flashing fangs and mad light in his fiery eyes, serving to make even such feral, simple-minded things hesitate.

Simple-minded as they were however, they soon overcame their urge for self preservation in the face of their ravenous need for fresh blood and meat.  That was when they learned the former of just one of Ajax’s many titles.  From his open jaws leapt a cone of dragonfire that incinerated the front ranks of the charging Pyrelings and forced the rest, singed, to wing backwards in chittering alarm and newly awakened terror.  These were not easy prey at all.

Shielding his eyes from the burst of heat and light before him, Oborro blinked until he had regained his vision, then looked instead to Lykopis.  She too was utterly in her element; jumping, dodging, weaving around the fluttering horde of savage Pyrelings, the axes in her hands dancing on their chains as she prescribed a circle of death about herself.

Her weapon was, as always, a beauty and a mystery to behold: able to change its entire shape and construction based on the will of its owner.  It could take the form of a great, double-bladed great axe, a double-ended version, and, as she was currently wielding, a pair of smaller axes linked together on a chain.  This chain was seemingly forged out of the same metallic material the blades were.  She only ever used her larger configurations against, as she said, ‘worthy foes’.  Oborro wasn’t sure what she always meant by that, but even her smaller weapons were still as deadly of tools that he had ever seen.

Aware that she similarly might not need his help, he called out anyway to at least try and be involved.  “She-Wolf, your Grace?  Any aid needed?” he teased, just as entranced as the Pyrelings at the masterful weaving of chained axes all about her powerful, imposing, yet beautiful armored form.  The wolf-head pauldron, gripping a disturbingly anatomical human skull, gleamed in the light of the evening mountain sun, as did her sinister blades.

Even a single mistake on her part could cost her an injury by her own weapons but she moved so gracefully, so masterfully in her control, that she seemed to deliberately wait until the last second before catching her whirling axes by the handle.  Seldom did her attacks miss her target; even if the Pyreling was agile enough to avoid the blades, they were caught up and entangled in the chains long enough to cause them to plummet to their doom.

“Sweet of you to ask,” laughed the Half-Orc back at him.  “But no, Bard.  I’m afraid you’d only get in the way.”  She flashed him a smile, whipping her heavy dark braids of hair out of her face as casually as if from across a tavern.  Behind her, a Pyreling crept up to try and take her unaware, but she cleaved its skull open without even looking back at it.  “No offense.”

“None taken,” grumbled the Half-Elf.  “From you either, Ajax.”

“Nah, offense sort of intended,” the Draach growled out good-naturedly.  He pinned a struggling creature beneath his three-toed clawed feet and finished it with a smash from the edge of his shield.  Unlike his ever-gleaming sword, his shield and armor looked as if it had been sprayed with entire wracks full of ink.  “Fancy tricks and flashy swords aren’t enough in a real battle.”

A small, “Oooh,” came from the two women, Lykopis and Artemesia both glancing between the pair of men.  Oborro glared hotly at Ajax who met his gaze with an easy, fanged grin, still killing and cleaving away.

“Ajax!” Artemesia began reprimanding.  “You apologize, right now.”

“Warriors do not apologize!” he bellowed in retort, not as easily cowed when his blood was afire.

Oborro’s jaw set into a tight line.  His purple and black eyes flashed between the members of his party.  Lykopis was still whirling her axes but only in small circles now, allowing Ajax to forge ahead deeper into the remaining, larger swarm of creatures that had attacked them as they were half-way across the old bridge.  The look she gave him was sympathetic, but he knew she partially did agree with Ajax’s more tactless comments.  Artemesia meanwhile looked utterly sincere in the same conveyed sympathy, her motherly side shining through.  He couldn’t tell which one made him feel worse.

“Fancy tricks, huh?” he called out then, voice loud enough to still echo over the roar of the waterfall nearby.  “Flashy swords?  That's all you think I can do, Red Knight?”  Power built within him as he sheathed his sword and with a flicker of his fingers, summoned his long-handled, mithril-strung lute from his magical pack.

