In the snow-crusted tundra known simply as The North by most cartographers, nomadic tribes and untamed yaks wandered aimlessly through blizzards and frozen winds. Generations of stupid, illiterate barbarians meandered across the great big blank spot that marred nearly every map in the Empire, and in deference to those smelly herds even the most creative of mapmakers could not bear to draw anything other than a single yak standing somewhere in the vicinity of the word "North." Sometimes a daring apprentice would draw a second yak, only to be called down by his master for exaggeration. Arlen sat near the frosted window of an unfamiliar tavern and wished for a moment that life in The North might actually be as simple as one yak and a lot of snow. A few weeks ago he had been happy. His adoptive mother ran the only brothel in the ancient, ruined city of Kaddegh and he lived a relatively calm life punctuated only by city council meetings and the occasional rowdy customer. Because Arlen was the only brothel guard who was not also a eunuch, he enjoyed a certain degree of popularity among the men who knew him. His reputation among his friends had been largely undeserved because his foster mother had raised him to believe that all of the girls working the brothel were his sisters, and even when he learned the truth he couldn't bring himself to think of them any other way. Most of them, anyway. Then a group of foreigners swept through the city, presumably to hire the services of the wizard Brandt. One of the brothel girls ran away with the leader of that group, a tall and handsome man called Dmitri. The girl had not fulfilled the terms of her contract, though, and Arlen had been sent to retrieve either her or enough payment to satisfy the terms of her agreement. At least, that was how it started. Now he was hundreds of miles from home in some strange pub, he'd had to sell his horse to afford the price of a room and a meal, and just last night he caught up with Dmitri's gang. Arlen pushed away from the table he had occupied through most of the morning, favoring his left leg as he limped out of the pub and into the cold street. Of course he had been *trying* to catch up with the gang for weeks, but there had been some... complications. He ignored the stares of a few broad-faced locals as he stepped over a narrow gutter thick with nearly frozen sewage and into the broad street that led conveniently from the city gate to the building to which Arlen had tracked his quarry the night before. The brothel guard's hand fell to the pommel of the sword at his hip as he gazed up at his destination. An icy breeze ruffled his straw-colored hair and tugged at the hem of the thick woolen cloak he wore, but he paid the chill as little mind as he did the dark-eyed looks cast his way. At the end of the street loomed a castle built of forbidding black stone and heavy wooden timbers. A wall encircled the castle, though it looked sturdier and more practical than the oversized wooden fence around the surrounding city. Those inner walls were well guarded, as Arlen had learned last night. He limped carefully toward the castle again and tried to come up with a plan to get inside, since it was clear to him that his sword wouldn't get him very far here. "Excuse me," he muttered experimentally, every syllable a puff of mist in the cold air, "your prince seems to have wandered off with one of our courtesans. I was wondering if he'd like to pay for her?" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The North A Tale of High Adventure And Low Temperatures Part 1: The Chill Written by Schneeble (Brian Stubbs) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Lazy girl, get back here!" The headmistress was a large woman with lungs the size of furnace bellows, but Katria pretended not to notice the cry as she ran down one of the torch-lit hallways of Castle Iso. She took one of the corners at a breakneck pace, hair streaming behind her like a black pennant, and disappeared before the headmistress could shout again. "That girl," the woman muttered with a shake of her head, as if those two words said everything. "Well, we'll see about her when there's more time." She turned her attention back to the kitchens, hot and bustling with cooks and servants. Fortunately for Katria, there was *never* more time. Katria sped down corridors and took stairs two at a time, moving so quickly that the castle seemed blur around her. The blurring effect was not, she would have insisted, because of the tears that kept welling in her eyes. "That jerk," she hissed as she leapt from a stairwell and into a wide hallway with soft rugs on the floor and colorful tapestries along the walls. To her right, a small table outside a pair of brass bound mahogany doors bore a covered dish she knew to be the prince's dinner, served to his bedchamber. She knew, because she'd shared it with him so many times. Katria turned away from the table, facing instead a long hallway lined with four doors; each door led to one of the prince's guest rooms. "That jerk," she said again. As if summoned by her curse, a tall man with long black hair tied behind his back emerged from one of the guest rooms and closed the door behind him. His eyes widened when he saw Katria, but she didn't give him time to react further. "You! You got back last night, and you didn't even tell me!" "But I-" "You don't have to tell me why, because I already know. I heard about the little tramp you brought back with you. Is she in there?" Katria pointed at the door behind Dmitri, but she continued without waiting for him to respond. She jabbed her other index finger into his chest so firmly that her nail dug right through his dark suede vest and pale shirt. "She is, isn't she? Well you can drag her out here right now and-" "Katria." Dmitri put his hands on her upper arms and looked directly into her eyes, and she felt her anger melting away. His high cheekbones and soft eyes and everything else about him were so beautiful as to be immune to fury. "This silliness has to stop. I was speaking with the wizard Brandt, who we brought from far away to help defend Iso from our enemies. As for the girl, she's an old friend who we happened to meet on our journeys, and we escorted her home. Now please, go back downstairs and I will see you again when it's safe. You of all people should know how talk gets around." And then he was gone. Katria found herself watching his back as he strode with a fencer's grace to the double doors, plucked the silver tray from the table, and disappeared into his room without a single backwards glance. She stared at the doors for a long time, replaying his words in her head to figure out what had gone wrong. There had been no confession of guilt, no heated altercation, no passionate embrace or steamy kiss of reconciliation. Dmitri merely spoke in simple words, as if to a child, and then disappeared. She clenched her hands and took one angry step toward the double doors of the prince's bedroom, then stopped herself. Katria turned around and stalked back to the guest door, gripped the handle and twisted it hard before throwing the door open with such force that it slammed into the wall. "You *are* in here, aren't you!" she cried fiercely. Though the guest room had only been occupied for half a day, it was already cluttered with tools and equipment and objects whose functions Katria could not begin to guess. A folding teak table in the corner bowed under the weight of what appeared to be a small anvil, and the canopy bed's curtain had been thrown wide to grant access to a dazzling array of tiny chisels, hammers, pinchers, awls, needles, branding irons, and what appeared to be unlit incense bowls. Swords and shields and breastplates of solid bronze hung from ropes or lay scattered about the floor, and a number of intricately