Late in the afternoon of his tenth day with the refugee band, Elbryan sought out Oracle for the first time in more than a week. The pass-ing of the monkish caravan had unnerved him, but so had a new de-tail that was presented that very morning: Roger Lockless walking back into the refugee camp at the head of fifteen former prisoners of Kos-kosio Begulne. The young man, learning in his scouting that the prisoners had been moved from Caer Tinella to Landsdown, took the opportunity to slip into the less defended town and bring the men out.

Still, despite the powrie leader's error in moving the prisoners to the weaker community, disaster had almost found Roger in the woods, for another Craggoth hound remained with the prisoners and was hot on his trail, and only the arrival of Juraviel had allowed Roger and the fleeing prisoners to get away into safety.

That was a detail Roger was quick to omit when he described the events of the previous night to an excited and thrilled gathering of refugees.

The ranger saw a new problem here, a deeper and potentially more devastating problem, and so he went to his uncle Mather to sort things out.

It is as I feared, Uncle Mather,he began when the image ap-peared to him in the mirror in the near dark gloom.The rivalry with Roger Lockless heads toward disaster. Just this morning he came into the camp at the head of fifteen people, prisoners of the powries whom he had freed the previous night. Of course we all rejoiced at their appearance, but in speaking with them afterward, I came to understand just how great a chance Roger had taken, with his life and with theirs, in going after them. For though we all desire to re-lieve the powries of their every prisoner, there seemed to be no pressing need for such a desperate act at this time. The prisoners were safe enough, by all indications, for the moment at least, and we might have formulated a wider-reaching plan that would have facilitated not only their escape, but the downfall of Kos- kosio Be-gulne and his evil brethren, as well.

But I understand what drove Roger into the town last night, and so does Pony. By his erroneous thinking, he has lost his rank among his people. Where they used to look to him, he sees them looking to me.

The ranger paused and contemplated that meeting when Roger had first returned. He considered the man's bluster, the way Roger puffed out his chest when he spoke, the way he looked, particularly at Pony, when he recounted his daring efforts. "Pony," Elbryan said with a great sigh.

He looked back to the mirror, to the perceived ghostly image within its edges.Pony, he repeated.Roger has taken a fancy to her. Or perhaps he merely views her responses as the greatest indi-cator of his worth. Pony is my partner, as all know well, and if he can win her approval, then perhaps he believes they all will rank him above me.

With the realization of Roger's "crush" on Pony, the ranger saw just how dangerous the situation might soon become. Roger, with his obvious talents, could be an incredibly valuable addition to their group, but with his immaturity, he might bring disaster upon them all.

"He and I will fight," Elbryan said quietly, aloud. "I fear it will come to that."

The ranger left the room soon after, to see that night had come in, the fires of the encampment burning brightly not far away. He approached at once, and was accosted by loud voices before he drew near.

"We should strike at them," Tomas Gingerwart, full of fire, ar-gued. "And hard! Drive them from our lands and back to their dark mountain holes."

Elbryan came into the ring of firelight to see most heads nodding agreement with Tomas' assessment. He noted Pony, sitting to the side of Tomas, a distressed look on her face.

All the talk paused then, in deference to the ranger, all eyes turning his way, as if awaiting his judgment. As soon as Elbryan and Tomas locked stares, they both understood that they would be on opposite sides of the debate.

"They are without prisoners," Tomas said. "The time to strike is upon us."

Elbryan paused for a long while, truly sympathizing with the man, remembering his own feelings, that desperate need for re-venge when his home of Dundalis had been burned to the ground. "I understand - " he started to say.

"Then put the warriors in line," Tomas growled back at him, a response echoed many times over throughout the group.

"Yet I fear that you underestimate the strength of our enemies," the ranger went on calmly. "How many of us, of our friends, will die in such a raid?"

"Worth it," cried one man, "if Caer Tinella is freed!"

"And Landsdown!" cried another, a woman from that more southern settlement.

"And if they are not?" the ranger calmly asked. "If, as I fear, we are repelled, slaughtered on the field?"

"What then for those who cannot fight?" Pony added, and that simple logic, that reminder of the larger responsibility, defeated many retorts.

Still, the argument went on and on, and ended out of exhaustion and not agreement. Elbryan and his side could claim a minor vic-tory, though, for no battle plans were yet being drawn. They were all excited now, the ranger realized, about the arrival of three new powerful allies, the victory in the forest fight, the safe return of Roger Lockless, and Roger's subsequent stealing of the rest of Kos-kosio's prisoners. Now, in the security of these new develop-ments, the folk dared to think of reclaiming their homes and pun-ishing the murderous thieves who had come to Caer Tinella and Landsdown. Hopefully, as things settled down once more, logic would replace emotion.

Pony understood and agreed with the rationale, and so she was quite surprised later on, when she and Elbryan met with Juraviel in a pine grove some distance to the south of the encampment, and the ranger announced, "The time to strike hard at our enemy is upon us."

"You just argued against such a course," the woman retorted.

"Our enemies are wounded and disorganized," Elbryan went on, "and a furious attack upon them now might send them running."

"Might," Juraviel echoed grimly. "And it might cost us many of our warriors."

"Our entire existence is a risk," the ranger replied.

"Perhaps we should consider sending those too infirm to fight to the south, to Palmaris, before we plan an attack on Caer Tinella and Landsdown," the elf reasoned. "We might even find allies in the southern cities."

"We have allies in the southern cities," said Elbryan. "But they are concerned for their own borders, and rightly so. No, if we can hit Kos- kosio Begulne hard now and drive him from the towns - "

"That we might hold them?" the elf put in sarcastically, for the mere thought of their ragtag band holding a defensible position was ludicrous.

Elbryan put his head down and sighed deeply. He knew that Ju-raviel was playing a vital advocate role here, more to help him see through his formulating ideas and work out the finer points than to discourage him, but talking to the Touel'alfar and their pragmatic, if stilted, way of looking at the world was always a bit discouraging to one who saw the world through human eyes. Juraviel didn't understand the level of frustration in Tomas and the others, didn't understand how dangerous that frustration might soon become.

"If we drive Kos-kosio Begulne and his powries from the two towns," the ranger began slowly, deliberately, "it is possible, even likely, that many of their allies will desert the dangerous powries, perhaps even abandon the war altogether. Neither goblins nor gi-ants have any love for powries - they hate the dwarves at least as much as they hate humans - and it is only the strength of the powrie leader, I believe, that is now binding them into a singular force. And even though giants and goblins have been known to ally in the past, there has never been a great fondness between them, by any reports. Giants have been said to eat goblins on occasion. So let us discredit this powrie leader, this binding force, and see what may transpire."

Now it was Juraviel's turn to sigh. "Always are you looking for the greatest possible advantage," he said quietly, his tone edged with resignation. "Always pushing yourself and those around you to the very limits."

A wounded Elbryan looked at the elf curiously, surprised that Juraviel would criticize him so.

"Of course," the elf went on, perking up and a sly smile widening on his angular face, "that is exactly what the Touel'alfar taught you to do!"

"We are agreed, then?" Elbryan asked anxiously.

"I did not say that," Juraviel replied.

Elbryan gave a frustrated growl. "If we do not hit at them, if we do not take advantage of our advantage - and it will prove a fleeting thing, I believe - then we will likely find ourselves in ex-actly the same desperate situation we just wriggled our way out of. Kos-kosio Begulne will regroup and reinforce and come back at us, forcing another fight in the forest, and sooner or later one of those battles will turn against us. The powrie leader is outraged, no doubt, by the defeat in the forest and the loss of his prisoners."

"He might even suspect that Nightbird has come to the region," Pony added, drawing curious looks from the elf and the ranger.

"I remember the name, and so do you, if you pause long enough to think about it," Pony explained. "Kos-kosio Begulne remem-bers us from Dundalis."

Juraviel nodded, recalling the ambush the monsters had once set for Nightbird, destroying a pine vale that the ranger dearly loved to draw him out of the forest. That ambush had been turned back against the monsters, though, like every tack they took against the ranger and his cunning and powerful friends.

