Chapter 3

The dwarves were efficient, Aleks would give them that. The leader had no sooner delivered his orders than the party burst into a flurry of activity. Two dwarves, younger than the majority of them, took charge of the ponies while the biggest of the bunch, girth-wise, started laying out cooking utensils and readying a mid-sized metal cook pot over a fire-pit constructed by a shorter, red-headed dwarf.

Wait, wasn't he in the movie? Aleks eyed the redhead closely. It wasn't an exact match, but how could it be with actors? Still, the nose, the angle of the jaw, it had to be him. What was his name? He was that elf's side-kick, the elf all the chicks drooled over. Aleks wracked his brain for a name. Legs-something, wasn't it? Which would make the dwarf G-, no J-. Bah, all he could come up with was Jimmy. That wasn't it.

How, he kept asking himself, could he be in a story? Or was it just a story? Point: the Old Ones were scary powerful. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that one peeked into a crystal ball and somehow got wind of this place. Perhaps he or she wrote it down. It was either that or Aleks would have to consider that he'd gone loony tunes.

The idea of Faerie did cross his mind again, but he dismissed it. He'd been too safe. Faerie would have had him peeing his pants with terror by now. Plus, the denizens of Faerie wouldn't be offering him succor - well, not unless it was to get him to eat Faerie food.

Nah, too elaborate a plot for something time alone would see done. He'd have to eat sometime once his stores ran out. There'd be no need to trick him into taking a bite. Ergo, this wasn't Faerie. Unless something occurred to change his mind, he'd stick with the first option as his working theory. Middle Earth. Spying Old One. It was weird, but so was life.

Gandalf and the leader - he'd yet to hear his name - escorted him to the forming campsite, the leader gesturing him to a seat before hunkering down at his side. Gandalf perched upon a stone and pulled a pipe from his travel-soiled robes. He stuffed dried - tobacco? - into it and lit the pipe with one finger. In seconds, the wizard was puffing away with lazy enjoyment.

"Old Toby," he said. "Best in the Shire."

The small man - a hobbit? - ventured over and cleared his throat. "I prefer Longbottom Leaf, myself." A short, hesitant smile. Then the hobbit offered Aleks his hand. "Bilbo Baggins."

Aleks gratefully accepted his hand. "Aleks. Aleks Hunt," he said in return. As he sat back down, he turned to his right. "And you are Gandalf the Grey."

The wizard nodded and exhaled a stream of smoke before gesturing with his pipe to Aleks's other side. "The leader of our Company, Thorin Oakenshield."

Aleks didn't recall that name but nodded.

"Who is this King Arthur you mentioned?" Thorin asked, his gaze steady, face sober.

Aleks pulled his duffle into his lap. Thorin tensed minutely, and the dwarf in the floppy hat sidled over, hands fingering his pick-ax. Aleks halted what he was doing and said, "You won't believe what I'm about to tell you unless I have props."

"Props?" Bilbo echoed.

Aleks nodded. "Things from my home."

With a flick of two fingers, Thorin dismissed the protective dwarf.

Aleks exhaled gustily. "Right." Gathering his courage for the challenge before him, he turned to Thorin. Gandalf, mighty wizard as he might be, didn't seem as decisive. Commanding. Smart. "I'm from a land called Earth. Not Middle Earth, just Earth. And believe me, I know how insane that sounds."

Thorin accepted a thin, wooden bowl from another dwarf absently, his attention never departing from Aleks. "Go on."

Aleks thanked the dwarf as he, too, was offered a bowl. The dwarf in question, the big one, gave him a brief, round-cheeked smile.

"In my world, there are all kinds of peoples. Like here I guess. Only instead of elves, dwarves, and hobbits, we have humans and the fae." Aleks scratched at an itch on his elbow, ordering his words. "Fae is a broad term for everything that comes from a land called Faerie. Faerie is…bad. Really bad. Most of the lesser fae, those not considered powerful, fled from there over a thousand years ago. We don't dare venture back."

"Sounds dangerous," the floppy-hatted dwarf commented from where he now stood over the cooking pot. The big dwarf smacked his hand with a ladle when he dared to lower a finger towards its contents.

"Lethal," Aleks corrected. "The Old Ones, the most powerful of the Fae, are immoral and immortal by all accounts. They act as if the rest of creation exists for their pleasure. I've never been to Faerie, but the stories say they like their games. They'll hunt the less powerful down, toy with their minds." He tugged on his ear, changing tracks. "Anyway, my own people are considered lesser fae. We're naiads." To Thorin, "Basically, our men - or satyrs - are connected to the animal world. We can talk to animals, after a fashion. We understand them, feel what they are feeling." Awkward to sing his own praises, he hurried over, "Satyrs make excellent trackers and hunters. We love working with animals."

