Tom really didn't know what to think.

He'd heard of women who liked women instead of men. But he hadn't expected it of Varga or Diavla. He'd gotten the impression that they had been looking at him sometimes and enjoying it, but he must have been mistaken.

If Varga didn't like men, then her flirting with him didn't make any sense. All Tom could think of was that she was having fun with him. She certainly seemed like someone who would joke and tease, and with the lack of common language she might not even be meaning anything cruel by it. If she's just joking around, she's really good at it.

Anyway, what am I even thinking about? It's not as if I could lay a hand on either of them given the situation. I'm the only human around who they know will help them. If I asked for sex they would feel pressured to give it to me to keep me happy with them. And if Varga and Diavla don't even like it with men…yuck.

They're off limits, and I guess I was reading Diavla wrong, too. So, more joy to them. Tom tried to imprint those thoughts firmly in his head. It does make me wonder about Sheema, but of the three of them, she seemed the least interested in me. More's the pity.

For a moment, Tom tried to imagine what might have happened if he had been a worse person. With those collars on, they would have to obey me out of fear of me killing them. I don't know how the magic works, but I never tried giving any of them an order. I wonder if they were compelled to obey any commands I gave. Tom imagined ordering the women to lie with him…and was repulsed by the unhappiness he expected. If they wanted him to do that to them, that would be a whole different story, but what woman would want that?

He rubbed his face with one hand and went back to keeping watch. In a few more hours, he would wake Orvan so that he could get at least a little sleep. I've slept most of the past three days, and needed it, but my soul is getting bored. I can go short on rest for a few days until I can sleep in an inn.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

The morning of Sevenday was cloudy and cold. Tom slowly realized that he had been prodded more than once and been unable to wake up. This time he was alert enough to decide that he had gotten enough rest to get by, and forced his eyes open.

Kervan was crouched next to his bedroll. “Tom? You no sleep? Food?”

Tom groaned, squeezed his eyes shut, yawned prodigiously, and nodded. “I'm up, I'm up. Good morning, Kervan.”

“Good morning, Tom. Orvan give food, small now.”

“Soon,” Tom supplied. “The food will be ready soon. Um, food…” Tom had to stop for another yawn. “Gimme a minute, it's too early to speak Elvish.”

“I no know words but I understand, I think.” Kervan patted his shoulder and stood.

Tom sat up reluctantly and looked around. He couldn't see the sun, but judging by the daylight it was still not too long after sunrise. I need to splash some cold water on my face. Actually, I could really use another bath, now that all the bandages are off.

Diavla's head peeked out past the flap on the wagon she and Varga had used, then ducked back in the moment she saw him looking. A few seconds later, she climbed out the other end and walked into the woods.

Tom walked in a different direction to do his necessary, then took a change of clothing from his pack, went to the small stream, and plunged one hand in. Brr. There wasn't anything for it, though; at this point, it was more important to be clean than warm. He undressed, setting his clothes to one side, and started scrubbing his arms.

The water in the stream wasn't deep enough for a real bath, but he did his best. He was nearly finished when he heard someone approaching. “I'll be done in a minute,” he called, trusting his meaning would come across in his tone.

“Good morning, Tom,” Diavla greeted him.

He turned around, and the amber-eyed elf was approaching through the trees. Tom hurried to put on his clean under wrap out of politeness and potential for embarrassment. He felt his heart start pounding even though there wasn't really a reason for it. She's not interested, he reminded himself.

Briefly, he wondered whether elves had different customs around men and women. It would be a long while yet before they had enough language in common to ask about that, so Tom set the thought aside.

He focused on drying himself off the rest of the way instead of scrambling into the rest of his clothes.

Diavla caught sight of him and showed no sign of embarrassment. She looked him up and down casually and smiled, then gazed at the stream with a bit of apprehension. “Water is cold?”

“Very cold,” Tom agreed. Diavla grimaced and nodded. She walked over to the rock where he had put his clothing, and started to strip.

Tom stared for just a second and then jerked his gaze away from her. He walked over to grab his clothes, which necessarily put him right next to her as she undressed. Don't look, he told himself. Don't look.

He looked.

Diavla took off her shirt and unwound her upper wrap, facing sideways to him. Her skin was mostly unblemished, and pale from lack of sunlight. She was almost painfully thin and Tom could see the outline of some of her ribs. Somebody bring her table a feast, he couldn't help but think.

Despite that, she still had a womanly shape and Tom could see the side of one breast when she lifted her hair. He forced himself to look away after a heartbeat or two, but that was too long; she caught him looking.

“I am sorry,” he told her, turning away and getting back to drying himself off.

“(Something something) sorry? Saa…” Diavla switched to Western. “What sorry?”

“I do bad. I see. I am sorry.” There was a pause.

