
ARTEMIS THE FEY

SPELLBINDER SAGA BOOK I

RHETT SINNEMA

COVER BY RUIVO DE OLIVEIRA
THERE IS STILL MAGIC IN THE WORLD

IT'S FOUND INSIDE A BOOK

Artemis heard Denbei moving through the underbrush while she watched the moon rise. Her hunting partner, Giz, set about making camp, and Artemis sighed, reaching for her rolling pouch.

"That satyr at the Hunter's Hall said he's been seen in Wynoning Forest," Giz said, stroking his white beard, a rarity among gnomes.

"Oh yeah, like he was in Damath or Old Ethrandiel the time before that?" Artemis scoffed, packing leprechaun-weed inside the troll leaf. She clicked her fingers, and a small flame appeared. She leant in and lit the cigarette, then flapped her wings, extinguishing the fire. "You paying coppers for info again, Giz? What happened to the gold denarii I gave you? You blow it on dust?"

A wolfish grin spread across Giz's face. "Info's not cheap and dust aint cheaper. But I have it in check. Trust me – Vlad's in Wynoning."

Giz settled into his gryphon feather sleeping bag and pulled out a bottle of cheap elf wine. "Cheers," he said, taking a swig. "I know you've got a score to settle, but seriously, Arty, why don't we take an easier contract? There're two trolls causing mayhem back east. I know how you love to roast 'em alive."

Artemis ignored Giz as he continued.

"There's even a water elemental en route, and I've got the bounty paper. Let's blow that thing away. You can add some more denarii to your Nowhere-hideout treasury, and I can spend a week buried in a pile of pixie dust with Rosie."

Artemis lifted the moonstone amulet around her neck, hitting the catch and revealing a vial of diamond dust – a magic catalyst Artemis used to cast spells.

"Half-empty," she said, snapping it shut. "We'll do the contract –"

Giz's eyes rounded with excitement. "I love you, Arty."

"No! We'll claim the contract and spend the money on restocking. I need more dust for spells, and I had my eye on a bow at Diabaldi's."

"Fuck that guy. He still owes us."

"You released a genie in his Misteria-damned shop, and he only charged you cost on the regeneration potions you smashed. We got off light," Artemis scolded, flicking the handroll across the glade. Denbei returned from the hunt and lay down next to Artemis. She slid over, running her hands through his white fur and reclined against the tiger.

"What if I keep just enough for one-night with Rosie?"

"Goodnight, Giz."

Giz huffed, rolling over and pulling his sleeping bag taut. A moment later, he sat bolt upright and said: "Hey, Arty, at least let me have a little taste of dust. Killing elementals is hard work!"

"You said it was an easy contract." Artemis shut her eyes and burrowed against Denbei. His black-striped white fur was warmer than the finest gryphon down denarii could buy. "Anyway, we need the money to get outfitted better and take Vlad down. That cyclops took a lot more catalyst than we bargained for."

Giz sighed. "Hey, Arty?"

"Goodnight, Giz."

***

The next evening at Guniden's Tavern, Artemis and Giz sat at the oaken bar chugging halfling-beers while Denbei lay curled around the base of Artemis' stool.

"I can drink this all day," Artemis said and drained her flagon.

"Lacks a certain quality: alcohol content. Hey, Barkeep, get me some whiskey," Giz said as he whipped his flagon across the polished oak bar. Gu, the ogre innkeeper, stared blankly at Giz while he cleaned an absurdly large flagon with a filthy fur dishrag. "You hear me in there, numbskull?" Giz chirped, waving his hands in the air. "Someone scramble your eggs?"

Gu glowered at Giz, the ogre's eyes narrowing.

"Ah, fucking ogres. Probably been bashing its head against a tree somewhere," Giz grumbled. "Hey, bonehead! Get. Me. Whiskey."

The ogre's lips peeled back to reveal two large canines. Gu pointed at a sign hanging above the bar: _We don't serve racists._

"Ah, for Mithrin's sake," Giz said. "I'm not a racist. I just make jokes. Come on, Gu, buddy, whiskey, okay?"

"The manner in which you addressed me implied I conform to a fallacious and frankly damaging stereotype about my brethren," Gu said, setting the flagon and rag down. He laid two fists on the bar and towered over Giz. "Whether your attempts at humour were tasteless witticisms or genuine ogre-bashing, I cannot determine. I, however, will abide neither in my establishment."

Giz mouthed wordlessly at Artemis.

"He's saying if you're going to make jokes, be funny," Artemis said.

"Not quite, but it's a compromise I'd be willing to settle on," Gu said while refilling Artemis' flagon.

"Ah jeez," Giz said.

"Furthermore," Gu continued. "Your initial statement lacked the proper etiquette specifically, a 'please.' I take pride in my service, and that means a particular perspicacity with respect to clientele. Now, Giztholomew, always remember manners maketh the folk, or in your case, the half-folk."

Artemis guffawed, trapped between sneezing and snorting the halfling ale and pointing at Giz.

"He really wound you up there," Artemis said, wiping foam from her mouth.

"Come on, Gu," Giz said. "I'm sorry. Forgive me. Could I please have some whiskey?"

"Certainly, master dw... er-hem, gnome. Although, my admonishment notwithstanding, may I say, with that beard, it is difficult to tell the difference between you and a dwarf."

"I'm not a fucking dwarf. Smelly, fat, gluttonous hole-dwellers. I'm a gnome, and yes, I have a beard. A dignified proper beard – the gnomish way," Giz said, yanking the small tuft of white fuzz sprouting from his chin.

"Whatterd choo say about dwwarvvves?" came a guttural voice from behind. Artemis twisted then froze. They hadn't seen the party of dwarven mercenaries drinking in a dark corner of the tavern.

"I said you're smelly, fat and..." Giz began, turning around, ready to let the dwarf have it. He came face to face with a dwarven berserker flanked by four dwarven mercenaries in full-plate and brandishing swords, flails, and morning stars. Giz gulped.

"Uh, um, I was saying what a noble folk the dwarves are," Giz stammered. Artemis nodded rapidly and looked to Gu for an intervention. He shrugged and bared his giant canines before counting bottles of elf wine on the shelf above the bar.

"Reeaally? 'cause it sounded to me an' me mates like choo were 'avin a go at us. That's fine; we're all entitled to our opinions." Giz breathed a sigh of relief. Artemis gave the broadest smile she could muster. The dwarven berserker paused, clearing his throat. "However, ya did mention our beards, and that's not cricket. Gnomes can't even grow real beards. Now choo take that back."

"What!?!" Giz cried, leaping from the stool. "This beard here is a fine example of gnomish class unlike that bushy, unkempt birds' nest that sprouts from every patch of skin like yours. Mithrin! It's even coming out of your ears!"

The dwarven berserker's gauntleted fist collided with Giz's jaw and sent the gnome crashing into the bar. He collapsed in a heap. The berserker took a step forward, but Artemis barred his way.

"Settle down friends, fair's fair. Giz'll keep his mouth shut about your beards," Artemis said. Giz got to his feet uneasily; he saw the cosmos spinning about his throbbing head.

"Oh, a real tough gnome 'e is sending a fairy to fight 'is battles for 'im," the berserker said.

Artemis frowned. "Keep talking if you want to see how fairies fight."

