5th Day of Fireseek, 566 CY

The Lone Heath, Great Kingdom of Aerdy

Despite everything, Aslan couldn't stop a momentary smile from flashing across his face.

The paladin couldn't help but notice how similar Argo and his father, who were both slogging through the swamp just ahead of him, really were.

Not even considering their physical similarities (if it weren't for the older ranger's fur cloak and braided hair, Aslan doubted he'd be able to tell them apart from the rear), both Bigfellows were moving in perfect unison in a rhythm that would put any company of soldiers to shame. With every step, their waterproofed boots always found the best possible spot in which to land and without any words spoken between them, the two rangers constantly adjusted their course so that Aslan, Caroline, Cygnus and Yenom, none of whom possessed their skills in navigating through the wilderness, were almost always able to keep up.

Another similarity, much less pleasant, was that neither ranger was speaking to the other.

Argo Junior was only here because he had promised his father that he and Caroline would assist the denizens of Orzdi in any way possible during their stay here.

That time was now coming to a close. After their climactic battle against their assorted enemies at the Brass Dragon, Aslan had returned to the Lone Heath at the first opportunity, taking Cygnus, Yenom and Gastar back with him and then commenced the teleportation of the contents of the supply caravan.

There was no opportunity for training anyone now. There was time only for one task left to accomplish before Aslan and his two friends returned home for good.

Argoria Bigfellow.

Her redemption or her death.

Aslan knew that the elder Bigfellow was planning- or at least preparing- for the latter because he had chosen this particular day to make the trek to the purported location of Argoria's cottage.

This particular day was sunny.

To be sure, it was not the unvarnished sunshine covering the grassy fields by the Brass Dragon, but it had been the first such day since Aslan, Caroline and Argo had first arrived in the Lone Heath nine days ago. Weak but steady cones of light filtered through the wintertime foliage and branches of the many trees that flourished in the swamp to cast a dim glow on the brackish water. Endless motes floated in these cones, but whether they were dust, pollen or insects, the paladin could not say.

Probably bugs of some kind, Aslan grumbled to himself. He could still feel, and smell, the white salve on the skin of his exposed face and hands called mosquito murderer, the unpleasant but undeniably effective concoction the Orzdians used so frequently.

Still, the fact could not be denied. The Bigfellows, no doubt using some obscure ranger skill of which Aslan had no knowledge, had determined that there were likely to be no further sunny days before the end of their sojourn here in the Great Kingdom and that meant this journey had to be take place today.

Because sunlight might be the only thing that might save them all against the murderous creature they called Dogai.

Aslan's frown deepened. The assassin devil, or whatever it truly was, might well be the fiercest of the adversaries they were likely to face, but Mr. Goth himself could hardly be discounted. In the legends in which Aslan and Yenom had been schooled, harvesters were not amongst the most physically powerful of devils- Aslan himself had never actually come to blows with Goth in their one prior meeting- but underestimating any devil was a swift ticket to the afterlife.

And Argoria herself? When last they had met, she had been a wizard roughly on par with Cygnus. The Aardian mage had progressed considerably in power in the years since then; it would be foolish to assume Argo's sister had not done likewise, although she had spent at least a few of those years dead, so that was a factor in their favor.

But what other surprises might await this sextet at the end of their swamp trek?

Perhaps in an unconscious effort to distract himself, the paladin's thoughts flickered back to Laertes.

As seemed to be their unconscious habit, the Tri-Worldians had lined up outside their inn, facing their departing member.

It was a few hours later- close to midsun- than the half-orc had originally been planning to depart, but Laertes had insisted on taking a rare bath and then cleaned and polished his armor (which had been fixed up as much as Cygnus' mend spells would permit) and shield so the newest member of the Azure Order would represent his unit proudly to any commoners he might meet along the road.

And now, on a crisp, clear day, identical to the one before which had ended in so much bloodshed- dried pools of blood still littered the ground outside- Elrohir, Cygnus, Zantac, Nesco, Aslan and Tojo stood at attention some fifteen feet from Laertes, son of Burnwald.

As one, they saluted the young half-orc (Tojo bowing instead) who seemed so different from the quick-witted but also quick-to-anger teenager they had first met four months ago at the Laurellinn mess hall.

Tojo, as always, was short and to the point.

"I know you wirr bring great honor to your rord, Raertes-san," the samurai announced, with another bow, "just as you have brought great honor to us with your presence here."

The half-orc smiled. "Thank you, Tojo."

"Thank you, Athlan, for the loan of Perlial."

Aslan nodded and stepped forward. Before he could even say a word, the paladin could see the half-orc's eyes boring into his own and he could read what was on the youth's mind.

"I'm pleased to see you've grown a great deal in your short time with us, Laertes," Aslan stated, "and not just in your fighting skills."

He hesitated.

"I know I've had to be rough with you a few times," the paladin said, not taking his eyes off Laertes' face. "I hope you can understand why."

The teen dropped his eyes to the ground.

"I know, Athlan," he said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "And I know I haven't alwayth been grateful for the opportunitieth you've given me."

Laertes squared his shoulders, raised his eye and met Aslan's gaze again.

"But you and the otherth thood up for me at the Fethival. You put your home; your very livelihood on the line for me with Baron Chartrain. I'll… I'll never forget that."

"And of courth," he continued, "you thaved my life yetherday."

"And you risked your life to help us," Aslan responded, gesturing around him. "Here, against the Outlaws and at Ironstead. We will never forget that… or you."

"Thank you again, Athlan," said Laertes. "Pleath let Caroline know I'm grateful for all her training."

His lip and tusks trembled.

"Watch over her and Argo, Athlan."

"Don't worry, Laertes," the paladin replied. "I intend to."

Nesco stepped forward next.

"You will do the Azure Order proud, Laertes," the ranger said, trying hard to keep her voice steady.

The irony of Lady Nesco Cynewine congratulating someone else for joining the same company that she had voluntarily resigned from seemed like an enveloping shroud around her.

It was not lost on Laertes, either. The half-orc had been told the tale from Nesco's companions; or at least as much of it as they knew.

The fighter raised his right arm at the elbow, his fist clenched.

"Cold iron avail you, Lady Thinewyne," he intoned solemnly.

"Cold iron avail you, Laertes," Nesco responded in kind.

Zantac could not control his trembling.

"You saved my life, Laertes," the Willip wizard said as he tentatively stepped forward. "Twice."

The half-orc shrugged. "You've done the thame for me."

A somewhat awkward pause ensued.

"Well," Zantac finally managed, his eyes moist, "take care of yourself, Laertes."

"You too, Zantac," the Order member replied with a smile. "You too."

Laertes spoke next before Cygnus had even taken his first step forward.

"Thank you, Thygnus," the half-orc said, his tusks trembling again. "Thank you for taking a chanth on me. None of thith would have happened otherwithe."

"You took the first step, Laertes," the tall wizard replied, "and wound up doing more for me than I ever did for you."

The half-orc tilted his head inquisitively at the mage.

"You helped me see that the Hilda you loved and the Talat I hated truly were the same person," Cygnus explained. "You helped me to let go of hate… at least for a little while."

The magic-user glanced furtively at his fellow Tri-Worldians and when he faced Laertes again, his voice had dropped to a near-whisper and his brown eyes wandered.

"That's not in my nature."

Laertes nodded, his expression once again seeming to betray a wisdom beyond his years.

"May the godth protect you, Thygnus… and your thun."

"Well," Elrohir said, the last to step forward.

The ranger wrung his hands together in frustration as once again words failed him, but Laertes filled the silence.

"I'm going to mith your gift of language, Elrohir."

The ranger raised his eyebrows in surprise but saw immediately that Laertes was favoring him with the half-orc version of a grin, although his tusks made it look vaguely terrifying.

"But not ath muth ath your courage and your loyalty."

The teenager hesitated.

"You're what I athpire to."

"Well," Elrohir repeated, determined at least not to be out-orated by the half-orc, "I noticed you don't seem to have a problem giving orders when needed, Laertes." He straightened up. "I know you will bring glory to those you will serve."

The teenager nodded. "Thank you, Elrohir. I hope tho."

"And most importantly, " Elrohir finished, "I know, as does everyone else here, that you now have the maturity and the responsibility to handle real power."

There was about ten seconds of silence and then Laertes reached into the large belt pouch wrapped around his waist and extracted the yellow and black obi of the courtier.

When he looked up again, the half-orc's gray eyes were moist with tears that did not fall.

"Thank you all," he said again. "I hope we meet again one day. If I do achieve honor and purpoth, I know who I will credit for it."

Laertes returned the obi to his pouch, wiped his eyes clear, mounted Perlial and rode off to the northwest.

Caroline wasn't terrified but she knew that was due only to her proximity to Aslan.

