Skylar frowned as the votes trickled in; when the first vote for him to heroically sacrifice himself popped up, he thought he was going to have a coronary. But at the last moment, a surge of votes for a plan came through all in a group; he frowned, but resigned himself to his fate with a sigh. I'd really prefer for them not to think of me as the plan guy, but I guess it's my own fault for not being able to keep up physically. Of course, everybody else was slowing down too, so chances are we would have been eaten anyway. Whatever.

  "No, I can't keep running," he answered Aymon belatedly. "I'm exhausted, and even if I wasn't, they'll obviously catch up to us as soon as they get up here. Even Little Miss I-Don't-Sleep over there can't outrun Ubara forever."

  Reine scowled, but Aymon nodded. "Yes, you are right. I assume you have a suggestion, based on your tone?"

  Skylar sighed. "Yeah, I have a plan. But it'll be risky and kind of crazy, so I don't have a lot of hope for it." He turned to Reine. "Do you still have that rope you tied us all up with?"

  "Of course," the Justiciar sneered, producing the coiled rope. "Missing it already?"

  Skylar ignored the elf's taunts and snatched the rope from her hand. "Great, thanks. Everybody, move over here behind this rock so they can't see what we're doing; and Levan, do you know how to tie a climbing harness?"

  The Loathborn, who had been watching all of this with a skeptical expression, blinked in surprise. "Huh? I, uh... yeah. How did you know that?"

  "Call it a hunch." Skylar handed him the rope, then turned back to Aymon as he beckoned the others into cover behind a boulder. "I need something that will take up a lot of physical volume, while being light -- if we had bedrolls, I'd use those, but we don't. Any ideas?"

  The elf pursed his lips, then looked around curiously. "I could wrap some dry branches in my cloak and your coat, I suppose, but to what purpose? I assume you wish for us to climb up onto the sides of the ravine?"

  Skylar shook his head. "No, they'd still catch us if we did that -- those big guys can pull down rocks and make ramps for the smaller monsters. What we need is something that'll buy us more than a few minutes of time." He turned back to Reine. "As for you, I need you to put those manacles on me again."

  At once, her skeptical expression became soothed. "Finally," she murmured viciously, "a request I can grant with a clear conscience." Murmuring the words of the Invocation, she gestured towards him, and shining manacles of light appeared around his wrists once again. She grunted in satisfaction. "Okay, what's your big plan now?"

  "I'm getting to it." Skylar noticed out of the corner of his eye that Aymon was gathering up sticks and other pieces of dead wood; guess he decided to follow my head. Not ideal, but useful now to keep us all alive. Sighing, he began to take off his coat, immediately regretting the action as the night became pitch-black and cold. "Levan, how's that harness coming along?"

  "Just about done," the hairy man grunted, pulling the last knot tight. "But what's this for, if we're not climbing?"

  Skylar held out his manacled hands. "Put it on me, and thread the anchor through the chain of the manacles. That way, the chain will bear the full weight."

  Immediately, the Loathborn balked, shaking his head. "That's dumb. I see what you're trying to do, but it won't work. There's no way they'll fall for it."

  Skylar, with great restraint, managed to keep the smirk off his face at Reine's expression of confusion; confirmed, Reine is not as bright as Levan. Jury's still out on Aymon. "Maybe not," he admitted, "but unless you can outrun or outfight a small army of Ubara and whatever those other things are, it's probably your only hope for survival. Unless you have a better plan, of course, in which case let's do that."

  Immediately, he could see he'd made another mistake; Levan's jaw instantly became set, and he stepped forward to secure the harness on Skylar with painful jerks and twists. "I'm just saying," he muttered angrily, "it won't work. You think you're smart, but you're putting all our eggs in one basket; and if you're wrong, it'll be worse than playing it safe." With a final, emphatic tug, he secured the harness on Skylar's body, then turned away. "So what's your plan to fool them, genius? They'll be on top of us in, like, two minutes."