The berserker howled with laughter and clutched his sides. "You 'ear that boys? Oh, please miss fairy dontcha put a little light spell above me head. Torgoth forbid."

The other dwarves cackled as the berserker faced Artemis.

"Last fairy I saw was a good little 'ore down south. She sucked me cock till I nearly passed out," the berserker said and reached for Artemis. She watched with a bemused expression as he lay a hand on her rump and squeezed. "Why don't ya come and sit in old Targin's lap, eh?"

Artemis shook her head and exhaled slowly. "I was going to let you just walk away and finish your ale, but then you had to go and do that."

The berserker laughed again. Briefly.

Artemis flapped her wings, lifted off the ground, and spun, drawing two large revolvers that killed his mirth and drained the colour from his face. She pointed the mithril revolvers, giant sapphires and emeralds inlaid in the rune carved handles, at the dwarves and said, "this is how fairies fight."

Artemis beat her wings, and the dwarves covered their eyes against the wind buffeted with each flap. She cocked the hammers, flying backwards and firing wrathfully. Ten gunshots rang through the tavern, each bullet pierced a dwarven knee. All five dwarves dropped to the ground, clutching their shattered kneecaps, and howling, this time in pain.

"Ah, ya fairy bitch," the berserker said, digging his bastard sword into the floor and attempting to use it as a cane. Artemis fired a shot at his gauntlet, severing his hold on the sword and a finger in the process. The berserker screamed as he collapsed. He pressed his chest off the ground and scowled, crawling forward. Denbei slinked up to the prone dwarf and snarled. The dwarf could smell the hot sour breath of the tiger, its maw inches away from his face. Artemis landed and crossed the tavern to the dwarves.

"Now," she said, kicking the dwarf over on to his back and pulling back the hammer of her magic revolver. "What were you saying I should do?"

"Ah, nothing! Nothing!" the dwarf cried as Denbei sniffed. "I didn't mean anything by it."

Artemis glanced around the tavern. All the other creatures buried their faces in their cups.

"Why don't you drag your asses out of here and I won't finish the job," she said.

"Yes, yes," the berserker said. "We're sorry. We didn't know who you were."

Artemis indicated to the tavern door with her head, her revolvers trained on the dwarves. She studied the berserker's bastard sword: blackened steel with an obsidian handle and runes tracing the length of the fuller.

"I'm keeping the sword. It looks like it could use an owner who knows how to use it."

The dwarf fumed, but when Artemis shook her revolver, he nodded quickly, turned onto his stomach, and dragged himself along the tavern floor. His plate armour scraped against the varnished wood. Gu shot Artemis a dirty look while Giz shook his fists victoriously.

"I could see you didn't need the help," Giz said when Artemis took up her stool. He tapped the half-staff fastened to his back. "Been wanting to crack some skulls with Bella for a while, but you had it handled. Maybe next time."

Artemis grinned and winked at Giz, Denbei returning to his place at the foot of her barstool.

"Ten denarii," Gu said plainly.

"What?" Artemis protested.

"Ten denarii-worth is how much ale those adventurers would have drunk. You prevented them from furnishing my establishment with their coin. Pay for their drinks, and I won't charge you for the natureweaver I'll need to restore my fine birchwood floors."

Giz glowered at Gu and turned his pockets out. He placed a handful of coppers on the bar, shrugged, and looked guiltily at Artemis. She frowned, nodded to Gu, and drew her hand across her moonstone amulet, palming catalyst from the vial within.

Artemis invoked a secret incantation under her breath and flung the dust out. A colourless mirrorlike disc formed before her. She grabbed the bastardsword and entered her Nowhere-hideout, a small timeless dimension nestled somewhere in the vast in-between.

A moment later, after depositing the weapon in an appropriate rack, she returned with a purse of denarii and paid Gu.

She glared at Giz. "Guess we're sleeping outside again, Denbei."

"What?"

Artemis shook her head, downed the halfling-beer, and headed out the tavern.

"We'll be sleeping in harpy feather beds on the finest Arachne-silk tomorrow after we take out that elemental," Giz said, chasing after her.

***
The next morning Artemis awoke with a stiff back and a crook in her neck. She rose sluggishly from the grass and palmed her forehead, the universal balm to a hangover, while she twisted her trunk. Her back, wing bones, and neck clicked repeatedly. Denbei rolled on to his back and yawned, his tongue lolling out. The tiger's orange and viridian flecked eyes closed again as a throaty reverberation, somewhere between a hiss and growl, settled on becoming a snore.

Giz whistled in his sleep. Artemis observed the sleeping gnome, tickled by how sweet and defenceless the bombastic, little miscreant looked.

_Right,_ she thought as she palmed catalyst from her amulet, spoke the incantation, and cast a portal. _Time to get ready for this bounty._ She stepped through into her Nowhere-hideout.

It was a private dimension of Nowhere, the space between all realms, worlds, and planes, and was accessible only by speaking the words she guarded with her life. The secret Nowhere plane had been her fathers before it became hers. A bounty-hunter and assassin, Raziel Ogrebreaker was considered by many to be the greatest Spellbinder that ever lived.

Artemis scanned the familiar antechamber. Portraits, maps, and weapons framed in glass display cases dotted the carved grey stone walls of the roofless room. When Artemis looked up, she saw a perpetual night extending endlessly, strewn with glimmering stars.

'Never fly out of the dimension,' her father had warned her the first time he had brought her to his private dimension. When she had told him the sky above looked beautiful, he had reprimanded her. 'That, daughter, is Nowhere. An endless abyss between all worlds and planes of existence. Your mind cannot possibly comprehend the vast nothingness that ranges all around us. For every entity, Nowhere appears differently, and yet, is equally deadly. Fly up into that space, and you will never return. Your very being splits and extends through all the spaces between realms; it is an agonizing and inconceivably eternal non-life.'

Artemis had frowned but asked: 'What do you see?'

Her father had sighed and told her. 'For me, it appears as an endless forest, and on the horizon, orange embers dance like fires.'

'I see stars. You see embers. What are they?'

'They differ. Sometimes they are other worlds, planes of existence, or the homes of the gods. Who knows?'

'I want to see other worlds.'

Her father had struck her with the back of his hand, vexed by what he considered impertinence. Blood had run from young Artemis' split lip.

'Foolish girl. It is irresponsible to seek such things. Dimension travel is a perilous and hedonistic pursuit that consumes the mind and drives one to lunacy. Do not speak of this again. Need I remind you of your mother's folly?'

Young Artemis had fought back tears while her father turned his back on her and headed to the training room.

Presently, Artemis regarded the antechamber. Through the door ahead, lay a quaint living area. To her right was the training room where she could summon phantasms and ethereal targets to hone her skills, and to the left lay the armoury.

Artemis entered the armoury and examined the racks lining the walls. Great-swords, long swords, daggers, morning-stars, flails, war-hammers, great-hammers, bows, crossbows, staves, and all manner of other bizarre weapons called the armoury home. In a few display cases, magic weapons either she or her father had collected over the years called to her.

Artemis ambled along the boundary of the armoury, inspecting her collection. She passed a quarterstaff that, with the right series of moves, summoned sonic claps. She glanced at a bow that materialized magic and elemental arrows at full draw.

