The day was sharp and clear, the blue sky punctuated by white fluffy clouds here and there. The ring across the middle of the sky, formed when the white moon had exploded fifty years before, glittered in the sky. Daln could remember when the white moon had swung through the sky like a pearl on a string, the cataclysmic destruction of the white orb, and the horrific aftermath. The gods had driven hammerblows into the six worlds of Shtar for almost two decades, further decimating the land and the people, in punishment for the shattering of the Moon of Promise. Daln could remember those years too, had twice been close enough to the strike of the Hammer of Gods that the blast wave had washed over him.

The glittering band across the sky meant nothing to the girl, it had been there for her entire life. The fiery scratches that lit up the sky during the day and night meant nothing to her, except that someone had once told her those were the signs of angels coming to earth.

They moved through the woods, the girl silently cursing the creak and screech of Daln's armor, her movement basically silent. She had learned long ago how to ensure that she was silent as she moved from cover to concealment in short, sharp, scurrying movements. She was the skittish, careful rodent to Daln's ox. Daln's steady march through the underbrush took no notice of cracking branches underfoot, branches that slapped at his armor and activated protective magics that pushed them away, often with splinters and leaves flying off, nor did he take notice of the small rocks he kicked that clattered against the ground.

The small black kobold followed, watching over the two of them. Daln's driving need to protect the un-named girl, to reach his home, and sheer grim determination to live made it difficult for her to approach the armored man, and the girl was getting steadily healthier, starvation easing away at each meal that Daln shared with her.

The first day they only made a few miles, the girl often needing to stop to rest. She always curled under bushes, covering herself with leaves and fern leaves, almost vanishing. Daln noted with silent approval that she hid herself better than some of the professional scouts he had served with. He chalked it up to a lifetime of living on the outskirts of civilization, hiding from everyone and anything that she was unfamiliar with. They stayed the first night in the ruins of a walled town. Daln had wanted to stay in one of the nearly intact buildings, but the girl had convinced him to stay in one that barely provided shelter for the two of them under the collapsed roof. The girl had wriggled in between the collapsed roof and the wall, completely disappearing, while Daln had merely sat under a partially collapsed section of the roof, his back against the wall. Exhaustion from his injuries pushed him into sleep, during which the young girl went out and scavenged, returning with rags that she shoved into her alcove, a few trinkets she hid in her dress, two dead rats, and a half-dozen apples. She shared those with Daln when his coughing woke both of them, and a little more at breakfast before they off again, heading west.

They ate in the morning and evening, hiding in ruined villages, destroyed fortresses, and twice in caves. Daln's armor squealed with each step, but it did not slow his pace, often marching to a tune he'd sing under his breath. The young girl kept silent about her irritation with the large man. The noise he made marching about scared away the forest animals, knowing that the food he was sharing with her more than made up for the missing animals.

After nearly two weeks, eighteen days, the forest thinned and the undergrowth became more sparse. Some of the trees had paint marks on them in blue, yellow, and red. Ferns had been largely removed, Daln noticed that they had been cut only an inch or two from the ground. The stems were cut smooth, not ragged, which meant to Daln's increasingly muzzy mind that they were getting near where people were living.

By afternoon the girl's sharp ears heard the sound of axes on wood. Daln kept moving forward, as if he didn't hear the noise, heading straight for it. The girl had learned long ago that sounds like that were dangerous. The white and blue tabards of the Lich King Armies or the white and gold tabards of the Armies of Light were usually worn by those wielding axes, and she'd long ago to avoid those.

"Stop, please, Messier, stop." The girl whimpered, grabbing onto the armored figure's arm. He did not react, just kept moving forward, dragging her along. She dug in her bare heels, but it made no difference as Daln just bulled forward, to the sound of the axes. "Please, they might hurt us." She tried, but the warning went unheaded.

