Month: December 2018

Tiernan had been given one of the cardinals.  Of the four cardinal points of the compass, he’d been charged with watching for enemies coming from their northern flank.  Since the group was moving south down the forest road, Tiernan was given the unenviable charge to watch the backwoods from behind.  This meant he had to either walk backward or constantly turn or look over his shoulder—a bit disorienting if trying to keep up.  At best, all he could do would be to provide a warning as the others with weapons responded to it.  O’Brian had said this was important.  He wasn’t sure how much he trusted O’Brian, but he’d sounded convincing.  “The things that hunt us will most likely come at us from behind,” O’Brian had said.  “Tiernan, since you seem to be a bit taller than the others, I’m giving you the north flank to watch.  Close your eyes, adjust for the lack of light.  Then look and listen.  The satyrs are fast and cunning.  Dangerous.  You won’t hear their footfalls, only the swishes of parting brush as they move through it.  They move like deer.  Weaving and darting through the narrow gaps, faster than you can imagine.  It is pointless to try and outrun them so we will have to stand them off.  The fires are behind us, so that may deter them from coming straight down on us, but they will angle around if they can.  They are attracted to the fires, but they will not go far into them.  Hair burns easily, and these are shaggy and unkempt.  Enough of them have caught fire cavorting about to learn caution and the smoke disorients them.  They snuffle and grunt when they run, so if they are close you’ll hear it.”

When they had seen the silhouette of The Pan, O’Brian had told them to stay back and stay silent.  He’d spoken to Begglar and placed him in the lead, and then moved ahead disappearing into the haze of smoke crossing over the road.  And that was the last they had seen of O’Brian, for nearly an hour by his reckoning.

He’d searched the woods carefully, seeing moving shadows under the sighing of the trees, but nothing exactly as O’Brian had described.  He’d heard phantom sounds, from the left northwesterly direction and the right northeastern edge of the Trathorn but the sounds could easily be mistaken for water noise from the continuance of the river moving southward over rocky rapids down the mountain slopes.  The smells were mixed with the pungent and sickly-sweet odors of the rotting flesh dangling overhead from the high branches of the towering trees.  He dared not think about the relative freshness of the grisly ornaments that they still were wet enough to give off such pungency.  It was threatening and disturbing, almost plunging him back into the nightmare he’d lived through back in the Surface World.  He felt naked without a weapon, but strangely calm, despite it.  He too had a sense of the uncanny power in the Ancient Texts.  When spoken aloud the words seemed to vibrate within the air of this strange place.  Timeless voices that seemed to return to him from days raised in a community of faith before the war called him away.

And then the noises came.

Something moving quickly with a pattering sound as forest plants parted in leafy slaps of the body that disturbed their hush.  Another noise to the left, accompanied by a quick splash of water and rapid muffled thumps.

A breathy “Henuh, henuh, henuh!” sound came from the northwesterly movements, and Tiernan responded.

“Guys!” his voice rose in pitch as the noises grew louder, “I think one or two are moving in behind us.”

“Got it, keep your voice down,” Christie responded, raising her ornate sword to guard position as Ezra had shone her.

Mason notched an arrow and swung his bow around, “I’ll cover you.  O’Brian said they have knives and clubs.  If I can get a clean shot, I’ll drop him.  Tiernan, where did you last see it?”

“It moved from the left from deeper back to that mossy stone outcropping,” he whispered low enough so that the ears in the forest beyond wouldn’t hear.

The light filtering from the canopy above dappled them in grey leafy shadows.  Mason closed his eyes for a moment, adjusting them to the light of the gloom beyond.  Christie was miffed a little.

“What’s wrong boys,” she muttered, “Don’t think a girl can handle this?”

“It’s not that, Lass,” Begglar spoke up, “It’s that you bear a short-range weapon.  If we can keep them at a distance, we need to.  Save your strength for when they move in.  You’ll get your fill.”

“Shouldn’t we save the arrows,” Christie asked, and she inclined her head to Mason, who had opened his eyes, was staring intently at the spot Tiernan had indicated while pulling the bow back with the point of the arrow closing in on his knuckled grip.  “Suppose he misses.”

Mason’s eyes squinted, and his voice lowered an octave, piqued, “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Matt spoke up, “Mason’s a bowhunter.  He hates tromping through the brush after a lost arrow.  Don’t worry, Miss.  He’ll wait till he gets a clean shot.”

Mason’s scowl softened a bit, hearing this from Matt.

“Back home we call him the red man,” Matt added.  Gesturing upward at the top of his red hair.

The scowl on Mason’s face returned, even as the impish grin spread across Matt’s as he winked at Christie.

Christie smiled, and reached over patting Mason’s shoulder, “You’ve got this, kiddo.”

Matt added, “Just kiddin’ you, Mace.  Put a feather in the nasty goat-man.  Wish I had those pick-axes.”

***

Back in Azragoth, Morgrath and his soldiers looked startled when a soldier asked, “Where have all the cats gone?”

Of course, Morgrath realized.  The room at the top of the Keep towers had several cats that would often rally and intertwine the feet of visitors to the upper tower room upon entry from the tower stairwell.  The cats were kept there to keep mice and rats from infesting the grain silos.  Naturally, the rodents were attracted to the silos because of the grain.  They could scale the wall of the keep, ascend the stairs, climb up from the tunnels below, scurry along the rafters, wedge themselves through the loose mortar between the stones, enter through the narrow window slits in the towers and gatehouses.  They would have been a terrible scourge were it not for the cats and the birds of prey nesting in the nooks and crannies and battlements atop the towers of the Keep.

Now their sudden absence caused an even greater unsettling of mind and a more heightened sense of danger.

A soldier named Selanth emerged from one of the side tunnels having gone through to the grain silo and the gantry room next to it.

His face was pale and ashen as he announced, “They’re all dead in there.”

“What?!”

“Dulos and the others.  The grain doors are open.  I could see their bodies down below.  The storage wells are spoiled with the rot of the dead.  Wasted.”

Another soldier emerged from the opposing corridor to the other silo.

“What he says is true over here, as well.  The meal tower is opened and bodies filled the room.  The rest of the watch have been slain and cast into the silos.  Amaran is looking into the other tower on this side, but I have no doubt he may find the same.”

The mentioned Amaran emerged from behind.

“Sir, there are dead in both of the northern silos.  No sign of the enemy dead.”

Morgrath turned away glaring down into the blackness of the descending stairwell leading to the tunnel network below.

“No sign of their dead,” he muttered to himself thinking long and hard about what that might mean.  “What possible could so overwhelm these seasoned guards and not suffer losses for the effort?”

“Sir?” Selanth spoke up hesitantly, “I did notice something odd in both areas.  Perhaps it matters, perhaps not?”

Morgrath sighed and turned back to the soldier.

“What?”

“Tunnel sand, sir,” he said, “It is strewn all over the floor in there, down the hallway.”

“And there, sir, more of it there.” he pointed to the floor around the dark entrance to the stairs below.

Four drifts, elongated and irregularly shaped mounds of dry sand matching that found in the tunnels below the city.  The mounds had been strewn and kicked about but there was something odd about them and yet familiar.

He knelt and ran his gloved fingers through the mound, letting the loose grains sift through his fingers.  His eyes widened and then he suddenly rose and pivoted, almost running towards the capstan rooms.

“We have to release the grain into the sluice gates.  Flood them quickly.  There is little time.  Hurry!”

The metal staves had been removed and four men gathered behind the capstan spindle arms and began to push the grinding capstan spindle.

Others who did not understand began to protest, “That is our yearly harvest.”

“We can remove the bodies and salvage most of the grain.”

“Why are we doing this?”

Morgrath’s muscles bunched as he and his companions began to slowly turn the grinding spindle.

“The slain of the enemy is present all around us.  They are in the sand.”

The other soldiers at the other capstan began pushing the spindle and far below in the bottom of the silos gears groaned under extreme weight and a shift in pressure.  Fine dust and powder coughed up in a yellowish-white billow from the central stairwell accompanied by a growing hiss sound.

“Push!  There is an army in the tunnels below us, because of that Dust Dragon!” Morgrath commanded them, “Push with all your might!”

From the stairwell, a sudden wailing shriek arose, followed by another.  Then another.  Terrible cacophonous noises arose as well as a rumbling groan and cracking of the wood and falling stone, like the sound of an avalanche coming from the deep throat of the descending stairs.

***

Maeven could see the satyr as it shifted swiftly from deep shadow to deep shadow.  She could hear its snuffling grunts as it crossed in and out of the dappled light, brushing leaves as it crossed closer towards its quarry ahead, intent on stirring up as much terror as it could.  All she had in her possession was the knife she’d used to cut Will free of his bonds that the Troll had bound him with, but nothing more.  She knew the creature would get wind of her soon enough if she wasn’t careful, but from the looks of its actions, it seemed more intent on stalking the party of Surface Worlders ahead.

It crouched low by the stone outcropping, hunkered down but peering furtively over the mossy rock, glaring with hate-filled eyes at the circle of travelers warily searching the surrounding forest from all directions.  She heard him chortle to himself as he watched them.

A voice of strange timber, hiss out from his sharpened teeth, “Pretties gather.  Cut’s them we will.  Bleed them.  Soon we feed them.”

Maeven saw the saw-toothed flint blade in the creature’s dirty hand as it leaned up against the rock, sniffing.  Its bare, back was marked with dark soot and ash so that it could not be seen moving among the shadows.  A line of matted fur rose from his midriff wool up the middle of his back.  A sheen of sweat stood upon the oil of its body, smears of black with finger lines raked through it, hatched its skin, giving the illusion that its body was part of the forest background, a tactic it had used on more than one occasion to fool and surprise the dryads.

***

Just as Dellitch the Harpy had suspected, the foolish, hot-headed dryad climbed up through the canopy to confront her.

