The caravan was a beehive of activity when I reached the mouth of the ravine.

Guards saddled their horses, travelers hitched their mules to their carts and wagons. Through the clamor I heard Hothgar shouting something about his tools.

It looked like everyone had made it back.

I hadn't made many friends in this group, unable to see past my sour disposition. Nonetheless, I was relieved to be back. The fishermen had been so welcoming, I'd been afraid they would somehow convince me to give up on my dreams of starting my own trading company and settle down. Methuzalan, on the other hand–I still couldn't wrap my mind around what had happened.

You might be wondering, didn't I give her warning a second thought? Didn't it give me pause? The answer is no. If you've never had someone peer into you, see your moments of shame and hurt–moments you hoped never to remember–then you can't know what it's like. A wall went up in me, and Methuzalan and all her ramblings were placed neatly behind it.

Besides, I was hardly convinced that everything I experienced had actually happened. It was likely that I'd been hallucinating the whole thing after exposure to that shimmering pollen.

Needless to say, I was trying to put the whole thing behind me, and there was no better way to do that than to bathe the whole village in my road dust.

As I hitched the mules to the wagon I noticed that the pain that had become my constant companion these weeks on the road was absent. Sure enough, the red and peeling skin of my hands had settled into a deep tan. I smiled–which, for the first time in a while, didn't hurt. Maybe I had gotten something from going to the witch's hut after all.

The road was smooth and well cared for so our departure was easy and painless. Within an hour the rocky entrance to the fishing village had melted into the rolling hills that butted up against the sea cliffs.

Ocean breeze cooled my skin, and the rhythmic clomping of the mules and horses lulled me into the realm of waking dreams where I plotted the gradual expansion of a vast trading empire. One that would dwarf the Golden Fox Spice Company.

...

My head was nodding before night fell, so I was relieved when we pulled off the road into a grassy field.

Haaawoooooooooo…

A lone howl shattered the peace of falling night. I paused where I was, halfway dismounted from the wagon. Everyone else in the caravan was frozen too.

The lonely cry was answered by another on the opposite side of us. Then another. Then hundreds in every direction.

"Mount up!" Roderick's booming voice cut through the darkness, though nearly drowned out by the howling. "We leave immediately! Make haste!"

I scrambled back into my seat and ushered my mules to hurry. I wanted to get a spot near the center of the caravan, certain that was the safest location.

The guards fanned out along the length of the procession as we all fell back into line. The ground shook as we sped off.

The world rushed by. If we kept this pace up the mounts would collapse before daylight. Terror gripped my heart. If the guards were afraid enough to push our mounts this hard, there had to be serious danger.

I couldn't even hear the thump of hooves over the pounding in my chest. In the darkness every blade of grass turned into claws and fangs that thirsted to tear flesh from bone, limb from body.

HAAAAWOOOOOOOOOO

They were drawing closer.

A horse screamed somewhere behind me, followed by a thud then the parting of air with steel and the squealing of whatever daemons of the night pursued us.

Another horse screamed and hit the ground. I hoped it was my imagination as the crunch and squish of gnawing teeth assaulted my ears and frayed my nerves.

Then, in the swinging light of my lantern, a blur of fur and teeth flashed out of the blackness, clamping down on the leg of one of my mules. The leg crumpled, followed by the mule.

When it fell it jerked the other mule sideways before splattering under the wheel of the wagon. The wheel splintered with a deafening snap and the wagon lurched, crashing on its side. My belongings and I were launched onto the earth.

I skidded and rolled to a stop. Nothing hurt, but that was because all I could feel was sheer terror.

Grrrrrrrrrrgh.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The beast was on the other side of the downed wagon. My lantern had shattered on the ground, spilling flaming oil that lit the space between me and whatever hunted me.

A dark shape emerged and circled the ring of light cast by the spilled oil. It's eyes shone back at me, flickering with rage, hunger, and reflected fire. Long sharp teeth gleamed against the night, circling toward me.

I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

The mule that hadn't been attacked sprang up, a last desperate fight for life, and ran faster than any horse I'd ever seen.

The shape in the darkness turned its head, watching the mule, then back at me. We locked eyes.

From the blackness I heard snarls and chomping and the screams of my mule.

Something about that–about the hopeless charge of the doomed animal–something in that moment woke me up. I was not going to die. Not lying down.

I rose, only to collapse and my shin folded in half, broken.

And then there was pain. Unimaginable pain.

I screamed.

I was ready to die. Monsters of the night take me. Just let the pain end.

The creature lept. Good. My agony would be over soon.

Something whistled through the air, piercing straight through the creature's eye socket. It was limp by the time it landed on me. Crushing my breath from me, and drawing forth a new scream.

An armored hand reached out from above me. I took it instinctively–thought having long abandoned me.