"It is even possible that the monkish caravan which Roger spoke of was running from something," Elbryan went on.

"We could use our temporary advantage to slip around the towns and flee to the south," Juraviel reasoned. He did not miss the look, almost one of alarm, that passed between Pony and Elbryan at that notion.

"What else?" the elf asked bluntly.

"Anything that would make the monks, with their powerful magic, flee so, must be a considerable force," Pony put in, but she was far from convincing to the perceptive elf.

"Still more rationale that we should simply flee to the south, as did the monks," Juraviel pressed. He noted again the look between his companions. "What else?" he asked again. "There is some-thing more to the passage of the monks. I know you too well, Nightbird."

Elbryan laughed in concession to that point. "Pony and I cannot remain in the area," he admitted. "Nor would we dare to go south."

"Brother Avelyn's stones," Juraviel said.

"It might be that the monks Roger spoke of were looking for us," said Pony. "Or at least looking for the stones that I hold in my possession. When Brother Justice was searching for Avelyn, he used this stone," she explained, fishing a red garnet out of her pouch and holding it up for Juraviel to see. "This stone detects the use of magic, thus Avelyn's conjuring powers led Brother Justice right to him."

"And you feel that your use of magic has put the monks on your trail," Juraviel reasoned.

Pony nodded. "It is possible, and too important for us to take any chances."

"The last act of Brother Avelyn's life was to entrust us with the sacred stones," Elbryan put in determinedly. "We will not fail him in this."

"Then perhaps the three of us should be on our way now," Juraviel said. "Are these stones, then, more important than the refugees we now lead?"

Elbryan looked to Pony, but she had no answers for him. "In the measure of history, they may well be," the ranger said.

A noise from the brush, a gurgling, angry sound, brought all three on their guard. Juraviel moved fast, lifting his bow as he dis-appeared into the flora, then returning a moment later, a furious Roger Lockless beside him.

"You are naming rocks as more important than the people you pretend to lead!" the young man fumed. As he spoke he moved far-ther from Juraviel, obviously not comfortable near the diminutive creature.

"You need not fear him," Pony remarked dryly, thinking it ridiculous that Roger would act so skittish around one of the two who had rescued him from Kos-kosio Begulne's cruel grasp. She recognized that the young man's hesitance to embrace Juraviel was wrought of more than fear. "Belli'mar Juraviel, indeed all the Touel'alfar, are allies."

"So I've come to understand your meaning of the word," Roger snapped at her.

Pony started to respond, but Elbryan stepped in front of her. "As I was explaining," he said evenly, staring hard at the young man, "these stones are as vital - "

"More vital, you said," Roger interrupted.

"Do not underestimate their importance!" Elbryan yelled right back in his face. The ranger noted Juraviel's disapproving expres-sion then and calmed himself down. "The stones represent much more than even the great power stored within them," Elbryan went on, his voice controlled and even. "They may well be more impor-tant than my life, or Pony's, or yours, or the lives of all the people of our band."

"Those are your foolish thoughts - " Roger started to yell back, but Elbryan cut him short with an upraised hand, a movement so quick and so forceful that the end of the young man's sentence came out as a startled gurgle.

"However," the ranger went on calmly, "having said all of that, and truly believing it, I cannot leave this situation as I have found it. I must get these people to the safety of the southland, or at least make certain that the road there is clear ahead of them."

"You name yourself as leader," Roger accused.

"Thus you wish to strike, and strike hard, against Kos-kosio Be-gulne," Juraviel reasoned, ignoring the petty turn of Roger's argu-ment. "If we hit them hard in the two towns and scatter them to the forest, the whole of this band can flee south in relative safety, without Nightbird guiding them."

"For there, Nightbird would not be wise to go," said Pony. "And yet," she added, looking squarely at her lover, "you just argued against that very course."

"I did," Elbryan agreed. "And I still do argue against a fight that will send all of the warriors, even the majority of them, against the towns."

Pony started to ask what he might be talking about, but then she caught on. Elbryan had just gone into Caer Tinella to rescue Roger, and so now he was thinking of going back, with just his most pow-erful friends about him, and tilting the balance of power.

Juraviel, also catching on, nodded. "I will go into Caer Tinella this night and gather information," he agreed.

"I can go," said Roger.

"Juraviel is better suited to the task," Elbryan was quick to respond.

"Have you forgotten that I was in Caer Tinella just two nights ago?" Roger protested. "That I returned with the prisoners?"

The other three watched him closely, noting how he emphasized that personal pronoun.

"If the prisoners were still in there, you could not even think of attacking the town!" Roger finished.

Elbryan nodded, conceding the point. Roger's action had indeed set the stage for this possible strike. But still, especially after speaking with the freed prisoners and hearing of their desperate run through the dark forest, Elbryan remained convinced that Bel-li'mar Juraviel was better suited for the task. Juraviel had told him that one hound, at least, might still be alive, and if that creature had come forth on the trail, none of them, not Roger nor the prisoners, would have likely returned. "Juraviel is the choice," the ranger said calmly.

Pony noted the young man's expression and realized that Elbryan had just further compromised Roger's standing and hurt his inflated pride.

"Can you fly from treetop to treetop when the hounds sniff your trail?" Elbryan asked bluntly before Roger could begin to protest.

Roger chewed his bottom lip; both Elbryan and Pony thought he would strike out at the ranger. He only stamped his foot, though, and turned to leave.

"Stop!" Pony cried, surprising all three. She was coming to understand Roger, and while she did not dislike him, she recog-nized that he was young and too full of pride and self-importance for his own good.

Roger spun about, eyes wide and blazing with anger.

Pony took out a gemstone, carefully concealing it in her hand so he could not see it clearly, and walked up before him. "What you have overheard is private," she explained.

"Now you deign to order me?" Roger asked incredulously. "Are you my queen, then? Should I kneel?"

"You should be wise enough, even at your age and with your lack of experience, to recognize friend from enemy," Pony scolded. She wanted to go on, laying bare to Roger his short-comings concerning their relationship, but she realized that such lessons must be truly learned, and not explained, to be fully appre-ciated. "Yet I see that you cannot, that for some reason you have decided that we are not your friends. So be it."

The woman reached into another pouch, and Roger backed off a step. Not far enough, though, for Pony's hand came out and up fast, and with a yellow-hued weed she marked an X on Roger's forehead. Then she lifted her hand with the gem before him and spoke a series of phrases that sounded very much like some an-cient incantation.

"What have you done to me?" Roger demanded, nearly falling over as he continued his retreat.

"I have done nothing to you unless you betray us," Pony replied calmly.

Roger's face screwed up with confusion. "I owe you nothing," he said.

"As I owe you nothing," Pony replied sternly. "Thus I have just evened our relationship once again. In your eavesdropping, you heard things which do not concern you, and as such, it is your re-sponsibility to forget them."

Roger had no answer, other than to shake his head.

"Or to remain silent on the issue, at the very least," Pony went on. "However, if you cannot, you will find a most unpleasant consequence."

"What are you talking about?" Roger asked, and when Pony smiled wickedly, the young man looked past her to speak to Elbryan. "What has she done to me?" he demanded.

Elbryan honestly didn't know, and so his shrug was sincere.

"Tell me!" Roger yelled in Pony's face.

Elbryan closed his eyes as Roger started to reach up for Pony, fully expecting that his love would knock the foolish little man out cold. Roger, though, did not carry through with the movement, and simply stood before Pony, fists clenched in frustration.

"I have put a curse on you," Pony said quietly. "But a curse with a contingency."

"What do you mean?" he asked, his angry tone showing a hint of fear.

"I mean that as long as you do the right thing and remain silent about that which you should not know, nothing ill will befall you," the woman calmly explained. Her expression changed abruptly, grew dark and ominous, and she closed the distance between her-self and Roger and rose up tall and terrible on her toes, towering over the small man. "Betray us," she warned in a voice so grave that it raised the hairs on the back of Elbryan's neck, and sent shivers through Roger's body, "and the magic I have put on you will melt the brains in your head so that they will flow out of your ears."