She came bearing something shrouded in her arms only too willing to thrust it upward as she emerged through the top of the canopy.  A severed claw, gnarled with age, but held proudly before her, as vines twisted around the body of the dryad lifting her above the tops of the trees to glare fiercely at the Harpy.

“How dare you interrupt our sport!” she hissed with the sound of stirring leaves.

Dellitch laughed harshly, “Sport?!  Is that what you are calling it now?”

Syloam spat back, “This wood is ours, your kind have no right to come here!  We had an agreement!”

“We are under orders, Leafy,” Dellitch chirruped back, her large owlish eyes widening then narrowing to slits at the object the dryad held in her hand warding her back like it was some sort of protective talisman.

“Under whose orders, hag-face?!” Syloam twisted upward, vines sprouting from her back and sides in a tentacular mass.

“Careful, you voluptuous collection of sticks!  You have a Surface Worlder in your lair.  That is contraband.  You know the orders of The Pan!”

“Shut up, pig bat!  You know as well as I do, The Pan does not forbid our sporting with these outworlders.  He wants a way back as much as we do!”

The harpy leaned forward, a dark milky froth seeping down its black-feathered breast, dripping down upon the curl and knuckles of its claws as it adjusted its weight and balance on the barren limb.

“Not in the order you ascribe.  These are to be brought to him first, and then he gives you leave to ‘sport’ with them.  Your mind is as twisted as your branches.”

White pearlescent drops dripped from the metal shanks on the harpy’s legs and wet the dark black talons clutching and splaying outward letting the milky substance bead and moisten the sharp points, as the harpy held the dryads in a steely glare.  A half-smirk curled her age cracked lips, as her eyes bulged and narrowed almost hypnotically, anticipating the imminent attack.  Her hunger for the violence of it barely contained almost making her giddy.

What the harpy did not see were the other eyes that watched and witnessed the exchange, barely peeking upward with beautiful faces below the leafy canopy.

***

I moved through the smoke, following the silhouette that shifted under the ghostly light.  I could hear the Pan’s deep, resonant voice addressing someone ahead as it rumbled through the ground like a bass register.  He stood amid moving shapes and shadows and I knew that these would be his retinue of satyrs, eager for whatever mischief he set them to.  I heard their grunting noises as they reveled about him, vying for attention.  The smoke masked the oils and scents that would reveal me long before I came into view, yet I heard the Pan taking in deep snuffling breaths trying to measure his surroundings to offset his hampered ability to see them.  I heard splashing in the lapping water, so I knew the backwatered slough was near and it would be giving off its own brackish scents to mingle into the miasma of forest fragrances.

“Where are my manticores?” the deep voice rumbled to someone, I did not perceive to be a satyr.

Oh no, I thought, this is not going to bode well for the one being questioned.

A piggish grunt came back, distinctive of what I knew to be the sound of a creature we had already encountered in our travels.

“Your worship,” the piggish grunt, sounded chastised, and apologetic, almost groveling, “All did not go according to plan.  There were some…losses.”

A deeper growl rumbled from below, “Losses?  Well, now.  Losses are to be expected.  Counting Morgrawr, I sent you twenty-six of these mighty beasts.  How many are left?”

***

Lindsey noticed the birds first.

She hated that she had lost her weapon in the lake.  She had much rather fight, than watch the overhead canopy, especially since those horrible rotting heads dangled from above.

Christopher and Matthew got the east and the western sides to peer into, but she had to glare at those nasty vile danglers, and somehow watch for movements beyond them.  Large shadows had passed over the tops of the trees.  She had seen the silhouettes passing and gliding overhead against the hazy yellow sky.  It was eerie.  She imagined Sulphur clouds under a waning sun.  The smell of it felt about right.  No telling what all manner of creatures roamed this world of contradictions.  In some respects, beautiful, and serene.  Unspoiled mountain vistas that bore no sign of powerlines crawling up them, or pipelines stair-stepping from pump-station to pump-station to keep the internal pressure high enough ensure delivery to valley communities beyond.  No cutback ski runs or switchback trails.  Pristine wilderness…inhabited by monsters.

It was difficult to see them through the dark clusters of leaves swaying and rustling so far above.  With the slightest noise, these large birds curved and swirled down in gyres, punching deftly through the canopy and gliding to dark limbs high above.  As they settled upon the limbs they appeared larger than she had expected.  But with only a slight flutter, they remained quiet in the darkness.  Unmoving.  Waiting.

“I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but there appear to be some awfully large birds high up in the branches above us,” she said loud enough for only the company to hear her.

Miray couldn’t help herself.  She looked upward, saw the array of death above her…and screamed.

***

Will heard the voices above raised in anger, but there was nothing he could do.  The girl had left him tied in the half-cage of woven vines and branches.  Leafy walls surrounded him, keeping much of the sidelight out except for a few dappled rays from the sun.  He was disoriented.  Did not know how long he’d been held here.  His thoughts and memories were not clear.  His shirt was open, his chest bared.  He remembered the girl.  Such beautiful and haunting green eyes.

And dust…

Some kind of yellowish dust that coated his face and hands.  He’d wiped some of it off on his shoulder.  Weird.

He was now sweating profusely.  Every movement, every struggle against his bonds seemed to sway the cage in which he found himself.  He smelled the distinct odor of smoke and heard a distant crackling sound accompanied by a series of whooshing noises.

Man, it is getting warm in here, he thought as he struggled again against the vines.  This time they felt a bit looser than before as if some of the fibers had at last torn in all his wrenching and thrashing about.

He doubted if the girl would be back anytime soon.  But something was coming this way.  The crackling, whooshing, and popping noises were getting louder.  He was so confused.  And he was so irritated by how hot it was getting.

***

“You are not welcome in our forest,” Syloam hissed her bristling green body now circling the harpy, as moving branches lifted her like a large spider walking spindly-legged over the tops of the trees.

“Upon that, you’ve made yourself clear, Wood-Rot,” Dellitch cawed threateningly, “Why don’t you go suck on a sour root and leave me to my business.  I could blight this entire forest if I wanted to.”

The harpy’s large golden eyes followed the movements of the dryad, its black pupil narrowing against the yellowing smoke drifting up from the canopy below.

As Dellitch made ever so slight turns of her head following the path of the cagy dryad, a small vine from the canopy below quietly extended upward, circling the barren limb upon which she rested.

“It was you, Scowl Owl, who interrupted my business remember?” Syloam fluttered, “You who put your meddling claw where it does not belong.”

The tendril vine looped and twisted, snaking silently towards the grip of the harpy, fastened along the dried branch.

“You’ll find these claws not so ornamentally accommodating as you might think,” Dellitch responded, moving a half step to the left, flaring a talon and nicking the tendril vine with a tiny pricking cut.  The vine’s movement ceased and its small leaves crinkled and browned.  Its central stalk drying and hardening rapidly to become brittle.

The harpy’s neck twist and peered downward in an instant, then shot up and glared daggers at the dryad, “Clever!”

A gasp arose from below and then shrieking.  A form twisted and jerked in the canopy, thrust upward, leaves parting, showing a lithe female body, swathed in a covering of moss that was rapidly becoming mottled and black.  Bark sloughed off of the thrashing figure as she then fell backward enveloped again in the canopy but the sounds of crashing and limbs cracking accompanied her plunge below.

The harpy’s head twisted at what seemed to be an impossible angle as she screeched at Syloam, “Clever, but foolish!” and then launched herself, claws flared at the dryad.

Seven other dryads, lurking below the canopy launched upward to surround the harpy, hoping to entangle her before she could gain altitude, but two of them were stopped short as something from below latched on to them and jerked them back downward, shrieking and quivering toward the forest floor.

Syloam shrank backward, falling behind the other dryads who had risen upward through the treetops, she dove underneath the leaves heading downward, vines folding behind her, branches tucked away, rapidly shifting her hybrid visage back into that of a woman.  She had to get to her prize.  No one could take her prize possession.  He was the key through which they would get past the doorway.  The one whose seed would be sown in blood.

The sight that met her eyes, however, caused her to shriek and flail, trying to stop her downward movement.

The forest floor and the lower trees were on fire.  One of the dryad sisters lay in the midst of the smoldering flames, engulfed in smoke, her blighted branches now twisted and blackened and stilled.

***

The basket room lurched, and Will was twisted from side to side, as movements from outside struck the outer wall of the cage in which he was kept.  He heard vines snapping, and a ripping tearing noise as if the branches above had just been struck by lightning.  The cage spun, tossing his legs from side to side, then pitched downward, canted as if two or three or four thick vines holding it within the tops of the trees had snapped loose.  Large black claws pierce the ceiling above him, but he could not see outside, what manner of beasts it was that held him.  He heard a familiar laughing as the cage lurched again and parts of the edge of the basket browned and grew brittle, snapping loose a few of the curved thatch that revealed how high he was above the forest floor now black and grey with smoke and soot.  Erupting with flash fires, as the dried brush was kindled into flame.  The floor sagged and browned as well, and the heel of his foot punched through the weave.  Four pairs of large black talons pierced the half-ceiling and he was sure he saw black feathered wings push air through the porous wall in a heavy downdraft as the leafy sky beyond began to move past the opening.

***

“Murderer!” a shriek rang out, from the trees, rapidly moving towards the slough.

“Slaughterer!  Thief!  Liar!” more voices like the sound of rushing winds and waves breaking upon a rocky seashore in a storm, increase in volume as the trees in the distance shook and shuddered, accompanied by a blast of leaves swirling and exploding outward.  The haze of the smoke from the backwoods accompanied the forceful sounds forming a swirling nimbus around the angered accusers rushing towards the Slough where Grum-blud stood quivering before the towering figure of The Pan.

The satyrs scurried forward, leaving their mighty forest king, eager to meet the coming voices filled with ire for their master.