carved wooden staves leaned against one wall. "Of course I'm here," replied a rather disinterested, masculine voice. Hunched over the writing desk beside the guest room's lead- paned window was a man in a dark blue robe, with the most amazing hair. Short strands of orange and red mingled in a tangled disarray so chaotic that his scalp almost seemed to be ablaze. The man had not looked up when Katria entered, and he spoke to her as though he had been expecting her arrival all morning. "You must be the apprentice prince Dmitri promised me. Hmph. He didn't say you were a woman. Normally we don't teach women the art of runesmithing, but 'any tool that does the job', as they say. Come over and put your thumb on this, would you?" Katria opened her mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. Dmitri was going to give this crazy old fool an apprentice, was he? The pupil would probably be the son of some influential friend of the prince, a 'favor from the throne' or something similar. A wicked grin flickered across her face, her cheek gave a small, manic twitch, and she hurried over to the desk. "Where?" she asked when she drew near. "Right here," Brandt commanded gruffly, wiggling his own thumb over the corner of a piece of fabric. "And hold it tight, lass. This is important work, and I can't have you letting anything slip." Katria did as she was told, and the wizard tugged at the cloth as if testing her grip. When he found that the fabric didn't move even a hair, he nodded. "That'll do." His hands busied themselves with a needle and coarse thread, stitching and cross-stitching so quickly that Katria had trouble following the motions of his fingers. "What is this," she murmured as she watched, "some kind of rune to make your robes into armor?" "Eh?" The runesmith looked up at her as if acknowledging her presence for the first time. Brandt had a plain, kindly face and bright blue eyes. He looked barely over thirty and appeared to be anything but the wizened old man Katria had imagined. "My, aren't you the prettiest thing?" He chuckled at the faint blush in Katria's cheeks and continued, "with such an imagination, too. My robes into armor," he reflected with a smile. "No." He returned his attention to the fabric, made a few finishing stitches, and tucked the cloth under the table. Katria saw that his robe hung open, and he wore a very ordinary shirt of faded yellow and gray woolen pants. "One of the prince's damn dogs took a bite out of the hem." He peered up at Katria. "What? You were expecting something more mystical? Look, girl, princes and wizards are still people, just as plain as you please. The ability to have a man killed for looking at us sidewise doesn't stop us having to eat and sleep and have our robes eaten by rabid hunting dogs." Katria giggled at that, but only briefly. "Sir!" A voice barked from the open doorway to Brandt's room. Katria gave a start as she turned, but the runesmith didn't even bother to look. A clean and polished boy in his early teens stood at attention just outside the room. He stared straight ahead, not really looking at Brandt or Katria or anything else so much as he was simply looking very intently at air. The runesmith made a small sound of irritation. "What do you want?" "Prince Dmitri sent me to serve you, sir!" The boy sounded very confident, and Katria recognized his short-cropped black hair as one of the styles popular among squires. "Oh, he did?" Brandt gave Katria a knowing wink, and her heart leapt into her throat. She nearly opened her mouth to confess to her little charade as the runesmith's assigned pupil, but Brandt spoke before she could. "Such a thoughtful man, your prince." "Sir!" "Kindly fetch me some lunch, boy. Something with ham in it." "Sir?" The squire faltered, and for the first time he actually looked at Brandt, and then at Katria. His face was a mask of confusion. "And get some for the young lady here, too," the runesmith continued blandly. "She'll have what I'm having, but on a different plate." The squire hesitated, and Brandt's eyes flashed. "Now!" He shook his head as the boy sprinted away. "Youth these days. Act like their brains are all frozen. Bring me my anvil, girl, and be quick about it." "My name is Katria," she said as she hurried to the folding table. "That's good," answered Brandt, though he did not sound as though he'd heard. "Make sure you grip it with both hands, girl. It's heavier than it looks. There we go. My, and *you're* stronger than you look." He waved a hand in the direction of his bed even before Katria hauled the anvil onto the desk. "Get a number six chisel, and a three hammer. Strong girl like you with such big brown eyes," he rambled in his deep, calm voice, "you sure you don't want to get married, have a houseful of strong, pretty children? Runesmithing is hard and lonely work." "Er," Katria said, trying to keep another blush from her cheeks. "I thought I did, but he turned out to be... a bastard. Uhm." She grabbed a small hammer with a ball-shaped head and three horizontal lines etched into the handle. "Which one is the number six?" "Diagonals represent fives, circles are tens. While you're there, grab a handful of blank bones." She took the appropriately marked chisel and cast her gaze around the bed. Stacked where the pillows should have been were several wooden cases, each one marked with a square of material on its handle. Katria guessed that the spot on the handle would indicate the contents of the box. She pulled the box with the white handle out from the rest, leaving in the stack a container with a slightly more yellow mark and another that was undoubtedly silver. She assumed that the yellow one represented ivory. "Why do you have so many different materials?" Katria opened the box and removed several pale, rectangular chips as long as her middle finger but half as wide. "Every rune I carve has to be on a material, right? It's not just the runes I make that are important, lass, but the stuff on which I make them. Every substance in the world is attuned to a different kind of magic, but many things aren't very good conductors. Bone is mostly for animal magic. Ivory is better but it's not as easy to get." "So you use the wood ones for plant magic?" Katria returned to the desk and spread the tools and components before Brandt. "Fire, actually. Plants are tricky business, and sometimes you'll have to use a dozen runes on everything from amber to clay just to get a tree's attention." The red-haired wizard took the hammer and the chisel into his hands and started to etch a bone chip. "You watch close, lass, and we'll soon have your head so full of magic that you'll forget all about your stupid man." - * - * - * - * - Sergeant Grael did not fancy himself a stupid man, even though recent events suggested otherwise. When the king's best general summoned him and said, "Sergeant Grael. You have orders to retrieve the king's wayward and rebellious son Dmitri from Iso castle," Grael thought that he had finally been *noticed*. To be given command of even a small army for such important royal work was more than flattery. It was downright suspicious. Then the general had smiled and said, "You have twelve men serving you, yes?" Grael muttered curses under his breath as he paced a furrow in the snow outside his tent. "I've been noticed, alright," he swore, "noticed as expacto-. Expandi-." The massive man scratched his beard and frowned. "Wizard!" he barked. His shout appeared before him in a puff of white steam. "Yes, Sergeant?" The voice that answered him was sibilant and smooth as silk, even when it came to Grael's ears through a thick layer of leather tent wall. "What word am I looking for?" "I believe it's expendable, Sergeant." "That's it. Carry on, wizard." "Yes, Sergeant." Grael smiled bitterly. After he had been dismissed