Despite her long experience with it, the paladin's ability to somehow cast out fear from those near him still amazed the young fighter. It wasn't the absolute protection that Aslan himself seemed to enjoy but the effect was palpable. Caroline couldn't stop herself from testing it by deliberately moving more than ten feet away from Aslan as they started out this morning.

The cold sweat that had suddenly enveloped the young woman had been more than enough for her to return to the paladin's left flank and she hadn't wavered from it since.

She wondered if this expedition, to which she had refused to be excluded from, was a certain death trap to a warrior clearly less skilled in combat than anyone else around her-despite the extra protection she had been afforded..

That thought made her glance to her left past Aslan, to where the cleric of Zilchus was carefully picking his way through the swamp behind Argos Senior and Junior.

"Yenom," Caroline said to the priest, "you're absolutely certain that the Emerald Serpent didn't have that black wand on him?"

Yenom's smile was thin. This wasn't the first time Lady Bigfellow had asked him this.

"We searched very carefully, Caroline. He did not."

"Too bad. Would have been an effective weapon for us."

The cleric, however, shook his head.

"Wrack is a dark prayer indeed, Caroline. I wouldn't dare try using a wand imbued with that power."

Caroline's expression grew puzzled. "I wonder why he didn't have it with him, though?"

Yenom bit his lip.

"The only explanation I can think of, Lady Bigfellow," he said after a careful pause, "is that the wand had been loaned to the Serpent and been reclaimed sometime after you last saw him."

Caroline stopped in her tracks. Yenom went several seconds before realizing this and halted as well. Two rangers, one wizard and one paladin likewise stopped and looked at the two with some irritation.

"Loaned to him by whom?"

Caroline's question was little more than a hoarse whisper.

"Aslan here has spoken of a chain," Yenom responded as he motioned for the others to resume walking. "If he is correct as to its links, that wand would have come from the Hierarchs. Perhaps this Schkall your divination mentioned."

"Yet another reason," Aslan now added as he looked to his right at the again-moving Lady Bigfellow, "why a direct assault on the Hierarchs would be impossible."

Caroline said nothing else. The consequences of a failed assault- or no assault at all- on the Hierarchs did not need to be laid out for her. A dream that Caroline would remember until her dying day had made that all too clear.

She kept as close to Aslan as she could.

For his part, the paladin was also looking to his left, but not at Yenom. Aslan's gaze was fixed firmly on the tall wizard walking on the cleric's left.

Cygnus did not look at all happy to be here. The mage was even surlier than usual, keeping his head down and taking no part in conversations around him outside of head nods and grunting noises.

And yet, he had insisted on coming…

"Aslan!"

The paladin turned away from the Safe Journey Caravan Company crates that he and Elrohir had just finished stacking outside the Brass Dragon's front door in preparation of Aslan's transporting them to the Lone Heath. He had already teleported Yenom and Gastar back to Orzdi yesterday and was about to start on the crates.

Cygnus was standing about ten feet away, his arms folded across his chest. The mage had swiped a pair of swamp boots from the caravan boxes and roughly cut off the bottom two feet of his brown frock robe.

Aslan stared at him.

"How much will taking me with you set back your timetable?"

Aslan continued to stare. The paladin couldn't get his brain to start working on the answer to Cygnus' question because he was absolutely dumbstruck that the magic-user had asked it at all.

"You… you want to come to the Lone Heath with me?"

"No, Aslan," the wizard replied, lifting his right foot to showcase the footwear; leather lined at the top with beaver fur. "I've decided to start taking fashion tips from Zantac. He said these are all the rage now in Willip for tea parties."

Aslan's eyes narrowed and his lips pinched.

"Even Zantac would know that you don't start off asking for a favor by being an ass, Cygnus."

Cygnus hesitated and then dropped his gaze to the ground and gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. Aslan knew the wizard long enough to recognize his version of an apology and decided to accept it.

"Why?" Aslan inquired.

In response, Cygnus reached back over his shoulder and pulled from a side pocket of the backpack that Aslan hadn't even realized until now that the mage was wearing, a small rectangular slate.

"Your Enemies List," the paladin noted.

Cygnus nodded again, his brown eyes now returning to meet those of the paladin.

"I added Argoria's name to it on New Year's Day, after Gastar and Yenom had told us. That woman's given us a lot of trouble in the past, Aslan. It only makes sense for me to go."

Aslan hesitated.

"From what I understand, Cygnus, her brother and father are both looking to redeem Argoria rather than slay her. At least if the option arises."

"So?" the mage shrugged. "It's not like I don't have nonlethal options at my disposal, but more than that- we're talking about going up against another wizard, Aslan. Trust me- she'll have friends with her, whether they're paid, summoned, or animated. Your odds are bad enough on this without refusing offers of aid. You told me yourself those damn devils may still be around."

"Let me be clear, Cygnus," Aslan said. "I'm grateful for the offer and no, it won't set me back more than half a day. We'd be happy as always to have you by our side. I'm just surprised that you'd want to travel a thousand leagues just to get into yet another battle. Not quite your style, as Argo might put it."

In response, the magic-user wagged the chalkboard in his hand.

"It's a new year, Aslan," he said, his voice tight. "I'm just looking to start off with a clean slate."

Aslan had told the mage to meet him back here in fifteen minutes for the teleport. As the magic-user walked off however, the paladin couldn't get a nagging thought out of his mind.

Cygnus had written that slate, but sometimes it sure seemed to Aslan that it was controlling the wizard and not the other way around.

Several minutes later, all five individuals abruptly halted.

"Is that-" Caroline began, pointing ahead.

"Yes," Yenom cut across her, stowing his own wooden wand currently held in his left hand into his cloak's pocket. "It's magical."

A roiling mass of fog, perhaps thirty-five to forty-five feet from their current position, lay in front of them. It seemed to lay in a rough line perhaps eighty feet long, with the fog dissipating into wisps of vapor about twenty feet off the ground. While they were relatively sure that the fog cloud had been present as they had entered this area of the swamp, it almost appeared as if it had been refreshed somehow as they drew closer and Yenom had made his announcement.

Argo Bigfellow Senior slowly drew an arrow and fitted it to his composite longbow. The elder ranger's face was a study in concentration as he slowly moved his aim left and right, covering the cloud.

"Nature's blessing," he murmured, closing his eyes for a moment. Without turning around, Argo Junior could feel Aslan and Caroline's questioning eyes on him, but he didn't understand the reference either.

A large trunk of a fallen cypress tree, perhaps ten feet across, lay at an angle in front of them. Most of it lay within the fog cloud but as they watched, a figure emerged from the mist, clambering over the trunk and then sat down upon it, facing them.

And although none of the humans present had ever beheld his true form, the fact that he was displaying it to them now meant their foe felt no need for subterfuge.

And that gave them all a very bad feeling.

Mr. Goth was about average in height and weight to an adult male human, but that was where the resemblance ended.

Two tiny horns, like those of a baby goat sat upon the harvester devil's forehead, each flanking the widow's peak of his black, lightly-cropped hair. He wore a high-collared, luxurious-looking blue leather overcoat with gold trim and thigh-high black boots, specifically made to cover his cloven feet.

A prehensile tail, covered in crimson scales and ending in a nasty-looking fork, was intermittently visible as it languidly rippled behind him.

Around his waist, the fiend wore what Cygnus instantly recognized as a potion belt- at least half a dozen vials looped to a leather strap.

Oddly though, they all seemed to be empty.

A smile gracing his face, the devil raised his hand in greeting.

"Hail and well-met, Bigfellows!" he called out. "It's good to see you all again after all these years!"

His smile widened.

"And you've brought some holy friends with you, I see," the devil continued. "Excellent. We can talk shop."

Argo Bigfellow Junior now had an arrow notched as well and was mirroring his father's movements, straining his ears to catch any hint of movement within the cloud before them.

"Is this the part where you tell us about how we're all going to die horribly?" the younger ranger inquired of the harvester, trying to keep the smile on his face and the fear out of his voice. Although he'd never admit it, Argo was grateful for the paladin's calming presence behind him.

"Not at all," Mr. Goth replied. "In fact, Argo, I think I can just about promise that you, your wife, the mage and the paladin will all come out of this alive, if not unscathed."

"A devil's promise, eh?" retorted the big ranger, his smile feeling a bit easier to maintain now. "Sounds trustworthy. Don't know why I was worried," he finished with a shrug.

"What about Yenom and myself?" called out Argo Bigfellow Senior. "I noticed you left us out of that promise of yours."

The devil made a self-effacing gesture.

"I don't make the rules, oh Ranger Lord," he said. "Your son, daughter-in-law and their friends all have something very important that we need, so at least for now their demises are, as you mortals like to say, off the table. As for you two," and here Mr. Goth mirrored Argo Junior's shrug, "that depends on your actions."

"In what way?' said Argo Senior.

"Father!"

The female had called out loudly but still sounded distant; behind the fog; perhaps a hundred feet back or more.

Aslan felt a chill that he could not repress. He could only imagine what the Bigfellow family was feeling.

