[Hereford Eye]

One worm converts one snowflake. It costs the worm its life, exchanging its own living energy for the heat to melt the snow. Several million worms convert several million snowflakes. Still the worms come on; still the snow recedes. Slowly, inevitably, the mass of worms diminishes, the snow fields as well.
Under High Peak, still covered with snow, the Koldred Keepers confer yet again. “It calls itself Malliss this time,” a scout reports. A young Keeper looks up, eyes filled with remembered lore: “A name used before,” this Keeper says. Another agrees.
“Naming evil does not remove the evil,” the High Keeper says, frustration apparent in his delivery. “Removing evil requires action.”
An older Keeper chooses this time to continue the original line of thought, ignoring or unaware of the High Keeper’s desire to move the discussion along more fruitful topics. “We knew it once as…..I had it….it was very much like Oox, I think….but it slips away. Perhaps the Keeper I replaced had already lost a bit. Perhaps it is me.” Tears well in the old woman’s eyes. “Time,” she adds, “to replace this one as well.”
“Oox?” a child says. “I never heard of Oox.”
The High Keeper responds, patting the child on the head. “I don’t think that is the name at all. I remember there was a different name.”
“What name?” the child asks.
“I remember a different name but I do not remember what it was.”
The High Keeper shakes off his mind’s refusal to supply the information. He turns to things he knows he remembers and places these ideas before the gathered Koldred.
“There are big folk coming up the mountain in the wake of the worms. They are nibbling at the rear elements of the worm plague but are preparing – properly so – to take on Malliss’ army. They do not know we are here. Yet, Malliss knows. If we do not get a message to the big folk, we could be trampled into nothing with none aware of what they do.”
A hundred arms raise to volunteer. The High Keeper feels pride well at the foolish bravery but his voice tells only of his eternal frustration with Koldred innocence.
“Yes, yes, you all want action but what are you going to do? Run across the worms? If you go around the worms, will you also go around Malliss’ army and will that evil simply step aside to let you pass?”
A hundred embarrassed volunteers keep their arms raised high. “You’ll tell us what to do.” one says.
“What if we are not here to tell you? Then, will you simply act without thinking? Will the Koldred survive such incompetence?”
“But, you are here,” another volunteer growls. “So, what’s the issue? Tell me what to do and let me get on with it.”
From the midst of the volunteers, a man steps forward, his arm lowering as he talks. “The path to the Lower Realm still exists. If a person could enter the Lower Realm, then there should be other exits, should there not? The Gnarled Folk are no less wise than Koldred. They certainly would not commit their survival to a single door. From an exit lower on the slopes, a scout could come up behind the big folk avoiding Malliss’ army altogether.”
A grin blossoms on the High Keeper’s face, accompanied by a hand outstretched to the volunteer. “Ufri,” the elder says, “you give me hope for your generation and for the Koldred people. Do as you suggest.”
“Not alone, Keeper. There is too much at stake to commit just one Koldred. Four at least.”
Four Koldred, Ufri and three others of his generation, depart for the Lower Realm. Behind them, the High Keeper considers again the Koldred massed under High Peak. Certainly not an army, he thinks. But a force Malliss must contend with, sooner or later.

[Holbrook]

George's days were full of the simple task of keeping his army together. His nights were spent in fitful sleep, worrying about what is, could be and will be.

One third of his men were employed in the basic task of keeping the others warm and fed. They rotated, each section, each group shared the task. They scrambled back to the tree line to hunt and cut fire wood. Water was not in short supply. The snow melt from the worm's passage flowed in torrents back down the mountain.

The army slaughtered it's horses willingly. Here on the mountain they were a burden the army could ill afford. The skin tanned became shoes and rough cloaks; the meat food in bellies. In the battle to come, among the rocky outcrops and sliding slopes of gravel and stone, two legs would be of more use than four. A well fed man could fight. A hungry man on a half dead horse could not.

