(A/N: I’m going to briefly discuss the elephant in the room. If you were ok with the last chapter then I don’t think you will have an issue with this chapter. But after some feedback, I wanted to address a couple of factors and to be clear on a couple of things. Yes, I am aware that Sex or death means that Freddie is being raped by the dryads, no matter how willing a participant he is in the act. And yes, I absolutely agree that Rape is Rape regardless of whether a person is willingly taking part in the act, nor is there any difference between Male and Female Rape. Rape is Rape.

The reason why I clarify it in the warning is so that people can have more of an idea as to what things are going to happen and make an informed choice as to whether or not to read or skip the chapter. Hence why I warn people about Male Rape. The problem is that this is how dryads reproduce and have reproduced since long before I was born. Kidnapping people and making them reproduce is kind of a Dryad’s MO and why it’s a terrifying thing. I was also more than a little bit tempted to post the chapter as was with just the warnings and let people judge the writing based on that. Not gonna lie, a bit nervous about how this arc within arcs will be perceived)

(Warning: Continuing discussions of Male Rape. The victim is willing and the act is for procreation. It will not be explicit when it eventually comes.)

I sidestepped the lunge and spun, pivoting my own spear using as much torque as I could muster in order to fire a pattern of blows onto my opponent's shield. They hunkered down behind the shield and let the shield absorb most of the damage while they prepared another lunge, aiming at my belly.

I saw it coming from the body language, so I feinted one way and stepped again towards the shield. They tried to use the spear as a club more than anything else, working it horizontally. I wasn’t that concerned as the worst I would get from this angle would be a nasty bruise. I put my spear in the way and pushed. Trying to work a gap between the spear and the shield so that I could get at my opponent’s body.

They bashed at me with the shield, but they made a mistake in that instead of bracing with their legs and pushing with the shield, they just kind of flailed with the shield arm meaning that the gap that I was looking for was open.

I was holding my own spear vertically with my left hand at the middle point. I used the left hand as a pivot and forced the butt of my spear up into the gap and struck my opponent in the gut, driving their breath from their lungs.

After that, it was all over. As Kerrass once said, “If you cannot breathe, you cannot fight.” I simply pushed my opponent over and they fell, rolling away from me, sending the old, crispy leaves from last years autumn tumbling with them along with the ash that made up the floor of the area that we were fighting in.

“Next,” I shouted.

The next was a broad-shouldered woman, dark-haired and dark-skinned, the deepest green of skin that I had seen since moving among the dryads. She was scowling and angry as she carried a club and a shield.

I read her overconfidence in her stride and the way that she held the shield. She was leading far too far forward with her left leg.

I darted forwards, expecting the swing and jumped backwards just as quickly. She brought the club round in the figure of eight movement but I had read that as well. Those clubs were heavy and she had expected an easy victory. I needed to finish this before she realised her overconfidence and corrected her behaviour. I darted in, dodging the third strike before being able to get the butt of my spear between her legs and twisting.

Her mouth opened in shock and surprise and she fell. Some of the other watchers cheered and I was left with the impression that that particular woman was not that well-liked. I think that some people had wanted to see her taken down a peg or two.

She smiled as she rose to her feet though and brushed some of the dead leaves from her tunic.

“Good move.” She told me.

“I thought so,” I admitted, doing my best to get my breath back.

“I was leading too far forwards with my leg?”

I nodded.

“I always fall for that.” She admitted before rejoining the crowd.

“And that, ladies, is why we don’t attack people one on one.” The tall weapons-mistress told the class of young dryads that were watching the testing. “This man is not even a proper warrior and yet he has beaten some of our finest warriors and scouts. Why?”

A couple of the younger girls raised their hands.

“You Fern-leaf.”

“He is stronger?” The girl suggested.

“Not even close.” The weapons-mistress replied to a little bit of laughter. “Do not be cruel.” She snapped at the watchers. “It was the obvious trap and that is what you all fell into with this man. Anyone else?”

“He is faster?” Someone else tried.

The Broad-shouldered woman that I had just beaten actively snorted at that.

The weapons mistress shook her head. She was a hard woman with not an ounce of fat on her. It was all muscle, hard, lean and wiry. Her dark hair was streaked with silver and she glared at the dryads around her with an angry look. I liked her.

Indeed, that was the problem I was finding with a lot of these dryads. Despite my captivity and the fact that I was being forced to procreate with them. I liked them.

“No. None of you have the right answers. That is to be expected, you are still young after all and have not yet chosen your vocations. Let us ask those warriors that he has defeated or has yet to test himself against if they know the answer.”

There was a long pause, giving me the opportunity to drink some of the water that always seemed to be available.

“I believe that it is my turn to test him.” A tall woman emerged from the small group of older women that I was struggling not to think of as “candidates.”

She was tall as I say, broad-shouldered with well-developed arm muscles. She had long golden dreadlocks and piercing blue eyes that I thought I could see a hint of amusement in the depths of. She moved like a warrior in the same way as Kerrass does, with maybe a bit more of a bounce in her step. She had a long spear in one hand, a large shield in the other and as part of her shield, she had a club that was attached to it so that if anything happened to the spear then she would still have the club easily to hand.

She was a magnificent woman, terrifying in her presence. She had briefly been introduced to me as “Sun-flower,” I remember that name because it seemed so incongruous with the massive figure of a woman that stood before me. She had laughed, tossing her hair when she had seen me smirking. “I have fought against that name all my life.” She told me “and I will admit that I would normally pound anyone that laughs at my name into jam.”

“I will remember that,” I told her and she laughed again. She reminded me of some of those shield-maidens that I had met in Skellige. I only ever thought of her as Blonde-Giant.

She advanced towards me, leading with her shield, carefully and cautiously with her spear gripped for a short, strong and brutal thrust.

And I realised that I knew how to beat her.

-

It had been a strange time up until that point.

After my “sentencing” I was returned to the room that we had all been sent to when we first arrived only now I was alone. I chose the bed furthest from the entranceway and sat down to think before realising that thinking was pointless and wasn’t going to work. There was not much I could do anyway. My course had been laid out for me and there was no getting around that or away from it.

Instead, I decided to properly clean myself up. If I was going to be meeting women and then having sex with them then I wanted to at least offer some kind of reassurance that I wasn’t a complete boor.

I also spent some time trying to contact Ariadne but I was unsuccessful. I was confident that she would understand what I was about to do. I really was. I knew that Ariadne would not blame me for what was going to happen. She may even applaud the way that I had taken things from Stefan and condemn the dryads for their actions.

I doubted that last part though. This was how the dryads survived and there are numerous tales about the dryads doing exactly the same to people who get lost in the Brokilon forest. So my only crime here was not knowing that the Black Forest actually had dryads in it.

In the end, though, I did my best to just put it from my mind.

Shortly after that point, the little healer came in.

“I have come to say goodbye.” She told me by way of greeting.

“Oh?” I searched in my gear for a clean shirt to pull over my head.

“Yes. The life of a healer is never a dull one and I must go and be about where I am the most needed. I had hoped that I might be able to be one of the ones selected to bear your daughter, but that is not to be it would seem.”

“Ok?” I wondered. “Why not?”

She laughed at something that she saw in my expression. “Because there is a time limit. In a short while, the Spring Equinox will be upon us and then you will go to the heart. I will not be fertile before that time.”

“Fertile?” I wondered.

She giggled. “Surely you know how it all works.”

“Yes, I mean…” I stuttered to a halt.

“The object of the exercise is to produce children.” She told me. “Sex is fun, pleasurable and with the right partner, it can be transcendent. But the first duty of the Dryad in this situation is to get pregnant. And I will not be due for that until long after you have left for the heart of the forest.”

I nodded. Various things to say scudded across my brain, things like “That’s a shame” and “Ah well,” and “better luck next time.” None of them seemed appropriate at the time.

I took a deep breath.

“I will admit,” I began carefully, “that all of this is… a little bit overwhelming.”

She nodded.

“And I will further admit that I have always wanted to be a father. I am just surprised that it will happen so quickly and that I will be a father of dryads.”

She laughed while I thought of something polite to say given the strangeness of what was happening.

“If I had a choice in the matter,” I tried. “I would be proud of any child that you and I might produce together but some things are not meant to be. So in return, all I can do is thank you for the care I received at your hands.”

She nodded at that last. “I think that that is about the best we can hope for isn’t it,” She said. “Go well,” and then she left.

I would like to say that I missed her when she was gone or that I felt some kind of pang as to what had been said and done. But that would not be true. I had known her for a short while and I had not thought of her as anything sexual or romantic. All of that and I think I was in a state of something approaching shock. The world seemed floaty and distant as though I couldn’t quite figure it all out.

What I really did, was finish my little bath using some of the cleaning soap that I keep for those occasions, like this one, where I have a chance for a proper cleanse, before I sat on my bed and stretched out.

The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me awake with the blunt end of a spear.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you went to sleep holding your dagger and I didn’t want…”

“It’s alright,” I told her sitting up and blinking furiously while I waited for my vision to clear to see what was going on.

Three of the druids were standing before me. One of them was Tall-and-Dark from the council. One was one of the guards from outside which was who’s spear had been used to prod me into a sense of wakefulness. The third was a woman in a plain green dress.

Tall-and-Dark was the one that had been talking and she grinned at me when she realised that I was properly awake. I did not remember taking the dagger with me when I lay down and for a moment, I wasted a couple of seconds trying to remember when I had taken the dagger out and brought it into my hand.

“It occurs to me,” Tall-and-Dark was speaking. “That you were never told my name. I am Maple-Leaf and although there are not really any set positions in the dryad council, at the moment I am in charge of the breeding program.”

“The comparison between myself and a breeding stud continues,” I commented.

The green dressed woman laughed.

“The comparison is not an unfair one,” Maple-Leaf told me with another smile. “However, as a willing participant, we will, at least, do our best to ensure that your time is as pleasant as possible. Normally, I would set a series of candidates out for someone in your position to choose from and then there would be conversations about getting it sorted. But there are other circumstances at play here and as a result, I am handing the matter over to one of my apprentices who will oversee… what comes next.”

“My breeding?” I commented.

“You make it sound so…”

“Yes.” I said as she reached for the words.

Maple-Leaf nodded and turned to the woman in the green. “This is Elm-Branch. She will be in charge of overseeing the candidates for your mating, yes, that is a better word is it not?”

I considered. “Yes, it is a better word.”

