"Fetch! Fetch the stick!" Escalla's voice bubbled, bright and gay. Morning sun streamed across Jus's eyes as he lay on something soft. "Come on! Just try!"
Cinders can't run.
"So fly!"
Cinders can't fly.
"Sure you can! Just jump and forget to come down." Escalla threw another stick. "So-o-o-o.. .fetch!"
The stick thudded onto bare soil somewhere to Jus's left. He became aware of a little bottom-a rather pert and silky one-perched on his stomach. He opened one eye and cautiously felt his sword wound, but he found nothing but his own smooth skin.
Then he felt other smooth skin. Jus lifted his head and saw Escalla-unblemished and perfect-sitting on him in her leggings, long gloves, and little skirt. She rested one hand on his hairy chest and looked down at him with a smile.
"Hey, J-man!"
"Hello." The Justicar levered himself up into a sitting position, moving cautiously, but finding no pain. "You look healed."
"All better." Escalla stood and turned a pirouette. "See? No one touches the faerie!" She bowed, her eyes directing Jus's gaze off to one side. "The kid does good work."
They both looked over at Henry. The party sat in a dense thicket of brush-a place as deliberately nondescript as the Justicar could ever have wanted. A little way away, Henry sat beside Enid, helping the freckled sphinx to plait and bead her hair. Henry saw that Jus was awake, and he blushed as he gave the man a wave, turning back to his job while Enid flexed her claws and purred.
Cinders lay beside Jus on the dirt, his fur brushed and a few new rents in his hide. As he saw Jus, Cinders drummed his tail against the ground.
Hello!
"Cinders, you helped Henry?"
Cinders help! Fun! Went to where had faerie lives and wore big disguise!
"Henry did good." Escalla settled herself in the crook of Jus's arm, sitting easily and lovingly against his chest. "Seems he and Polk had an adventure."
"We'll let Henry tell it." The Justicar rubbed his eyes. "It'll make him feel ten feet tall."
Escalla turned a little smile. "We'll let him tell it with Enid there to hang on every word."
In the end, Henry told the story three times, end to end-once with Polk beside him supplying embellishments and once in private with Jus and Escalla, filling in the concise details. Finally, he told it again in private to a wide-eyed, admiring Enid, who did indeed hang on every word.
The party kept on the move but stopped for frequent rests. Jus felt hale and hearty, perfectly unscratched. He marched in silent meditation, fixing spells in his mind. Perched on his shoulders, Escalla flipped through pages of her spellbooks doing exactly the same. She wore reading glasses that made her look deliciously prim-an image at odds with her leather skirt and cleavage line. As the party descended a ridge, she lowered her glasses down her little nose.
"Give me another five minutes, and I'll have a spell up to block the crystal ball. That lets us go on the offensive."
His unloaded crossbow slung, Henry looked back at the faerie.
"We're going on the offensive?"
Oh, indeed. Having insisted on returning to Jus's sword belt, Benelux glowed with self-satisfaction. Offensive action is the only heroic course. Sir Polk would clearly agree.
"What? Oh, sure!" Polk waddled along. "That's the heroic thing to do! The tactical thing. We turn on the hand that bit us!"
Escalla glared at Polk and snapped her spellbook shut. "To Baator with that! I'm getting Tielle, tattooing her arse red, and chucking her in a cage of crazed baboons! Then I'm gonna sink her neck-deep in a pond full of those little tropical fish that have a thing for the urethral tract!" Escalla tugged her long black gloves. "No one touches the faerie!"
Everyone was staring at her. Escalla gave a big wave of her hands.
"Oh, come on! What? Just because I'm a little blonde faerie, I have to be nice?"
She jumped down, took a quick look at the horizon, and unshipped her frost wand from her back. Using it as a stick, she began drawing glowing symbols in mid air.
"Right. Scrying shield coming up! Any sign of Tielle or our skeletal friend?"
Cinders waggled his ears and replied, No sniff! No hear!
"Well, when Tielle sees this spell, she'll come running!"
Jus stood with his sword drawn, the blade turning between his fingers as he stared intently at the scrub. He was not watching for chain monks and a faerie but for something far more deadly. Escalla, circling slowly, worked quickly and professionally behind him. She opened her hands, the spell molding between her palms, and the glyphs she had drawn into the empty air flashed with power. Magic rippled away from her like a breeze, and Escalla opened her eyes and clapped her hands.