from the general's presence less than a week ago, he made his way to the nearest tavern and recruited a pitcher of honeyed root wine to engage in some rather intense tactical planning. He woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover and an official letter telling him that the bald, shifty runesmith in the next room was his new corporal. Though Sergeant Grael still gave the orders, the letter warned him to pay close attention to the wizard's advice. "Expendable, is what they noticed me," he said, still frowning. His sentence did not sound quite finished. "As. Being." He nodded in a satisfied way and took up pacing once again. Sergeant Grael usually had little to fear in battle, because he had been blessed with a body rather like a six-foot brick, a very resilient nature, and a low cunning shared by large and combative rodents everywhere. On the other hand, he had orders to sacrifice his men for a strange wizard's plan to kidnap the king's son. Should the mad runesmith's scheme actually work, Grael knew where the king's gratitude would lie. Yet if it were to fail... "Wizard!" "Yes, Sergeant?" "I trust you have everything well in hand." "Yes, Sergeant," the runesmith sounded bored and exasperated. Grael hated the man intensely. "Good. I'm going to review my tactics. And then I will take a very hard nap." "A hard nap, Sergeant?" "Yes. It will probably take quite a lot out of me, and I will need to rest further until you've finished. With everything." Grael ignored the snickers of the soldiers under his command. He liked them well enough, even if they had lost all respect for him during the past few days. He knew the wizard's plan, and what fate it meant for his unsuspecting men. Sergeant Grael ducked into the relative warmth of his tent, sat heavily on the ground in front of a squat wooden table, and set about writing twelve condolence letters. - * - * - * - * - "Not bad, not bad at all. Now press the second rune... there." The red-haired runesmith looked over Katria's shoulder as she pushed a bone chip into a crude clay doll. "You see the magic? Animal magic is always red and white. It's not very strong, because your runes weren't perfectly made and because we're using bone. It won't last long either, because you only painted the runes on. Etching and chiseling is more permanent, see, so the magic would have been inclined to stay around longer. But watch." Katria stared in amazement as the two chips of bone glittered and sparkled with an energy all their own. The runes that she spent hours painting in bright red dye began to slide and gyrate across the surface of the chips. Soon red sparks mingled with white and then in one soft crackle, crimson energies rippled across the surface of the tiny, man- shaped doll. The thing wobbled and lurched across the desk until it seemed to find its balance. Then it walked slowly, waving its arms blindly in front of it. Katria was enthralled, and a little disgusted. "Why," she murmured, "why did you have me make this?" Brandt gave her a look, but she did not turn to see it. The paint had crackled and flaked away from the bone chips, but the magic continued. Now the bone itself was turning to powder before her eyes. "Because I want you to see how it works," the runesmith said quietly. "See how the runes and the material are consumed?" "But it's wrong. We brought a piece of mud to life. When the magic fades it will-" "Die? Not exactly girl, but I'm glad you thought of it. That's the other thing I wanted you to learn. A real runesmith knows that anything is possible, but some things are just bad ideas. But the doll isn't alive. Those runes are just using raw magic to make it move. Remember the runes?" "The first one was man," Katria said quickly, though her voice was distant as she watched the diminutive golem climb onto the lip of her now empty plate. "So that the magic would have a form. The second was motion, so the magic would have a purpose. Most individual runes are powerless because magic needs a least a form or focus, and a purpose." "That's right, lass." Brandt offered her a quick smile, which she did not see. "There's no soul involved, not even senses. This is just like moving a marionette without using strings." "But why animal magic?" Katria watched as the last bit of bone powder crumbled away, and the doll fell with a splatter into the little pile of fat and gristle on her plate. "Isn't there a magic of movement?" Brandt held up a calloused hand and tilted it back and forth in a sort of noncommittal gesture. "As a matter of fa-" *Boom.* The entire castle shook, though its sturdy black stones, its lacquered beams, and its thick mortar held quite firm. Brandt and Katria looked at one another, each considering the possibilities. "We're under attack," Katria said, a bit surprised that her voice sounded so calm. "No signs of battle outside," Brandt replied with a quick glance at the window. "Nothing but snow and rooftops. Move quickly now, lass. I'll want the fluted willow stick and the short bronze sword." Katria nodded and rushed to gather the indicated items while Brandt rummaged around for pouches to hook onto his thick leather belt. A runesmith's belt was very important, he'd said, because in a tight situation you wouldn't want to reach into the wrong pouch. An individual rune was harmless by itself, as were any number runes of the same type. Mixing runes that weren't meant to be together could have catastrophic results. Katria scanned the wall against which a variety of sticks and wands and staves leaned, trying desperately to remember the color of willow wood. "Fluted, girl, fluted!" Brandt shouted, as if he had read her thoughts. "Ah!" She snatched up a pale stick no more than two feet long with a network of runes nestled in the bottoms of several wide grooves. Without further hesitation she yanked on the hilt of the only copper sword in sight, and carried both back to Brandt. The runesmith slid his sword into a scabbard at his belt, but kept the stick ready in his right hand. Katria tilted her head, unable to contain curiosity. "Why do you have those gloves?" "Protect the hands," he said, showing off a sturdy iron plate on the back of each leather glove. A sharp, steel claw capped his right thumb, which he wiggled to draw her attention. "When we have time I'll teach you about sealing runes. Break the seal to make the magic work." *Boom.* The castle did not shake at all this time, but a cloud of gray dust billowed upward from the stairwell. Shouts of alarm and considerably less pleasant screams issued forth from the cloud. Brandt wrinkled his nose and then plucked the sword from his belt with his left hand. "Here," he said, pressing it into Katria's unresisting grasp. "If anybody so much as looks at you crosswise, stick him with this." "But why?" Her voice was no longer calm, and she could feel fingers of panic closing around her throat. "They're here for the prince, I'll wager. We have to get between the stairs and the prince's room." Brandt raced into the dust cloud, but just as Katria started after him his voice called out to her. "Stay where you are, girl! I'm coming ba-." A muted thump cut short whatever else the runesmith was about to say. Brandt's body sailed out of the dust, his heavy woolen robe fluttering. He landed heavily on his side, gasping for breath as he lay on the carpet at Katria's feet. "Brandt!" She knelt and moved to set the sword down. "I'm just fine down here," he snapped, but weakly. "Keep your weapon ready. The monsters might come through this way." Katria looked up at the settling cloud that filled the corridor and saw several human shapes stumble past one another with weirdly jerking motions. "What are they?" "Men," Brandt spat. "With runes painted on them." "That's not possible!" One of the shapes broke from the group and shambled