Tash got three screams out before they stuffed a dirty rag in her mouth. For the sake of increased volume, she left off the consonants. Her three incomprehensible messages dissipated into the woods.

"Séa, come get me."

"Pray to your god if you must."

"Get off your fat ass and hurry."

The bandits slapped her face and roped a wad of wool to her mouth. She hung from her ropes, stung and throbbing. Like a geyser after an eruption, her surge of rebellion trickled away. A gloom like cold tar blackened her outlook. She hung her head as pain throbbed in her face and shoulders. Dully, she stared at the rock and the pine needles by her bare feet and half-listened to the outlaws squabble.

"Why do you get a double share?"

"I always get a double share. That's the rule. I'm the leader."

"But you didn't work for this. You didn't plan it."

"Shut your hole before I shut it myself, permanently. Be rich or be dead."

Longbeard spoke. "We need to know if this haul is safe to handle. I mean, what if it's got magical protection of some kind? Also, who was in that carriage?"

Tash didn't know him, but he seemed to have more brains than the rest of them combined. His boots appeared among the pine needles near her feet, but she didn't bother to raise her head to see more of him.

"Lookit this thing," said Slick, the lamed bald one. "It's like a black diamond inside a white diamond. It's huge."

That caught Tash's attention, and she glanced up. With avid greed widening his eyes, Slick held the massive gem up to the light of the moons. The female rogue hadn't had a chance to do an inventory on the bag of gems, and she had never seen anything like this spectacular stone. It was spindle shaped, and the darkness inside made it resemble a black-irised eye. An eye that seemed to stare malevolently at Tash.

Blood drained from her face. Something wasn't right about that gem.

"It's worth half the King's treasury. I'm rich!" Pogrosh crowed.

Longbeard, however, sounded dour. "Let's ask this witch about it before you get all excited."

But instead of pausing to converse, Pogrosh tried to snatch the monstrous gem from Slick. With a snarl, Slick snatched it back and slapped it against his chainmail. A crystalline click announced the cleaving of it into halves. It had broken.

Slick's snarl faded to a disappointed pout, and he cradled the halves of the gem in his blunt-fingered hand. Hissing and shedding vapors, a black liquid drained from the gem's core. Like a living thing, it plastered itself to the hapless bandit's skin. In less than a heartbeat, Slick's hand turned a dull, boiling black.

He screamed. Unlike Tash's intentional scream of desperate summons, this scream was an involuntary outpouring of agony and terror.

Her spine stiffened as if electrified, and she pulled ineffectively at her ropes.

The outlaws who had been seated leapt to their feet to stare at their afflicted mate. Veins of black speared up his face and covered his bald head in a pulsing web of stygian horror. The two halves of the crystal levitated, then slapped themselves into his eye sockets.

Tash tried to yell, "Kill him while you still can, fecking idiots!" The gag muffled the shout to mumbles.

"Slick?" Pogrosh said in a small voice. In slow motion, he reached for a dagger.

As if stomach cramps had spasmed, Slick hunched forward and held his belly. His back bulged and smoothed, and his head lengthened. Leather armor squeaked and split as what was once Slick increased in bulk.

What the feck can I do? Nothing while tied up. At least this death will be quicker than what Pogrosh had planned.

Too late by Tash's reckoning, the man with the long black beard stuck a rapier into the transforming version of Slick. Its point penetrated perhaps an inch, then the blade bowed as if stuck in a tree stump. Like a trained fencer, the man bounced back.

Just in time.

Slick raised what had shortly before been his head. Yellow-white crystal eyes burned under an insectoid hood. His hands had lengthened to single chitinous hooks, and he whirled on segmented lower legs. Instead of Longbeard, his slashing hook-hand caught the other full-human rogue in the abdomen and sank in deep. The insectoid demon pulled, and the impaled man staggered closer. The demon slashed with its second hook-hand. With a meaty thunk, the man's neck split, and his head flopped backwards. The demon's bubbling hiss sounded darkly triumphant.