“The comparison is unfair but she will be acting a lot like a brothel Madam might act towards you,” Maple-Leaf said with a smile. Elm-Branch mock glared at her boss while the guard caught my eye, rolled her eyes and headed to the door. “In the meantime, I will go and arrange for the pool from which you will choose. Elm-Branch will answer any questions that you might have in the meantime as well as explain some things that you might be wondering about.”

“That’s good.” I said, “Because I have a LOT of questions. Starting with what is happening to Stefan.”

Maple-Leaf sighed. “That is a fair question. We are not as inhumane as you might think. He is kept in one of our cells. Occasionally, one of our numbers acts out in some way and then we imprison them in one of the cells. He is brought food and drink and his bed will be changed regularly. He will even be allowed to exercise although he will not be permitted weapons or be allowed to escape.”

“Not that I don’t trust you,” I told her. “But I would like to check that at some point.”

“Elm-Branch will guide you.” Maple-Leaf nodded at her subordinate and turned to leave.

“I have another question,” I said.

“I’m sure that Elm…”

“Why did the Blonde woman hate me so much?”

Maple-Leaf frowned. Which blonde, there are…”

“The Bitter one. Had a face that looked like she had bitten something sour.”

Both Maple-Leaf and Elm-Branch laughed aloud.

Maple-Leaf recovered first. “I don’t think it was about you. You are talking about the woman that joined me in examining you?”

“Yes, and while we’re on the subject, what was…?”

“Ok.” Maple-Leaf raised her hands up. “That is a question that Elm-Branch can definitely answer. I mean… Schattenmann keep us hidden… I knew that you liked to ask questions but Shadows keep me safe.”

I filed the fact that the dryads swore on the Schattenmann as a deity away somewhere.

“She is ambitious,” Maple-Leaf said. “And old. We do not have leaders as you would imagine them because we do not believe in that kind of thing. We know that nature requires balance and so we vote in council. She was turned to a dryad relatively late in life and as such, her memories and her character have not changed overly much from when she was mortal. We do not talk about our past before being changed often,...”

“Something of a societal taboo.” Elm-Branch joked.

“... But I understand she was someone important and powerful and resents that she is no longer that important, or that powerful.”

“The woman with the chestnut hair seemed to be in charge.” I argued.

Maple-Leaf chuckled. “Do not think you can get more answers out of me by making statements and inviting denial or confirmation.” She wagged her finger in my face. “I am wise to your tricks young man.”

I shrugged. “I have to try.”

“I will see you both at dinner later.” She said and left.

“So,” I said to Elm-Branch.

“So.” She said and then the two of us stood facing each other for a moment before we both laughed.

“Would you like a drink?” She said. “This conversation feels like something that would be better if it happened over a drink.”

“It certainly seems that way,” I commented.

She led me out into the late afternoon sunset.

“Just to be clear.” She told me. “I will not be one of the women that will be seeking to be chosen to be your partner.”

“Oh?” I wasn’t expecting anything but somehow, that affected me.

She laughed when she saw that. “Ah, I hear stories about the male ego but it never ceases to surprise me. The simple fact of the matter is that we have a time limit here. Two weeks to get you to impregnate someone before the Equinox and then you must move on. My time of fertility will not come until long after that has passed and as such, I am ineligible. It is one of the reasons that I was chosen to be your guide in what is to come. I cannot possibly be your partner and as such, the matter is passed.”

“What would happen normally?”

“Normally, a willing participant in the whole affair would just be brought partners and allowed to go wild so to speak. So as long as at least one of those partners gets pregnant then his life is saved. Truth be told, it’s not normally an issue in those cases.”

“Is it a taboo on your end to turn these things down?”

“Not really, some people are just uncomfortable with it. It’s more that the production of a new dryad is something to be celebrated and has therefore become a matter of prestige. There is…”

She cleared her throat in discomfort.

“There is an unfortunate status given to those dryads who are proven to have been able to produce offspring.”

“You do not approve.”

“There are other ways to contribute to our society. And some bodies are just not good at producing children. It is not their fault and it seems wrong to me that they are punished for the fact that their bodies are built differently from the rest of us. We have succeeded in places where human or even Elven Science has failed in matters of fertility, but that still leaves some people being belittled and passed over for positions because they haven’t been lucky enough to be around and fertile when we have a fertile male with us. Or that their bodies simply don’t want to get pregnant, no matter how willing the dryad.”

I rather think she underplayed this particular sentiment. All I was doing was trying to absorb as much information as I could. There was an opinion forming in my head about dryad society. It was unformed and vague. I know from experience that these ideas cannot be forced and so the best thing to do is to step away from the problem and let the idea develop. It’s a lot like watching storm clouds develop on the horizon, knowing that this means heavy wind and rain so being forced to wait where you are so you don’t get swept away by it. Then you have to wait for the storm to start.

As we were walking through the middle of the dryad settlement, I could sense all the eyes on me. I felt like… I felt like I was some kind of famous troubadour or actor, walking through the centre of a town or a city that values their presence. I am not without a little bit of fame myself but that only really affects certain circles. I cannot walk through the university grounds in Oxenfurt without it being commented on and I am told that the same would happen in Ban Ard or any centre of learning which is enormously flattering. But there was a hunger here that I felt… uncomfortable with.

“Presuming that the… mating… yes that really is a better word for it, is successful, what happens then?” I wondered

“At one of the appointed times, the Equinox being one, you are escorted into the heart of the forest where you are judged by the Schattenmann.”

“Oh.” I considered that. “And what are the options there?”

She gave me a funny look. “That is uncertain. We know that some survive and are turned out of the forest with no memory of what has taken place here. Others?” She shrugged. “You will find out sooner than I.”

I recognised a dodge when I saw it and said nothing.

We walked in silence for a short while. I saw some children playing hide and seek while another, much older group of children were playing a game that looked similar to a game I know as Temerian Bulldogs. One of those games that everyone has a version of where there are two safe zones. One child is chosen at random, or supposedly at random and the object of the exercise is for the larger group to pass between the safe zones while the random child starts to bring them down by force. Typically, in theory, at least, punches and kicks are not allowed, only wrestling manoeuvres or similar can be applied until the running child is brought down with both shoulders and small of the back touching the ground. Then the tackled child will join the attackers rather than the dodgers and the game proceeds until there are no dodgers left and then the entire process starts again.

I was useless at the game, generally getting tackled early.

But these young dryads were playing the game with an intensity that I found a little frightening. It was not lost on me that there was an adult watching carefully.

In the meantime, many of the other women were eyeing me up, looking at me and whispering behind raised hands.

“I feel like a cow being assessed at market,” I commented. “Do they need to check my teeth or something?”

“More likely, it’s your cock size and virility that they are commenting on and gossiping about,” Elm-Branch told me. “Your teeth and general health have already been checked and deemed fit for purpose.”

I waited to see if that was a joke. But it wasn’t.

“The thing with the bowl?” I guessed.

“The thing with the bowl. Also, the bulb when you were first caught by Flax-Seed.”

“Lovely.” I could feel my mood souring when she led me into another large wooden… calling them a tent seems a bit unfair but that was as close as it seemed to get. But this one was large and built around a much larger tree. It was mostly empty apart from a large woman that was standing at a… I swear to the flame… She was standing at a bar and wiping the counter. There was also a flute player that was gently playing on a raised area at one side of the structure and a couple of people that had wooden cups and were discussing something intently.

It was like every Tavern that I have ever been into except the people in it were dryads rather than men.

I laughed at the strangeness of it.

Elm-Branch led me to the bar.

“Is this him?” The Landlady wondered, eyeing me up and down.

“Is this who?” Elm-Branch asked reasonably.

“Is this the human that’s got my daughters all worked up?”

“That’s him. Maple-Leaf is gathering candidates as we speak, are either of your daughters due?”

“No, thank his shadowiness. Neither of them are ready for a baby yet, too flighty. They would be all excited at first and feel all honoured, ladying it over their friends and things. Then they’ll get bored and run off to do something or another insisting that they’re more than capable of and before you know it, they will trip, hurt themselves and then we will have our first miscarriage in a century. No, I welcome the man, but I am glad my daughters are not going to be ready.”

Part of that was for me as well as Elm-Branch, and then the landlady addressed me directly.

“What’s your poison?” She asked. “What do you like to drink?”

“What is there?” I wondered.

She smirked. “I have several wines that you might like although we do not have grapes. I have some Elderflower wine and spirit and also some other spirits if that happens to be to your taste. Mostly, pick a fruit and I have some drink that will feed your soul.”

“Then so long as it doesn’t have apples in it, I will take the house recommendation.”

The Landlady nodded her acceptance and raised her eyebrow at Elm-Branch.

“I’ll have the same,” Elm-Branch told her.

The Landlady took two wooden cups and filled a large jug with a clear liquid that was poured from a barrel.

“Why no apples?” Elm-Branch wondered.

“Kerrass likes anything with Apples and as a result, all I find myself drinking is stuff with apples in it. It would be nice to have a change occasionally.”

Elm-Branch smiled at that.

The Landlady put the jug on a tray with the cups.

“Food’ll be a bit yet. The wife is preparing something extra special and she’s getting all proud and protective of the pot.” She told us. “Do you like spicy food human?”

I do.” I replied. “But I like to be able to taste and enjoy my food. It shouldn’t be a challenge or an endurance test.”

The Landlady nodded at me before turning back to Elm-Branch. “I like him.” She decided and bustled off.

“High praise,” Elm-Branch told me as she led me to a table.

“If you say so,” I commented. “Wife?”

“Yes. It’s not a common thing but nor is it uncommon. Without outside influence, we live for several hundred years and our natural deaths are not pleasant, so most tend to find death in any way they can before… but that’s a digression. So in all that time, a person still needs companionship, physical intimacy and comfort. It is really hard to go home after a bad day of hunting or… worse,... to go home to an empty house and a cold bed.”

“Wife is a formal title though.”

“Yes, it is. A public statement of commitment, the one to the other. It is a cause for celebration when two people find each other like that.”

“You sound like you don’t approve.”

“More that I don’t understand it. I am well aware of the pleasures of intimacy and have had several companions over the years. But to commit to one over all others seems a bit… boring to me.”

I nodded as I took that in. I realised that I was putting off the central question that I was worried about. I took a drink from the truly excellent wine in the cup in order to fortify myself. It was definitely herbal, I think I detected mint and sage but I couldn’t tell you anything else.

I found myself wishing I could take some for my Father to sample.

“So, at the risk of sounding scared and impatient, what happens now?”

Elm-Branch nodded, looking as though I had finally asked the question that she had been waiting for.