Roger's eyes widened. He knew little of magic, but those dis-plays he had seen were certainly impressive enough for him to be-lieve that the woman was capable of carrying out her threat. He stumbled backward, nearly fell over, turned and ran away.

"Pony!" Elbryan scolded. "How could you do such - "

"I did nothing except mark his forehead with dandelion," the woman replied. "I've done as much to your chin in the buttercup game we played as children."

"Then - " Elbryan stopped and chuckled, somewhat surprised by his companion.

"Was that really necessary?" Belli'mar Juraviel asked dryly.

Pony's expression was dead serious as she nodded in response. "He would have betrayed us to the others," she explained. "And I do not wish it to become public knowledge that we two are outlaws in the eyes of the Abellican Church."

"And is our secret so terrible?" Elbryan put in. "I learned long ago to trust these people."

"Like Tol Yuganick?" Pony retorted, referring to a man who had betrayed her and Elbryan and all the folk of Dundalis before the journey to Aida.

Elbryan had no answer to that, but Pony, recognizing that her cynicism had stung her lover, continued. "I, too, trust Belster and Tomas and all the others," she admitted. "But Roger would have told the story in a way to bolster himself, and that, I fear, might have put us in an unfavorable light. Who knows what tales might then be spun when the folk are safely in Palmaris?"

Elbryan, who was also beginning to understand Roger Lockless, couldn't disagree with that.

"You did well," Juraviel decided. "The time is too critical for us to take such a chance. Young Roger may have had difficulty recog-nizing the right course, but I think that you painted for him a fairly clear signpost."

Elbryan snorted. "And here I was for all my life believing that morality was somehow tied to conscience."

"And so it is," Pony replied.

"Ideally," Juraviel added. "But do not underestimate the power of fear. Your own Church has used the threat of an afterlife in fiery brimstone to keep its congregation in line for more than a thousand years."

"Not my Church," Elbryan replied. "Not the Church that Avelyn espoused."

"No, the Church that pursued the renegade monk, as much to si-lence his radical ideals as to retrieve the gemstones, do not doubt," Juraviel replied without hesitation.

Elbryan looked to Pony, to find her nodding her assent with the elf's every word. He gave a chuckle, unable to argue the point. "The Church that pursues Pony and me," he remarked.

"The monks that came through were heading south - and quickly, so Roger said," Pony put in. "I have used the garnet, but can detect no magic in the area, so I assume that Roger's guess about their speed was correct."

"I hope that they continued right past Palmaris," Elbryan added.

"But in any case, our time here is limited. I hope to make the most of it."

"Caer Tinella and Landsdown," Belli'mar Juraviel said.

Elbryan's face was dead serious, even grim, as he nodded and gave his reply. "We will meet with you back here at dusk, perhaps to attack before the next dawn."

"As you wish, my friend," the elf said. "I am off to scout out the towns, then. Prepare the attack - and do reconcile, a bit at least, with Roger Lockless. He has done great things for these people, to hear Belster O'Comely speak, and I would guess that he has great things ahead of him, if he does not let his pride hinder him."

"We will take care of Roger," Pony answered.

"Paint the signpost clearly," Juraviel said with a laugh and a snap of his fingers, and then he was gone, disappearing into the underbrush so completely that Pony blinked and rubbed her eyes, wondering if they had deceived her. Elbryan, though, more accus-tomed to the Touel'alfar, and more knowledgeable in the ways of the forest, was not surprised.

"It is him," Kos-kosio Begulne insisted. "I'm knowin' 'is ways, the bastard!"

Maiyer Dek pondered the words for a long time, as he always did when speaking of anything even remotely important. The huge fomorian was quite impressive for one of his race, both physically and mentally. Though not as sharp-witted as his powrie peer, not even as wise as Gothra, who had ruled the goblins, Maiyer Dek understood his shortcomings and so took his time, examining everything slowly and deliberately.

The giant's silence did little for the anxious Kos-kosio Begulne's already foul mood. The powrie paced the floor of the great barn, picking his nose with one hand, the other slapping repeatedly against his hip.

"There might be other humans like Nightbird," the giant offered.

Kos-kosio Begulne snorted at the notion. "If that's so, then we'd've been kicked all the way back to Aida by this time!"

"One other, then," the giant replied.

"I'm hopin' not," the powrie answered. "And I'm thinkin' not. This one be him. I can smell the bastard. It's Nightbird come a'calling, don't ye doubt. So are ye to give me yer prisoners, or aren't ye?"

Again Maiyer Dek went into a long, drawn-out consideration.

He and the other three giants who had accompanied him had just returned from the southland, where they had waged a huge battle against the Kingsmen, just to the west of Palmaris. Many giants had died in the fight, and many more humans, and Maiyer Dek and his surviving cohorts had taken a host of men prisoner. "Traveling foodstuffs," the giant leader called them, and indeed, ten of the two-score men they had taken were eaten by the time the cruel fo-morians got to Caer Tinella. Now Kos-kosio Begulne wanted the remaining thirty as bait for the Nightbird, and in truth, Maiyer Dek wasn't overly fond of human flesh. But still, the giant remembered vividly the disastrous battle in the pine vale the last time he and his fellow leaders had baited this man called Nightbird. Did Kos- kosio Begulne really want to bring him in?

"Ye got to give 'em to me," Kos-kosio Begulne said suddenly. "We got to settle with Nightbird now, afore half the force leaves us. Already the goblins're rumbling about going home, and me own folks long for the Weathered Isles."

"So go, all of us," replied the giant, who had never been too keen on coming south to Honce-the-Bear in the first place. Before the dactyl had awakened, Maiyer Dek had enjoyed a comfortable exis-tence in the mountains north of the Barbacan, with a tribe of four-score giants -  including twenty females for his whims - and plenty of goblins about for good hunting and better eating.

"Not yet," the powrie retorted sharply. "Not until the damned Nightbird's paid for our troubles."

"You never even liked Ulg Tik'narn," the giant said without even his customary pause.

"Not the point!" Kos-kosio Begulne shot back, "He was a powrie leader, and a good one! Nightbird killed 'im, so I'm meaning to kill Nightbird."

"Then we go?"

"Then we go," the powrie agreed. "And once we're past the human lands, me and me folk'll not protect the goblin scum from yer belly."

That was all Maiyer Dek needed to hear.

By the time Juraviel returned from the towns, Elbryan and Pony had the folk in full agreement with delaying the attack - a difficult proposition given the success of the fight in the woods and the re-turn of Roger and the other prisoners. All of the folk were eager to be done with this adventure, to be sitting in a comfortable commonroom exaggerating their fireside tales, and if going through Caer Tinella and Landsdown meant they might soon be in the safety of Palmaris, then they were more than ready for the fight.

Pony was still with them, working out details should the attack on Caer Tinella or Landsdown commence, when Elbryan returned to the pine grove.

As soon as the ranger saw Juraviel come down from the tree, he knew something was wrong.

"They have fortified," the ranger reasoned.

"Indeed," Juraviel answered with a nod of his head. "There are three new scout towers about the edge of the town, north, south-west, and southeast, and an impromptu barricade has been erected about the whole of the place, a barrier of barrels, torn walls, any-thing they could find. It seems solid enough, standing near to the height of a man, but not too thick."

"Enough to slow down a charge," the ranger said.

"Perhaps a bit," Juraviel admitted, though he was not too con-cerned or impressed with the fortification. "Still, with the new ally that has arrived, I doubt that they feel the need to fortify."

"Another group of powries?" Elbryan asked.

"Giants," Juraviel replied. "Including the biggest and ugliest of those big and ugly brutes I have ever seen. Maiyer Dek, he is called, and even the powries, even Kos-kosio Begulne himself, gives him great respect. His armor is special, I fear, perhaps even magical, for it seems almost to have an inner fire."

Elbryan nodded; he had battled with giants similarly outfitted -  and he remembered the name of Maiyer Dek from the Timber-lands. The armor was earth magic, forged by the demon dactyl for its elite soldiers.

"We cannot allow these people to go against Caer Tinella," the elf went on. "We might skirt the town in the dark of night, or we might hit at Landsdown, whose garrison does not seem as formi-dable. But to send these people, untrained warriors all, against gi-ants, particularly this new monstrosity, would be folly. Even your own plans to do battle pose a great risk."