"Right! Go!"
Jus, Polk, and Henry dived into the portable hole. Escalla folded up the hole and stuffed the parcel under one arm as she swung up behind Enid's neck. She held on tight to Enid as the big sphinx flipped open her wings, gathered, and sprang powerfully up into the sky. Enid flew with big heavy beats of her wings, shoving through the air with astounding speed. Escalla clung on tight and whooped for joy. Enid was always wonderful fun to take for a fly.
Enid stayed low, weaving below the treetops as she flew for miles and miles. Any pursuers would have lost sight of her in a second. Escalla fought back Enid's billowing nest of hair braids. She managed to gain a forward view just as Enid folded sideways and dived like a falcon straight down into a river chasm. The faerie cried, half cheer and half screech of fright as Enid plummeted three hundred feet, caught herself mere inches above a river torrent, and then shot like an arrow above river rapids that jetted, foamed, and raged.
Choosing her landing place carefully, Enid landed on a rocky island in the middle of violent rapids, with twenty yards of savage white water to every side. There was timber for a fire, brush and boulders to hide in, and a clear view for miles both upstream and down. Ten miles from where she had first taken to the air, the sphinx settled down on all four big furry feet, then folded up her wings. Escalla flew up and shook out the portable hole, then threw it down onto the ground.
Peeking from the hole came Jus, who flowed out of the depths like a vast black panther with Cinders grinning from his helm. Polk was boosted up by Henry. The group nested amongst the boulders and heaved a collective sigh. Surrounded by wild rapids and by yards of thick, hard stone, there was a small sense of security.
They had no rations-no food other than a bag of flour that had been sealed up inside the equipment box in the portable hole. Cinders set a fire going, and thin pancakes were made. While they cooked, Jus found a pine tree that was leaking sap, and he brought branches of it for Cinders to suck. The hell hound lay on a rock, stuffing pinecones in his mouth and complaining bitterly about the taste, while Henry fried pancakes carefully one by one.
They ate, with the lion's share going to Enid. Still with most of his attention on keeping guard, the Justicar finally broke the silence.
"We got our arses kicked."
It was an uncomfortable thought. Tielle had put them on the run with a single blow. The Justicar would have been killed without the fast rescue work performed by Henry, Polk, and Cinders.
The group sat, tearing at the unpalatable pancakes, while the river rapids threw up a numbing shield of noise.
Jus levered up the soil beneath their little fire and placed sticks where they could bake into charcoal: Cinders needed feeding, and his fire-breath was vital. Henry passed Jus a bundle of firewood then squatted at his side.
"Sir? Who was that… that thing?" Henry nervously fiddled with his hands. "You knew it. You'd fought against it before…"
"I fought for it before."
Jus knocked out Cinders's brush and curry-comb. Escalla sat on his knee, resting her face against his shoulder as the big man began brushing Cinders. The Justicar stared at Cinders's jet-black pelt as he worked.
"His name was Recca."
Pinecones in the fire popped and crackled. Escalla took a tighter grip upon Jus's shoulder and listened in silence. The fur brush hissed as the Justicar brushed Cinders to a shine. He watched the hell hound's pelt and stared at the gleaming surface as he spoke.
"They were a good people, the Grass Runners. Elves. They lived on the plains, gathered and hunted. Good fighters-fast, clever. I was raised in a village on the borders near the Bandit Kingdoms. I used to sneak off with the Grass Runners to learn.
Their chief was old, clever, careful. He taught me how to hide and trail, track and hunt. He had a son-three hundred years old, but still his son: Recca the Swordmaster. High elves came to him-even a prince. He taught only a few of them, only the ones he saw something in, but he taught me. Took me right from the very start. I don't know why."
The big man had let his brush glide to a halt.
"There was a brotherhood, back then, a network of rangers who patrolled the borderlands, kept the bandits in check, gathered to defend villages from raids. A noble band." Jus's voice held a ghost of cynicism as he remembered ideals long gone. "I wanted to be one. He put me on the path and showed me how. Even gave me the letters and the gold I needed so I could do the journey and learn."
Jus finished his grooming. He took the loose hairs from the hell hound and put them in a little bag. It was pointless tossing them on the fire. Escalla claimed she was going to use the fur to knit flameproof underwear.