The angular face of a crone, sharp and aquiline, with a white and gray nimbus of wild hair, and a pair black and golden eyes peered down into the bower where the young man was held, wrapped in vines.  A young woman with piercing emerald eyes, pawed at the young man, stroking his face and brow, arms and chest, whispering to him words that could not be overheard, but seemed to have an effect on him so that he blushed, and his eyes widened at what she was saying.  A net of woven branches and vines formed a mesh beneath them, yet the leafy canopy from the top was partially open to the treetops and the sky beyond.

“What you got in there, twigsy?!”

The voice was harsh and raspy as if spoken by someone who had spent their whole life filling their mouth and lungs with smoke, desiccating their vocal cords.  The young woman started and turned her head upward, searching for the source of the raspy voice.

The crone cackled, her angular and aged face disappearing from one vantage point and then reappearing from another, outside of the girl’s field of search.

A patina of leafy green passed over the girl’s face as she searched the leafy canopy encircled about her and the young man.

“He’s mine!” she spat and hissed at the seemingly disembodied voice, “I found him!”

The branches above shook rustling the thick mats of leaves covering the high bower, as whatever it was seemed to bound over the top of the canopy, shrieking and laughing harshly.

The young man looked up beyond the girl, his face previously enraptured and enchanted by the attentions of the beautiful girl, now seemed to shake the influence and glare angrily.

“Leave us alone!” he yelled, “Go away!”

He made an effort to strike out at the being but felt hindered, only now seeming to realize, with puzzlement, that his arms and legs were entangled in the vines holding him to the woven walls.

From behind him, the old crone’s face appeared through the dense leaves, “He doesn’t know what you are!” she cackled, shrieking with derisive laughter.

“Tell him what you are, woody dear!” and her head ducked away, as the nymph girl turned suddenly, seeing only the rustle of leaves as they enfolded over the retracted darting face of the ugly crone.

A raw, throaty whisper, rasped, “Tell him what you are!”

The girl lunged at the dense leaves, vines sprouting angrily from her fingertips, “Harpy!  Child-killing harpy!”

A sheath of vines and foliage shrouded the woman’s once smooth, cream-colored complexion, as her anger flared, forgetting to maintain the illusion for the young man she had beckoned and wooed, awaiting her in the cocoon bower below.  Her body rustled with unfolding leaves, and an intricate network of veins that wrapped her body like swirling, grids of tattoo work, rapidly inking her smooth luxuriant skin before his very eyes as she crawled up the sides and along the ceiling of the vine-woven cage she had brought him to for more private intimate attention.

The young man’s eyes went wide in terror, realizing what he’d thought was a sensuous young woman was actually something else entirely.  He struggled violently against the vines that held him, his heart racing his breathing becoming labored and panicked, expelling some of the pheromonal dust he’d breathed in.

“What ARE you?”

The dryad woman cursed and hissed in frustration at the old crone somewhere on the outside of the bower cocoon.

“Mood-killer!  Meddling bat-faced hag!”

Then remembering her captive, she gasped and turned to look downward at him, her skin suddenly smoothing out, the varicose vascular lines fading and descending back below her epidermal layer, the sprouted leaves covering her slender feminine figure shrinking and withering down to disappear within her dilated pores.  A patina of green flashed over her complexion as she fought to regain her blushing composure for the young man’s benefit.

She coughed at him, expelling a puff of yellow smoke from her pouted lips that rained down a cloud of fine dust upon the bound young man.  “Tell me your name again, sweet, beautiful man,” she said seductively, as she slid sinuously down from a vine in the ceiling.

A euphoric glaze seemed to pass over the young man as he again breathed in the dust, forgetting his panic, surrendering once more to the desire that had beckoned him to follow the young woman when she’d invited him to play.

“My name is Will,” he said, his mind surrendering the memory of what he’d just witnessed, to the possibility that whatever this yellow dust was that covered his face and body must be some hallucinogen and that the scare he’d just had was only a temporary drug-induced nightmare attempting to replace the pleasure of the dream he wanted to come true with this exotic and fascinating girl.

The girl responded, her voice soothing and soft as warm butter, “And my name is Syloam.  You are a very beautiful man, Will and I want you.  I am going to have you…WITHOUT INTERRUPTIONS!” she added the last loudly directed to the cone-faced creature that had harassed her and distracted her from without.

She moved down to his level, knelt and placed her hands upon his shoulders, then ran them smoothly up the sides of his neck, kneading his tense muscles as she did so, and then proceeded to cup the sides of his face, move forward and kissing his face gently with soft feather touches of her lips.

Her eyes were so beautiful, and Will could not turn away from her as she gazed directly into his own with desire he reciprocated.  Never had he felt such wanting.  She then moved in to kiss him fiercely and hungrily on the mouth, and he struggled forward to meet her but the restraints prevented him from embracing her and holding her.

When she finally withdrew from the kiss, she pulled back, patting his head and tousling his hair like she might a small boy.

“Stay put, Will.  Your Syloam will be right back, shortly.  I just need to ensure we are not interrupted again.”

***

Dellitch the crone-faced Harpy, smiled as she hopped out of the canopy upon a high limb that stood like a crooked talon above the tops of the other trees and was mostly barren of leaves.  The sun’s rays bathed her bizarre body in a golden light revealing her strange features to the witness of the sky.  She made a chirrup-chirrup noise in the back of her throat, a very bird-like sound, as she shuffled and extended her large black feathered wings, and placed her large grey talons with black hooked claws upon the branch adjusting her balance in the breeze that wafted over the forest treetops, rustling and sighing through the leaves making visible its transit along the foliage sea of green.  She bore a feathered ruffle below her jowly neck, like a bola wrap, under which jutted the curved tops of two prodigious grey-skinned bosoms.  Frothy, milky wetness glistened the chest-feather plumage and clabbered in the ruffles below it, giving off the distinctive sour odor of curdled milk.  Her body stood about four feet tall from the crown of her wildly flowing grey hair to the bottoms of her fat clawed feet.  She had no arms to speak of, only large black wings that stretched from twelve to fifteen feet across from tip to tip, with a hooked barb jutting out from the wrist joint at the end of the patagium of each wing.

Harpies were hated by the dryads for many reasons, but certain reasons stood out among the others.  The dryad females found that they were unable to breastfeed their infant children with their mother’s milk.  Tree sap was all their hybrid bodies could produce but it offered no sustenance to the infants.  Cattle had not been domesticated to the point that they might offer their children milk that might nourish their half-human bodies, and the only creatures among them that seemed capable of offering a milk-like drink were the harpies.  The harpies were then not as ancient and old in visage as they were now, and the harpies agreed to share their milk with the dryad nursery on the condition of being given a portion of the forest in which the dryads occupied.  Only the milk was later found to be poisonous to the infant dryads, causing blight to wither and kill their plant nature and spread disease to the trees around them.  The effect of the poison was slow working, but irreversible, and no antidote could be found that would save the lives of the infant dryads.  Further, the disease once spread to the trees and then dispersed in the pollination, worked as a unique genetic pathogen that suppressed the production of Y chromosomes making the dryad females only capable of producing female children, and no males.  The milk of the harpies had served as a death sentence to the race of dryads, and they were forced to flee their home forests and seek virgin forests that were unspoiled by the contagion spread by the Harpies.

Dryads were not vulnerable to the Harpies unless their blood or an open wound was mixed with the lactate of the latter.  For this reason, most dryads were easily cowed by the Harpies, and avoided direct combat with them, lest they be raked with a claw and pressed into their lactating breast ruffle.

Harpies had no offspring.  They were incapable of breeding and resentful of the dryads’ propensity to remain youthful in appearance and evergreen, while they aged and became more and more embittered and ostracized by the other races of Half-men.  They were only too happy to clear out an area of forest from dryads, whenever The Pan requested it, merely by showing up.  They too reciprocally hated the dryads, but it was a matter of deep envy, and a frustrating drive to covet their libertine lifestyle.  They happily occupied the blighted forest that the dryads had vacated.  Since there would never be more of their kind, they felt entitled to it since they had been dealt such a harsh sentence of prolonged misery by the One who had forbidden them to worship any other god or aspect of creation but Him alone.  They too could be killed, and some dryads had been instrumental in bringing that about, but the Harpies felt the loss greater because they could never have more of their kind.  The resentment between the two groups had been growing but held in a delicate balance by The Pan who manipulated both to serve his purposes.

The dryads could be driven to such rages, that they turned on the Harpies and fought them, without thought to the potential consequences, and the Harpies were skilled provocateurs.  The Harpies worked up their vile milk froth, a few days before a conflict, allowing the substance to spill down their front, so that the dryads, who saw and smelled its days-old rancid smell would fear them enough to flee while self-preservation was still at the forefront of their minds.  Being a part bird, they had the advantage of swift flight and could evade the dryads who could only climb after them from the tops of the trees or hope to ensnare them in a woven net and then beat them to death with rocks.  Only the dryads had figured out one other indignity that enraged the Harpies even further.  If they ever could catch one, without the risk of being cut or clawed, they would instead maim the creature by cutting off its feet.  Among the dryads, the severed claw-foot of a Harpy was a sign of warning and they bore it as a crest.

So Dellitch and her harpy sisters had been fitted and prepped with something that only the humans could forge for them, and the trolls in their dealings with The Pan delivered these to them for his distribution to the Harpies, for a commitment that he would employ their threatening services to keep the dryads in line from taking Xarmnian men and boys and give them consequence if they failed to comply.

Dellitch wore these armored fittings proudly on the shanks of her legs down to the knuckles of her clawed feet.  Iron bands that would make the severing of a claw by a dryad from a distance or even up close impossible.  Now Dellitch only had to wait for the angry little dryad to come to her.  Where she would be dealt with swiftly and severely.

***

Beneath the city of Azragoth, deep within the underground network of tunnels, a silent army of hundreds was being slowly awakened.  A twisting, curling breeze of powdered dust-billows sifted through an outside grating, swirled through a pipe chute of silt strained from the dry water run of a splinter-stream and navigated smoky corridors to the darkened parade cavern where the Dust Dragon had established its lair and began reproducing its golem totems from the clay and dust of the hidden city above.  The moldings had begun to cure as their hollow eyes received the powdered stirring, from the strange breeze, that channeled its dusty tendrils into the statuary poised to receive the mysterious breaths of the bizarre streams of curling smoke.