Elbryan had no argument against the simple logic. He had fought enough giants to understand the possibility for complete ca-tastrophe. "If we flee around the towns, they will likely catch our trail," he reasoned. "We would never get all the way to Palmaris ahead of them."

"A wider berth, then?" the elf asked, but he suspected that the ranger wouldn't be easy to convince.

"We can send them," Elbryan replied tentatively.

"But you still wish to go to the town and wage your fight," Juraviel reasoned.

"If this giant, Maiyer Dek, is as powerful and as revered as you indicate, perhaps he and I should speak," the ranger explained.

"Speak?" Juraviel echoed doubtfully.

"With weapons," Elbryan clarified. "How great a blow do you suppose it will prove to our enemies if Maiyer Dek and Kos-kosio Begulne are both slain?"

"Great indeed," the elf admitted. "I do not know what holds the giants and goblins together with each other and even more so with the powries, if not the strong leadership of those two. But still, think wisely, my friend. It will be no easy task to even get to the giant and powrie leaders, and even if you can, even if you somehow find a way to fight them without their minions swarming over you, you may find yourself overmatched. Turn your own question about: What will the refugees do without Nightbird to lead them?"

"They did well enough without Nightbird to lead them until very recently," the ranger reminded. "And they will have Juraviel."

"Whose business this is not!"

"Who chose to come to the aid of the humans," Elbryan replied with a wry grin.

"Who chose to follow his protege, Nightbird, to make sure the young man did not act foolishly," the elf corrected, smiling widely; and Elbryan knew from that smile that he had Juraviel on his side. "I have too many years invested in your training - and you carry an elven sword and a bow made by my own father - to let you get yourself killed."

"Some call it foolish, others daring," the ranger said.

"Or perhaps they are one and the same," Juraviel put in.

Elbryan clapped the elf on the shoulder, and both were still laughing when Pony moved through the pine grove to join them.

"The news from the towns is good, then?" she reasoned.

"No," both Elbryan and Juraviel said in unison.

Pony rocked back on her heels, caught by surprise, given their jovial attitudes.

"We were just discussing the folly of your Elbryan's intentions," Juraviel explained. "To walk into the middle of an enemy encamp-ment and slay both their leaders, though one is a powrie, as tough and stubborn a creature as ever lived, and the other a huge and mighty giant."

"And you find this amusing?" Pony asked Elbryan.

"Of course."

The woman nodded, and sincerely wondered if the stress of their existence was finally getting to her companion.

"I'll not walk right in," the ranger corrected, staring hard at the elf. "I will sneak, of course, quiet as a shadow, uninvited as death."

"And dead as a piece of wood," Juraviel finished, and both started laughing again.

Pony, who understood that there was a measure of truth beneath their levity, was not amused. "Enough foolishness," she scolded. "You have a hundred warriors pacing anxiously, wondering if they will die this night, awaiting your decree."

"And my decree - which I will insist upon- - is that they stand down," Elbryan said, his tone serious.

"I am not certain they will listen," Pony admitted, for in the time the ranger had been away, the talk had again reached a fever pitch, in favor of driving the monsters far away.

"We cannot attack the towns," the ranger explained, "for the powries have found more giant allies, including one attired in the earth magic armor of the dactyl."

Pony sighed deeply and hoped that the folk would listen. She re-membered that armor from the fight at the Barbacan, and knew that any of the refugees who came against this new ally would fall quickly. She looked to Elbryan and recognized the dangerous ex-pression on his face.

"We need only explain that they must wait another day or two for the fight, until we can discern the power of our new enemies," Elbryan reasoned.

"But you still plan to go in, and fight, this very night," Pony stated.

"I wish to find a way to destroy this giant, and Kos-kosio Begulne," Elbryan admitted. "It would be a great blow to our ene-mies, and might cause enough confusion for us to scatter the remaining monsters and get these people to Palmaris."

"Then let us discern how we might accomplish this task," Pony said calmly, moving before Juraviel and bending low. She took up a stick, handed it to the elf, and cleared away the pine needles from the ground before her. "A map, to start," she instructed.

Juraviel looked to Elbryan, both surprised that Pony, usually more conservative than the ranger, had so easily agreed, given the new monsters in town. And Juraviel wondered, too, if this turn of events had changed Elbryan's thinking. Did he still mean to in-clude his love on so dangerous a mission?

The ranger nodded, his expression grim, in answer to that un-spoken question. He and Pony had been through too much together for him to even think of excluding her from this important fight. While he had intended to keep Juraviel out of it - an elf's diminu-tive weapons were not much use against a giant, after all - he had planned all along to execute the attack with Pony beside him.

The daylight was fast fading by that time, so Pony took out her diamond and brought forth a minor globe of light. In a short while Juraviel had the town of Caer Tinella mapped out.

"I cannot be certain where Kos-kosio Begulne will be," the elf explained. "But there are only three buildings high enough to hold a giant." He tapped each in turn on the map. "Barns," he explained. "And this one is the most likely for the giant leader." His pointer settled on the marker for a large structure near the center of town.

"They had no organized defense, as far as I could tell," the elf went on. "Other than the barricades and a few posted sentries."

"Powries are usually prepared," Pony said. "More likely, their defenses are well-concealed."

"But this group has had little trouble of late," Juraviel replied.

"Except for the fight in the forest," said Elbryan.

"And the theft of prisoners," Pony added.

"But no real attacks against the town," the elf explained. "And I doubt they'll expect one, with the fomorian giants so visible to any who think to attack."

"But with Roger, who has shown his ability to get into town at will, gone from their grasp, the ring about the leaders, particularly Kos-kosio Begulne, might be tight," Pony reasoned.

"And that is precisely where I intend to go," Elbryan added.

"No easy task," Juraviel said.

"It never is," the ranger replied.

"But you intend to go anyway," the elf remarked.

Elbryan looked to Pony. "This very night," he explained. "I will seek out Belster and Tomas Gingerwart first and tell them of our plans, and of what they should do, depending on whether Pony and I succeed or not."

"And my role?" the elf asked.

"You will serve as my liaison to Belster," Elbryan explained.

"You will learn quickly the outcome of the fight, no doubt, and the sooner Belster is informed, the better he will be able to react."

Juraviel spent a long while staring hard at Elbryan, at the man who had earned the title of Nightbird from the Touel'alfar. The elf felt that doubting Tuntun was with him then, admitting whole-heartedly that she had been wrong in her initial assessment of Elbryan Wyndon, the "blood of Mather," as she had so often sar-castically referred to him. Tuntun had never thought that Elbryan would make the grade as a ranger, had thought him stupid and un-coordinated. She had learned differently, though, so much so that she willingly gave her life to save the young man - and elves were not often altruistic toward humans! And if she were here now, Juraviel knew, to witness the calm determination and sincere sense of duty with which Elbryan was approaching this incredibly dan-gerous fight, she might well call him "blood of Mather" once again, but this time with sincere affection.

"Your role in this battle will be with the stones alone," Elbryan said to Pony as they made their slow way toward Caer Tinella. Bel-ster and Tomas had agreed that the battle should be delayed while more information was gathered, but did not know that the ranger meant to wage it on his own.

Pony eyed him skeptically. "I have been training hard," she replied.

"And well."

"But you do not trust me to fight with sword?"

Elbryan was shaking his head before she finished. "You are be-tween fighting styles," he explained. "Your head tells you the next proper move, but your body is still trained in the other style. Will you lunge or slash? And in the moment it takes you to decide, an enemy weapon will find you."

Pony bit her lip, trying to find some logical response. She could do the sword-dance quite well now, but that was in slower motion than she would find in a real fight. At the end of every session, when Elbryan speeded up the process, she could not keep up, caught, as he had said, between her thoughts and her muscle memory.

"Soon enough," Elbryan promised her. "Until then, you remain most effective with the stones alone."

Pony didn't argue.