The Worldsong came to him fully as easily as breathing, enveloping him in its warm glow, its rhapsody and rhythm melding with his senses as magic became melody.  With a flourish of his hand, bright balls of flashing color and light abruptly danced above the canyon where they had been ambushed.  The Pyreling swarm paused, fluttering up and out of Ajax’s reach, to stare, enthralled, at the light show.

“Hey!” objected Ajax hotly.  Then he saw what the Bard was doing.  “Oborro, don’t you dare!”

The lights vanished and the Pyrelings looked around in stunned confusion for a second before they spotted the lone Half-Elf standing on the bridge.  His companions were just out of easy reach, halfway again the length of the bridge on opposite sides of him.  Their claws and teeth would easily reach his fresh blood beneath that pale skin before his friends could come to his aid.  They too thought he was the easiest of the four to kill and consume.  Up they whirled in their flapping multitudes, glowing eyes flashing with bloodlust.  Their bat-like mouths extended wide, showing great mouthfuls of viper-like fangs meant to drain the blood from an enemy.

Oborro did not flinch as they began to circle him faster and faster.  He felt no fear of their fangs, their blood-hungry eyes, so enriched in the Worldsong as he was.

“Here, in this moment!” he narrated grandly.  “Within this song, I am invincible.  Pay attention, for the Bard has begun to play!”  His fingers danced across the strings of his lute, plucking out a fast, savage melody.  The music built within him, growing like the building of a tide about to crash.  Faster still his fingers plucked, and the sounds of his lute began to slowly change.  Crackling energy played along them, distorting the tune he weaved into that which no natural musical instrument could replicate.

And then he began to sing.

The Handler watched the ill-fated ambush sourly from his safe position on the other side of the ravine.  He had been so careful, so fastidious in setting up this trap.  His targets had been forced from the main road by a rockslide he had caused, and the addition of the thunderstorm beginning to build on the horizon meant they had to hurry before it caught them in the open, so far away from civilization on the mountain path.  It had all gone just right for the hired killer, but now it seemed his luck was starting to turn.

The cages of Pyrelings had not been easy to set up, not to mention keep contained and corralled long enough with magical toxins, allowing him to unleash them on his contracted targets at the right moment.  Starved beyond their natural, ever-hungry state could control, they made for excellent tools in killing off opponents that he physically would never have been able to best alone.  He had much competition amongst the League; nearly every assassin, hired thug, and bounty hunter in the region had a stake in trying to claim this prize.  He had prepared, done his research, made every available calculation of timing, location, method, and means.

And now his little, ravenous pets were being slaughtered by the band of heroes as if they were not magically augmented creatures, a combination of giant vampire bat and poisonous reptile.  They might as well have been giant rats.  There were a lot of stories about adventurers, like these, that started off slaying such beasts.  But Pyrelings were not rats; they proved a worthy challenge in their swarms to entire platoons of men if caught unawares.  Even so, the Handler hadn’t expected this much trouble.

And then the Bard began to play his instrument.  He wasn’t close enough to hear their bickering, but he did hear that song.  He’d never heard a lute played like that, nor seen such raw, whirling colored winds begin to gust about the slender Half-Elf’s flamboyantly garbed form as he held a single note with his voice the entire time he was playing.  Zephyrs gusted about him, setting his clothes, shoulder-cape, and even hair to wave heroically, and his eyes shone with a silver light that did not seem natural.

Higher and higher, the Bard’s voice grew, reaching beyond what felt natural vocalization and still continuing to build in intensity.  The Pyrelings all struggled to stay airborne, their large ears sensitive to sounds at such decibels.  They clawed at their own faces, shrieking and chittering like they had been driven mad.  Even from here, the Handler’s ears were beginning to ache.  He clamped his hands over them, struggling to keep ahold of the branch beneath him, but that did not stop the still ever-growing crescendo from ringing ever louder in his skull.  And still the Bard played.  Faster, faster, louder, louder!  It was all too much!  The howl of his voice almost shook the very air.

