Justintime: Thanks. I knew you'd like Phebas. Actually he was not going to eat them any ways... he's... well... I hope you discover, or figure out that the next time you read about him :D

Chapter 6: Back on the road

Ig had gone in search of Planchet and Danitza and Kedri and Dahra found a warm place in some ruins near a river that flowed in that forest. the trees had told Kedri that the place was nice, but they were too tired to continue; they were getting ready to sleep for the winter.

Danitza had found some wood to make a fire, but was very carefull to pick only dead plants and dry wood on the floor... to not hurt her friend's feelings, and they made a fire big enough, although they were not lucky enough to find anything to eat. The noises of the forest were now not the same as the animals were resting in their respective lairs. None of them wanted to leave the other alone to go hunting, because of the posibility of nocturnal creatures nearby.

In the meantime, asmall creature was cold, frightened and alone. He had been walking all day and now was getting late and he was starving. His big ears could hear all the creatures of the forest, but he wasn't used to be for so long in the wilderness. he would have given anything to find somewhere to get warm.

- "Oh, Wyrmirneeds fire..." he sayed to himself, with his weird voice. Alfons were not very fond of living in the nature. They loved to learn magicks and that drove them to be 90 of their time between the pages of books and scrolls, and a forest was not that kind of place.

Suddenly he saw a slight brightness between the trees and approached slowly and silent. 2 females were talking by a fire in the middle of some ruins. They had nothing visible to eat, but at least they were not cold, they had weapons and one of them shone in an ultra violet colour.

When an Alfon saw that colour in someone it meant that somewhere in that person weremagickal items. Alfons are nuts for magicks and they always think that it belongs to them... but this females, whoever they were, were too heavily armoured for him, a small and unarmed alfon. Unarmed if you didn't count the staff in his hand. He decided against taking his chances. He'd manage to get those magickal items in another way.

- "I'm cold. Ineed to go to that fire, but..." the alfon trailed off andthought that the girls wouldn't let him stay with them if he had nothing to offer to them, so he thought on bringing something to eat.

In the Ruins...

Kedri took out a flask that she had and opened it. It was full of sweetened ants. Kedri loved sweetened ants and Dahra didn't even want to try them, but her firend insisted too much so she ate some and found them quite good.

They were talking and having some fun when suddenly they heard a noise and got somewhat paranoids.

Kedri grabbed her bow and arrows and prepared them. Dahra unsheathed her sword.

- "WHO'S THERE!" Dahra cried, but got no answer.

Kedri saw a shrub moving andpointed her arrow at it.

- "ANSWER OR I'LL SHOOT!"

A small creature came out of the shrub, very hesatantly and trembling. Kedri didn't put her bow down, remembering what Phebas sayed about Alfons and magickal items... and she had at least 3 of those.

- "Who are you and what do you want?" she asked.

- "My name is Wyrmir and I... I... I'm cold"

Dahra put her sword down, but Kedri didn't

- "You're here to get my rings" she sayed

- "I... NO! I just wanted to get warm by your fire. I even brought something for you and you thank me saying those lies?" Wirmyr shook in the air a couple of rabbits that he hunted with his own hands. He wasn't a hunter, so the rabbits were stilla littlealive in his hands. Kedri put down her bow and arrow and Dahra stood up.

- "You can come... Wyrmir... errr... we're waiting for some companions to come, but they're taking too long. Give me those rabbits. I'll put them in the fire" Dahra took the rabbits and started taking out their skins, which she left drying. Kedri gave her some species and Dahra put them to the fire. "We will share. You know?" she sayed as she was cooking "You didn't need to bring rabbits. If you wanted to come to the fire we would have let you anyways"

- "I thought it was fair enough" the Alfon answered.

For the rest of the supper they talked and "interrogated" Wyrmir. He had been in the woods for 3 days now because he got lost of his caravan. He was going to the Alfon village to study with a very renowned mage that lived there and he was lost and cold when he saw the camp. They ate everything. They even cut the bones of the rabbit and licked them. It was very little food, but better than nothing.

- "Will we make turns to guard?" asked Dahra.

- "Of course" Kedri sayed "I assumed we would. Who will do the first one?"

Dahra raised a finger.

- "Ok, I'll do the second and Wyrmir the third"

- "MEEEEE?" The Alfon didn't count on that, but Kedri finally convinced him with a harsh stare. "Ok, ok, if you insist I will, but I'm no warrior. If there's trouble I'll wake you up"

-"That's the idea" sayed the Arborum and winked.

Nothing happened while Dahra was on her turn. She woke up Kedri and went to sleep. the turns were long, so they could all get rested, but something happened while the shoni arborum was watching the camp.

Horse sockets... yes, there was no doubt, a rider was getting closer.

- "Wyrmir!" Kedri woke him up "Wyrmir, wake up! someone's comming!"

- "Nah, there's noone. Let me sleep!"

- "No, I tell you, someone's comming. We'd better be all prepared in case is a hostile person..." Kedri bugged him so much that he had to get up, still not believing her. It seemed that only the arborum female heard it.

They thought to let Dahra sleep. They were not going to wake her up unless they really needed, besides Kedri's guard was almost over and it came Wyrmir's turn soon.

Wyrmir was about to go back to sleep when they suddenly saw it. It was a knight mounting a black andreally, really thin (almost skeletic)horse. He spoke in a strange lenguage and none of them understood it, so they decided to wake up the Piggot.

- "What...?" she asked with a sleepy voice, rubbing the sleep off her eyes.

- "Dahra... look" Kedri sayed.

