Winewater Village was dark by the time Elsier and Meredith arrived. The stars were out somewhere above, but the sky was blanketed with dense clouds and what starlight energy made it through was muddy and tasted of elemental rain.

Elsier found himself wondering if he’d ever consume starlight again. Perhaps this was one of those parts of the world where the sky was always gray, and he would starve down to nothing before they had a clear night.

In the village, most of the houses were already shut up tight, with doors bolted and shutters closed. There were about fifty houses in total, built from stone, wood, and a few from dark red brick, all arranged in rows that radiated out from the town square in concentric circles. A few of the houses had windows that leaked warm yellow light through the cracks in their shutters, but just as many were dark. Some of the buildings were permanently dark—burned-out ruins that loomed like broken skeletons in the night.

Meredith went first as she and Elsier walked through the town, traveling along a wide avenue that was paved with rounded stones and lit intermittently by faltering tin lanterns. Apart from them, the streets were deserted.

For Elsier, the village was another new experience.

He was quietly impressed by the amount of work that had gone into its construction. The houses, the streets, the lights.

All of it had been built from mundane materials and worked by mortal hands. The amount of mortal toil that must have gone into creating the town was enormous.

Cradle Mountain Peak had been a wonder of energy and artistry, but Winewater Village was a wonder in its own way.

As they approached the town square, their destination became obvious. A longhouse adjacent to the plaza was still lit up, with its shutters open, and lit torches staked into the earth outside. Raised voices came from the windows, men and women speaking urgently and without humor.

Meredith led the two of them right up to it. She stopped to bang on the door with the head of her staff.

The voices from inside died down. A moment later there was the sound of a bar being drawn back.

The door cracked open. A man’s bearded face appeared in the gap. From his bearing, Elsier guessed him to be between thirty and forty years old, with a life that had been spent in hard labor.

“Good. Come in,” he said to Meredith, pulling away and letting the door swing open.

Meredith walked in and Elsier followed.

Inside the building, eleven villagers were sitting around a long, low table.

The table showed evidence of a meal, with leftover crusts of bread and bowls of dried-out sauces. A pewter plate held a pile of chicken bones, with jugs that reeked of sharp ale placed at regular intervals.

It was also clear that the table had been used for planning. In one spot, the plates and mugs had been cleared to create space for a map, and small wooden toy soldiers had been utilized as planning pieces.

All of the people sitting around the table turned to look as Meredith walked in. They looked at Meredith first, and then, with growing curiosity, at Elsier.

"This is Elsier, lapis prince of the realm of Cradle Mountain Peak," Meredith said, introducing him to the group.

Elsier looked around the cluster of hopeful, skeptical, confrontational expressions. He spent a few seconds looking for gaps in their united front, any evidence of latent grudges he could poke for amusement, but finally concluded they were a close-knit group. Closer knit than his siblings at court, anyway.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Elsier. I’m not much good for anything.”

Meredith turned to look at him slowly, as if she couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

"So. This is your spirit warrior," one man in the group said. "Your immortal killing machine.”

He was an older member of the group, perhaps in his fifties, with graying hair and the bearing of a warrior whose skills had gone to rust. The expression on his face as he looked Elsier over suggested he wasn't convinced.

“He’s a prince of a spirit court, Alwyn,” Meredith said sternly. “I’ve found that he’s prone to taking things lightly. Don’t judge him at face value.”

"The robe says to me that he's a scholar, not a fighter,” Alwyn went on. “I’ve got a nine year old daughter with a fiercer look.”

On the opposite side of the table, a nine year old girl with a leather skull cap and a wooden club beside her on the table turned a glare on him.

“He’s what we have, and we need to find a way to make use of him,” Meredith said.

Alwyn shook his head, looking down at his hands.

“What can he do?” another villager asked. She was a woman in her forties with a rounded look. She had the spiritual bearing of a leader, or someone who stood behind a leader.

“He can change his shape,” Meredith said. “He’s fast and hard to kill.”

“How is he in a fight?” Alwyn asked.

“I’m not sure,” Meredith said.

Elsier rocked backwards and forwards on his heels. Maybe if they thought he was useless, they’d release him to his own devices.

The woman with the bearing of a leader spoke again. “Perhaps a test of his combat strength? Alwyn, would you test him now?”