Even his own companions were affected, holding hands over their heads too but stoically standing their ground as they watched him.  Then, mercifully, the single high note stopped.  The strumming paused.  Pyrelings whirled in their dozens down towards the Bard, driven beyond hunger into a blind killing frenzy towards the one who had tortured them so.  His open-fingered gloved hand lifted above his stringed instrument.  A flex of the fingers, the tightening of his throat.

What burst forth then as he played the final note was nothing like the Handler had ever heard or seen in his many years of frequenting taverns and hearing various masters of the Bardic arts perform.  What he knew of their profession were just that: entertainers, performers, song-writers, story-tellers.  Some were reputed to be sword-masters but their main feature they themselves portrayed was simply the art of music.  Men and women from across the Lands Assembled and beyond trained in the Bardic College of the Arts in New Aurot to be able to play such melodies and tunes.

This was no mere tune, this song not just that to entertain and enthrall.  As if built up upon the music he had played, the wind and roaring thunderclap it produced descended like a hammerblow upon the charging horde of his trained creatures.  Every single Pyreling was, in an instant, felled, flattened onto the ground where they lay, unmoving.  The shockwave of his spell echoed out from and around the area.  Those trees that were not blown back instead swayed alarmingly, dust and leaves blew everywhere, and the very ground shook.  The Bard’s own companions were nearly blasted backward by the detonation of thunderous sound.

Then, a stroke of luck.  The ancient bridge they were crossing began to give with heavy snaps of old, rotted rope and planks.  The Heroes scrambled to try and escape, but the Handler never saw if they made it across the chasm or not.  His luck had officially run out.

The tree he had climbed shuddered so powerfully at that final note that he had lost his grip and fell.  The ground rushed up to meet him and the last thing he saw before his head struck the hard earth, accompanied by a grisly crack and an avalanche of agony that snuffed out his world, was the Bard standing victorious over a crowd of slain Pyrelings.

What kind of end even was this for an Assassin?  And what kind of Bard even was that man?  The Handler, Boris Jonas, would never know.

“Run!  Go, go, go!” screamed Lykopis as she sprinted across the splintering bridge as it began to give way beneath them.  Oborro’s spell had proved too much for the ancient crossing.  The rotted old ropes were fraying more and more by the second, and the planks beneath their feet cracked and crumbled even as they raced across them.  The Half-Orc had since stowed her axes, putting everything she had in her incredible physique into making it across before it gave completely.  She reached the other side first and turned in a panic to reach back for the others.

Her companions likewise hurried to do the same as she had, with much less speed or grace than she had.  Oborro’s face was bright red from exertion, a funny look for his usual suave, charismatic charm, and in other situations she might have enjoyed it.  Instead, she took great satisfaction in grabbing onto his outstretched hand and hauling him off his feet, slinging him one-handed back over her shoulder and behind her before reaching for the next.

“Come on, move your ass, you big armored lizard!” she yelled to Ajax, the most distant of their number.  He was moving as fast as he could but from the rate of the collapsing bridge around him, she knew he would never make it in time.  All that armor would mean certain death if he fell into the river below, washed downstream too swiftly for any of them to help.  Even as strong as the Draach was, no one was stronger than Nature.

Ajax too seemed to realize this but rather than look resigned, or gods-forbid scared, he instead just began charging ever faster.  No longer was this life or death, this was just another challenge for the scar-faced veteran.  At just the last possible second, his clawed feet mere strides from the safety of the ledge, the bridge snapped and gave at last.  He flung himself forward in a mighty leap, paw outstretched.

Lykopis caught it and nearly was hauled off her feet and over the cliffside by the immense weight of her armored friend as it all came to hang there on the end of her arm.  Down below, the white water roared as it devoured the falling shrapnel remains of the bridge, almost seeming angry that it had not claimed an actual life.  Puffing, straining, she struggled to keep a hold of the slick, ridged scaled hand of Ajax.