“As we speak, Maple-Leaf is gathering you some candidates.”

“It all sounds so clinical. What does that mean and why Maple-Leaf doing that.”

“Because we don’t actually want you to die…”

“No, I mean, why is Maple-Leaf gathering candidates and not… say… the Landlady over there?”

“Oh, I see. Maple-Leaf is in charge of the breeding program.”

I opened my mouth to make a joke and Elm-Branch smiled.

“Your earlier comment about you being a prize bull is closer to the truth than you might think. Our society is carefully balanced and not that big all things considered. But there is a danger that we become too caste-based. The warrior caste, the ruling caste, the religious and so on. Those are examples.”

“Were you a scholar before you became a dryad?” I wondered.

“No. But my father was, he was a doctor. I have, I’m told, many of his traits. So as I was saying.”

“I apologise for interrupting.”

“Don’t worry. You are nervous. Angry as well and stressed to go along with it. Maple-Leaf warned me that you ask questions and make jokes when you are backed into a corner. Do not concern yourself. Now, where was I?”

“The danger of castes.”

“Ah yes. So the problem is that if we only get woodsmen through and they only breed with scouts. Or soldiers and guards that only breed with our warriors. Or a scholar such as yourself who only breeds with our scholars. Then we limit the offspring that are produced. We would have excellent warriors to be sure, but it would also mean that there would be no warrior characteristics in the scholar line. Therefore, if the warriors died out in some kind of battle, the scholars would not be able to defend themselves.”

“You might be surprised. I learned to defend myself.”

“Yes you did, but I also know that it took you a long time to get to grips with things. Also, if the warriors do not have the intelligence of scholars, then they limit their imagination and ability to think and adapt in the field. I imagine that you will be seeing this in action relatively soon.”

“Oh?”

“Our weapons mistress always takes the opportunity to put on a demonstration for the younger fighters when a warrior comes into the Forest. She likes to show different styles of fighting and the like. She will explain more when you see her. It will also be the way that I will ascertain your compatibility with the warriors and scouts that might be candidates for your mating.”

A look of concern must have come across my face because she laughed. “You will surprise yourself. I have been doing this for longer than you’ve been born, I know what I’m doing.”

“Then I do not have much choice other than to trust you.”

I cursed myself as I heard the bitterness in my own voice. She either didn’t notice or pretended not to notice.

“Don’t worry, I’m good at what I do. As I say, my father was a doctor and my mother was a poet. I know a lot about romantic compatibility. A lot more of it is chemical than you might think. But still…”

She gazed at me appraisingly again for a moment.

“Such a shame that I will not be fertile before you must go into the darkness.”

Then she shook her head and continued,

I carefully said nothing. I was beginning to find this woman a little bit scary.

“So Maple-Leaf is gathering those candidates that are going to be fertile in the… just under two weeks that you have until you must continue your journey. She will be generous given the shorter time frame and bring as wide a pool of candidates as can be brought. She was certainly interested in bringing along a lot of our more combat-focused people but she also wanted to bring some scholars and attendants. The first is because she is continuously trying to breed more intelligence and imagination into sour warriors and scouts. The second is because your “analytical method” of thinking would be a benefit there. Her words, not mine. What does that mean, analytical thinking?”

“You are asking me?”

“Yes, I know what my task is, but I have not heard the term before.”

“It means, taking cast amounts of information and using it to come to conclusions about what the information is showing us. In short, I hate puzzles and mysteries. As a result, I am compelled to seek them out and solve them wherever I go.”

“I see. She has often commented that as a race, we are too focused on the day to day existence of our people, that we don’t see the greater picture.”

“It is important to maintain a balance in that kind of thing,” I told her.

She laughed at some kind of private joke.

“Yes, I suppose I can see that. But anyway… After your candidates have been gathered, you will be introduced, probably in the morning as it will give you time to eat properly and get a good night’s sleep beforehand. Maple-Leaf has involved me in the process as she knows that you can appreciate physical beauty, but that you do not feel particularly amorous towards them unless you feel some kind of connection. Unless there is a particular mood on you, or you have been deprived for some time. Which is where I come in.

“My task is to speed that process along. Those men who are with us for longer periods can just go mad and most do before being reduced to some form of sexual stupor. People that turn down our… punishment for their trespassing are rare and most men enjoy that prospect. Therefore, men like you have time to form the connections that they require and those men that prefer otherwise are approached by fertile dryads and are encouraged to have at it. But here, we have a time limit and we cannot afford to let nature take its course as it were.”

“How do you assess that?” I felt some genuine curiosity there.

“It’s technical. It involves body language, character interaction and the way your pheromones will play off of theirs. In short, I know it when I see it and I have never been wrong.”

“Encouraging,” I said. I felt desperately uncomfortable and I took another drink.

I felt tied up. I had so many many questions that picking one out and asking it seemed… impossible. Elm-Branch watched me patiently as she continued to sip her drink. Knowing that she based her recommendations on things at least partially on body language, I am left to wonder if she was distracting me from my mental feeling of being overwhelmed by occasionally taking sips from her own drink to trigger me to take sips from my own in order to distract me. If she was, it worked.

It seemed a lifetime ago that Henrik had died yet it had only really been yesterday. For a moment, that struck me as really sad.

A question floated up to the top of my thought processes.

“Hold on, you have mentioned that some of the dryads have wives. Is it a cultural imperative that when a male comes here and you are fertile then you must mate with them. Is there a punishment for not mating when you are fertile?”

“You are thinking like a human.” She told me. Not harshly. “Marriage is a declaration, a thing of companionship, love, intimacy and yes, pleasure. There is nothing in there about procreation because we can’t. It’s about the species and we all know that. Males are so rarely amongst us and they never stay so it is part of who and what we are that this is how we propagate our species. There is no avoiding that. We are comfortable with that because we are dryads. It is more than who we are it is literally what we are. But to be clear…

“There is no punishment for not mating when you are fertile. Even the most virile human could not impregnate every fertile dryad that is offered to them. Our herbal remedies and good hydration can only go so far. No wife would set aside another because one partner went off to have a baby, they are often even encouraging of the act. And remember, your preference for a deeper connection with a sexual partner is generally uncommon for the kinds of men that come here.

“I admit, again, that there is occasionally an increase in status that goes with being pregnant and the mother of a dryad, but we also firmly believe that it takes all of us to raise a child. It is not just the responsibility of the mother of the dryad to raise the baby.

“No-one is going to be punished by their spouses for being chosen as a potential mate and then being the one that actually mates with you.

I nodded, I felt better but not that much better. I felt sick.

“You are feeling the weight of expectation.” She told me. “Maybe even regretting taking on the burden of your friend?”

“A little,” I replied. “You must be really good at your job.”

“I am.” She replied without boasting. “And trust me, the women that I choose for you will look after you. We look after those men that come to us and we are grateful for what you give us. You will leave us with at least one daughter that will stay with us in the Black Forest and you will be left with fond memories of the mothers of your children.”

“I suppose I’m just… I’ve always wanted to be a Father eventually, even if only to show my own Father how it should be done.”

She smirked at that.

“I just… I had hoped that it would be with the woman I love, and I am self-aware enough to know that I am not yet ready for Fatherhood.”

She nodded. “I believe you will make a good Father when the time comes.” She told me. “And I would not say that of many of those that come through the Black Forest. I know that you love another and I know that you are concerned that you are betraying her. You are not, do not worry. If she is who our historians say she is, I should be afraid of her, not you. But also, according to Maple-Leaf, she is not the same Spider-Queen that we remember.”

I had nothing to say to that. The reality of Fatherhood was beginning to weigh down on me and I found an unexpected lump in the back of my throat that I neither wanted or cared for. I desperately wanted to speak to Ariadne. I was confident in her understanding if not her entire approval and I agreed that if she was going to be angry with anyone it was going to be about the dryads of the Black Forest before she was angry with me.

But that was not helpful. I wanted to speak with her. So badly that I could almost taste it.

I waited for another question to float to the top of my thinking.

“I have so many questions,” I said, “but none of them seem particularly…”

“Relevant?”

“There’s a lot to digest. You are treating me like some kind of honoured guest, but I feel like a prisoner. You tell me that the women that you are throwing me to will be flattered and pleased to meet me, let alone sleep with me, but it feels like…”

She was watching me carefully.

“It is true,” I went on. “That I rarely seek romantic partners, feeling that there needs to be some honest connection between the two of us before I am comfortable in the… doing the deed.”

“I know what you mean.” She said.

“The only time I am particularly comfortable with casual partners is when there is an honest transaction taking part. I am not averse to sex work and I will freely admit that after several weeks on the road with Kerrass or a long period of loneliness that I have found some comfort in the arms of a professional. But I have no illusions there, I am just a client and I am not getting something for nothing. But this feels… different somehow and I am uncomfortable.”

She didn’t say anything to that.

“It was easy for me to say it back there when facing your council of rather formidable women. Of course, I will sleep with a couple of the undeniably beautiful… women, beautiful creatures, that I am surrounded by. It doesn’t sound hard when it’s said like that, but now that I am actually here, discussing the mechanics with one of the people that will oversee the thing. It feels increasingly like some kind of business transaction and I am not comfortable with that. It is true that I feel like some kind of breeding stock and what concerns me is that you are treating the other girls like breeding stock as well. But we are people, both her and me.

“I do not want to be a rapist. I take pride in the fact that I work hard towards my partner’s pleasure when I sleep with a woman but I feel as though… not only am I being forced to their bed, but they are being forced to my bed.”

“Do you feel like a rapist here? Do you think we are making you rape these women?”

“Are you making me?”

“We are making you. I will admit that, but we are not forcing them. There is a thing here that you are missing I think. Which is that we are not human.”

I looked at her steadily.

“We look like humans, we behave like humans and some of us even used to be humans. But we are not human. Other than describing ourselves as dryads, I am not sure what we are. For that, you would need one of the more philosophically inclined dryads to discuss the matter with you and I do not have that skill. But I do know that when it comes to the act and the process of procreation, we are most certainly not human. Our society does not treat it that way. We enjoy it, we look forward to it, it is the highest purpose of our species. We even have to keep ourselves in check from going into the surrounding villages and seducing men to becoming our sex slaves for the purposes of providing us with children.

“We also know that there are such things as renegade dryads who do precisely that.

“You are not raping us. You are not. Put that from your mind. And while we are on the subject, your efforts to make matters pleasurable for your partners will be gratefully received and enjoyed. Your partners will be delighted. Most men do not understand that kind of thing and tend towards simple rutting. That can be fun but it means that both we, and they, are missing out. So now my question. Do you feel like you are being raped?”