_There,_ she thought. She opened a case and removed a whip. It was simple enough, a carved demon bone handle with a thin black leather cord. She cracked it and the fall at the end of the whip ignited. She reversed the movement and its arcane fire extinguished.

Artemis coiled the whip and hung it on a loop on her belt, heading for her apothecary case. She retrieved two potions, one of healing and the other of steely skin, and placed them in her pouch. The potions jingled with each step. Artemis popped the collar on her giants-skin duster, preparing to return to her world.

"You can never be too careful," she said aloud, reaching for the magic bow and tapping her albino beetle chest plate for luck. "Time to kill an elemental."

***
When Artemis stepped back through the portal, she found Giz frying up leeks and toadstools. They ate their breakfast, Denbei turning his nose up between each mouthful. After packing up camp, they were on the road as the first fingers of light pierced the dense forest canopy.

After a few hours' march, they dropped their packs to review the map. Silver spindles undulated across the parchment. Giz waved his hand over the spindles, they came together, twisting and uniting into lines and forming a roadmap of the current area.

"Tukus said it'd be right around here. We head off the path and go to this waterfall. The elemental doesn't range too far from its home," Giz said.

"Its home?" Artemis queried. "I had thought elementals were all beckoned creatures. It should be bound to a master, not a place. Are there any mage's towers in the area?"

Giz scanned the magic map again.

"Yep, two. An old crumbling one that's probably been picked clean by a hundred dumbass adventuring parties. Always the same with those guys: 'what's the quest we're on? I need to understand how this furthers my ends and whether it's true to who I feel I am,'" Giz cackled to himself. "Assholes. There's another one down here. Supposedly a powerful necromancer controls that tower. I doubt he's summoning elementals and releasing them unless he's planning on animating their victims."

Artemis shuddered at the thought. Necromancy was considered a dark art for a reason. Summoning soulless beings from other planes or raising the dead into a state of undeath were horrifying concepts to most. And yet, Raziel had once told her of a party of undead adventurers doing good on another continent. A vampire, undead giant, elf, and halfling that had rooted out some great evil.

"Guess that rules out a master. Let's move carefully from here. Leave the packs up that tree, and we can proceed into the forest," Artemis said. She checked her guns, whip, and bow, crouching to talk to Denbei while she scratched his chin. "You stay back this time, buddy. I don't know what good tooth and claw will do against ice and water. Take it easy, ok?"

Denbei nuzzled up to Artemis, licking her face with his saliva-soaked tongue.

"Ah, Mithrin! That's disgusting," Giz said.

Artemis giggled and wiped her face with the sleeve of her duster. She signalled she was going up and rose gracefully through the canopy. When she crested the first clouds, she scanned the land for streams or signs of a waterfall. Finding none, she twirled in the air with one flap of her wings and examined the top of the canopy for any obvious clues. Nothing that would fit the parameters of their quarry's habitat jumped out at her, save a rocky crag jutting up in the distance.

She was about to dive worldward when she spied a large boat attached to a balloon, with wooden propellers and fixed wings, tracing a gradual arc between fluffy pale clouds. It was a gnomish airship, but the colours and symbols were foreign, belonging to no clan she knew. Artemis could scarcely make out a row of cannons on the deck of the ship. _Giz'll want to hear about this,_ she thought and folded her wings to fall towards the ground.

Artemis spread her wings, breaking her fall. "There's an airship up there," she said as she landed.

"Oh, great," Giz moaned. "Probably one of the fancy clans going for a midmorning outing to take in the air."

Artemis shrugged and headed for the crag.

After an hour, they came to a small clearing partially obscured by trees growing up the bank. The trees and banks had formed a natural enclosure, concealing a small pool from view. It explained why Artemis had missed it when she had done her aerial scouting. Two thirds down the precipice that loomed before them, water leaked out of splits in the rockface and merged to form a minor fall. Sounds of incessantly dripping water resonated from the pool as the water cascaded down the rocks.

"Nothing here," Giz said.

"Don't be so sure," Artemis whispered as ripples originated in unnatural patterns from where the waterfall met the body of water. Artemis crept forward cautiously and drew a revolver with her offhand while unfurling the whip. As she neared, the ripples increased in tempo, and the surface of the pool vibrated.

Artemis glanced at Giz over her shoulder. He unclipped a firebomb from his belt. It was an alchemist's volatile mixture that produced a column of fire, leaving a burning pool of accelerant wherever it smashed open. Artemis took another step, and a geyser of water erupted from the centre of the pool. The spurt reversed the direction of the fall and showered the clearing in a light rain. From within the pool, water stacked upon itself and formed shapes as a roar like waves crashing on the beach shook the clearing.

"It's definitely here!" Artemis hollered. She took aim and fired her revolvers into the pool. The roar grew louder, and a swirling mass of water rolled, snaking and forming. Giz and Artemis watched as a large abdomen, burly arms, and domed head arose. The water creature stood slightly more than five meters high and peered down at them through slits. Its surface swirled and spun as the water creature expanded, sucking up all the water.

"What the fuck is that?" Artemis yelled above the roaring waves. "Elementals aren't that big."

Giz examined the water creature. The vivid memory of the night he took the contract from Tukus, the goblin bounty master, came to him.

In his mind, Giz was drunk, slurring his words, and hanging off a barstool, his nose caked in green dust. Tukus had offered up a bounty that no one in the Hunter's Hall had been willing to take. Giz remembered watching his feet as he tried to step and cursing the blasted things for wanting to go in another direction. He'd looked at Tukus, hiccupped, and slurred: 'give it to me.' Tukus protested, claiming he didn't believe Giz and Artemis had the chops to take on a water-golem. Giz had fumed, grabbed the contract out of his hand, and flipped Tukus the bird before passing out in the corner of the Hunter's Hall. Giz shook the memory off as the creature roared again.

The golem's arms morphed into two massive hammers as it slammed the ground. Water coursed over the grass and erupted in two torrents, which Artemis easily dodged before firing five shots into the water golem's head. It shook the bullets off as though they were aggravating flies.

"That's a fucking water-golem." Giz cowered.

"Ah, Misteria's sake, Giz! I knew this contract paid too much." Artemis soared up with a hasty flap of her wings, avoiding the golem's water-slash.

Artemis flew around the golem, its projectile water-attacks tracing a line behind her. The golem alternated between throwing razors of water that travelled at incredible speed, cutting through everything in their path, and slamming the ground to create geysers that blasted colossal columns of water.

Artemis dodged between two erupting geysers and turned side-on to fire at the golem while she flew. With the golem's back turned, Giz lobbed alchemist's firebombs. The flasks shattered against the golem's swirling form. Steam rose from the gurgling golem, and a billowing fog descended over the clearing. The golem boomed, burning accelerant tearing through its form and sundering its watery arms from its trunk. They splashed insipidly to the pool.

"Well, fire seems to work," Artemis said.

She holstered her revolver, cracked the demon-bone whip and grinned as the fall ignited. Artemis sailed over the golem's head and lashed frantically. Repeating another diving pass, the golem growled as steam rose from its head and chest. It reformed itself after each lash.

Giz watched intently. "It's weakening," Giz called. "Keep hitting it."

Giz lobbed another firebomb while Artemis soared above the golem and whipped brutally. The firebomb shattered, drenching the golem in burning oil that hissed as the golem shuddered. The watery form collapsed into the pool.