George kept his fears locked tight inside, only in his dreams did they rise. He mumbled his fears and was answered by the ladies, the two women, standing back to back. Often their answers were very different, for they saw the world from two points of view, yet, they, like he were united in the need to rid the world of what the enemy represented. One was human in form, but in spirit something else. The other was a member of a race he did not know, she shined brightly and drew Geroge's thoughts like a moth.

Each day as the pale light of morning cut across the mountain, George inspected the field of battle. The place between the two armies he knew would soon be a place of death.

On this morning a small group of figures broke away from the enemy encampment. One mounted on a hugh grey horse, the others running like hunting dogs at the beast's heels. half way across the raw, cold ground the enemy stopped and raised a flag of truce.

Geroge frowned, his staff officer's mumbled words of distrust adivising him not to go. But George stepped out ordering his own flag to be raised. He would know all he could of this enemy. This enemy wore no weapon, yet George sense the man, if indeed it was a man was a weapon in himself.

He stopped a few paces in front of the mounted figure and watched the hooded head turn in his direction.

"There is no need for this you know?"

"No need?" George's voice mirrored his amusement.

"Yes, I do not desire death and destruction. It is counter productive. I merely wish to oversee this cycle. For the races, for the normal man, things will be no different. He will be born live and die. Laugh, work and play. No different, it will just be my hand that guides all through the years."

Geroge bursts out laughing now. "That is the difference, the other side make no claim on control, they don't seek to guide, just want us, the races, the normal man of each to chose. Would you lets us chose?"

"With in limits, yes." Came the answer as the figure shifted in his saddle.

"That's it isn't it? Limits. You would put limits on everything." George retorted.

"Limits for the good of all." The being snapped.

"No limits for your good, your ideals not the races. Besides if we don't do evil or see it about how do we know what good is." George said and turned his back on the figure and walked back to his own lines.

[Hereford Eye]

Ufri, Umi, Ura, and Uca, unremarkable lifelong friends transformed to a sudden crucial significance by Ufri’s simple understanding of how a task needs doing, fly through the snow tunnel that ends at the Gate to the Lower Realm. Conversation builds their plan on the fly.
“What if the gate is closed?” Uca asks.
“We wait till it opens.”
“How do we find an exit from the Lower Realm in the place we need one to be?” this from Umi.
“We could ask directions.” Ura says.
“From the Gnarled Folk? Why would they help us?”
:Because they are part of this as well. Remember Tara and Tuli precedes us into their domain.”
“And what if that did not go well?” Ufri asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose their mission failed. Suppose they brought trouble instead of aid. Announcing our arrival under those circumstances could jeopardize our own mission.”
“Didn’t the Keepers give any advice?”
Ufri responds with as much puzzlement as pride: “They seemed to think we know what we’re doing.”
To which Umi responds: “Of course, we do!”
A grin accompanying her question, Uca repeats: “What if the gate is closed?”

[Hereford Eye]