“I do not know,” I said honestly, going with the first thing that entered my head. “I have no idea what that feels like.”

She nodded to that. “Just as you will with them, your partners will, partially, be chosen by me to ensure that you have as good a time as possible. They will understand, have no fear. But if you feel that we are doing badly by you,” She put a bit of steel in her voice. “I would remind you that you were warned about the dangers of coming to the Black Forest and you came anyway. There is always a price and eventually, you must face it. That too is part of our culture and as you yourself said, you are in our lands, our territory and our culture presides.”

I nodded in acceptance of that.

“I will admit though,” She went on. “In my experience, you are an unusual man. I find myself wishing that I was coming up to my time of fertility.”

“I will take that as a compliment. So… The group is being gathered. The selections will be made, do I have any say on that?”

“You can, but sometimes, especially for someone like you who is attracted to the person more than they are the body, then you might get it wrong.”

“So what happens once the selection has been made.”

“You and your partners will go off. The simple fact of the matter is that you and they are expected to procreate. If you do not, then you will be punished. They will be more than enthusiastic. How you go about that is up to you and your partner. I’ve seen couples essentially tear each other’s clothes off before pouncing on each other the instant that selection has been made, but I’ve also seen the pair spend time walking in the trees and on the walkways before retreating to a private place with baths and lights, partaking of some of the chemical assistance that can be given to a couple in your position and proceeding to make sweet love to each other for hours at a time.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

She smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”

Food was brought and it was indeed delicious. Just the right kind of spicy in that it let you know what it was and that it meant business but also that it wasn’t going to punish you for eating it. Dryads from all over their little settlement started to turn up and many of them wanted to come and say hello, introducing themselves, cracking jokes and telling stories. More than one of them told me that their wives or their daughters or even granddaughters were going to be available for the selection tomorrow before they would go off on a bit of a speech as to why I should choose their relative for mating with.

I will admit to shying away from the woman that was going her best to recommend her mother though. Apparently, she had always wanted a baby sister and her mother was of proven fertility too.

They were good at this. I felt included in the community. There was no ceremony here, no sense of arrogance. There was no generalised blessing. I wasn’t brought any babies to kiss, nor was I expected to bless the food or the party. Eventually, there were some musicians that got up to play and I found myself dancing with more than one partner. It was fun and a good percentage of that fun came from the fact that I was never in any doubt as to where I stood with any of the women that I was dancing with.

In my experience, there is always some tension at a party where you are dancing with people of the opposite gender. When I was single and trying to find a partner, I was always trying to explore and see if the lady would be open to taking things to another level. When I had a lover and I was dancing with them, then the tension came from how far I could get without things becoming difficult. And if I was dancing with a girl or lady that was not my partner, then there would always be the tension of ensuring that things didn’t go too far with the person that I was dancing with.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

For the record, it is not just men that allow their hands to wander in an unwelcome fashion.

But here, there was none of that. Although I found more than one dryad in my arms as we spun around the floor, there was none of that tension. They were just out to have a good time and enjoying the novelty of having a male to dance with rather than the normal females.

To the point that I actually began to find it a little strange that I didn’t encounter any of the women that I might be partnered with and I asked Elm-Branch about that later.

“There are several reasons.” She said. “The first is that you need to relax and rest so we are helping you do precisely that. The next is so that none of them can get in and catch your eye before it becomes appropriate and finally, it’s so that they can get their rest.”

“Promising,” I said.

The members of the council came in to say hello although I noticed that Blonde-and-Bitter was nowhere to be seen or found. I did not regret that. I did not need another person to remind me how angry and unpleasant Ariadne could be when she put her mind to it. Maple-Leaf stopped by to say hello and much to my astonishment informed me that her Grand-daughter would be one of the dryads that would be part of the selection. She wouldn’t tell me which one or what to look out for as she rather thought that this would be unfair. That nature would have to have a chance to get involved.

I had no answer to that.

Trayka came in at one point and we were able to exchange a few words. She looked pretty good all things considering. She looked healthy but tired and told me that she would be sharing the room with me when it came time to sleep.

There were still remnants of the old Trayka there, a biting humour as she threatened to describe to me exactly how the dryads had proposed to heal her. She was looking forward to, and dreading, meeting some of her nieces the following day. Apparently, it was too late by the time that she had left the healers to get the deed done as the nieces had needed to go to bed. She seemed shocked at the normalcy of that, that young dryads would have a bedtime and a parentally enforced routine to the day.

She had also spent some time speaking with some of the scouts and it seemed all but certain that she would be joining their ranks when her change had been completed. She was looking forward to it as the next stage of her life. She made sure to invite me to her changing where she would take on something that she called “The Blood of the Schattenmann” which was how she would be changed into a dryad. Of course, I promised that I would be there.

And that was how we spent our evening. I thought of Kerrass on his journey to where he was going and the fight against whatever it was that he would be fighting. I thought of Ariadne and wondered about what her opinions were going to be on the topic. I laughed at one point with the imaginings that she would probably be insatiably curious and ask me a series of questions about the dryad reproductive systems.

Eventually, I became tired and Trayka and I were allowed to wander off to our sleeping quarters. There was little modesty between the two of us now after the long journey together so we stripped down to undergarments and went to sleep, a state which came to me far easier than I had expected it to. In the morning when I was woken, Trayka had already risen and had left.

Elm-Branch was waiting for me when I left the house and when I did, she waved in a group of waiting dryads who immediately went into the building and started clattering about. Elm-Branch smiled at me.

“The building is being repurposed. There will be no need of anywhere to house prisoners for some time as you will have new lodgings by the end of the day, your Witcher friend will sleep elsewhere when he gets back and Trayka will be getting ready for her transformation tomorrow. So… Why have a big building in the middle of town that we don’t use.”

“Fair point.”

“Come on, it’s time to meet the girls.”

After our conversation of the previous day, that sounded far too much like a Brothel Madam taking me to meet her employees than I was comfortable with. But there didn’t seem to be that much that I could argue with and I followed.

“So how long is this going to take?” I asked as I scrambled to catch up.

“Believe me when I say that we will be going slowly if we don’t have you in the arms of both your partners by this evening.” She must have seen some form of discomfort in my face as she followed up almost immediately. “Metaphorically of course.”

“But also literally?”

“That depends on you and them of course.”

“Of course.”

She led me back to the council chambers where I found a not small number of women waiting for me. I felt like a piece of meat being examined at market.

“Ladies?” Elm-Branch attracted everyone’s attention. Not that she needed to as they had all seen me walk in. “It is my honour to present to you, Lord Frederick of the house of Coulthard from the North. But you can call him Freddie.”

I sighed at that. It never changes and there are always people that take advantage of it. I scanned the array of ladies before me and to my dismay, they all seemed to meld together into a sea of different skin tones, dress colours and hairstyles.

A couple stood out. The Tall warrior with her broad shoulders and mane of golden locks was looking at me with a calculating expression and a bit of a smirk. There was a red-headed woman who was wearing a dress that was cut to display her cleavage and was sewn a little too tight so that she was forced to breathe heavily causing her chest to swell enticingly.

It left me wondering who she had borrowed the dress from.

She was not the only one that had chosen to dress seductively. More than one of the dryads were wearing form-fitting robes, dresses and tunics. Some wore short skirts that displayed legs that can only come from long periods of prolonged exercise. A couple more were wearing crop tops that were cut short so as to display their bare, muscled midriffs.

It was all rather intimidating.

There was no uniformity, no cliquishness or gathering of types. The warriors and the scouts did not stand together and they could easily be told by the fact that they were carrying their weapons or still wearing their armour. There were also women that were wearing hooded robes of some kind that I put through my mind as wearing the “attendant” label.

One woman was hand-weaving strange fibres together while she waited.

Elm-Branch had said something.

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Do you want to say anything?”

“What is there to say?” I wondered.

She smiled and shrugged at me. There was a knowing glint in her eyes that I did not like. I felt as though I was at court and had just been brought into a game that I did not know the history of and had yet to learn the rules. And I was already losing.

I turned to look at the small sea of women. There were maybe sixty of them there and they were all watching me expectantly.

“Hello,” I said. “As Elm-Branch said, my name is Freddie. Please don’t use the other name, it is clunky and ungainly and feels like everyone is talking about someone else.”

There was a small scattering of laughter from the assembly. Far more than the meagre joke deserved. I could feel Elm-Branch watching, weighing and measuring.

“I apologise to all of you.” I continued. “I am no strapping warrior. I am not a soldier or a knight. I am, at best, described as a fighter. I am not good at moving through the trees and any skill I have at combat is the result of years of practice at the hands of a strict weapon master. The most that I can claim is some measure of intelligence, the ability to never say anything in ten words when I can say exactly the same thing in a thousand words, the love of asking too many questions and I suppose, the ability to make friends easily. I am sorry if you find this disappointing.”

As introductions go, I’ve certainly made better. I tried to see if any of their faces betrayed any emotions. It is worth saying as well, that to a woman, they were beautiful and although I love Ariadne with all my heart. Being in the presence of beautiful women is always a little off-putting.

Again, yes, I am comfortable in brothels and bordellos and you don’t get to work in one of those places without being considered a beauty. I couldn’t tell you why, but this felt different.

A couple of the dryads faces were considering. One or two were smirking, a few more were concentrating.

“Do you want to set any aside?” Elm-Branch wondered from behind me.

I jumped, she was much closer than I had expected.

“I can do that?”

“Of course. Although getting rid of all of them would be problematic.” It was a joke. I knew it was a joke. I could see that it was a joke with her slight smirk and her twinkling eyes. I could also hear the smirk in her voice. I turned back to look at the women.

A thought occurred.

“I know that this mating ritual is part of your culture,” I told them. “More than that, I know that this is part of your species, a biological imperative that you have no choice over. But you should know that I am struggling with this a bit. If you have no patience to deal with that and are unwilling to be gentle and understanding with me, then I would invite you to leave in order to save us both some frustration.”

Some of the faces turned more thoughtful, a couple of others seemed to be looking at me with a bit more consideration. No-one moved.

I found that encouraging and oddly disappointing.

“Further, I am told that this mating ritual of yours is a gateway to increased status and maybe higher station. I know it’s not supposed to be that, but I am also aware of the unwritten rules of society and the traps that they can form. So if you are only going to be with me due to some form of ambition, again I would invite you to leave.”

There was more consideration, a couple of faces showed some surprise of both the pleased and a more angered variety.