There was a moment's pause. Argo Senior was the first to find his voice.

"Daughter!" he cried out. "This need not be! I know you can turn off the path you're on! Curses can be lifted!"

"He's right, Argoria!" Caroline shouted as well. "I've seen it with my own eyes!"

There was a pause, during which Mr. Goth smiled again and tilted his head but said nothing.

"And what about you, brother?" Argoria called out, the cynicism in her voice plain for all to hear. "Are you here to save me as well, or to kill me?"

Argo Bigfellow Junior gave his pained smile, even though he didn't know if Argoria could see him or not.

"You know the answer to that, sis," he said, more softly than the others; Caroline didn't think Argoria would be able to hear him.

"I'm a big fan of redemption."

Mr. Goth stopped smiling and stood up.

"I think that's my cue," said Aslan, who also had his composite longbow out and readied. The paladin glanced to his left but Yenom had already laid his hand on the paladin's shoulder.

Caroline gulped. She knew the battle plan of course, but she wasn't sure she was ready to have the paladin's calming presence taken away just yet.

Still, she smiled weakly at the pair and whispered, "Be careful."

"Like we discussed, Just Aslan," Argo Senior said softly, with a craggy smile on his rugged face.

Aslan looked over at Argo Bigfellow Junior, who returned the paladin's glance with a perfectly blank expression.

"Aslan," he said quietly. "Give 'em Hell."

A blind teleport, even a simple one hundred feet straight forward, was still an unnerving experience for Aslan. He had no idea what to expect; while he hoped he'd be on the far side of the fog cloud, there was no guarantee he wasn't teleporting right inside a tree trunk, which could cause disorienting and- even theoretically- fatal shock.

Scraggly leaves tore into his face upon materializing; that and a cry of dismay from Yenom gave the paladin a split-second worry that his worst fears had been realized.

Then he realized that he was standing in a small clump of some kind of swamp fern about six feet high; unpleasant but not injurious. Yenom had arrived clear of the plant but was in brackish water nearly up to his knees; they'd gone off the narrow but dry pathway the Bigfellows had been leading them all on.

Fog rose to both their right and left. While they'd cleared the mists, they'd done so just barely. To their rear was the thick wall of fog; small patches of it extended forward here and there for about ten feet, and the paladin and cleric had appeared right between two such protrusions. Visibility was limited everywhere except eastward; the direction they'd been traveling.

Forty feet ahead of the pair and just to the left, on a relatively large patch of solid ground, sat a twenty-foot square cottage seemingly made of sod, although it featured windows and a chimney.

By the front right corner of the building stood Argoria Bigfellow.

Aslan had forgotten how closely Argo's sister resembled him. Argoria was, if anything, perhaps an inch or so over Argo's six-foot-four height and almost as muscular. Her hair, the standard Bigfellow dirty blond, was raggedly cut short in the Orzdian fashion. She wore simple but dirty work clothes of tanned hide (though Aslan noticed she wore bracers on her arms), but all of her exposed flesh, including her face, was covered in numerous tiny scars that it took Aslan a moment to identify as hundreds of mosquito bites.

Her eyes were as auburn as those of her family, but Argoria lacked most of the rugged charisma of her father and brother. Her nose was larger and flattish and her chin not as prominent. She carried a sheathed dagger and a crossbow strapped across her back.

Argoria's left hand opened and Aslan saw an empty potion vial drop to the ground beside her.

It took the paladin a tap on his shoulder and several seconds to realize that she wasn't alone.

Lined up in front of Argoria stood eight individuals. Their clothing and armor remnants quickly identified them as Orzdi residents, but the stench reached Aslan's nose before the evidence of his eyes reached his brain.

As wretched as Argoria's appearance was, it was nothing compared to the eight people before her who, despite standing more or less upright, were very clearly dead.

"I've got the zombies," Yenom whispered to Aslan. "It's your play."

The paladin took a deep breath and moved one step forward, keeping his arrow pointed right at Argoria's heart.

He vaguely heard Yenom saying something else beside him. Aslan couldn't make out the words but judging by the fact that all eight zombies suddenly and silently collapsed to the ground, it would have been an easy guess.

Aside from a tightening of her mouth, the elder of the two Bigfellow children paid the loss of her creations no mind. Her gaze remained fixed on the paladin.

"I knew my father would bring you all to me," she said softly.

The paladin said nothing.

"Going to kill me, Aslan?"

"That depends on you," he replied.

Argoria shook her head. "No, it doesn't. Either you kill me, which I'm afraid to say is much less likely than you think it will be, or we defeat you and take what we want."

"And what exactly is it that you want from us?"

Aslan never expected to see Argo's infamous pained smile appear on his sister's face, but there it was.

"Ingredients," Argoria Bigfellow said softly.

"We can defeat you without killing you," the paladin said, deciding that pressing for an elaboration on that answer would be fruitless. "Caroline wasn't lying when she said we can lift curses. It's not going to be painless for you, but we'll do it if we have to."

"And then what?" Argoria responded, tilting her head inquisitively. "I stand trial for the dozens of murders I've committed or ordered- including that of my own father?"

"That wouldn't count- he was raised."

Again the smile.

"How little you know of Aerdian justice, Aslan," Argoria said, shaking her head again, "but you can only take my life. My soul belongs to Mr. Goth and his masters, but every moment I can delay that final reckoning, I will."

The smile vanished.

"I know what awaits me; and you may not believe me, but I am sorry."

"For what?" asked Aslan.

Argoria's lip trembled.

"For the even worse fate that awaits you."

The two stared at each other for one more long moment and then Argoria's hand dove

for her spell component pouch.

Aslan lowered his aim- he'd been serious about what he told Argoria about wanting to taker her alive- and released his arrow, which sped the intervening forty-foot distance in a heartbeat, aimed directly at the wizard's left shin.

The arrow shattered into pieces on impact.

Well, crap, thought Aslan.

He was readying a psionic blast when the sword struck him.

Caroline Bigfellow had broken out in a cold sweat immediately upon the departure of Aslan, but she'd drawn her composite longbow and fitted an arrow on the string as well.

She could only hope Aslan's teleport with Yenom had been successful- she obviously couldn't see through the fog clouds and the distance was too great to hear anything.

The young fighter looked over to her left. Cygnus was just finishing up casting some type of spell; Caroline saw no visible effect but assumed it was some form of defensive enchantment- what she'd overheard Cygnus and Zantac describe once as "shining."

Caroline stepped to the left about ten feet so the two Bigfellows in front of her wouldn't be in her direct line of fire. That put her next to Cygnus, who glanced over at her but made no other acknowledgement.

Mr. Goth was the only visible target so she took aim at the devil and prepared to let fly.

But her hand wouldn't let go of the bowstring.

Caroline couldn't understand it.

Her hand seemed to have simply decided to ignore the instructions it was receiving from her brain. She wasn't held; the trembling her entire body was undergoing was ample proof of that. For some reason she couldn't begin to understand, Lady Bigfellow just wasn't going to be able to attack Mr. Goth.

"Some sort of damnable protection," she heard Cygnus say. "Nothing I can do about it."

Well, crap, thought Caroline.

A volcano went off in Aslan's skull as steel powered by inhuman strength smashed into his helm.

Even as he staggered back, the outside world temporarily fragmented into useless sensory data from the pain of his injury, one fact still managed to penetrate the paladin's brain.

The sword strike that had hit him out of nowhere had been turned at the last instant so that the flat of the blade, rather than its edge, had collided with him.

They do want us alive, Aslan thought. But with devils involved, we'd be better off dead.

"We can still resolve this peacefully," Mr. Goth intoned, his palms held out as he started to approach Caroline, Cygnus and the two Argos.

"I'm rather thinking not," said Argo Bigfellow Junior, his face grim.

"Well," replied the harvester, "let's put it to a vote then, shall we?"

Five identical images of the devil suddenly appeared around Mr. Goth, merging and slipping through each other before settling into a line at about a ten-foot distance from the quartet. To pass by them, the humans would have to enter either undergrowth on their right or a small bog on their left.

"Now then," the baatezu continued pleasantly, "by a show of hands, who here thinks that the humans should surrender peacefully and avoid any bloodshed?"

Six devils raised their hands.

Mr. Goth smiled again. Even in the dim sun, Caroline caught the light's reflection off the fiend's pointed canines.

"Majority rules," the harvester said, as he and all his mirror images raised their arms to point at their foes.

Caroline glanced to her right and saw that her husband was unable to fire his composite longbow, just like herself.

Terror seized her heart.

But then came the sound of an arrow being released.

Followed by another. And another.

Each of the three shafts fired by Argo Bigfellow Senior passed through one of Mr. Goth's mirror images, dispelling them.

"Actually," said the Orzdian leader, breathing heavily as he wiped the sudden perspiration off his forehead, "rangers rule."