The pair came upon Juraviel on a hillock overlooking Caer Tinella from the northeast, the high vantage point affording them a view of all the town. It appeared remarkably as Juraviel had de-scribed it, the new barricades wrapping all the central structures, but all three found their gazes locked to a huge bonfire burning in the southeastern corner, all the way to the other side.

"I will investigate it," the elf volunteered.

Elbryan nodded and looked to Pony. "Find them with the soul stone," he said to her, and then to Juraviel added, "If Kos-kosio Begulne and Maiyer Dek are in the barn, then that is where Pony and I will go. You watch our progress into the town, then return here to gather Symphony, for I suspect that I'll leave the horse be-hind. And then you need only wait and watch."

"You wait," Juraviel corrected, his tone showing that he did not intend to be dissuaded. "There is nothing ordinary about that bon-fire; you would do well to let me discern its meaning before you go into the town."

"We may only get one chance at these two," Pony said to Elbryan, nodding her agreement with Juraviel's assessment. "Let us make certain that the time is right."

"Be quick, then," anxious Elbryan said to them both.

Before Juraviel could respond, the quiet of night was stolen by a call from the town.

"Another to the flames!" came the thunderous roar, a giant's voice. "Are you watching, Nightbird? Do you see the men dying because of you?"

All three peered into the distance, focusing on the flames. They saw the silhouettes of three forms, two powries and a man, they seemed, and watched in horror as the man was thrown onto the burning pyre.

His agonized screams rent the air.

Elbryan let out an angry growl, reached around and pulled Pony down from the horse and in the same fluid movement had his bow in hand.

"No, ranger!" Juraviel said to him. "That is exactly what they want!"

"What they think they want," the ranger retorted. "Lead me with your arrows, straight for the wall!" He drove his heels hard into Symphony's sides and the great stallion leaped away, thundering down the hillock, charging for the town. Juraviel sped off in pur-suit, half running, half flying, and Pony changed gemstones, put-ting her hematite away.

Nightbird came out of the cover of the trees in full gallop, crossing the small field before the impromptu wall, Hawkwing up and ready. His first arrow took an unsuspecting goblin in the side of the head, throwing the creature right over. His second got another goblin in the chest just as it lifted its arm to throw a spear.

But his element of surprise was gone, and now the wall teemed with enemies, goblins and powries. Roaring, too angry and too desperate to consider a different course, the ranger bent low over Symphony's neck, spurring the great horse on.

Then both horse and rider stumbled, Symphony nearly going down as a blast of lightning thundered right beside them, smashing into the barricade, splintering wood, throwing goblins and powries all about.

The ranger and his steed recovered quickly, with little mo-mentum lost. Back in full stride, churning the turf, the powerful stallion leaped the six-foot barrier, soaring over the dead and stunned monsters, hitting the ground in a dead run. Arrows buzzed past the ranger as he cut the horse in a tight turn, charging between two buildings. He cut another fast corner, seeing still more enemies rising before him. Down an alley, he broke out into the town square, but turned on his heel again, for the place was swarming with powries, and sped down yet another alleyway.

As he neared one low roof, Nightbird slung Hawkwing over his shoulder, drew out Tempest, and climbed to a standing position, legs far apart and bent for balance. Through the turquoise stone set in the horse's chest, he communicated with Symphony, bidding the horse to keep a steady run and move in close to the building on their right-hand side.

A goblin was just rising as Nightbird came in. Tempest's slash nearly decapitated it, and the ranger was quick to withdraw the sword, yanking it free, then stabbing back out, nailing a second goblin under the chin.

Nightbird dropped back to a sitting position, slid Tempest be-tween thigh and saddle and readied his bow once more, firing as he rode. A powrie leaped out in his path, another on the roof to the left. Nightbird focused on the higher target, driving an arrow into its chest even as it launched a spear his way. Symphony took care of the powrie on the ground, running the dwarf down, nearly stum-bling, but holding strong.

Nightbird managed to get his bow across to partially deflect the well- aimed spear, and that defensive movement surely saved his life, though the spear struck home anyway, a grazing hit across the shoulder. It hooked his shirt as the fabric tore away, and with a growl Nightbird reached around and pulled it free, thinking to drop it.

He tucked it under his arm instead, lancelike, as he bore down on an open doorway, a powrie charging out to meet him. Up came the powrie's shield, but not quick enough, and the spear tip glided over the top, catching the screaming dwarf right in the mouth, bashing in its teeth, then sinking deeper, right out the back of the head and into the wood of the doorjamb.

Nightbird let go of the weapon and had not even the time to look back and regard his work.

The powrie, stuck in a standing position, twitched repeatedly as it died.

Nightbird cut a fast corner, then another, angling for the north-eastern edge of town. Around yet another bend, he found himself in trouble, for there, blocking the path before him, stood a pair of gi-ants, behemoths no single arrow would fell and that Symphony could not hope to run down.

By the time Juraviel got to the battered barricade, it was clear of monsters, for those few that had survived the ranger's charge and Pony's blast were scattered to the streets of Caer Tinella, chasing Symphony's swift and elusive run. A flutter of his wings sent Juraviel over the wall, to the roof of one of the buildings it con-nected at this juncture. Across the way stood a goblin, leaping up and down and shouting directions to its comrades on the ground as it spotted the rushing rider.

Juraviel crept up to within five paces, bow in hand. He went down to one knee to better angle the shot, and his arrow caught the goblin right under the base of its skull, driving upward. The crea-ture flipped from the edge of the roof and landed hard on its back, quite dead, in the street.

A movement from behind sent the elf in a spin, another arrow ready to fly. He held the shot, and luckily so, for the form scram-bling over the edge of the roof was not that of a goblin or powrie, but of a man, slight of build and climbing nimbly.

"What are you doing here?" the elf whispered as Roger came up to crouch beside him.

"A question I could also be asking you," the young man an-swered. His gaze focused on the line of prisoners. "There must be thirty of them," he said, and he started at once for the southeastern corner of the roof.

Juraviel let him go and did not follow. The more angles from which they struck out at the monsters, the more confusion they would likely cause, and that confusion might be the only thing that would allow foolish Nightbird to get out of this place alive!

Fluttering wings brought the elf silently to another rooftop, far-ther into the town and more to the north, and from there he found many opportunities. Off went his arrows, one, two, three, hitting powrie and giant, and yet another powrie on the other side, killing none - though his last arrow had hurt the dwarf badly - but bringing screams of outrage and taking the focus, for these nearby groups at least, off his friend. Monsters closed on the building from every direction.

Juraviel went straight up, into the darkness of night, angling his flight slightly so he landed on yet another building. Then he ran to the far edge of that roof, put an arrow into an unsuspecting goblin for good measure, then fluttered off to yet another building, the large central barn.

In his wake he left monsters screaming and howling, and no longer believing that the ranger had come into the town alone.

Symphony's hooves sent dirt flying wide as the horse angled hard, the ranger trying to pass the giants on the right side. The closest behemoth raised its club, but the ranger was quicker, sliding Tempest back in hand and slashing across, catching the giant's up-lifted arm right below the elbow.

The giant roared in pain and could not finish the attack, and so Nightbird and his horse rushed past and seemed to break clear.

But then yet another giant stepped out to block the path, and the trail was narrower up ahead, giving the ranger nowhere to run. He dropped Tempest across his lap and went back to Hawkwing, fit-ting an arrow and leveling the bow in the blink of an eye.

He would only get one shot.

He had to be perfect.

The arrow, fired from barely fifteen feet away, got the giant right in the eye, and how it howled! It clutched at its face and spun halfway about, shrieking and screaming.

"Run on!" Nightbird commanded the horse. Out flashed Tem-pest; the ranger tightened his legs about the powerful stallion, and Symphony, understanding Nightbird's commands, understanding the desperation of the situation, willingly obliged and never slowed, hitting the behemoth in full gallop.

The ranger got a strike in at the same moment, his sword slashing hard at the side of the tumbling giant's neck. Down the brute went, and Symphony, stunned, held his balance, Nightbird tugging hard to turn the horse about as the other two came in.

