AROUND TWILIGHT, AS THE Faroon gathered in their social areas for a lip-smacking meal of fresh rodents, the Chameleon Fae deployed stealthily, checking the tents one more time. They reported back in rapid succession. “Torture tent empty. One light pink Fae visually confirmed in the second tent, plus several others who sounded wounded or unwell.”

Sabline said, “Middle tent?”

Varzune said, “Harzune and I tried to check. The entrance is being guarded by four Ormic Low Fae. We couldn’t approach close enough to gain line of sight from above.”

“By the Ormic Fae?” the Princess frowned.

“Aye,” Harzune added. “There’s an important Fae prisoner inside, possibly one of the girlfae Varzune or I saw. We overheard them talking, but don’t have any details.”

“Frrr-hrrrt, we have to go in,” Yaarah said.

The Chameleon nodded. “One more complication. We heard one guard assure the other that no Faroon, nor any creature but a Fae, is able to enter that middle tent. They don’t trust one another, that much is clear, but the Ormic helped resolve the issue between the Faroon and the Marakusians, saving a couple of lives.”

“Need not have bothered,” Sabline grumbled.

“Aye to that.”

“I vote for distraction via the sparkly toad method,” the Elf said.

“We need to keep her safe,” Harzune insisted.

“She is not a Faeling anymore,” Allory retorted, folding her arms crossly. Tiny arms. Sometimes she did wish she could be ten times bigger. “I can be of actual use, you know. Please, Harzune. All I want is to do my part.”

Cue a handsome but obstinate scowl.

Leaping to her feet, Allory hung her head and began to rub her eyes, pretending to cry. “Oh, I’m a poor lost little Faeling. Please help me.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Ooh, you’re so big and strong. Can you help me, pleeeeeeaaaase?”

“Oh dear, that’s terrible!” Yaarah laughed, as the Chameleons cheered her performance.

“Terribly good,” said Ashueli. “Devious, this one. Trouble on legs.”

Harzune clapped her upon the back. “You’re with us. Central tent. Think you can distract a few cannibals?”

His brofae said, “She sure looks tasty enough.”

“Eep!” Allory squeaked.

With ten of his brethren piling on to punish him for that slip-up, Varzune quickly apologised. Harzune then drew everyone together to make sure that each person knew their part. A spot of spit and polish and the plan was ready to be executed.

Allory rubbed her hands together eagerly. “Let’s go cause mayhem!”

Yaarah mimed swatting her. “You wouldn’t believe how timid this one was when I first met her, grrr-ssst. She’d jump if a leaf landed nearby, squealed at bugs and took fright at every second jungle breeze.”

“I just don’t like slavers.”

“Slavers, bugs, I don’t see the difference,” Varzune said. “I plan to joke them to death.”

Groan.

Sabline grinned, “I like mine grrrr-roasted.”

“Diced into little bits,” said Ash.

“Pounded as flat as blades of grass,” said Harzune, stroking his hammer.

Allory cooed, “What lovely friends you are.”

“Indeed, zrrr-frrr, and on that note, I believe I am off to steal a cart,” Yaarah put in, with a frighteningly madcap grin. “You’re all a terrible influence, turning a respectable scholar into a lowborn thief.”

* * * *

In utter silence, Sabline dropped the rogue Princess off in the shadows behind one of the second-circle tents before slinking away to do what she did best. Ten Chameleons clustered about her, turning her into just another fragment of night. Allory stuck close to Harzune and his team as they snuck around ropes and between storage barrels until they gained a good view of the entrance of that third, largest tent. The scouts were right. Two unfamiliar Fae of a sallow green skin colouration stood outside, keeping guard and clearly bored out of their sap by the assignment. The others must be within.

Allory touched her antennae, trying to examine the magic she sensed in that tent. She shook her head slowly. “Harzune –”

“No sound.”

She leaned in closer, hating how her voice shook as she breathed, “That magic? Could be a trap.”

“A trap?”

“If we enter, we might not be able to escape.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe it’ll need a key or code phrase? Or there will be an amulet or stone within that generates this repulsion field. We can deal with it. Once you’ve distracted them –”

“Fire! Fire in the tents!” someone hollered nearby.

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“Go!”

With that, the supposed hero shoved her hard in the back! It was far too late to complain or turn back now, because the guards heard her gasp and turned already to peer into the shadows. Allory stumbled forward deliberately into a patch of firelight, turned one foot a little inward and popped her thumb into her mouth. She gazed at the guards with the utmost innocence she could muster.

“Oh … I’m lost …”

“A Scintillant!” one of the guards gasped.

Confirmation that they know exactly what my people look like …

“A Faeling?” his companion grunted, missing the mark as most Fae did. “Weren’t any in the last batch, as I recall – come here, you little cutie-Fae. Come on. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Although he spoke sweetly, a gleam in his hard eyes betrayed emotions Allory would far rather not have noticed – similar to the way Yaarah admired his meat, just more … perverse.

Allory took a few tottering steps forward and halted as if overcome by shyness. Making her eyes appear cutesy-huge was no issue. Terrified!

“What’s going on here?” Two other guards rushed out to join their fellows, swords drawn. They all relaxed at once, and one even laughed, “Ha, a tiny beauty. Sure are jewels, these Scintillants. Now, where did you come from – unh!”

She blinked in shock as an arrow feathered in the Ormic Fae’s throat. His three fellows fell at the same time, struck in perfect concert. Allory dropped the act and rushed after Harzune, not convinced by his half-argument about the tent, but also not willing to be left alone outside either. The Chameleons swarmed within, leaving two behind to guard the entrance as her quick ears caught a clash of blades over by the second tent they planned to raid. That would be Ashueli in action. Geysers of orange flame gushed into the evening sky as the tents Sabline torched proved as flammable as expected.

