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Chapter Three

The Life-Debt

"Wait... Lord?... what... service?" Mike stammered. The last thing he needed was more of this insanity. "No... No, you don't have to do that. Really."

The chethra-woman's - Kaeranya's - eyes narrowed again, and her tail flicked irritably behind her. "The life-debt cannot be refused. It is a matter of the deepest honor among my people, and a grave insult when it is not taken seriously."

"I'm sorry," Mike sighed, "I really don't mean to keep insulting you. Please understand, this is all very strange to me," he tried to explain.

"So I gather; which is why I have not taken offense. Yet," she added with emphasis.

"First of all, I'm a soldier; an officer. I have a duty to perform. I need to find my soldiers, and then I have a mission to complete. Otherwise, a lot of other soldiers on my side are going to be in a lot of danger. Secondly, among my people, we don't condone having slaves. At least not anymore," he added, remembering his great-grandfather, who had fought in another war a little less than a hundred years ago.

"I am not proposing that I be your slave, my Lord Captain. I enter your service of my own volition; in payment of a debt of honor," she explained, attempting to be patient.

"Yes, but from what you're saying, you'd still be serving me, and bound to me, which I can't have," Mike said, the frustration creeping back into his voice.

"You are an officer, my Lord Captain? A leader among soldiers?"

"Yes. And, please, stop with the 'Lord Captain' business. Just call me, 'Mike'. That's my name, 'Mike'."

"As you wish," she gave a slight nod. "As an officer, you have soldiers who serve you? Who are bound by an oath of honor to obey your commands?"

"Yes, but..."

"And the great officers of your army; do they not have soldiers assigned as staff to see to their personal needs and comforts?"

"Well... Yes, but..."

"Then so it is with me. In the same manner as your troops, I am swearing an oath of loyalty to serve and obey your commands. I shall fight alongside you, and give my life to your cause, should it be necessary. And as the great officers of your army have their burdens eased by the service of their staff soldiers, so shall I lessen your burdens with other service, when not in combat."

"But..."

"The matter is settled," she said with finality. "Your army; it employs scouts and guides to be at the head of your advances?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then my first service shall be as your guide. Clearly, you are unfamiliar with this territory, and I am. You say you need to find your fellow soldiers, and I shall aid you in this goal."

Mike sighed yet again. He had to admit, he clearly needed help, and she was both able and willing to provide it. "Alright, alright," he conceded defeat. "Lead the way," he gestured down the road.

"First, my L... Mike," she caught herself, "we should check this vermin," she kicked at the corpse of one of the goblins with her foot, "for anything valuable. A few coppers might ease our travel." Mike noticed that what he at first thought was merely a boot was a sort of leather-wrap that covered the top of her foot, and shin. Her foot was paw-like, and she stood on her bare toes.

"Fine," Mike didn't argue. He went back and searched the two goblins that had charged toward him. He found what appeared to be a coin purse on one of them. It contained several copper pieces, which had been struck with an eagle's head; not unlike the one he wore on his shoulder patch. There was also quasi-Greek-looking lettering in a ring around the eagle's head. However, the coin was both worn and struck off-center, so even though he had learned Ancient Greek in college, he couldn't discern any meaning from the writing. Looking back at Kaeranya, he saw that she was shoving the bodies off the road; into the ditch; after checking them, and so he did likewise.

"I found these," he showed her the copper pieces after helping her push the last of the five bodies from the road.

"Ah, not much," she said, counting the dozen-or-so coins. "But it should help buy a meal if we stop at an inn after a long day's journey. Well, let us be on our way, then," she said as she bent over at the waist and picked up a ruck-sack. Mike couldn't help but admire her shapely form. His cheeks flushed as he caught the briefest glimpse of the white loin-cloth she wore beneath her short skirt. Kaeranya didn't seem to notice this as she straightened-up, and started off down the road, in the direction leading away from the mountains.

Mike jogged a few paces to catch up to her, and then still had to maintain a quick walking pace to keep up with her leisurely, long-legged strides. "Do we have to worry about more of those goblins?" he asked as he shouldered his rifle, and again took to holding his Tommy gun at the ready.

Kaeranya scowled to herself, "They don't normally come this far down, out of the mountains. Nor in the daylight. I ran through the mountain pass last night. I thought I would pass through their territory too quickly for them to notice me, but apparently I was wrong," she explained. "They must have followed me down from the mountains. I was resting after my long run, when they found me. I had my guard down, and they took me by surprise. Otherwise, I would have been more than a match for those five," she said proudly, and glanced sideways at Mike.

"I don't doubt it," he smiled at her, "all the same, I'm glad I came along to help out."

"As am I," Kaeranya gave him a slight smile back.

They walked in silence for several minutes. "Are there any other... things... besides goblins that we need to be on the look-out for?"

Kaeranya considered, and as she did so, spoke her thought-process for Mike's benefit, "Most goblinkin stick to the mountains as well. That'll be the hobgoblins, trolls, kobolds, and dwarvlings..."

"Dwarvlings... You said they have guns... um... hand-cannons? Like mine?" Mike interrupted her. He had heard of trolls, hobgoblins, and dwarves before in the faerie tales, novels and comic books he had read. 'Kobolds' were new to him, though they were not the ones he was particularly worried about at the moment.

"No, dwarves, make and carry hand-cannons; though they are crude in comparison to yours. I am sure the dwarvlings would like to get their filthy, little hands on dwarven arms if they could, though."

"I'm not understanding the difference..."

"The difference between what, my... Mike?" she caught herself from calling him 'Lord Captain' again.

"The difference between dwarves and dwarv_lings_," he elaborated, emphasizing the ending on the latter.

Kaeranya halted, and turned to face him with a look that bordered between frustration and confusion, "Are you simple?!"

"Maybe just a little," Mike muttered in jest.

"How does one get to be a captain of men, and not know the most basic things of the world?"

"Look..." Mike started to reply, but was at a loss for words. He turned his head away from her for a moment, and gazed into the distance, searching for a way to explain his situation to her. "Let's just say that... that I'm from very, very far away. All of the things that you take for granted as common knowledge, are completely unknown to me. Where I come from, it's just humans, and regular, base-animals. There's no chethra, no goblins, no dwarves, or any other kind of intelligent beings. Just humans. Understand?"

Kaeranya was a bit taken aback by this. "Only humans? No other races?"

"Not like you mean. We have different races of humans, but it's just superficial differences between us; like skin color."

"Yes, we have humans of different colors here as well," Kaeranya said hesitantly as she resumed walking. Mike followed her cue, and walked along by her side. "Did your kings and generals not think it wise to learn of this place, and those you might find here, before they sent you?"

"Well, I'm starting to think that I'm not in Kansas anymore," Mike admitted with a heavy sigh.

"'Kansas'? I thought you said you were supposed to be in a land called 'France'?" Kaeranya asked with some confusion.

"No... It's just an expression," Mike tried to explain, "it's from a film."

"From a what?"

Mike let out another heavy sigh, "It's not important. Let's get back to the dwarves and dwarvlings?"

"Very well, Mike," Kaeranya sighed this time. "Dwarves dwell in the mountains, where they mine ores, smelt metals, and craft all manner of tools, arms, and mechanical contrivances with those metals. They are one of the Noble Races, like humans, only about two-thirds your height, and of a more powerful build. Dwarv_lings_ are a bastard race spawned from goblins who have forced themselves upon dwarven women, just as hobgoblins are the spawn of goblin unions with human women."