"Keep this one out of the fight," the ranger bade Symphony, and then he tossed his sword to the ground and took up his bow, diving into a roll from the horse's back, fitting an arrow as he went and let-ting fly as he came rolling around back to his feet. The missile drove deep into a giant shoulder, but the behemoth seemed hardly to notice it.

The ranger conjured images of the poor prisoners on the other side of the town, men being roasted alive on the powrie bonfires, and from those scenes he drew rage, and from his rage he drew strength. He reached out for Tempest, and the magical blade, hear-ing his silent call, flew to his hand and flared with inner power. Nightbird, too focused to even notice the spectacle of his sword, charged straight ahead.

His attack surprised the giants, enough for the ranger to slide in on one knee, ducking beneath the sidelong swipe of one brute. Out flashed his sword, smacking off the behemoth's kneecap, and as the creature instinctively lifted its leg to grab at the wound, the ranger ran forward, right under the upraised heavy boot, diving past the other leg, out of reach of the second behemoth as it came around the first for a swing.

Nightbird pivoted and struck once and then again, scoring two stabbing hits on the giant's buttocks. The brute spun and swung wildly, holding its club in one hand, its free hand alternately holding its arrow-stuck shoulder, its slashed knee, its stabbed butt.

The club came nowhere near to hitting the nimble ranger. He dropped into a squatting position, letting it soar over his head, then came up hard, chasing the hand, striking out and hitting again, right on the giant's wrist.

The behemoth howled; the club went flying free.

But the move had put Nightbird in a sorry position with the second giant, and he could not completely avoid the brute's swinging club. It clipped him on the shoulder and sent him flying, tumbling right over in the air, coming down headfirst and tumbling again, and then again after that as he hit the ground in a desperate attempt to absorb some of the shock.

He came around in a roll, studying his foe. Truly this was the ugliest giant he had ever seen, with one lip torn away and a garish tattoo of a goblin ripped in half covering its forehead. One ear was also missing and the other sported a large gold earcap. Grinning wickedly, the brute looked to its stung companion, nodding as the behemoth indicated that it was still ready for the fight. The ugly brute slowly stalked in.

Even for the elven-trained ranger, two giants were more than a match.

But at least it would remain only two, Nightbird noted, glancing at Symphony. The giant on the ground was trying to rise, but the horse reared repeatedly over its head, front hooves pounding away.

The giant, blind in one eye, reached out desperately, then tried to rise again as Symphony spun about.

The horse was only lining the brute up for a kick, though, and the giant wasn't halfway to standing when Symphony lashed out with both rear legs, connecting solidly on the giant's face and laying it out straight.

Then the horse came right over the head again, front legs tapping a steady beat.

Nightbird didn't see the last move, too concerned with scram-bling away from the closest giant's sudden rain of blows, overhand chops that could not be ducked. The ground shook with each tremendous impact.

The other giant retrieved its club, but seemed in no hurry to join its companion.

Still, Nightbird heard the pursuit closing from all around and knew he was running out of time.

Pony had not been idle. After her lightning blast rocked the bar-ricade, clearing the way for Elbryan and then Juraviel - and then, though she hadn't known it, for Roger Lockless - the woman ran down the slope, angling to the north. She tried to keep track of the ranger's movements within the town, following the sound of shouting monsters and the ringing silverel as Tempest did its work, and she was fairly certain that her love was also making his way around the northern edge.

Pony's run became a series of short bursts, moving from cover to cover, looking back toward the town, trying to gain some infor-mation. She saw the heads of two giants, saw one lurch suddenly and cry out in pain, and knew that Nightbird had come upon them.

When a third giant's head and shoulders appeared, towering above the low buildings, Pony realized that her love was in, serious trouble.

The woman fumbled about in her pouch of stones, trying to find one that might help. The ruby was no good, for she hadn't the time to go to Elbryan's side. She might use the graphite to skim a light-ning bolt off the rooftops, but that, she feared, might also sting her love, especially if he was in close battle.

"Malachite," the woman decided, pulling forth the green, ringed stone. She would levitate one of the brutes, float him up high into the air, and make the odds a bit more even.

As she pulled out the stone, though, she saw another, the lodestone, and thought it even more clever.

Pony lifted her hand and took aim, focusing her vision through the magic of the gem, seeking out a metallic target at which she could launch her missile.

But there seemed to be nothing; the giants wore no armor and were wielding wooden clubs!

Pony growled and looked deeper, and still found nothing. She was about to change back to the malachite - her heart soared when she saw another giant go down - when at last she found a slight pull coming from the side of the remaining giant's head, from the area near its ear.

Nightbird leaped ahead and to the side, avoiding yet another downward smash. Out flashed Tempest, a sudden lunge, but the giant was already turning its huge body, moving limbs and torso safely out of reach.

This one was skilled, the ranger realized. He gave a nervous glance to the side, to see the other giant watching.

Then he and the ugly brute went through a second round of at-tack and counter, again with no decisive winner, though this time Nightbird did score a minor hit. Still, the giant only howled - with laughter and not with pain - and its companion seemed even more bolstered and ready to join.

"Argh, get ye in here!" the ugly behemoth bellowed, but the words ended abruptly as the giant's head suddenly snapped to the side. The monster's head came back up straight, but its eyes were no longer seeing the ranger, were suddenly veiled in darkness. Without a movement to brace its fall, the giant dropped face first into the dirt.

The earcap was missing, Nightbird noted. No, not missing, but pushed in, driven right through the giant's skull and into its brain!

Not missing a beat, the ranger spun on the last giant and roared in victory, and the fomorian fell all over itself, burying a powrie that came around the corner as it tried to get away.

The ranger understood this mystery quite clearly. He said a little thank-you to Pony, whom he knew to be the source, then split the giant's skull in half with Tempest and pulled the magnetite from the gore.

"Symphony!" he cried, and ran to retrieve his bow.

The great horse whinnied and spun, pausing only to launch an-other double kick into the prone giant's face. Symphony came by Nightbird in a canter and the ranger leaped up and pulled himself into his saddle, sliding Tempest under his thigh and putting Hawkwing to the ready in one fluid movement.

He shot the powrie the giant had trampled as it stubbornly tried to regain its footing, then ran over the unfortunate dwarf with Sym-phony for good measure, breaking into the clear behind it, then turning fast down another alley, and the chase was on once more.

Unlike the ranger, Roger Lockless was doing all he could to avoid drawing attention to himself. The nimble thief worked his way carefully from rooftop to rooftop when the buildings were close enough, or down the side of one structure and up the side of another when they were not. Twice he found himself unintention-ally on the same roof as an enemy, but both times he kept calm and as quiet as a shadow and moved along without being noticed, for that enemy, be it goblin or powrie, was inevitably distracted by the tumult of the ranger's passing.

The bonfire guided Roger, leading him unerringly across Caer Tinella until he was perched on a roof no more than twenty feet from the ragged prisoners, a score and a half of them, sitting on the ground, in deep despair, chained together at the ankles. Many mon-sters were about, and two in particular, a huge giant, the largest Roger had ever seen, and a nervous Kos-kosio Begulne, caught his attention - and, it seemed, caught the attention of all the other monsters in the area.

"Doomed we are!" the powrie wailed. "Nightbird's come and all the world's a cursed place!"

The giant shook its huge head and calmly bade the powrie to be quiet. "Are you not the one who wanted to bring him in?"

"Ye're not knowing!" the powrie snapped back. "Ye wasn't there, in the middle o' the fight, when he killed us in the valley."

"I wish he had," the giant said dryly. That gave Roger pause. A giant with wit? The mere thought of it sent a shudder down his spine; a giant's only weakness was often between its ears.

With a shrug, the young man slipped down the back side of the building, shadowed from the light of the fire, then tiptoed into the line of human prisoners, slipping to a seat right between a pair of very surprised and very beleaguered men. They did well to keep quiet, and Roger, lockpick in hand, went right to work on the shackles.

"Doomed, says I!" the powrie wailed. "Both of us!"

"You're half right," the giant said quietly. With a sudden move, Maiyer Dek lifted Kos-kosio into the air and tossed the thrashing powrie onto the burning pyre. The dwarf wailed and scrambled out of the flames, but they stubbornly followed, grabbing at clothes, at hair, eating flesh; even the magical bracers the dwarf had taken from fallen Ulg Tik'narn could not save Kos-kosio Begulne from a horrible death.