As the water settled, Artemis noticed something glinting beneath the ripples. She hovered over the pool, spying a giant sapphire twinkling beneath the currents.

"The golem has a heart," Artemis said and nosedived.

She extended her hand, ready to snatch the heart, folding her wings to fall faster. Before her fingers breached the surface of the pool, it exploded and sent torrents of water across the clearing. Artemis was thrust back, tumbling over herself. She flared her wings and came to hover thirty meters above the glade. She scanned the clearing, searching for the heart.

There was the glint of sapphire.

"Smash the heart," she yelled.

Giz shook off water like a drenched dog, snapped back to presence, and sprinted for the heart while Artemis beat her wings and jetted towards it. The water droplets strewn about by the explosion vibrated. Giz observed streams of water rushing past his short sprinting legs. The water congregated and reformed around the sapphire heart.

Artemis pulled up, deactivated her whip, drew her revolvers, and fired wildly. Giz unsheathed Bella, his Virtuoso weapon that appeared a simple half-staff, and imagined a giant hammer. The weapon altered itself on the downswing into a gold-encrusted steel mallet as Giz delivered the jumping slam. The water covering the heart rose to meet Giz's swing, and a sonic clap emanated from the meeting of hammer and water. The concussive wave threw Giz off his feet, and Bella soared into the air above the clearing.

Artemis evaded the deadly spinning weapon and retrained her fire on the heart. The light refracted by the swirling water shone into her eyes, but her bullets found their mark. Luminous blue energy shone through the rapidly growing cracks. Artemis yelled triumphantly as more bullets flew and the sapphire ruptured.

Bella bounced off the crag behind her. The impact of the heavy hammer caused a vibration up the cliff, and cracks appeared in the rockface. Chunks of earth and rock fell as water seeped through the ruptures refilling the pool beneath.

The swirling water built on itself and the golem burst forth once more. It summoned a churning water barrier between its heart and Artemis' bullets. The fairy's hail of bullets slowed then sank in the water barrier, all stopping short of the golem's heart.

The golem reformed itself and stood, grander, and more terrifying than before. Artemis examined the creature from the air dodging between razors of water. The heart was now visible in its chest, blue light shining through the cracks her bullets had left on the surface of the sapphire. Giz sprinted across the glade to reclaim Bella as the golem sent a wave of water after him. He leapt over the wave, Artemis holstering her revolver and unfurling her whip. She peppered the golem with lashes, allowing Giz time to reclaim Bella.

"I've got a plan," Artemis yelled above the crashing waves and whipping the golem incessantly.

She darted between two water slices, pirouetted in the air and brought the whip around in a colossal arc of fire. It cut a deep gouge across the golem's chest. Artemis spun in the air and whipped again, narrowly avoiding two geysers summoned by the golem's slam. It thundered its discontent at missing the agile fairy.

"See what I did?" Artemis called over the golem's growls. "Next time I open its chest, you toast that heart."

Giz shouted an affirmative, Bella clenched firmly in his grip and squared off against the golem. Artemis attempted to whip it to get its attention, but it stared at Giz, the lava maker, instead.

The golem hammered the ground and sent two waves rolling towards Giz. Giz chortled and raised Bella. He imagined the tallest quarterstaff he could and sprinted to meet the waves. Artemis grinned as she whirled, flapping her wings faster with each turn, and trailing the whip behind her until she became a cyclone of fire.

Giz planted the quarterstaff; his feet left the ground. The fall of Artemis' whirling whip left deep gouges in the golem's chest. Giz sailed over the waves and lowered a hand from Bella to his belt as Artemis gouged more fiery streaks across the golem. Giz lobbed the alchemists' fire. They watched, breathless, as it sailed through the air and landed in a fissure in the swirling water.

Artemis came out of her disorienting manoeuvre. Giz's vault ended with him on the other side of the golem. As Artemis blinked, trying to stop the spinning, a massive geyser of water struck her. Artemis rode the column and felt her vision darkening as the force of the waterblast pummelled her. The channels cut in the golem's chest by the fiery whip closed around the flask. A moment later, the alchemist's fire exploded, spurting hot fuel over the heart. Instantly, both the column of water and the golem crumbled. The sapphire fell to the ground steaming and drenched in alchemist's fire.

Artemis' direction reversed. Unconscious, she fell helplessly to the clearing. Giz's eyes darted from the melting heart to Artemis. He knew he would not be able to cover the ground and could not catch the plummeting fairy even if he did. Giz ran regardless.

Suddenly, substantial vines grew from the centre of the rapidly increasing dot Artemis' shadow made on the ground. The vines twisted and hardened at the base while the shoots knitted together and grew leaves, forming a soft basket.

Giz ceased running and saw something impossible – Denbei the tiger, Artemis' animal companion, with his claws dug into the earth. His eyes were locked on Artemis. Wherever Denbei's eyes moved, the vine basket followed, adjusting beneath the fairy.

Artemis fell into the base of the leafy basket. It swung to one side and snapped back upright before Denbei's eyes rolled back in his head. The vines withered but they had done their job. Artemis landed on the ground, her fall considerably slowed, while Denbei keeled over from exhaustion.

Giz's eyes went from the melted golem heart to the unconscious fairy, to the panting tiger.

"What the fuck!?!"

Giz reached Artemis and tried to shake her awake. A large cut leaked blood across her forehead; she murmured. Giz grabbed the flap of her potion pouch, seized a healing potion by the neck, and uncorked it with his teeth. He cradled Artemis' head in his arm and tipped the potion down her gullet. Artemis spluttered, blood ceased flowing, and her eyes opened.

"What happened?" she asked weakly.

"No fucking idea," Giz said, studying the panting tiger. "He just, I don't know, made the land obey him. Mithrin! I've never seen anything like it."

"I'm ok." Artemis sat up. She wiped the blood from her forehead with the back of her soaked sleeve.

"You know what this means?" Giz's eyes glimmered.

Artemis looked at Denbei with concern and then returned her attention to Giz.

"You're all going to have to call me Giz Golem's-bane from now on!" Giz exclaimed with a cackle.

Artemis frowned at the puerile gnome. She rose slowly, helped by Giz, and limped over to Denbei. The healing potion performed its function, and Artemis felt the pain in her body lessen as the wound on her head knitted closed without a scar. She knelt at the wheezing tiger's side and ran her hands through his fur.

"Thank you, boy," she said. "Not sure what you did but thank you."

They rested in the shade of the clearing to give Denbei time to recover.

***

That afternoon they walked back to the road and collected their packs, continuing along with it. Giz and Artemis decided to make for Ethir, an insignificant elf settlement most travellers wandered past. They would have too, were it not for the Ethir Hunter's Hall where they hoped to claim their bounty. They moved at a leisurely pace dictated by Denbei's exhaustion.

Giz had told Artemis what he saw several times, but Artemis was still unconvinced.

"You mean he summoned the vines?" Artemis asked again.

"Well yeah, I mean, he burrowed his claws into the dirt, and all of a sudden vines burst out and tie themselves together and grow over one another," Giz explained.

"That's not possible," Artemis said. "Only powerful druids and natureweavers can cast magic like that, and they need to be pretty good at natural magic to shape spells on the fly."