Aslan's disorientation was such that even though he could hear Argoria Bigfellow incanting, he was in no position to make any sort of attempt to stop her.

The paladin was, however, able to make out two fuzzy orange lines erupt from the blur that he assumed was the wizard and strike the blur that he assumed was the cleric Yenom.

Undoubtedly, it was the spell he had seen both Cygnus and Zantac cast at the great battle outside the Brass Dragon; an incantation that the wizards referred to as scorching rays.

But Aslan heard no cry of pain from Yenom.

And as his vision finally reasserted itself fully, the paladin saw that the priest seemed absolutely unscathed.

Aslan knew Yenom has shined himself up with prayers prior to this battle but hadn't known exactly with which ones. This question fled from his mind however, as Argoria, seeing the failure of her magical attack, dash to the left, to the other side of her cottage and then move diagonally and away from the pair, splashing through a shallow bog and ending up a good eighty feet from the pair.

The speed at which the female wizard moved clearly indicated magic. Aslan was reminded of the outcast Dumovar and the tremendous speed with which he had been able to run.

"Let's see what's going on," Aslan heard Yenom say.

Glancing to his left, the paladin saw the cleric raise both hands high above his head and clap them together.

A ripple in the air exploded outwards from all directions from the priest with an audible woosh.

And Aslan saw the horror he had dearly hoped not to see materialize on his right from the invisibility purge.

The dogai was about the same size and shape as a man, but otherwise couldn't have been less like one.

The assassin devil's skin was a gray so dark as to be almost black. The almond-shaped head had no nose, two darker indentations that might or might not have been eyes and a large mouth filled with sharp, bone-white teeth.

It wore no clothes but held a longsword in one hand. A belt with companying pouch encircled the creature's waist.

The creature was facing Aslan, seemingly unconcerned about Yenom. Its jaws seemed to be fixed open in a terrifying smile, accentuating those teeth.

Aslan would have sworn, but there was no word he knew in any language that would have done justice for what he was seeing.

The paladin side-stepped to his left and rear, even as knew what he had to do.

Even Grock the ogre, he knew, was no match for this fiend.

But Blackthorn the ogre mage might be.

Aslan ignored Yenom's shriek of terror at the 10-foot tall giant that had suddenly replaced the paladin. The ogre mage's increased reach compensated for his greater distance from the devil and caught Dogai off-guard as the blade from Aslan's sword bit into the outsider's left shoulder. A half-roar, half-hiss erupted from the baatezu, and black ichor spurted from the wound.

"All of you- stay close to me!"

Caroline Bigfellow, who had just returned her useless arrow to it's quiver in frustration, looked over at Cygnus' shout, but the wizard, who had just stepped up in front of her, was looking neither at her nor at either Bigfellow. His gaze was fixed downward and he was sprinkling some kind of silver powder in a circle around himself and incanting.

Whatever spell the Aardian mage was casting, it seemed to Caroline that it would protect only himself, and she was about to say so when three figures emerged from the fog cloud at about the same point where Mr. Goth had been.

They were nightmares carrying saw-toothed glaives.

The creatures (even someone as ignorant of planar matters as Caroline instantly recognized them as devils) had grayish skin, elf-like ears, long, rat-like tails, clawed hands and feet, and huge, disgusting beards that seemed to writhe of their own accord, like tiny snakes.

The baatezu roared in their language (which only Cygnus recognized) as they came on, forming a line with their polearms set to charge. Already they were right behind Mr. Goth and his images.

"Barbazu," she heard Cygnus say, more quietly now. "Let them come to you."

"It's all right, love," came the familiar and comforting voice of her husband.

Argo was standing about ten feet away in front of her and to the right, but his face and his smile were the strength to her that they always had been.

Caroline Bigfellow nodded, drew her sword, and waited.

The assassin devil suddenly became nothing but shadows.

Both Aslan and Yenom swung as it came at them, but their weapon strikes hit nothing but air. Still ignoring the cleric, Dogai attacked the paladin again and again.

The fact that it wasn't trying to kill Aslan gave him no comfort. He was on the verge of blacking out and he knew it.

All three Mr. Goths drew ornate daggers that seemed to be dripping a thick, black liquid but the harvesters made no attempt to attack; indeed, the devil and his two remaining images actually backed off about fifteen feet. All three faces now sported neutral, calculating expressions.

Argo Bigfellow Senior started to reach for another arrow but instead reshouldered his composite longbow and drew his sword as the bearded devils advanced.

Without even looking, the Ranger Lord's son mirrored his father's movements.

"Damn it," Aslan heard Yenom mutter.

The paladin's world was once again far too much of a painful blur him to see what the cleric was referring to, but there was nothing for it. Whether it referenced the dogai or Argoria, Aslan knew he was only one more blow away from unconsciousness. His vision cleared just enough for him to calculate what he had to do.

Aslan took a tactical step away from the assassin devil and then utilized his Talent to fully heal himself.

Considering that the battle had started less than twenty seconds earlier, this was a move born of desperation. A quick mental guess gave Aslan an estimation that he now had less than one third of his starting Talent available, and he had yet to do anything other than to deliver one minor wound to the fiend facing him.

Still, sharpness and clarity of thought flooded back into the paladin's mind. The dogai seemed to be readying another rush towards him, and at about fifty feet to his rear and left stood a blurry, humanoid figure.

A memory of the illusionist Wimpell Frump came into Aslan's mind, and he knew that if Argoria was shining herself up, the wizard had no intention of fleeing this fight. She was merely regrouping.

First things first, though…

The devil charged again.

"Smite!"

This time, the downward thrust of the ogre mage's longsword actually penetrated into the outsider's chest. The wound was not a mortal wound, but the devil backed off and aborted its attack, again emitting that roaring/hissing sound as more ichor gushed forth.

Still unaware of what was happening on the far side of the fog cloud, Caroline Bigfellow was about to step to the side so as to intercept a charging bearded devil when she again heard Cygnus call out.

"Let them attack first! My spell may keep them from touching you and if it does, you'll remove it if you counterattack!"

The magic-user's voice sounded unusually gravelly this time around. Looking over at him, Caroline received a shock.

Cygnus now looked like a stone statue of himself had been animated and had been clad in the wizard's garments and given his staff.

"Yes," the mage added; a brief, stony grin on his face as he noted Caroline's stunned expression.

"It's a new one."

The arriving barbazu thrust out their glaives at the two Bigfellows and Cygnus, who were currently holding a line in front of Caroline.

All three glaives were hurled up and away, their owners barely managing to hold onto their weapons.

"All well and good," shouted Argo Bigfellow Senior, "but if we can't hit them back, what's our plan?"

"You seem to have made a connection with our harvester friend," replied the stone wizard. "Expand on that. All of you- we're going to start moving forward around these things. Junior," he continued, turning to face Argo, "you and the missus stay close. I don't know if these things have any ranged attacks or not."

"And if they don't?" Caroline had to shout over the bearded devil's infernal howling. "How do we break this statement?"

Caroline didn't think it possible for her husband's infamous pained smile to appear on Cygnus' granite face, but it did.

"Then I guess I'll just have to invite some friends to the party."

Aslan watched as Yenom slowly moved backwards into the fog cloud.

"What are you doing?" the paladin called out.

"Giving you a prayer," came the sound of Yenom's voice from within the mist.

Aslan knew just enough of the Celestial language to recognize the short chant, almost a song, that reached his ears.

And with the sound came a wave of almost palpable relief that sharpened the senses even as it calmed the mind. It was like being encompassed in Talass' bless prayer, but even more powerful in some nameless way.

The dogai growled and twitched, as if it were trying to shrug off a fly, then lunged at Aslan again.

The devil was still too fast to resist. The flat of the creature's blade slammed into Blackthorn's blue, warty hide again and again, and Aslan's new-found peace of mind slipped away.

Aslan knew that whatever he might do, he was seriously outmatched here. Another fusillade like that might take him out.

As the harvester devil and his images continued to retreat, the bearded devils lunged again at the wizard and the two rangers, eschewing their weapons for claw attacks. One even attempted to scrape it's beard against Cygnus' face.

These attacks, however, proved no more successful than their earlier ones. None of them could make contact with their opponents.

"To the right!" Cygnus yelled out. "Go!"

The quartet hustled to the right and forward, skirting the line of devils, who roared while futilely trying to grab or attack these maddening mortals.

They wound up more-or-less in a perpendicular line to the fiends who were now at their rear, with Argo Junior the closest at a ten-foot distance. His wife was right behind him, and Argo Senior in back of her. Cygnus ended up next to Caroline.

With a roar that matched the barbazu for sheer volume, the Ranger Lord swing his sword at one of the Mr. Goths. The image peeled away and vanished as the blade struck it.

Caroline Bigfellow was about to again voice her frustration at not being able to attack when she heard a sound next to her that she had never heard before.

Some kind of metallic chiming.

The sound of incanting made Aslan turn his head.

