Bruce Cordell: Lady of Poison

Marrec saved Emmon, and both survived the punishments given them by their parents for their foolishness. When Marrec reached his sixteenth year, he took a commission with the village militia, such as it was. Though his adopted father would have preferred Marrec enter the family business, he was supportive of his son’s decision. After all, Marrec was something of a natural when it came to the arts of the warrior. Though far less suited, Emmon followed Marrec’s example.

Yhe crash of metal and a gurgling roar startled Marrec from reverie. He hadn’t gone more than a mile since leaving Fullpoint behind. Thrusting aside the forest growth without further regard for stealth, Marrec rushed forward several dozen feet. His dash ended as he broke out of the trees into a shaded glade.

He arrived in time to witness Gunggari slam his warclub into a rot fiend’s head. The blighted creature was one of half a dozen more pustule-ridden forest folk assembled in the glade in various postures, all inimical, though a few lay unmoving near Gunggari. Glad though he was to see his friend, his eyes darted past the Oslander. Standing plain as day was a massive lion-like beast whose skin was so encrusted with fungus that it seemed a shade of green. Marrec estimated that the lion stood six feet tall at the shoulder. The beast screamed, giving voice to the same shattering roar that Marrec had first heard. It was rooting after something caught in the bole of a large tree.

“By the Circle of Leth, you shall not have her!” called out a female voice.

A woman in warrior’s garb dropped into view from above the dire beast, swinging a leaf-shaped blade. She had been hiding in the tree. Her fall was purposeful; she struck the fungal lion a nasty blow with her blade as she fell past. Her precipitous drop ended in an expert roll that not only cushioned her impact but also put her just out of range of the beast’s first claw swipe. Marrec didn’t know who the woman was, but she already had his respect.

Then he saw the little girl behind the tree. She had to be Hemish’s foundling, Ash.

Marrec bolted forward, trying to skirt the volodnis. Gunggari would be able to deal with them. He hoped. Marrec doubted that the valorous woman would do as well against the savage beast without some help. It was his cue to act.

A bolt of black rot diverted Marrec. One of the rot fiends was tossing around potent magic. The bolt missed, striking an old tree stump. The stump immediately began to rot and molder. Marrec hoped the courageous woman could hold out a few more seconds against the beast. He first had to deal with the blighted forest creature that was versed in sorcery, and not a pleasant sort of sorcery.

He pointed his spear at the one who’d cast the enchantment his way, saying, “Leave, and we’ll let you go without harm.”

The one he pointed to sneered, breaking open a fluid-filled boil on its face as it did so. “It is you who should leave. We require the Horned Aspect. Lest blight take you, deliver her!”

Horned Aspect? He’d worry about that later. Too many names to match up with faces, though he wondered if the creature referred to Ash. He decided that his job of the moment was to see that the sorcerer ate its words.

Almost of its own accord, Justlance took flight. He knew even as the shaft left his grasp that it would speed true. He had just time enough to see the sorcerer’s filmy eyes widen before another volodni knocked him to his knees with a blow from behind. Where’d that little stinker come from?

He tried to spin around and back, though it was difficult on his knees. His immediate aggressor clutched an iron-headed mace. It grinned. “Too bad you had to kill Molkai,” it said, gesturing to where the sorcerer volodni was pinned to a tree by Justlance. “Now I kill you, easy.”

The mace-wielder had no way of knowing Marrec’s secret, so when the rot fiend’s triumphant charge ended suddenly on the point of Justlance, its look of surprise before it expired was absolutely justified. An instant prior to stopping the charge, Justlance left the quivering body of the nearby volodni sorcerer. His spear could never be parted from its owner for long.

Gunggari had about mopped up the last of the remaining volodnis. Marrec levered himself to his feet and looked for Ash… Ah! The child still sheltered partly behind the roots of the large tree. Ash’s unknown female protector was also still in the game, rushing in to hack at the fungal lion, then dancing away just in time to avoid a lethal claw swipe. If the creature hadn’t been so focused on going back for the child, Marrec wondered if the woman would have fared so well. Each time it broke off its pursuit of the woman, she slashed it again with her blade. Still, she was obviously tired, while the greened lion seemed as strong as ever despite several lines of its own blood on its sides and some quantity of the same squalid fluid the volodnis leaked.

“Let’s get the cat, Gunggari!” shouted Marrec as he dashed in on the lion’s flank.

The woman heard him, too. As he came up behind and to one side of the lion and gave it a good jab with his spear, she closed on the opposite side, her leaf-shaped sword stabbing and slashing. The lion turned and swatted at him with a huge claw, green with rot, but he got out of the way. The woman got in another few telling blows, taking advantage of the creature’s divided attention.

Gunggari finally showed up, his dizheri soaked and matted with evidence of its recent work. He swung it around with both hands, connecting solidly with the side of the creature’s head. It yelped, blinking, and shook its head.

“It’s dazed,” yelled the woman. “Finish it!”

Marrec didn’t need to be told twice. He and Justlance got to work. With another mighty bash from the dizheri, the lion collapsed, unmoving.

In the ensuing quiet, Marrec and Gunggari eyed the woman. Dressed in sturdy brown and green leathers, she looked like she was more than at home in the forest. Of course! Her thin build and elongated featuresshe was an elf, though her hair hid the most telltale sign.

Marrec said to her, across the length of the unmoving lion, “I am Marrec. Gunggari,” he inclined his head toward the Oslander, “and I chased these monsters down. They kidnapped a child from a village they attacked.” He gestured back toward the girl. “Her father will be overjoyed to discover your part in saving her. Thank you.”

The elf smiled in acknowledgement but said nothing. She looked over to where Ash sheltered.

Ash had left the tree’s shadow and walked tentatively up to join them. All eyes fixed on the frail girl dressed in a simple peasant dress.

The girl glanced at each of them for a second, and said, “Ash.”

She looked to be between four and five years of age.

The unicorn warrior looked the child over for injuries. She seemed unscratched. Poor little tyke. He ruffled Ash’s hair. The girl merely looked at him, staying silent.

No doubt she was still frightened by her recent kidnapping. He felt an instant fatherly affection for her, partly because he couldn’t help identifying with her. They were both orphans, though of course he wondered if her actual origin could be as strange as his own.

“What did she say?” wondered the elf.

“Ash is her name,” indicated Marrec, looking to the girl then back to the woman.

The elf figured out his unspoken question. She smiled again and raised her sword to her brow, as if a salute. “I am Elowen. I am a Nentyar hunter in service with the Circle of Leth. I’ve been trailing these volodnis for some time, trying to find out more about their recent incursions.”

Marrec was unfamiliar with most of those names. He decided to pursue the rot fiend topic. “They look like volodnis of which I’ve heard, but there is something wrong with these,” he said, pointing at the corpses.