All the monstrous gathering was in tumult then, some scream-ing for the death of the prisoners, others - powries all - for a revolt against the giant.

And in the middle of it all Roger Lockless calmly went about his work, shifting down the line, one man at a time, opening shackles and bidding the men to stay calm until all were free.

"Hear me!" Maiyer Dek roared, and it was impossible for any within a hundred yards to not hear the booming, resonant voice. "This is only one human, one puny human. A hundred pieces of King's gold and ten prisoners to the one that brings me the head of Nightbird!"

That put the monsters in line, had them leaping and crying out excitedly, had many of them running off to find the fighting.

For just a split second Roger Lockless entertained the thought of those monsters catching and killing Elbryan. With a low growl the young man quickly berated himself for even thinking such things, and silently thanked the ranger for again allowing him the distrac-tion he needed to finish his work here. And while he opened the next shackle, Roger Lockless prayed for Elbryan's safe escape.

"I am with you, Nightbird," came a most-welcome voice above the ranger as he turned tight about a building, monsters in close pursuit. He heard the twang of an elvish bow, and then the flutter of wings, and a moment later Belli'mar Juraviel was on Symphony behind him, bow in hand.

"You shoot those in front, I will cover flanks and rear," the elf offered, letting fly another arrow even as he made the statement. His bolt hit the mark, scoring solidly on a giant's face, but the behe-moth only roared and brushed the insignificant hit away. "Though I fear I'll run out of arrows in an attempt to kill even one giant!" Juraviel added.

It didn't matter too much, anyway, for none of the monsters be-hind would get near the fast-running Symphony. Head down, nos-trils puffing, the stallion tore up the ground, and the ranger, telepathically linked to the horse through the turquoise, did not need his hands to guide him. Those monsters who came out in front, or at an angle where they might intercept, met with the thunder of Nightbird's magnificent bow and the pounding of Sym-phony's hooves, and the companions ran on, soon turning into the lane that ran the extent of Caer Tinella's western side, just inside the barricade.

Symphony, and the ranger wholeheartedly agreed, skidded to an abrupt stop.

"We cannot get to them," Juraviel said, looking past the ranger to the bonfire, and to the dozens of monsters swarming all about the path ahead of them.

Nightbird growled and moved to kick the horse's flanks.

"No!" Juraviel scolded. "Your run was magnificent and brave, but to go on is purely foolish. And what hope will be left those men if they see Nightbird cut down before them? Over the wall with us, I say! It is the only way!"

Nightbird studied the scene before him, heard the monsters closing from behind and from the east. He could not disagree, and so he grabbed the reins hard and jerked the horse's head to the west, toward the barricade and the open night beyond.

Out in that darkness, only a few feet from the wall, Pony stood perplexed, desperately trying to find some way to improvise. She didn't know exactly where the ranger was, though she was fairly sure he had come to this edge of town, and didn't have the time to use the quartz or the hematite to try and find out. Thus, she could not risk a bolt of lightning or any other substantial magical attack.

But this?

In her hand she held a diamond, the source of light and of warmth. There was a delicate balance in this gemstone's magic, Pony understood, for within its depths light and dark were not ab-solutes, but were, rather, gradations of each other. Thus a dia-mond could bring forth a brilliant shine or a quiet glow. But what might happen, Pony wondered, if she tilted the balance in the other direction?

"This is a wonderful time for experiments," she whispered sar-castically, but even as she finished the thought, she was falling into the magic of the stone, finding that balance, picturing it as a circular plate perched atop the tip of a knitting needle. If she turned the closest edge of that plate up, she would bring forth light.

She turned it down instead.

The great fire dimmed; all the torches seemed to flicker and lessen, until they were no more than tiny pinpricks of light. At first Nightbird thought a gust of wind must have swept through - just over his head, he guessed, since he had felt no breeze. It made no sense, though, for what wind might so easily defeat so large a fire as the burning pyre?

Then it was dark, just dark, and Symphony, heading still for the western wall, hesitated, unable to see the barricade to make the leap.

"Jilseponie with the stones," Juraviel reasoned, though the elf feared differently, feared that this darkness might be the trademark of the demon dactyl. Juraviel had met the beast once before, soon after he had left the ranger's expedition to take some refugees to the safety of Andur'Blough Inninness, and on that occasion the dactyl had been surrounded by a cloud of darkness. Not quite like this one, though; the blackness of the dactyl was more a wave of despair over the heart than a lack of light to the eyes.

"They are blinded," Nightbird replied, noting the frantic move-ments of the monsters along the lane. They could no longer see him, he realized, could no longer see the ground at their feet or the walls before them.

"As am I," Juraviel was quick to answer, and that gave the ranger pause. He had thought, or hoped, that Pony had indeed en-acted some enchantment to blind his enemies, but why, then, was Juraviel affected, and why was he still able to see?

"The cat's-eye," he reasoned, feeling the gem-set circlet about his head. That had to be the answer, but whatever the case, Nightbird was not going to let this turn of fate go to waste. He communicated with his horse, bade Symphony to turn back down the lane, back toward the fire and the prisoners, and then he guided the stallion with the turquoise, as he had so often done before, letting Sym-phony "see" through his eyes.

"Hold on tightly," Nightbird bade the elf, and Juraviel was willing to comply, since he could not put his bow to use anyway.

Down the path they charged, Nightbird working hard to keep Symphony veering around scrambling goblins and powries, and to keep far away from the two giants that were feeling about one of the buildings. They came out of the enchanted area of darkness suddenly, without warning, right before the bonfire. Most of the monstrous host was behind them, but gigantic Maiyer Dek was not, the behemoth standing near the fire, waving a huge sword easily in one hand.

Nightbird managed to look past the giant, to see Roger among the far end of the prisoner line, working furiously on some shackles.

"I have waited too long for this," the giant said quietly.

"As have I," the ranger answered grimly, needing the bravado to hold this one's attention, and the gazes of all those nearby.

"As have I!" came a cry behind the ranger, and Juraviel leaned out to the side and let fly an arrow for Maiyer Dek's face.

The giant lurched, but in truth he didn't even have to, for though Juraviel's bolt headed straight in, it swerved at the last instant, flying harmlessly to the side.

"Impossible," the elf remarked.

Nightbird groaned softly; he understood, had seen this before. When he had fought Ulg Tik'narn in the woods, for some reason that he could not understand, his arrows and his blows could not strike the powrie.

Apparently Maiyer Dek was similarly armored. And even if the giant was naked, and without a weapon other than its hands, this one would prove a challenge, Nightbird knew without doubt.

"Come along, Nightbird!" the giant roared, and it threw back its head and bellowed with mocking laughter.

That mirth ended abruptly, though, as Maiyer Dek's comrades started shouting with alarm as all the remaining prisoners, and Roger as well, leaped up and scattered, some pausing to tackle nearby enemies and grab their weapons, others just running full out or climbing the closest barrier.

"What trick is this?" the huge giant roared, glancing all about. "Forget them!" he howled, pointing at the ranger. "Forget them all, but this one! This is the Nightbird! I will have his head!"

Nightbird kicked Symphony into a run - not for Maiyer Dek, for the ranger did not think it wise to tangle with that one at this time, but in a circuitous route of the area, trampling monsters, slashing with Tempest, while Juraviel's bow went to work once more. The situation now demanded confusion, and the two riders and their magnificent stallion answered that call perfectly.

Nightbird winced as he saw one man chopped down by a powrie hammer, then another squashed by a giant club. But many more were running free, many more were over the wall and scrambling into the cover of the forest. On the top of the wall directly across the fire, Nightbird spotted Roger. The man smiled and offered a salute, and then he was gone.

Back down the lane the darkness enchantment went away. Nightbird spun Symphony about and charged that way, scattering the confused closest monsters. Then he turned the horse sharply to the east, back into the heart of the town, trying to draw attention to himself and take some of the danger from the fleeing prisoners.