"Huh, whatcha mean?"

"When have you ever heard a druid say I really wish I could cast a vine basket spell?"

"I don't know any druids," Giz said.

"Exactly," Artemis said, barely listening as they passed a mile marker that read: _Ethir_ _10_. "I mean unless it's some kind of natural ability, but I've known Denbei for a few years, and if he were a nature spirit and not a tiger, I'd have figured that out by now."

"He moans in his sleep like he's trying to talk," Giz said matter-of-factly.

"He does not," Artemis said, running her hands through the tiger's fur. Denbei's shoulder height stood about halfway between Artemis' waist and shoulder. Artemis would travel by riding Denbei sometimes, but of late, with her and Giz teaming up on more bounties they mostly walked everywhere. Nearly a year ago Artemis had suggested she fly while Giz rode Denbei, but the moment the gnome tried to put a leg over the tiger, Denbei snapped. Bucking wildly, Denbei had launched Giz into the air. The gnome had landed in a pile of packs and weapons with an extremely pissed off tiger snarling and standing over him. That was the first, and last time, Giz tried to mount the beast.

"Denbei is the sweetest little guy, isn't he?" Artemis said and scratched the tiger's chin absently as they walked. Giz stuck his finger in his mouth, pantomiming hurling. Denbei nuzzled up to the fairy, rubbing his cheek against Artemis' side.

A rustle came from up ahead, and Artemis stood static.

"What's –" Giz began.

"Shh," Artemis said.

She pointed ahead to where something standing behind a tree cast a shadow into the road. Artemis drew her revolver and crept forward. The shadow moved swiftly; Artemis darted ahead. She flapped her wings and sped past, circling the tree, but finding nothing.

"Probably just an animal," Artemis said. She holstered the revolver, landed, and turned back to see two elves. One, bow drawn on her and the other holding daggers to Giz and Denbei's throats.

"What have we here?" the elf with the bow asked. She was slight, with high cheekbones, purple braids in her hair, and lines of purple war paint on her face. Imprinted into the chest of her troll-hide armour were leaves and the symbol of the Tree of Life. A quiver hung at her hip and another on her back along with a curved blade.

"A pretty little fairy, an ugly dwarf, and a white tiger. What an odd trio," the other elf noted jovially. He was olive-skinned, wore a studded leather vest, and carried two short swords on his hips in addition to the daggers he had drawn on Denbei and Giz. He had the same tree symbol as the female elf on an amulet that hung around his neck.

"Who you calling a dwarf? I'm a gnome, you strange, little forest sprite," Giz barked. The elf pressed the dagger firmly against Giz's Adam's apple.

"No manners," the elf with the bow said. "What should we do with them?"

"Oh, I don't know? Rob them? Kill them? Let them go?"

"My favourite game, Stender," the elf with the bow said, checking her aim on Artemis.

"Mine too, Gladrien," Stender said.

Denbei roared. Stender flinched at the unexpected sound. Gladrien glanced at Stender, which gave Artemis enough time to draw her revolvers and aim at the elves.

Gladrien frowned at Artemis. "Ah, silly fairy ruining our fun," she said, un-nocking her arrow.

"Put the weapons away, Stender, for Elhandriel's sake," came a new, tired voice from behind Artemis. "You too, please. No need for hand cannons. It seems my scouts can't follow simple instructions."

Stender spun his blades and sheathed them in the crisscrossed scabbards behind his back. He patted Giz on the shoulder as he sauntered away from the snarling tiger and the irate gnome.

"I'll keep the cannons if it's all the same to you," Artemis said.

She turned slowly, keeping one pointed at Stender as he passed and lifted the other in the direction of the voice. Her eyes followed Stender as he went to stand next to the third elf. She was far older than the other two, wore simple green robes, and carried a long gnarled staff. A druid, Artemis surmised.

"Greetings from Ethir. I'm called Samandra. It's not often that we receive one of Misteria's disciples," the druid said, studying Artemis' amulet intently. "A Spellbinder and a gnome. How wonderful."

Samandra strode forward, her face bright and her mood cheery. She stopped after a few steps and beamed at Artemis, who still held the revolver on her.

"My apologies. Our welcomes are usually warmer than this, but given our recent spot of bother, it's best to be cautious. Especially when there are imposing creatures wandering about," Samandra said. "I'm Samandra, as I mentioned. The village healer and, at times, chief if one is required, that is."

Artemis lowered her revolvers gradually.

"I'd ask what business you have in our forest though I suspect I know the answer," Samandra said.

"We need to use your Hunter's Hall," Giz blurted. "Have a bounty to collect."

"The water-golem? Surely not," Stender said uncertainly.

"One in the same," Giz said as he produced the half-melted sapphire.

"Impressive," Gladrien said as she considered them. "We could have used you five days ago."

Gladrien held her bow and studied Artemis, admiring the fairy's magic bow. She wanted to reach out and touch the bowstring but restrained herself.

"What happened five days ago?" Artemis asked.

Samandra was staring at Denbei but refocused on Artemis. "Death came to Ethir."

Artemis and Giz exchanged glances as Samandra motioned for them to follow her.

***
The three elves, Artemis, Giz, and Denbei, entered the town of Ethir. Artemis could immediately tell something was amiss. At the town gates, a simple vine and bramble palisade nestled between two large oak trees, four guards watched their approach thumbing their weapons. Each carried composite bows, curved blades, and daggers. _Troops ready for battle,_ Artemis thought as they passed. The guards bowed to Samandra as the group entered Ethir.

Artemis spied more archers in the trees that formed the natural walls of the town of Ethir. It was evident that Samandra had been summoning trees to make accessing the town through any route other than its two gates problematic. The tree defences also provided some privacy from the air.

Every structure was fashioned from growing, living wood, shaped by the reverent hand of Samandra's druidic magics. Branches and vines grew out of trees and the ground to form the houses, stores, halls, and inn of Ethir. Elven folk went about their business, washing, carrying goods, cooking on compact magic stoves or in stone ovens.

Samandra led the group through town to a grove of singing trees on a hill. Artemis noticed the scorch marks on the homes and other living wood buildings. _Left by trebuchets or some form of siege weapons_ , she assumed, but some fires, near the town centre, still burned. Giz asked how this was possible five days on but, seeing the infernal orange glow, Artemis gulped; she already knew why.

"Those are meteor fires. A powerful mage cast a spell upon our town when we would not grant him access to Ethir," Samandra explained. "I summoned every creature of the forest to our aid, but he –"

Samandra scrunched up her eyes and blinked away the tears that welled there. Furious outrage rose in Artemis. She was Fey and loved nature and the land.

They reached the grove and looked down on the town. Some structures near the back gate of Ethir had been completely engulfed in flame and were now little more than charred husks of blackened wood.

"What mage could possibly do this?" Giz asked.

Gladrien held Samandra, still mourning the loss of the creatures she felt obligated to protect, and said, "the Iconoclast."

Giz witnessed the destruction that Vlad had wrought and shot Artemis a frightened look. They walked the last few meters to the druid's house, an incredible spire of vines and branches, sheathed in orchids.

"Vlad was here five days ago?" Artemis asked.

"Indeed," Stender said. "That evil bastard deserves to have Elhandriel smite him."