Another thought occurred to me.

“And finally. Leaving aside the moral pitfalls of what you are doing to me…” I watched carefully. Three women smiled in a sad but amused kind of resignation. Two of them shifted their weight in discomfort, one frowned. “I will not be a rapist, even if this is sanctioned by you. I will not take any to my bed unless they are enthusiastic at that prospect. You have to want to mate with me. Not just the first male that wants to come along. So if you are here because you are under pressure of some kind, or feel that you have to be here but otherwise don’t really want to. Again, you don’t have to be here. Please feel free to leave with my understanding and blessing.”

One of the women that had shifted her feet in discomfort nodded and seemed to have come to a decision. She came and stood before me. She was dark-haired and dark-skinned with pale blue eyes and was wearing a dark dress that was just a few shades darker than her skin.

“Wiser than I expected,” she said to me. “Wiser than I deserve. I would ask for a kiss?”

I looked at Elm-Branch who shrugged before nodding.

She reached up and stroked my cheek as she leant forward and lifted herself up to kiss me. I got a feeling of soft warmth and then it was over.

“Mmm.” She said before turning back to her companions. “Whoever is chosen, you are a lucky woman.”

Then she left.

There was a long moment before a small, dark-haired girl was gently pushed out of the throng by the women around her. She smiled timidly at me and just scurried past Elm-Branch and I. She was quickly followed by two blondes that looked like sisters to me. I mean, more so than the rest of them.

“Anything else?” Elm-Branch prompted.

I thought for a while and couldn’t think of anything so I shook my head.

“Very well.” Elm-Branch continued. “Then the Weapons Mistress is looking forward to seeing how Lord Frederick uses his spear.”

There was some scattered laughter, someone threw a joke about how the Weapons Mistress should leave me for the rest of them which got some more laughter.

It was funny, if obvious, but I didn’t laugh.

“Could someone show Lord Frederick where to go? I will follow.” She clapped her hand on my shoulder. The large, blonde… I’m just going to call her what I thought when I saw her. The Blonde-Giant, Sunflower, took charge and broke through the crowd to stand before me. I had to crane my neck to look up at her.

“Well said.” She told me. “The training area is this way.”

“Are you the Weapons Mistress?” I asked her as we all started to walk out of the building.

She chuckled. “I am not.” She said, “Forgive me, I did not mean to make you uncomfortable and I am not laughing at you. I was more laughing at the thought of being the weapons mistress. What an awful idea. I do not have the patience for teaching. The man of shadows blessed me with large stature, prodigious strength and a speed that outstrips many. So the way I fight cannot be taught to those that do not have these abilities and I cannot understand… I get frustrated with them. And so I do not make for a good teacher. I am not wise enough to understand the limitations of others.”

“It takes wisdom to see your own limitations, however,” I commented. I found myself liking the big woman and for a moment, the thought of taking this woman to bed flashed across my mind.

Then the thought occurred that it was far more likely that she would take me to bed and that I would have little say in the matter. The prospect was not all that unpleasant.

I felt myself beginning to relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I feared.

We were led to a wide-open clearing. It was the only area where the dryads had not worked with the trees of the forest. There were signs of clearance and some loose ash had been pushed into the soil in order to maintain the ground and to, presumably, prevent the small plants from growing. It was covered in dead leaves from the previous autumn, small bits of twigs and other forest detritus.

As well as my entourage there was a small group of younger dryads that I would put between the age of 12 to 16 along with an older woman. Tall, steel haired and hard-faced. She had been expecting us and it wasn’t lost on me that as well as the group of youngsters, there were a large number of other dryads that had found their way to be standing near the practice area. A couple had small children on their hips. I even saw Trayka there with a couple of other women and small children with her.

The older woman that I took to be the Weapons Mistress saw us coming and the younger… students presumably were ordered to go and find a space at the edge of the clearing where they knelt or sat crosslegged in the style of children everywhere. Bending their legs and bodies into poses that we could only dream of achieving only ten years later.

The Weapons Mistress came towards me and shook my hand with a surprisingly warm smile before nodding to Elm-Branch. “Could you get the hopefuls on one of the other edges?” The Weapons-Mistress asked.

Elm-Branch nodded and started to shout instructions and my entourage filed away. The Blonde-Giant caught my eye and gave me an encouraging nod and a smile.

I noticed that the redhead with the tight dress had already left. I didn’t know what to make of that, but it was plain that Elm-Branch was already making… adjustments.

The Weapons Mistress took me over to an area where there were racks of different wooden weapons. I saw swords, spears and staves. But also several weapons that I would have thought were of more use to farmers. I saw sickles, scythes and pitchforks, as well as several large racks of knives.

I was surprised at how genuine the smile of the Weapons mistress was.

“So,” She began, literally rubbing her hands with glee. I’ve been dying to have a look at this glaive that you have here.”

“My what?”

“Your spear. The older word for it was a Glaive. A long pole with a single-edged blade on it. Yes?”

“Yes. I knew it was some kind of pole-arm but I had not heard the name of it.”

“You have it with you?”

“Of course,” I told her with a slight smile. “Kerrass would knock the crap out of me if he caught me without it.”

“And rightly too.” She smiled.

I pulled the satchel around and off my shoulder, just handing her the bag. I was still a bit mindful of my status and didn’t want to be just drawing weapons when it could all go wrong so easily.

“No no,” She said. “Draw it and… two parts. I was going to say that it looked a little short for a Glaive. How wonderful.”

I had drawn the spear in the old practised motions, fitting the two halves together. I had to consciously keep myself from falling into the ready position as I did so.

“Wonderful.” She told me. “May I?”

I passed it over and she stepped back from me.

“Yes, I see, the catch clips together so that even with the twisting of the hands during combat, there is no chance of the two halves breaking apart by accident. Good, good. Metal haft, strong but with just a hint of give to it, very necessary in a polearm you know.”

I smiled. It is always nice to see someone enthusiastic about their work.

“I had heard,” I commented.

“Fascinating blade too, curved to help with the cutting and the freeing from the flesh. Properly ground.”

She examined the blade up close, her eye close to the metal. “Crude tools but quality craftsmanship. Who made it?”

“It was a village blacksmith.”

She snorted her disbelief at me.

“I swear it’s the truth. She had inherited her father’s workshop or so we were told. There was a problem with the fact that she was a girl and the locals didn’t trust her abilities so a passing dwarven merchant was drafted in to help out. The villagers assumed that he knew what he was doing because he was a dwarf and of course, all dwarves know how to blacksmith.”

She chuckled at my sarcasm.

“So all of her quality work was passed off as his work while he continued to inform the village how much she was improving. The aim was that eventually the dwarf would declare her a master of her craft and move on to the next venture. It seemed like quite a lucrative process for the pair of them.”

The Weapons mistress nodded.

“Where was this?”

“I have no idea. I wish I did. I’ve looked for it on maps since but Kerrass took me there by back paths and hunting trails. We were in South-Eastern Redania, towards the mountains I think. It was not long after that that we crossed the Pontar into Temeria.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “The names mean nothing to me. It was in the North?”

“It was.”

“Who came up with the design? Talk me through it. Why this and not a sword?”

I could not help but smile again at her enthusiasm. It seemed to take years off her and softened an otherwise hard face.

“When I met Kerrass, I was a Quarterstaff fighter. According to old weapons masters at my father’s castle and later at the fencing part of the Oxenfurt academy. I kept overthinking the sword. I could not get my head out of the way and just fight with it. I was always trying to overthink matters. My Father was endlessly disappointed by this. As I went to the university though, someone at some point suggested the quarterstaff and I took to that better.

“Then, when I met Kerrass he broke my staff in the first training session and declared it useless. We were already heading to the village for reasons of, Kerrass knew that there was a hunt there that needed doing. How he knew that I never found out, but he knew and he took me to the smithy and ordered this. He specified the blade on the end and defined the weight that he wanted for it, he wanted the blade to be back heavy to help with the cutting and specified that it would need to be able to hold a razor edge for long periods of time.”

“Not silver though.” She wondered. “I would have thought, being a Witcher, he would be keen for you to have a silver weapon.”

“I asked about that twice. The first time, he laughed at me. The second time, he told me that if he had given me a silver weapon then I would be tempted to use it rather than running away as would be the proper thing to do in the circumstance of facing a monster.”

She chuckled at that. “It is noted that a person will occasionally be given false confidence by the presence of a weapon. You have killed monsters with it?”

“I have. Although it would be more accurate to say that I have helped kill monsters with it.”

“Now you are being modest. I know for a fact that you have fought and slain monsters with this weapon. Do not deny it.”

“Then I won’t.”

“And now this dagger on your belt.”

I unstrapped it and passed it over.

“Now this… this is truly beautiful.” She told me. “You have to tell me about this.”

“It was a gift,” I told her. “From… not a friend. He would be really angry with me if I tried to call him a friend. Nor does he deserve the title. But in the three days that I spent with him, I learned more than can easily be defined. He told me things and showed me things that I would not have dreamed otherwise leaving me forever grateful and in his debt.”

“He gave you this weapon.”

“Made it himself.”

She slashed it in the air a few times. “Not a stabbing weapon.”

“Not really.” I agreed. “But it can be used as such and I have certainly done so.”

She laughed again. “I see that your real stabbing weapon is in your boot.”

“As you say.”

“Few nowadays understand the benefit of a good boot weapon.”

I blinked.

The fighter was on top of me, I could smell his foul breath from the ale that he had been drinking earlier. He was some dock worker who was angry that Father had cut him out in some way and wanted to pick a fight with me. An occupational hazard when you have the surname of Coulthard. He was trying to use his weight to push me back and so that he could get his own dagger into play. I was pushing him away with my foot but he had folded my knees too far with his weight and I couldn’t use the muscles properly. I was scrabbling for a weapon and I knew that I was going to die.”

I blinked again.

“What was that?” She asked gently.

“It was nothing,” I told her.

“Never try and kid a kidder.” She said with a smirk. “Try again.”

“Sometimes,” I tried. “Sometimes I get these images, these memories of times past. They come on me when I least expect them and there is nothing that I can do except to fight them off. It’s as though I’m there, still in the middle of the event and then I blink and I’m back in the hear and now.”

She nodded. “Intrusive memories. Always a danger for people who see and do things that they shouldn’t really be seeing or doing. My respect for you grows Spearman.”

“Thank you. I think.

“Now.” She said. “How is your ankle?”

Truth be told, I had forgotten that it had been injured. I made a show of testing my weight on it for a moment. “It’s fine.”