Around and around they went, Symphony always seeming to be one stride ahead of the pursuit - which included an outraged Maiyer Dek. Juraviel began to sing a taunting song, accenting each verse with a well-aimed bowshot.

After several minutes, Symphony puffing hard and the mon-strous ring tightening about them, the ranger wisely decided that the game was up. He angled the horse for the nearest barricade, the eastern wall, and over they went, into the night. Nightbird thought to go out to the east and south, then swing back to the refugee en-campment after a long while. He would have to trust Roger and Pony to get the prisoners away.

His plans changed, though, when he saw the huge form of Mai-yer Dek stepping over the southern wall and then running off into the woods.

Perhaps he would get his fight with the giant after all.

"We must keep them guessing," Juraviel reasoned, lifting off Symphony's back to fly to a nearby branch.

"You keep them confused," Nightbird replied. "I have urgent business to the south."

"The giant?" Juraviel asked incredulously. "He has an enchant-ment about him!"

"I have seen this magic before," Nightbird answered. "And I know how to defeat it. He wishes a fight with me, and so he shall have it!"

Juraviel offered no argument as the ranger kicked Symphony into a run.

The pursuit was not organized, was just a mob of scrambling monsters, turning about in circles as often as they moved in any one direction. Many soon gave up the chase altogether, not sure of whom they were supposed to be chasing, and not wanting to get caught out alone against the Nightbird.

Stubborn Maiyer Dek did not turn back, though, just pressed on, calling for the ranger to come out and face him squarely.

Following those calls, Nightbird had little trouble in gaining ground on the giant, and he was pleased to discover that the rest of the monstrous pursuit was nowhere to be seen, that the giant leader, in its rage, had struck out alone. The ranger wondered if he should first seek out Pony. "Sunstone," he muttered, remembering how Avelyn had brought down the magical defenses of Kos-kosio Be-gulne, and recalling, too, that he and Pony had not retrieved any such magic from Avelyn's cache, that the sunstone had been lost in the destruction of Aida.

The ranger looked to his sword, to the gemstone set in the pommel, which was truly a magically constructed mixture of sev-eral types of stones, sunstone among them.

Up ahead the huge fomorian came into view, breaking through the last line of brush and pine trees onto a meadow.

"Work for me, Tempest," the ranger whispered, and he brought Symphony around the area, stepping out of the trees on the oppo-site end of the field when the giant was halfway across.

Maiyer Dek stopped in his tracks, surprised that the man dared to meet him so openly.

"You came out here after me," the ranger explained calmly. "And so you have found me. Let us be done with it."

"Done with yourself!" came the thunderous retort. Maiyer Dek glanced all around suspiciously.

"I am alone," the ranger assured him. "At least, as far as I know. You were trying to follow me, but I followed you." He passed along some telepathic instruction to Symphony then, bidding the horse to be ready to come to his side should the sunstone fail. Then he slipped down from the saddle, Tempest in hand, and started a slow and steady walk toward the fomorian.

Maiyer Dek's grin widened with each passing step. The giant suspected there would be trouble back in the town - he had thrown the powrie leader into the bonfire, after all - but wouldn't they all, giants, goblins, and even the stubborn powries, bow down to him when he walked in with Nightbird's head! And, to Maiyer Dek's thinking, there was no way he could possibly lose. He wore the spiked bracers, the gift of the demon dactyl, and with their magic, no weapon could strike him.

So the giant's surprise was complete, then, when Nightbird rushed across the last fifteen feet, fell into a balanced skip and lunged fast, stabbing him hard in the belly, the glowing Tempest tearing through clothes and leather girdle and slipping nearly half its blade length into Maiyer Dek's abdomen.

Nightbird pulled the blade right out and slashed across, smacking Maiyer Dek across the kneecap. Then, as the giant's leg went predictably wide, the ranger darted right between the treelike limbs, falling into a headlong roll as Maiyer Dek's huge sword swished harmlessly behind him.

He came up in a half turn, legs tucked under him, and leaped back at the giant as it started to turn about, scoring yet another hit, this one deep into the giant's hamstring. Then he ran out the back side of the behemoth, into the clear again, spinning on his heel to face Maiyer Dek squarely.

The giant was clearly confused and in pain, one huge hand holding tight to its spilling guts.

"You believed that your demon armor would defeat my at-tacks," the ranger said. "And so the gift of Bestesbulzibar worked against you, Maiyer Dek, for my magic, the magic of the goodly God, is stronger by far!"

In response, Maiyer Dek roared and charged.

Nightbird leaped straight ahead, sword up as if he meant to block the attack. He could not hope to stop the sheer power of Maiyer Dek's sword strike, and he knew it, and so at the last mo-ment he leaped out to the side, then charged in behind the swish of the sword, stabbing again at the giant's wounded abdomen.

Maiyer Dek brought the great pommel of his sword in tight fast enough to partially defeat the attack, and then, in a fluid movement, snapped that sword arm out wide, pommel clipping a dodging Nightbird on his already bruised shoulder and sending him into a roll.

The ranger came up in perfect balance, but truly his right shoulder throbbed from the heavy hit, and Maiyer Dek, recog-nizing a slight advantage here, was quick in pursuit, but this time with his sword at the ready, and not swinging wildly.

The giant put out a lazy swing, testing the ranger's defenses. Tempest banged hard against the huge blade, once and then again, forcing it wide.

"You move your skinny blade well," the giant remarked.

"Except when it is embedded in your belly," the ranger replied.

Predictably, Maiyer Dek came on ferociously, sword slashing across at just the right height to take the ranger's head from his shoulders.

But Nightbird was no longer standing, had dropped to his knees, then came up as the blade flashed overhead. Left, right, left went Tempest, then in a straight-ahead thrust, once and again, and then a third time, angled up for the abdomen once more.

Down went the ranger in a desperate dive, the giant reversing its swing for a sudden backhand, and this time with the blade so low that Nightbird had to fall flat on the ground.

Maiyer Dek rushed ahead, lifted his massive booted foot and stamped down, thinking to grind Nightbird into the dirt.

The ranger went over in a roll, then again as the giant continued to stamp at him. Then a third time, and when he came over, he put one leg under him. As Maiyer Dek lifted his foot and turned it yet again, the ranger sprang up, bracing Tempest, pommel in both hands, against his breast, driving it hard into the bottom of Maiyer Dek's foot before it began its downward momentum.

The blade gored through the leather as if it were paper and drove upward, into flesh and bone. Maiyer Dek tried to pull away, but the ranger stayed with him, driving on.

All the ground shook when Maiyer Dek fell over backward, hit-ting with a tremendous jolt. The giant felt the ranger then, leaping atop his thigh, running up his torso. He tried to reach out with his empty hand, but Tempest slashed away, taking one finger at the knuckle and gashing the others.

Nightbird sprang to the giant's massive chest, then leaped ahead, landing right above the behemoth's shoulder, slashing hard with Tempest at the side of Maiyer Dek's neck. Then he leaped again, into a backward roll, came up to his feet and ran up above the prone giant, narrowly avoiding the great sword as Maiyer Dek rolled about.

Nightbird was twenty feet away when the giant staggered to its feet. The ranger noted the blood pouring freely down the side of Maiyer Dek's neck, and knew that the outcome was decided.

"Ah, but you'll pay for this, little rat!" Maiyer Dek spouted. "I'll cut you in half! I'll - " The giant stopped and put its torn hand up to its neck, then brought the hand out in front of its face, staring in-credulously at the complete bloodstain. Stunned, Maiyer Dek looked back to the ranger, to see him mounting Symphony, his sword in its sheath.

"You are dead, Maiyer Dek," Nightbird declared. "The only thing that could save you is the magic of the goodly God, and He, I fear, will show little mercy to one who has committed so many ter-rible crimes."

Nightbird turned his horse and rode away.

Maiyer Dek moved to follow, but stopped, again lifting his hand, and then, when he discerned that the blood was verily spouting from his neck, he grabbed at the wound tightly, trying to stem the flow, then ran off for Caer Tinella.

He felt the cold creeping into his body before he ever got off the field, felt the touch of death and saw the darkness growing before his eyes.