In the Lower Realm, Anna stands before the Earl, her report of what she found in the caverns below the Realm nearly complete, dread filling her as she approaches the topic the Earl most desires to discuss.
“Harsh?” he asks, his question more hope than demand.
In answer, Anna removes the spirit blade from her belt. A gasp runs through the audience surrounding the Earl. The Earl gasps as well while his face drains itself of life blood. Looking at the small blade in Anna’s hands, the Earl feels all hope of life seep from his into the stone floor.
“She’s gone, then,” the Earl says.
Anna nods. “Yes, Lord Earl, she and Tuli completed their task, fulfilled the prophecy. The beast in the lower caverns is no more. The most immediate danger to your people is removed.”
Approval, admiration, thanksgiving work through the crowd in the Earl’s chamber for all save the Earl. That one stares at the blade still held in Anna’s grasp, realization of what has happened sapping from the strength from his legs. He falls into his throne, defeated.
“She did not die in vain, Lord,” Anna persists.
The Earl of the Lower Realm looks at Anna as if suddenly aware of a mad person before him.
“That matters?” he asks. “Is she less dead because it was not in vain? Is she somehow closer to me than my dear wife who died leaving only Harsh to live for? Wife and daughter gone and I still abide. That is in vain, woman. There is no purpose to that.”
“Your people, Lord,” Anna says.
“My people?” The Earl’s gaze sweeps around the crowd spying old friends and new, kin and not-kin, all looking at him as if he were a curious form of life suddenly dropped ion their midst and they ponder what he will do next.
“What good have I done my people and what good have they done me? I lose a wife and daughter. They lose as much and more and all attributed to my stewardship. I built a gate while evil walked my caverns. I dreamed of a glorious place in history, believed those who told me it was within my grasp, concentrated on the acts to make it so.
“I lost a daughter doing so.”
“I trusted a general who hated me, a woman who used me to forge her swords to satisfy a prophecy not part of Gnarled Folk lore, a pair of Koldred resurrected from legend, and a daughter not near old enough to understand the risk she took. All these I trusted and what have I gained? What have the Gnarled Folk gained?”
Anna’s voice rises to the question, her answer filling the Earl’s chamber. “You have defeated an enemy bent on removing your people from this world’s stage. You lost people but you saved more. Look around you, Earl, and see the gratitude of a people who depend upon you.”
Iron laces her words, fire spurts in her voice. She raises the blade that Harsh had made live for all to see and maybe it is luck, maybe the favor of fortune, but stray beams from the fires in the hall catch the blade’s sheen causing it to sparkle, to radiate strength.
“Get up off your chair, old man. How dare you seek to quit the fight now? Are you the only man who has paid a price he did not expect, the only man gnawed by grief at lost loves, the only man feeling the pain of a future gone blank?
“Look around you, Earl. Are you better than these who seek your help? Is your grief more total, more sacred, more unbearable? How would that be? Because you are the Earl, so much greater, so much grander, so much more alive?
”You are a man, Earl. Nothing more. You share your humanity with all these in the room. Yet you are different than these. They all admit it so. They all admit you to be their Earl. They admit it; they expect it, they demand it. Get off that chair and be their Earl.”
“Damn them all,” the Earl mutters. “Leave me be, woman. I am no help to them.”
“And Harsh believed.”
The name brings the Earl’s eyes up from despair, searching Anna’s face for what more she will say.
“Harsh was proud of who she was, your daughter, because Harsh was proud of you, not the Earl who lorded it over everyone but the father who loved and was loved. That spurred harsh to he actions, to be the daughter she believed you deserved.”
The truth of Anna’s words finds a crack in the Earl’s defenses, fights through and gnaws at his conscience. Anna continues relentlessly.
“There will be time enough for grief, grief for us all. For now, Malliss nears your gates. Malliss exceeds the evil Harsh and Tuli have slain, far exceeds that evil. There is still work to be done, Earl.”
The Earl only half hears these latter warnings, his mind still tossing and turning with the idea his daughter believed in him. As he believed in her. Remembered suddenly, Harsh image as she marched off to the foundry, intent on becoming the Spirit Blade to serve her people, basking the pride and the terror her father felt, her last bow ending with a silent question, “am I good enough to be an Earl’s daughter?”
“Am I good enough to be her father?” the Earl asks himself, then decides to discover an answer.
The Earl rising from his seat spreads hush throughout the room. He reaches up and Anna’s arm descends until the blade that was Tuli/Harsh is in his grasp. He stares at the blade for what seems an eternity, then raises it on his own, a talisman for his time.
“We have work to do,” he announces to a crowd that responds with cheers, laughter, dancing, and determination. In the hands of these Gnarled Folk, the Spirit Blade gains new life, not from the lives of a few forged into its metal but from the lives of those already lost in battle and the lives that will be lost in battle and more importantly from the lives of those will live through the battled. The blade is now the focal point, the rallying point, the spiritual lodestone for the Gnarled Folk. It lives again.