"When has our god done anything but sit in his ivory tower?" Gladrien spat.

She released Samandra, who squeezed her forearms affectionately and plodded along to sit on a swing-chair fashioned from creepers that hung off a branch of her home.

"I'm after Vlad," Artemis said. "Point me in the right direction, and you'll have your vengeance."

Gladrien and Stender exchanged tentative glances then burst out laughing. Samandra swayed in the chair as a cool breeze blew and studied Artemis. Denbei lay down and rested his maw on his paws; oddly mesmerized by the druid.

"Good one, Artemis," Stender said, "but a little soon for jokes."

"She's not joking. We took a contract on Vlad," Giz said. "Although I regret it more and more with each passing second."

The colour drained from Stender and Gladrien's faces. Samandra, conversely, seemed intrigued while she listened. Her eyes lingered on Artemis as though she were searching for something but not quite sure of what. Stender cleared his throat as if to speak then looked at the ground.

"I'd love to put an arrow between his eyes," Gladrien said resolutely. "Ten elves are dead from his magics, children included. As for the damage he caused to our forest, well..." Gladrien trailed off.

Four elven children kicked a ball, made of soft vines, to one another on the sandy path that led from the druid's grove back down into Ethir.

"We would have helped, had we known," Artemis said and looked determinedly at Samandra. "I would not ask your aid, you have suffered too much already. Allow us to collect our bounty and will purchase supplies and magic items from your merchants." Artemis considered Giz; they hadn't the time to stroll anymore. "If you have a horse we could buy, that'll help us catch up to Vlad."

"Alas," Gladrien said. "Our stables burned in the meteor showers."

Artemis cursed their luck, but Samandra spoke, "there's a herd of unicorns that range to the north of here – no swifter mounts exist. That is if you have the hand to break one."

Artemis smiled. "That I can do. I've done it before."

Samandra nodded. "Stender, show our friend Giz to the Hunter's Hall. Gladrien, escort Artemis to the vendors and allow her to pick what they require for their journey. I'm sure the smiths and traders would welcome a bit of commerce."

Samandra waved to them as they departed. Her face, so bright and welcoming before, was now grey and worn. _The burden of leadership,_ Artemis thought, _and the loss of her forest creatures._ Artemis could not imagine what the druid must have felt when Vlad burnt all those creatures, and the soul bonds she shared with them were suddenly severed. She had heard stories of druids going mad when such things happened.

The two elves, Giz, and Artemis marched down the hill. Artemis turned back, noticing Denbei's absence. The tiger and the old druid stared at one another; neither moved. Artemis called out to Denbei. It was rare for him to not come when called, more unusual still for him to not even acknowledge Artemis. She made to climb the hill, but Samandra called back, "I would have words with your tiger if you would allow it. Don't worry. He will be along shortly."

Artemis shrugged and followed Gladrien down the path to town as Giz and Stender headed off.

***
"What do you mean, you'll only pay us half?" Giz said indignantly.

Tukus stared at Giz through the speaking stone. It was a magic crystal that allowed folk, leagues away, to see and communicate with one another.

"The contract," Tukus began in a gurgling voice, a spindly finger tracing over an open ledger, "was for an undamaged golem's heart. You're lucky to be getting anything at all."

"No!" Giz yelled. "You said to kill the water golem, and we did that."

Tukus shook his head and dug a long black nail inside of his ear. He withdrew the nail and flicked off dark yellow wax.

"Read your contract carefully, Giztholomew. It's for the dispatch of the golem and safe return of its heart. The client will not be pleased that their reagent was damaged. It's essentially useless now."

Giz stared at the sapphire. Half of it had melted away in the firebombs, and the remaining half was a latticework of cracks.

"Perhaps," Tukus continued. "You might be able to sell that burnt hunk of glass to a jeweller who can make a few baubles out of it. For now, you may collect your earnings, fifteen hundred denarii, from the bounty-master at the Ethir Hall. She is aware, good day."

The light of the speaking stone faded. Giz placed the damaged heart back in his pack and turned to see Stender leaning against a doorframe, his arms folded.

"Fifteen hundred denarii? Maybe I should give this bounty hunting a go. I mean, if you can do it," Stender said.

Giz tittered sarcastically. "Sure thing, stretch. Takes a lot more than fancy knife work to be a Hunter," Giz shouldered the elf in the hip as he pushed past.

"Unquestionably, master gnome," Stender said. "I think I'll accompany you on the road. What would you say to that?"

"What would I say to that?" Giz pulled on his beard and gazed pensively into the distance. "What would I say to that?" Giz repeated. His eyes narrowed as he repeated the question several times. Stender waited until Giz gazed up at him. A sardonic smile flashed across Giz's face. "Not on your life, you strange, little forest sprite," he shouted, marching across the Hunter's Hall.

He slammed the contract down on the counter behind which the resident bounty master sat. The goblin tossed a sack of coins before Giz.

"It's all there," she indicated with her kukri blade. Giz snatched the sack and muttered to himself. _Shitty town. Shitty elves. Shitty Tukus._ He slammed the door on his way out. Stender could hear the gnome's livid curses as his footfalls faded.

"Hunters," the goblin murmured. "Half brained and half-mad. The lot of them."

Stender smiled and went after Giz.

***
"Well, I think that sounds like a wonderful idea, Stender," Artemis said as they browsed the merchant stalls. "It'll be good to have company on the road and another capable fighter when we face Vlad."

Stender winked at Giz, who swore under his breath. Gladrien, balancing potions, books, maps, quivers of arrows, camping supplies, and rations, nearly toppled over beneath the weight of Artemis' purchases. Artemis had managed to find a small vial of activated diamond dust, which she bought for a song after Gladrien told the shopkeeper Artemis' intended target. The merchants had warmed up to the fairy after that.

Gladrien informed Artemis that most merchants were dishonest and elven merchants most of all. However, now that they knew Artemis sought the dark elf that had attacked their homes, they shoved one another out of the way to offer her a deal.

One presented elven plate mail. "Lighter by a half and twice as robust," he said proudly. Artemis inspected the plate armour and sniggered; the chest plate was nearly as tall as she was.

Another boasted, "this sword slew the great wolf, Terakas."

Yet another, "this book of spells transcribed by the cleric and wizard Aerariel the Just."

"Pssh," a nearby alchemist said. "Your nephew wrote it, and he couldn't cast a cantrip if his life depended on it."

"Don't listen to them, noble fairy. I have here the great hammer of Mulbach Spine-crusher."

A portly elf cackled. "What fairy would use a great hammer? Here is Artemis, the Spellbinder, the swift, the deadly. I have here a powerful taaffeite catalyst; it would be a boon in your fight against the Iconoclast."

Artemis inspected the vial. It was full to the brim of the precious purple catalyst. She eyed it and could feel the aura of potency but knew the cost of such an item. It would require most, if not all, the denarii from their last few bounties. She shook her head, politely declining.

"Thank you, friends," Artemis said. She held up her hands, after nearly being crushed by the throng of merchants, and they ceased their barrage of pitches. "I think we have what we need. I appreciate your generosity. These supplies will help us on the road."

The disappointed merchants shuffled off to peddle their wares to the usual townsfolk.