Alwyn perked up. He straightened, then stood up, pushing his chair back. It was obvious the grizzled older man was going to agree to the suggestion.

Now that he was standing, the mace hanging from his belt was visible. It was an ugly iron rod tipped with a lead wheel, dotted with cruel-looking studs. Elsier could easily imagine how much of himself a bite from that weapon would take, if it was swung with the right force.

He took a step back. He looked to Meredith, but she seemed resigned to Alwyn beating the starlight out of him. Frantically, he looked around, looking for a way out that wouldn’t just get Meredith to order him back.

Finally, he spotted an easier target.

“Yes, a test of combat,” he said, then pointed at the little girl with the club. “I challenge her.”

The girl immediately leapt to her feet, knocking her chair backwards to the ground and scattering the cushions that had given her enough height to reach the table.

“I accept!”

The little girl didn’t wait for permission. She charged at him, screaming, with her club held above her head.

She was interrupted halfway to him by her father, scooping her up and holding her up at arm’s length as she screamed and kicked at the air, practically spitting at Elsier in her anger.

“What’ve you done!” he said, raising his voice to speak over her. “We’ll never get her to sleep tonight after this.”

“At least clear a space,” the woman who’d suggested a duel said.

Together, the villagers started moving the table to the edge of the room, moving chairs, until a clear area of floorboards emerged.

Meredith spoke to Elsier as the field of battle was cleared.

“I don’t know how it is in the spirit realm,” she started, speaking in a low voice, “but here, harming a child is an absolute taboo. Do not hurt her.”

The order came with an enormous swell of will. If Elsier had contested it at all, the payment to see it done would have drained Meredith of lucent energy completely, and the penalty for refusing it might have cost Elsier his existence all on its own. As it was, her powerful will to see the order obeyed met absolutely no will to refuse it from his side, and only a small trickle of lucent energy dripped into the ring.

“I don’t even hurt my own brothers and sisters,” he assured her.

She didn’t look quite as reassured at that as he’d intended, but she seemed to settle for it.

When the floor was clear, Elsier stepped up to the open space. He reached into the folds of his robe and expressed a wooden club of his own, which he drew out and swung experimentally.

He’d never swung a weapon before, but it seemed self-explanatory.

Alwyn held his daughter out like he was handling a porcupine, then dropped her onto the boards.

She landed on her feet and immediately charged at Elsier, screaming.

She was on top of him faster than he’d expected, swinging her club at his knee. The strike hit, and his flesh fizzed at the point of impact, briefly flickering into sparkles of starlight before resolving itself back into his leg.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Elsier felt a jolt of pain as a wisp of his energy drained away. He realized with alarm that the girl was coming at him with the intent to kill.

He intercepted her next swing with his own club. The collision was jarring and sent a lance of pain down the club, but she didn’t have the strength to break it.

When he blocked her next strike, he altered the club, extending the wood to wrap around hers and lock it in place. With a twist of his hands, he pulled the weapon from her grasp and tossed it away.

The girl didn’t miss a beat, instantly switching to launching much less damaging kicks and punches at his stomach.

Elsier swung his club towards her, letting it extend, expressing a curved hook at the end, like engravings he’d seen of a shepherd’s crook. He caught the back of her cloth jacket with the hook and lifted her off the ground, holding her up at arm's length.

She spent a second kicking in the air and trying to get free, but Elsier expressed hooks on the hook, tangling in the fabric.

That worked well, until she grabbed the staff with both hands, pulled herself up until it was level with her face and bit into it. If the staff had been ordinary wood it wouldn’t have had any effect, but the staff was really just spirit stuff, and unlike her strikes, her jaws were strong enough to break it.

The staff snapped, the chomped section dissolving into starlight with a spike of pain and the loss of a spark of power. If that hadn’t been annoying enough, the girl then grabbed the staff and jerked it at him, hitting him in the chest.

Short of actually hurting her, he wasn’t sure he was actually going to win this challenge. He decided to try a prank that had worked well on his siblings in the past.

Letting the staff hit him, Elsier fell backwards onto the ground, sprawling with his hands out to support his weight.

Seeing him downed, the girl hesitated for a second, then took the opportunity to dart to the side and collect her club.