“Good. Then what happens next is where I take advantage of those that come to us and are warriors.”

‘I am no warrior.” I tried.

“Pfft.” it was the first trace of scorn that I saw on her face. “I have lived for over seven centuries and have been a warrior and a soldier in all that time. I know a fighter when I see one.”

“I’m not entirely sure how to take that.”

“As a compliment.” She told me. “There are only so many ways that a dryad can fight. It is important that they see alternatives and also get taken down a peg or two.”

“Uuuhhh. Ok.”

“Also, it gives Elm-Branch the opening that she needs to see you interacting with some of the more fighty types to see if you might be compatible.”

“How will she know?”

“I have no idea, but she is rarely wrong.”

“Oh,” I said. “Good.”

She went down the line of spears and picked one out before moving over to the racks of knives, choosing three out.

“Here you are,” She said. “Training weapons. Probably as close as we can manage to your actual weapons. Sorry that the spear doesn’t split in half.”

She had got it all alarmingly accurate. I took out my own knives and passed them to her where she stacked them against an empty rack.

“What do you want me to do then?”

“So just go into the middle of the clearing and do your best to look mean, while I give my little speech and then do your best to kick the ass of anyone that dares cross you. Don’t hold back either, we have some really excellent healers here in the Black Forest.”

“You’re assuming that I will be successful?”

“That’s the spirit.” She told me and gave me a little push. It must have made me look really dignified as I walked out into the square. I had the impression of hushed conversation and a lot of staring.

“I say this every time.” The Weapons Mistress called out to her assembled students, my hopefuls and those people that had come to watch. And you are right in thinking that it is a bit strange that I didn’t know her name. There is a reason for that but that would be jumping ahead in the story. “As a race, we protect our territory with speed and stealth.

Nothing wrong with that. It works for us. It’s how we are able to cover so much ground the way that we do. It’s the reason that the Schattenmann, praise his name, gives us the responsibility of the guard, and how we earn his love and protection.

But let me ask another question. What if we get cornered? It does happen. What happens if the attacker or trespassed comes into our woods and we find that we are trapped and cannot get away. What happens then. The answer is obvious, we fight. But in every instance of that happening, with a few exceptions, our scouts and even our warriors are not prepared to stand up to what human, elf or dwarf might throw at us. We freeze, or we try to fight in order to make some space and then to run away, only to be cut down as we flee. We are simply outclassed.

“Now I can see you rebelling at the idea. I can see you. You are thinking that you are better than those that come after you. You are telling yourself that we have the finest warriors and the finest scouts and the finest fighters. But I say, that the reason that you can think that is because we always, always have the power of surprise behind us. We have the benefit of knowing the terrain and being at home in the forest. If we didn’t have that?.. Well, we would not do so well.

“I will go further. Here we have a man. A spear man. Not even a soldier. He wears light leather armour, little more than travelling leathers with a few small patches of thickened armour. I have spoken with him and he is of the opinion that he is not a great fighter. And for all we know, in the perspective of the rest of the world, he is not a great fighter.

“But I will say to you, here and now. That there are three, maybe four women in this clearing that can beat him. And the ‘maybe’ is me.

“I can see your scornful faces. So who would like to go first? You, Pine-Cone.”

A young dryad jumped up from the learning class. I guessed that she was somewhere around sixteen to seventeen. She was tall, well-muscled and had the bright smile and hungry look of a fighter that knew what she was doing. She also had the easy movements and over-confidence of a student that had never seen a real fight.

And suddenly, I knew what I was there for.

She came at me with her spear extended in the simplest stance and I used the oldest trick in the book. I kicked the ash and dirt on the floor of the training ground into her face. She staggered, covering her eyes, I tripped her and held the blade of my training spear at her throat.

“First victory to the human.” the Weapons Mistress called.

“He cheated,” the girl, Pine-Cone protested.

“A real fight does not have rules,” I told her. She hissed at me and came on again, the blows she swung were far heavier than they should be for training practice. She was angry and quickly overcommitted. Two blows later and she was on the floor wheezing for breath.

“Never lose your temper,” I told her, absolutely expecting her to come on again but instead she had to be helped back to the learning group.

“So much for the top of the class.” The Weapons Mistress called with a bit of a sneer. “We are lucky in that we get this chance. This man does not know the forms. He was trained by someone else. Who would like a chance to test out what they know and apply it to the real world.”

I did as I thought she wanted me to do. I stood, ready in the most basic of basic middle guard positions. Another girl from the student class stood up with a calculating expression. She used a very similar advance to come and get me as the first girl did. I smiled as again, I knew what was coming. I kicked out with the dirt and she ducked, timing her turn away perfectly and she grinned as she leapt at me with her spear extended. I swatted the point of the spear away from me and her advance brought my own spear-point to her throat.

She nodded, bowed. “I had to try,” She whispered to me as she returned to her place.

I noticed that Elm-Branch and the Weapons-Mistress were standing together and whispering. The Weapons Mistress selected one of the beginners from the class, a young girl, maybe eleven years old. She held her spear in the correct grip and that was about all that could be said.

I was surprised that none of the women that were hopeful of mating had tried yet but I supposed that I was missing a point somewhere. They were all watching carefully.

The girl came towards me with a calculating expression on her face.

She lunged and I parried, she lunged again and I parried.

The thing here was that I couldn’t simply beat this girl. I had to do so in a way without significantly hurting her. I could put her down, overwhelm her with strength and learned techniques to be sure. But that was not what was going on here. This was a learning situation. I also needed to hide as much of my own capabilities as I could.

In the end, I came under her lunge and she reversed the parry to strike under my guard. It was quite well-executed but it left me room to push her spear down to the ground and for me to slide my spear up and into her chest where I tapped her firmly with as much control as I could manage.

She fell over, being off-balance and panicking as she saw my spear coming towards her. I leant forward and helped her up.

“Well done,” I told her, desperately trying to remember a piece of advice that Kerrass had given me when I was first learning, that might have been applicable here. I had it. “Your lunges are strong, steady and you do not overextend which is always tempting. Your stance is not wide enough though which means that you lack stability. Remember that a good lunge comes from your feet.”

‘That’s what she says.” The girl admitted, nodding towards the Weapons-Mistress.

“And she is correct,” I told her, feeling more sure of myself now. My rarely used teaching muscles started to flex themselves. In my experience, Weapons-Masters are Weapons-Masters for a reason. Listen to them, practice the basics over and over again. Far more than you would the fancy tricks and footwork. But you kept your temper and you have a good mind for it. I think you will go far.”

She looked absurdly pleased with the praise and I had to resist the temptation to ruffle her hair. The Weapons-Mistress nodded and winked at me so that the girl couldn’t see it.

“Enough of this.” Shouted a scout from the group of hopeful women. She leapt forward with almost a look of contempt. “I did not come here to pretend that this man is better than the rest of us. I came here to mate and to provide the next generations of dryads with my strength. I have yet to see anything that would suggest that this man is worthy of me.”

A number of the older scouts and warriors in the assembly laughed, I could not tell who they were laughing at but the scout visibly bridled.

The Weapons-Mistress nodded and applied a little scorn to her voice. “Then perhaps he can show you.”

The scout smirked and stepped forward as the Weapons-Mistress came to me and whispered in my ear.

“Punish her.” She whispered. “She is arrogant and needs the edges worn off her. Do not hold back from hurting her, in fact, she could do with having something broken to remind her that she’s mortal, but do not kill her.”

I didn’t feel as confident as she suggested.

The scout came at me, battle-crouch low and spear carefully held tightly. She leapt into a series of lunges, short hard and powerful.

I fell back.

She laughed and advanced with some more lunges. I parried them.

She frowned and came forward again, starting to move me around the clearing. I parried and dodged without attacking.

She began to grow frustrated and her attacks became wilder.

I put an expression of scorn on my face and began to make my dodges more negligent. Distantly, it became clear that people were laughing.

“Fight me damn you.” She yelled. From somewhere I remembered Kerrass fighting a similar fight and his own words came to my lips.

“I am fighting you,” I said. “Just not in the way that you think or expect.”

She screamed in rage and attacked.

Her problem was not in the speed or the strength. It was in the fact that she was predictable. Every move that she used was readable in her body language and her stance. On several occasions, I was already moving before she had begun the move.

Then I saw my opening and stepped forward, jabbing my practice spear into her ribs. Not particularly hard, but it doesn’t really need to be hard. I felt a rib crack and she fell backwards. She rolled back to her feet easily enough and I saw the fear and pain in her eyes. I attacked.

It was not hard and the fight was over quickly. I stepped forward and she panicked, almost exactly the same way that the little girl had. Three moves later and I hit her in the side of the head, not that hard although it would leave a bruise.

She fell. I jumped forward and trapped her spear and hand with my foot so that she couldn’t bring her weapon to bear, and I held my spear at her throat.

“Not bad,” I told her. “But I’ve fought better.”

She spat at me and got up to stalk off to stand with the rest of her group of hopefuls.

Elm-Branch stood forwards and pointed at her. “No.” She said. “Go home. Even if this man was freer with his affections, you would not be permitted to mate with him.”

A few of the other women murmured at that.

The tall, Blonde Giant warrior stepped to the front. “I agree.” She said loudly and for all to hear. If that was a real fight, he would have killed you in moments. Even in training, he tried to preserve you from too much humiliation or broken limbs. He was far gentler in that position than I would have been. You do not deserve him. Go to the healers and then go home. Later, we will discuss your attitude. You will not enjoy that conversation.”

The scout looked mortified for a moment before her face hardened. “I would not allow such as him anywhere near me anyway. Filthy fucking human.”

She spat again and turned with a sneer before walking off.

“GUARD.” Snapped Blonde-Giant.

A watching guard, not part of any other group who had a face like thunder stepped forward and grabbed the scout by the arm, twisting it up and behind her back harshly.

“Yes General?” Said the guard, not straining her voice despite the struggles of the scout.

“Take her and put her in the cells. Do not be gentle and remind her about the traditions of respect.”

The guard took the Scout away.

The whole mood of the gathering changed after that, there was a pause as lots of people looked at their feet and would not meet each other’s gaze.

“I will try next,” came a happy little voice.

A strawberry blonde stepped out from the crowd of hopefuls. “Although it has been a while since I have played with a…” She licked her lips lasciviously. “Spear.” She grinned and a couple of people laughed, lifting the atmosphere instantly. She went to the weapons racks and chose a spear. She also took her eating knife from her belt and slit her skirts for ease of movement.