Daln broke free of the ferns that coated the forest floor and came out into where people were working in the forest, stripped down to loincloths only, their brown skin shining with perspiration from hard work. The men and women were working with axes to cut down trees. Ferns were being gathered by children, there was a cookpot simmering over a fire, and large shaggy mules were hauling the trees that had been dropped, had their limbs removed, and were ready for removal. Branches were hauled away by young men and women, and teams of kobolds, their scales a mottled green. By the fire was the large purses that people carried, neatly stacked.

The girl wanted to scream and run from the sight of strangers. So many strangers clad in only loincloths meant danger, but then she saw that they were all well fed, the women muscular and clean, the men not leering, making offers, or striking them. Everyone was just working, each group chanting as they worked, the songs helping with the rhythm of their sawing, pulling, or gathering.

Daln's appearance made no difference at first, but one after another each group turned to look at the large armored figure and slowly stopped working. The first kobold that saw Daln dropped the large tree-limb he was hauling, throwing back his head so his neck was extended out and giving a warbling cry while stamping his feet and slapping his tail on the ground. All of the other kobolds turned to look, and repeated the actions of the first. The men and women all stopped to stare.

Four steps into the clearing and Daln went down on one knee, his right fist pressed against the ground and his head bowed. Reddish runes flickered on the back of Daln's armor. The kobolds that were rushing forward with sticks suddenly slowed, the ones who were approaching in big leaps landed and used the sticks to keep themselves from pitching forward. The young woman started backing up in fear, stopping when she heard a chorus of cheeping behind her. She turned around to see dozens of little lizards, smaller version of the ones that had been swarming toward her. The baby kobolds were running at her like a flock of birds, separating around her and then reforming into a wave that swept over Daln's armor so that the braver ones could stop to dance around Daln's still form. Their cheeping picked up in volume and speed, and they waved their little hands around, backflipped into the air, and jumped back and forth over Daln's still form. A little silver on landed on the back of his helmet, throwing out its arms and peeping "Ta-dah!" before backflipping off to land on the ground.

The young girl reacted with instincts that had kept her alive for years when surrounded and unable to escape. She curled up in a ball on the ground, covering her head with her arms and keeping her legs close to her body. She was making a low high-pitched keening noise, her fingers interlaced behind her neck, and ankles crossed. She was completely hidden under the blankets and rags she had layered on, the mold and grime on the blankets almost blending into the ground.

She could hear voices, but they were reduced to just noise. The peeping suddenly stopped and she heard the leaves rustle as the lizards ran away. It was quiet until someone touched her on the shoulder. She shivered, pulling tighter into a ball, mostly hidden by the blankets she was still wrapped up in. The hand shook her again, gently, and despite herself she could hear the words.

"Mistress, are you injured?" The voice was female, the tone gentle, and the young girl looked up into the kind face of an older woman.

Exhaustion, fear, and hunger caught up with the young girl, and she fainted.

Jessayln duTakket, from the town of Takket, stood over the young girl, staring down at the pile of blankets. She'd been working in the Alstead Forest, by the old border between Alben and Shulafta, cutting down trees for the mill in Takket.

Duwenna "Wenny" duTakket moved up next to her, the tattoo of foreman on both of her shoulders, looking down at the young woman. The peepers were burrowing under the blankets, wiggling around, and peeping at each other from inside the mound of the dirty blankets.

When Jess reached down and shifted the blankets two apricot-pit sized lizard heads poked out at the end of long necks, opening their jaws and hissing at Jess. They weren't displaying their fangs, just making a threat to warn Jess.

"Bring a pumpkin so we can lure the babies out of the blankets." Wenny called out. Two of the laborers nodded and moved to the cart to lift down a crate. They opened the crate to reveal a large pumpkin, and struggled to lift it out. Peepers loved pumpkins, they loved gnawing holes into them, devouring the insides, and living and playing inside of them. Pumpkins were used to lure in and capture wild peepers so that they could be brought to kobold tribes to raise.

"Who do you think they are? Master and slave? Knight and squire?" Wenny asked, moving over to stare at the immobile figure in armor.

"More like foundling and finder." Jess replied, moving over and kneeling down next to the massive armored man. Her fingers ran across the runes on the armor, taking note of the damaged ones. "Stygian Wave armor, Iron Legion markings." She shook her head. "Think he's undead inside of there?"