“You…really need…to go…on…a diet!” she snarled through gritted, sharp teeth.  Dirt and grass clumps rained down from around her planted feet as she hauled as hard as she could with both hands.

“Spare me, Orcling.  And don’t you dare drop me!”

“Need any help?” proffered a sheepish sounding Oborro from behind her.

“No!” she and Ajax both snapped.  “You’ve helped quite enough!”  Puffing, straining, growling out curses in Khan’et, Lykopis found reserves of strength in her yet untapped after their daylong hike through the mountains and slowly, the grim, unamused horned head of Ajax began to crest over the hill.  “Get your claws into the side!” she offered as advice to her friend in the hopes he might be able to help her lift him up.

“I got it, I got…I don’t got it.”  He scrabbled at the wall before him, heavy, blunted claws gouging out great furrows in the soft earth.  “The sides of this cliff are as soft as you Urscal-Fel!  I can’t get a good hold.”

“Aren’t…Dragonmen…supposed…to be able…to fly?!”

Sardonic, fiery eyes flashed up at her irritably.  “Call me Dragonman again and I’ll pull you down after me!”

“Draach then, whatever!” she snarled right back at him.  “Now can you fly or not?!”

“Do you see wings coming out of my armor?  Now put your actual back into it and pull me up!  I thought the ‘Mad Queen’ was supposed to be famous for her strength!”

Her wolf eyes flashed right back down at him.  “I never thought I’d have to lift a two-tonne tin-can of self-important dragon-ass up a cliff!  Pray, forgive me, it wasn’t in my Queenly daily regimen!”

Even through the tense situation, she and Ajax both laughed.  “I almost…got my arm up…over…the ledge!” announced the Draach with triumph.  She hauled back harder, veins sticking out in her arms and temple, teeth bared, tusks glinting against her dark skin.  Her tribal markings shone with almost their own light as she finally started to feel the dragging weight of her companion begin to lessen.  She adjusted her feet and almost slipped in trying to get a better angle to help Ajax up that final few inches.

“Careful!” called Oborro in distress.“The sides of the canyon are slippery!”

“I got that!” she growled huskily back at him.  One last hard pull…and…

She and Ajax collapsed side by side onto the grassy ground of the clifftop.  Her arms were screaming, her throat was tight, and she could see her breath misting in the summer air.  She shook away the cold from her trembling limbs and struggled to sit up.  A hand proffered a waterskin which she took and drank from greedily.  The cool water within helped assuage the burning of her lungs and slow her pounding heart.  She passed it along to Ajax who also supped at it in great gulps.  They could refill it easily nearby.

With the immediate dangers now passed, the Urkhalv glanced up at the still hovering Oborro.  His dual-colored eyes, always a mystery, stared down at her and Ajax in utter worry.  Better say something to soothe and calm him, lest he go into hysterics over almost killing them all.  It wasn’t the first time, for any of them.  Forgiveness was like second nature to their small, dysfunctional family.

“Good trick,” she panted up at the Bard.  His handsome face split in confusion.  She gestured out across the chasm they had so barely managed to survive crossing.  “With the…thing.”

Looking back at his own handiwork, Oborro visibly relaxed.  His grateful smile met her cheeky wink and then returned to worry again as he looked back to Ajax.  “S-sorry about that, old boy,” he managed, voice shaky.  “I didn’t mean to…do quite all that.”

The response from Ajax was a roar of laughter that echoed all around the area, setting what birds there still were in the area to lifting off in alarm.  “Never let me call your ‘little tricks’ by any such name ever again!” he bellowed in mirth.  He slapped an armored hand hard on the ground, denting it, as he laughed and sputtered out hisses and growls.  “That.  Was.  Amazing.  That is what will get your blood pumping after a day of hiking up old monotonous mountain trails!  Thank you, Bard!”

Relief washed through both her and Oborro, she saw, and they all shared a happy laugh together.  Then came a pause as they all looked around.

“Where’s Artemesia?” queried one.

In a flash, all three scrambled over to the side of the cliff.  Down their collective heads peered, peeking over the side towards the white rushing water a good hundred feet below.  The worry was evident in all of them.