She faced the crowd and made a big show of doing some stretches that were obviously meant to show off her feminine assets to both the crowd and to me. She adjusted her dress so that it emphasised her cleavage and did some… I’m gonna call them “stretches.”

“What do you think Ladies?” She called out with a grin. “Shall we see how he does with a real woman?”

She grinned as she turned to face me. And just like that, the belligerent and angry scout was forgotten.

She winked at me.

I won’t go over that fight. Her skills were old and unused. I would later chat with her a bit and she was one of the dryad storytellers, musicians and entertainers. She had been in the band that had played the previous evening and was known for the excellence of her jokes. She was not a fighter and freely admitted to being better with a bow than a spear.

We put on a show. Large twirling movements and moments of slapstick comedy. Occasionally she would come close and whisper instructions to me. I was grateful to her. She made me look like a thousand crowns and gave me moments to show humour that had the crowd laughing.

When I “defeated” her, she gave a little mew of disappointment before blowing me a kiss and returning to the group as people cheered us.

I had the overwhelming urge to bow as if to an audience.

And that was how it went. There would be pauses as I would drink some water and catch my breath. Elm-Branch could be seen speaking with onlookers, the students, the Weapons-Mistress especially and the group of hopefuls. The warriors and scouts all watched carefully with the focus of trained professionals and the other, more robed and philosophical types watched with thoughtful expressions.

I was astonished that I won every bout and I began to see what the Weapons-Mistresses point was. These people relied on their speed, their stealth and their knowledge of the terrain. But in a straight-up, stand-up fight, they could not compete. Any attacker of the Black Forest, Be it an army or a small force, would need to be picked off one by one, and they would be. The attrition rate would be awful. But if you backed a dryad up into a corner, then the dryad was going to lose.

I saw that point sink home in more than one face.

That’s not to say that there weren’t a couple of bouts that came close. As time went on and more and more people had seen me fight in the ongoing scheme of things, they became wiser and wiser to my style and sense of movement. They began to be able to read my moves better and easier and as such, they were getting closer and closer to being able to put me down.

Those that had faced me early on in proceedings began to clamour to have another go and it was versus one of those women that I first had to switch styles from using my weapon as just a spear to using it as a quarterstaff as well.

They didn’t like that as their chosen and favoured champion came crashing down to the floor as relatively good-natured shouts of “cheat” and insults questioning my manhood were shouted.

The woman in question climbed up with a scowl but she shook my hand readily enough and rejoined her friends with a thoughtful expression.

Then the Blonde Giant came forward. As she crouched into a battle stance and advanced towards me cautiously, far more cautiously than any of the previous opponents. I could see what she planned to do. She was going to back me up into either the group of onlookers, one of the surrounding trees or into the boundary of the clearing. She would hide behind her shield as she did that before she would drop her spear and use her club to rain down blows upon me. It was a good technique and would work if I fought as I had been doing up until that point.

I had been working cautiously, carefully and defensively up until that point. Conserving speed and energy given that I would be fighting over a prolonged period of time. She knew that and intended to take advantage of it. And so, another lesson of Kerrass’ came to the fore.

“If the enemy expects you to do a certain thing. Always see to it that you do something else instead.”

I charged her. To beat her, I needed to get inside her reach. I would never win a wrestling match but if I could just get inside her range then I could use the trick that I hadn’t used yet.

I had enough time to see her eyes widen in shock as I came at her. She lunged and I spun in a pirouette that would have warmed Kerrass’ heart, she fell back and lunged again, but this time I was closer. I pushed the lunge aside with my spear.

I was coming round her right-hand side now, the one unprotected by a shield. She saw the danger and dropped her shield to bring her club to bear. But clubs need a windup to be effective and I already had my belly dagger out and had it at her throat.

The crowd was deathly silent.

She backed off a little, keeping her posture and I did the same.

Then she stopped, grinned and let the club fall to her side. “I had wondered when you were going to bring that dagger out to play.” She said. “A dangerous trick.”

I shrugged. “In the pursuit of survival, it is no longer a trick.”

The weapons-mistress had stepped forward and was addressing her class. But she had raised her voice as well in order to get the onlookers who were gaping at the fact that the blonde had been beaten.

“And so we see the danger inherent in our weapons stylings.” We use spears and clubs, bows and arrows because we have plenty of wood and very little metal. It makes sense. We use stealth, trickery and knowledge of the surrounding area in order to fight and capture the intruders. We tell ourselves that we are using the advantages that we have but in doing so, we have reduced what we are capable of.

“And yes, we use tricks. I see you there, those of you that complained that this man switching his weapon styles mid-combat was trickery. It might be, but it worked and as he himself said, in the pursuit of survival, it is not trickery.

“But what this means is that when our opponent gets past the spear point or dodges the arrow, then we are already dead. Those of you that train with the shillelagh (Freddie: An old Elven word for… essentially a wooden mace. A long club, carved with an extra kind of protrusion on the end so that it can cave in armour and, you know, skulls) are possibly thinking yourselves a bit smug right now thinking that you have the advantage there. And you do, and a shield helps as well, but not enough of you train your strength to use a shield properly.

“‘It is too heavy and ungainly to use in the trees and the undergrowth’ you moan. But the truth is that you are lazy. But I am not having that argument again today. Even with those advantages though, a quick opponent who dodges the arrow, gets past the point of the spear can also get inside the reach of the shillelagh and even if you strike them with it, the worst that your opponent will suffer is a rather nasty bruise. But in the meantime, you have a dagger in your throat, or your gut, or your groin.

“And just in case you think that you can be better than that, I would remind you that the General of the Forest Guard, just got defeated handily by a man who describes himself as a scholar. When he returns, I will invite the Witcher to train with some of you. Believe me when I say that it will take at least three of you to even get close to him.”

There was some murmuring among the watchers. I turned to look at the Blonde giant of a woman and frowned.

“Did you just let me win?” I wondered.

She winked. “Maybe, and if I did it was not by much. But that doesn’t make her point any the less valid and it is a point that she, and I, have been trying to make for years. We argue every year that some of the precious metals that we have be used to make daggers and knives for our warriors and scouts. But the argument is always made that the metal is needed elsewhere.”

“There are plenty of training knives in the racks.” I pointed and indicated the ones that I had been using.

“Yes. We train with them on the grounds that it’s good to know and we want to get across how useful they are. But every time we capture a real, good quality dagger, it is always commandeered by people who ‘need it more’. And they do, we need things like cooking pots and small tools. But it costs us lives. We have never let anyone escape the forest once they have been spotted and know about us, but that will come one day and when you humans think that only dryads are here to protect the Black Forest, then you will come with your timber cutters. We lose women, scouts and warriors every couple of years when a large group comes into the forest. Sponsored by this Lord or that, monster-hunters seeking glory and every so often we lose people. And every loss is keenly felt by our species, let alone our society.”

“Presuming that I am allowed to leave.” I began. “Then I intend to take some steps against that anyway. The Empress will be sympathetic I am sure. But… Have you considered axes? Smaller amounts of metal used and can be used as tools as well as weapons.”

She shuddered, “There is a cultural thing against axes. The symbology of them being used to cut wood is a bit too close to… you know.”

“Ok,” I said. “I understand. How about then…” I gestured to the Weaponsmistress who was still lecturing her class. She had got one of the older students up and was demonstrating how a dagger could be used to end a life.

“She described my spear as a glaive which is fair enough although the definition is new to me. Why not miniaturise that. Not a knife, not an axe, but a slashing, stabby weapon for your scout’s and warrior’s belts?”

She was nodding as I spoke. “Interesting, I will think on it and I shall think of some prototypes.”

She turned away from me and raised her voice. “Elm-Branch may I have your attention?”

The loud voice had some other effects as well and I knew enough to know that it was deliberate.

Elm-Branch herself turned from the conversation that she was having with a young hopeful that was wearing a red robe-dress.

“This man is better than I deserve.” The Blonde giant. “I am not given to connections and gentleness. This man deserves that and more that I cannot give him. If he is up for it at any stage during his visit, then I would be more than willing for a roll in the hay, however.” She said this with a last look at me.

More than a few of the women exchanged glances with each other and there were hurried whispers being exchanged.

“Furthermore.” The Blonde-Giant said. And yes, that was the moment that her name solidified in my head. “Anyone that insults, or otherwise mistreats him, will answer to me.” Then she clapped me on the shoulder and moved off to stand with the Weapons-mistress.

“Time for a break.” The Weapons-Mistress called. “Food and water time, don’t eat too much that you feel sluggish. Training will recommence after the break.”

I felt like a pet on display for the passers-by. I still carried the practise weapons with me when I went, they did not quite offer the same security feeling that my real weapons gave but they were close. Someone had brought some portions of bread, cheese and cooked meats with butter and some more of the clean water that they had a limitless supply of. I took my plate of food and found a tree to sit and lean against while I ate, doing my best to ignore the comments and the looks that I was getting from the remaining hopefuls.

Elm-Branch was watching me. I could feel it.

I finished the meal and tried my best not to look forward to when Kerrass was going to come back. I felt lost, alone and frightened. I also wanted to examine my own thinking. For a while there, I had thought that I was going to be paired with the Blonde-Giant and I was trying to examine whether or not I was disappointed in the fact that she had decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate. If Elm-Branch was looking for some kind of connection between me and the people that I was training with, then it seemed to me that I had a deeper connection with the Blonde-Giant than I had with anyone else. There weren’t any of the others that were standing out from the crowd so far.

I leant my head back against the tree and tried to enjoy the moment of quiet.

“Excuse me.” Said a quiet voice.

I opened my eyes and blinked a couple of times. There was a woman in front of me. Judging by the lack of volume to the voice, I had expected a young girl or something, but this was a woman. She was young, I think, as far as the dryads go. I had seen her as one of the group of hopefuls but she had kept to the back of the group. I had seen her, maybe, once, during the entire thing. She was a tiny woman, short and from a distance, you would mistake her for being slight in build. She wasn’t, she was well-muscled but the size of her frame gave you the illusion of delicacy.

She was a concentrated woman. I have used this term before, I am sure. So I will just skip over what I mean by that quickly. If you imagine a tall, muscular, giant of a woman. Powerful and imposing with both her physical stature, but also her femininity. Then you take that woman and concentrate all of that physical power and all of that character and femininity and focus it down into a body that is a fraction of the size.

She was like that. As I looked up at her from my seated position, she seemed small and delicate but then I looked closer and it became clear that, although not old, she was also not as young as I guessed at first. She was also well muscled for her size. Physically fit as all of the dryads are and of course she was attractive. Her jaw was strong and her blue eyes were intent. She had dark hair.