"I went south to the forest elves, learned my spells from the hermits there. Studied hand fighting when I met the monks, learned my fieldcraft from the Oleads. Went to the dwarves to learn more swordcraft, to Greyhawk to read my letters. Came back to be a ranger, but I'd been away too long. I only had-what? — a month? Only a month before the invasion came.
"First I knew of it was a fight-a pack of some kind of giant skeletal birds. I trailed them back to their base and found a whole army of Iuz rolling over the villages, then the towns. They killed everything-horses, cows, dogs, sheep in the fields, every deer in the woods, every squirrel in the trees… Cut the villagers' throats so they could animate the corpses. I started trailing the army, killing them in ones as twos best as I could. Kept at it for three months. Got in trouble, and then there was Recca, flying into them with his sword."
The Justicar carefully tore his pancake in two and passed the largest piece to Escalla.
"He gathered about a dozen folk-rangers, Grass Runners… The Grass Runner tribes were gone, the villages dead, so we took the war to Iuz. Killed his couriers. Killed his foragers and his reinforcements. Went deep and far, right into the guts of Iuz lands. There were about a hundred of us all told, different groups, all working together.
"Iuz started to hurt. They pulled troops back from the front lines to deal with us. Set ambushes and began wearing us down. We killed a lot of them, though. Hundreds. We'd break into a camp at night and just butcher them in their sleep-slit a hundred throats and fade away…
"They got frightened of us. They'd only move in huge, marching columns-big squares with varrangoin flying overhead, or tanar'ri or a wyvern. Nothing we could do but watch and follow. Then Recca got wind of an Iuz general who was traveling with only a few zombies as guards. He wanted a general. In all the war so far, no one had ever managed to kill one of Iuz's warlords."
Shifting his sword, Jus shrugged his huge shoulders.
"Didn't work. It was a trap. They had wights shape-shifted to look like infantry. We got cut up. Recca and I covered the retreat, but a tanar'ri got him, killed him while I was caught in a fight. I killed the tanar'ri, buried Recca, and met the survivors. There were only five of us left. They went to join another group. I stayed back and decided to fight on alone."
Sitting crosslegged, Escalla looked carefully at Jus's face and asked, "So what is it? So why is this Recca guy after you?"
"It's not him!" Jus's anger snapped across the island. "It's an animated puppet! A nothing! Just a corpse that moves. It has his brain, uses his skills, but it isn't Recca!" The man flexed his hands and cracked a branch in two to feed the fire. "They did it to the villagers I grew up with-and I cut them down too! I took them out! They aren't the people you knew. It isn't a betrayal!"
Escalla flicked a look at Henry and Enid, who both had the sense to be looking busy. The faerie kept a hand on Jus's shoulder as the ranger finished kicking at the fire and spoke on.
"I was his second-in-command. We were both good-sword-master and apprentice. I did the scout work. He led the raids."
"Yes…" Escalla toyed with her own hair. "And you didn't want to do that last attack, did you? The one that got him killed. It was you that told him not to go."
"It was pointless! All just show of strength. We should have gone north into Iuz where they weren't expecting us. Always attack with surprise. Always hit where they don't expect you." The Justicar was angry. "He dropped his own rules out of pride. They were frightened of him, and he reveled in it! It gave him power, gave him a thrill." Jus rammed a branch into the fire. "He wasn't fighting for anything but vanity."
Enid looked to Escalla, then quietly cleared her throat. "So he just… got beaten in a fight?"
Jus pulled out a few inches of his sword. Benelux now sported a black wolf-skull hilt-a hilt taken from Recca's old blade.
"We-he-challenged a demon. He went for their general but never planned the fight. The demon did to him what he always did to others: got behind him, cut, then moved again. I killed my own enemy, but Recca was down. I took out the tanar'ri. It was too late for Recca. He died."
Escalla sat very, very still. There were black depths here that Jus had left unsaid. "Died how?"
"Died the way he had to! He went down fighting. We attacked to let our surviving people escape." The Justicar slammed his sword back into its sheath. "I cut off his hand and foot to stop anyone from re-animating him, then buried him. I swapped swords with him, so Recca's sword could keep up the work he should have been there to do."
Escalla winced. Enid looked away. Squeezing Jus's shoulder, Escalla softly touched his cheek with the back of her hand.