[Holbrook]

Two gates are open.

For the Koldred, Ufri, Umi, Ura, and Uca the gate is wide, unguarded as if they are expected.

They dart in with the swift feet of their kind. No powder swallowed yet. They are what they are, blurs in the corner of the eye. The hiss and the breeze of something swiftly passing. And pass they do, down silent tunnels and by abandoned homes. Confusion and concern fill their voices.

"Where are the gnarled folk?" Ufri asks.

"Are we too late?" Umi adds.

"I hope not." Ura says and tightens a hand on drawn sword.

"Listen." Uca raised a finger to lips.

A head are voices, the clash of arms and rallying cries.

The four exhange looks and increase their pace something is happening.

~~

Since he had spoken to the "enemy" George had thought long and hard, tempted yes. He had been tempted. To join, to be again the simple man at arms, doing his duty. Not leading an army, not having the fate of all here on his shoulders.

The enemy had offered him that, the voices of the women in his head had at first berated him, then pleaded, then nodded in understanding. Had they been tempted. Had their path been no different. Had they set things aside, stopped being what the were and become what they had to be.

All things have a price, who pays and how much is a thing of chance and choice. How much does one rely on the other, George did not know. He knew he had been presented with a chance and a choice. He had decided for better or wrose and the fate of others hung on that.

It was no easy burden. It dragged his soul down into the dust. Was this what all leader felt like? Or was it for some had no more meaning than brushing off and crushing a fly. Was their concern for their fellow being so small, so lost when compared to their personal glory and self?

A scout returning breathless cuts through George's never ending circle of thoughts. The man's gasped words bring new concerns and worries.

"The gates to the lower Realm are open."

"What of the Knarled folk?" George asks.

"No sign."

"But they are there, they opened the gates. Which side?"

The scout looks puzzled his confusion made clear when another of his kind races in.

"The enemy moves, weapons drawn to the gate to the Lower Kingdom"

Then we move, we are closer to the Gate than the enemy. we place ourselves between gate and army."

"What if the knarled ones intend to join the enemy?" One of George's officer's asks.

"Then we seal them in their mountain, If the seek to join us, then the enemy will face a horde beyond counting. Chance and choice both are at play."

[Hereford Eye]