toward Brandt's room, and Katria squeaked. "See it for yourself, girl." Brandt pointed his willow stick at the lurching figure, and kept the tip of his thumb claw positioned carefully over a round, twisting rune. The thing that emerged was a slouching beast with arms twice as long as any man's should be. Muscles rippled and slithered across its body like a swarm of beetles, and its eyes rolled in helpless panic and agony. Its skin was covered with an intricate pattern of deep burns that Katria knew must have once been the runes Brandt mentioned. Its wounds still smoldered and oozed, and the monster smelled of charred meat. Brandt's thumb twitched, and the creature jerked backwards and up, flying through the air until it slammed into the corridor ceiling. It bounced down again and smacked into the floor just inside the now open doors to Dmitri's room. "They took Dmitri," Brandt swore as he struggled to his feet. "We have to go after them!" "Calm down, girl. We can't go running off and leave this thing alive behind us. And do you think we can face even two more of those as we are? A dozen?" Katria sagged. Angry as she had been with the prince, the thought of Dmitri in the hands of monsters terrified her. "What will we do?" "First, Brandt said sourly, "We take care of this one. Then we will gather our things and chase after the rest in a thoughtful and deliberate fashion. Running around and screaming never got anybody anything but killed." "It's not dead yet?" Katria watched as the long-armed beast picked itself from the ground, still smoking from a hundred burns. It shook itself off in much the same way a dog would shake water from its fur, then tilted its head back in a ragged, deafening roar. It charged them, speeding down the hallway on all fours. Katria lifted her hands to her ears when the thing screamed, but Brandt thrust out his left arm to stop her, even as he flung his right arm forward and scratched the willow stick. The creature's right shoulder was blasted backwards and its pace slowed, but this time it did not fall. Instead it dragged its arm uselessly along as it closed on the runesmith and his apprentice. "Get ready," Brandt shouted as he scratched the stick again. The monster barely flinched, and continued to bellow and charge. The willow wand crumbled to powder in Brandt's hand. Katria's mouth went dry as she held the sword uncertainly in front of her. The beast raised its good arm, scraping the ceiling with its already bloody knuckles. Then its arm fell apart. Claws of crimson flame raked the monsters body, eating through its back and chest and arms and legs. Rancid smoke billowed from the twisted rune scars, and the beast crumpled bonelessly to the floor. Katria turned and vomited in a very unladylike fashion. - * - * - * - * - "Hey, watch it," Arlen snarled at a group of men who shouldered past him as he strode purposefully toward the castle gate. He took a second look and saw that the men were half naked, with steam rising from their weirdly painted bodies. Arlen hurried to the side of the street, hopped over the ice-encrusted gutter, and pressed himself against the door of a humble little house with a thatched roof and a merrily smoking chimney. He did not know whether those men were merely performing a part of some local custom, but they seemed to be drawing a lot of attention. Attention was one thing Arlen did not particularly want at the moment. So he watched, unnoticed, as the men battered aside the guards as the castle gate and shrugged off solid blows from swords and axes. He saw the surprised guards rally, and he smiled grimly when the portcullis rattled and slammed down behind the attackers. His smile faded when most of the painted men returned a few minutes later; one of them lifted the gate effortlessly over his head while the others passed through. The straggler moved to follow them, but without warning he crumpled like a paper doll under the weight of the portcullis. Arlen watched the men run past, lurching and limping and smoking from impossible wounds. He saw two bundles, each one roughly the size of a person, slung over the shoulders of one of the painted men. The bundles were poorly packed, and exposed several clues that piqued Arlen's interest: most notably a long tail of black hair and a pair of expensive leather boots. He left the shadow of the doorway, skipped out onto the street, and rushed ahead of the quickly forming mob of peasants who had gathered to watch. "Should be easy enough to follow," the brothel guard muttered to himself as one of the painted, smoking men broke from the group and fell to the paving stones. Arlen slowed his pace and walked carefully around the man, wrinkling his nose in disgust when he saw that the shirtless fellow had somehow managed to grow a glistening pink scorpion tail with which he was viciously stinging the back of his own neck and shoulders. After nearly a minute of this hideous behavior, the man smoldered silently into a pile of wet ashes and charred bones on the icy street. "They're not exactly subtle." Arlen looked around at the crowd that had already gathered around the former monstrosity and cursed. He pushed his way out of the press of people, ignoring affronted stares and muttered insults alike. As soon as he shoved his way into the open street he began moving away from the castle. He was after Dmitri, not the prince's knights and courtiers. Nine painted, deformed men loped calmly out of the city gates without any resistance. Arlen walked after them just quickly enough to keep them in sight. He had no desire to find out what would happen if he drew too close to the creatures. Guards in their shining steel breastplates and civilians in their dark woolen tunics shouted and jostled each other in small clusters, though Arlen kept clear of them and could not hear any words or phrases clearly. As he made his way to the city's open gates, Arlen noted that the crowds looked rather like a stirred hive of ants, every glitter of a breastplate resembling a pale white larvae carried around by frantic workers. He walked beneath the shadow of a simple wooden archway and onto a wide patch of crunchy slush and frozen mud at the end of the city's main street. Arlen took a deep breath and filled his lungs with cold and biting air. Ahead of him the tundra stretched away like a great ocean of white speckled with tiny pale islands he knew to be rough hills or trees huddled together in the relative shelter of a shallow depression. To his right, that tundra sloped gradually upward, into a distant land, black and rocky and so dry that even snow dared not touch the earth. To Arlen's left, thick fog crawled among the shadows of pines and firs. When he followed Dmitri's gang to Iso, he had managed to travel around the forest and the steaming lake it bordered. Now, monstrous shuffling footsteps dug furrows in the snow, and those tracks led directly toward the forest Arlen had tried to avoid. He felt much more at home climbing among the gray ruins of ancient Kaddegh than he did collecting pine sap and raven droppings with his hair. He walked slowly as he scanned the southern horizon for some easy route around the forest, though a metallic noise behind him drew his attention. A lone city guard led a gray and black-speckled horse along the same path Arlen followed. The man's breastplate shone in the afternoon sun and his dark hair ruffled in the wind. Arlen thought that the man would have looked very heroic were it not for his wide, dark-eyed expression of terror. "Nice day," Arlen commented when the man drew near. The city guard squinted up at the blue gray sky and shrugged. "Probably snow in a couple of hours," Arlen continued. "See those clouds?" He pointed to a thick gray blotch above and behind the city. "They're coming right this way. I sure wouldn't want to meet up with even one of those monsters in the open, much less in the middle of a good snowstorm. If swords and axes don't hurt them, do you think they'll be bothered by squatting under a snow drift for half a day until you come trotting up all by yourself?" The guard blanched. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his bare upper lip, and Arlen offered him a twisted grin. "Tell you what I'll do. I'll borrow your horse and go after them, and you can go back to the city and tell the others whatever you like. A bandit stole it, or maybe you offered your aid to a brave and mysterious hero." The guard frowned, and even though his wide mouth seemed sad, Arlen guessed he was really just thinking. Arlen eased his sword slowly and quietly from its scabbard and slowed his pace just enough to be a step behind the guard. Finally the guard spoke. "I think I'll just take the horse back with m-." Arlen used the hilt of his sword to strike the other man across the back of his head. He watched dispassionately as the guard crumpled to the snow. "Sorry about that," he told the unconscious man. "It *was* a reasonable offer." Arlen pulled himself into the saddle and flicked the reins. He had exaggerated the bit about the snow, but only by a few hours. By nightfall the storm would be on him, and before that happened he wanted to have an idea whom he was chasing this time, and to where. - * - * - * - * - "We are being followed." The runesmith turned in his saddle to look over the heads of his four surviving creations. Those who had fallen during the past few hours were promptly eaten by the others, as had been the horses that bolted and tried to run. Only Grael and the runesmith had mounts now, and Grael's stallion flared its nostrils every time one of the monsters so much as grunted. "We are being followed, *Sergeant,*" Grael corrected. The soldier's sword was six feet of steel and securely sheathed across his back. His armor was heavy, scuffed plate that had turned aside countless weapons in battles past. Grael's confidence stemmed not from his sword, nor from his armor, but from hours of fear and disgust so persistent that he almost believed death might be a welcome change of pace. Almost. "That title will not be necessary," said the runesmith. Grael held his tongue. He knew who led the group now, and he knew that he was more expendable than even the horses. The horses had a little more meat on them. "How can you see anything in all of this damned fog?" "I saw him coming into the forest behind us, just before the wind shifted." "Just one?" Grael slouched in his saddle and stared at the landscape around them, or rather the lack of landscape. Warm gray fog enshrouded the group so thickly that Grael could not see anything beyond six feet, and everything within that distance seemed to be a tree anyway. He wished that the runesmith and the beasts that were once his men would move a little further away from him, so he could lose them in the misty forest and be done with the whole wretched business. Once during their flight the woman had awoken and screamed herself unconscious. The ragged, pitiable sobs she uttered when her voice failed were not the sort of sounds Grael wanted to hear again. The runesmith had only smiled. "One of the city guards, I believe." "Brave," Grael said with an approving nod. "Stupid," corrected the runesmith as he looked down at the hulking masses of flesh and fur and scale and wing that were once normal men. Grael swallowed hard. "Maybe," he conceded before changing the subject. "Where did all this fog come from?" The runesmith gave him a condescending look. "Iso Lake is fed by hot underground streams. Even in the summer the water is so much warmer than the air above it that steam rises constantly from its surface." "I know all about the hot lakes," Grael snapped. Five such lakes dotted the frozen landscape, with several towns or tiny cities like Iso crowded against their shores. The city of Sala was the largest of all, and its borders completely encircled the small lake for which it was named. The king's residence was an impenetrable fortress built in the center of lake Sala, and was at once beautiful and almost impossible to find. The fog and steam were usually difficult to avoid. Grael ignored the runesmith's arched eyebrows and continued. "I meant... You didn't have anything to do with the wind shifting, did you?" The runesmith chuckled. "I did not have enough time to make weather runes. Even the simplest take days of preparation." "Oh." Grael fell silent, though he watched the hairless wizard from the corners of his eyes. He was beginning to think of his companion as an ice serpent. The creatures were extremely rare, and some said that they were distant relatives of the now-extinct dragons. Grael had long held a fascination for dragons, but he had only heard about them in tales and never so much as glimpsed an ice serpent. In the stories, ice serpents were great beasts, fifty feet long and with scales so pale that you could see their blood flowing beneath. They were supposed to have raw magic in their blood, which turned the fluid blue and purple and kept them alive in the cold. They were very clever and evil, and whenever one appeared in a tale, no matter how kind it acted toward the heroes at their first meeting, Grael knew in his heart of hearts that the ice serpent was truly the worst of all the villains. He remembered one story where- "Grael," the runesmith hissed. "Yes, Serrr?" The sergeant caught himself before he finished the word. He had never learned the runesmith's name, not even in the letter, and Serpent seemed so fitting. But fitting only in the safety of Grael's imagination. The slender man stared at Grael through the fog, and said nothing. "Sir?" Grael prompted politely. "He is gaining on us." "How can you tell?" Grael twisted in his saddle, the plates of his white, steel armor clattering softly with every movement. He saw nothing more than the Serpent's twisted creations, the bundles that were prince Dmitri and his courtesan, several trees, and endless gray fog. "I can tell," the runesmith said. "You should stay behind and discourage him from following us." "But," Grael scowled. He did not trust Serpent and his beasts with prince Dmitri. It was once thing to capture the prince and return him to face the king's wise counsel, but it was something else to leave him in the hands of a monster. "And the girl," Grael murmured to himself. Her screams haunted him even now. Serpent angled his head inquisitively to one side. "Excuse me?" "How do I know you will return them directly to the king?" The runesmith stared at Grael with his black, slightly tilted eyes. He said nothing, though he did not have to. Grael could see that he was beneath notice, that he was worse than useless to this arrogant, twisted wizard, and it was all the sergeant could do not to draw steel and cut the man down at once. He knew he would not survive two minutes against Serpent's abominations, and without anyone to control them they would likely slaughter the prince and his girl as well. Grael drew himself up in the face of that flat, black stare. "I will rejoin you when I have dispatched him," he said stiffly and wheeled his sturdy black stallion around. The monstrous creatures shuffled around him. They paid him little heed, but his horse rolled its eyes in fear and reared back on its hind legs. Grael steadied the animal until Serpent and his creatures had gone, and then he sat calmly in his saddle. And waited. - * - * - * - * - "You there! Tether those bags properly! And you," Brandt barked at one of several servants who bustled about the stables obediently, despite never having seen the fiery-haired runesmith before. "Did you load the feed the way I told you?" "Y-Yes, m'lord wizard," stammered the beleaguered servant. "Good