Mike shuddered at the thought. "And the 'kobolds'?"

"Goblins and troglodytes," she replied simply.

Mike didn't even bother to ask what a troglodyte was, "And trolls?"

"Goblins and giants."

"How does that even work? They're so tiny!"

"It would take an army of goblins to subdue a giantess. But the goblinkin races can breed their own lines. Most trolls come from stock bred long ago, during the Goblin Age."

Concerned at the moment about the immediate threats he might encounter, Mike ignored her casual reference to a 'Goblin Age', of which he knew nothing. "Alright, so there's goblins, and hobgoblins, and dwarvlings, and kobolds, and trolls. But they all usually stay in the mountains?"

"That is correct," Kaeranya nodded.

"Are there any goblinkin down here we need to worry about?"

"Well..." Kaeranya again began to work through her thoughts aloud, for Mike's sake. She talked for a long time as they walked, with occasional interruptions from Mike as he asked for further explanations.

In addition to the races she had already told him about, there were beings known as 'orcs' that were a hybrid of goblins and elves. At least I've heard of elves, Mike thought. The orcs usually stuck to the swamps, and not all of them were hostile. Kaeranya knew the ones in Ascandion; the land there were in now; to be friendly. There were also 'kruub', a hybrid of orcs, and from what Kaeranya said, demons. Mike suppressed a shiver, thinking what they might be like. Luckily, these 'kruub' things stuck to the deserts and steppes; nowhere near Ascandion. There were also bugbears; hybrids of goblins and animal-like people, like the chethra. The bugbears, she said, might be a problem, as they often took to the forests and plains.

Besides the threat of the goblinkin races, there were also gnolls; a race that Kaeranya explained was to hyenas as chethra were to cheetahs, or as humans were to apes. Unlike her people, gnolls were wild, and savage creatures. They lived as barbarians in the wilderness, scavenging and pillaging from more advanced cultures. It was clear that she thought very little of them. There were also batlings, who as their name implied, were bat-like creatures. There was no other name for them, because they spoke in a howling, screeching sort-of language that no other race could understand. Like the gnolls, they were savage and barbarous; prone to attack any unsuspecting travelers that wandered into their territory.

"With the way they behave, it's no wonder the Shen call us all 'beast races'," she said with disgust as they stopped for a respite at about midday. The road at this point ran close to a wide, lazy river with cool-looking azure waters. Kaeranya led Mike off the road down to the river's shore.

"And when you say 'us all'?" he asked her, continuing the conversation.

It was a moment before she answered, as she stooped down to scoop up some water with her hands. She had been talking for several hours, and had become very thirsty. "The Shen refer to all of the Elevated Races as beasts," she finally spoke, wiping her muzzle with her hand.

Mike drained the water in his canteen, before refilling it in the river. "And by 'Elevated Races', you mean?" he prodded her as they went to sit down on the log of a nearby, fallen tree.

Kaeranya sighed once more, "All of those, who like the felixine, were once the feral animals we resemble, and had our forms altered by the gods."

Mike took off his helmet, and scratched his fingernails through the stubble of his short, blonde, buzz-cut hair, as he processed all of the information she had related to him. "So is there an 'Elevated Race' for every sort of 'feral' animal?" he asked finally.

"No. For many, yes. But not all. There are perhaps... fifty or so... of the Elevated Races, of which I am aware. Not counting the faeriekin that also resemble feral animals, of course," she explained as she reached down to massage the pads on her foot-paws.

"Oh, of course," Mike rolled his eyes. Luckily, Kaeranya didn't notice this, and took his words at face value. "And the 'felixine', is that another word for your people, or is 'Chethra' your name? I was a little confused by that..."

She switched to massaging her other foot-paw, and explained, "Kaeranya is my personal name. Chethra is the name of my tribe. We are but one of sixteen tribes of the felixine. We are a small tribe, but an honorable one," she added proudly. "Currently the leosian tribe rules the Kingdom that the chethra tribe calls home."

"And so each of these tribes was... 'elevated'... from one of the species of base-cats?" he asked, piecing together the clues from the names that were obviously a form of bastardized Latin.

"Precisely," she smiled at him. She was obviously glad that he was starting to figure some things out for himself; and thereby saving her some breath.

"So... if you're all ruled under one group... do you... um... interbreed with one another?" he asked, hoping that she wouldn't take offense at the question.

Apparently, it was not too forward of a question, because she wasn't bashful about answering. "We can, but not usually. It's the same as if we mated with one of the other, non-felixine Elevated Races. There's only a small chance that offspring will be produced, and when they are, the line becomes sterile within a generation or two. It's not worth spending the blood, since the Curse," she added, but didn't elaborate.

Mike didn't take notice of the last bit, however. His stomach was growling, and he suddenly came to the realization that he hadn't eaten for close to twenty hours. Kaeranya's stomach gave a noise as well, and Mike noticed she was looking longingly at the river.

She pulled off her ruck-sack, and rummaged through it for a few minutes. "Blast!" she cursed. "My fishing tackle must have fallen from my bag when I was attacked by that goblin filth!" she lamented. "We could, perhaps, try hunting some game? Your hand-cannon would make the task much easier," she said, eying his rifle, propped against the log.

Mike considered this for a few moments. "No... we better not. Not until we get desperate for food, at least. There's no telling how long I'll have to make my ammo last, and if I fire my rifle, it'll draw the attention of anyone in the area."

Kaeranya sighed as her stomach rumbled again.

"Hang on," Mike said.

"Hang on to what?" she asked, looking around them.

Mike only chuckled, and didn't bother to explain as he slipped off his own pack and after a few moments, he pulled out two rectangular, cardboard packages. He also unfastened his web-belt, and took off his bulky combat jacket, which was beginning to get a little hot under the midday sun. He spread his jacket out on the log between himself and Kaeranya like a tablecloth, with the relatively clean inside facing up. He then began emptying the contents of the boxes onto the jacket.

"This is food?" Kaeranya asked with interest. She picked up a waxed-paper packet, held it up to her nose, and sniffed.

"Here," Mike said. He held up one of the packets, and demonstrating how to open them to Kaeranya, he pulled out a thin, biscuit wafer. "K-rations. They don't taste so great, but they'll keep us going. Don't throw away the wrapping," he explained as Kaeranya opened her own packet, "they're good to use as tinder for fires."

She nodded as she bit into one of the biscuits. Mike stuffed a biscuit into his own mouth, then proceeded to peal back lids on two small, tin cans using a twist-key. "Do you want... chicken, or... beef and pork loaf?" he asked her, pausing to sniff each can so that he could identify their contents.

"You have meat as well?!" she asked in astonished enthusiasm. "I shall have the chicken, please!" Mike handed her the can, then scooped some of his beef-pork mixture up with another biscuit and took a bite. Kaeranya followed his example. "Mis is extwoodinawy!" she exclaimed through a full mouth. "You say you don't like this?!" she added after swallowing. She scooped up another healthy amount of the chicken paté onto the remainder of her biscuit and attacked it ravenously.

"Well, I suppose they're better than C-rations; but not by much. At least they're easier to carry," he admitted. He was devouring his meal with equal rapidity, though out of sheer hunger, not enthusiasm.