You know, being a grunt at the end of the ranks ain’t all it’s made out to be. Ole George, himself, he’s up there close to the front shouting orders when he must, listening to reports, thinking strategic thoughts. Never a moment’s rest for one like him, a leader. People looking at him, depending on him, taking care of him, all the things that go with being in charge. That’s a tough way to live, for certain.
Sure, some folks will think I’m just being sarcastic and I really would want to be in ole George’s place but I wouldn’t. He gets to watch and listen to the widows’ screams, the gnashing teeth, and the pulling of hair. He gets to explain to lordlings what it means to take orders and follow them and why it is important that they do so. He gets to torture his soul that he is doing it right, not making too many irreversible mistakes, not costing too many lives. At the end of the day, the only one he can turn to is the mirror and mirrors are fickle beasts.
I, on the other hand, prefer to be ensconced squarely in the middle of the formation. All them officers up front grab the first soldier handy to run their petty errands. All the experienced NCOs are skirting the trail end of the of the formation cleaning up the stragglers and making sure the loose ends get tied, usually by the closest soldier to hand. Those of us in the middle attract little attention, few details, and mostly just slog along till the battle begins. By the time we make iot to the fighting, the enemy’s most experienced troops have been slain or wore themselves out and it’s the second strings turn to fill the breeches. Going against second string is always preferable to taking on the enemy’s finest.
Of course, few constants are eternal and being in the middle occasionally fails to work out as it supposed to. Take, for example, now.
A cry went up from the right flank, some scouts tripping over something they did not wish to deal with so the first officer riding buy turns to me, the corporal most unfortunate to be first in his field of vision, and says I should grab a squad and go reconnoiter. Lovely word: reconnoiter. Just go take a look-see.
So, I grab a few guys and we trot off to the flank to see what the scouts have worked themselves up over. We discover it’s a blur; the scouts went and discovered a blur and then had the poor taste to let us all know what they found.
I smack the lead scout’s head; he owes me a pint or two so he takes the pounding with some grace. “What the goddess were you thinking?” I ask and Abe tells me he thought this blur kind of odd and probably shouldn’t be right there, should it? Have to agree he has somewhat of a point but I ask him anyway why he didn’t just let it go and get on with his scouting? He says he thinks that this here blur is the kind of thing scouts is supposed to be scouting for. Then he decides it’s a good time to ask me a question. He asks me what I’m planning to do about it?
First off, I do not see a way to gather the blur in and take it off to the officers, maybe even ole George, and let them worry about it. Damned blur keeps shifting around.
Secondly, I have not heard rumors of any blurs worth mentioning along the line of march or in the estimates of the enemy’s strength so I’m not at all sure there is anything here worth reporting, after all.
Thirdly, if I wanted to make decisions, I’d be up there with my little brother, ole George.
Finally, desperate for some course of action, I ask Abe if he challenged the blur? Abe allows as how that was the first thing he did and the blur just stopped moving and started dancing around right there in that one place.
“Which challenge did you use?” I ask and Abe responds that he used the old stand-by: halt; who goes there?
“Any answer?”
“None that I heard, Wally; it just stopped moving,” Abe says.
About that time the blur disappears and two little people are standing where the blur had been. The first thing that comes out of mouth is “who are you?” which is quickly followed by “whose side are you on?” Around me, the scouts and my own team draw weapons but it’s a defensive reaction. This sudden appearance of two tiny people scares the hell out of all of us.

[Holbrook]

Malliss sits on his horse, watching the sporadic combat, the engage the feint and counter-faint. He watches George and smiles. George believes the voices in his head, this Malliss knows. He knows George believes the women are saints, cannot be wrong. Malliss knows different. Anna is tainted, she is his, always has been. Her heart is his and went it comes to the moment, she will not strike. She will betray the Koldred woman in the sword, betray George. Betray all.

Old enemy Anna had called him, yet she did not know him. Not like he knew and knows her. This time the cycle will be his to command and Anna will be by his side. Both will be his to control, use and wield as weapon. A sword.

As to the Koldred, the small, yet most deadly of foes, not yet in the game or are they. Scouts bring news of blurs spotted hovering, watching.

Malliss summons his officers, orders are given. “Find the tunnels of the Koldred, send in small hunters, send in dogs, drag out these small snakes and crush them before they can bite.”

Groups loop off, terriers, fierce and snappy and unleashed into uncovered tunnels. These are followed by inhuman snake creatures, hissing their lord’s praise as they slink down into the bowels of the earth seeking the Koldred.

“Now to deal with Knarled ones” Malliss orders an attack on the open gate of the underworld, where he knows Anna is waiting. George’s forces are nearly between Malliss’ forces and their objective. It is time, time for the dying to begin.

[Hereford Eye]