The remaining four bandits managed to convert their screams of panic into battle cries. Surrounding their target like practiced bullies, they hacked away. Between the half-dwarf's axe attack and Pogrosh's blow with a spiked club, the extraplanar horror staggered.

But only for a moment. When the monster found its feet, it charged the half-dwarf. With axe raised for defense, the bandit bowled over backwards, with the demonic aberration on top. It clawed the axe aside, then lowered its insect head, mandibles clacking. The half-dwarf's face disappeared under the churning mouthparts. His panicked screams drowned in a gush of frothy liquids.

Pogrosh swung his club at the creature's back shell in tandem with the second half-orc, who was armed with a sword. Their bedeviling made little impression.

Longbeard turned his back on the fray and ran toward the hanging canvas. But after only a few steps, he halted in dismay. A fully armored knight on horseback thundered in from under the canopy.

For a moment, Tash stopped breathing. Her heart refused to beat. Her eyes stopped blinking and weightlessness buoyed her limbs.

To avoid a trampling, Longbeard dodged toward the edge of the treed shelf. The knight boosted his sideways progress with a stiff-legged ironclad kick. With a squawk, he tumbled into mid-air, then out of sight.

From her gut, Tash expelled a wild scream of joy, but her gag stifled the giddy screech.

The demon's head rose from its mastication. With mandibles dripping gory globs, it hissed. At sight of the Abyssal aberration, Séa pulled on her reins. "Whoa! By the one-eyed god, what have we, here?" In one smooth motion, the horse halted, and the paladin slid from the saddle.

The demon feinted slashes at the two half-orcs, then sprang toward Séa. "Torugg, aid me!" she cried, and swiped sideways with her mace. The weapon left a bluish trail of light as it crunched into the demon's head. The paladin lowered her shoulder to meet the monster's oncoming momentum, and chitin splintered against hardened iron. Séa skidded backwards a few inches as frantic claws scrabbled to shred her. But her armor held, and she unleashed a mighty backhand that cracked more chitin and knocked the insectoid aberration onto its rounded back shell.

The half-orcs joined Séa in pummeling and stabbing at the demon's relatively soft belly. Over the next half minute its strident hisses dissolved into the outgassing of evil black smoke. The three combatants left took a moment to bask in the triumph. Séa let her mace fall to her side, and its divine radiance faded.

Tash sagged in her ropes, but her eyes shone bright.

The two half-orcs panted and looked at each other, then raised their weapons anew and faced Séa.

Her helm muffled the voice within. "Lay down your arms. Surrender and face the King's justice."

"Like feck we will." The two spread out, to flank her.

The paladin's head swiveled drunkenly and the muffled voice expressed astonishment. "But ... that would constitute resisting arrest."

The sword-wielding half-orc lunged at Séa, leading with his sword. It clanged and skittered from her breastplate.

Tash's chest constricted. If he had aimed for a joint, he'd have scored. It's as if she lost her strength and agility all of a sudden.

Séa blocked a swing of Pogrosh's club with her mace. But the half-orc was the stronger, and although two of his club spikes sheared off, the paladin spun off balance and stumbled.

An electric quiver jolted Tash and her eyes widened in horror. They're not demons. She can't fight ordinary fights. Oh, goddess, how stupid am I not to have seen it before? The rogue thrashed between her ropes and tried in vain to spit out her gag.

The half-orcs pursued their advantage. With an overlong foot, Pogrosh tripped the knight. With a steely clatter, she sprawled in the dirt. The two hulked over her and raised their weapons.

Not Séa! Séa can't die! I have to do something. Tash screamed into her gag. No-one and nothing paid the slightest attention.

Like animals run amok in an orchestra's percussion section, the two half-orcs waged destruction on Séa's armor, flailing mad blows upon the downed knight. Tash could see her squirming legs and hear involuntary grunts of pain.

The rogue's arms strained so much that she lifted herself bodily into the air. When she landed, the edge of her foot scraped against the dull rock that lay on the ground. Her eyes flew wide. She twisted her lower body and cupped the rock between the balls of her feet. Paradoxically, her ankle-ropes aided in the endeavor, providing extra leverage as her toes curled around the cool mass.