Kaeranya finished her can first. "Is there more?" she asked hopefully; smacking her muzzle in satisfaction. Mike looked up at her, and couldn't help but finding her more than a bit adorable. Her ears were perked up on top of her blonde head, her blue eyes were wide, and her tail was almost vertical behind her, twitching excitedly.

He smiled at her. "This is enough for right now. I only have a few days' worth of these; and really only for one person; so we can't gorge ourselves all at once. Here, try the chocolate bar," he added at Kaeranya's crestfallen look, which was also quite adorable. "It's the best part."

She unwrapped the chocolate and bit into it. "It's alright, I suppose," she said with a bit of disappointment. "I much prefer the meat."

Mike shrugged. "I guess your people have different tastes than mine. Eat it though," he encouraged her, "it's got a lot of energy in it." Mike finished his can and started in on his own chocolate bar. "Who are these 'Shen' you were talking about before? The ones that don't like your people?" he resumed their previous conversation.

Kaeranya scowled. "The Shen Hegemony is an empire of humans for humans," she explained. "They consider all non-humans beneath them, even the other Noble Races; though they are at-least somewhat tolerated. They outright enslave the Elevated Races, and slaughter even the friendly orc tribes, faer-folk, weres, drakelings, and others on sight."

"They sound like the Nazis," Mike said as he finished his chocolate bar.

"Only if these Nazis you fight are the lowest, vilest individuals that humanity has to offer," Kaeranya said with disgust.

"Yeah... Yeah, that's pretty much a Nazi," Mike nodded. "They came to power in their own country about oh... ten-or-so years ago," he explained at Kaeranya's interested glance. "They preach this ideology that their people are superior to everybody else in the world. There are rumors that I've heard... about them rounding up people in their own country, and the countries they've invaded; people that don't fit their ideology. They send 'em to these camps, where they starve them, and force them to work; to the point of death. I've even heard that some people they don't even bother to put to work. They kill 'em as soon as they get to the camps."

"They do this to other humans; to their own kind?!" Kaeranya seemed absolutely shocked.

"The way the Nazis think, the people they hurt aren't their own kind. I guess where I come from, since humans didn't have goblins, and trolls, and orcs to hate, they started hating each other," Mike sighed.

"And even with the Curse thinning the Blood, they still kill their own?"

"The 'Curse'? Thinning the 'Blood'?" Mike looked at her in bemusement.

"Don't tell me you know naught of the Curse, either?" she was genuinely astonished.

Mike shook his head.

"The Curse that the goblins placed upon the other races?"

Mike shook his head again, completely nonplussed.

Kaeranya sighed, and then explained, "Many millennia ago, at the end of the Goblin Age, the goblin lords besought their cruel god, Vugir, to help them defeat those who sought to dethrone them. Vugir is a foul, evil god, and because it pleased him to do so, he cursed the enemies of the goblins. But, because the goblin lords had not shown Vugir proper respect and tribute during their reign, he did not smite the enemies of goblin-kind in one mighty blow, as the goblin lords had hoped.

"The curse he placed upon all other races worked slowly, thinning our blood so that in each generation more and more males are sterile, and so fewer and fewer of us are born. It is why the felixine and other Elevated Races do not mate with each other; it is all we can do to produce any of our number. We cannot waste the Blood on a line we know will become sterile.

"Meanwhile, as our numbers decrease, those of goblinkin only increase; except for orckin, who rebelled against the goblin rule. The goblin lords who insulted Vugir were dethroned, and goblin-kind has suffered for them. Eventually, however, the goblins will win through attrition."

"Wow..." was all Mike said at first. After a minute or two, he added, "No, we don't have any problem making babies where I'm from. It's keeping them alive after they're born that's the problem; between wars, and poverty, and hunger. I guess that's our own curse."

Kaeranya said nothing for a while, merely gazing at Mike, considering him. Mike didn't notice. He was staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused, lost in thought.

"You don't like being a warrior?" she finally asked him.

"Like?" he considered. "No, I don't like doing what I do. I'm good at it, I suppose. But 'like'? No. This war has cost me a lot... I've been away from my family for going on three years now. My fiancée left me when I joined up; said, she didn't 'want to wait around to become a widow'," he looked down at his feet, toeing the ground with his boot. "I've seen good men; good friends; get killed in awful, inhumane ways. But I couldn't sit by while innocent people are being rounded up and slaughtered wholesale, like cattle."

He felt the soft touch of Kaeranya's paw on his arm, and he looked up at her. "It is a just cause for which you fight," she said quietly. Her expression was much softened; neither the confused nor irritated one she had usually been wearing while talking to him. "Your people are fortunate to have such a captain as you fighting for them."

He gave a slight smile to her, but didn't reply. He felt a little flushed at her gaze, and looked away. Praise had always made Mike uncomfortable, whether it was for good grades in school when he was a child, or now, as an adult, for bravery on the battlefield.

He picked around at the empty wrappers lying between them on his jacket, when Kaeranya finally withdrew her paw. "Well, I guess that's lunch," he commented.

"What about these?" Kaeranya asked, picking up one of the tiny four-packs of cigarettes that were included in the K-rations.

"Oh, no! Don't eat those!" Mike warned her, as she made to open one of the packets. "Those are just cigarettes; tobacco," he explained at her questioning glance. "You smoke them, but it's a disgusting habit. I just keep them to gamble or trade with the other officers."

"Do you have more of these?" she asked.

"Yeah, but like I said..."

"Oh, I agree with you. We have tobacco too; in pipes; and it is a disgusting vice. But these could be valuable in trade. Worth much more than those paltry few coppers we picked from the goblins."

"Shoot, besides what's in the ration packs, I have two whole cartons of of Luckies," he said. He pulled out the coveted name-brand cigarettes that were issued to officers; but not enlisted men; and showed them to Kaeranya.

"Indeed! These will go far in trade, should we need it!" she grinned. "Come," she said getting up, with renewed enthusiasm. "We've idled long enough, we should continue our search for your troops."

They gathered up their belongings. Mike packed away the refuse from the K-rations into his pack. He put back on his web-belt, but left his jacket off; stuffing it into his pack as best he could. He donned his helmet, shouldered his rifle, and picked up the Tommy gun, and they mounted the road once again.

Kaeranya continued to answer his questions about her world, but without the irritability from before. Mike didn't know if her improved disposition was from the food, or their talk, or taking her mind off the attack upon her this morning. She seemed to be dealing extraordinarily well with the trauma of nearly being raped by a pack of hideous goblins. But the more Mike heard of her world, the more he realized how harsh and brutal it was. Perhaps violence was so common-place in this world, that she considered herself lucky to have gotten away relatively unscathed.

The road continued to follow the course of the river, keeping the cool, blue waters within twenty or so yards off to their left. Kaeranya told him more of the Shen. Fortunately, they seemed to live very far away from where they were now, back beyond the mountains they were heading away from, and across a vast expanse of desert and steppe, and on the other side of another mountain range. Kaeranya's people lived in the steppe and grasslands in the southern region between the two great mountain ranges. The Shen had not yet invaded the felixine land, but her people who were caught in Shen territory were enslaved, and slavers occasionally made raids into their territory to capture felixine.