George has seen happier times. There were days before Malliss arose when whole hours – sometimes even days and weeks - would pass and no one would demand his attention. If he ever gets his hands on Malliss, this lack of time to think will be at the top of his list of complaints for which Malliss must answer.
He attempted to stave off this new interruption by dismissing his brother, “I thought you made it clear you wished no part of the leadership of this enterprise.” His brother merely laughed, that great oaf. He laughed as if George’s dismissal was of no more consequence than any other little brother remarks he might choose to utter.
“You’d best attend to these ones, George. Might help you decide what needs doing and when.”
His words directed George’s attention to the wee folk standing before him. Four of them, perfect miniatures of George’s people if not more pale and lighter haired.
“Do you have names?” George asked, the first thing that came to his mind, all other grandiose leader type utterances on temporary hold in the presence of his older brother. Though Wally smirked, one of the wee folk stepped forward with as much humor as offense taken. “I suppose you big people, at least you young big people, have lost the understanding of courtesy. We Koldred have not. My name is Ufri; I am Koldred, and we come from High Peak. A very good thing we came, as well, since you big folk seem to have forgotten we exist.”
The introduction focused George’s thinking, temporarily pushing his brother’s presence from his attention. “From High Peak?” he asked.
“Yes, from the other side of your enemy’s forces. We are the reason for the worms.”
“How?”
“To remove the snow under which we live, under which we have kept hidden. Malliss is an ancient enemy from generations of Koldred long gone. Yet, he remembers and we remember him. He must destroy us.”
“What makes you worth Malliss’ attention?”
Ufri nods at Uca before he responds to George. From the edge of a vision centered on Ufri, George’s perception indicates the female Koldred has been replaced by a blur that moves backwards, then disappears into the crowd of by-standers.
“Easier to demonstrate than explain,” Ufri says, a smile filling his face with a glee that seems out of place for this place and time. Before George can finish his echoing “demonstrate?” a weight lands on his shoulder and the pick of a…pin?…is at this throat. Automatically, his hand wants to move to brush it away but the sweetest little voice he has ever heard warns him that attempting to do so could be very, very fatal.
Looking down but not moving his head, George sees a blur transform into a grinning female Koldred, she had just blurred from his vision. No pin holds his throat in thrall but a blade, very sharp, and full long enough to sever whatever meaty matter it might find upon piercing that throat.
“I see,” George says to Ufri, “and I understand.”
Uca smiles sweetly, stands and kisses his cheek before leaping gracefully to the ground and returning to her friends who slap her shoulders and pound her back, “well dones,” filling the air.
“What tidings, then, Wee Folk?” George regain mastery of speech and resumes command of his army.
“That we live on the High Peak and that Malliss will turn to engage us. That we need your help.”
“As do the Gnarled Folk,” George responds.
“But they have a gate and an army and a Spirit Blade. They can stand against Malliss forces. We have nothing but a covering of snow and the worms have removed most of that. We need your help.”
“We were heading to the Lower Realm to join forces with the Gnarled Folk. Why can you not join us there?”
“No time. Malliss forces even now assault the High Peak. The Koldred are best and must battle where we stand. We ask your help.”
George stares hard at the Koldred warrior, weighing options, strategies. His eyes wander to his own people waiting expectantly for whatever he may decide. And then to his brother, who stands there smiling goofy as he always does. There is a mind behind that smile, George knows, but one that refuses to step into the light and takes its due.
“Smile, big brother. The fate of our people is not in your hands.”
“Nor is it in yours, little brother. You simply make decisions. Whether they be good or bad is not yours or mine to decide. Whether our people survive or not may well rest on our willingness to follow your decisions, but that is our fate, not yours. You just keep pumping out the decisions and all these not-so-mindless men and women will decide our own fate.”
“What would you do, Wally?”
“I would do what I always have done, little brother. I would follow your lead. It has done me no harm thus far in life and I can’t see that changing in the near future.”
“No games, Wally. Life or death this time. Gnarled Folk or Koldred. Which do we aid and which do we abandon?”
“Is it that cut and dried, then? Aiding one means not aiding the other?”
Inspiration finally arrives as George begins to see a path.
“Of course,” George says, “heading to the Peak must divert some of Malliss’ strength. He must decide who to attack and who to abandon. Well done, Wally. Well done.”
“Me? I did nothing,” Wally protests but George is already moving about, giving orders, relaying plans, disclosing new strategy to his commanders. It is a thing Wally appreciate in his brother, this ability to focus, decide, and implement.
“Guess you little ones are going to take me out of the pack, aren’t you?”
“Why is that?” Ufri asks though his attention is more on George than Wally.
“Spoze you and me have to cut trail, don’t we?”
Ufri breaks off watching George to reconsider this older brother.
“You moving fast, carrying messages to and fro from me to George and from George to your people. Lots to do and we’d best get to it, don’t you think?”
Another grin brightens Ufri’s face. “Yes, big man, I do think. And so do you, eh?”
“Not me,” Wally protests. “I’m a doer; not a thinker.” As if to emphasize his words, Wally turns to stride away from the commander’s tent, heading north, looking to skirt Malliss’ force or at least identify the trailing edge so that George can begin his maneuver.
Four blurs precede the big man.