"And the women?" Gandalf this time, curiosity bright in his eyes.

"We call them dryads. They are linked to plants. A dryad can make things grow or cure most sicknesses found in plants." Reluctantly, he acknowledged, "They are the best healers, period. Dryads know instinctively which herbs will work best within an individual body." The subject brought her to mind, and Aleks felt his temper sharpening in response. He took a sip of water from an offered flask to buy himself a minute to cool down.

"You have proof of your claims?" Thorin asked.

Aleks inclined his head and unzipped his bag. "Yeah, I do." He removed his copy of It and set the bulky book aside. He wasn't about to demonstrate a rifle – that was his ace up the sleeve – so he pulled out his little mp3 player. "This device stores music and replays it at…um…demand." He thumbed through the options, searching for a song he could queue up that wouldn't be too jarring. "I'm going to guess you don't have anything like this here." Lopsided grin.

"Music? Is going to come out of that?" a young dwarf asked, plopping down next to Bilbo with quill and parchment in hand. The studious young dwarf leaned closer. "How does it work?"

Ahem. Uh. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I, uh, don't rightly know. I just know it works." He landed on the closing credits song to the game Portal, Still Alive. Quirked a grin. Perfect.

With a push of the button, the song began to play. Aleks turned up the volume so that the dwarves straining to hear across the fire could do so. Many an eye went from him to Gandalf and back again. The duo hovering over the kettle shuffled nearer.

"Blimey, how'd you fit a lass in there?" the silly-hatted dwarf asked with a drawl.

"I don't understand half of what she's going on about," an auburn-haired dwarf stated. His hair was slicked to a softened point atop his head.

"Do we ever know half of what a lass goes on about?" the hatted dwarf said in return to much laughter, Aleks joining in. He rather liked these dwarves. An interesting bunch.

When the song ended, he powered the device off and slipped it back into his bag. He risked a glance Thorin's way. "I'm telling you the truth."

Thorin smoothed one brow. "You've made your case, though the idea of another world is difficult to swallow, Master Hunt."

Mas— Oh. "Please, call me Aleks. Master Hunt sounds like someone else."

"Aleks." Thorin's head dipped forward.

"I…uh…should also tell you I have an alter form," Alex ventured. The last thing he wanted was to go satyr and have them flip out on him if unwarned. He'd rather know now, rifle near at hand, if they would turn on him as a monster. Tension pooled across his mid-back.

Thorin exchanged a brief look with Gandalf, but his face remained impassive. "An alter form? What do you mean by that?"

Aleks rubbed nervous hands down his jean-clad thighs. "I'll show you. Naiads have two appearances. One is that of a smaller human." Swallowed. "The other varies with gender." A harried look towards Thorin. "I don't want to wind up being poked full of holes, if you don't mind."

Surprise and mild humor crossed Thorin's face. The humor persisted after the surprise melted away. He leaned back and directed his words to the entire camp, "I believe we can promise that no one will strike you down."

Masculine voices rang out in agreement and assurance. All of them were gathering, even the two who had been off with the ponies. Aleks bit back a gripe about that. After all, the point was for them to see him. They couldn't do that if they weren't here.

Aleks pulled his boots from his feet and stood, walked a few steps outside the camp, and flexed his hands. He debated picking up the rifle, but wouldn't that betray its function? Besides, if they turn violent, no rifle will save me. There were too many of them. Plus the wizard, he thought as his gaze landed on the gray-robed man.

With no further words, he closed his eyes and let his satyr form emerge. It felt like a rush of warmth spreading from his core to his extremities. Everything turned sharper - smells, sounds, and (when he opened his eyes) sight. His fears and insecurities disappeared, not really understood by the satyr.

The dwarves, hobbit, and wizard stared at him, slack-jawed. One dwarf's pipe dropped from his slack lips, spilling burning embers upon his tunic. He jerked to awareness, slapping out sparks and puffing on singed fingers.

The urge to run off began to build in the back of his head. Aleks dropped the alter form, this time watching as cloven hoofs melted into human feet. The heavy weight of antlers upon his crown eased and disappeared. He cleared his throat. "That's it."

"That's it, the lad says, as if he were commenting upon the weather," one dwarf said. He had a solid gray head of hair and a beard braided in two thick plaits that hung to his belly.