  "The first and most important part of the plan is for you and Reine to hide," Skylar replied, holding out his manacled hands for the two bundles Aymon was bearing; he wrapped half of the sticks in his coat while the bearded elf did the same with his cloak, producing two bundles not entirely unlike the size and shape of a person. If one is half-blind and very far away, at least. With very great care, he tucked each bundle into the guide-rope loops around his waist; it'd hurt, but at least it wouldn't make the crucial loops around his groin or armpits slip. "Perfect."

  "This will be my final shifting for the day," Aymon warned as the others reluctantly hunkered out of line of sight; "If your plan fails, we will both perish with no chance at defense."

  "Yeah, well, unless you can shift into something that can eat all those monsters, this is still our best use of it," Skylar sighed. He held his useless staff in both hands, then put out his manacled wrists, offering the rope-threaded chain to Aymon. "I dunno how far you can carry me, but I sure hope it's pretty far."

  The elf raised a bushy gray eyebrow. "And where I am carrying you, exactly?"

  Skylar pointed in the other direction, back the way they had come. "We're going to lead the whole pack of them off in the other direction. That'll give Reine and Levan enough time to get a lead towards Garlan's Fork that the pack can't make up, then we circle back and meet up again. It's risky -- they'll probably try to shoot us down, and I'll be totally unprotected without my coat. But it's the best chance we've got." He raised his hands above his head, holding the chain up high above his staff.

  "As you say." The elf nodded, then crouched down and raised his arms to the sides like wings. "Pray, Skylar Kass -- pray hard, to whatever gods you believe in. Even to Gram, if you are a cultist." Then, with another shimmering shift, the greathawk stood in his place, piercing eyes boring into Skylar's own, before taking off in a flurry of feathers.

  "I told you, I'm not a cultaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...!" Skylar screamed again as the greathawk's talons snatched up the chain between the manacles and lofted them into the air.

  Immediately, he was swept out into the stygian gloom; he could feel the frigid air rushing around him and below his dangling feet, and his hands and ears began to turn red immediately from the burn of the frost and wind. Drotz, I hate heights. In the pale, argent light of the setting moon, he could see the great pack of enemies swarming below him, and his stomach twisted with fear; mishkot fratz, that's a lot of monsters. As they passed over the swarming knot of foes, he began to hear and feel the whistle of thrown spears and launched stones all around him; the brilliant, golden light emitted by the manacles was both marking him excellently as a target and blinding the night-born creatures below, but it was also ruining his night vision sufficiently badly that he couldn't see the missiles flying up at him, either. I'll probably get hit a couple of times, but at least I'm between them and Aymon. If they hit him, we're both going down. Cold, watery terror filled his guts for a long few minutes as he cringed, thinking that each moment would bring the pain of another injury, but eventually they passed over the mass of enemies and began streaking back out into the wastelands; hardly daring to believe his good luck for once, Skylar let out a breath of relief.

  The good news was that the rope harness was working perfectly; rather than the tendon-straining, screaming flight he'd had to the top of the ridge, he was very well-supported along his primary centers of gravity, and the greathawk's mighty talons easily gripped the chain without any visible signs of effort. Twisting around, he looked behind them and managed to confirm that the pack had wheeled around to give chase; he sighed and relaxed a little. "Good, they're following us!", he called up to Aymon, who let out a shrill hawk's scream in reply. "I don't know how long your shifts last, but turn around when you're about at half!" He laid back in the harness, trying to control his breathing, and closed his eyes. Fratz skek fratz. I need to try to relax and save my energy for what comes next.

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  He dozed for a little while -- how long, he didn't know -- but eventually he felt a slight shift in the gravity as the hawk wheeled about in a great circle. He must have hit his limit. As the view wheeled and spun below him, he noticed with interest that the landscape in the other direction was not the same; from his altitudinous vantage point, he could see the snaking valley they had been entering and follow its contours up to a large Y-shaped conjunction of valleys -- Garlan's Fork? -- which split off to what might be the east and west; to the east there was only more dead trees and blackness, but the ground continued to rise to the west, moving up and out through a range of large hills before terminating in a great peak wreathed with bright lights of human habitation. One of the last cities, maybe. Could be Gavispar. Where my trial will be, if I survive. A cold sense of foreboding began to creep over him at the thought; should I try to think about escaping again? But to where, if everybody outside of the cities is dead?