Line after line of clay-figured heads broke their crusted molding as their necks bend back, thrusting the statute figure’s chin upward, their terracotta lips gaping to receive more of the swirling powder.  An eerie sort of respiration noise began deep within the hollow cavity of each golem attended by the tendrils of swirling dust.  Fine powder sloughed off these figures as their fingers curled, and their arms slowly moved with a grating noise as if kiln-fired bricks had been dragged across a slate stone floor.  The eyes of each closed and then blinked open with a white sclera and a jeweled iris dilated almost to blackness.  The first lines of the awakening army had already moved out from the cavern and proceeded down through the darkened tunnels making their way to the hoist chute and winding stair beneath the city leading up to The Keep towers above.  Eight of the previously cured and awakened golems had ascended the winding stair.  Eight who bore the uncanny resemblance to the reluctant leader of the party of Surface Worlders who had left the city, prior to its attack.  Each of these eight carried sharp jagged stones intent on forcing their way into the hidden city above.

***

Captain Thrax had heard of the assault upon General Mattox, and he had heard that while the General was in bad shape, he had barely avoided being mortally wounded by imposters that had somehow infiltrated the city.  A detachment of soldiers, led by Lieutenant Morgrath had been withdrawn from the central bastille and dispatched to The Keep pavilion to investigate a possible breach point through the underground tunnels.  Three of the retinue soldiers of General Mattox had been slain by the traitorous archers before they had been captured and interrogated.  The General had dispatched two riders to seek out Captain Lorgray from the backwoods and call his company in to rally to the city, for all their defenses would be necessary to guard what was soon to come.

The man who had delivered these messages to the Captain had looked vaguely familiar to him, though he was unable to place the name with the face of the messenger.  The thought bothered him, but he did not know why it did.

***

Morgrath moved carefully up the winding stairwell, leaning closely against the inner stone balustrade.  Being left-handed gave him an advantage in the ascent that many of his troops did not have.  With the curve of the interior stair moving in a clockwise rotation upward, the arc of the interior wall gave very little room for one who fought right-handed to draw of swing their sword arm.  Any strike they made towards an attacker above them would be impeded by the need to cross their body to parry the blow of an attacker descending.  Being a left-hander, gave Morgrath the advantage of blocking and hacking the defenses of the opponent, with a reciprocal blow that the offender would have to brush away moving his arm from center to right, against the natural bend of the wrist and elbow.

Morgrath also had both ascended and descended the stairs of The Keep many times and well-knew the cadence of varying lengths and height of the steps so that he could carry feed bags up and down the stairwells without missing a step or faltering upon the uneven parts.  With the ascending towers on either side of the tall Keep, he had hand-picked his men, to include a fair number of left-handers among them, so that interior defense could be affected from the ground up to the top descending stair.  The General had given him an order, that he would normally have been loathed to follow, but he trusted the commander’s instincts and knew, that he would carry it out.  When he and his men had found the dead guard in the turret tower, he knew something was wrong and though his orders seemed extreme, he was worried that perhaps the General was right in the order he had given.

Having had no real way to tell, what was below the city, Morgrath knew that the threat posed by the Dust Dragon they’d found slain by the Surface Worlder called Mr. O’Brian, had shaken several to the vulnerability that the caves and tunnel systems posed if they were discovered by the wrong people.  The chain locked winches would be hard to move, even on the drum spindle, for the silos had been sealed for many, many, years.  Unlocking the traps would be difficult.  The counterweights designed by Nem would, in theory, cause the bulwarks to tilt and buckle, and the weight of the stored grain, would burst the floor and bury the central stair, collapsing its superstructure under tons of flowing grain.  Whatever was down there, would have to find another way, besides The Keep, to gain entrance into the city of Azragoth.

***

Mattox coughed a pinkish froth, as he drew in a shortened ragged breath.  Ezra stood at his side, supporting him with his shoulder, and Mattox’s arm draped around him.

“We need to get you to the surgeon, General,” he spoke quietly but firmly.

Mattox winced as any small movement caused the arrow point to auger in the wound.

He whispered under his breath so that the bound imposters would not hear his response.

“They thrive on weakness,” he muttered, “Mustn’t show…[cough]…”

“The One is strong in our weakness,” Ezra advised, nodding to the other bodyguard to help him withdraw Mattox further from the garrison, toward the apothecary shops and surgeon’s quarters up at the end of the street.

“We will attend to these three,” he said.  The other figure, who had posed as an archer and had shot Mattox, had been felled, by a slinger, and his body had toppled over the wall, falling into the flaming oil trough, and dissolved into the flames.  The fire seemed to flare as the Banshee quitted the golem body-double of O’Brian, and fiery sparks wafted into the air, turning end over end, swirling and then moving outward toward the forest fires ahead.

A breathy sigh, almost a hiss, had attended the expulsion of the Banshee, but it was not clear if any actual harm had been done to it.

As long as these remaining three were contained within these fashioned bodies, they could get into no further mischief.  The problem was, where to keep them in the meantime.

Nem joined Ezra as he surrendered the charge of the care of General Mattox into the capable hands of his trusted bodyguards, Jesh and Kadmi.

“What shall we do with these three?” Ezra asked as the two of them looked away from the General back to the three prisoners tied up.

“These three are why Azragoth has the oubliettes,” Nem said simply.

***

Mattox had been lain upon a thatch-woven frame and was carried by both of his personal guards, Jesh, a tall angular framed warrior whose stature was slightly taller than that of General Mattox, such that, in battle assassins often confused him with the General because they share the same built, but opponents often assumed height signified prominence.  Among the proud Xarmnians, one was never allowed to outshine or stand taller on a battlefield that their commanders and they mistakenly applied their own assumptions on that of their enemies.  Knowing this, the brave man had volunteered for the position and had earned it many times over.  Kadmin was by contrast, fairly short and thick-shouldered.  Between the two of them they covered Mattox from both low and high assaults and Mattox had come to trust and rely on these two men, offering both a command of their own but they had refused and would not leave their General’s side.  Theirs was a duty of honor, and they counted it a privilege.

Mattox tried to rise as he was lifted and carried but they had admonished him to lay still and not let the arrow work any further into the wound.  Mattox sighed and lay back, but spoke urgently, though quietly.

“What is happening with The Keep?” he took in a ragged breath.

“Morgrath is carrying out your orders, sir.  General, I must insist that you…”

Mattox raised a gloved hand, a signal that there was no need.

“Call Lorgray to me as soon as he gets in.  Tell him it is time to seek out and find Jeremiah.  Now that we’ve found the location of the second Honor Sword, it is time that he came back to Azragoth to reclaim the Cordis stone.”

***

The wooden door at the top of the stairway of the Keep had been struck from behind, splintered, cracked, and wrenched off its hinges.  The darkness beyond the broken door frame gaped like an open throat—ominous and sinister—and insatiably hungry.  Morgrath approached it with caution, defensive and ready should something evil emerge from the pregnant darkness below.  His sword was drawn and raised for a quick diagonal slash.  Eleven other men had followed him up the stairwell, ready to rally to his side at his signal.

The stone stairwell leading down into the tunnels below the city was built into the central tower of the Keep, mounted upon jutting corbel blocks and buttressed by crossing interior beams that formed the infrastructure of the central shaft.  A series of small platforms and stone landings descended and twisted into the darkness like a curved gray tongue.  At each landing, there was had been a lighted sconce, but these had been snuffed out so that the interior was cast into pitch blackness.

The small eyelet windows set high in the stone walls above the top of the landing only allowed a certain half-light into the top room but did not penetrate deep enough to light this recessed central doorway.  These light beams which squeezed through the narrow windows swam with shadowy dust motes, swirling like a superimposed microbial universe projected into the air and smelled of a sickly-sweet malt odor.  Morgrath recognized the smell.  Grain dust and ground corn pulverized into cornmeal.  The Keep’s silo doors had been opened as well.  The formerly lighted sconces that once illumined the branching barrel vault hallways on either side had been snuffed and the top guards who regularly stood post at the top of the descending room were nowhere to be found.

The ascent stair tower they had emerged from had external arrow loop windows set within the exterior wall so that the stairs were bathed a certain half-light and did not require lighted braziers or torch sconces during the day, though they were fitted with torch brackets for nighttime ascents.  When they found the top of the stair room darkened, they had struck flint and re-lit a few torches so as not to be taken unaware by whomever or whatever lurked ahead.

Morgrath reached back and took a torch from one of his men.  He lifted the flickering torch and moved closer, seeing only bouncing shadows cast from the twisting firelight within the central doorway.  He lifted it higher as he approached and briefly illumined a portion of the first landing no more than twelve feet below.  He could not be sure but he believed he heard sudden movements from within as if many feet pulled back into the deeper darkness evading the dancing light descending the stairwell.

Two large half-turret rooms flanked the central doorway.  Each featured a large capstan spindle within, bristling with hand-smoothed crossbeams running through the metal-bound drums.  Each capstan was set directly in the center of the circular stone chambers that worked a large wooden column extending from the top of the capstan to a greased borehole in the top of the arched ceiling and then down through the stone floor to some buried mechanical cog and gears deep within the wells of the Keep below.  These vertical shafts were the size of a large ship’s masts and every bit as thick.  Whatever power could be generated to turn these capstan spindles would require more than one man’s strength to move it, however, the large beams crossing the spindle made such a task entirely possible with the effort of at least two men working to push the beams.  This mechanism served a two-fold purpose.  It opened and closed the grain floor sluice troughs below each of the stone silos.  The sheer volume and weight of the grain in the silos did the rest.  Pouring down into the catcher chutes that ran on either side of the wooden stairway that descended to the floor of the caverns below.  The capstans were never turned more than a few feet within the turrets above, for the flow of kernels and grain would become too great and overwhelm the grain chutes and spill out onto the central stair.  Turn these capstans any further and the sluice gates could not be closed by any man or beast for the tonnage of falling grain would overwhelm the stair, slamming into the wooden stairwell and flood the corridors below, until the massive silos were emptied.  To prevent such from happening, metal bar staves were fitted into the floor of the circular room stopping the turn of the capstan spindle.   Each of the staves had a curved eyering at the top, in case they had to be removed and repositioned in the floor as the measured grain levels in each silo required the sluice gate to open wider.