"For him, I imagine it would be, Dori," another gray-headed dwarf responded. This one was taller than the former, with a beard lined by thinner braids.

"True, true," the first returned.

The second tilted his head to the side, his hands folded across his stomach. "Well, now, you've done what you set out to do, laddie, and survived to tell the tale. Balin, at your service," he said with a bow.

Before he could respond to the introduction, Bilbo chimed in. "Fascinating. All of the men of your people can do this?"

"Does it hurt?"

Thorin held up a hand, halting the deluge of questions. "Fili, Kili, back to your duties." He turned to Aleks and gestured to his seat. Aleks returned.

"I have one question," Thorin said once Aleks was settled.

Aleks's lips twitched. "Only one?"

There was no humor on Thorin's face. "For now."

"Okay."

"Is there anything I need to know for your safety and ours about your other form?"

Aleks blinked, surprised. Slowly, he nodded. "The satyr form is more closely tied to the animal world. When I am a satyr, my senses are sharper, but I'm also more ruled by instinct."

"You mean you react more like an animal as well," Thorin almost accused, not letting the matter drop.

Aleks felt his jaw tighten. Anger flared, as well as a healthy dose of humiliation. "I am no animal," he growled.

Thorin's hand whipped out, halting him before he could rise. "That is not what I said. Nor is it what I meant."

Aleks exhaled. Maybe he'd overreacted again, Aleks admitted to himself. He'd been raised by a werewolf. How would he know what was normal for a male naiad? The truth was, he'd called himself worse for the instincts the satyr form brought. He mumbled something in apology.

It was then that Gandalf changed the topic. Whether it was out of pity or inability to hold back a burning question, Aleks didn't know. He could only be thankful for it.

"How do you know of our world, Aleks? Are your people often travelers between the realms?" Gandalf placed hands on his knees, pipe clasped in one hand.

Aleks tugged on his shoes, shooting Gandalf a faintly irritated look. Not that he didn't understand the question, but it put him in an awkward spot. "There are these books…"

"Books?" The scholarly dwarf again, clearly interested.

"Books," Aleks said at last. No need to open the entire topic of movies. "They were written decades ago, but they describe Middle Earth." To Gandalf directly, "They are thought to be fiction. Stories. That's all."

"What do they say?" Thorin asked in a quiet, commanding tone.

Facing Thorin, "They outline a series of events. The stories most familiar are collectively called The Lord of the Rings. To be honest, I never read them. That was more my sis—" Oh, shut up, fool. The last thing he wanted was for these dwarves to find out about his missing sister and set out in search for her.

"You have a sister," Thorin concluded, one brow lifting.

Aleks struggled with himself and climbed to his feet, unable to sit still. Forced himself to speak, knowing his bitter anger was written all over his face. "No, I have no sister."

OoOoOo

Thorin watched the young naiad stomp off, his thin frame vibrating with fury. The dwarf's gaze sidled over, encountered the wizard's.

"There's a story there," the wizard murmured, his head moving to follow the naiad's progress from camp.

"Indeed." Thorin hefted his bowl as Bombur passed, doling out the night's offerings. Thyme and garlic wafted up from the bowl of stew, and Thorin poked his spoon into it, stirring it to allow it to cool. "Do you believe him?"

Gandalf accepted his own bowl with a nod of thanks. "About his heritage, there can be no doubt. His claims to be from another world are another matter. However, I do, strangely enough." The wizard tested a mouthful of his dinner with ginger care. "That is one angry young man." A pause. "We cannot leave him alone."

No, they couldn't. Thorin believed the satyr, for in all his wanderings, he'd never encountered such a people. Nor, he mused, had Gandalf, and that in itself was telling. No, as incredible as it seemed, this world was not the boy's. While he wasn't thrilled with the satyr's inclusion in their group, he could not in good conscience leave him alone, ignorant of this world and its dangers.

"Do you think she's dead?" the hobbit piped up, his small face scrunched in worry. "His sister?"

That wasn't Thorin's impression, though he didn't say as much. That naiad's voice had failed to conceal the bitterness that festered within him. He had a sister, all right. Only one thing put that note into a person's speech, something he knew full well: betrayal.

OoOoOo

When dawn arrived, I thought I was imagining it. Night had so stretched into infinity, I'd given up hope of seeing the sun ever rise. Gradually, the night sounds ended. No snarls, growls, or shrieks. An ocean of silence descended upon the ruins, unbroken by birds or insects. A weak wind struggled by, echoing hollowly in my hole.