“Saa! Human!”

It sounded as if she had figured something out as she slipped into Elvish for a moment. Tom could hear her moving and glanced her way. She had turned to face him. She had one arm up to cover her breasts and still was wearing her pants for the moment. Her pale skin looked positively ethereal to him in the shadowless light of the forest and his breath caught.

By the gods, she is beautiful.

It was a different beauty from Sheema's. Tom knew how smart Diavla was, and quick, and that made her appearance sexier to him. That made no sense, obviously, because he couldn't actually see how smart she was, except…he sort of could. In her eyes. Something in her expression revealed her intelligence. For a few moments, he actually forgot she was half-naked, staring into those lively pools of amber.

She was smiling because she had figured something out. “Tom? Humans…man see all woman… uh… man see one woman, all…no clothes. Man think all sex?” Her expression looked innocent and curious.

Tom was having a difficult time focusing on the conversation. “Uhh…” He swallowed. “Uh, sometimes, yes.”

“Human man and woman hide body, clothes? Man no think all sex?”

“Uhh…that's the idea…I mean, yes.”

“Saa…Oh.” She glanced down at herself. “I do bad?” Tom's gaze tracked down her body and flicked back up to her face. His soul was frozen, torn between the truth and custom. After a moment, she snorted. “I see yes.” But she was smiling as she said it.

Then her face fell. She closed her eyes a moment, shook her head, and turned her back to him. “I am sorry, Tom. You are good man. You say you no touch. I trust you. I no…give you pain.”

Tom wanted to groan in frustration, but made himself tear his gaze away from the curve of her leather-clad behind. He turned and went back to drying off and getting dressed. He had to adjust himself before pulling his pants on, too. It's not fair. How can she be that pretty and that beautiful at the same time?

Would she still trust me if she knew just how badly I want to bend her over that rock right now?

He reminded himself over and over that Diavla liked women, not men. You're an idiot, Tom. You have a responsibility to help these people, not scare them or threaten them or pressure them. Knock it off!

Sweating a bit already, Tom finished dressing and gathered up his towel. “I go now.”

“Tom.”

He stopped and turned to look over his shoulder at her. Diavla was naked now, and using her hair and her towel to partly hide her body. Most importantly, she was smiling at him.

“I am no mad you see. I like you see. I like see you.” She dropped into Elvish and said something else that Tom couldn't follow. She looks…amused. Is she laughing at me? Tom wondered. Unsure whether or not to get mad, he searched her expression for malice and saw none. Just thoughtful happiness.

I suppose she could find my interest flattering even if she doesn't return the feeling at all. I mean, she probably finds it nice to be wanted. Thoroughly confused, Tom nodded to her and pried his gaze off of her hips with great effort. He headed back to the wagons, passing a smiling Varga headed the other way.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Lucky woman.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

The men finished their breakfast and started seeing to the camp. Diavla and Varga returned, both shivering, and stood close to the fire as they ate. Tom looked at the sky for a few minutes. “I think rain today.”

“What is ‘rain’?” Kervan asked.

“Rain,” Diavla translated, not looking up from her bowl. There was a hint of a tremor in her voice as she shivered. The elves really don't like the cold, Tom observed.

They took extra care to secure the covers on the wagons, to protect the cargo from the weather. The group was almost ready to depart. Tom scanned the woods one more time, and caught a blur of motion coming out of the trees, heading towards Varga.

“VARGA!”

He drew his sword even though he knew he wouldn't get there in time and charged towards her. But his shouted warning made her turn and drop, dodging the first attack. It was a wolf, and a big one, now in the middle of the clearing, scrabbling for footing to make another leap at Varga.

The oxen all started making noise and there was a danger of them panicking and charging off with the wagons. But that was a problem for twenty heartbeats in the future; Tom had much to do before then. A spear flew in from the right and hit the wolf, causing it to flinch and pause. That gave Varga another precious second to roll away and up into a crouch.

The wolf saw Tom coming and reasonably concluded that he was the biggest threat. It bared its fangs, growled, gathered itself and leaped at him. Once it was committed to the jump, Tom twisted to the side and whipped his sword around, cutting its chest but not stabbing deep. In a flash, it was outside his range again.

“Look for more!” Tom shouted, then ground his teeth and growled himself as he tried to make his thoughts into Elvish while also fighting the wolf. “See! One wolf! Two wolf! Three? Four? See!” Hopefully that was enough to get his warning across. The wolf wasn't giving him much time; it was charging him again already.

Tom tried for a stab this time, lunging to meet its leap. It was risky because he could get knocked over on impact. Tom knew he was solid and strong, but this was a big wolf.