Kaeranya was a messenger for the felixine king. Apparently this was not an uncommon vocation for the chethra tribe, given their extraordinary running abilities. She had been tasked with carrying a solicitation of courtship and alliance from her king to the queen of the briens. The briens were a feline-like race, not dissimilar to the felixine. However they were not considered one of the Elevated Races; rather they were faeriekin. They were said to be one of the oldest races in the world, and possessed of great magical powers. It was clear that Kaeranya did not think much of her king, or his chances with the brien queen.

"King Neák's presumption is beyond absurdity!" she ranted. "He desires Queen Aine for three reasons. First, he hopes that her faerie blood will mix with his own, and she will bear him a son - he has only a single daughter out of all of his leosian concubines. He hopes for a son that will gain her faerie powers, and who can breed his own line. Secondly, he wishes to gain an alliance against the Shen with the briens and through them, their faerie kinfolk. Thirdly, Queen Aine's beauty is legendary. It is said that even the most beautiful of felixine women pale in comparison to her."

"Somehow I doubt that," Mike said, glancing sideways at Kaeranya. It took her a moment before she realized his sly compliment, and even with the short, sandy and black-spotted fur that covered her cheeks, Mike could tell she was blushing.

It took her a minute or so to regain her composure, and continue her rant against Neák. "Queen Aine is more than five-thousand years-old..."

"She's how old?!"

"Over five-thousand years-old; remember, she is faeriekin," Kaeranya reminded Mike. "Briens are normally long lived, but Aine made herself immortal at the time of Vugir's Curse, to await the day it would be broken. It is said she awaits a great warrior; a noble hero. King Neák fancies himself to be such a warrior."

"Is he?"

Kaeranya scoffed at the suggestion. "How can one who has fought no battles be a great warrior? How can one who treats his concubines as possessions be a noble hero? His daughter, the Princess Laiya, is a more fitting match for Queen Aine than King Neák is! He is a spoiled whelp; raised in privilege and doted upon by the Queen-Mother," she snarled.

"You say he has a daughter; she's not good enough for him? He has to have a son too?"

"Without a male heir, when the Princess Laiya is wed, her husband's clan will take the reigns of kingship among the leosian tribe, and the felixine in general." After a moment, she asked, "Do not fathers in your land wish for male heirs; to carry on their line?"

"Some do. But those attitudes are changing; albeit slowly. I think most fathers are just happy for the families they have. Daughters can still carry your blood, after all, just your name might disappear. 'A rose by any other name,' and all that..." he trailed off.

"I don't understand?" Kaeranya asked after his last comment.

"Oh, yeah. You wouldn't get that. Um... We had this poet, where I come from. He lived a few hundred years ago; really famous. Anyway, he had a line, 'What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet,'" he recited the line for Kaeranya.

"Smart poet," she remarked.

"Yeah. I never really got most of his stuff, to be honest. Literature was always my worst subject in school. But that bit always stuck with me. It's not important what someone looks like, or where they come from, or what they're called. It's about who they are inside, and the choices they make."

Kaeranya said nothing, but looked at him with an odd sort of expression. Admiration? Respect, perhaps? Mike once again felt slightly flushed under her scrutiny. He swallowed hard, and averted his gaze to the trees bordering the right-hand side of the road.

"Are all officers in your army educated as you are; in poetry and philosophy?" she asked after a few minutes.

This led Mike into a very long-winded explanation of how the education system worked in the United States, which then led to an explanation of how the government worked. Kaeranya seemed genuinely fascinated both by the ideas of universal education, and representative government. Mike had the tables turned on him, as she asked him question after question about his life and home, interspersed with comments about her own education and life.

She was from a small clan within the chethra tribe. Her family did not have a high enough status to have their own surname, which is why she used the tribal name of Chethra. High ranking felixine, Mike learned from her, would have three names; their tribal name, their clan name, and their personal name. Kaeranya's family had endured a great deal of hardships in order to field the expense of seeing that she was educated, which is why she found the way education was handled where Mike came from so fascinating. The felixine had several dialects of their own language, but no written language to go with them. Kaeranya was fluent and literate in both elven and the 'Noble Trade Tongue', which he gathered were used in the same manner Latin had been used in medieval Europe. She was also well-versed in the history of her world, but most of her education had been focused on perfecting her martial skills, such as swordplay and tracking, in the hopes that she might become an officer, and improve her clan's station.

From Kaeranya's descriptions, Mike could piece together that though there was still an entrenched patriarchal system in place among the felixine, but due to the dwindling population, new opportunities were being opened to women. It was not unlike the wartime situation he had left in America. As more and more men left to join-up, women were going to work in factories and plants. When he had left his job as a chemical engineer in a New Jersey plant, Mike had been replaced by a woman he had studied chemistry with in college. Even though she had received better marks than most of the men at Mike's college, she had been unemployed until the war started. For his part, Mike supported the entrance of women into the workforce, and he hoped that young woman would still have a job when he got back home. If he got back home.

It was getting late into the evening now; perhaps seven o'clock or so, if Mike judged the sinking sun correctly. They had walked along the forested road, following the course of the river, stopping every few hours for brief rests, but had seen no sign of anyone, let alone his fellow soldiers. They were situated in the middle of a group of boulders now, having climbed a short distance into the hills on the opposite side of the road from the river. It had the dual benefit of shielding them from view of the road, and getting them away from the water, so they would not to be eaten alive by mosquitoes. Even though they were sheltered, Mike hadn't wanted to risk a fire, for fear of attracting attention.

"I'm sorry we did not find your men, today," Kaeranya offered as Mike sat sullen-faced in their tiny encampment, picking among the remains of their second round of K-rations. "Would you like my chocolate?" she offered tentatively, holding up the candy.

Mike realized that he must be making her feel awful, acting as he was. It wasn't her fault, after all. In fact, she had been extraordinary helpful. But she couldn't help him find his troops, if they weren't there to be found. "You eat the chocolate bar," he forced a smile at her. "You'll need the energy."

She smiled weakly back at him as she opened the wrapper. "I am sure tomorrow we will find some trace of your men," she tried to sound optimistic as she bit into the candy bar.

"No," Mike sighed as he picked up a wrapper and played with it absent-mindedly. "No, I don't think we will."

"Do you always give up so easily?" she admonished him after swallowing a mouthful of chocolate. "I have vowed to return you to your troops, and so I shall! Do you doubt my abilities as a tracker?"

Mike smiled at her again, this time with a reassuring quality, "No, it's not that. If it were simply a matter of trusting in you, I wouldn't have any doubts." She smiled, and blushed at his compliment. "But you can't track men that aren't there to be tracked," he sighed.

"I don't understand? I thought you said tens of thousands of your fellow soldiers were here to save the world from these 'Nazis'. Surely, with such an army, there will be some trace of your fellow soldiers."

"Well, that's the thing... I don't think I'm in my world anymore," Mike finally admitted. The more time Mike spent in this place, and the more he learned from Kaeranya, the more he was led to the inevitable conclusion that he was not in the world as he knew it anymore. He knew this was no dream, as he had first thought that morning. The length of time he had now been here told him that much, not to mention the detail. The mosquito bites were also a dead give-away that this wasn't a dream. He was quite sure that he had somehow transitioned into another world; an alternate reality; much like Alice, or Dorothy, or issue number forty-three of his Stupendous Man comic books.

"Your world?" Kaeranya asked with confusion.