lad," Brandt said, though he had already dismissed the boy and turned his attention to another. "Careful with that one, fool! I did not travel here from the other side of The North just to have some clumsy child break my life's work. Katria, show the boy how it's done." Katria blinked, surprised by Brandt's sudden acknowledgement of her name. She moved to help the servant tie the last of several bundles to the mule Brandt had claimed from the stables. Katria cinched a temporary knot before testing the balance of luggage on the mule's back. She moved a few items from one side to the other, checked to make certain that every box and bundle was secure, and finally tightened the knots that held everything together on the back of their remarkably patient mule. As she worked, Katria watched Brandt send servants this way and that. He was not a particularly friendly or charismatic man, but his gruff confidence drew servants and soldiers to him like iron filings to a magnet during the confusion after Dmitri's disappearance. Katria knew that the obedience would not last long, and she could see that Brandt knew it as well. Soon the knights and minor nobles of Castle Iso would sort out who among of them should lead the sortie to retrieve the prince, and who would stay and defend the city from what they believed to be an inevitable attack. When that happened the chaos would fade, and Brandt's ability to order everybody around would vanish with it. "Here, girl," Brandt said as he led a chestnut mare and a similarly colored gelding from the back of the stables. "I hope you know how to ride." "Not really," Katria confessed. "Well, you'll have to learn as we go. Put your left hand here," Brandt said, taking her hand and placing it on the pommel. "Then put your left foot in there," he pointed at a stirrup hanging from the side of the saddle, "and just sort of jump up and haul your leg over." "Okay," Katria said before doing as she was bidden. She wobbled, and settled uncertainly into the saddle, but after a moment she steadied herself and smiled down at Brandt. "Good work," Brandt said before pulling himself into the other saddle almost as clumsily as Katria. "To tell the truth," he muttered to her, "I've only done this a few times, myself." He straightened and looked around the stables. "What's everybody gawping at? Somebody bring me the line for that mule!" When he had the requested line firmly in hand, Brandt twitched his reins and his horse frisked out into the gently falling snow outside the stables. "Katria!" A loud voice boomed through the stables and sent servants scattering. Katria turned in her saddle to see the headmistress trudging across the yard outside the castle, her breath puffing in thick little clouds and her large feet plowing a pair of furrows in the freshly fallen snow. The woman wore a dark gray shawl over her head and clutched the ends close to her throat. "Katria Sarato, what in The *North* do you think you're doing?" "I'm going to save the prince," she said, as proudly as she could manage. She felt a flush of embarrassment when her voice squeaked a bit around the word prince. The headmistress stared at Katria for a long, quiet moment. Then she scrunched her face, slapped her knee, and guffawed so loudly that some of the snow that had just fallen onto the stable roof flaked away and scattered onto mounds of white powder already forming outside. She laughed so hard that she did not pay any heed to Brandt as the runesmith pulled his horse up beside Katria and pressed a small square of paper into her hand. "Spit, crumple, throw," he murmured. His breath tickled Katria's ear, and she gave a little start. Nevertheless she nodded, and by the time the headmistress was wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks and looking up at the younger woman, Brandt had moved away once more. "Tell, me, how do you intend to do that?" The headmistress gave Katria an encouraging, red-faced smile. "I'm learning to be a runesmith." The headmistress sputtered and laughed again, but Katria had had enough. Before the larger woman had even managed to finish one breath Katria spat on the piece of paper in her hand, made a fist, and then flung the tiny wad of damp paper hard at the headmistress. A quiet *splut* silenced the headmistress' laugh, though Katria could not see why because she closed her eyes as soon as the paper left her hand. She cautiously opened one eye just in time to see the headmistress fall slowly backwards and into a small snowdrift outside the stables. A noticeably larger mound of white slush marked the spot where a snowball the size of a grown man's head had struck the headmistress directly in the mouth. Brandt broke the silence. "We should get going before she wakes up. Come on, lass." "I really did it! I threw magic!" Katria gave the reins in her hand an instinctive shake, and her horse hurried into the snow to join Brandt and the other animals. "Pah, child, you threw a snowball. I have to admit though, I didn't expect such a lot of snow." "I was saving up spit since the moment you gave me the paper." "Hah!" The runesmith looked toward the gate at the far end of Iso's largest street. His smile faded as he watched a river of humanity shift and flow over the cobblestones. Katria pulled her horse up beside him and stared. "I've never seen that many people outside at once," she murmured. "I have a feeling it won't be the last time you'll see something like it." Brandt urged his horse into motion, though the animal moved slowly through the crowd. "Sooner or later somebody's going to take the blame for the prince's kidnapping, and unless we or somebody else can bring him back safely you might see these people out on a field somewhere, getting themselves killed." "But why?" Katria raised her voice to be heard over the crowd. "People always seem to be looking for some reason to get themselves killed," Brandt said sourly. He fell into an angry silence so intense that Katria settled into her saddle and kept to herself. She had a feeling that theirs would be a very long journey. - * - * - * - * - Pines and firs crowded around Arlen, dark and quiet and heavy with snow. The wind shifted when he entered the forest, and now it cut quickly between the trees and through his heavy cloak and tunic. He wrapped his arms around his body and guided the horse down the narrow forest path. Despite the chill, Arlen was glad to have the wind at his back. It cleared away the fog and allowed him to follow two ruts of frozen mud that marked the forest path. Branches shivered in the wind, scattering sunlight and fragile needles of ice along the trail. His horse whickered nervously, and he patted its neck with one hand while pulling the hood of his cloak overhead with the other. Without warning a pale shape reared out of the shadows beside the trail. It raised viciously clawed arms above its head and roared at Arlen and his horse. The brothel guard's stolen mount reared back in fear and flailed at the shape with its front hooves. Arlen tumbled from his saddle and fell heavily to the earth just as the horse's hooves struck their target with a dull clang. "Clang?" Arlen stood quickly and drew his sword, ignoring his horse for a moment as the animal fled into the darkness of the forest. A huge man in pocked steel armor stood in the middle of the path, towering head and shoulders over Arlen. The warrior's armor carried a thick veneer of white paint, a high collar with narrow vertical breathing slots, and heavy gauntlets whose steel claws extended beyond his second knuckles. Arlen thought the man looked like a white bear with a human face and black, curly hair and beard. "Are you after the prince?" The warrior's baritone voice boomed through the vents in his armor and carried an eerie, metallic ring to Arlen's ears. "Yeah," Arlen answered