Morgrath ordered four of his men into the circular rooms to pull up the staves.  They quickly did so using a metal bar, hung from a peg within the chamber, running it through the eyering and pulling them up from the stone bored holes in the floor.   Other men fanned into the room bearing spears which they aimed threateningly over small half-shields down the corridor of each barrel vault tunnel leading to the storage silos at either end.

The freight shaft rooms were deep below and the base of The Keep.  Wagons could be drawn into them with a small team of horses to be let into the city, from below, but the gantry and counterweight systems were operated from the top rooms of the Keep towers next to the silos.  If the enemies below knew anything about the working of these freight shaft systems, they would realize that if they were to mobilize an army to rise up from below, they must bring larger numbers of fighters and weapons up through the freight elevators below.  For this knowledge, they would need to keep the gate sentries alive to operate the elevating levers and counter-balancing weights until they were satisfied that they could operate the lifts themselves.  After that, these persons would be of no use and their lives forfeit.  Somewhere within, a few might still be alive and held at knife or spear point.

Something tugged at Morgrath’s mind.  Some further mystery that seemed relatively important about the empty upper room, given the gravity of the dead in the doorway below and the darkness and destructive forces evident in the central room at the top of the Keep.  Some difference that nagged his subconsciousness, that he could not immediately identify at the moment because of the imminent danger posed by whatever waited in the silo rooms and down the descending steps in the tunnels below the city.

Another of his men turned to Morgrath and asked the question that brought back the missing detail in stark relief.

“Where have all the cats gone?”

***

Maeven knew there was no way she could reach Will once the dryad had pulled him up into the canopy.  She might have been able to prevent it if she had her bow, but Mason carried it on the road ahead.  There was no telling how long the dryad would let him live, but there was very little hope that it would be long enough to allow her to return with her bow.  Much as she hated to abandon him to his terrible fate, she would have to return and catch up to the company.  There was nothing more she could do but hope that Will’s death would come swiftly.

She ran as fast as she dared without creating too much noise, trying to make it back to the road and catch up with O’Brian and the others.  There was no telling what the others may be walking into and with the satyrs in the forest and now the confirmation that the harpies and dryads were present as well, it made sense that the presence of The Pan would be the reason why these contentious groups were in the vicinity.  Only the Pan unified them.

Their only hope was to reach the Faerie Fade.

Smoke curled and twisted through the forest stinging and singeing, my eyes and nostrils so that I had to partially cover my face with the end of my cloak as I squinted through the gossamer veil moving under the shadow of The Pan.  I knew he was at some disadvantage.  The burning of the smoke would dull his senses as well and he would not pick up my scent as easily as he would without the intervening proximity of the forest fires.  The same would be true for the satyrs.  Though swift and of a nasty and vicious disposition, they relied upon their animal instincts far more than that of their human ones.  The Pan was ancient.  Time had ravaged him.  He relied on his attendant retinue far more than he had in the past, though he would never let on.  Age had finally left its traces:  His shaggy hair was black and gray–Black with soot, but grayish-white with age.  His eyes were clouded with bluish-white cataracts, and he was nearly blind.  His hearing was dulled–though still greater than human–it was not as attuned as it once had been.  His hooves were worn down so that only thick calluses kept the tender pads of his feet from contact with the rough ground.  His voice had become more guttural as age tightened his vocal cords and added a rasping grate to his speech.  His strength of limb and ligament had also weakened making his movements more ponderous and lumbering rather than lithe and swift.

Only his intellect remained sharp and savage.

And his hatred for the children of men had fed upon years and years of resentment both towards them, and towards the One who loved them and imprinted upon them His image.  And that made him dangerous.

I knew that he watched and was obsessed with the Surface World that they had quitted long ago—Back when his form was comprised of only human flesh alone.  But he had chosen this, though he’d been severely warned against it.  The Surface World had no naturally occurring blend of animal and man flesh.  Much as one might seek for transitional forms, these hybrids were without precedent.  Once quitted, the Surface World had no place for what they’d become or his kind.

He had not heeded the dire warnings of the patriarchs.  He had followed the mysterious Nomad.  Had seen him vanish into the sun touching the horizon.  He’d assumed that the Nomad had been granted access back into Edenu and would reach the Tree that would grant them all immortality.  And the Tree that had given them the curse of death.  He’d wanted to be made a god at any cost.  To offer appeasement to the God of his fathers, by bringing the ram into the place of the sun.  He wanted it ALL that was promised to the family matriarch for himself and his posterity.  He demanded it.  And that was why he’d been named Pan—a word that survived its journey through antiquity into the Latin dialect, meaning the same as had its proto-original word—Pan (Πάν) – All (πᾶν).

Since the path through the Throne Room of all the Heavens had been shut and guarded by the wielders of the holy flames, he still believed they would eventually find another way.  Another means of access to gain audience and demand of the God of Heaven to deliver upon the promise made by the fiery serpent god, The Draco.  The Draco had been acting as an emissary and had made those promises on behalf of the One.  Draco, himself had been betrayed.  Trapped in the form he took to deliver the message and bound to the Surface World.  It had taken some time before The Draco was able to free himself from the form.  Both Draco and Pan had become convinced that perhaps they had not understood the ultimate good purposes of the One, but eventually, they would.  And their patience in this their misunderstanding would eventually pay off and be rewarded by the One.  So, he’d served The Draco, faithfully having surrendered his humanity to become The Half standing upon two worlds.  He would act as a stand-in emissary to receive and deliver the worship of man into The Draco’s hands to be carried up continually into The Presence of The Most High.  So that one day He would relent from His curse and restore all worlds into balance and set him up as a Prince among the gods under heaven.  This, I knew to be Pan’s self-deception.  The Draco was, in fact, the primal enemy of us all.  The one who, in his own hubris, thought to make himself equal to The One who is above everything, and led an ancient uprising against The Most High, even to the point of sweeping a third of the stars with him in his revolt. The Draco, before he became thus left his role as the “shining one” to coax, woo and lure a serpent with crafty words into a portal and there seize, indwell and cohabitate its body and mind to then re-enter the world of men.  I also knew that anyone serving it in any capacity was being used for his own ends.

When The Most High eventually decreed through Moses that He would have no other gods before Him and codified it in stone, it had been a nasty blow. He’d wanted to strangle Hanokh for ever granting to mankind the gift of a written language, where such a decree could be preserved as a testimony for generations that would follow after.  But Hanokh’s life was preserved and protected.  Unlike himself, Hanokh’s body showed no such signs of aging.  Though he had entered the Mid-World ahead of Pan, and walked the same Mid-World lands as he and those who had followed after, Pan feared him.  He talked a lot of hunting and killing Hanokh, but deep down knew he never would carry that out.  Hanokh was appointed for something that would happen in the future in the Surface World of mankind.  A world in which he knew he would never be able to return to without being ripped in half and arriving in severed pieces of what had been left when he’d departed.  Longing for that return to the land of his fathers was pointless.  He was now a creature of the Mid-World, ever to remain as such.  But that did not mean he could not wield influence within the homeworld he had quitted.  And the Draco had shown him how.  If The Most High would not deliver upon the promise made to his family of achieving godhood, the Draco would.

***

Upon the road, Miray, Begglar, Nell, Laura, Dominic and James, Matthew, Mason, Lindsey, Tiernan, and Christopher watched as Mr. O’Brian faded into the haze, silhouetted against the ghostly backlight towards the towering shadow of what O’Brian had identified as The Pan creature.  They saw the flicker and crackle of the light of the sword he carried behind his body and hoped that it would prove to deter and counter this spectral threat, blocking their way ahead.  Begglar stood at the point position of the company, now seeming to take charge in a way that he had, heretofore, shrunk back from.

Begglar had distracted Miray from looking overhead and seeing the grisly, dangling display of vines and heads swaying above them in the wafting smoke.  She didn’t need to see that, and the others in the company recognized what Begglar was doing to keep her focus away from these things and they refrained from commenting or drawing attention to them as well.  Laura too felt delighted and refreshed by Miray’s exuberance and unapologetic honesty.  And she was prepared to fiercely protect it, as necessary.  What others hadn’t seen when they all reunited on the road, was the exchange that happened between them.  Miray had bounded up to her and then paused with a crooked smile.  “I remember you.  You’re Laura.”  Laura stared at the little girl, amazed that she would remember her or even take notice.  She had smiled and said, “Yes, I came back.”  Miray twirled from side to side, dipping her toe out and then wrinkled her nose and said, “I think you need a bath.”  Disarmed by the forthright honesty of this child, Laura laughed, “I’m sure I do.”  Miray reached up and twirled a strand of her hair in her fingers and said, “I want to hug you, too, but can I wait until after?”  Laura smiled, looked up thoughtfully and said, “Only if you promise you will when I get washed up.”

Miray beamed, turned on her heel and bounded away into the group.  Laura, shook her head, smiling from ear to ear and reminded herself, what O’Brian had said to her earlier, “Family.  I think I’m gonna like it here.”  Such an unpretentious moment given freely by a sweet little girl.  Whatever threatened her, Laura would fight with all her might.