A black ray leapt from somewhere within the wizard-shaped blur that was Argoria Bigfellow and struck him.

Fatigue washed over Aslan like a tidal wave. He did his best to ignore it and swung again at the assassin's devil. Once again, he smote the fiend, and it recoiled in agony.

The sound of Yenom praying came again from within the fog. Aslan couldn't pinpoint exactly where the priest was, but he still seemed to be nearby.

The assassin devil charged and attacked again.

This was it. Stars of light and pain exploded in Aslan's brain, and his ogre mage-sized body staggered back. The world spun around him, and the paladin belatedly realized that he might have waited too long to either retreat or heal.

He could feel consciousness starting to slip away.

Moving forward so that he now stood between Mr. Goth and Cygnus, Argo Bigfellow Senior swung again, and the harvester devil's final mirror image disappeared.

For the first time, anger showed on the fiend's face.

"Very well, mortal," sneered Mr. Goth. "Remember, you brought this on yourself."

He raised his hand and pointed, but it was not the Ranger Lord who felt anything…

"Crap!" came the rocky voice of Cygnus. "He's dispelled the magic circle!"

"Take them down, but do not destroy them!" the devil commanded his summoned minions before turning his attention back to the Orzdian leader.

"You, sir," he seethed, "will enjoy no such benefit."

Argo Junior attacked the barbazu closest to him. The fiend tried to stab with his glaive as the ranger approached but Bigfellow batted it aside easily and swung Harve in a horizontal arc that slashed across the fiend's stomach. Green blood gushed out but the ranger was already bringing his longsword around in a return arc that went up and to the left. Another long gash opened up from the creature's chest to it's left shoulder. It roared and shrieked but remained upright.

"Now that," came the satisfied voice of Harve, "is swordplay."

In his weakened state, Aslan could only tell that Argoria was moving closer again, but not where her exact position was.

But then the next ray struck him.

A flashing beam of kaleidoscopic colors enveloped the ogre mage. While it lasted only a moment, Aslan could feel the strength draining out of his body like water from a sieve.

The paladin stepped a pace back and healed himself, but he knew he was still fighting a losing battle. His Talent was nearly depleted now, and Argoria Bigfellow kept pelting him with spells that were sapping his strength. With senses once more at clarity, he saw that the female wizard blurred form was now only about twenty feet off to his right. Aslan's tactical eye told him that Argoria was getting ready to move past the edge of the fog cloud- no doubt coming to aid Mr. Goth against the others.

And that would not be a mistake. The assassin devil was faster and stronger than even Blackthorn's form. It would need no further help to defeat Aslan.

What could he do?

The answer came along with the hand that reached out from the fog and touched his right side.

Caroline shrieked with fear as more devils suddenly materialized in a line behind the barbazu.

True, they were only half the size of the bearded devils they were facing, but these additional fiendish reinforcements could only spell their doom.

One of the newcomers looked to her like a small, gaunt, human with gray, flaking skin. The second looked like a miniature version of Cygnus- short, stocky, and seemingly made of stone. The third looked like it was made of snow and ice, and sported translucent, blue skin. All three had wings.

"Cygnus!" she began. "What are we going to-"

Caroline broke off.

She couldn't understand what she was seeing.

The Aardian mage had advanced about five feet back towards the bearded devils.

He stood there, a broad smile on that rocky face. In his outstretched left hand was what looked for all the world to Caroline Bigfellow like a pair of wind chimes.

And as Cygnus shook the chimes again, he glanced back over at Lady Bigfellow.

"I'm guessing no one filled you in about these, did they?"

The mephits launched their attacks on the devils.

A cloud of dirt, swept from off the swamp path, began to form around the dust mephit, which was opposite the barbazu from Argo Junior. The devil swiped it with a claw, but the attack slid off the creature's right side, and the dust cloud enveloped the mephit, reducing it to little more than an amorphous blur.

The earth mephit doubled it's size, so that it was now as tall as the bearded devil facing it. The fiend was no more successful at stopping this transformation than its companion had been.

The ice mephit fired two magic missiles into the bearded devil facing it, but they had no effect.

The barbazu screamed louder than had yet and launched all-out attacks on their new opponents with claws, eschewing their glaives. They appeared to be in some sort of berserker frenzy now.

Dust, rocks and ice chips went flying, but the mephits continued their assault.

Caroline charged up and attacked the devil that was currently battling the ice mephit. The tip of her blade cut through the ragged, tan cloak the thing wore and penetrated three inches into its back.

The fiend turned around to eye her and roared in rage at Caroline Bigfellow.

Getting into the moment, she roared back.

Again, Dogai moved in close, dodged Blackthorn's attack, and struck.

And again, Aslan staggered back from the powerful blows.

Dimly, he knew that if it had not been for Yenom's touch that had dispelled the draining spells that Argoria had cast on him, he would have already blacked out.

The reality was only slightly less comforting, however. The paladin was once again in danger of losing consciousness, and only his own paladin's grace now stood between him and that horrid outcome. He had now idea how Cygnus and the three Bigfellows were fairing behind him, on the other side of that damnable fog cloud.

But he did know he had no intention of leaving that to chance.

Mr. Goth sidestepped and reached out with his left hand, tapping Argo Bigfellow Senior lightly on his shoulder.

The others saw some of the color instantly vanish from the elder ranger's face, while the harvester's already flush complexion redden slightly, as if the devil was drawing upon some new source of energy.

In response, the Ranger Lord slashed at the devil with two smooth motions in an X-pattern that Argo Junior knew would have made Tojo proud if the samurai had been here to see it.

And for the first time thus far, blood (of a surprisingly red hue) spurted out of two long but shallow gashes across the fiend's tunic. The harvester grimaced with pain but did not cry out.

Argo Bigfellow Senior turned his head to regard his son, who was still battling one of the barbazu.

"Junior!" he yelled. "Join the party!"

"What?" Argo Junior bellowed back. "Father, you know I can't-"

"You can now, son," the Ranger Lord cut across his offspring. "You can now."

Argo took a deep breath and moved towards his father, but as he did so the bearded devil he had been fighting jabbed with its glaive at Bigfellow's retreating back and punctured the ranger's leather armor.

Caroline gave a cry of fear. Although her husband continued to move away, coming up to stand on his father's right side, she could see the blood continuing to ooze out of the wound.

Argo Bigfellow Junior paid no attention to it. His father feinted with his weapon, and Mr. Goth's dodge put him right in the arc of Harve's swing. More blood spurted.

"Devilishly clever of you," Argo commented with a wry smile.

Argoria Bigfellow incanted again, and another ray of kaleidoscopic colors struck Aslan. Again weakness overcame him, although at least the overwhelming fatigue from the wizard's prior spell had not returned.

This, thought the paladin as he watched Argoria's rapidly moving, blurred form vanish out of side beyond the edge of the fog cloud, gets old real fast.

He wasn't sure what to do now, though. He couldn't keep up the battle of attrition with the assassin devil without using his paladin's grace to heal himself, and he wanted to save that in case the others needed it. He couldn't keep relying on Yenom's prayers either- he didn't know how much faith the cleric had left.

"Yenom!' he yelled out. "Pull back to the others!"

Blackthorn's blue, powerful, muscular legs propelled him through the shallow bogs and swamp undergrowth as he began to follow the fleeing Argoria.

He could see the blur that he knew was the wizard, but he knew he couldn't catch her. She would reach the others first.

Caroline Bigfellow's longsword swing was intercepted by her bearded devil's glaive, but the fighter checked her attack with remarkable speed, so the fiend overbalanced with its parry, and Caroline came in again from the opposing side.

Unfortunately, the devil's flesh seemed supernaturally resistant to her blade, so a potential major wound became a very minor one instead.

Not knowing what else to do, she settled for roaring at her opponent in rage again.

After all, he was doing the same thing to her.

Three more mephits appeared at Cygnus' direction as he continued to shake the chimes.

Another ice mephit materialized in the spot that Argo had just vacated, flanking the barbazu with the ice mephit already present. Both mephits attacked with their frozen claws but failed to do any damage.

An air mephit appeared and immediately turned into an amorphous mass of clouds, which then moved opposite the second bearded devil across from the earth mephit, which pounded the fiend with both stony fists, but to only minimal effect. The cloud of dirt and grit that was the dust mephit, currently flanking the third barbazu with Caroline Bigfellow, likewise clawed at its opponent, but failed to scratch the fiend's scaly hide.

The third new arrival was a magma mephit, which appeared some twenty-five feet away from Caroline's foe. She was puzzled by this until she saw about twenty feet further on past the new arrival, another blurry shape appear by the edge of the fog cloud and start moving towards them.

"Smoke 'em if ya got 'em!" yelled Cygnus at his summoned minion.