automatically. Then he frowned up at the man. He could see the end of a long-handled sword behind the armored figure's right shoulder, but he refused to be intimidated. "Why?" "I have orders to kill you," the man boomed. Then his dark eyes narrowed. "What will you do if I fail?" Arlen gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and shifted his stance. The weapon had a single sharp edge and curved faintly upwards. It also appeared rather small and pitiful when pointed at a man whose gauntlet looked half again as big as Arlen's head. "I'll go after those monsters and get the prince back." "Why?" The man drew his sword, a massive, double-edged blade that tapered to a point near the end. He gripped it with both mailed hands as well, though Arlen immediately noted several flaws in his stance and grip. The brothel guard grinned silently and rushed at the warrior, slicing and thrusting in a blur of swift attacks. Steel rang against steel as the larger man's weapon parried nearly every attack. Even when Arlen managed to slip past his opponent's defenses, his weapon skittered uselessly across steel plates of armor. Arlen pressed forward, though his grin faded into a frown of concentration as he realized that his opponent's form was not flawed but instead merely different from the style used by fencers in Kaddegh. Steam flowed freely through the vents in the warrior's armored collar as his breathing grew heavier. Arlen entertained the notion of simply wearing down his foe's endurance and then taking advantage of an exhausted man in heavy plate, but even those hopes faded in time. The shrill echoes of singing steel filled the darkening forest, though Arlen's ears gradually grew numb to the sound. All sense of feeling seeped from his hands and arms and legs as well, until eventually he feared that he might drop his sword from fatigue. Arlen staggered backwards, kicking pine needles and flakes of ice as he sought to regain his balance. He raised his hand to indicate that he needed to pause for a moment. He did not know whether the warrior would recognize or even follow the rules of dueling that existed in faraway Kaddegh, but he had little desire to flee the battle on foot. When no further attacks came, he pushed the point of his sword into the ground and knelt wearily beside the weapon. He gasped and panted and stared blankly at the ground beside his knee. "Why," he rasped, "why is the forest so dark?" "Because night is falling," the warrior said, though the shortness of his words and the flush of pink in the visible half of his face betrayed a similar exhaustion to the one Arlen felt. "Have we really been fighting that long?" The warrior did not answer, but instead moved his sword lazily to one hand and crouched beside a large fir. When he straightened, his other hand gripped the neck of a large flask of soft leather. The man uncorked his flask and guided the mouth over the top of his collar. Arlen licked his lips as he watched his opponent drink deeply from the flask. As if sensing his attention, the warrior paused and lowered the half empty bladder. "My name is Grael Toura," he said. "Arlen Dax." "That is a strange name," the man observed. Arlen held out his hand, wordlessly suggesting that he would trade further explanation for water. Grael tossed the flask to him and waited motionlessly as the smaller man drank his fill. "I'm from Kaddegh, an ancient city to the west." "You are not from The North?" "Oh, Kaddegh is in The North. It's just far away." Grael's dark eyebrows knitted together thoughtfully. Arlen tossed the empty flask at him, but the soldier caught it with more noise than effort, and dropped the bladder on the ground beside him. "Why are you trying to save the prince?" "He ran off with a girl who worked the brothel that employs me. And no I'm not a eunuch," he added sharply, when the armored man's eyebrows rose. "Anyway, the girl was on contract. I won't return home until I have payment or the girl." "You only want the girl or your money?" When Arlen nodded, Grael hefted his sword with both hands. Steam slipped through the vents in his steel collar as he spoke. "Even if Serpent did not kill you before you could reach him, he'd pay you to leave him alone." "Yeah," Arlen said, rising to his feet and readying his sword once more. "So?" He rushed his opponent in a flurry of movement, not attacking now but instead warding off Grael's slower swipes as he moved in close to the big man. The last of these Arlen caught between the blade and the hand guard of his sword, and he pressed forward to keep the larger man from withdrawing his blade for another attack. His boots churned the frosty earth underfoot as he shoved his full weight into Grael, but he might as well have been pushing an iron wall. "Even if Serpent does not kill you," the big man explained, "you would be happy to leave without helping us." Arlen looked up at the man's menacing, half-armored face with barely contained confusion. "I thought you worked for this 'Serpent.' Isn't that why you're trying to stop me?" Grael did not answer, but instead wrenched his arms with such ferocity that Arlen nearly fell over backwards. He staggered, arms outstretched as he tried to right himself, and then slammed headfirst into the trunk of a tree. Tiny white stars burst in his vision, and he slumped against the trunk. Grael waited until he was certain that Arlen was still conscious. "I'm trying to stop you," the massive warrior said, "because you will do nothing to defeat him. You may get what you're after, but then he will know he is vulnerable. I may not get another chance." The brothel guard leaned against the tree and waited for the spots to disappear. "Chance to what?" "To kill him." "But you were with him," Arlen said as he stood uneasily. "Why didn't you do it then?" "Have you seen the things he's with?" Grael scowled, or at least Arlen thought he did. Only the man's eyes and brow were clearly visible, and even then puffs of steam rushing from the vent in his collar occasionally obscured his face. "Sort of. They seemed to be falling apart. I assumed they'd all be dead by the time I caught up with them." "When I left him, there were still four. They weren't falling apart at all." Arlen sagged. He was tired of talking, he was tired of ice falling down the back of his cloak, he was tired of fighting this big, heroic idiot, and he was tired of chasing one libidinous prince halfway across the North. Even his stolen horse had run away. He felt as though he'd had nothing but bad luck since the moment he left Kaddegh, and the situation showed no signs of improvement. "Hello!" Arlen and Grael turned as one to peer down the dark path along which the brothel guard had come hours earlier. A pair of strangers rode slowly from the shadows. One of the riders was an attractive young woman in ordinary clothes and the other was an older man with a shock of red hair. "This fellow looks like he's just run away," the man said mildly as he indicated a familiar horse whose reins he held firmly in his free hand. "I was afraid we'd have to deal harshly with whatever scared him so." "That's my horse," Arlen said, pushing away from the tree. He saw the man release the extra reins and disappear into one of many leather pouches at his belt. Suddenly he knew why an unarmed man traveling with an attractive young woman would brag about harsh dealings to a pair of men with swords. "You're a runesmith," Arlen said. He and Grael sheathed their swords immediately. "Indeed I am," said the red-haired man, though he did not take his hand from the pouch. "And you've got red hair," Arlen said. "People here don't have red hair. There's something familiar about your face, too." He approached the mounted man slowly, though he noted that Grael did not move an inch. "When I was about five or six years