For the longest time, I didn't move. My body was utterly spent. A night of terror left me fuzzy-headed, scared, and lethargic.

Don't waste daylight, a part of me said. It was right. I wouldn't survive another night here. I had to find a way out of these ruins, or I would die. If those creatures didn't get me, the terror would. The body could only take so much, and already I felt…damaged. Bruised and scraped raw.

I fell from my alcove, limbs wobbly and stiff from being cramped in a hole so long. A tug, and the tote flopped out to my side.

At least the headache is gone. My lips twisted in a facsimile of a smile, but I couldn't dredge up any amusement to accompany it. Against my will, my head turned towards the cloaked statue. The sinister air remained, but in comparison to the night's events, it lacked the same punch.

I toggled open my tote, fingering through its contents. Bite-sized Snickers. Quick energy. I popped two squares into my mouth, chewing and searching further.

Ah. In a side pocket, I found my set of ceramic knives - a gift from Marcus back when he still believed he could take both Aleks and me out into the wilderness for bonding time. They'd become my tools for harvesting greenery, be it foraged herbs, flowers, or fruit. I took the largest of the set from the niche and set it aside.

Before continuing, I glanced around carefully. My hearing felt super heightened, sensitive to the faintest whisper of a breeze.

Water came next. I uncapped a plastic bottle and drank it down in one long draught before stowing the empty container away. I'd reuse it if I could locate a clean water source.

Good luck with that. I wasn't sure I would trust any water originating from this region. There has to be something else in this world besides ruins.

But, what if these ruins did extend throughout this land? A small shiver raced down my spine. I forced myself to ignore the possibility. Counterproductive and too freaking scary, to be honest.

I retied the laces on my sneakers and reached for the hair tie I always kept in my front pants pocket. Paused. Examined my hair. The night had been brutal and my hair showed it. The strands bracketing my face were gnawed down until they no longer reached my shoulders. A quick inspection proved they were just long enough to reach my mouth. Grimace. My hair was a mess and too short to pull back into a ponytail.

A noise too low to identify had me freezing in place. My head whirled in that direction, and my breath caught. There it was again. I quietly slipped the tote's straps over my shoulder and palmed my knife, slipping it free from its leather sheath. Not knowing what else to do with the sheath, I stuffed it into my left pocket where it created a nice, awkward bulge.

Should have worn jeans.

Next time I got banished to Faerie, I'd keep it in mind. For now, my linen drawstring pants and short-sleeved baby blue sweater would have to do. No way was I stripping down to my neverminds to change in this place.

Alright then. Forward. Keeping my head below the level of the broken wall beside me, I hurried in the opposite direction, utilizing the first break in the tumbled structure to hang a left.

Whatever the sound had been, I'm happy to report I never came face-to-face with it. I zig-zagged through the ruins, keeping to a mostly western heading.

The sun rose higher. My body trembled with fatigue. My woozy-headedness became dangerous. I'd tripped and almost hurled myself down a narrow flight of broken stairs. I'd brained myself on a low hanging faux-branch I'd neglected to notice. I'd even come close to walking over a gaping hole in what turned out to be a bridge, barely catching myself before it ended with me taking a nice stroll off the proverbial cliff.

I halted, shoulders sagging. Was I going in circles? Impossible to say. So much of this ruined maze looked the same. I supposed I could sketch marks upon the columns with my tube of Origin's lip gloss, but wasn't that just begging for some monster to find me?

Yeah. Not going there.

It seemed the sun raced across the sky. All too soon, it was directly overhead. I swatted ragged, brown hair from my face, still frightened and now beginning to panic. I could have screamed in frustration and wept with exhaustion.

Was this entire complex some Faerie illusion? Well, no, demonstrably not. (I rubbed my bruised forehead.) But in case some of it was a figment of my imagination - or illusion - I'd prodded and pushed against a number of random walls. They didn't feel different from the real deal and they sure as snootin' didn't move.

But would I recognize a difference if my mind was being messed with? Gah, I didn't even know if my thoughts held any relation to logical anymore. I felt borderline crazed.

If there had been plants growing anywhere in what I now thought of as The Ruins From H— Ahem. You know. Anyway, if there had been, I could have used them as stationary points around which to navigate. Search as I might, my eyes failed to detect so much as a windblown germ of a weed.

Maybe it was time to take root. Though, I had to admit, I was skeptical of what benefit I'd get from the little bit of dirt I could sink my dryad form's roots into. The ground is probably poisoned anyway, I thought glumly. Oh, but turning part-tree did sound tempting, if only because it would allow me to sleep. Trees weren't so big on the fear thing. Unless an ax was hacking away at them, such an emotion rarely touched them.