  Straining to look behind him again, he could just barely see the pack of creatures in the distance; it looked like their diversion had worked, incredibly. Guess these nightspawn dudes aren't the sharpest crayons in the box; if they'd been thinking, they would have realized we could have just flown directly over the mountains to the city and bypassed the valleys entirely. But mobs aren't good at decisiveness, and I don't think anybody's leading this one anyway. As the point they'd departed from loomed nearer and nearer, Skylar reflected on what else he'd learned so far. We were gone about thirty minutes each way, so it looks like Aymon's shiftings top out at about an hour. He's strong enough to carry me plus a little, but not strong enough to carry all of us, or he would have suggested it. As the greathawk began to stoop down into a shallow dive, Skylar squinted into the gloom and cursed; he could see Levan and Reine's tiny forms, growing rapidly larger as they neared the ground, and they weren't alone.

  The two were in a running battle with a few of the Ubara who had broken off from the main pack and managed to clear the climb up to the heights of the pass; Reine tirelessly darted all over the battlefield, lashing at the sides and eyes of the great beasts, while Levan limped onwards and laid about him with his curved, rusty blade whenever the monsters drew near. But three of the Ubara had riders -- the squat, leering humanoids Skylar had glimpsed before -- who poked at them with spears and threw stones, harrying them and keeping them out of range.

  Skek. We're probably going to have to save them, or at least try. Skylar winced upwards at Aymon; what I wouldn't give for the chance to convince him to just fly over them and leave them behind, but no chance of that. Instead, he readied himself for what looked to be a rough landing and clenched his staff desperately. Not that a bop from this thing is going to even inconvenience monsters like this. Maybe I should borrow his dagger again.

  Then, all too abruptly, they were in the thick of it; Aymon swooped low and pulled up short with a majestic scream, flapping his great wings hugely on either side of Skylar before dropping him to the rocky ground. It was only a few feet and they were moving slower than a run, but that wasn't much comfort to Skylar; he hit the ground running, tripped, and rolled painfully to a stop at the feet of one of the rear mounted Ubara with a groan. Perfect. Hey guys, food delivery. The leftmost mounted creature wheeled around with a snarl, spear poised for an impaling thrust, and Skylar opened his mouth to let out a cowardly scream.

  The unexpectedness of the stream comment jolted Skylar out of his terror; he raised his staff and stared at the other creature, desperately willing for his newfound Art to activate.

  There was the briefest of instants, less than a quarter of a heartbeat, where he thought it wasn't going to work; then the feeling from the dream filled him, like a floodgate opening in his mind, and the power of Weir rushed forth out of his gaze and into the monster's. The effect was immediate; the creature grabbed its head and let out a weird, ululating shriek while squeezing its evil yellow eyes shut against the agony.

  Skylar considered making an attack with his staff as the creature reeled, but immediately decided against it; the flimsy thing was unlikely to deal any damage, and even the attempt would put him within striking range of the other two. Also, I'm not wearing my cloak, so any attack would pretty much instantly turn me into a blood fountain. He was also both amused and dismayed to discover that using the Art required a good deal of focus and concentration; in a real fight, using it in the thick of melee would be suicidal. "The light from the manacles must be blinding them!" he called out to no one in particular. "Now's our chance!"

  The other two riders wheeled around, and one was immediately savaged by Reine from the rear; with a bellow of rage, the diminutive rider laid about with its spear, but a clever stroke from Levan severed the weapon in half and it went down under an avalanche of sword blows. Aymon, diving into the fray, kicked another rider off its mount bodily and wrestled the great beast to the ground; Skylar glimpsed a headlock in between the flurry of flailing limbs and imagined that both mount and rider would be dead soon.

  But the third rider, the one he'd attacked, was shaking its head clear with a snarl; goading its steed away from the pack, it spurred it directly towards him. Skylar winced. Vark. I can't dodge with these two giant bundles of sticks clinging to my hips. Better try to migrane this guy again. But when he reached out his will, he found that the creature shook it off instantly; oh vark! It doesn't work a second time?!