Mike thought for a few minutes about how to express his thoughts to her before finally explaining. "Imagine... Imagine that the whole world as you know it; all of creation; is like a single page in a book," he began.

"Okay..." she said hesitantly.

"Now imagine that every other page in that book is a different world; a separate expanse of creation..."

"I think I understand you," she was eying him with a bit of concern at this strange talk.

"In that book, the pages closest to your own page are very similar, with only small differences at first, but the further away you get from your own page, the bigger the differences get."

"What sort of differences?"

"Well, for instance, in my world, we don't have 'Elevated Races', just humans and 'feral' animals, as you call them. But," he added, pointing up to the rapidly darkening sky, "we do have the same moon, the same stars, and the same sun."

"So... So you think that you have somehow skipped from your page in this great book to my page?" she reasoned.

"Exactly!" Mike nodded enthusiastically at her. He scooted closer to her, so he could still see her in the growing darkness.

"How did you do this?"

"I don't have the slightest idea!" Mike shook his head, grinning in a sort of manic way. "Magic? Where I come from, magic is just the stuff of legends. But so are elves, dwarves, and goblins, and they're real here, so maybe magic is too?"

"Oh, magic is very real," Kaeranya assured him, nodding solemnly. "It is not to be trifled with, even by great wizards and dragons!"

"Dragons! They're just in legends too, in my world," Mike exclaimed. "And when we first met, and I told you I was an American, you thought I said 'Atlantian' at first. Do you have the legend of Atlantis here as well?"

"Atlantis was more than a legend! It was lost to history thousands upon thousands of years ago, but the traces of that great empire are everywhere! It is said..." Kaeranya began to add, but apparently thought better of it, and stopped.

"It is said, what?" Mike asked her.

"Nothing," she shook her head. "It is silly. How do we return you to your own world, if you truly have traveled between realities?"

"I don't know," Mike shook his head. They sat in silence for a long while; Mike staring at the moon in silent wonder, and Kaeranya, unnoticed by him, eying him with odd, furtive glances. "That queen," Mike finally spoke, startling Kaeranya. "The one you were taking your king's proposal to..."

"Queen Aine?"

"Yeah, maybe she can help me. You said she had powerful magic, and that she 'made herself immortal.' That sounds pretty powerful to me, so maybe she's powerful enough to send me back to my own world."

"We could surely ask her," Kaeranya nodded. "Aine is a good, and kind Queen. I'm sure she would help you if it is within her power."

"Well, that's settled, then. We'll go see this Queen Aine, and you can complete your mission for your king, and I can ask her if she can help me," Mike smiled. He was glad to have a plan of action again.

Kaeranya smiled at him. She was obviously glad that he was now in better spirits, and that she had a new chance to repay the debt of honor she felt she owed him. They talked for a while longer, and Kaeranya described the journey that lay ahead of them. It was still a long journey to Avalon, the land of the briens. They were in an area that Kaeranya called the 'Mathurian Wilderness', and had several more days following this road until they reached a bridge that would take them over the river, out of the foothills, and into the heartland of Ascandion.

Ascandion was a bit like America, Mike surmised, in that it was populated by many different types of people. Humans comprised the biggest chunk, and the Ascandonian Queen was human, but there were elves, dwarves, gnomes, some people Kaeranya called 'warren-folk', the orcs that lived in the swamps, and many different kinds of Elevated Races, like the felixine. The subjects of Ascandion didn't have a representative government per se, but each group had their own noble house that was beholden to the queen, and then the Queendom was also organized into counties, and so the people were beholden to the count of their territory, no matter from which race they were. The Queen appointed the counts; or countesses as the case may be; herself, but often did so along hereditary lines.

The Ascandonian Queen was named Wissilith, and it was clear that Kaeranya held her in high-esteem, much as she did Queen Aine of the briens. As a royal messenger of her own king, Kaeranya; and by extension Mike; would be welcomed and given food and shelter at the Ascandonian Court. Kaeranya also knew of several places they could stop along the way once they crossed the river, and were out of the unpopulated Mathurian Wilderness.

Mike was expecting a long journey, since he assumed Avalon to be an island, as in the legends of his world. Kaeranya had told him that morning that the nearest sea and beaches were very far away. However, the journey would apparently not be as long as Mike initially thought.

"We shall have to journey clear across Ascandion, to the Mistwine Hills," Kaeranya explained. "Once we hike over the hills, we descend into the Kayghyn Moorlands. There, we shall make contact with one of the briens, and they can take us through the mists to Avalon."

"So Avalon is on the other side of these moors?" Mike asked.

"No. Avalon lies in the Sea of Murchad, far, far, to the Northwest."

"What would one of the briens be doing so far away from their homeland, that they would lead us back there?" Mike asked with some confusion.

"Oh! But of course! You wouldn't know!" Kaeranya exclaimed, clapping a hand to her muzzle. "You see, the briens are also sometimes called moorcats, or fog leopards. Their faerie magic allows them to walk between mist and fog-shrouded lands, just as one might walk from one room to another. They can even disperse their flesh-and-bone bodies into clouds of mist!"

"You're joking!" This was by far the most astonishing thing Mike had yet heard of Kaeranya's world.

"No! I speak truly," she assured him, nodding her head in earnest. "Once we enter the veil of fog covering the Kayghyn Moorlands, I shall call out, requesting an audience with Queen Aine in the name of my king. She will hear me, and send one of her retainers to fetch us, and walk us through the mists to Avalon."

"Wow. I can see why your king would want an alliance with them. Just wait for a foggy day in your enemy's land, and..."

"That is King Neák's thought as well, but even if he could win Queen Aine's hand, I think it unlikely the briens would act as he wishes."

"Why not?"

"Like all faeriekin, they tend to stay our of the affairs of the mortal races. Except elves, of course. The Shen are evil, but not yet to the point that the briens and the more powerful races might intervene. They expect the mortal races to handle their own conflicts among themselves," Kaeranya shivered and rubbed her arms after she spoke these last words.

It had nothing to do with her feelings about the Shen or the tremendous power of these briens. It was getting quite cold out, now that the sun was fully set, and with hardly any humidity in the thin air of the Mathurian Foothills to hold the day's heat.

"Here take my jacket," Mike offered the garment to her.

"Won't you be cold?" she asked, stifling a yawn. She still took the offered jacket. Her nose wrinkled slightly, as she wrapped herself in it.

"Sorry about the smell," Mike blushed. "I got covered in muck and cow's blood in a farm field before I woke up here," he explained as he arranged his field pack like a pillow on the stony ground. "I guess your nose must be a little more sensitive than mine. I'll be fine. I've spent some pretty bitterly cold nights outside before."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" Kaeranya huffed with some of her characteristic irritability. She came over and lay down back-to-back against Mike, "We can share the smelly rag. Our body heat will do better to keep each other warm," she said as she arranged the jacket over their torsos.

Mike shifted the pack to give Kaeranya a portion to rest her head on.

"Thank you," she said as she lay her head on the pack and drew her long legs up, so that she was lying in a fetal-like position under the jacket.

"You're welcome," Mike replied. He swallowed hard. He felt more than a bit awkward lying next to his beautiful companion in such a way. He could smell her hair now; lying so close to her. She must have used some sort of soap regularly, because it had a sweet, floral scent to it; a far more pleasant smell than his foul jacket. "Good night," he managed to say to her without his voice cracking.