"Only one way to find out." Wenny answered, squatting down, careful to keep her butt tucked in close to her heels. She reached her sap covered fingers under the face-mask. She could feel the plating that went under the jaw to protect the wearer from a brain thrust, but she also found the small catch that allowed her to swing open the faceplate, so that the two halves hung down, exposing the man's face. Wenny sighed at the sight of Daln's face, her fingers tracing over his features, feeling his hot breath on her fingertips, his hot skin that felt almost feverish. "Thank the dead gods, he's still alive."

Behind them the two women set down the knee high pumpkin, one of them thumping it with a knuckle. The peepers, who were busy burrowing in the blankets or dancing on the wide torso of the armored figure, all popped their heads up, the little apricot-pit sized heads swiveling to stare at the large orange pumpkin. With a trilling war-cry one slightly larger than the others with scaled of gleaming broze backflipped and ran at the pumpkin. The others burst from their hiding place in the blankets or gave off leaping around the armor and swarmed toward the pumpkin, moving together like a flock of birds.

"He has House duRalvden sigils on his chest." Jess stated as the kobolds ran at the pumpkin, her fingers moving to the figure's chest and tracing the House duRalvden sigil. Her hand moved down to the boot of the knee that was still upraised and slowly removed the dagger. "He still has his virtue-dagger." She slowly unsheathed it, watching the runes flash to light along the blade. She traced down the length of the blade with one fingertip, feeling the arcane magic in the blade tickle her skin.

Jess looked at Wenny for a moment. "How long do you think he's been gone?" One by one the peepers were slipping through a hole gnawed in the pumpkin, vanishing inside. Jess glanced then moved her attention back to the kneeling man. She knew that the peepers would be inside, gnawing at the pumpkin, which their tastebuds found sweet and delicious, until they were too fat to move easily.

"Decades, at least." Wenny answered, running her hand along the helmet. The metal had been patched, was grooved, and still had swirling intact runes covering it. Several times there was a jumping spark of arcane energy, and one of the groove crossed runes sent snarling arcane energy up her finger. She yelped and stuck her finger in her mouth at the burning feeling.

Wenny tapped the slightly melted and obviously twisted shoulder pauldron, bringing attention to the way it was caved in at the center, and down toward the elbow it was curled upward and crumpled. "He hasn't been able to get it repaired since the last battle, and seeing as survivors of the war have been returning to our fair Alben for last six months who knows how far he has travelled."

An adult kobold, mottled green in color with thick arms and shoulders hopped up next to Wenny, lightly running his talons down her back in a familiar way that made goosebumps erupt on Wenny's skin. "Does he live?" The kobold asked, looking at the kneeling man.

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Wenny reached over to caress the raptor's folded knee as she nodded. "Yes, but I think that he is more important than just being alive." Wenny tapped the armor, bringing out a dull thump from the plates that were inches thick.

Jess moved over to the pile of blankets, carefully lifting each one and then setting them to the side. One of the other wood-cutters picked them up and then folded them up neatly despite the mildew, damp, dry-rot, and dirt, her hands moving swift and sure. It took a few moments to reveal the young girl who had swooned, but once she was, Jess squatted down, careful to keep her bare buttocks tucked in by her heels. She brushed the grimy hair out of the way to look at the girl's face.

"Carry her to the wagon, make her comfortable, two of you stay in the cart with her." Wenny ordered. "She's been hungry for a long time, so make sure you bring food with you."

"Should we bathe her, foreman?" Another woman asked, moving up next to the young girl and looking down on her.

"No." Wenny shook her head. "She will undoutably fight us, and I do not want her screaming to rouse her companion with his sword in his hand and blood in his eyes." She looked around at the camp and made a sharp whistling noise. Two green, the bronze, and the silver peeper heads popped out of the pumpkin at the noise, their long slender necks allowing them to stick their heads out of the pumpkin through the holes they'd gnawed. The bronze gave a long musical war-cry and another two dozen peepers swarmed out of a streppleberry bush, all of them carrying the plump purple berries in their arms, and they all ran to the pumpkin as the workers gathered around Wenny.