old, there was a man with bright red hair who used to come by our place every day. Often two or three times a day. Mother used to say that he was the only rich man she'd met who had a bigger appetite than a wallet. I'd almost forg-" "Your mother," the man said quickly, "handsome woman? Has light brown hair in a tight bun? Favors violet dresses with high necks?" "That'd be her," Arlen said with a wicked grin. He rather enjoyed the confused look on the face of the runesmith's companion. "Perhaps we should talk a moment in private," suggested the runesmith. He pulled one of the pouches from his belt, then turned and tossed it to the girl. The leather bag landed well short of its intended target, and she had to climb clumsily down from her horse to retrieve it. The runesmith slid from his saddle with little more grace than his companion, then walked with Arlen until only Arlen's horse was visible in the forest shadows. "So," Arlen said, "the wizard Brandt. Mother said all that magic would shrivel your manhood." He cast a meaningful look in the direction from which they'd just come. "I can see she must have been wrong." "It's not like that at all, you fool." Brandt glared at him. "You were a little troublemaker running around with whores for sisters then, and I'd wager you haven't changed a bit." Arlen only shrugged at that. "So the prince's gang did find you. I never knew." "Yes, and now the prince is gone," the runesmith said with narrowed eyes. "I suspect you know that. The girl he brought back was from your mother's brothel, and I was pretty certain the young prince spent most of his money hiring me. You followed him all the way from Kaddegh?" "Yeah, and I'll follow him to wherever this Serpent is taking him, too. We want our money." Brandt shook his head. "Always of one mind with your mother, aren't you? You really *haven't* changed." The runesmith frowned suddenly. "Serpent?" "I'm not sure who he is. The big guy in armor was working for him." Arlen raised a hand when Brandt's eyebrows shot up. "Your girl is safe with him. He wants to hunt down this Serpent and save the prince." "Ah," the runesmith relaxed. "Another hero." Arlen nodded. "They seem to have a lot of those around here. I take it the prince has you on retainer?" "Indeed." "Don't tell anybody about that," Arlen suggested. "The locals seem to think profit is a dirty word." Brandt nodded slowly. "I believe I have an idea," he said at length. "Follow me, young Arlen, and you will have your payment." He turned and walked back toward the others, leaving Arlen little choice but to follow. When they returned to the group, the brothel guard was surprised to see that Grael and the young woman had hobbled four horses and a mule along one side of the path. He guessed that the large black horse was Grael's, and that the warrior had hidden it in the forest before he set his ambush. "Excellent work," Brandt said. "Hand that pouch over, lass. Good, good, now clear out. Arlen, you stop right where you are." The brothel guard did as he was ordered, if only to see what sort of trick the runesmith intended to pull. Brandt paced around the empty path as if marking off some invisible barrier. Then he turned his eyes toward the forest canopy, apparently ignoring the curious stares that followed his every move. "Everybody cover your ears and close your eyes," he suggested as his hands darted in and out of the pouches hanging from his belt. Arlen folded his arms, but noted that Grael and the young woman both clapped their hands over their ears obediently. The runesmith cast half a dozen small chips onto the path. "Here's our function," he muttered to himself as he reached into his pouches again. "And here's our form!" With that, he flung a handful of runes directly overhead and covered his ears in what Arlen believed was a ridiculous display of showmanship. Runesmithing was little more than an elaborate hoax, he knew, and it had few merits beyond an occasional source entertainment. Flickering blue light drew Arlen's attention back to the path. A shimmering, translucent ball oozed up from the center of the pathway and grew as if it were being filled by some source under the ground. Streaks of pale colors flashed across the surface of the ground like horizontal forks of a lightning bolt. Those streaks arced upward as the bubble expanded in their midst, until eventually the outer surface of the bubble and the hemispherical strokes of colors swirled and blurred together. "Very nice," Arlen yawned, "but what-" *Boom*. A brilliant burst of pure white light filled the forest, throwing bold and stunted shadows along the frosted carpet of pine needles. Stronger still was the sound of a massive thunderclap that filled the forest. The sudden noise shook scales of bark from tree trunks and brought down a layer of snow several inches thick. Just as quickly as the light and sound had appeared, though, they vanished. In their absence a heavy darkness fell, along with hundreds of pounds of snow that blanketed the forest floor in relative silence. "Right," Brandt said shortly. "Somebody calm the horses. Girl, where are you?" "Under all of this snow. What did you do?" "Used water magic to make the shape of a house, and the power of the runes held it for a few moments until I could bring down all the snow. Then the water magic finished its work, and we have a handy little fortress of ice." Brandt's voice was smug, albeit terribly muffled. "But the thunder? Couldn't you have just sent some wind up there to shake the snow down?" "I could have, lass. I could have. But I didn't think Arlen would do what I told him, and he needed to be taught a lesson. That reminds me. Drag him out from underneath the snow there, would you? I believe the poor boy's been knocked unconscious." Grael had lumbered over to the horses to calm them, but momentarily he looked across the clearing toward a hollow block of pale ice, five feet tall and with a low door in the front. "Wizard?" "Yes, soldier?" Brandt studied the massive warrior as though uncertain what the big man would do. "Who are you?" "Name's Brandt," the runesmith said gruffly, "and I'm going to help you save this prince of yours." - * - * - * - * - The runesmith smiled. One of his creations had screamed in agony and run into the darkness as night fell, and another one simply dropped dead a few hours after that. Nevertheless, two of the monstrosities lived, and obeyed his orders, even though the magic that transformed them had faded completely. They were even starting to show signs of their original human intelligence. He thought he knew the flaws in his first runes, and he could work better runes in the future. Perhaps more than two in twelve of his creations would survive. Perhaps he would not need to limit himself to human beings. He held a hostage worth a king's ransom, a girl who would likely prove very entertaining once she recovered from shock, and the means to build his own army of demons. The man Grael called Serpent smiled again, and his was terrible, predatory grin. - * - * - * - * - Author's Note: The preceding doesn't actually come from any source material. Just my imagination. It's not high fantasy, like Lodoss or LotR. There are *no* elves, and magic is supposed to be difficult enough to master that most people don't have anything to do with it. I tried to leave the door open for just about anything, but I would just as soon avoid elves and dwarves and other silly humanoids aside from "demons." The sorts of things I would suggest for inspiration might be Ninja Scroll and Princess Mononoke. Lastly, I had many, *many* more ideas that just wouldn't fit here, so if you want or need any suggestions then feel free to email me at schneeble@sbcglobal.net I could go on, but I'd best keep it brief. If you're in The North, try to stay warm. But above all, Enjoy!