A writhing stream of thick black smoke suddenly issued forth from the magma mephit's body, rapidly spreading out in all directions and just enveloping the approaching figure. Caroline could hear coughing and choking coming from that direction. The near edge of the smoke cloud, which had come perilously close to Caroline's position, now began to recede. Lady Bigfellow guessed that the mephit was moving towards the new arrival to engage it hand-to-hand.

Too close to use their glaives, all the bearded devils again attacked their original mephit opponents with their vicious claws, grabbing their foes and rubbing their horrid beards against them. The ice and earth mephits were able to take it, but the dust mephit dissolved into fine particles and vanished.

Its face covered with a fine coating of ash, that particular barbazu turned back to Caroline and a snarl split its features.

Aslan looked to his left at the sound of running footsteps to see Yenom emerge from the fog and join him. The priest of Zilchus reached out and touched Aslan again, who felt renewed vigor flow into his body again. He was better, but still not at full strength.

"Thanks," he rumbled in Blackthorn's bass voice. "But how much do you have left?"

"The only important thing," replied Yenom, "is how much you have left."

"Like father and son, like daughter and sister," Mr. Goth suddenly said with a cryptic smile.

The devil's dripping dagger came out slashing at both Bigfellows. Argo Senior was barely able to dodge the attack, but the blade sliced Argo Junior's left arm. The wound was minor, but the effect that came with it… was not.

A feeling that Argo could only describe as "an itch of the soul" seemed to descend upon the ranger with blinding speed.

It was a nameless miasma that wanted to make him scream out in torment; not in actual pain, but a relentless, eternal compulsion like the worst kind of affliction imaginable. It made any sort of action more difficult.

Out of the corner of his left eye, Argo saw his father turn towards him.

"Are you all right, son?" he asked, but to Argo it was an indistinct murmur, seemingly coming from far away.

But then what sounded like Argo's own voice- his conscience, if you will- spoke to the ranger in a soothing murmur, promising a wonderful relief to his mind.

Argo Senior's concerned face seemed to fill his son's whole field of vision as the younger ranger concentrated on his father.

Kill him, the voice said. Kill him and this will stop.

The barbazu being flanked by two ice mephits grabbed the one it had been fighting with both claws and literally tore the creature in two. Snow and slush dropped at the devils' feet.

The fiend fighting the enlarged earth mephit likewise tore into it with such ferocity that stones and dirt clods went flying everywhere. The elemental remained standing, but much of its outward features had been scoured away.

Caroline thought she had a handle on her particular opponent. True, she'd only wounded it slightly, but it had yet to lay a-

It was on her- bypassing all her defenses.

The claws- digging deeply into the flesh of her arms. Caroline felt herself in an infernal embrace and now that horrible, horrible beard was next to her, those metallic, writhing strands tearing apart the skin of her face.

She screamed as she felt more and more wounds opening up all over her body.

"LOVE!" screamed Argo Bigfellow Junior in horror.

With the speed of lightning, the ranger's muscles began the process of moving him away from Mr. Goth and towards his wife- but then the image of her bloodied, barely standing figure suddenly came into sharp focus.

Kill her instead, the voice said. Kill her and this will stop.

Argo stopped dead.

He literally didn't know what to do. In this situation, even instinct was failing him as much as any sense of rational thought or battle tactics was. But if Argo did nothing, his wife, his reason for living, was going to-

Argo felt a firm hand on his left shoulder.

"I got her, son," said Argo Bigfellow Senior. "You finish off this hellspawn worm."

But even as Argo Junior turned his full attention back to Mr. Goth, an old pain broke through every other feeling.

The wound that the bearded devil had made earlier with its glaive was not closing up. It was continuing to bleed.

Mr. Goth slashed once more at the Ranger Lord as he withdrew but his strike met only empty air.

Caroline was just able to see Argo Senior's approaching form bat away the bearded devil's glaive as it arrived (in her current state, she mistook it for her husband until she noticed the fur cloak). With a speed and agility that she could hardly believe, Argo Senior skirted the fiend and came in where the dust mephit had stood- directly flanking the monster with Caroline.

"My son's made a lot of irresponsible decisions in his life, Caroline," said her father-in-law, "but marrying you wasn't one of them."

Caroline managed a weak feint, which was enough to draw the barbazu's attention for just one moment.

The Ranger Lord's longsword, like Caroline's, had difficulty penetrating the thing's warty skin, but it managed a deep enough wound to make the barbazu roar again in rage as green fluid erupted from its back.

Argo Bigfellow Junior sidestepped left into the position his father had just vacated and, ignoring the voice in his head clamoring for him to kill his wife or his father, swung instead at the harvester devil. Harve had no problem penetrating the fiend's skin and again red blood spurted from the devil's side. This time Mr. Goth actually did cry out in pain, though he quickly stifled it.

"This game," he said to the ranger, "isn't over yet."

Aslan was currently grateful for his current ogre magi size; he'd have fallen inside the magma mephit's smoke cloud if he'd remained normal-sized.

He could hear Argoria's coughing getting louder- she was apparently backing away from the mephit towards him at an angle, but the elementals pyrotechnics smoke was even denser than the assassin devil's fog cloud. He could see nothing even as he sensed that the wizard was skirting by just somewhere to his right.

The paladin then heard a sound that might or might not have been swallowing, but he couldn't afford to concentrate on that right now. He had to get to his friends- and that meant entering into that damnable smoke.

Aslan took a deep breath and plunged in.

As expected, he couldn't see a damn thing, so he just kept his eyes closed. The sound of Argoria Bigfellow's choking grew fainter behind him, while an approaching heat source from somewhere in front and to the left of him gave the paladin a rough approximation of the location of the smoke mephit. Wondering it if had been a good idea for Cygnus to have used the chimes after all, Aslan turned now to the left and towards what sounded like a huge combat going on.

"Get out of here, girl, and drink up!" roared Argo Bigfellow Senior.

Caroline didn't need to be told twice. She backed up and, grateful beyond words for the two healing potions that Argo Senior had insisted on giving her from Orzdi's meager stores, drained one of them.

The bearded devil growled at her- but it was over the head of the earth mephit that had just appeared between her and the fiend. The elemental swiftly doubled its height, blocking the devil from Caroline's view.

A third ice mephit appeared where the last one had been slain. Both mephits clawed at their foe but could not penetrate its skin.

The last mephit to appear looked to Caroline like a small human with pale skin and wisps of vapor rising from its nose, mouth and ears. As she watched, a plume of steam arose and covered the creature completely, leaving only a blurred outline visible.

Cygnus carefully stowed away the chimes of the mephit inside his frock robe, then cracked his knuckles and turned towards Mr. Goth.

"I have only one thing I'd like to say to you, sir," he said.

Cygnus took a deep breath and let out a shout.

Still hidden within the magma mephit's smoke cloud, Blackthorn grabbed his ears as the magical sound unexpectedly washed over him.

Dammit, Cygnus! he thought.

The paladin had fared better than the harvester devil, however. A trickle of blood actually came out of each of the fiend's ears, and the worst expression of anguish yet that any of the mortals present had seen washed over the outsider's face.

Aslan heard a squelching and hissing sound from somewhere nearby and then the smoke cloud began to dissipate.

About ten feet to his rear, just outside the fog cloud, lay a puddle of magma dissolving away in the swamp. Next to it, just inside the cloud was some kind of shadow that the paladin could only assume was Dogai. He had a momentary glimpse of a longsword with a tiny piece of magma still clinging to it.

This brought home to Aslan just how deadly the assassin devil could be if it wasn't pulling its punches.

About ten feet behind Yenom, who himself was only about 10 feet from the assassin devil, was Argoria Bigfellow. She was still cursing and rubbing at her eyes but with the smoke cloud gone, Aslan knew the wizard would be back in the fight within moments.

Argo Bigfellow Junior gasped as Mr. Goth's tap on his right shoulder seemed to sap the vitality right out from his body and, in some way he couldn't explain, into the harvester devil's frame.

He saw the paleness of the skin on his hands, as if…

"You stole my blood?" he asked of the harvester, not caring whether the fiend could currently hear him or not.

Sheer rage drove Harve a good six inches into Mr. Goth's left shoulder. The fiend screamed as his recently acquired blood left him in a spray.

"Never, "Argo snarled, "take my stuff without asking."

The second ice mephit and the second earth mephit both suffered severe damage and the first earth mephit crumbled away into a pile of soil and loose rocks as the bearded devils continued their assault upon them.

Caroline had forgotten just how much of her husband's combat tactics he had actually learned from his father, especially considering his reluctance to ever speak of the man.

Now however, as the Ranger Lord shifted his expertise from defense to offense, Caroline recognized those moves; the same ones which Argo Junior himself had taught her.

Once; twice; three times. Even with its infernal damage reduction, the barbazu roared with pain and more green fluid spurted out of multiple new gashes cut across its torso.

Aslan saw Argoria skirting around him, on the far side of the battle. The magic-user gestured, and four white streaks shot out from her right hand and struck Yenom, who doubled over from pain but remained upright.