Begglar had reattached the reaper blade to his staff, and he looked formidable and ominous bearing it forth against the threat that could come upon them at any moment.  It had been many years since Begglar had encountered The Pan, and, if memory served, the man-creature was even then crooked and stooped by age and wear.  He’d been thickly built, and both Begglar and others had estimated that The Pan had at one time stood at least eleven feet tall, by the English standard, and three and one-third meters by the Metric measure.  Its human half had once been very muscled and powerful, but age had diminished it until he was leaner than it had been, though its wooly legs amid thick salt and peppered fur still seemed thickly powerful, as if reserved for a lunge at his enemies.  Begglar had seen The Pan only one time lose its sinister cool and take part in the physical threat he typically wielded through others under his command.  And that rage had been terrible and brutal, and bloody.  O’Brian had witnessed it too, and Begglar hoped that O’Brian still held that terrible memory in mind as he approached The Pan even now.  Though The Pan was ancient, one should never think that they could get too close to it.  The Pan was unpredictable, and one could never be fully certain whether they were entirely dealing with the human side of him or the raging animal.

***

The Faeries had zipped away through the trees, headed to the southern end of the forest, and as she was preparing to leave with Will and return back to the road through the wood, she froze when she saw a flying shadow pass over one of the breaks in the forest canopy.  Though the sighting had been brief she recognized the form immediately and had stopped Will from rising.  A harpy.  Another of the creatures of the Half-Men races in the kingdoms of The Pan.  Never had she seen these creatures venturing this far and this close to human territories.  The fact that she’d once again seen Faeries returning to the woods of Kilrane after all these years was surprising, but to see both Faeries and satyr prints and a harpy together in the same proximity signified that these were strange times.  Both satyrs and harpies were mortally afraid of the Faeries and had they known there had been several spotted here, usually would have caused both to rapidly leave the environs of the wood.  This strange development gave her pause.  The only possibility that she could come up with was that neither the satyrs nor the harpies were aware of the return of the Faeries back into the woods of Kilrane.  When Maeven finally turned to get Will, she saw additional evidence that a further division of the Half-men races also occupied the forest.  Dryads.  Their yellow pheromone dust powdered the leaves of the bushes under which Will had taken cover.  Strange times indeed.  Three races of Half-Men in one wood, each of which was extremely antagonistic to the other, drawn into one place.  A microcosm of what lay ahead, if Corimanth was correct, that the mysterious drawing of the Builder Stones was forcing the human races towards conflict as well.  Inexorably precipitating a war among the races of man.  She knew they could waste no further time.  They had to get out of these woods and fast.  The presence of so many Half-Men races together in one place could only mean one thing.  The Pan was somewhere in the forest.  And their party was walking straight into a trap on the road ahead.  She dove under the ferns to quickly grab Will, only to see him being hauled up into the canopy by a dryad.

***

Dryads were mostly female.  Of the few males that survived the passage of the ancient portal, there were only two still breathing Mid-World air.  Sylvanius and Polonius.  These The Pan kept a tight rein on, almost making them prisoners, yet deceiving them into thinking they were free.  The Pan used them as leverage against the desires of the more powerful female Dryads of certain Mid-World forests.  As long as the Dryad females did his bidding, The Pan granted them access to their few surviving males.

As mentioned before, the Dryads were obsessed with finding a way to transform back into their human forms again.  And they strove to use sex as a means of achieving this.  They had taken captives from among the men of the Mid-World but never were able to get pregnant by them.  And they killed these in their frustrations and adorned their lairs with the dangling heads of their conquests.

They desperately needed their males, but The Pan had reduced their population over the centuries when he used them for his own purposes in forest warfare.  Something had happened that made the dryad females predisposed to having only girls and rarely ever producing males.  An unforeseen consequence that The Pan had not intended.

To the dryad female mind, they believed that if they could capture and mate with a Surface Worlder male, rather than the Mid-Worlders and also mate with one of their males, and then together ingest the blood of the Surface Worlder human male, that combination would produce their desired seed, gradually becoming once again more human with each succeeding generation.  But the humans of both the Mid-World had learned that there were dark purposes being served in the Mid-World forests, and they tried to avoid those woods where dryads had been sighted.  And very few Surface Worlder’s came through the Mid-World anymore, and when they did they were warned to stay clear of forests with a possible dryad infestation.  But with both dryad male populations dwindling, and The Pan restricting the females from accessing them, even the population of females began to wane.

Instead, they (Mid-Worlders) looked for forests rumored to be the domain of another mysterious creature.

The Dryads, like many other of the Half-Men creatures, were terrified of the Faeries, so they fearfully avoided places where they believed the Faeries were present.  The Forests of Kilrane, stretching below and surrounding the hidden city of Azragoth, had traditionally been a site avoided by the Dryads, and so it was one of those desirable places for mankind to build near and dwell within.  But Faeries had not been seen in the Mid-World for many, many years, and naturally, the threat of them began to wane, even among the Dryads, so that little by little they made incursions into Kilrane, and when left unchallenged, became bolder about their presence over the years.   Many dryad females then brokered a deal with The Pan, that they would serve as his retinue warriors, spies, and attendants, serving even his carnal desires, if he would allow them the proximity to the male dryads he kept in his forest courts.  But then the Xarmnians showed up and declared their rule and threatened the dryads with setting fire to the forests where they remained.  Many land and forests were burned in this Xarmnian war to root out The Pan and his Half-Men.  Deep-seated resentments remained because of it, and it was only recently when the Xarmnians finally decided to change their tactics and offer a peace deal with The Pan and his subjects.  They would establish their domains and give each safe passage if respect and due homage and permissions were granted by the leaders.  The Xarmnians would not encroach on The kingdom lands of The Pan, and The Pan would not molest the Xarmnians in their rulership, nor meddle in their affairs, or take Xarmnian prisoners nor kill and eat them, provided the Xarmnians did not violate the accord.  But with the return of Surface Worlders coming back again into the Mid-World all that changed.  The Pan and his Half-Men creatures had designs for the Surface Worlders, and the Xarmnians viewed them as hostile to their rule and dangerous and subversive interlopers upsetting the balance of power.

***

Shelberd tugged at the pack line, and Bunt balked at the rope rubbing into his skin on his flank as he struggled to gain footing in the soft peat mossy soil around the wood slough.  Grum-blud grunted as he was pulled from the sucking black mud that mired his clothes, and arms.  When he’d finally come free of the muck, the mud made a bubbling wet-popping noise, reluctant to free their prisoner.

Dob had been extracted with much less trouble, for the ratio of water to mud from where he’d entered was weighted more on the wet than the muck.  When finally, Grum-blud lay upon the soft shore, he struggled to free himself from the greasy rope that had cinched too tightly and restricted his breathing.  Shelberd released the rope and came trotting over to help Grum-blud but only received a cuffing for his well-meant efforts and when Grum-blud had found his feet again, he grabbed Shelberd by one of his prodigiously large ears and pull him close into a threatening position.

“If you ever leave your post, when I tell you to stay put, again.  You’d better hope I don’t catch up to you.  Do you hear me now, or shall I tear off this ear and keep it with me as a reminder to you?!”

Shelberd whimpered, as Grum-blud’s fist twisted his ear with such severity, that he could not answer without crying out.

“Yes, yes, yes! Ooo!” he croaked, “Never again!  Never again, boss!”

Grum-blud released Shelberd’s ear and shoved him away, and then turned upon the onocentaurs.

“And as for you…!” he stomped forward and both Bunt and Dob retreated to a distance, fearing what the angry Troll might do to them.

But Grum-blud did not get to finish the statement before it parked and skidded to a stop on his snarling fat lip.

Beyond the two onocentaurs, standing tall amid a bevy of wickedly smiling satyrs, stood the tall ominous form of The Pan, sniffing deeply at the air, and then turning gleaming eyes downward to Grum-blud and the cowering form of Shelberd, ducking behind Grum-blud.

The onocentaurs slowly turned their eyes to where Grum-blud was staring and gaping.

Dob flinched and started.

A deep voice, seeming to begin from underground and rumble upward, vibrating through the roots of the towering trees and up through their feet and legs before registering as sound in their ears spoke to Grum-blud from the deeper forested edge of the black watered slough.

“Ahh, Xarmnian frog, how pleased I am to find you.  We were coming to celebrate yours and our victory over the infested earth walkers occupying our forests.  From a distance, we saw the fires.  Tell me now, how stands the city of Azragoth?  And for my sake, please don’t leave out a single bloody detail.”

The onocentaur named Bunt couldn’t help himself.  He dropped a manure bomb.

—

Additional Notes:

For further reading and reference regarding the source myths of the Greek traditions and prior traditions to the Greco-Roman periods:
Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(god)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymph

“Close the Keep!”

The clarion call rang out from the stone courtyard, through the streets of Azragoth, past the bastilles and was conveyed from mouth to mouth, following The Eagle’s orders.  A detachment of soldiers responded to the news quickly, moving in ranks to the court of the northwestern sector of the city, under the shadow of the tall stone edifice.  The doorway to the climbing circular stair hung ajar.  Its door panel wavering upon the hinges under the slight wind stirring within the walls.

The soldiers approached it and fanned outward, blades and points aimed and ready.  A brace had been removed from the fortified door and tossed aside from where it once had run through bronze bands to hold it from without.  The standing order of the General had always been to close the gates behind them upon entering or exiting The Keep.  No doubt the guards charged with that responsibility would be questioned if they were not already dead inside.  As the soldiers approached cautiously, they saw the dramatic answer to the questions circulating in their minds—A dark pool of blood and an arm with an open hand extended out from the interior of the tower doorway.

The dead sentry lay inside amid a small cloud of flies, face bludgeoned and smashed.  Bloody footprints through the pool and spatter of blood revealed that whoever had done this had also callously walked through, on and over the fallen man’s body and proceeded out into the courtyard.  Several sets of tracks showed that there had been at least four or five of them.  A sharp, jagged stone, spattered with gore and cast aside from the body indicated that the man had been assaulted immediately upon opening the door.  The heartless, mindless killers had merely removed an impediment to their entry into the city and had had no sense that they should make an effort to hide the evidence of their violent crime.

Whatever or whoever it was that had come into the city from below, apparently had no sense of self-preservation.  This made them that much more dangerous.