He didn't get the angle quite right, and his sword was nearly wrenched from his grasp as it stabbed into the beast's shoulder. A moment later, the wolf slammed into him and he went down, landing on his back with the wolf on top of him. Claws tried to dig into him and were thwarted by his leathers, if barely. The wolf tried to bite him so he fed it his left arm with the thick steel bracer he wore for this very purpose.

Tom let go of the hilt, tucked his head under the beast's jaw and punched the wolf in the throat, making it cough. It was a maneuver only feasible for someone as strong as he was. He punched it again in the same spot and the wolf shifted position, then let go of his arm and jumped clear as Diavla and Varga pushed their spears into its flank, driving it to the side and stepping over him as they pressed the creature.

He reclaimed his sword, rolled to his feet and swung the blade at the wolf's neck. In the next minute, there was a flurry of attacks from everyone and the creature dropped. It was still alive and still dangerous, but the spears proved effective at holding the beast's claws at bay. The wolf seemed frenzied, ignoring its plight and determined to attack. Tom stabbed and hit something vital; the beast finally stopped moving.

Tom got goosebumps for a moment, and shivered.

“Tom? What is it?” Kervan asked from the far side of the beast, two bloody daggers in his hands.

“It's a wolf. Are there more?”

“What say?” Kervan asked, confused.

“Two, three, four, you see?”

Kervan shouted a translation.

“No,” Orvan called from atop one of the wagons. “(Something) one woof.”

“That's ‘wolf’, not ‘woof’,” Tom corrected distractedly.

Varga settled the oxen before they could run off. Tom stared at the animal. “Strange. No good.”

Diavla stepped up beside him. “Tom? What no good?” She looked bothered as well, shivering a bit and seeming uncomfortable as she looked at the wolf's dead body.

“Wolf no good. Wolf do. Wolf fight. Wolf fight and fight. Wolf fight alone. I do not understand.”

Suddenly, Diavla gasped. “Tom! No touch! (Something)!”

The other elves reacted with alarm to the word. Tom froze. He had been about to clean his blade. “What?”

Diavla sputtered a moment, waving her hands as she got frustrated trying to urgently communicate something without enough vocabulary. “Tom! Red…water! No touch! No good!”

“What's wrong with the blood? Um, red water, blood.”

“You touch, we go, we get Sheema! No good!”

“All right. What do I do?”

“Fire. Sword, fire. Wolf fire.”

Some kind of sickness. Diavla almost panicked because…I said the wolf was being too aggressive. A sickness that makes you aggressive? Tom wracked his brain, trying to think of something, but it was outside his experience.

It was a tense half hour before they were ready to go again. By the end of that time, Tom's blade had been carefully cleaned and the rag burned, and his hands washed so much that they were stiff from cold. No other wolves appeared.

Tom eyed the burning wolf corpse, still feeling disturbed. Something about it made him shiver. Diavla had fussed over him making sure that he hadn't gotten any cuts or bites or blood in his mouth or eyes. Touching the blood makes you sick, huh? Never heard that one before. Maybe it's an elf gods thing.

Finally, he shook his head, and signaled the others. They mounted their wagons and the caravan moved on to the north.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

The rain started around midday. It gave the elves an excuse to have their hoods up all the time, at least, though nobody was happy about the weather. Tom hoped that he had the distance right. He didn't want any more days on the road than necessary. He had things to do in Rivermarch and was impatient to get to them.

At one point, they were passed by a fancy carriage with four mounted guards that seemed to be in a hurry. Fortunately, no one in that party took an interest in Tom and the elves. No messengers passed them in either direction for the rest of the day.

By evening, everyone was tired and grumpy. There was some room they could squeeze in to sleep in the grain wagon and the wagon with black cases. Everyone but Tom turned in early. It was a long and boring night.

Boring is good. Boring is better than wolves.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Eightday morning dawned cloudy but at least the rain had stopped. They had more language lessons over breakfast. Everyone was feeling a bit excited because by evening they would reach a human settlement, and had to figure out where the elves would stay while Tom went in to the city.

The wagons rolled through puddles for most of the morning before they spotted another caravan coming the other way. The road was wide enough for the wagons to pass each other, but the other caravan's leader stopped his procession and called out, so Tom stopped his group as well.

“Hello!”

Tom cleared his throat, glad he was in the front wagon. “Hello!”

“I'm Wayne Terrance. Are you coming from Middleton or Oak Mill?”

“Tom Walker. We're coming from Middleton, headed to Rivermarch. Are you coming from Rivermarch?”

“No, Goldenbough. We just switched at the crossroads this morning. How is the road behind you?”

Tom took a breath. “We suffered a big bandit attack, but killed nineteen. Only a couple of bandits escaped in the end. The road should be fairly safe now.”

“You fended them off?”

Tom coughed deliberately. “Barely. We lost a lot of people.”