“She didn’t fall, did she?” Oborro uttered first.  His face was white, worried, and deathly scared.  In the mist coming up from below, even his hair seemed paler.

“I never saw her go past me,” Lykopis growled, her voice sharing his fears.  Her eyes scanned the opposite cliffside, but did not spot the Druid there either.

“That settles it then,” came Ajax’s stern, determined voice.  Both of them turned to see him putting down his shield and undoing his sword from his belt.  At their glances, he bared his teeth a bit more, trying to hide his own fears.  “I’ll dive down there and rescue her.”

Immediately Lykopis and Oborro stood to object.

“That’s suicide!” the Bard stated.

“Doubtful,” countered Ajax.  “A rushing river is no eye of the storm.”

“You’re wearing too much armor, you’ll sink!” added the Half-Orc.

“Sinking’s faster, I need to find our sister!”

“We don’t know she fell into the water!” Oborro pleaded.

“Then pray reveal where a certain Druid might have just up and vanished to!” bellowed the Draach.

In the midst of their heated arguing, the sound of unmistakable twittering broke through.  Even as they watched, a small, exotically colored songbird fluttered down from the sky and landed on the Bard’s shoulder.  It eyed them all with bright, lavender eyes, so uncharacteristic a shade for a bird of its species.

“Artemesia?” Oborro asked, hoping as they all were that it were so.

The bird swept its wings out slightly to the side and bobbed on one leg, performing, for all the world, what could only be an elegant little curtsy.  Sighs of relief came from all of them, loudest of all from Ajax.  When the three of them, Oborro, Lykopis, and Artemesia the bird, glanced in his direction, he was plucking up his gear once again.  He didn’t meet their eyes as he growled out, “It’s just as well; I can’t swim anyway.”

Returning her attention to the shifted Druid, Lykopis held out a big hand, finger extended, onto which Artemesia happily hopped over onto.  She grinned down at the tiny thing, petting its feathers with her opposite hand as gently as she could.  It preened and trilled happily, then a moment later spun back around, feathers bunched up almost like its wings were hands upon its hips, and it began twittering wildly back at Oborro.

His face immediately fell as it had before, but Lykopis was quick to turn her own hand back around to make her friend look at her in the yellow on black eyes with those tiny, beady lilac ones.  “Hey, now,” she cajoled Artemesia the bird gently.  “He’s already apologized, and no one got hurt.  Let’s focus on that for now, eh?”  Then she pecked the little feathery head once with her lips.

With a small twitter, the bird huffed and shook itself once.  Off her finger it leapt and in midair, transformed back into the moon-skinned, dark-haired, lavender-eyed Druid they all adored.  So seamless was the shifting back that between one breath and another, there again stood Artemesia Tanael, their friend.

“But really, Oborro,” she immediately spoke, sternly fixing a motherly eye on him.  “You shouldn’t let Ajax get to you like that!”

“Yes, Mese,” he immediately agreed, ducking his head like a contrite schoolboy.

She smiled and leaned down to pop a small kiss on the top of his bowed head of blonde hair, and then again whirled, this time pointing over at the towering Ajax.  “And you!  Everyone is allowed to be helpful here, and I won’t have anyone in this family made to feel like their skills aren’t useful.”

“Yes, yes,” Ajax puffed out, rolling his fiery eyes.  He started then as a delicate, slender-fingered hand reached up and snagged him by the edge of his muzzle, gripping right at the delicate bridge of his scaly nostrils.  He snorted and hissed in displeasure as she forced him to bend almost double at the waist to reach her eye-level.  “Ow, ow, ow, ow!” the fearsome warrior known by many equally fearsome names squealed out in a gravelly voice.  “Let go of my nose!”

The cliffs and trees rang with the group’s laughter.  Oborro quickly reached over and tapped her wrist delicately, making her let go of their huge, scaly friend.  “No harm, no foul,” he chuckled.  “Besides, Ajax already apologized.”