The paladin took in the entirety of the main battle with one glance and came to a quick decision.

Dogai, or whatever the assassin devil was called, was clearly the most dangerous and powerful opponent they were facing.

Therefore, if they could remove all their other foes first, everyone could concentrate their efforts on that fiend.

That's a big if.

The thought came unbidden to his head even as he moved his ogre mage body towards the fight. His friends looked at Blackthorn in alarm, but all seemed to instinctively realize who this really was.

As did Mr. Goth, but the harvester devil's dodge was a split-second too late, and the paladin's longsword came down and at an angle that customer half-way through the fiend's neck.

Blood sprayed Argo Bigfellow Junior in a shower.

"Okay, that's enough," he said to his opponent, while wiping the curtain of red from his eyes. "You can keep the rest of my blood."

The air mephit appeared to take a deep breath and then a strong blast of air, along with stinging dust and grit, blasted out of its mouth. All three bearded devils were hit, along with the remaining earth mephit and Argo Bigfellow Senior.

"Damn it, Cygnus!" roared the Ranger Lord. "If you can't play right with your toys, I'm

going to take them away from you!"

The devil facing the elder Bigfellow bellowed in fury yet again and lunged for him but at that instant four white streaks penetrated into the fiend's body from behind.

The barbazu's last battle cry turned into a death cry as the creature immediately dissolved into a foul-smelling pool of ichor.

"Sorry, father," said Cygnus. "Just five more minutes with them?"

Argo Senior grinned.

"One down," he said.

Caroline came up on Mr. Goth's rear, but her swing bounced harmlessly over the harvester's back.

The second bearded devil's head whipped out at Yenom's shout of "Fiend!"

Standing some forty feet off, the cleric held forth his holy symbol of two hands clasping a belt pouch and shook his head sadly while holding out his hand, thumb pointed down.

"Your services are no longer required. You are dismissed."

Gashes of white light suddenly appeared over the barbazu's body, from which issued streams of what looked like white sparks. The gashes swiftly grew until they were great wounds covering most of the fiend's body. It's final scream was drowned out as its entire formed glowed white for an instant and then vanished in a final shower of sparks.

Breathing heavily and clutching a stitch in his chest, the priest of Zilchus looked over at Argo Bigfellow Junior.

"Two down," he said- and then cried out as a blade slashed across his back.

Aslan whirled around. The dark form of Dogai had remerged from the fog cloud and slashed at the cleric as he passed by him but had now turned and was heading towards himself. The devil came up alongside Aslan on his left, re-entering the fog as it stepped onto the fallen log that Mr. Goth had been sitting on when they first saw him.

Blackthorn swung his blade but the fiend dodged easily.

Mr. Goth, his left hand pressed over the gaping wound on his neck that seemed to Argo as if he had been half-decapitated, looked over at the approaching Dogai.

"I'll just leave you to…" and here he gestured weakly at the assorted mortals, "mop up the rest of these then, shall I?"

And then, with an uncannily accurate reproduction of Argo's pained smile, the harvester devil disappeared.

Ignoring the three mephits surrounding it, the remaining bearded devil grasped it's hooked glaive in both hands and jabbed it at Argo Bigfellow Senior. The elder ranger batted away one thrust, but the next bypassed his defenses and struck him in the abdomen. The wound didn't look deep, but like the wound inflicted earlier on his son, it continued to bleed freely.

"Playing it like that, are we?" snarled the Ranger Lord, as he ran forward and struck the barbazu three times in rapid succession.

Argo Junior ran around the devil as well, dodging the glaive strike that came his way, and came in flanking the fiend with his father. Harve struck true again, and the bearded devil now appeared to be on its last legs.

"Pull back, everyone!" he shouted to the group at large, indicating the approximate position of the dogai. "Make it come out of the cloud to attack us!"

"No good, son," Argo Senior announced with a dour expression from across their mutual foe. "That thing can create that fog at will."

Argo looked to his father and seemed about to ask him a question but stopped abruptly.

The voice returned, as powerful as ever.

Kill him and this will stop.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore. Argo was just about to look around to see if he could see any trace of Yenom and ask the priest if there was any way he could dispel this when the muscle memory of his legs kicked in and the ranger hurled himself backwards even as Argoria's orange pea zoomed in from afar and detonated at point-blank range.

Argo Bigfellow Junior had lost track of many times Icar's ring of fire resistance had saved his bacon.

Add one to that list, the ranger thought as he regained his equilibrium and looked around.

The fireball had burned Argo Senior, but not seriously.

Both remaining ice mephits and the remaining earth mephit had been destroyed. At first Argo thought the air mephit had been blasted out of existence as well, but a small, glowing patch of vapor still remained at its location.

The bearded devil, of course, was unscathed from the flames.

Blackthorn had been outside the fireball's radius, but he turned around to see the Bigfellow wizard standing about thirty feet off to the north.

"You said you needed us alive!" he roared.

"Alive," she replied. "I don't need you uninjured."

Aslan turned to their party mage and noted with dismay that his rocky-looking new exterior had not gifted him immunity from fire.

"Cygnus," he said. "Argoria hit me with something that's sapping my strength. I'll never be able to take on this killer devil like this. Is there anything you can do?"

The tall wizard decided to ignore his own burns for the moment and gave the paladin a wry look.

"Glad now you let me come along?"

"Always, Cygnus," Aslan said. "Always."

The magic-user backed off to the west- the direction he and the others had first come from- after casting his dispel magic while mentally directing his two surviving mephits. The air mephit continued to claw ineffectually at the bearded devil while the salt mephit flew north to within ten feet of Argoria Bigfellow and summoned a rainstorm of sizzling, superheated rain. She cried out but it sounded more like irritation than any sort of major pain.

Once more at full strength- if not at full health- Aslan swung again several times at the shadowy figure lurking just inside the fog cloud next to him. He couldn't see the hit, but that half-roar/half-hiss sound emanating from the mist gave the paladin all the info he needed.

Caroline Bigfellow came in alongside her husband battling the bearded devil. The ranger swung to interrupt the fiend's attack of opportunity at it jabbed its weapon at the approaching fighter, but Argo was proud (although he vowed never to tell her) of his wife as she easily batted aside the jab on her own and came in with a downswing that cut halfway through the fiend's skull. Like its fellows, the outsider swiftly dissolved into a foul-smelling pile of goo.

Argo's smile quickly vanished, though.

Kill her, the voice said. Kill your wife or you will feel this way forever.

Not for all the Three Worlds could Aslan ever had imagined that the assassin devil had been holding back until now.

But that was exactly what it felt like as a mass of shifting shadows exploded from within the fog cloud and attacked. It may still have been using non-lethal blows, but it certainly didn't feel like it.

The world spun dangerously around in a wild circle. The paladin couldn't clearly separate any of the five or so voices he heard screaming at him, but he was just barely able to recognize the words.

"Pull back!"

Splashing through a shallow bog and then emerging back onto the path, Aslan withdrew to the west, away from the attacking fiend.

Argo Bigfellow Senior exploded into action- but the Ranger Lord did not head towards Dogai's location; instead he headed over to stand on the reeling ogre mage's south flank.

"Everyone!" he shouted. "Get over here and surround Just Aslan! That thing wants him down first, and if it brings its damn fog over here, we need to stay close! Aslan can still attack over our heads- move it, people!"

He didn't skip rolling his eyes, but Argo Bigfellow Junior obeyed, coming to a halt just to Aslan's east.

The ranger tried to shut out the voice but couldn't, so he kept his gaze away from everyone.

Cygnus frowned as he watched Argoria cut the steam mephit down with another volley of magic missiles.

With a mental command, he sent his last remaining elemental flying over to the same spot, about ten feet in front of the female wizard. The air mephit breathed its stinging particles of dust and grit, but the effect was minimal.

I can't kill that devil, Cygnus thought, so I may as well take out her ally. I know they wanted her alive, but serious injuries don't seem to be out of bounds for anyone here, so…

He raised his hand and pointed, ready to unleash his own magic missiles, when-

"Cygnus! Stop!"

The tall mage looked over, half-annoyed that someone was telling him when and when not to use his own spells, and half-surprised that that someone was Argo Bigfellow Senior.

But the elder Bigfellow wasn't looking at him. He was looking over at Argo Bigfellow Junior.

"Son? Are you all right?"

The younger ranger kept his eyes focused on the ground beneath him. His heavy, labored breathing seemed even more forceful than his admittedly major wounds warranted.

"That's not," he gritted through his teeth, "the kind of question you want to be asking me right now, father."

"Did Goth strike you with his dagger?"

Argo Junior jerked his head up to stir in surprise at his father, but the latter was already turning back to Cygnus.

"It looks like Yenom's got his own problems at the moment," he said to the Aardian magic-user. Can you remove curses, Cygnus?"

Without waiting for a reply, he pointed at his son.