Dahra looked at the knight, breathless at the sight of the painfully thin horse and asked what he needed. The knight answered in the same strange language and Dahra didn't understand.

The knight wore a cape and a helmet, besides of a sword in his back. The hilt of the sword was visible over his shoulder. he dismounted and sat by the fire, took out of his bag a pot that had no bottom and a cup. Incredibly, but with the cuphe took water out of the pot and drank it. to do this, heremoved his helmet. His head was a skull.

Kedri sighed, thinking that she should fight a skeleton again, but he wasn't hostile, so she saw no reason to attack him and just stared at what he was doing.

The knight took out a blanket and covered himself and, apparently, fell asleep. His face looking up to the neght sky.

Kedri stood up and, followed by Dahra, approached to the horse while wyrmir was ready to go back to sleep. The horse was really, almost like a corpse and in his mount was a simbol. three triangles, with the base of them pointed to a center with three small circles inside and at one side of the triangle symbol was a little winged lyon.

Kedri got even closer to the horse and, against all the recomendations that Dahra made, she nibbled him. The Horse seemed to be gratefull, but made no noise, and when Kedri turned to look at the knight again she almost falls to the ground of the surprise, because there wasn't a skull lying there, but a beautifull human knight. His eyes were closed, and he was crying. Then she turned to look at the horse and he wasn't like the one she saw before. It was a beautifull black stallion.

Dahra didn't understand but decided against asking. She touched the horse too and got the same impression.

- "Why would he be crying?" asked the Piggot.

- "I don't know, but I sincerely hope he gets what he needs"

- "Me too".

The next morning, when they woke up, the knight was already gone.

Kedri, Dahra and Wyrmir gathered their stuff and went to the river to wash some. Ig, Planchet and Danitza didn't come back, so they decided to do as Ig told them and leave.

- "The city of Hueslat is close in that direction" Dahra sayed, pointing in the direcction from where the river came from.

- "Good, let's go" Wyrmir sayed. to this point the two girls had already accepted him as a full part of their group, but he hadn't given up on getting Kedri's magickal items and every time he asked for them he found himself with a rounded NO and sometimes a fist that never came to his face. She was just threatening... and it worked.

They arrived to a place by the river where there were a lot of birds, mammoths and other animals. Kedri wanted to hunt, but dahra sayed that some plants made fruits there and started searching. Suddenly the animals got alert and silent, the birds flew away and teh animals runned. Even the mammoths.

Before their eyes, tearing down trees and shrubs, appeared, threateninlgy, a huge creature. It hadfour legs, the head of a giant crocodile, scales and the body resembled the one of a snake. It was horrible and huge, but more than that, it was hungry.

Kedri reacted first and threw an arrow at the creature and it hit, but unluckily, the creature had already her sight locked in her. It was too fast and attacked the Arborum, knocking her to the floor. Dahra tried attacking the creature with her sword, but it was useless. The creature already had chosen dinner and started chewing Kedri's legs while she tried to reload the bow. Wyrmir casted a spell at the creature, but she dodged it and kept chewing the poor Arborum, who could do nothing but scream in pain. Kedri dropped her bow to the floor when the creature reached her chest and chew her untillit reached to her head and was about to leave the place.

Dahra was not going to leave it just like that. seing that her dear friend had been eaten by this horrible thing, let out a lowd and long battle cry and charged full of fury. She saw that the weak point of the creature wasit's belly. Seemingly it had no scales there, so she got under it and started slashing it there. Wyrmir didn't want to take many chances, so he kept shooting fireballswith his staff at the creature's face, to keep him busy while Dahra did the rest.

- "HELLISH CREATURE! DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Dahra hitted and hitted that thing in thebelly with her sword, taking herself a bath of blood. The creature couldn't see her, because as it moved to see what was killing her, Dahra moved along. If the creature stepped on her or fell over her she would be dead as well, but she didn't care for that. She kept slashing. She was a killing machine.

The creature's stomach started to move in spasms as if it was going to puke, and it did. Apool of bloodwith a mass ofbroken bones, flesh and gore came out of it.

Finally, Dahrastabbed the creature and when she saw that it was going to fall over her, she put all her strength to push the massive corpse of the horrible thing off her. fighting against the creature's weigth with all her strength and adrenaline, she barely could, but she did.

Her arms ached so much... muscles she didn't knew she had hurted too much after getting done with the creature.

- "Thanks for distracting it, Wyrmir... you proved you're a worthy mage"

- "Not yet, but soon" he sayed. He knew they should be happy for killing that thing, but the sight of their puddled friend wasn't encouraging at all.

Dahra kneeled by "Kedri's" side and started praying to her god and then, for respect of the Arborum, seeded a seed on the ground and made a prayer to Tyra, Kedri's godess of nature and fertility. She didn't know any, so she made it up.

All there was left untouched from Kedri's pukedbody was the Necklace of Unpredictable. It shone.

A/N: So... you liked it? you missed action and fighting? well... it's back :D I hope you liked it.

Dahra:( I miss Kedri

Author pats Dahra's back and Dahra looks angrily at her

Author: WHAT?

Dahra: YOU KILLED HER! YOU KILLED YOUR OWN CHARACTER!

Author shruggs: No spoilers this time, my friend. that's the cicle of life, I guess

Dahra leaves slowly:( BUAAAAAAAAA!

Author waits untill she leaves and turns to the readers: Keep reading, that's all I can say for now, and if you don't review now I'LL SEND THE HORRIBLE CREATURE TO CHEW YOU TOO!