"Thanks to all of your hard work we are ahead of quota and schedule." Wenny stated. She turned to a thick bodied woman with small breasts on top of heavily developed pectoral muscles. Her rich brown hair was done up in a braid interwoven with ribbons that fell to the top of her bare buttocks, and her brown eyes were warm, crow's feet from long days in the sun at the corners. "Kellias, you are in charge until further notice." The thick bodied woman nodded, smiling. "Jess, a few others, and me will take the two strangers, the peepers, and the cart to Manor duRavlden. Please inform Steward Nelluin that I may be gone for some time." Wenny's hand went out to slowly stroke the mottled green kobold at her side from the large bulge at the back of his head all the way down his spine to the base of his tail. "Araska will be accompanying me."

The large green kobold laid his head on Wenny's shoulder, making a purring noise.

Wenny waved at the kneeling man. "Get poles, we'll put him in the cart near the girl. Hopefully they will be able to keep one another calm."

It took eight of the strong women to pick up Daln's armored form, and after the first pair of poles broke they used three on each side. The women carefully moved Daln into the cart, shaking their heads at the sheer weight of flesh and metal.

One woman, Tallyan "Lone-Hand" duTakket by name, moved over to the cart and looked inside at the figure. Her left arm was missing at the shoulder, her face was scarred, and her bare torso and legs sported a multitude of scars, some of them stitched with wire. The stump was a weeping wound, an X pattern stitched up with a double-row of black metal wire. Her muscles were the thick heavy slabs brought on by a lifetime of labor and combat, the dent in her forehead silently spoke to years wearing a helmet. Tallyan laid her hand on Daln's shoulder pauldron, rubbing it with her palm.

"You'll want me to come along, foreman." Tallyan stated, looking Wenny in the eyes.

Wenny nodded. The muscular woman had been a Red City Knight for two decades before losing her arm in battle to a wound that would never heal and prevented the arm from being regenerated by magic. She had fought on the side of the Armies of Light, and had returned six years ago to her home, the walled town of Takket. The unconscious man had obviously served in one of the massive forces who's titanic struggle had torn the Six Worlds asunder, and Tallyan could be a help.

Tallyan climbed into the cart with a large scarred green kobold, getting down on all fours to examine Daln's forearms. The kobold paused to admire Tallyan's naked form, reaching forward to rest on clawed hand on her bare buttock as Tallyan ran a fingernail over the runes on the vambrace.

"Not right now, Vangrekak, I'm busy." Tallyan said, giving her bare bottom a playful wiggle. "I know, I know, the smell of armor does the same to me." Two of the runs sparked arcane energy when she ran her grey index fingernail over them. "His automatic repair rune has been damaged, the same with his deep healing rune." Her fingernails tapped against several points that looked like inch wide bubbles. "The armor's mounted, we're not going to get it off of him without a trained war-smith. Best I'll be able to do is just keep him alive."

Wenny nodded, climbing into the driver's seat on the wagon. The two large bodied oxen were already hooked into their harnesses, placidly waiting for a command. Jess climbed into the back, holding several smocks over one arm. She handed one to Wenny and another to Tallyan before shrugging into her own. Logging work crews usually worked nude, although some did wear breast bands and loincloths. Tallyan ignored her to tap the forearm runes several times, then moving to Daln's back to examine the runes.

"I've found the runes to put him in a healing stasis, but I'm not sure how long it will work." Tallyan stated, running her fingertips over a cluster of runes. Vangrekak kept rubbing her back as she worked, pointing out several damaged runes that might prevent the runes from working correctly. "It won't support him for long."

"Why not?" Wenny asked, clicking her tongue to get the oxen moving.

"His body and armor have sustained serious damage, he needs the attention of a war-smith and a healer, the armor needs a rune-smith's attention for a week or so, his body even longer." Tallyan said. She shivered as Vangrekak's talons ran down her back. "I'm not even sure how much power is left in the armor. I can't get the access panels open to check the crystalline energy matrix. His curiass has taken serious damage."