All of a sudden, the omnipresent dread skyrocketed. A shadow seemed to fall upon my patch of road, a shadow I couldn't explain when I looked towards the hazy outline of the sun. There was nothing there. My grip on the knife tightened until my fingers ached, and I backed away with slow, even steps. I tried to be very careful, but it seemed a Herculean task to muster up the brain power to do so. Luck was with me, and I didn't trip upon the fallen blocks littering the area.

Then I saw him - an old man with wizened gray hair hanging below his shoulders. Threadbare brown robes covered his angular frame, and a floppy, pointed hat of the same hue perched haphazardly atop his thin face. His pale eyes never rested as he turned in a slow circle, a twisted staff of rowan gripped in both hands and hefted defensively. From his lips fell a cadence of syllables, soft and commanding.

They stuttered and stopped as his eyes alighted upon me. "A lady?" he asked with messy brows arched high. He looked stunned. "Well now, look at that," he commented under his breath.

A ghastly shadow of midnight black rose up from behind yet another of the cloaked statues. An armed shadow. Its blade glinted in the low sunlight, making it look supremely long and lethal. In a heartbeat, the man-shaped shadow poised to strike.

"Behind you," I shouted.

The old man whirled around, but the inky, shapeless form disappeared into the statue before he'd turned. The man backed up with slow steps, one end of his staff pointed at the cloaked stone figure. His hands were white about his weapon, and his body was tense as he muttered more incomprehensible words.

A small hummingbird darted out of a side path and flew right up to his nose. It made a series of high-pitched clicking noises.

"Is that so?" the man asked.

The bird bobbed its head, clicking once more.

"Thank you, Robert. Back home you go, my friend."

Another chirp and the bird zoomed from sight.

My eyes widened. Radagast.

Stupid conclusion since there was no Middle Earth, but that is what my brain provided. There wasn't much description of him in the books that I'd read, and the movie had portrayed him quite differently, but brown robes, talking to animals?

Coincidence.

Immediately a counter thought: Faerie. What if some Old One had pulled "Radagast" from my mind?

But why him? Wouldn't pulling, oh say, Boromir be more effective? I'd always had a soft spot for the doomed steward's son, so I'd have expected that if someone was messing with me, he'd be the venue of choice instead of an obscure character like the Brown Wizard.

The old man resumed his low words, making his way to me with slow, deliberate steps, one foot crossing over the other. At no time did his staff dip or his stance relax. No doddering idiot, this man. Odd, certainly. But there was no bird poop matting his hair and no vacuous idiocy evident in his eyes.

So, coincidence. Maybe.

Gah, I was too tired and scared to think straight. Should I run? Hide from this maybe-Radagast? What if he was some malevolent fae in disguise?

What if he's not? Do I really want to spend another night here?

Uh, no. Thanks anyway. I'd take my chances with the old man. Being killed and eaten (if he proved the sort to do the whole killing and eating shtick) might be an improvement to another night like the last one.

At last, the wizard reached my side. Hazel eyes swept over me, his brow furrowing at what he found. "Not of the race of men," he mused.

Race of men. A part of me jumped up and down, pointing an accusatory finger at the statement. Sounds like Middle Earth talk.

Whoever this man was, if he was supposed to be Radagast, he certainly stayed in character. Or was the real thing. (Not that that was possible.) But Radagast was purported to be a solitary soul, not used to the company of other humanoid beings. Where anyone else would ask me what I was, or more importantly, who I was and what I was doing here, he seemed to overlook that avenue, content to chat with himself.

Something caused him to twirl around in an agile twist, staff rising higher. "Remain close, leaf-child. We are not alone."

No, really?

He turned from our path, choosing a broader, broken road. Before my brain could catch up with my flapping mouth, it came out: "Are you Radagast?"

Dagger-sharp hazel eyes whipped in my direction, not really landing on me but rather the air before my face. He stared at that patch of space for a long moment. "What," he asked in a soft, intent voice, "are you doing here?"

Again, his words seemed more self-directed, but I deemed the question a fair one. If I'd been him, I wouldn't be so happy to have a strange person show up unexpected in a place like this. Especially if that person then used my name like I was expected or something. It would set off all of my alarms, anyway.

Assuming I'd had sleep and was coherent enough to have a mental alarm, I mean. Which rather excluded me that day since a stranger had, in fact, shown up out of nowhere and here I was dogging his footsteps like an obedient pooch. Ugh. My brain felt like mush.