Mr. Terrance looked over Tom's group briefly. “There are only five of you for five wagons?” The other man rubbed his jaw a moment. “Do you want to hire a couple of our guards to see you the rest of the way—assuming they're willing?”

“Any big dangers behind you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then no, but thank you. We've made it this far, and we're almost there. If we need to, I expect we can hire people at Copper Road tonight. How much farther is it?”

“From here? You could get there maybe an hour after dark if you push it. Up to you. My condolences for your losses, and my gratitude for your efforts.”

Tom faked a cough again and squinted. “Oh, one other thing. A lone wolf attacked our camp yesterday morning.”

“Just the one?”

“Yes, but the odd thing was how aggressive it was. It didn't stop attacking when it was wounded, just kept coming at us until it was dead. We burned the body and cleaned up carefully in case it was sickness. You might keep an eye out for animals behaving strangely. If you fight them, don't touch the blood.”

“Understood,” the head guard for the other caravan answered. “Thank you. Did it look as if it were starving?”

“No.”

The guard subsided, nodding and thinking.

Wayne Terrance cleared his throat. “Thank you for the warning, Mr. Walker. We'll be careful.” He looked at the hooded elves and frowned. “Are your people all right?”

“No. The lot of us took sick two days ago, adding insult to injury. The light hurts our eyes, and I'm the only one with a working—” Tom coughed, “throat, excuse me. You might want to keep your distance when you pass us.”

“Thank you for that warning, too. You should hire a Healer in Copper Road.”

“We definitely will. I—” Tom cleared his throat. “I wish you safe travels.”

“Safe travels to you as well. I hope you find good fortune in Rivermarch.”

“Thank you.”

The caravans rolled past each other with as wide a gap as could be managed. Tom carefully did not look back or speak for several minutes. Finally, he decided they were far enough away to be safe, and turned his head to look back at Diavla. “We are good,” he called in Elvish. “I say we are…sick.”

“Sick?” Diavla repeated. Tom coughed, and she nodded. “Sick,” she taught him again. It was one of many words he had been told and already forgotten. Learning a language was hard work.

They kept going, seeing no other signs of people all afternoon. About two hours before they would normally stop for the evening, Tom started searching for a place to stash the wagons. There weren't a lot of good options, but there were some short roads or paths that had been cut into the forest in a few areas. Tom called a halt when they reached a possible hiding spot.

“I go see. You go see?”

“I go see!” Varga called.

The two of them dismounted from their wagons and walked along the side path. It rapidly became impassable for the wagons and they turned back. The caravan rolled onward and they all looked for another prospect. They repeated the process fruitlessly twice more.

On their fourth try, they found a small side road, easy to miss. It had been cleared within the past year, but was already getting overgrown again. The path curved around a hillock and went a short distance into a small valley with steep sides.

Tom and Varga paced it out, spreading their arms to make sure there was room for the wagons to move and to turn around. It was a little tight for five wagons, but seemed workable. Best of all, they could not see the road directly from the small clearing.

“What do you think?” Tom asked Varga, not bothering to translate into Elvish. His meaning was obvious enough from context, he thought.

Varga poked the ground in a few spots, peered out towards the road from a couple of places, then finally nodded. “Here is a good (something.)” She looked around some more, then nodded again. “Yes. Here is good, Tom.”

“Great! Good. We get …elves and wagons.” He didn't know how to say the others in Elvish. Their vocabulary was really limited, but it worked somewhat.

They walked back up the path to the others and Varga shared the good news. The elves chatted for a few minutes too quickly for Tom to follow, then appeared to have come up with a plan. With gestures and demonstrations, it became clearer.

Orvan and Varga carefully pulled a couple of branches out of the way, and they sent the wagon with black cases in first. Then the booze, then the ironwork, then the grain, and finally the one that Tom would take first: Mr. Whistler's fabric wagon. Next, the elves did their best to mask the signs that the path had been recently used. They were better at it than Tom would be, so he gratefully let them deal with it.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

They still had over an hour of daylight left, even with the time spent searching for their hideout. Tom guessed that they were about two or three hours away from Copper Road. He expected that that would be far enough to keep their secret, but wondered if maybe they should have stopped earlier. It was a really good spot though, pretty much exactly what they needed.

They made a fire and Orvan started dinner early. Tom scouted a little and didn't find anything, just like the last dozen miles. When he came back, they started going over different scenarios, with suggestions for what they might say or do if they encountered humans before Tom got back.

“I am with Tom Walker. He will return soon.” “I do not know much Western.” “We are sick, stay back.”

As they ate dinner, Tom looked around at the four elves who were trusting him this far. He was humbled by the challenges they faced, and worried about his own difficulties ahead.

I hope I don't screw this up.