[Holbrook]

Anna chaffs for battle, paces and curses under her breath, Tari's spirit echoes Anna's thoughts, adding her own. "He still fears,"

"Perhaps" Anna answers..

"We should pour out of these caves, stand in the sun and face the enemy..." Tari wants to feel the steel that is her body, bite the bodies of the enemy.

"Earl..." Anna asks the lord of the Knarled folk, interupting his whispered conversation with scouts.

"Patience," The Earl raises a hand.

"It has run out," Anna snaps and her hand tightens on the hilt of the spirit blade.

"I am committed to this battle for my people, for my daughter's sake...But it shall be fought in the manner that gives my people the edge. The gates to the lower Kingdom are open.."

"Foolish, you should make the enemy storm your gates, or pour out and damage the enemy where he stands." Anna's words are harsh.

"Neither suits my people. Storming the enemy will not do to this place. They are here for quick conquest, not siege, As long as we are bottled up we are no danger to them, thus we must seem defenceless to draw them in. They will turn on others, thinking a few can handle us, which they are doing, my scouts tell me so, they have split, a large force goes for High Peak."

"My people.." Tari cries the blade shuddering.

"The Koldred?" Anna asks the Earl nods and adds.

"Your kind, Anna, follow, cutting at the heels of the enemy, yet a few of that force hang ,back a scant hundred and watch the rest of the enemy turn our way."

"Then pour out, hit the enemy before he hits you." Anna cries slicing the sword through the air.

"No, the outer world is no place for a Knarled one to fight. The sun hurts the eyes and skin. We are smaller, not as small as the Koldred and lack the avantage that size brings. But in our caves and tunnels passages and caverns, we are masters. Let the enemy pour in, stooping low, sqiunting in the dark, turned around and hounded.

"Yes.." Anna and Tari whisper together.

So it begins Malliss forces, sure of victory, pour into the lower realm, fill the larger caverns. they are attacked from high places, arrows raining down, taunted from tunnels drawn deeper into the granite heart of the mountain.

Anna leads, a mere graze from the blade in her hands, fells a man. The arian seeks the evil in the breast of that it touches and seeing it, kills in a whispered breath. A whirlwind she is, driving the enemy from the lower realm, the Earl on her heels, his battle axes whirling over his head.

But like any cornered beast, the enemy turned at this moment and struck. Anna is surrounded and torn down, her own blood coating the blade, her mind screaming. Tari screaming at her companion to follow her soul, to leap, to move quickly. Anna's spirit does, as her body brakes free of its attackers for a heartbeat,and throws the blade high to the Earl, her voice begging. "Take the blade to George!" Her body, alive, but mindless is thrown over a shoulder and hauled from the tunnels and dropped bloody before Malliss.

He kneels and gently pushes her hair from her slack features. "Find me the blade, one without the other is no good to me, she without the spirit that is her is not what I desire."

