Every once in a while, she'd appear at the top of some distant hillock or climb up onto some boulder, taunt me and make fun of how slow I was going, then slip away again. I tried my best to follow her, but it was like trying to tie water to a tree. Every damn time I looked away, she would just meld into the shadows and disappear. Which was inconvenient because I had to look down a lot: we were constantly scrambling over muddy rocks and moss-covered logs and thick patches of ferns and all sorts of other obstacles. My robes, not really clean to begin with, were now so caked in dirt and muck that not a single patch of the original blue color was anywhere to be found. 

Finally I clawed my way through a thicket of brambles, cursing at every stupid thorn tearing through the sleeves of my robe. We'd been traveling for hours and I was surprised to see that the sun was just now setting. In the depths of the forest, the sun hardly penetrated through the foliage. I thought I'd seen her go this way, but I'd stopped being certain I was on the right trail more than an hour ago.

The girl was waiting in a small clearing next to a trickling stream, with a warm fire already going and a tent set up made of some sort of thick animal hide. It looked like she'd been staying here for a while. Behind the tent, massive knotted tree trunks rose up into a carpet of green pine needles that loomed far overhead.  

She giggled to herself and smirked as I stomped through the water and slumped down on the log next to her. She wasn't even out of breath, nor was her cloak dirty or tattered or torn. I couldn't even feel my legs anymore. I'm not exactly an old geezer, but let's say that I'm a few years removed from my physical prime now. 

"See, wasn't that a nice walk?" she teased. I could only glare in response. "Oh, lighten up." She poked at the fire and added another log. "At least we got away from the Paladins, didn't we?" 

I had to give it to her: she was right. I was having a hard time navigating through all the ravines and thick stands of trees, and I was just one person. No way could they get horses through there unless they used up all their magical energy blasting trees apart. And the thick bulky armor that they wore wouldn't make their going any easier. It had probably been over two hours since I'd heard them crashing through the brush behind us and sounding their hunting bugles. 

"I'm Skip, by the way," she told me and extended a dainty hand in greeting. I wiped some of the dirt off of my own hand (not much though, considering the state of my robe) and shook her hand back. 

"I'm Winston" I answered.

"Winston?" Her lips quivered as she tried to contain her laughter. 

"What's wrong with that?" I said defensively. I'd gotten the same reaction from the other necromancers at the Academy, who all had names based on ancient dark runes and forbidden curses and cool things like that. My mother had named me after an uncle of hers whose only claim to fame was the record for most beers drank in a single evening at the local pub. 

"No, nothing," she answered.  A little bit of a giggle escaped. "It's just... not what I expected." She removed some vegetables from a nearby sack, fished a knife out of her sachel, and began slicing them into a cast iron pot.

I gave a dissatisfied hmph and changed the subject. "So what's the plan now?" I asked. "I mean, those Paladins are certainly going to keep coming after me. And I can't keep running like this."

She shrugged and continued slicing vegetables. "This is the plan. We're just going to wait here for them." 

"That's it?" I asked. My voice rose an octave in panic. "That is your plan? I thought you were going to help me get away or something! You know that they're going to MURDER me, right? And not just, like, decapitate me. It's going to be messy. And long. And painful. Do you know what they do to..." I trailed off  just a bit too late there.

She looked me in the eyes, clutching a turnip  in one hand and the sharp knife in the other. "What they do to what?" she asked. The playful sing-song quality of her voice was gone; it was as sharp and steely as a sword. "Why exactly are they hunting you?"

I wrenched off my wet boots and tossed them into the dirt near the fire. An involuntary moan of relief escaped my lips, and I couldn't help but wiggle my toes in front of the crackling fire. How to explain? Necromancers really aren't the most popular group of people around. I mean, the pompous, self-righteous, arrogant Paladins are really only tolerated in most areas for the two things they do well: kill Necromancers and banish the undead back to the darkness. There was maybe a 50/50 chance that the knife would end up in my throat as soon as I told her what had really happened.