"Are you all right?"
"Of course I'm all right." Jus's face was stern but pale, and he refused to meet her eye. "I'm fine."
"He's after you."
"Lolth put him after me. She outfitted Tielle to take you, Recca to take me." Carefully easing Escalla down, the Justicar stood and turned away. "We just have to take them out one at a time."
"Can you beat him? I mean…" Henry faltered in embarrassment. "He seems to just… fix himself! And I… I never saw anyone match you with the sword."
"It isn't him. It isn't Recca! He was father and brother and teacher to me!" Jus hurled a stick into the fire. "It's just a cadaver, a tool. It's just a puppet made of rotting meat."
Escalla looked sadly at Jus. "And if it's really Recca?"
There was no answer. Leaving Cinders and the others by the campfire, the Justicar strode away to the dark, private places of the island. Escalla kept her eyes on him, then reached aside to fumble in the box of provisions. She came up with a little bottle on a string, hesitated, then walked after the Justicar.
"Guys? Keep an eye on everything."
Henry looked up from carefully smoothing down the fire. "Where are you going? What's that bottle for?"
"It's just a bottle." Escalla hovered, looking anxiously after Jus. "It's in case I get thirsty. I'll just be a while."
She flew off, and Henry rose to his feet in concern. "It could be dangerous! Should we come with you?"
Enid cleared her throat then helped arrange Cinders upon a rock where he could watch the river for a while.
"Henry? Perhaps we can see if there are any fish in the river. And we can find some willow branches to make you crossbow bolts of a kind."
Henry looked back anxiously as he was led away. "But will they be all right?"
"They'll be fine."
He was taken down to the riverbanks where Enid could stand in the water, flicking big fish onto the banks with her paws. Henry worked, Enid's freckles gleamed, and Cinders watched over every thing with his big teeth bright and bare.
Everything fine.
Sun gleamed on the waters, and Cinders wagged his tail.
The ceaseless rush and surge of the river lay like a blanket across bare skin, kissing little droplets across Escalla's side. She lay naked in the plush velvet moss, soaring in an infinite sense of peace. Half comatose, five foot nine, and tired over every inch of it, Escalla kept her head pillowed in her man's arms and listened to him breathe. Long hair, finer than softest silk, sheeted over her skin and spread like spun gold over the Justicar. She kissed him and felt him smile-felt big hands caress her pointed ears, her antennae-smooth down her slim back to her wings.
They should have done this long ago. The thought was shared in perfect communion as they kissed again, then lay with Escalla held in Jus's arms, watching the river gleaming in the sun.
Adoringly, Jus brushed Escalla's hair away from her face. "I've tried to work up to asking you to marry me for so long."
"I've been trying to be asked for so long." Escalla snuggled, contemplating her follies. "Idiots?"
"Idiots."
Stained green with moss, they rose and sat together. The Justicar fished something out of his purse and held it in his hand.
"But I saved this from the drow treasure. This is what I wanted to give to you."
It was a ring-an elven ring, delicate and beautiful-silver inlaid with jet, and with a diamond as clear as a summer sky. The Justicar put it in Escalla's palm. Suddenly pale, he looked at the ring.
"So I… wanted to ask you. To marry me, I mean. Because I love you. I really do."
Escalla had thought of a thousand ways of answering. They all failed her. She made a squeaking noise and felt herself cry. Her hand shook like a leaf as he slid the ring onto her finger. She threw herself on him in an adoring embrace, rolling on the moss with him beside the foaming river.
There was a bright flash, and Escalla felt herself suddenly shrinking. An instant later, she was two feet tall again, feeling more properly in scale, and crying like a fool. She sat in Jus's lap, looked up at him, and laughed through tears, brushing her long hair back from her face. She gave a watery smile, then went back to hugging him and looking at the empty potion bottle that lay amongst the moss and stones.
"Small again." She sighed. "Ah, well."
Jus smiled, admiring her delicate, wild beauty as he helped straighten out Escalla's flowing hair.
"How many potions do you have?"
"Seven now, but I've got the recipe-though I don't really know how to milk a purple worm. I think I'll use cow." Escalla lounged back against Jus. "Oh, Enid is so going to know what we've just done!"
She rolled into him and kissed him, then lay listening to his breathing. Serious at last, she contemplated the oversized ring that lay in her palm.