[Hereford Eye]

In the gorge below the gates to Lower Realm the beast roamed at leisure appearing for all the world as if in singular study of the rocks and streams with which it shared this tiny corner of the world. Above, at the gates, the sounds of battle pour from the gate, the screams of victory and horror and rallying and despair, clashed with the sounds of steel biting shield, blade deflecting blade, feet trampling ground and bush and fellow being. The great dog in the gorges did not deign to lift its head in recognition much less curiosity.
The beast’s curiosity was invested in water and stone and the play they made as runoff from the worms’ dying efforts splashed and scampered ever downward. A big enough freshet dislodged pebbles and rocks that hadn’t moved for decades or more. The dislodgement exposed tiny life rudely jolted from the security of its hiding place. Insects scrambled for new cover; snakes and lizards following in their wake, each now house hunting against its will.
Grey almost black, tipped white at the fringes, the beast’s color suggests age but its movements belie that evaluation. Spry, agile, leaping from boulder to flat, feet always finding the most secure landing, the head turns quickly to trace the flight of speediest land crab. The cant of jaws, the flicking tongue suggest humor, appreciation of what it sees, contentment with its lot.
Emerald eyes peer out from the great skull, eyes blazing with the intensity of its observation, darting to and fro, quartering and re-quartering the small laboratory the beast has defined as its own. Intelligence guides this study, an intelligence committed to this tiny corner of the world and no other.
The sounds of battle, horrific and tremendous, could not shake the beast from its purpose. The cadence of Malliss’ force marching to the gates, the shouts of encouragement from Malliss’ subordinates, the hammering trot as they breech the gates to enter their own made hell. From within the belly of the mountain the shrieks of men dying or wounding and being wounded so as to wish to die.
Nor the sound of two pair of feet scrambling from a bolt hole beneath the gates, Gnarled Folk soldiers seeking to avoid confrontation, one carrying a package wrapped in old rags. Quiet as the lizards the beast watches in the gorge below, the soldiers dart from rock to rock, watching the road above, moving only when they believe none of Malliss’ force might observe.
Yet Malliss’ commanders are not so green as to forget scouts. One such, a man-thing some seven-foot tall, muscled to fit the frame, bursting with fat above the muscle, catches the movement from the periphery of vision. Understanding finally what has drawn its attention, the scout nocks an arrow to his long bow. Moving with care to not draw attention, he stands and primes his bow, arms taught with a tension to match the bow being drawn. His quarry moves, head coming into view as the Gnarled Folk soldier plots its next dash. The bowmen plots that dash as well. As the Gnarled Folk soldier moves, the bowmen releases the arrow, arrow and soldier now on collision course to meet just short of the next shelter.
The arrow is as long as the Gnarled Folk soldier is tall. When it pierces the body, its momentum lifts and throws the soldier down the hill a good distance but far short of the gorge at the hill’s base. The soldier’s arms flail in terror, in agony, in death, the fingers of his hands no longer strong enough to hold their purchase. The rag-wrapped bundle flies higher than the soldier’s body, careening down the hillside.
His companion screams at the outrage and leaves the safety of his boulder to aid his friend. No sooner in the open than the bowmen releases a second arrow every bit as true as the first. Two soldiers now lay pierced to the death on the hill below the gate; one scout now rests in the rocks above the gate well satisfied with his efforts even though he is the only one of his force who knows what has transpired.
He is a scout but not all scouts are blessed with curiosity. His orders said nothing about retrieving packages. The sight of the soldier’s package bouncing down the hillside stirs no motivation. His job is to protect the flank or to notify someone that he is unable to protect the flank. It certainly does not include scrambling down a hill and then back up that same hill to deliver some package to his leaders.
Yes, he sees the beast wander over to consider the package but the range is greater than even his long bow can manage. There are no orders to kill the beasts of the land, even the scavengers such as the one now turning the package over and over in the stream. The scout contents himself with watching the show.
The beast nudges the package, nips at the rags, noses it. One rag rolls off to lay in the stream a beat or two before the water catches an edge to lift and carry the cloth down stream with the rest of the flotsam. The action causes the beast to lift its head as if listening to something only it can hear. Another time the beast buries its nose in the rags and another it cocks its head to listen. Then, as if a decision has been debated but concluded, the beast lifts the object of stuidy in its jaws and trots down the gorge, around a bend, out of sight of all Malliss’ forces.
Malliss’ scout shrugs his shoulders. Whatever it was, it is now gone. He returns to his watch.