Stender and Gladrien led Artemis and Giz towards Ethir's palisade gate, and Artemis wondered what was keeping Denbei. Waiting at the Ethir village exit were Samandra and Denbei, who lay at her feet. Artemis felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the portly elven merchant. He pressed the vial of taaffeite dust into her hand and smiled.

"I can't pay for this," Artemis said, but the merchant squeezed her hand clasped around the vial a little tighter.

"Fry that fucker for us. That's payment enough," the merchant said. He bowed respectfully and headed back to his stall.

"Be careful," he called over his shoulder. "There is such a thing as too much power."

Artemis was stunned. She stared at the vial and ran her hands over it, scarcely believing the energy that flowed through her arm from just being in proximity to the taaffeite. This was a catalyst that wanted to be used, that wished to bind the elements to its employer's will. She placed it carefully inside a buttoned pocket in her duster and went to where the others waited for her.

Denbei leapt up and ran to her. Artemis ruffled his fur and scratched him behind the ears.

"Good," Samandra said. "Did you get what you needed?"

"Yes," Artemis said. "We're all set."

Samandra looked forlornly down the dusty road.

"I wish that I too could join this merry band, but my place is here. Nature abhors imbalance. While Vladimir The Iconoclast lives, I fear She will not enjoy equilibrium again. With Gladrien gone we will have a tough time, but we will make do."

Artemis and Giz were both confused.

"I don't understand. I thought Stender was joining us?" Artemis queried.

"Stender's place is here. He will succeed me one day soon when I feed root and vine. He sways like a reed in the wind, but his roots are firmly planted. Gladrien, on the other hand, has more to offer, I think. She may go. Stender will stay."

Gladrien patted Stender on the back and, after saying their goodbyes to a disillusioned Stender, they headed out the gates. Samandra accompanied them to the end of the road until it met with the one they had travelled on earlier that morning. At the intersection, Gladrien whistled, and a formidable dire panther stole out of the bushes.

"This is Sprig," she said as the panther sat obediently at her feet. Denbei inched closer, sniffing at the panther. It remained incredibly still with Gladrien's leather boot pressed between its shoulders, but Sprig tensed.

"Hold, Sprig. This guy here is Denbei. You two had better play nicely, or there won't be any dinner. Understood?"

Artemis watched as Denbei approached thoughtfully. At Gladrien's threat, Sprig placed her chin on the ground. Denbei sniffed her mouth, then Sprig licked his. Another nervous moment passed. Denbei lay down next to Sprig, and the two of them groomed one another. Artemis, Gladrien, Samandra, and Giz watched the animals. After a few more minutes, Denbei pounced up and shook his tail at Sprig. She pressed onto her front paws as Denbei darted off, and Sprig gave chase.

"Ah, good," Gladrien said. She smiled at Artemis. "Looks like our companions are going to get along just fine."

Gladrien walked away from the junction with Giz following her.

"A word, Spellbinder, if I may?" Samandra said. Artemis nodded as the elf and gnome continued after the animals.

"Your tiger is far more than he seems, though he asked me not to say anything."

Artemis raised an eyebrow.

"Talking with animals is one of my druidic gifts. Denbei's heart hasn't always been in the right place, a lot of pain in that one, but with you, I think he's finally found his true calling."

"What do you mean by that? More than what?"

"Time reveals all, my Fey friend, for now, we should both respect Denbei's wishes," Samandra said. "Good luck. May Misteria and Elhandriel both guide your hand."

Artemis watched Samandra shuffle towards Ethir. She was happy for the blessing of both her god and the elven one as she flapped her wings and sped off to catch up to the others.

***
"The key to unicorn taming is tenacity," Artemis said from behind the treeline, downwind from the lesser herd. Twenty strong, the unicorns grazed between a small stand of trees. They could already smell the elf, gnome, and fairy. Denbei and Sprig crouched in the bushes neighbouring the road as Artemis knew their scent would spook the unicorns.

"We need to bring the animal in and get it used to a rider. Give me a bit of time. I'll sneak up on it," Gladrien said.

"I'll get it done quicker," Artemis said proudly. "It's not a horse we're breaking. Unicorns are far more intelligent. They bond with their rider. I've even seen a unicorn give its life for a rider it loved."

Gladrien shrugged and indicated for Artemis to proceed.

"Which one strikes your fancy, Giz?"

Giz scrutinized the herd, spying several white unicorns, blue, pink, orange, grey, and one large bull. The bull was black with a horn so imposing it was as though a dagger jutted out from his forehead.

"The black one!"

"No," Artemis said. "That's the herd stud. Studs aren't meant to be tamed. Try again?"

"Oh, um, er, why don't you pick?"

"How about the pink one?" Gladrien said. "Strong haunches, a muscled flank, with a thick, powerful neck."

Giz glanced at the elf grumpily.

"How about the young blue male?" Artemis suggested.

Giz observed the unicorn, he was smaller than most of the herd, but he had bright orange eyes and a pristinely white horn.

"That's a good-looking horse," Giz said. "That's the one."

Artemis grinned as she deposited her pack and retrieved a rope. She took wing and glided above the herd. The unicorns stopped grazing; intuitive animals, a few trotted away from the buzzing sound.

Artemis flapped lazily while hovering. She aimed at the blue unicorn and began to swing the rope slowly. The rhythm of the lasso's oscillations kept time with her wing flaps. The unicorns scattered, and Artemis plunged after the herd. By the time her rope was around the blue unicorn's horn, he was at full gallop. Artemis hung onto the line, flexing her wings slightly to increase resistance and tire the creature. He darted left. Artemis barrel-rolled to avoid a looming tree trunk, temporarily reducing the drag on the line. The unicorn snapped its muscled neck from side to side, jerking the rope and trying to shake it loose as it galloped. A swift snap of the neck coupled with a change of direction and the noose slipped from the unicorn's horn.

"Misteria's sake," Artemis said.

She returned to the sky and traced the unicorn's movements. It continued to gallop but slowed down when it was certain danger had passed.

"Looks like someone might have tried this on you before," she said, watching the skittish unicorn.

The creature halted and surveyed its surroundings. Artemis looped the rope twice and dove, beating her wings to increase her speed. She fell at an angle and glided beneath the unicorn's chin turning as she did and snapping the loops together. One settled around the unicorn's muzzle and the other over its horn. The unicorn reared and tried to kick, but Artemis had long since passed. She used the resistance on the ropes to circle, pulling the unicorn off balance and double binding its muzzle. It tore off at a gallop, but she was closer now and counterbalanced. She brought the cords of rope together, climbing hand over hand until she was on its back.

Artemis spread her wings, yanking the unicorn's muzzle, forcing him to stare upward and slow to a canter as it could no longer see where it was going. It began to buck, but Artemis held on to the rope reigns. It would throw her in the air, but between the reigns and her wings, the creature could not shake her.

Eventually, it calmed, and Artemis talked in a soothing voice. The unicorn whinnied and neighed, but Artemis kept talking it down. After more than ten minutes, the blue unicorn seemed tranquil, and Artemis guided it back to the others, enduring a few kicks and bucks of protest.

"Ta-da," Artemis said as she turned the unicorn side-on showing Giz his new mount.

Giz smiled. "That's great, Arty, wow."

"Where's Gladrien?"