***

We stood in the forested road before the glowing backlit mist, armed yet unnerved by the sight before us.

From the tops of trees dangled a collection of various animal heads strung at the dangling ends of vines which swayed ominously in the chilling breeze wafting under the forest canopy.  I recognized this as the grisly work of the dryads.

Nubile young women, seductive and sensuous creatures that were a fusion of wood, plant, and human—creatures belonging to the races of half-men.  The heads hung from the treetops varied between animal and apparent-animal with characteristics of satyrs.  The majority of these being those of the satyrs.  Vengeful creatures those dryads.  Obsessed with re-birth and finding a way back to becoming completely human again, they wooed and taunted young men into their tree lairs and tore them apart.  Dryads were not the sexy nude nymphs of Greek mythology and classical paintings in the Surface World.  Yes, they were uncommonly beautiful.  Yes, they used their sensual lithe movements to seduce men to commit lewd acts with them, but do not be deceived in any way.  These seemingly beautiful amalgams of human and nature had no nurturing instincts and were as savage, dangerous and capricious as any of the other hybrid creatures of the Half-Men races.  Like sirens of the sea, these woodland nymphs are not what they seem.  Many men, women, and beasts who succumb to them under the influence of a pheromonal storm circulating like pollen are in for a rude awakening.  Dryads were the consorts of a different master and they killed on a whim.  One should avoid the embrace of a dryad at all costs.  The reason for that, hung up swaying from multiple branches in the towering trees above us.

A large shadowy form, beyond the mist, moved interposing itself between the back-light glow and the mist separating us, casting a giant shadow of itself upon the fog as if it were projected upon a silver movie screen.  An eerie light emanated from its eyes from around the shadow of its elongated head, glaring into the mist.  Its long spectral fingers splayed as if ready to reach out from behind the mist and snatch one or all of us.  It wasn’t clear to me if the being beyond saw us through the fog, but there was no avoiding the confrontation with it, so I stepped forward to stand for my people.  I had no doubt in who it might be that I would be confronting.  I recognized that form all too well from both past experiences and from my waking nightmares.  We were about to meet The Pan.

I whispered a quiet prayer as I slowly moved forward and to the point position at the head of the group.

My honor sword scintillated with a crackling light, but I kept it low and to my side, choosing instead to prepare my heart and mind with supernatural weapons rather than physical ones.

I remembered the terror of the last time I had encountered dryads, and the Ancient Texts account of Job’s covenant that I too had to make.

“1 “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman.” [Job 31:1 NLT]

I knew that these half-human creatures were not the women that they appeared to be, that their image was distorted and marred by the fusion of the flora they had bonded to when their ancestors had crossed over.  I also knew that what anyone might wish or deceive themselves to think they might be, would not make it so.  Their enticements were a cruel means to an end.  Like in the Surface World, visual enticements to indulge secret pleasures and imaginations, never produced a healthy, satisfactory relationship arising from those desires.  The One, by design, invested the need for intimacy within the design of the human being, and His intention was for the greatest good for the individual.  The physical need alone would not serve to meet the good desire, nor would the soul’s need alone achieve it.  What was needed was a completion, bathed in the commitment of the whole person, maintaining the sacredness of all components to truly enjoy its intention.  What these creatures were doing was reducing the need to the physical component alone, isolating it from a relationship and the blessing of the One.  I knew that dissatisfaction was the end product of succumbing to the mere physical appeal of the dryads.  That they toyed with physical intimacy in Machiavellian terms and used it to gain power, and they, like a parasite, devour their host victim with the insectile finality of a female Praying Mantis.  No man can reach true meaningful intimacy with a woman if he dishonors her personhood and disrespects her trust, in the service of his own physical need.  Despite what he may say or do, this is what deep down, the need was created in him for, and it is what he truly seeks to find fulfillment in the enjoyment of it, rather than the conquest of it.  Human women, unlike the dryad creatures, want and need to know that they are valued, honored and protected in their personhood, physicality and spiritual covering.  They are too often deceived into thinking that they must trade a part of their being, surrender their privacy and physicality in hopes of being appreciated for their wholeness.  Far too often, this trade almost never works in their favor.

Despite the knowledge of all of this, knowing truly what these creatures were and their malevolent intentions, they gave off extremely high-levels of pheromonal dust that drove their victims mad with desire.  The satyrs were highly susceptible to this, which they used to torment them.  As such, The Pan forbade the satyrs from cavorting with the nymphs, whether dryads (forest nymphs) or naiads (water nymphs), when they served as his retinue.  However, merely forbidding them did not cause a deterrent in how they were affected, so The Pan chose his traveling companions to suit his needs and forced the pre-evacuation of the ones who might cause disruptions to those attending him.

His kingdom was divided by necessity.  He pitted certain groups of the Half-Men races against the others to keep them in line and maintained his iron rule by coordinating mutual threats and balancing the reigns of tension in his dark fists.

I hoped, for the sake of our company, that this time he had chosen to travel with the satyrs rather than the dryads.

From the prints on the trail further up the road, this had seemed to be the case.  The evidence that the dryads had been here was ominous and obvious.  Knowing that The Pan was coming, and would be traveling with satyrs, they would have been forced to vacate those portions of the forest, but they were loathed to do so and were not above sending a dire warning message to the satyrs even with The Pan in their midst.  But the fires to the north would eventually drive the dryads back this way and soon.  Whatever creatures The Pan had used to compel the dryads to temporarily vacate their domain would serve to keep them at bay only as long as their threat was not exceeded by the need for self-preservation under the threat of the approaching fires.  As soon as the fires became the greater threat, the dryads would return in force, despite the creature-threat of The Pan’s brute squad sent to clear the forest.  A confrontation was coming.  It was only a matter of time.

If it was still possible that The Pan did not already know we were in the forest, I could not reveal their presence.  I could only buy us some time to allow Maeven to join us soon.

I addressed the group.

“I need to scout the way ahead for a bit,” I said quietly, “And I am going to need all of you to wait here until I come back or Maeven does.  If Maeven comes back before I do, go with Maeven.  I have an idea where she is taking us to get supplies.  The place is not unknown to me.  Go with her and wait for me there.  I will catch up to you.”

Miray moved forward and took my hand, “I’m going with you.”

I turned and knelt down and cupped her cheek, “Miray, I’ve got to go this one alone.  It is too dangerous to bring anyone with me into the presence of the creature that lies ahead of us.”

“But I want to go with you,” she protested.

“I know.  I know,” I took her arms gently, and looked her directly in the eyes, “But I need you to be brave and protect these others.  I need to give us some time to get to safety.  I will do everything I can to return quickly.  Please be brave for me.  Can you do that?”

“I can but I am much braver with you here.”

There was no arguing against her pure and simple logic, but there were things I could not share with her at that moment.  I hugged Miray fiercely because I could give her no other response, “Please trust me, Miray.  I will return as soon as I can.”

I had barely escaped death in my last encounter with The Pan, but I could not run from him forever.  Part of my calling by the One required that I face The Pan again, and trust that a way would be revealed to redeem the losses suffered during the failure of the second quest—a failure that I was partially responsible for.

There was something he took from Caleb before having him slaughtered.  Something that I may still be able to retrieve from him if I chose to believe what I was told rather than fear it.  I was confident that The Pan still had that thing with him.  That he used it to gain the advantage he now had over his warring kingdom.  If he turned that thing against us, he would destroy us one by one and the stories would die forever.

Where was Maeven, I wondered.  She should be here by now.  Had she found who had taken Will?  Was Will a captive to The Pan, and Maeven was still gathering intelligence as to what had been done with him or to him?  All of these thoughts weighed heavily upon me as I walked forward towards the glowing mist, under the shadow of a cursed man-creature that was as old as Hanokh himself and had come into the Mid-World no long after Hanokh himself had arrived.

***

Maeven and Will ducked low in the forest brush uncertain of what the faeries might do.  Maeven knew they were dangerous.  That even the Half-Men wanted nothing to do with them.  That the Xarmnians were terrified of them, and those were enough of a reason to give them a wide berth and try not to provoke their interests.  A mere touch of a metal blade and the blade tip broke away flaring red as if it had been pulled from a forge.  It had scalded the troll creature and driven him off abandoning his captive.  Maeven had done all she could to avoid trolls and she wasn’t about to pursue this one.  Trolls had the strange quality of pulling out painful memories and assaulting their victims with them, and she had already re-awakened to some terrible memories of her own.  She didn’t need some troll making them any worse.  There were many creatures with whom she was willing to fight face to face, but trolls were not one of them.

In her mind, the sooner they left the area the better.

Again, came the odd top-canopy rustle that she’d heard in the upper trees when she’d left O’Brian and moved into the forest.  Something was up there.

Then she saw what was making that noise and her breath caught in her throat.

“Oh my God, no!” she whispered, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“What is it?” Will asked.

“Harpies,” she answered, twisting and holding his mouth closed, “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.”

***

The four faces of Brian glared angrily and contemptuously at the soldiers who now held them bound to one another and tied with strong cords so that they could not escape. Their eyes burned with a seething fire as they saw that the one they had thought they had brought down now stood before them with bloodied chest, the shaft of an arrow bristling from his chainmail, to be attended to later.  Their plan had failed.  The man still stood resolutely, though propped up, before his enemies.  His indomitable spirit was determined and bolstered by a new-found fire that did not serve the ends it once had when he was their unwitting ally.

“You betrayed us, Captain Mattox,” the four bound bodies said in disturbing syncopated unison.  Their doppelganger voices sounding somewhat like O’Brian’s but not.  Vocal modulation, airway throat structure and simulated muscle movements copied from that of O’Brian, but the interior animate presences were that of wind creatures who spoke with more force than that of the human they replicated.  There was no denying that these were not the original, but Mattox was worried that if there were four, there would most certainly be more.

“Whom do you serve?”  Mattox pressed them.

“Our service has now ended,” they responded, “now that our master has been slain.  We are freed to our own will.”