Elsier shook his head.

“Oh no,” he said. “You’ve done it… You’ve awakened the demon.”

The girl paused, the club held in her hands. She stared at him in confusion as she tried to work out what was happening.

Lying on the ground, Elsier began changing his body. He altered his skin color, changing it from pale cream, to pink, then through to dark red. He widened his eyes and added animalistic traits to his features, letting his fangs grow beyond the bounds of his mouth.

“He’s coming… the Five-Arm Demon Prince!”

He expressed changes in his arms and legs, swelling them with muscle, making the arms of his robe seem to burst with the effort of containing his new form. He extended his height from five feet to six, then seven, then eight, rising to his feet and towering over the entire congregation of villagers. He expressed three more arms, one on the left, one on the right, and one growing from his back.

He extended all of his arms, hands tipped with black claws, then made cold fire spring from his head, flames that took the form of horns.

The girl looked up at him with awe and terror, poised as if to take a step back, with the bearing of a child who was about to run crying to her father. Then she swallowed, grit her teeth, and began swinging her club.

Elsier took a step back, his demonic legs fizzing at the impacts.

He’d already been denied a meal that night. If this continued, it would cost him the energy he’d gained from the previous night’s meal as well.

Backing up, Elsier held up his giant, clawed hands. “I yield! You win!”

The girl took a few more swings at him, then stopped, breathing heavily. After a few seconds she dropped the club and sat down on the ground.

Alwyn arrived and picked her up, carrying her back to the table, where he set her down on her chair.

The rest of the villagers were watching him in silence. Some seemed disturbed by his transformation, others were confused. The woman who’d suggested the contest seemed contemplative.

From the lack of intervention and calm demeanor of the rest of the room, none of them had been convinced by the ‘five-arm demon prince’, though some subtle gestures from Meredith might have played a part in that.

As a clearly weary nine year old girl was settled back into her chair, Elsier began the process of returning his body to its normal self. He withdrew the extra arms, shrank back down to a slim five feet tall, returned his skin color and face to normal, and finally reabsorbed the broken shepherd’s crook. He left the horns of false flames there for now. He might try them out for a while.

There was one woman in the congregation who didn’t look impressed. She was possibly the oldest person present, a woman in her seventies, with white hair and lean cords of muscle visible on her bare arms. She had a demeanor that was hard for Elsier to place. Strict, experienced, dangerous, severe. He might have thought he was looking at a lifelong pit fighter, or lord’s executioner, if her build didn’t contradict that.

When Elsier had mostly returned to normal, she spoke for the first time, directing her attention at Meredith.

“So. You took our beast cores. You traveled to the spirit realm. And you bartered for us a performer.”

“I don’t know, Wynne,” the heavy-set woman who’d suggested the contest said. “That Five-Arm Demon Prince could cause some confusion in their ranks. The sight of that alone might get some of them to desert. Deserters from the deserters. We certainly wouldn’t look like we were shirking our duty in the face of what the other towns bring.”

“I agree with Bernadine,” Meredith said. “I think he’d also be useful for scouting. He’s skilled at those transformations in general. I saw him become a net earlier.”

Elsier tried not to preen at the praise. He reminded himself that he was here under duress, that they wanted to send him into danger, and on top of everything else, he hadn’t had dinner yet.

“A net?” Alwyn asked. “Could he turn into a weapon? I always wanted a magic sword.”

Everyone including Meredith turned to Elsier, looking for an answer.

As a response, he concentrated on making himself narrower, thinning himself out until he was a quarterstaff made of dark wood.

“Ha!” Alwyn barked.

Elsier expressed a brass knot at the head of the staff, then had his face appear in it as a phantom reflection.

“I wasn’t raised on elemental wood or metal energy,” he said, his voice distant and tinny, “So I won’t be strong or useful as a weapon.”

“Oh,” Alwyn said.

“Five-arm demon prince,” Wynne said, sounding disgusted. “If that’s all we have to offer, then let it be so. The muster is in five days, if anyone can come up with a better idea.”

“About that,” Meredith interrupted. “We were ambushed on the way here. Two of their scouts. We killed them, but it won’t be long until Redare marks their absence and makes assumptions about where they were looking. I think it’s safest to assume they’ve worked out where I live.”