I took all this in quickly and I blinked.

“Errr… what?” I said.

Charming as ever I hope you will notice.

She looked away from my face.

“Look… I Ummm.” A spasm of frustration crossed her face and she took a deep breath, looking up at the sky. “I’m not a big… important person. I know that I’m not going to be… your…” She clapped her hand to her forehead shut her eyes and took a breath. “But I saw you fight and… It doesn’t have to be in front of anyone else, but I’ve got to see if I can…”

“A private bout?” I wondered, climbing to my feet. “Why not in the open?”

And suddenly, the awkwardness vanished and it was as though a light was lit in her face. She went from being awkward and shy, to being full of life and energy. I recognised that. I have seen it in the mirror.

“We are stuck.” She said. “The dryads of the Black Forest have been fighting the same way for centuries. They told you that we fight with wooden weapons because we live in the trees. But we only think of spears, bows and arrows, wooden shields without the density to stop even our little spear thrusts let alone a broadsword strike. They want us to have knives and daggers at our belts the way that you use them. But that doesn’t go far enough. We need to take it further. We need to innovate and every time I suggest it then…”

And the shy awkwardness was back.

“You are a scout?” I wondered.

“Yes. I am not big and strong enough for a guard. But I’m quick on my feet. I keep watch on the borders to the immediate East.”

“Are you a good scout?”

“I am only an adequate shot with a bow,” She said. “And although alright with the spear, I am not big enough to properly wield one of any length.”

“That was not what I asked,” I told her with a raised eyebrow.

Her eyes blazed. “Yes,” She told me. “I am an outstanding scout.”

I nodded and picked up my practice weapons.

“Then lead on,” I said.

She took me a little distance away, well out of sight of everyone. Some people might wonder as to why I was so trusting and I have no answer for that. I took the time to belch and examine myself, limbering up again to free my limbs from the stiffness of the brief rest.

She had brought a long bundle with her and unstrapped it, taking several shorter spears from inside the bundle. She also strapped a small, wooden disk to her left hand around the wrist. The bundle of spears, there was about six of them I think. Were held in her left hand with the point down.

I moved to a point at the edge of the newer, smaller area that I found myself in and nodded to show her that I was ready. She nodded back, took one of the spears from her left hand and threw it at me.

Hard.

I only barely dodged the thrown javelin and the second one nearly caught me as I straightened from ducking from the first one.

Flame but she was fast.

I feinted left, then right, then leapt at her. She spun around me and the spear that she was now holding in her right hand sliced through the air where my head had been.

She was holding the spear at the balance point, just back from the middle and I wondered if she had weighted it in some way.

As I stepped back I realised that being close to this girl would end in my death, figuratively speaking and I backed off.

But that was deadly as well as another thrown javelin flickered towards me. Only luck saved me as I put my spear in the way and knocked it so it went spinning off. If I was being generous with myself I would say that I parried it out of the air. But that is a stretch. I barely did it consciously.

So I couldn’t get too close, but nor could I use range.

I stepped in and lunged. She pushed the lunge aside with the wooden plate on her left hand which turned out to be some form of buckler and her right-handed spear was at my throat.

She grinned fiercely.

I nodded and felt myself smiling back. I picked up one of her spent javelins and passed it to her.

“Again?” I wondered.

She nodded eagerly.

If someone was keeping score, I won the next point. The initial surprise of the new style had been a deciding factor and I raised my game. She couldn’t surprise me with it anymore. So this time, I closed with her and used my spear as a quarterstaff and beat her backwards until she fell under the onslaught of blows. She did well, parrying my strikes with the bundle of rods in her left hand and being remarkably nimble. But I saw her overbalance with a parry, forced a dodge and she fell off balance.

I stepped back and allowed her to stand.

She got up, collected her thrown javelin while frowning in thought.

“Again?” She wondered.

I smiled and nodded.

I was astonished to find that I was really enjoying myself. The other bouts had been an interesting intellectual challenge about finding ways to beat each of the combatants one by one until they fell. Each successive loss fed into the next attempt which meant that people could take what had happened previously.

The next bout went on for a while longer and it became clear that she had raised her game a bit. She eventually trapped my spear, which I was using like a quarterstaff and spun it until I lost my grip and it fell from my hands.

The bout after that, I won by dancing around outside her reach so that she hovered between throwing a javelin or holding onto it. Eventually, she was caught out with the wrong answer.

Then She won by bringing her off-hand spears into the fight as more than just a parrying weapon and she tripped me up.

Then I won when I realised that she was fighting defensively. So I made her run out of javelins so that she was forced to attack me with her last one, depriving her of an off-hand parrying strike.

It went on like that for a long time, far longer than I had expected but it seemed shorter than it was. She would win a bout, I would win one, sometimes she would win two and I would have to make a comeback. I offered her advice on some techniques and she pointed out a weakness in how I was reacting to her attacks.

Later, when I finally lost my breath… after all… I had been fighting all morning where she had been resting and watching. I waved her off. And she nodded, passing me a water skin.

“I’ve seen enough.” Said Elm-Branch, stepping out from behind a tree.

“As have I.” The Blonde-Giant said as she led the Weapons-Mistress and a couple of the other hopefuls forward.

My new friend shrank before all of them as though she had been caught breaking a rule.

“I’m sorry.” She whimpered in a tiny voice. “I know that all of this is supposed to be happening in the open… But I saw him fight and I had to know if…”

Blonde-Giant held up her hand to stop the flow. Her face was stern as she looked down at the pair of us.

“Sorry.” Muttered my new friend as she hung her head.

“So this is what you’ve been working on?” The Blonde-Giant said in a stern voice although I looked at her face and I thought I could see amusement there.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Weapons-mistress bend down and pick up one of the spent javelins from earlier.

My new friend nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s just… We’re all so stuck and… I had some ideas and… Sorry.”

“Why didn’t you come to tell me?” The Blonde Giant said.

“You’re always so busy and… I didn’t want to bother you.”

The Weapons-Mistress gripped the javelin and hurled it at a nearby tree. And missed. For some reason, she seemed delighted by this. She looked at the Blonde-Giant and nodded.

Elm-Branch was looking at Blonde-Giant.

“I have one final question.” The Blonde-Giant said. “Have you neglected your duties to work on this… new weapons-style?”

My new friend’s eyes blazed in fury and outrage. “I would never… I could never… I am proud to… I would never…”

This time she was struggling to get the words out past the rage and the clenched teeth.

The look of pride on the Blonde-Giant’s face was wonderful to behold. “There’s my sister,” she breathed in something approaching awe. Then she nodded to Elm-Branch.

“It is decided.” Elm-Branch declared in a loud, formal and proud voice. “Apple-Seed is to be one of the two women chosen to mate with the human. She fulfils the choice of the martial mate. There are many reasons for this and if people wish, I shall go through them at leisure, but another must be chosen first.”

My new friend, Apple-Seed was her name, stood there open-mouthed.

Most of the watching women cheered, a couple of the hopefuls were disappointed. Already I could see people discussing it though and guessed that the news would soon pass throughout the dryad settlement.

I went to Apple-Seed’s side and she looked up at me. Her eyes were shining with some emotion. She looked, at the same time, horrified, excited, proud, happy, scared and shocked. Most of all, she looked overwhelmed.

“If you don’t want this.” I whispered to her, “I will make it known.”

“I don’t… I mean…” She shook her head, “Fuck it.”

Then she hugged me fiercely. It was like being hugged by a storm cloud and was over before I had time to react. “I am happy if you are happy.” She told me.

I looked at her. Small, fierce, awkward, strong and clever. ‘Yes,’ I decided.

“Then I am happy too,” I told her.

She whooped and then sobbed suddenly as a release of tension.

The Weapon’s Mistress came forward. She had my spear and other weapons with her and handed them over before turning to Apple-Seed with a smile. “You are going to have to teach me how to throw your spears like that. The weight would make them powerful missiles, more powerful than an arrow at least.”

Apple-Seed who had quickly overcome her tears nodded.

“As for your fighting style?” The Weapons mistress pretended to consider for a while before grinning. “I don’t think you know how impressive it is that you have invented a completely new way of fighting, also while keeping up with your duties. I can see some weaknesses. But when you are done with your conceiving a child and the healers are satisfied. We have much to work on and discuss. You have opened up a whole new…” She frowned for a moment before shaking her head. “You have given me much to think about and I look forward to working with you.”

Apple-Seed tried to be formal but couldn’t help but grin.

Elm-Branch shook her hand and then shook mine. “I will give you a few moments, but time is of the essence, so I must have another mate chosen for you.” She turned back to Apple-Seed. “I am afraid that you must share him.”

Apple-Seed nodded. “I know. Just make it someone that will respect me, and him as well. He has already shown me more kindness than some I can think of.”

Elm-Branch nodded. “Rejoin us at the practise field when you are done.”

People started to file away until we both, I think, realised that Blonde-Giant had not left. I got the sense of a private moment happening and backed away from the pair of them.

“Oh child.” The Giant said. “I am sorr…” And then Apple-Seed hugged her hard. “I did not mean to make you afraid of me.” Blonde-Giant went on.

“You Aunt? Never.” Apple-Seed seemed to be recovering some equilibrium. “But you the Captain of the guard and leader of the Scouts. That woman is terrifying.”

Blonde-Giant grinned and laughed before bending and kissing the tiny woman on the forehead.

“Your mother would be very proud.” She said.

“I hope so,” Apple-Seed said in a small voice.

“Do not doubt it.” The Blonde-Giant nodded and came over to me. “You are worthy of her, I think.” She said with a slight smile….

I held my hand up interrupting her mid-flow. “If this is the speech about not hurting your niece, then save it. Those speeches make me angry. I will do my best to make this experience as pleasant as I can for both of us.”

The Blonde-Giant laughed at me. “I was going to wish you luck. She is quiet and reserved, some even call her timid. But she can be intense when she puts her mind to a thing. If anything, you might have difficulty making sure that you get to make sure she has a good time. She will be too busy doing the same to you to notice your ministrations.”

I laughed at the mortified expression on Apple-Seed’s face.

“Try and enjoy it.” The Blonde-Giant told her. “I know that you are no virgin but this will be different to what you have experienced.”

I have now seen a dryad blush. It was a strange sight.

(A/N: I am not done with the Dryads and their methods of procreation yet. So this should not be seen as a final word. More to come with the other chosen mate and with Trayka, and of course, the Schattenmann himself.)