  In desperation, he directed it to the Ubara it rode instead at the last instant; the great beast stumbled, tripped, and sent its rider flying as Skylar waddled and scrambled away, gasping and cursing. "A little help here?" he howled helplessly as the beast shook itself and sprang towards him, jaws slavering.

  Then, with unexpected suddenness, it was over; Levan appeared as if from nowhere and drove his sword through the beast's belly in a vicious stab, while Reine vaulted past him to lop off the little goblin-like rider's head in a smooth slash. Behind him, Skylar heard the crack of breaking bone and knew that Aymon had finished off the last Ubarak. Whew. I almost fratzed my pants.

  "Great job, guys," he huffed, struggling out of the rope harness and shaking out the stick-bundles as quickly as he dared; he breathed a huge sigh of relief as the heavy coat settled on his body once again, filling his sight with darkvision and swaddling his body in impact protection. Oh. Uh, I forgot to check and see if I was injured earlier. Well, let's maybe escape first. He tossed Aymon the white cloak, and the older elf nodded as he donned his own garment. "What's next?"

  Levan glanced back the way they had come, his glowing red eyes seeming to cut effortlessly through the darkness. "Looks like that was the last of 'em. Should be clear from this point forward."

  "Excellent." Reine straightened her shoulders, cleaned and sheathed her sword, and stretched. "We should meet no further resistance past Garlan's Fork; patrols begin scarcely a furlong from here."

  Aymon nodded. "Well done, Justiciar; three fewer Mukati riders to plague the badlands. Shall we make haste, then?"

  "In a moment." The elf's cute little rosebud lips curled up at the edges, and a tiny alarm in Skylar's head began to go off.

  Uh oh.

  He started to turn in her direction, raising his staff, but it was too late; her hand, flat and palm out, was already facing him. "By the second word of Maivat's law, let the unjust be struck down. Malyra!"

  Instantly, force and fatigue struck him like a titanic maul from above; the raw power of it hammered him flat down against the ground as though a giant had stomped on him. Fratz. I didn't pay enough attention to building a rapport with her like I did the others. This is gonna hurt. He tried to rise, groaning, but the force of it fell upon him again in waves, over and over, and he saw her vicious little grin widen in satisfaction at his struggles. Mishkot frosak. His arms and legs crumpled beneath him, slamming him flat to the ground again, and his vision narrowed to pinpoints as his consciousness withdrew under the pounding force. With the last of his strength, he opened his palms towards her and shaped his face into its most plaintive expression; "Why?" he choked out before collapsing and losing sight entirely. Choke on that. We'll see who laughs last, he thought with grim satisfaction as he fell into complete unconsciousness.

  "Hey. Wake up. Wake up, sweetheart."

  Skylar stirred, muttering; his mouth felt dry and foul, as though he'd been licking a chamber pot for moisture. Gross. He tried to rise, and found that he could not; his arms and legs were bound, and something heavy weighted him down like a suffocating blanket. "Whaz...? Bleah!"

  His eyes were gummy and sticky, but he couldn't quite get his hands up to wipe them; after a few tries, he succeeded on getting his shoulder up to his face to rub the worst of the grime away. Blinking, he saw only smears of gray and dark blue; wherever he was, it didn't have much light.

  "Bout time." The voice was unfamiliar; brutish, gravelly, and entirely too full of joy for Skylar's liking. "I like it better when they squirm."

  Instantly, Skylar bolted into full wakefulness; he leapt to his feet and hopped backwards agilely, but struck something hard and unyielding and almost fell over. "Vark! What... who...?"

  His vision cleared, and he immediately wished it hadn't; he was in a grim jail cell, and the fat man leering before him was uglier than any ogre he'd seen in fantasy media, with a bald head smeared with what was almost certainly fecal matter and a grin utterly devoid of teeth. Rank, foul effluvia flowed forth from his rotting gum-holes, and his piggy eyes were bright with malicious glee as his fat, filthy fingers stretched out to reach for Skylar. "Welcome home, honey. Give us a kiss, why don'cha?"

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  -- AMBLE

  INSIDE THE BIG HOUSE, THIS NIGHTMARE UNFOLDS