"Pleasant dreams," she replied, sounding completely at ease.

* * * * * * * * *

Mike had always been a light sleeper, waking up periodically throughout the night, but usually able to fall asleep again quickly. It was an odd, soft, yipping-mewling sound that awoke him late in the night. His first thought was that it might be a pack of the hyena-like gnolls that Kaeranya had told him about.

Then he felt her body twitching and shuddering against his back. He thought she might be shivering from the cold as he lifted his head up from the pack to look over his shoulder at her. It was then that he found that the noises were coming from her.

She was muttering with fright in her sleep, and making muted swiping-motions with her clawed hands. Mike suddenly realized that Kaeranya was having a nightmare. A deep sense of pity and empathy for the young feline woman washed over him, as he sensed that the trauma of nearly being raped that morning had affected her more deeply than she had been willing to admit; perhaps even to herself. He made to wake her up, and placed a hand on her shoulder. However, almost immediately at his touch, her twitches and frightened mewlings stopped. A calm visibly washed over her and within a minute, she began purring.

Mike left his hand on her shoulder as he lay down once more. He faced her back, but kept as respectful a distance between her body and his own as he could underneath the jacket.

* * * * * * * * *

When Mike awoke again in the early morning before Kaeranya. He withdrew his hand from her shoulder, and slipped out from beneath the jacket before she woke. He managed to pull out his small sketchbook, and a pencil from his pack without disturbing her. He walked across the small camp, sat down with his back to one of the boulders, and began to draw a map of the territory he had thus far covered, and the rest of the lands from Kaeranya's descriptions.

He looked up every now and again to check on her, but she continued to sleep peacefully as the cool light of pre-dawn was broken by the orange sun cresting the mountains they had kept to their backs the whole of the previous day. Mike finished his map, and preferring to let Kaeranya continue to rest, he flipped the sketchbook to a clean page.

He began a rough sketch of her, standing proud and defiant with sword in hand over the bodies of the goblins. Then another drawing of her as he had most remembered her from the day before; walking in long-legged strides next to him, face turned to him and gesticulating with her hands. He smiled, remembering how she had looked at lunch the previous day, and drew a small portrait of her face with her ears perked, and tongue licking her muzzle hungrily. He became so engrossed in his drawings that he didn't notice Kaeranya wake, and come over to stand by him.

"Is this me?" she asked, startling him.

"Huh?! Oh... um... Well, yeah. I just like to draw every now and then. Helps me clear my head."

She leaned down next to him for a better look at his sketches, and a lock of her sweet-smelling hair fell close to Mike's nose. "You are quite an artist!" she commented, with genuine amazement. "I have never seen a painting so life-like! You are, indeed a well-spring of hidden talents, Mike. Though, I dare say," she added, blushing, "you flatter me with your likeness of me."

"I just drew you how I see you," he smiled at her.

She straightened back up, and walked back over to his pack. Mike couldn't see, but she was blushing profusely. "Are there more of your food rations?" she asked.

"Yeah," Mike replied, walking over to join her, and dig the K-rations out of his pack.

Mike showed Kaeranya the map he had drawn, and questioned her about its accuracy as they ate. He was pleased to find that it was mostly correct, with only a few changes needed. Kaeranya was enjoying the breakfast version of the ration-packs as much as she had enjoyed the supper and dinner varieties. The sun had faded from its orangey, morning haze to a bright, golden yellow as they finished, and Kaeranya admonished Mike for having let her sleep for so long.

They climbed back down the road, and continued on their way. The second day proceeded much as the first. They walked along the road through the Mathurian Wilderness for endless hours, talking. The road and the river beside it, began to bend towards the Northwest, and a small, solitary, red-rock mountain peak began to arise from behind the tree-covered hills. Mike was concerned at first, remembering that Kaeranya had said that the goblinkin mostly stuck to the mountains, but she assured him that this mountain was clear of goblins. Legend had it that a dragon inhabited the mountain, but Kaeranya had traveled this land before, and most of the inhabitants across the river did not believe it to be true. Still, the rumor was good for keeping away goblins.

They stopped for the day as the sun was setting again, and once more found a place in the hills, secluded from the road to rest for the night. "We're going to have to figure out something for food tomorrow," Mike told her as they finished their evening meal. "I only had four days' worth of rations, and we've run through twice as quickly with two of us. We just have breakfast tomorrow, and that's it."

"We could stop early tomorrow afternoon, and do some hunting," Kaeranya suggested. "Of course, that will mean a fire, as well," she added, shivering, even as she was huddled in Mike's jacket.

Mike had insisted on no fire again. Kaeranya seemed to think it wouldn't be a problem, but Mike wouldn't feel comfortable with such a clear indication of their presence until they saw some signs of civilization. "I suppose we'll have to risk them both," he admitted with a sigh. "We're out of options."

"It also wouldn't hurt to slip down to the river to bathe in the morning," she added.

Mike gave her an incredulous look.

"I don't mean to offend, Mike," she said with a bashful look, "but you humans do get ripe rather quickly. I have soap in my pack..."

"Alright," he conceded with a chuckle. "I'll try and wash the jacket out too. It'll dry as we walk tomorrow."

They lay down, back-to-back under the jacket, as they had the night before. Mike awoke early in the morning again, and found that he had unconsciously shifted in the night to hold Kaeranya. He was spooned against her, arm wrapped over her, and she was purring softly in her sleep. He swallowed guiltily, and quickly slipped out from under the jacket before she could wake.

Mike was able to rummage his binoculars out of his pack without waking Kaeranya. He took the time before the sun was fully crested over the mountains to survey the route ahead. He clambered atop a nearby outcropping of red stone, and peered through his binoculars. They would reach the mountain near the end of the day. As the road rose ahead into the hills, the river cut a deep gorge along its left-hand side into the sedimentary rocks. Mike frowned. It didn't make a very desirable route. Any trouble from the hills and the mountain ahead, and they would be trapped on the road, their backs to the gorge.

He woke Kaeranya when the orange sun broke over the eastern mountains. They ate the last of the rations, and by the time they were heading down to the last, flat spot on the river to bathe, the sun was once more a bright, golden yellow.

Mike propped his weapons and pack against a tree and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Hey, you got that bar of soap?" he asked turning around as he absent-mindedly fiddled with the buttons.

"Yes, just a moment," Kaeranya answered.

Mike looked up to see that she had removed her leather jerkin, and was untying the laces on the front of her tunic. He quickly spun back around, "You're getting in too?!"

"Yes, of course. I feel filthy," she looked up to see him standing with his back to her his arms obviously clutching his shirt closed across his chest. "Don't tell me you're bashful!" she laughed.

"No!" Mike blurted out. "It's just... y'know... not right... for a guy and a girl to bathe together. Not unless they're... y'know... married," he said with some forced pride. Of course it was completely hypocritical of him, as he had done much more than simply bathe with about a dozen women outside the bonds of marriage. That wasn't even including the fiancée that had left him before the war. And even though he found himself very attracted to Kaeranya, it just didn't feel right to go essentially go skinny-dipping with her.

"Does that mean you're proposing?" Kaeranya teased playfully. She tossed the bar of soap at him, and it thudded in the grass at his feet.

"No!" he scowled as he bent down and picked up the soap. "Besides, we shouldn't both be in the water at the same time; with our weapons up here on dry land! What if someone hostile did stumble upon us? We especially can't let anyone get their hands on my guns!"

Kaeranya was still giggling, but agreed with Mike's last point. He went into the water first, as his smell was becoming more than Kaeranya could bear. He insisted that Kaeranya stand guard over his weapons, with her back to the water as he washed himself, then scrubbed the soap over the jacket; trying to get it clean, followed by his undershorts and socks.

He left the water, and stood behind some bushes waiting for the air and the sun to dry him before he put on his spare pair of clean undershorts and socks, then pulled back on his dirty fatigues. "There. Do I smell good now?" he asked Kaeranya, as he climbed the back back to where she waited by their gear.

"Better, at least," she appraised as she sniffed the air. "We'll need to get you a change of clothes the first chance we get, so that you can clean those filthy things," she said, eying his fatigues with disgust. "My turn, now. Where's the soap?"

Mike tossed her the bar of soap, and to his surprise, she set it down in the grass and once again made to start undressing there, in front of him. "Hey!" he shouted. "Down there, behind the bushes," he nodded his head towards the river.

Kaeranya laughed, "You are bashful! As you wish, Mike. I shan't offend your virtuous eyes," she teased as she strolled down to the riverside.

Mike flushed with a mix of embarrassment and anger. He was trying to be a gentleman; for once in his life; and she didn't seem to be operating under the same definition of what appropriate behavior in mixed-company was. At least, he reflected, she seemed to becoming more comfortable around him. He was sorely tempted to steal a glance in the direction of the river while she was down there. He instead managed to distract himself by pulling out a small mirror and shave kit, and shave using the cold water in his canteen, even though he really didn't need it yet. Mike had never been able to grow much in the way of facial hair, even now at the age of twenty-four.

He was finishing-up just as Kaeranya returned from the river, calling, "There! Cleaned and clothed, so that I offend neither the nose, nor the eye, Mike."

"Funny," Mike stated dryly. "Let's fill up our water, and get going." Mike packed away his shaving kit, pulled on his pack with his wet jacket and underclothes hanging off it, and collected his weapons. They went down to the water, where he refilled his canteen, and Kaeranya a leather water-skin that held about twice as much as his canteen.

Then began another long day of hiking through the desolate foothills. It was a rugged beautiful country. Red, sandstone rocks with increasingly larger pine trees the closer they got to the lone, red mountain peak. There were sounds of wildlife, but absolutely no sign of any sentient beings.

Mike and Kaeranya continued hiking through their usual time for a midday break, as they didn't have anything to eat anyway, and wanted to make up some time. By the time they decided to stop in the late afternoon, they were both famished. Mike got his rifle ready and Kaeranya led him up into the hills, following her nose, and moving with all the natural stealth that a feline possesses.

They traipsed over the stony hills for at least an hour, when Kaeranya held up a hand, signaling Mike to stop. She held a finger to her lips, and pointed with the other hand. Mike nodded when he saw the wild rabbit munching on some foliage about twenty yards away. Silently, he took a knee, and raised his rifle, aiming carefully.

The loud shot of the powerful Garand rifle was magnified a hundred times as it echoed off the rocky hills in the silent evening air. The rabbit was lifted off the ground and fell back to the earth lifeless and limp. Mike had never been an enthusiastic hunter, and he felt a twinge of guilt for taking the poor rabbit's life. However, this was a necessary evil for his and Kaeranya's survival. She congratulated him on his shot, and they were walking over to collect their dinner when they both froze in their tracks, and their blood turned to ice in their veins.

A low, bass-filled horn had sounded, echoing among the hills, even as the sound of Mike's rifle shot lingered in the air. Mike turned to Kaeranya, and saw the look of terror on her face. "That was a war-horn, wasn't it?" he asked her.

She nodded as a second, higher-pitched horn answered the first. "G... goblins..." she stammered breathlessly. "L... lots of them. They only use horns when they are in large numbers."

Mike turned and jogged over to an outcropping of rock that gave him a good view of the road below over the tall pine trees; Kaeranya was close on his heels. He dropped to his belly as he approached the rock, and yanked her down with him. Mike fished his binoculars from his pack, then crawled to the pointed edge of the precipice.

The road below was swarming with figures. An entire army was on the march. They were carrying various pieces of metal that were glinting in the waning sunlight. Mike put the binoculars to his face and scanned the throng. There were many of the type that he had saved Kaeranya from two days ago; small, green-skinned, ugly men carrying crude machete-like blades and covered haphazardly it pieces of metal and leather. There were several other kinds of beings among the army also.

The largest ones Mike guessed to be trolls. They had the same ugly faces as the goblins; long noses, large, bat-like ears, beady eyes, and the same sickly, gray-green skin. Unlike their goblin cousins, had prominent, sharp-looking canines jutting upward from their lower jaws. They were broad-shouldered and well-muscled, with long, ropy arms that dangled in front of them. They walked hunched-over, like gorillas, but Mike guessed if one stood up, he would easily reach eight feet in height.

He also immediately recognized the bugbears that Kaeranya had said were hybrids of goblins and the Elevated races. They were generally taller than the goblins; about the height of a human. No two looked exactly alike as Mike scanned the horde below, but they all had patch-work fur of various colors and patterns. Their ugly faces had odd, short, animal-like muzzles, but they were completely bare, and showed only the gray-green goblin skin.

The hobgoblins and dwarvlings were less distinct from the regular goblins; the hobgoblins being only slightly taller, and the dwarvlings being short to the point of being hidden by their taller kinfolk. Both of these creatures had less-pointed features than the standard goblins. That left the kobolds, which had small, slightly-pointed ears, and long, pointed, animal-like snouts. They were as small as the goblins, and had prominent lower canines, like the trolls.

Mike could easily pick out the leaders among the horde. They were all true goblins, and they wore more complete and better designed suits of armor, and carried weapons that were less crude.

He took all of this in, in less than a minute. The commanders among the goblins were directing their troops into the hills, towards the sound of Mike's gunshot. The throng of monsters was already swarming the lower hills, less than a mile from where he and Kaeranya hugged the ground in hiding.

"I bet that gang that attacked you were scouts for this army," Mike said as he crawled back from the ledge and put away his binoculars. "If they saw you going through the pass a few nights ago, they might have thought you were running to warn the Ascandonians of this army."

"I would have, had I known this horde was on the move!" Kaeranya replied in earnest. "We must somehow warn them!"

"We'll worry about that if we make it out of this alive!" Mike grumbled. He was pulling off his field pack, and adjusting his gear so that he wouldn't be encumbered in a fight. "Listen, I want you to get up this mountain," he directed her as he salvaged every bit of spare ammo from his pack, before passing it to Kaeranya. "Try to find a place to hide; a cave or something; and when the coast is clear, use all that chethra speed of yours to high-tail it to the Ascandonian capital, and sound the alarm. I'm going to try to slow them up, and lead them away from you."

Kaeranya scowled as she took the pack from him. "If you expect me to flee, I will not! I am a warrior!" she protested.

"This isn't open for debate!" Mike growled. "You aren't trained in my fighting techniques. I can hit them from a distance; you can't with that sword!"

"I am bound by honor to fight at your side! I will not leave you!"

"Listen!" Mike snarled with all the ferocity of an animal. He gripped the front of her tunic in his fist, and yanked her face towards him so that they were inches apart. This sudden burst of anger startled Kaeranya into silence. "You said to treat you like one of my soldiers? Well, soldier, I am ordering you to get that furry, little ass of yours up that mountain," he pointed with his free hand. "Find the deepest, darkest hole that you can, crawl inside it, and pray to whatever gods you worship that those monsters don't find you! Do I make myself clear?!"

"Y... yes," she stammered as he released his grip on her tunic.

"Then get moving!" he ordered her as he picked up his Garand rifle. He took off in at a run to the East, away from the mountain, and disappeared into the pine trees. Kaeranya obeyed his order, and began heading in a Northwest direction, up the rocky mountain slope; but with a scowl on her face.

When he had gone about a hundred yards from where Kaeranya had been, he tried to get another view at where the goblins were. A craggy pine perched on the edge of another ledge provided the perfect cover. The goblins were moving quickly, and unfortunately in Kaeranya's direction. They had already covered half the distance between the road and the elevation he and Kaeranya had been at. Mike needed to get their attention, and draw them away from her.

He raised his rifle and took careful aim. One of the goblin leaders; a sergeant or lieutenant maybe; wasn't far off from him. But Mike needed him alive for the moment. He instead fired three careful shots, taking out one of the subordinate monsters with each round. The echoes of his shots rang through the hills. The lieutenant raised his battle horn to his ugly lips, and signaled his fellows where the enemy was. Now, he could die.

Mike took him down with a single shot, followed by two trolls, and a bugbear. There was a loud ping as the clip ejected with the last round. Mike abandoned his position and ran further to the East, away from Kaeranya, as he fished out another clip and slammed it into his rifle. Another fifty yards, and he spotted a good firing position; a cluster of boulders.

He took cover behind the rocks, and began picking off more of the goblin horde. The hideous creatures seemed indifferent to their comrades who were dropping like flies. They surged over the rocky slopes towards Mike's position, more horns sounding as the commanders directed the grunts in his direction. At least his plan was working, they had turned their advance and were heading away from Kaeranya.

They were getting close now, and Mike realized he might have overstayed his position behind the boulders. He pulled a grenade off his web belt, yanked the pin out, and lobbed it into the advancing throng. He waited for the explosion and accompanying screams before he darted from the boulders for the cover of the trees. He heard the twang of bows, and the clink of arrows impacting against the rocks at his feet.

Mike needed to gain some distance and altitude from the advancing enemies, so he ran North, further into the hills instead of to the East. He scrambled up a steep, rocky slope, and found another jutting, rocky precipice like the one from whence he had first spied the goblin army. He opened fire on the monsters, running through clip after clip of ammunition for his rifle, felling them by the dozens, yet still they came. Mike had to abandon his position again and continued his cat-and-mouse game with the goblin army.

He tried heading East again, but found that the way was blocked by a cliff, dropping at least a hundred feet. He swore under his breath, and followed the edge of the cliff, hoping to find a way East. Much to his irritation, he found that the cliff was forcing him Northwest, upwards, and back towards the mountain peak. The only way he could get East, and away from the mountain, would be to head back down the hills, and there were thousands of goblins nipping at his heels from that direction.

The trees were growing sparser the higher he headed into the hills, and good firing positions were becoming harder and harder to find. Arrows continued to sail through the air at him whenever he ran through the open, but he moved too quickly for them to find their mark. He had exhausted nearly all of the rounds for his M-1, and had thrown half of his grenades into their midst by the time he took cover behind a large boulder, high on the mountain slope.

He leaned around the corner of the rock, and emptied his clip, taking out a pack of bugbears at the head of the advance; a scant fifty yards away from him. Twisting back around the boulder as arrows flew at him, he fished in his ammo pouches for another clip for the M-1, but found none. Mike lobbed two grenades over the boulder and into the horde of goblinkin. He shouldered the spent rifle, and took up his Tommy gun, twisting around the boulder and letting loose a burst into a mixed group of goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds that were now only twenty yards away.

He broke his cover, and scrambled higher up the mountain, looking for the place he would make his last stand. He spun about every few yards, and gave a short burst from his Tommy gun, to throw off the aim of the goblin archers. The best cover he could find were a group of low rocks that he dove behind. He threw another grenade, and then began unloading clip-after-clip of the Tommy gun into the endless stream of monsters.

The Thompson sub-machine-gun had been envisioned as a 'trench-broom' by its designer; a weapon to sweep the trenches of World War I clean of enemies, and end the bloody war quickly. It had never seen action in the manner that its designer had intended, but Mike was now using it to great effect in exactly that manner. He swept the powerful gun along the line of advancing enemies as they neared him. A neat line of grayish-green corpses was forming about twenty yards from him, as he mowed down the unending rush of goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, trolls, kobolds, and dwarvlings.

He threw one of his grenades whenever there was enough of a break in their advance to risk it. He aimed for the archers that were firing from behind the main line of troops, and managed to lessen the amount of arrows that were harassing him. As he slammed the last of his clips into the Thompson, he looked around desperately behind him for some alternative to death.

Then he saw two black ears, and a golden-yellow head poking out from the lip of a rocky precipice high on the steep slope above him. Kaeranya's face appeared for a split second, and one of her sandy-yellow-furred hands beckoned him towards her, before she disappeared again. Mike rolled over and fired off his Thompson again, staving back the latest surge from the goblin horde. When he finished the clip, he threw the last of his grenades, and then ran for it.

He drew his Colt pistol, and fired blindly behind him as he scrambled up the steep slope towards Kaeranya's ledge. He quickly ran through two of the three spare clips he had for the gun. He climbed desperately up the side of the mountain, and finally reached an arm over the lip of Kaeranya's ledge, and attempted to hoist himself up. A furry hand reached down and clutched his arm, tearing his shirt as the claws on the fingertips dug into his arm. With Kaeranya's help, Mike managed to roll over the top of the ledge, where he lay gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry," he panted, looking up at Kaeranya's beautiful face, which was wrought with worry. "I tried to lead them away, but I ended up bringing them right to you."

"It doesn't matter," she said breathlessly, beaming at him. "You are either the bravest man I have ever seen, or completely mad!" she said as she helped him to his feet. "I found a deep, dark hole," she added pointing behind herself. Concealed from below by the ledge, there was a large cave entrance. One last hope.

"Go!" he ordered her. "I'll hold off as many as I can, and then I'll follow you!"

"But..." Kaeranya looked at him imploringly.

"Go! Maybe there's a back way out!"

Kaeranya ran into the dark cave as Mike knelt at the ledge and took careful aim. He saved his shots for whichever creature managed to take the lead in climbing up the steep slope towards him. As the dead goblin, troll, hobgoblin, kobold, or bugbear fell, it knocked down its fellows below, buying Mike and Kaeranya extra time. Unfortunately, the Colt pistol only held seven rounds, and before he knew it, Mike had exhausted the weapon.

He ran into the blackened cave. It wouldn't be long before the goblin horde crested the ledge, and would follow him. He didn't call out for Kaeranya as he raced into the cavern, hoping that she was well ahead of him; either hidden, or had found another way out.

He skidded to a halt as he saw her racing back towards him with a terrified look on her face, yelling, "Dragon!"