"I killed a Paladin," I explained. Simple,  nearly truthful, and believable. That's all she needed to know.

Snick snick snick. The silvery blade of the knife flashed in her hand as she continued cutting up the turnips. She never took her eyes off of me but somehow managed to deftly carve the roots into perfectly equal sized chunks with lightning speed. Each chunk landed in the pot with a hollow thunk sound. "And that's all?"

"Ok," I confessed. "I killed three of them."

Her eyebrows arched up in surprise. "Three Paladins, eh? All by yourself? How'd you do 'em in?" She twirled the knife in a delicate ballet with her right hand while she reached for a potato with her left. "You use a knife? Poison?"

Well, now I would have to start lying. Which I've never been particularly good at. "It... well, it was a friend of mine, really. He did most of it." My eyes darted to my bag , still covered in briars from the hike through the forest. Inside, Lirk's bones were waiting for me to resurrect him. And the Ruby of Mertialz was waiting for me to bring Lirk back too. "Umm, and he..." I couldn't think of a plausible lie. "Yeah, he used a knife." 

Bits of potato skin went flying as she peeled the tuber in a flash and began hacking off chunks of it. "Three Paladins with a knife. Damn. Sounds like your friend would be a real bad-ass if he actually existed."

The camp was silent except for the babbling river. Well, shit.

"No, maybe you're right," I stammered. "It wasn't a knife." She just stared at me with the same haughty, confident judgmental look while finishing off that last potato and fishing out a carrot from her bag. "My friend.. he...." Crap. I had nothing. 

"OK!" I shouted. My voice rang through the trees, and the wind blowing through the evergreens seemed to answer. "I'm a necromancer, OK? You caught me. Happy?" I snatched up my bag and upended it, caushing Lirk's bones to come tumbling out into a pile. Her eyes doubled in size when she saw the massive Ruby fall out as well. "I'm a necromancer, and I raised my undead companion here, Lirk. And we got caught robbing this shop and the Ruby just went crazy and melted Sir Athaelwas's sword..." her mouth gaped at the mention of his name; he was well known throughout the province. "And then Lirk attacked him and the Ruby just turned them all to ash with some red lightning. Are you satisfied?"

I returned to my seat, taking her stunned silence as an affirmative response. Lirk's lifeless skull gaped up at me, making me feel a bit guilty that I hadn't resurrected him yet. He normally gets a bit loopy if he stays dead for longer than a week, and it had been five days since I'd had enough mandrake root to bring him back. If I survived till morning, I'd have to go find some. 

"Why didn't you just use the Ruby to kill those Paladins chasing after you?' She asked with her eyes on the captivating jewel. "Why the whole mopey 'I'm about to die' act?"

I kicked at the stupid Ruby, causing it to clatter against Lirk's pelvis. "Stupid thing is bound to Lirk, not to me. At least I think that's what's happening. So it's utterly useless until I can revive him."

She strolled over to the river, carefully avoiding all of Lirk's bones that I'd scattered everywhere, and half-filled the pot. Then she added some spices from her pack and set it over the fire to cook. "Well, I've heard enough," she said. 

She turned around, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted at the trees: "Hey, Mog! What do you think we should do?"

I squinted into the darkness, trying to see if there was someone hiding in the branches. "Who are you..."

The thick tree trunks bent forward, and I realized that they weren't actually trees: they were legs. A pair of massive hands gripped the trunks of the surrounding pines that he'd been hiding behind and brushed them away  as easily as I'd bend a stalk of corn. I was greeted by a ruddy face full of greenish teeth and watery, dull, brown eyes the size of cauldrons: an Ogre. He leaned forward to study me, so close that I was worried I might be sucked into one of his massive nostrils if he took too deep of a breath.

"Should we just let the Paladins have him?" she asked. "Or try to turn him and maybe get a reward?"  

"Reward!" the Ogre answered in an ear-splittingly loud voice, and snatched me up in his massive paw. 

"Good choice," she said, stirring her broth with a wooden spoon as I was carried into the air. "I was thinking the same thing."

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