Felidragons did like to practically set their own fur alight.

Allory dashed into sallow lamplight, passing through a second, inner doorway screened by cloth just in time to see Harzune gaping in poetic amazement at a most unusual girlfae stuck inside a large bottle. She had black-in-black eyes, the palest skin Allory had ever seen and pure white hair. How exotic! As beautiful as an icy statue. What truly caught the eye, however, was the fact that the white girlfae was imprisoned in no less than three layers of what could only be magical entrapment, first a set of ridiculously thick silver manacles for her arms and legs plus a hugely oversized gag; second, a clear glass sleeve filled with a pale pink mist that covered her from her feet up to her chin, and was firmly sealed at the neck; and third, a larger, bell-shaped, translucent bottle that shimmered with fey magic and enclosed her person entirely.

One specimen on display? As dangerous as she was pretty, of that one could have no doubt.

Unfamiliar rage burned in Allory’s craw at the sight.

She hated cages.

Raising his favourite hammer with a mighty flexion of his arms, the hero cried, “I am Harzune the hero, come to smite your –”

SNAP! A net concealed beneath an oval green rug whipped him and four of the Chameleons up into the shadows at the top of the tent. With that, several dozen Ormic Fae poured out of a second inner tent, brandishing unfamiliar curved knives which looked designed to pare flesh off bone. Many more popped up out of what Allory took for sleeping pods or cocoons dangling from the roof over to her left.

They stared in disbelief at the lone Scintillant Fae.

This was the moment Allory realised that all the brave Chameleon warriors had vanished from sight. Handy trick. Although it bulged suspiciously, the net looked completely empty.

I guess that makes me the sparkly – help! Bait!

Good to grasp her role in the team. As long as they didn’t plan to dangle her in front of any hungry Dragons … she could do with a touch of that strange lighting with which she’d attacked that hapless soldier in the dungeons of Durhelm, but electrical-sparky did not appear to be her signature style. More of the pretty-sparkly with misfiring bouts of healing thrown in kind of sparky.

Although, raising Giants from the dead was quite the dizzying sip of nectar, one had to say.

The instant several of the greasy-haired Ormic swooped toward her with evil grins twisting their cunning faces, arrows spat out of nowhere and pinned them through.

Two or three of the enemy Fae began to chant spells, hurling them about the tent in search of the elusive Chameleons. Chaos erupted. A blast of powerful odour like burned cinnamon momentarily staggered her. Darting away before a keen hand waving a keener knife did nasty, unwelcome things to her neck, Allory flitted sharply between two Ormic Fae, bounced off an unseen Chameleon and muddled her way through a knot of fighters, not actually managing to hit anyone or anything with her dagger as she slalomed her way to freedom on the far side.

Brilliant at being the helpless bait. Enough!

She glanced about and chose the one thing she could potentially change. The net! Raising her voice, Allory unravelled the rope netting entangling Harzune and his team. Nitwits. Lovely nitwits. She was so busy admiring her handiwork that she failed to avoid the net as it landed atop of her head and drove her down, nicely entangled, to drape her atop the mysterious white Faerie’s bell-shaped prison. Fearful cold radiated against her torso. The Scintillant twizzled her neck, trying to follow Harzune’s spinning, flitting dance as he laid into the Ormic Fae warriors with passion and power, landing a succession of ringing blows with astonishing speed and precision. Gifted warrior? No surprises there. He slung his hammer about as if it weighed no more than a feather.

Below her tummy, the white girlfae’s eyes clearly followed the action as she drooled around her ridiculously oversized gag.

Allory knew that feeling from recent experience.

Except that her drool had not instantly frozen around her mouth.

Wheee-krack! Wheee-krack! The Ormic magic users smashed the Chameleons hither and thither with their magic and drove them back with whips made of pink light. Flashes of lightning accompanied each strike; most seemed powerful enough to stun a Chameleon Fae with a single blow.

Harzune’s cunning group could not sustain such an assault for long, even though they were dealing out some serious damage in return.

Right. Enough of being the limp rag in this battle. Yelling at the top of her lungs, Allory tried to rip the net apart and ended up dangling upside down by her left ankle in front of the white Fae’s widening eyes. No! Another failure. Total humiliation.

I will not have it – begone!

The ropes exploded away from her body.

Allory landed smack on top of her head and toppled slowly over onto her side. Thump. She tasted spicy Fae blood in her mouth. A series of odd thumps made her dart her eyes around the tent. To her utter astonishment, every last Ormic Fae had landed on the carpeted floor, soundly trussed in rope. Huh? Who – her? Not a single Chameleon had been caught in the same manner … double-what with suggid juice on top!

Harzune twirled his gleaming hammer with a fancy move. “Sparkling with ideas over there, Allory Fae?”

Grinning with what had to be a quite unreasonable Scintillant glow at his praise, she scrambled to her feet and tapped the cold bell jar. With exaggerated movements of her mouth, she called, “Get you out?”

The frosty girlfae shook her head!

Eh? “Out?”

Another panicked roll of the eyes. That could only be read as an empathic ‘no.’ What was the matter with her? Liked being preserved in a bottle, did she?

Fully engaged in a sign language battle with the strangely uncooperative white Fae, Allory gave an ungainly screech as Harzune gently but firmly lifted her and set her aside. He showed the girlfae the hammer. Headshake. He flexed his pectorals. Drooling wonder – no, that would be wide-eyed fear! Fear of what? Could she be trying to protect them … from her fey powers?

The keen hero did not read the signs. Not in the slightest.

“O beauteous maiden, I shall rescue thee forthwith!” he bellowed with besotted glee.

“No!” Allory screeched.

Whirling the hammer above his head, Harzune smote the glass with a terrific blow. A shattering explosion ensued. GRAABOOM!!