“Hey!” the Draach protested immediately.  “Warriors never apologize!”  He quailed then at another stern look from Artemesia.  “L-like he said,” he amended a second later.  “Besides, it’s not like you did all that much to be helpful, Witch.  You could have at least turned yourself into a bird big enough to fly us over or something.”

“Ajax, the day I find a bird big enough in nature to haul you, it’ll have snatched you up to have itself a scaly breakfast.”

“Good.  A worthy challenge then.”

Artemesia rolled her eyes.  “Ajax, we’d be talking about a Thunderoc or something similar at that size.  Even you can’t think you’d be strong enough to take on a bird that eats elephants as part of its everyday diet.”

“I’ve never tasted Thunderoc before…I wonder how it would be when charbroiled…”

The Druid sighed heavily but could not keep the fond smile off of her radiant face.  “It’s times like these that you remind me so much of my husband, Ajax.”

“I always keep meaning to inquire as to that subject,” interjected Oborro.  “Why, in all good graces, does Ajax remind you of your oh-so-often-mentioned Husband?  Does he, forgive me, look something like him?”

Her face fell as her eyes became distant and troubled.  “I wish I knew…”

“Comforting,” rumbled Ajax.  They all stared at him.  “That I’m not the only one with memory issues,” he replied a second later.  Then he fixed Oborro with a fiery-eyed stare.  “And what’s wrong if he did look like me?  Ajax is the pinnacle of a fine, masculine specimen.  She would be lucky indeed if one of my superior Race deigned to engage in one of your Mammalian courtship rituals.”

“Yeah, if she likes meat-for-brains fire-breathers…” muttered the Bard.

“What was that?!”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“It’s called marriage, you scaly-headed, third-person-talking dolt,” Artemesia laughed.

Shaking her head of raven-black braids now that she was for sure that the danger was fully passed, Lykopis chortled to herself as she rose and took stock of their latest location.  “All right, fun and games can wait till we actually get a campsite set up,” she announced back over her shoulder at the other three.  They quickly dropped their bantering and fell into line, side by side with her, as they all surveyed the forested area before them.  “That small cave should work,” she pointed out first.

“Not very big,” noted Ajax.  “Looks too cramped.”

“Compared to you, everything is too cramped,” Oborro cheekily jested.  “The beds in the last town, the dungeon hallways, oh what was the last one?” he snapped his fingers imploringly at his comrades.

“Oh, oh!” supplied Artemesia excitedly.  “The nobleman’s carriage!”

Everyone groaned for their own reasons at that recollection.

“In my defense,” Ajax snorted huffily.  “It was too cramped.”

“And stuffy,” added Lykopis.  Her nose still itched at the memory of the soaked in scent of the noble’s perfume as they rode in his personal carriage to avoid suspicion.

“At least you all got to ride in it,” complained Oborro.  “Next time, someone else has to pretend to be the coach-driver.”

Lykopis returned them to the job at hand after several more jokes, jests, and complaints on Ajax’s part  “That cave is our best bet,” she explained, gesturing back at the looming storm clouds that were a lot closer now.  “We hunker down, make some barriers with leaves, branches, and tarps, wait it out, and get started early tomorrow morning.  It won’t be a pretty evening, but we’ve had worse.”

“But first,” added Ajax, “We survey the area.  That battle was far too conveniently timed for my liking.”

“For once, I’m of like mind to agree with you,” Artemesia noted.  “A double swarm of Pyrelings, this far into the mountains?  Just as we are traversing a notably precarious bridge after that landslide forced us off the main road?  Nothing about that added up right.”

“For once?  What’s that supposed to mean?” Ajax started to object.

With a firm clap of her large hands together, Lykopis brought them all into the huddle.  “Artemesia, you take over setting up camp, Ajax will help you. Oborro, you and I break into directional sweeps, gather what we can, and report back.  Ready?”  They all nodded firmly and broke off, each of them, to their appointed tasks.  Say what anyone would about their bickering, they worked well as a team.  It was nice to have that again…