"Can you keep him alive till we reach Manor duRalvden?" Jess asked, her skin darkening slightly at the kobold's intimate touch upon Tallyan. Tallyan had no sense of modesty when it came to her kobold soul-mate and Jess had seen them couple right out in the open during breaks more than once while working at the logging camp.

"I should be able too." Tallyan looked at Jess. "Can you handle the girl?"

Jess nodded, still flushing.

"Good. Lord Ralvden here may have imprinted upon her, it happens at times when a warrior is badly injured." She smiled as her fingers ran over the thick heavy plates. "He's a War Machine, and the last thing we want is an angry War Machine in a berserker rage flailing around while he tries to rejoin someone he has imprinted upon."

Jess frowned. "What's a War Machine?"

Tally grinned, exposing where six of her teeth on the right side of her jaw had been replaced by metal implants. "The best of the best." She sat down next to Jess, opening her legs. Vangrekak moved up between them then turned to face away from Tally, his long tail in front of him. Tally began rubbing the raptor's scaled back, gently rubbing the scar patterns on his back as she continued talking to Jess.

"Very few qualify for War Machine training. They're modified heavily with magic, psionics, and alchemy. Made stronger, faster, more durable, greater endurance, faster healing." She picked up a rag from the bottom of the cart and began polishing away the dirt and sap from the kobold's scales. "Throughout history there's only been a handful of places that trained them, most were lost during the war, but I believe the academy in the Stygian Lands as well as the one in the Von-Lon Empire still stand."

Vangrekak was purring, rubbing his head on Tally's leg, his hands grasping her calves.

"Is he... dangerous?" Jess asked.

Tally laughed, and Vangrekak let his jaws gape open in his race's approximation of a smile, huffing softly with laughter. "Oh, he's highly dangerous. Pound for pound more dangerous than a war-titan, a war-mage's worst nightmare, and capable of standing toe to toe with demons and angels alike." She rubbed the dome of Vangrekak's head as she kept speaking. "But unlike any of those, War-Machines rarely go mad." She sighed, a lusty sound. "As long as they aren't wire-bound, that is." Her fingers trailed down the metal of Daln's armor in an intimate manner for a moment before she continued. "But if he was wirebound he would not have gone into a healing sleep."

The wagon bumped as swayed as it started down the dirt road that would lead from the edge of the forest to Takket, where they could then take one of the cobbled roads to Manor duRalvden much faster than normal. Roads in Alben, indeed all of the roads on the continent of Balikimayn, as well as the rest of the Six Worlds, were magicked to make travel faster and less strenuous than overland travel. The only thing faster than the highways was the High Roads, a separate world or plane of existence that touched all of the Six Worlds. Travel from one point in the Six Worlds to any other place via the High Roads took only a few weeks, no matter what the distance, be it two miles or three worlds away. In the case of traveling from the wood cutter camp to Manor duRalvden it would be shorter to take one of the Alben highways rather than the High Roads.

Tally tapped the runes on Daln's back in succession, arcane energy filling the engravings and smaller runes across the armor with a pearlescent glow. Red runes at the edge of the pauldon's lit up, strobing softly, and Tally sat back with a satisfied smile, squeezing Vangerkak playfully with her thick thighs.

"That should keep him immobile and asleep until we reach our destination." Tally smiled.

Jess just nodded, not trusting her voice, as the wagon rocked and swayed traveling down the road. She turned away and watched the unconscious girl as Tally and her kobold soul-mate grappled with one another.

It's going to be a long trip with those two. Jess mused as Tally cried out in passion.

A small part of Jess was envious of the two lovers. Her own soul-mated kobold had marched off to war, joining Bloody-Elshon's war against the Lich Kings when their armies had invaded Alben only a few years prior. Jess's soul-mate had died during the brutal fighting, one of tens of thousands that Bloody-Elshon had sacrificed to drive the Lich King Army from Alben. Bloody Elshon had driven the enemy through the Alstead forest, through the ruins of Shulafta, and into the mountains, where she'd ultimately crushed them.