Giz pointed. A few hundred meters away, Gladrien rode the black unicorn stallion. Her head was down, and she whistled in an odd tune. The creature seemed to enjoy it and charged vigorously at them.

"You got your blue one, after all?" Gladrien grinned. Artemis got the feeling if Gladrien had an interval stone she would have checked it.

Artemis mouthed wordlessly. "How did you manage that?"

"I'm a warden. I've lived in the wood most of my life," Gladrien explained. "I was trying to tell you we need only bring the beast down so I could calm it and allow it to be ridden."

Artemis folded her arms and tried to hide her embarrassment. "I um," she began.

Gladrien laughed and dismounted. She removed the rope from the stud's muzzle and slapped its flank. The unicorn raced off, its heavy hooves clapping against the hard ground of the road. It reached the clearing and became a black sail in a sea of grass.

"I'd never take a stallion from his blessing," Gladrien said. She went to the blue unicorn and lay her hands on him, calming the creature. She motioned for Artemis to dismount and turned to Giz. "What are you going to name him?"

Giz scratched his chin. "Blue?"

"Terrible," Artemis said.

"What does he say his name is?" Giz asked Gladrien.

"I'm afraid I don't have that gift."

"Let's call him..." Giz pulled on his beard and stared pensively at the ground. "Horse."

"Horse the Unicorn? That's worse than Blue," Artemis said glumly. Gladrien showing her up at had wounded her pride more than she let on.

"It's Horse for now until we think of something better," Giz said. "Can I get on him?"

Gladrien bent forward to rest her cheek against Horse's and whispered to him.

"Go for it," she said as she offered a hand to Giz and helped him mount Horse. The unicorn shuddered but relaxed at Gladrien's calming pats. "Say something to him," Gladrien said. "They're instinctive animals and need to feel comfortable with their rider to flourish."

Giz remembered what Artemis would often say to Denbei.

"Aren't you just the cutest little guy," Giz said. Horse bucked hard. Giz held tightly to the reigns and looked helplessly at Gladrien.

"It doesn't like to be called small. It gets that from all the other unicorns. Try again."

Giz went for it. He released the reigns and placed both hands on the creature's neck. Horse shook apprehensively, still wary of Giz.

"I'm small, too, ok. They always underestimate me, but together the two of us are going to be legends. Horse and Giz, Giz and Horse – greatest Hunter's in the land."

Horse began to trot, and they wandered off. Giz waxed on about the adventures to come and the battles into which they would ride. Ten minutes later, after Horse had completed a circuit through the forest, Giz and he returned.

"You two were made for each other," Gladrien said admiring how comfortable the unicorn seemed with the gnome.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Artemis said. "We've got a lot of ground to cover."

Gladrien nodded and whistled for Sprig. The dire panther came running, Denbei in tow. Artemis and Gladrien mounted their animals and were off. They would have two hours of riding before making camp that night.

***
Three days on, the hunters made camp in a hollowed stump of a long-dead tree. Gladrien had been noncommittal when asked directly about her reasons for accompanying Artemis and Giz. Every answer was vague but Artemis understood this; she had her own personal reasons for chasing Vlad. Her mother, Asteria, had followed Vlad on adventures into other worlds. Raziel had gone after her, and neither had ever returned.

Sleep came quickly for all three companions after the day's ride. They had left the forest and crossed through open plains. Gladrien had insisted they skirt past a nearby mostly orcish and troll settlement, Gor'bak, as elves were not always met with warm welcomes there. Artemis didn't mind. She preferred the sky and stars and quiet of nature to rafters and rooves and the sound of folk carousing in taverns.

After midnight Artemis awoke with a start. The fire had died, but Artemis could make out Gladrien, crouching with her back pressed against the petrified wood. With bow drawn and an arrow nocked, Gladrien signalled for her to stay quiet and lay down. Artemis obliged, but her hand crept to her revolver, gripping it until she heard a sniffle and then crying. A squeaking voice hushed the outburst, but the sniffling continued.

"Hey, what's going on?" Giz said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

A cry of fright and the other voices went silent. Gladrien glared at Giz. Artemis stood quickly and walked around the edge of the hollowed-out tree. She scanned the area carefully.

"Anyone there?" she asked.

She noticed a faint green glow from behind some toadstools. Two moons were waxing crescent and provided scant light. Were it not the dead of night, she would have missed the little glowing orbs.

"If you are, I'd come out now. I've two very hungry beasts to unleash," Artemis said.

The lights jittered behind the toadstools but didn't reveal themselves. Artemis drew her hand across her amulet and summoned an orb of light above the toadstools. The sudden illumination frightened the creatures, and they flew out.

"Pixies!" Artemis exclaimed.

The three green lights circled around the larger light, and Artemis put down her revolver.

"Pixies! Pixies!" Giz shouted.

He ran out from the tree, naked from the waist down. Artemis had to grab Giz by the shirt to hold him back. The little folk, pulsing green, turned from the light to Giz and Artemis, and seeing the gnome, they shrieked.

"Don't hurt us. Please."

"Hurt you?" Artemis asked. "I would never."

She wrenched Giz off his feet. Landing with a thump, his eyes wild, he verged on slobbering.

"Go inside, Giz. You're going to scare them off."

"The pixies. The beautiful little pixies. Come to Giz, pixies. Come to daddy. You beautiful little dusties." Giz did slobber now. He rose, pulling away, and the pixies bolted. Giz was after them in a second, but they soared up, fading into the sky. Giz fell to his knees and bawled.

"I was so close!" he cried. "So close to getting three little dust dispensers. Why, Arty? Why?"

Artemis glowered jadedly at the gnome.

"Control yourself, Giz," Gladrien said with disgust. "Pixies are harmless, loveable creatures."

Giz sobbed on his knees.

"Stay here," Artemis said, rising. "I'm going to find them."

Artemis headed in the direction the pixies had flown. After a few minutes of circling the area, she saw the three green glows and landed near them. They squeaked and sped off to a nearby bush.

Artemis spoke soothingly while the pixies peered at her from within the bush. "Be calm, my little friends. I left the idiot gnome back at our camp."

"You! You're evil!" came a shrill voice.

"No, I'm not," Artemis said.

"Yes," another said. "You're travelling with a dust junkie! That makes you evil in any pixies' book."

Artemis sighed. "Let's start over. I'm Artemis," she said, putting out her hand. The pixies floated out of the bush. Each one's grey wings span was twice as wide as they were tall, and they wore coats and skull caps while their skin pulsed green. They had long noses, black eyes, and different coloured hair: one yellow, one green, one grey. The pixies drifted towards Artemis and one by one they each clasped and shook her index finger while they introduced themselves.

"Lark," the yellow-haired pixie said.

"Bark," the green-haired pixie said.

"Fark," the grey-haired pixie said.

"A pleasure," Artemis said. "And sorry about Giz. He's not so bad once you get to know him, but maybe we should keep you separated."

The pixies spun around one another, flying in concentric circles.

"Why did you follow us, Artemis?" Fark asked.

"When you were at our camp, I heard one of you crying."

"Sorry," Bark said. Artemis inspected the pixie, she looked like a girl and smaller than the other two.

"See," Lark said. "I told you to be quiet. Getting us in trouble with a big one."

"Hey," Artemis said defensively. "I'm not just any big one. I'm a fairy, and that makes us cousins. What was wrong, