<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> Here we go again, long break followed by a spurt of writing.  One of these days I'm going to lock myself in the room, put the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on repeat, and write until the following midnight.  Might get somewhere. -LurkingWolf _________________________________              Alex hurdled a fallen tree as he continued his retreat, tearing limbs from in front of him as he put as much distance as he could between himself and the lutin camp.  Lucy tried her best to keep up, but her magic reserves were spent, and her natural strength was rapidly fading.  As a child, she did not have much left to give, and she was falling behind.               Fortunately, Alex stopped before she had to ask him to.  He turned and watched as she covered the distance between them as quickly as possible, then stood with an arrow at ready, watching for any signs of pursuit while his companion recovered.  He had many things that he wanted to ask her, but he didn't want to rush her into it in her current state.               Lucy took several deep breaths before saying anything herself.  "Gerard... Lois," she gasped, trying to form a coherent sentence.               Alex nodded.  "Gerard stayed behind to hold off the shaman.  I haven't seen Lois since he threw the dagger at the beginning of the battle."               "He... He ran interference... Gave the other lutins a target while... I fought the shaman."               "Well, at least that seems to preclude any treachery on his part.  That either means that the lutins took him, or he was delayed coming back around.  Lucy, there's a chance they might still be alive," he said, looking at her.  She was brushing her chaotic hair from in front of her eyes, coughing slightly as she tried to breath faster than her lungs could handle.  "We might have a chance to go back and try to get them out of there."               Lucy continued to gasp for air for a few moments before responding.  "I'm spent," she finally gasped, her voice breaking as she spoke the words.  "I have no energy left to run, and my duel drained my magic.  If we return, I will be of no use to your plans."               "We can't just leave them to die!" Alex said.  He had meant it as some sort of inspiration, but it came out sounding hollow, wreathed with the pain and guilt he felt at the prospect of two deaths in his patrol.               "Returning may mean more death," Lucy whispered.  "I don't want to lose either of them, but I can do nothing to help them in my state.  I will go with you and aid you in whatever plans you may imagine, but I cannot give what I do not have, and I have precious little."               Alex looked back through the woods the way he had come, straining his eyes in a vain hope that he would see the missing members of his patrol coming to through the growth together.  No such vision appeared, however, and he was left to make the sort of decision that no commander ever wished to make.  He could either return, hoping against hope that some plan could be devised to conquer to lutin encampment and reclaim his remaining team, or he could move south, hoping that a rescue team could be sent in time to rescue what little might remain of the two after weeks of torture.               Lucy's words, though he tried his best to refuse them, held true.  She was completely exhausted, and would be of little use beyond a second pair of eyes in any rescue attempt.  His own state was hardly preferable; while he had not received any personal injuries in the fight, he had used much of his strength in the escape effort.  His own contribution to a rescue mission would be negligible, and there was still the matter of a shaman that had to be dealt with.               "I...  We will continue moving south as quickly as we can."  Alex felt as though he had just signed the execution order on the two men they had left behind.  There was no time to lament the situation now, though.  If they had any chance of saving their friends, they would have to move now.  "Hurry, we need to find someone quickly if we have any chance of sending a rescue party."               The two companions continued their southward trek, all thought of stealth abandoned as they focused their limited energy on moving as quickly as possible.  They hoped that they would somehow find someone nearby to help them, but moved with a desperation born from being convinced that help would not be found north of the Dike.  Any chance of success rested on haste, and they were not going to leave that to chance.   *          *          *               Lois held his breath for a moment, eyes fixed on the shaman as he lay on the ground.  After watching his dagger drop the target, only to have him stand back up a moment later.  He hoped that he would stay down, but he wasn't going to bet on it.  While he made sure that no miraculous resurrection was forthcoming, the lutins fled in terror through the forest around him, their stumbling flight and terrified cries getting progressively quieter as they left.  As the last few voices fell to silence, Lois release the breath he had been holding and carefully unloaded a dart from his blowgun and replaced it on a ring in a special pouch.  A dagger had not done the job, but poison seemed to keep the shaman down.               He began to return his blowgun to its own position, but paused to note some new damage that it had sustained.  Two punctures had been drilled through the hollow tube right where he had blown into it, and a few small channels had been dug around it breadth, marking his tight grip on the weapon.  He noted the punctures from his teeth with some chagrin; using a blowgun with a muzzle was more of a challenge than he had expected.               He retired the weapon to its pouch and jumped from the tree, cushioning his fall carefully to make as little sound as possible.  He approached the fallen form of the shaman first, sliding into a kneeling position by the lutin's head.  He drew a dagger and made sure the deed was done, several times in fact, before he sat back, taking a breath before cleaning and replacing his dagger.               Lois moved over to Gerard then, quickly checking to make sure that the stag was still breathing.  He seemed stable enough, so Lois moved down the man's body, checking for any obvious injuries.  He had not arrived until the damage was already done, so he was not certain exactly what had caused the man's collapse.  He found nothing on the upper body, but found his answer before he even moved to check the lower body.  One of the stag's legs was bent in a decidedly unnatural direction, and streaks of blood told the ermine that the break was reasonably severe.  He carefully checked around the injury for any signs of bones protruding, but found none that were still breaking through.  He found several cuts; likely, the lutins had handled him roughly enough to cause the injuries without permanently puncturing the skin.  That didn't make the cuts any less concerning, but it was somewhat easier to deal with when there was no bone that needed to be carefully maneuvered back into the leg.               A careful check down the leg revealed that the fracture itself would be complicated enough.  It wasn't a simple snap; from a clear point of impact, the bone had been nearly pulverized, and the surrounding area also sported multiple fractures.  Lois winced.  He knew enough field medicine to save a life, but he lacked the medical skills to properly care for such a break, and also had no magical skills to help him explore the fine details of the problem.  He would try to stabilize the injury, and hope that someone with medical expertise would find them in time to repair what Lois could not.               It took Lois several minutes, but he managed to get a working splint in place, using bandages in his supplies and a suitably straight piece of firewood to keep the leg steady.  With this done, he took a few breaths before considering his next course of action.               He wasn't sure where the others had gone.  The last he had seen of Lucy, she had been engaged in heated combat with the lutin wizard.  Worst case scenario, her body was somewhere nearby.  Best case scenario, she had beaten the wizard back and been unable to totally deal with the other lutins, and had taken a tactical retreat to regroup.  In between those was the possibility that she had been defeated, but had fallen somewhere on the battlefield, alive but injured.               The assassin ran a quick scan of the battlefield and the surrounding trees, but didn't find the child mage anywhere.  That left Alex, and that last he had seen of the lynx, he had been with Gerard...               /Gerard's face is drawn taut, tense with pain, anger, defiance.  He spits a defiant challenge to the lutin; pain in every word, but only physical pain.  Panics only when the lutin shows the fetish stone.../               Lois snapped back to reality, remembering the key facts about the short encounter he had seen between the shaman and Gerard.  The stag had been in pain, but he had shown no sign of pain beyond that in his leg.  The ermine sighed.  If he read the signs correctly, Alex was alive the last time the stag had seen the lynx, and Gerard seemed confident of his chance of survival.               Whatever the fate of the other two, Lois still had to make sure that neither he nor Gerard would come to any harm.  He glanced at the stag and grimaced.  If he had been awake and able to help with his good leg, the assassin realized he would still have trouble getting anywhere.  There was nothing to be done for it, though.  They couldn't stay in the clearing; any lutins who had been separated from the group when they fled could return at any moment, and a gathering of vultures was sure to attract any nearby encampments.               Nothing remained but the obvious, as hard as it was.  Lois stood behind the unconscious stag and lifted him as well as he could, bracing himself so that he could check on his splint.  It seemed to be holding, and didn't seem to be obstructed in any way.  With a deep breath he began to pull, walking backwards several steps before taking a small breather.  No complications had come out of the short pull, so Lois started quickly with another section of the clearing, making slow progress towards the edge of the clearing.               Several more sections progressed like this, with Lois taking a moment to breath and check the splint before attempting each successive pull.  It took him the better part of ten minutes, but he finally had his unconscious friend deep enough into the forest to feel comfortable.  He quickly returned to the lutin camp and cut out a large section of cloth from the tent, measuring as well as he could from memory and using his dagger to slice cleanly through the material.  He returned to his comatose friend and used the tent material to cover him, as well as giving him a more plane surface to work on as he began to use quickly harvested branches from nearby trees to help the stag blend into the surrounding vegetation.  Personal cover was secondary; once he had everything set up, he would watch from the trees and make sure no one stumbled over Gerard as they went on their way.   <span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">            Once that was done, Lois settled into the tree, watching and waiting, while at the same time hoping that he would be able to stay awake himself.  The fight had been taxing, and the injuries he had sustained, while under control, had still contributed to his exhaustion due to blood loss.  He would give it his best shot, though.  There was no way that he was letting anyone get to Gerard on his watch. !DSPAM:4e436967131711804284693! </body> </html>