"If you can, do it now!"

Cygnus didn't even try to conceal his annoyance (Everyone here thinks they know more about how to use magic than I do, he groused to himself), but he had memorized that particular spell last night at Yenom's request, so he pointed at Argo Junior and cast.

Argo's breathing slowed and a profound look of relief washed over his face.

"Still want to kill me, son?" Argo Senior asked with just a hint of a smile.

Argo Junior grimaced.

"Let's not get carried away here, father."

Caroline Bigfellow came running up and around to take up a position on Blackthorn's northern flank.

Despite his injuries, her husband's smile as she passed him seemed as bright as she had ever noticed. She couldn't help but grin back.

Yenom came in now to stand alongside Argo Junior to Aslan's east.

Everyone present was disheartened to see the grim look on the priest's face.

No one said anything but Aslan for one could no longer feel the soothing effect of Yenom's earlier prayer.

Nothing happened.

No clouds of fog surrounded them. No devil came charging out of it's misty concealment to attack them.

Argo Bigfellow Junio sidled around to Argo's north side while his father sidled around to the paladin's west. Caroline saw her husband pull a small poultice from his backpack and, as best he could, wedge it into the hole on his back that the bearded devil's glaive had made. The plant-and-mud package quickly became soaked with the ranger's blood, but the wound finally seemed to have stopped bleeding.

The senior ranger was attempting to do the same with his own stomach wound, but his hands were shaking too badly to get his poultice to stay in. Caroline moved a step closer to him and assisted.

"Thank you, Caroline," he said in a tired voice. "I know you'll do well."

Lady Bigfellow thought there was more to the elder ranger's comment beyond the immediate, but he did not elaborate.

Blackthorn frowned as he saw Argoria fling a marble-sized sphere of acid at the air mephit, which immediately vanished with a small puff.

He looked in alarm of the four figures encircling him. All were wounded. Caroline looked perhaps the worst, but Aslan knew she still had a spare healing potion. He reached out to Yenom, unsure of what healing the cleric still had left, but Yenom grabbed his arm and shook his head.

"Use it all on yourself, Aslan," he said softly. I can't hurt that thing."

The ogre mage's massive heard swiveled in turn to look at the other three individuals.

All three nodded in agreement with the priest's assessment.

Aslan took a deep breath, nodded glumly, and used the entirety of his paladin's grace on himself.

He was still in poor shape.

Cygnus, moving now back towards the southeast to end up about forty feet from Aslan, used his deferred spell now, but the four magic missiles vanished just in front of Argoria Bigfellow.

Shield, he though glumly.

Argoria fired magic missiles right back at Cygnus, with the exact same result.

Shield, he thought happily.

Yenom turned around and touched Aslan.

"Protection from evil," he murmured. "It may help a little, but these devils weren't summoned; it won't stop them."

Still nothing. The dogai had apparently retreated back into its cloud, because not a trace of it was visible now.

Argoria Bigfellow spoke to the fog, however.

"Hurt them; as long as you don't kill them."

Cygnus was waiting for that moment.

He cast.

Aslan and those surrounding them saw a quickened blur of some kind dart out from the wizard and strike each one of them.

But of the five, only Yenom had felt it before.

The cleric smiled and quickly cast another prayer, this time on Argo Bigfellow Junior, who could feel his body swelling with power.

Everyone waited. After almost a minute and half of yelling, screaming, roaring, spells and summoned creatures, the only sounds remaining were those of heavy breathing, and the unceasing whine of arriving mosquitos- who were attracted to all the blood.

Darkness all around them.

The fog cloud had arrived.

Cygnus, about ten feet southeast of the new cloud, saw to his consternation the assassin devil emerge from his old cloud and splashed through the shallow bog it had been standing in towards the new cloud, sword in hand.

"It's coming!' he yelled at his friends, although he was sure they'd assume the appearance of the new cloud signified just that.

Then he saw Argoria Bigfellow, who has closed to about forty feet to his north, grinning at him.

"Well," she said. "I guess it's just us wizards, then."

She incanted and two scorching rays of fire came at him. Cygnus, who had more of these things shot at him in the past year than in all the rest of his life, twisted and tried to dodge. This had never worked before, but the haste spell he had just cast gave him that extra edge and both rays shot past the mage, just singing his robe.

Cygnus incanted back and cast his scare spell, which had worked so well on Markessa's werewolves, but Argoria and Dogai both shrugged it off.

The assassin devil continued to move towards Aslan and the others. It was now directly between Cygnus and Argoria, who reached for the heavy crossbow behind her back and loaded a bolt into it.

Almost out of spells? thought Cygnus. You and me both, sister.

His mouth tightened.

Almost out.

The Aardian wizard pulled out a small strip of black leather from his spell component pouch, then suddenly turned and ran northwest, directly into the new fog cloud. When he literally bumped into the ogre mage, he reached out and cast.

"It's here!" yelled Yenom.

Aslan and the others knew of course that the assassin devil had arrived, as the sound of its footsteps grew louder and closer. Still, the cleric's shout (and the sound of his mace bouncing off something) gave them the fiend's approximate location.

A humanoid mass of shadow became- barely- visible to Aslan as it moved up to him. The creature's steel longsword still somehow seemed to flash keenly as it arced towards his ogre magi body, which was far too bulky to even attempt a dodge-

-but it missed anyway.

It almost seemed to the paladin that Dogai had been aiming at a point about two or three feet away from him.

"You're welcome," came Cygnus' voice beside him even as Aslan's mind was heading in that direction.

"Pardon me."

Argo Bigfellow Senior's hands used Caroline's shoulders as the elder ranger began feeling his way around her and towards the assassin devil.

On the opposite side of Blackthorn's massive form, Cygnus heard and felt the same as Argo Bigfellow Junior began doing the same.

Aslan swung at what little he could see of his assailant through the shadows and the fog. Again and again his blade met only smoke- until it didn't.

There was more roar and less hiss this time as black blood- or whatever devils had- spurted.

It was hard to be sure, but Aslan was growing more confidant that the fiend was at last weakening.

Cygnus knew he had nothing left that could either affect Dogai or aid his friends, so he backed out of the cloud the way he had come in-

-and found Argoria Bigfellow standing ten feet away to his north, crossbow pointed straight at him and a wicked grin on her lips.

She fired, but the same haste that had saved the Aardian mage from the scorching rays saved him from the bolt as well, as it sped by an inch from his right ear.

Operating on pure instinct, Cygnus cast his last spell left that wasn't a cantrip on Argoria Bigfellow- his own ray of enfeeblement- but the coruscating ray missed.

Caroline took a step to the east, so that she was now flanking the devil with Yenom. She felt the flat of Dogai's blade swipe by over the top of her head as she did so. The fighter swung her own sword at the fiend but couldn't connect. Opposite her, she could hear Yenom swearing as the priest continued to attack futilely.

Then she heard him scream.

Then the devil roared out again; she thought perhaps Argo Senior had struck it but in this thick fog Caroline couldn't be sure of anything anymore.

Cygnus tensed up and prepared to dodge again as Argoria moved to take another bolt out of her quiver.

Then the Aerdian magic-user stopped, smiled at Cygnus again and slowly began to back away from her. Her gaze was centered over Cygnus' right shoulder.

Dreading what fresh horror might meet his eyes, Cygnus looked.

It was Mr. Goth. The harvester devil was about thirty feet to Cygnus' southeast, but he was in no position to attack. The fiend was bending down on one of the swamp paths, one of his empty potion vials in his hand. Now he was straightening up again and grinning at the tall mage.

Cygnus frowned. The vial wasn't empty anymore. It had some kind of red liquid in it.

All of his vials did.

What the-

"Sorry you didn't get what you came for," came Argoria's voice.

The wizard's head snapped around to stare at his peer, even as she continued to retreat north at a speed that he knew would defy all attempts at capture.

"We did," was the last he heard from her before her form vanished in the swamp.

When Cygnus turned back to Mr. Goth, the harvester devil had disappeared.

It took about ten seconds for all those in the cloud to realize that the assassin devil was gone as well.

Badly wounded but all still alive, the sextet trudged westwards back through the swamp.

Sullen and taciturn, what conversation there was consisted of short snippets and complaints.

Until Cygnus offhandedly mentioned Argoria Bigfellow's parting words.

Aslan, who had resumed his natural form, stooped dead in his tracks.

"Ingredients," he said softly, remembering Argoria's earlier words.

Yenom and Argo Senior frowned in confusion, but Caroline Bigfellow suddenly gasped. Her knees buckled, and she went down on swampy soil.

The others gathered around her. Argo Junior was about to ask his wife if she was okay but abruptly stopped; a solemn look falling over the ranger's features.

Caroline didn't seem to notice any of this. The young woman's eyes were wide in horror, but it wasn't the memory of the battle they were saying.

Caroline Bigfellow was seeing a dream.

"The blood of his slayers," she whispered.