Wait. He'd asked something, right? I reviewed the last few minutes. Yeah, he had. The best I could come up with? "I woke up here." Winced. I woke up here? Riiight.

"Hmm." He resume his course. If he harbored suspicions about me, he did nothing about it. The wizard progressed through the ruins with a seeming destination in mind, pausing periodically to mutter more strange words under his breath.

I shifted the weight of my tote over my left shoulder, keeping my right hand - and its blade - unencumbered. I should probably put that away, I mused distantly. Before I tripped and impaled myself on it. Yet, I felt safer with it in my grasp. It stays.

"I don't know how I got here," I added in a low tone.

His steps halted, and he reached back, placing one dirt-dusted hand to my forehead. Making a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat, he dropped his hand and reclaimed his grip on his staff. "There is no taint of shadow upon you." Another hmm. "Why? Who would bring you here? What would be the purpose?"

I had no answer. "Are you Radagast?"

"Radagast the Brown, yes," he said. "Do you know where you are?" Academic curiosity.

I moistened my lips again. "If you are Radagast, this is…" Heavy swallow. "Dol Guldur."

He froze. Turned around, hazel eyes burning with intellect. For the first time, he really saw me, eyes meeting mine directly. "When we find a safer venue, we must talk, leaf-child."

Leaf-child again. What did he know? And was that confirmation that he wasn't what he seemed? That he possessed knowledge he shouldn't have?

A shadow-creature leaped from behind a squat column lining the road, its sword flashing. I screamed, waved my small knife in a lame sweep, and stumbled backwards, tripping over one of the uneven stones underfoot. Down I went.

The blade arched towards Radagast. His gnarled staff intercepted it with a muted clang. The wizard swept the blade aside and thrust the butt of his staff at the thing's midsection. The specter split like mist, unaffected, and reformed as the staff was yanked back. Before Radagast recovered, the shadow lunged again, blade thrusting straight towards him. Radagast parried, the tip grazing long a thick fold in his robes. Again, the thing attacked.

As they circled each other, the thing gained definition, as if it was becoming more solid. More real. A black, foggy head topped gaunt shoulders and skeletal torso. The legs remained an ambiguous, hazy impression, as did the arms.

It couldn't be a Ringwraith, could it?

The battle threatened to mow me down. I scurried backwards until my back collided with another of the short pillars. Middle Earth doesn't exist, I repeated to myself, trying to believe it. And that, in a nutshell, was the danger of Faerie. You believed what they wanted you to believe. The mad survivors claimed to have seen Sir Lancelot, danced with Guinevere. One insisted he'd been to Pern and ridden a Bronze dragon.

None of this was real. There was no Radagast and no Dol Guldur. I couldn't let myself fall prey to believing it. It was too pat, too simple. I'd loved Middle Earth from the first time my mother read me The Hobbit. To think it possible to end up there was ludicrous. Someone was playing with me, capitalizing upon my dreams.

The sword screamed through the air and sliced into the wall beside me. Illusion, I babbled to myself, only to be proved wrong as a sharp, burning pain immediately flared. The sword hadn't missed, though I didn't believe I'd been the real target. Wrong place, wrong time.

I hissed and backed up again, this time freaking out about the injury. If this scenario was based upon Middle Earth, did that mean I'd been poisoned? Morgul blade. Was it a Morgul blade? I slapped one hand upon my bleeding wound and hastened backwards.

Radagast went on the offensive, the agile old man wielding his staff like something out of The Matrix. It slashed through the mist's body, but before the mist adjusted, it suddenly changed trajectory, shifting upward towards the head. Then, it sliced downward, colliding with where the shadow's wrist would be - had he enough substance to have one. The blade was knocked free, clattering to the ground as Radagast's stave once more swept through the thing's body. Only this time, the staff's tip glowed.

The wizard spat something, and the creature disintegrated with an eerie moan. Panting, Radagast turned to me and said one word: "Run!"

Behind him, two…six…then dozens of the things materialized from broken walls and statues. All armed. All rushing in our direction.

Like Speedy Gonzales, I was gone.

Legs pedaling like mad, I looked back - a part of me had to see, had to know if they were gaining. Radagast scooped up the defeated creature's blade without breaking stride. "Straight ahead," he hollered over the building, muffled roar of a thousand black things lifting their heads in fury.

Radagast pressed one hand to my back, accelerating our pace until I nearly couldn't keep up. "Don't stop. Don't look back!"