"Of course. We'll move you into town for now. Lewer, get Meredith a room ready at the garrison. Alwyn, I want you to try and train the spirit to fight, if such a thing is possible. I've had gut wounds less painful than watching that flailing."

"I'm happy to try," Alwyn said, giving Elsier a concerned stare. He looked at Meredith. "How do I control him?"

"You don't," Elsier said, standing upright in the middle of the room, still in staff form.

"I'll give him an order to cooperate with you," Meredith said. "If he causes any problems, you'll have to fetch me."

“There will be problems.”

“Elsier!” Meredith snapped. “I feel that you’re frustrated, but you need to stop antagonizing everyone.”

Elsier rotated slowly so that his reflected face was looking at her.

“I’ll try, Meredith.”

From Meredith’s expression, Elsier thought she could tell he was lying.

The severe woman the other had called Wynn got up to leave.

“Try and think of other ways to apply our spirit,” Wynne said, pausing at the door to put on a warm cloak. “Next meeting’s tomorrow at dusk. Lewer, bring better ale next time.”

A balding man in his thirties with the bearing of a clerk nodded back at her.

Other people began to filter out. The girl Elsier had fought had fallen asleep on the table, and had to be carried out over Alwyn’s shoulder. Lewer followed Alwyn, and the others left soon after.

Eventually, Elsier was left alone with Meredith and Bernadine as the only ones at the table.

As a staff, Elsier hopped over to one of the chairs and leaned backwards against the seat.

“I know I can’t issue orders in this relationship,” he said to Meredith, “but can you tell me what is happening?”

Meredith gestured at Bernadine. “You have a better grasp of it than me.”

Bernadine looked at Elsier, then back at Meredith. “You want me to talk to a stick? Can you make him become human again?”

“Elsier, go back to your human form.”

Elsier felt the trickle of lucent energy drip into the ring that was still wrapped around his wooden body. He released the form, falling back into a human shape and collapsing into the chair.

“Thank you,” Bernadine said, before continuing. “The short version is that we have a bandit problem. When the Silverax Republic took East Lyn, most of Ramsland’s army disbanded. Those that didn’t get run down by Silverax troops deserted and disappeared into the Western counties.”

Elsier nodded along pleasantly, with no idea what she was talking about.

“Gwallter Redare was a captain in that army. He grew up in the Five Towns region, and when he turned deserter, he came back. Now, he extorts us, steals from us, takes our boys and girls never to be seen again, and executes those who dissent. He leads a band that calls itself the Bloody-Sword Beast Sixty. They say that they’re freedom fighters, that they’re standing up to the Silverax occupation, but they run from their army’s patrols, and the only fighting they do is against unarmed villagers.”

“We get better treatment from the Silverax enforcers than our own former soldiers,” Meredith added.

“So, you bought my contract to… send me to fight all sixty bandits?” Elsier asked.

It sounded ridiculous to him, but that did seem to be the way their explanation was going.

“All five villages in the Five Towns region are banding together to see them off,” Bernadine said. “Together, we can only field about sixty warriors of our own, and we’re less well trained and equipped than they are. We had a conference a week ago and agreed that each village would bring a special resource to even our odds in the assault. Meredith was ours…”

“I was passing through, but when they offered me a house and payment to take up their cause, I said I’d help,” Meredith contributed.

“But she told us she had an idea to help our odds even further,” Bernadine went on. “A ritual that would let her obtain a spirit warrior. And that’s why you’re here.”

“So I’m meant to help you with a doomed raid on a bandit camp,” Eslier concluded.

“Hopefully not ‘doomed’,” Meredith said. “But yes. You’re here to help offset my weaknesses. To Watch my back when I’m distracted, protect me while I’m channeling energy, and help get me away when I’m spent.”

“Those sounds like things I have no affinity for whatsoever.”

“And yet, you will do them,” Meredith said.

Even without a direct order, Elsier felt the weight of will behind that desire. If it ever became an order, it wouldn’t be one he’d feel safe refusing.

"I will do them," Elsier agreed blandly, pressing his palms together in a salute. In a whisper, he added, "badly."

"Do you have any questions?" Bernadine asked.

"Only one," Elsier said. "Do the stars ever shine here?"