Which was why wood-cutting crews had to be careful. When the armored man had initially stumbled into the wood-cutting camp Jess had been afraid that their work had woken a confused Dread Knight, or perhaps an old weapon left over from either Elshon's Campaign of Blood or one of the many battles that he destroyed Shulafta. It would not have been the first time, and Jess doubted it would be the last. One hundred twenty-five years of warfare left behind a lot of debris, and not all of it slumbered deeply.

Just last year a work crew had stumbled upon a war-titan. The massive metal golem stood at nearly a hundred feet tall, and unlike war-forged there was no Duty Bound sealed inside a sarcophagus embedded in the huge chest. The war-titan had been confused, the war-spirit within it responding only at the most primitive level. Even without any weapons but its massive body it had slain most of the work crew that had been unfortunate enough to stumble across it. Bloody Elshon had been forced to lead a force of Dread Knights to put the war-titan down, to destroy it and render it unable to harm anyone else.

Jess dreaded finding something like that. Their wood cutting was getting close to the ruins of Melvaniout-Zukk, a fairly large city that had been destroyed almost four decades ago. Wenny planned on avoiding the ruins themselves, but Jess was afraid that the debris and detritus from the battle could extend miles out from the ruins themselves.

A little after dark found the wagon stopping at a small travelers inn on the Blue Goose Highway. The oxen needed a break, and the few women who had come along were in need of some good healthy sleep. The inn boasted hot food, chilled spiced mead, and soft beds, to which Tally and her soul-mate took too after grabbing a haunch of meat.

When Jess knelt down and touched the young girl, seeing if she was awake or still unconscious, the small squeak and the tightening of the girl's limbs let Jess know that the girl was awake and frightened.

"Easy, little one, easy." Jess said gently. She made a motion in the Trade-Two tongues hand signals for Wenny to come over. "Do you remember finding us?" Jess asked.

The girl opened one eye to look at Jess and then nodded slowly.

"Good. We are taking you to Manor duRalvden, so that we can return the man you found to his noble house." Jess said softly. She looked at the girl's thin lines. "Are you hungry?"

The girl nodded, and Jess smiled. "If you come inside you can have some food." The girl shook her head slightly, tightening further into a ball.

"No? All right, then, I'll have food brought out to you." Wenny said. She turned to Jess. "Stay out with her tonight, make sure she is protected, as well as her companion."

Jess nodded, turning back to the girl only to find that the girl was either asleep again or faking it convincingly.

Jess sighed. This trip better be worth it to someone.

She spent the night out in the stables with the girl, the unconscious man, and the animals belonging to all of the travelers. The girl stuffed the food in her mouth whenever Jess wasn't looking, pretending to be unconscious the rest of the time.

Jess knew when the girl actually fell asleep by the soft snores. She smiled and shook her head, nibbling off of the plate of food that Tally had brought out.

Toward midnight Tally came out with Vangerkak to watch over the girl, sending Jess up to one of the rooms to spend the night. There she spent the night before being woken before dawn to make the last score miles to reach Manor duRalvden. The girl had put hay in the back of the wagon for her to burrow underneath. Tally told Jess with a grin that the girl had more or less stayed in the wagon, not speaking, and only coming out to grab handfuls of food before hiding again.

The early morning was crisp and clear as the wagon began heading down the highway, slowly at first then faster and faster until the surroundings blurred even though the oxen never picked up their plodding pace.

Wenny sent Jess ahead just before dawn, to jog down the road to the manor. It would be faster than the oxen, allowing Jess to announce the wagon and its contents to the manor guards and hopefully get an audience to whichever noble was sitting in the lord's chair.

Jess found herself trembling with excitement as the large metal gate of the manor came into sight. She slowed down, allowing the magic of the highway to drop away, and moved toward the gate just as the silver light of false dawn glowed on the horizon.

For better or for worse, Jess and her friends had brought home Daln.