The man on the horse spurred his mount and dragged me by the arm out from under the animal. My arm popped from it's socket, but the pain was merely a pinch compared to my leg.

My rescuer paused long enough to hoist me onto the back of the horse and we galloped, full speed, into the black night.

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Wilmina drummed on the lute as she paced outside the medical tent. She had played the Ode to the Distant Heart every night of the journey. It was the one song her pa had taught her.

But it hadn’t been working.

It was supposed to draw the object of your love closer to you, but the Fox boy, Kelmar, if anything, had been avoiding her more every day. It made her want to scream.

She was here for him, after all. They hadn’t exactly been close in Lavos, but she knew everything about him. She would follow as he went about his business, watch him masterfully fleece merchants in the market, slyly slip the coins from perusing customers with sweet words, sexily strut down the streets...

He really was marvelous.

She’d even talked to him once. He’d been at work and he’d sold her a very expensive shawl. He still hadn’t commented on it, but she wore it every day. He was probably just shy.

Well, not shy in the traditional sense. He was actually pretty boisterous with his friends, and outgoing in his business dealings, sometimes even flirtatious with some of the servers at his favorite tavern–but that was just more proof.

He seemed to be instantly close to everyone he met. The reason he ignored her, avoided her even, had to be because he was afraid of his feelings.

Well she wouldn’t let him hide from their love, even if the healers wouldn’t let her inside to visit him. She’d just play the song.

Even as she began playing, she moaned inwardly–wait, no, it was out loud. She flushed.

Well, the point was that she was upset about the bottle she’d dropped. She’d gone through the trouble of following him to that crazy shack and talking to that crazy witch, and she’d even gotten a potion out of it. A love potion.

She wouldn’t use it of course. Their love was real. She didn’t need it. And it didn’t matter anymore now that she'd dropped it and watched in slack-jawed horror as it rolled under the tent, beyond her reach.

She was certain she hadn't heard the smashed-glass sound of someone stepping on it.

Ya, everything was fine. She'd serenade him and he'd get all better, and return her love.

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I was hallucinating. I was sure of it. There was no way that hellish melody, so clumsily plucked on an increasingly out of tune lute, could actually be coming from right outside the medical tent.

I’d just woken from the blackness to be greeted by my own pain and that damn song like a rooster from hell telling me that while I might be awake now, and stuck that way, it was a mistake.

What was even weirder was the pink mist wafting from a shattered vial right by where the music was coming from. Yup, definitely hallucinating.

I tried focusing on something else, anything else.

Well, the nurse was cute.

In fact, she was really quite attractive.

Like, have babies and settle down attractive.

No, more like, legendary princess warrior attractive. I’ve alway had a thing for strong women. I really thought her wrinkles and that wart were just so beautiful.

Like mushrooms in a bog, if there was a beautiful version of that.

What was happening? I was all kinds of woozy. The room was spinning and the pink mist was thicker.

Then one of the other healers, one whose body wasn’t torn to shreds like mine, seemed to have the same idea I’d had, but more ability to follow through. She jumped on my girl, wrapping her arms around the saucy minx who'd dressed my wounds, and pressing her lips to my love’s.

Well, my girl seemed kind of into it. That was okay. True love doesn’t come with expectations, after all. Does it? I didn’t know. I was just enjoying the show.

Until they bumped my cot.

I fell in slow motion. The sound of aggressive smooching finally rounding out that lute song as I descended. I didn’t see the rock that my head landed on.

But I’m pretty sure it was a rock. And I’m definitely sure that’s how I died.

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Wilmina wept in the ugly, snotty kind of way. The kind you’d see in the theaters of the capital, she assumed.

If the bardic college of Summerset hadn’t drilled the bard’s code into her so deep, “We are Lovers, not Fighters”, she might have gone on a rampage and killed those healers.

What kind of healers had an orgy and let a patient die!

She took a deep breath and let the tears run down her face. She was trying to water the ground of his grave with them–a fittingly romantic gesture, she thought–but it was harder done than said.

Anyway, her teachers had been right about one thing–tragedy was a bard's best friend. She’d finally had the inspiration to write an original song!

And better yet, it was about Kelmar. It was even true. At least the parts that mattered. Well, his name was true.

Yes, she’d make him famous. The Bhargest Slayer, the Silver Tongued Bandit, the Hero of the Coast! The man who died of mortal wounds in an orgy to defy the gods. She blushed. She’d never been so proud of anything in her life. And now she’d get to keep him with her forever.

Dead people couldn’t ignore you after-all.

She’d play it for him one last time before she dug him up to get a keepsake.

Maybe a ring, or a finger, just a little something.

Wilmina the Bard sucked in a breath and began to sing her Ballad, All Foxes Dine in Hell.

The End