With one artful two-footed hop and an inward pull of her arms, Tash's feet left the ground, rock and all. She tucked into a ball and spun almost upside down. At the apex of her maneuver, her feet snapped outwards. With an emphatic grunt-scream she released the weighty stone into the air.

She watched the rock spin on its arc, lit by the twin moons and carrying with it the last scrap of her eroded hope.

The movement caught Pogrosh's eye, and he left off bashing Séa to flail his spiked club at the falling stone. Curse you, Pogrosh. Fail, you bastard. Fail.

One of the sharp bone spikes on Pogrosh's club sliced into his companion's jaw. Caught by surprise, the swordsman's head jerked to the side. And the falling rock cracked his bare head like a woodsman splitting firewood.

The half-orc toppled with Pogrosh's club embedded in the side of his face.

Pogrosh gaped at his suddenly-empty hand.

Séa rolled to her feet and brandished her mace.

Tash sagged in relief. Her cheeks felt warm and wet.

Pogrosh emitted a squeak and sprinted at the bound rogue. He yanked a dagger from his belt and ducked behind her. A moment later, the dagger's cold edge pressed to Tash's throat.

Séa cracked a solid blow on the swordsman's skull. He stayed down. She weaved on her feet and clumsily flipped her visor up. Bleary gray eyes attempted to focus on Tash and Pogrosh. "Pogrosh, your friend said? Thash an unusual name."

She's completely high. She overextended again. A stream of curses hummed in Tash's throat, but none made it through the gag.

"Here's the deal." Pogrosh rasped. Tash could feel his fear. It trembled through the cold blade held tightly to her throat.

"Naw, naw. I'm not a good —hic!— negotiator," Séa slurred. She slapped her mace home and unshipped her war bow.

Pogrosh's voice quavered at the edges. "You will ... go away. If you do, I will let this one live."

Pogrosh will absolutely never allow me to live, Tash thought.

In leisurely fashion, the paladin nocked an arrow. "The fletcher told me this bow is powerful enough to —hic!— drive an arrow through two people in a row."

What? Feck! Séa? She's lost her mind.

Pogrosh's knife pricked Tash's neck as his trembles tripled. "You're bluffing. This is one of yours. She's on your team."

"You wish." Bands of back muscles clenched, and the paladin drew on her bow. Her aim wavered.

And now I'm sure I will die. She can't even fecking aim. Is she planning to kill me, then heal me? That's unbelievably dumb. Or is she just going to put me out of my misery? She didn't even say hello. Did she not recognize me?

Pogrosh held on. Clearly, he had no backup plan. "No," he said weakly, "She'll die."

"Torugg, guide me."

Séa's string fingers uncurled. The overdrawn bow snapped straight. Tash shut her eyes.

A fleshy thunk and muted woody snaps sounded next to her ear. A bowstring twanged. The knife twitched away from her throat. Pogrosh screamed in her ear.

She snapped her head over and caught a glimpse. His dagger had fallen from fingers gone nerveless and a war arrow shaft pinned through his forearm and lodged in his bicep. The arrow shaft formed the base of a cruel triangle with his bent elbow forming the apex.

Pogrosh whimpered as he spun and lurched away.

Séa let her bow drop and reached for her mace. She sprinted forward. It was a terrifying sight. The spectacle of a fully armored knight accelerating toward you, mace tucked back along a forearm, could generate nightmares.

Unless you were the knight's friend. Then, you felt like sunrise after a night of storms.

The moment came for Séa to duck under one of Tash's ropes, but she didn't bend. At full speed she ran, and the rope caught her in the neck. A surge of tension stretched Tash's arms and chest as she absorbed the force of the collision. The paladin's feet kept running as her head flopped backwards. With a metallic crash, she landed flat on her back.

Sour and sore, Tash bounced in her rope bonds.

Behind her, a set of pounding footsteps faded until distance muted them completely. A distant owl hooted.