“You lie,” Mattox retorted, “you do not bear these forms without a purpose in them.”

“Strike us from these forms, deposed Captain.  We will find others.  The awakened one shall not be long into his quest until he finds us again standing in his path again.  You cannot hold us here.  We have many faces yet to wear.  He has taken the sword and there are none like it left that can alter his fate to treat with us.”

“That is not true,” Mattox responded, “There is another.”

For the first time, since their capture, these creatures bearing the shared image of Brian studied him for a moment and looked collectively worried.

***

High on a weathered hill, upon the crest of the mountain known as Mount Zefat, a sword similar in kind to the one borne by the one called Mr. O’Brian, stood blade down within a broken assemblage of mountain stone, its driven blade whistling in the mountain wind.  Its forbearer had abandoned it there many years ago, overcome with grief and crushed by betrayal.  He had walked away from the call to lead, abandoning the quest as hopeless and too dangerous.

Its age-worn sash, called the bloodline, was frayed and severed from the cross-guard.  The material had floated down the mountain and eventually became snagged somewhere below, caught and held by the jagged edge of fractured rock.

Mattox’s men had repeatedly tried to dislodge the sword from the rock and scree pile but were unable to do so.  Mattox realized that human-might alone could not wield this type of sword destined to serve those under the specific calling of the One.  Supernatural forces held the sword in its present resting place.  Only the one designated to wield it could take it up again.

Mattox was certain he knew who this remaining Honor Sword had belonged to.  The man had come to Azragoth many years before and left something of value to be kept within the secret city while it was being rebuilt.  Mattox had faced the man on the field of battle, but time and circumstances had so radically changed their positions that now they had become allies.  Mattox’s heart and perspective had changed, while this man’s heart had been hardened and distant, even though now they shared a common cause.  Mattox had found the frayed sash and had taken it up and kept it in his pocket.  The sword was left in place, and its present location was carefully marked upon the map Mattox and others were compiling.  And perhaps eventually the man would be brought to the place where he might take it up again…if only Mattox could convince him to try.

***

I moved into the edge of the glowing fog, and realized that is was not fog at all, but smoke.

The fires of Azragoth were moving faster, and the strange winds moving through and under the forest canopy had driven this stream of smoke to creep along the forest floor and weave its smoky tendrils through the tall trees.  Fire and smoke–a combination that would excite the satyrs- given their interest in ash, would ultimately bring these out towards the burning city environs surrounding Azragoth.  And if, as I suspected the forest dryads had been driven ahead, they would soon turn back this way, for these had a particular fear and aversion to fire.  If The Pan had used some other Half-Men agents to drive the nymph dryads to the northern side of the forest, they would eventually encounter the fires and surge back this way in fear.  Whether the Pan intended to or not, both the dryads and the satyrs with him presently in the woods come into contact and mayhem would ensue.  And there we were, right smack dab in the middle of it.  The dryads would entice, bate and stir up the satyrs, appealing to their carnal natures to lure them into the trees—to be ravaged and savaged.  Whatever third group the Pan had employed would be friends of neither the dryads nor the satyrs and bringing those into the mix would only complicate the Pan’s attempts to control the situation.  What the Pan did not know is that his pitting one group against the other to manipulate the situation into his favor was about to backfire on him.  I only hoped that our company might be able to occupy him here for the moments needed to allow these beast-men to come back together and create that circumstance whereby we had a chance to elude capture.  I needed only stall him for time.  The heads above me swayed ominously at the ends of their vine tethers, reminding me that what I was attempting was extremely dangerous.  I still had not heard from Maeven, so whatever she had found that was tracking us, must either be eluding her, or she was heading right into danger with the enemies about to converge in the forest.  That is if both she and Will were not already either captured or dead.  I knew I should have insisted that we stay together, but she had convinced me that there may still be hope for finding Will.  I had hoped that too, but not at the sacrifice of Maeven.  I had felt like we almost lost her earlier, and was praying that a second miracle might spare her once again.  I wondered also if I was asking for too much as I moved into the smoke, motioning the crew to stay put, while I treated with The Pan.  I bore the Honor Sword, my wrist firmly wrapped in the bloodline sash, as I raised it into the guard position and moved into the smoke fog screen towards the shadowy silhouette.  I had seen The Pan back down from one who bore an Honor Sword before in my past.  One who had been my friend, who had been betrayed by my failure to keep my presence of mind about me.  A friend the horrible Manticore alluded to back on the Lake at the Trathorn Falls behind us.  A fellow warrior and resistance fighter named Caleb.

***

Dob had become enmired.  As he had burst through the forest underbrush attempting to flee the attack of the faeries, he’d become disoriented.  He wasn’t used to running for more than short distances.  He’d picked up the burning smell and had panicked further and was running blindly when he’d plunged into the dark miry water, black with rot and decay.  The ground had become soft and his hooves sank deep into the sucking mud below, slipping on oily mud, descending into the bog.  A slough.  The black, greyish water stank, its surface swam with water bugs skittering in all directions.

A murky film of grey water-moss sloshed around him as he fought against the sinking tug of the mud.

Splosh!  A wet-noise to his left, caused Dob to turn as something or someone slid down an embankment, under the leafy plants and hit the bog water as well, rippling the grayish-green filmy mat of brown and organic black.  Momentarily a grotesque, mud gobbed lump bobbed up from the water, spitting, sputtering…and cursing.  Grum-blud.

The grey blackened lump that was Grum-blud sloshed, and flailed, sending water slashes slapping the shore and spattering the leaves the terminated and shrank to curled brownish husks along the edge of the slough.  Gnats buzzed about his head as he clawed mud away from his eyes and face.  His hair was a mess, but it had never been much of a fashion with him to keep it more than tugged under a dirty short woven cap.

Dob couldn’t help but bray out a laugh, as he witnessed this display, while Grum-blud swore and thrashed his way towards the muddy edge of the water, finally grasping at the broken root of a stump that jutted out of the mire.

Grum-blud turned reddened, blinking eyes towards Dob, and grumbled, “Clamp your yap, you black-eyed cabbage eater!  I’ll boil your eyes out!”

“Nasty, nasty!” Dob clucked his tongue at him, “I don’t know which is fouler.  You or this stinking water and muck.”

“Why you little…!” Grum-blud lunged towards Dob, but lost hold of the root stump, and splashed back into the murky water, going under once more.  When he came up again, a small, brown water snake curled down from his brow, around his bulbous nose and dropped into the water and slithered away from him.  Grum-blud gaped and panted, coughing brown water, and frantically sloshed towards the root he’d once held to.  He trembled violently, and whimpered a bit, hugging the mossy root, searching frantically for any other reptilian creature that might come near him.  “Sn-snakes, gawd!” he blinked rapidly trying to clear the water from his eyes, rubbing his face with his stumpy hand.

Dob laughed, knowing there was nothing Grum-blud could immediately do to him.  For all of Grum-Blud’s blustering and bullying, Dob felt a savage delight knowing that there was at least one critter that could fill the troll with the cold dread he cruelly served to others.

From further up the forest line, where the slough and bogland curved around from the woods, a familiar voice called out to them.  “Oy!  That you Grum?  What’re you doin’ muckin’ about in that stink?”

Another troll, not much different than Grum-blud in stature but considerably cleaner and drier, though soot-blackened and gray with ash flakes, stood holding a halter and gawking at them both.  There beside him was the other Onocentaur named Bunt.  Both wore a poorly veiled expression of amusement.

“Shelberd, you idiot!  Where’ve you been?!  Get me outta here!”

***

I was most worried about the dryads.  I had to find a way to protect my burgeoning fellowship.  I may be able to stall The Pan, but if the dryads came in contact with them, they would need to know how to resist their influence,  They needed to be prepared to contend with these particular Half-Men race subset with something more than brute physical force.  The Ancient Text came to mind again:

“6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.” [Romans 8:6 NLT]

This was a critical truth.  I was reminded of how when I was in a company of travelers, I had learned from solid other faithful followers of the One how to survive the enticement snares of a dryad attack.  The satyrs could be fought with weapons alone but not the dryads.  Two principles had sustained us.

Precept and Priority.  That was the only way we had survived the last encounter with the dryads.  The Ancient Text says:

“”9 [Beth] How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! 11 I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” [Psalm 119:9-11 ESV]

But knowing the One’s precepts alone does not give a person the power to resist the temptation to fall away from The One’s loving commands to protect you from harm.

There is a second component that is necessary and that is learning to prioritize your relationship with Him in your own life.

“28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” [Matthew 11:28-29 NET]

By allowing Him to establish intimacy with you, you will come to value the amazing way He loves you in such a way that it restores you, comforts you and helps you to so desire that fellowship that you find anything that threatens that closeness to be an enemy of your own desire.

***

“Hey, pretty boy!”

Eyes beautiful and moist, blinking large, round and soothing beneath a porcelain brow and under a flaxen brown cascade of curls, rose slowly and casually from the brush, followed by a pair of soft, blushing cheeks, and full pouting lips of crimson, spoke seductively, “Wanna play with us?”

A dryad had found Will crouched and hiding under the rush where Maeven had told him to wait, and lie very perfectly still while the Harpies passed overhead.
As the woman-creature rose up before him, her sinuous, and slender, shapely body barely covered by forest flora, Will decided right then and there, that this was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life in the Surface World or in his teenage, pubescent dreams.  No magazine or movie or siren actress could ever approximate her beauty and carnal sensuous appeal.  Yes, he said to himself, rising towards her, mesmerized by the sight of her.  He most definitely wanted to play.
A fine layer of dust sparkled in his hair and upon his shoulders, as he reached to touch her small extended hand, a grin spreading upon his face.  The dust accumulated on the edge of his nostrils and lips as he unwittingly breathed it in.  Pheromones.
Maeven turned as she heard the rustle from behind her and gasped as she saw Will’s body rising up into the tree canopy above born aloft in a tangled cocoon of extending vines.