"Married."
"Soon. Whenever you want."
"And I'm going to have your kids. One day, when its time. A little scowling Justicar."
"Or a girl." Jus smiled. "Bright as a hummingbird."
Escalla heaved a sigh, troubles edging in around her. She looked sadly out at the riverbanks.
"Marriage. But only when we fix it." Escalla stared at the water rushing by. "We're responsible. We stirred up Lolth, and look what happened to Keggle Bend."
The Justicar held Escalla protectively in his arms.
"No. Lolth was always going to kill, but we did determine what world she would strike." Even here, Jus's sword was only a handspan away. "Her victims need justice."
"Here's to Justice."
They shared a cup of river water. Retrieving clothes, Escalla sat on the moss with her heels tucked into her rump and turned the problem over in her mind.
"Lolth didn't hit Keggle Bend just because we were there."
"She's invading." The Justicar ran his hands across the velvet stubble of his skull. "If we don't stop her, there'll be more towns going the same way as Keggle Bend."
Escalla thoughtfully combed moss out of her hair.
"All right, so we go for Lolth. Stop Lolth, and you also should stop Tielle and Recca. Without Lolth, her armies are toast. All those monsters would be at each other's throats in a minute!"
"That's the way. That's the weakness." Jus scowled at the water. "But she's a tanar'ri, a powerful one. The tanar'ri lords only truly die if they die on their own home plane. We have to kill her when she's in the Abyss." He skimmed a rock into the stream. "When she returns to the Abyss, we have to be there."
Escalla stared at splashes in the stream. "Can we take out a god?"
"Like any other god, Lolth is a deity only because she says she is. Gods are just creatures with enough power to bully and destroy." The Justicar looked at the old holy symbol that hung about his neck-a solar symbol cut through by a blow of his own sword long, long ago. "If it lives, then it can die. It's time we brought the gods a taste of Justice."
Escalla winced. "Some honeymoon!"
"There's another problem. Recca and Tielle will be trying to find our trail. We'll have to move fast, before they reason out what we're going to do."
"Ambush the ambushers?" Escalla shrugged. "Bring 'em on." The girl ran fingers through her hair and thought a moment. "Right. The Abyss. Fine! So what gear do we need? We need crossbow bolts for Henry."
"We'll take them from the enemy."
"We need gems for Enid so she can make ink for her stun symbol."
Jus gave a snort. "Polk kept five emeralds. He was going to use them to buy booze."
"Fine." Escalla ticked off the last point on her list. "Most of all, we need to protect you. I can do a stoneskin spell that'll block the first half dozen hits you take, but for that, I need to powder up a diamond."
"Diamond." The Justicar hissed and scowled. "There's no diamond."
Escalla gave a wan little grimace and waved her engagement ring. She threw it into the party fund.
"No point having a rock with no husband. Get me a bigger one from Lolth."
They rose, dressed, and held each other quietly by the river. Finally Escalla ruffled Jus's stubble and gave him a smile.
"Someone finally touched the faerie."
Jus smiled. They paused at the edge of the boulders. Jus held up his fingers, and Escalla clasped them in her hand.
"Forever and always?"
"Forever and always."
They drew apart in a thin attempt to pretend they were as pure as driven snow. Escalla flew gaily on ahead, suddenly in the grip of a food frenzy. Left behind, Jus felt suddenly weak at the knees.
He sagged and held onto a tree for support.
Jutting through his belt, the sword Benelux was scandalized. Sir. I am agog! I realized a warrior's weapon must always be at hand. But sir, there are limits to what I can try not to overhear!
Mortified, Jus blushed. "So you, ah, heard?"
I did indeed! Most undecorous! Benelux gave a sniff. What question did you keep asking her, and why did she keep agreeing so vigorously?
The Justicar ducked his head and walked doggedly through the trees.
"Never mind!"
About twenty large fish were smoking over the fire when Escalla came out of the bushes. She looked neither right nor left, blushed bright pink, and held herself stiff as a brush. She busied herself ineffectually arranging the fish, while Enid crept over to her side.
They worked side by side where Henry could not hear. Enid kept her voice a little whisper. "Psst! Did he…?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Did you…?"
"Uh-huh."
"Was it…?"
"Unbelievable!" Escalla snatched food and headed for the nearest place where they could gossip.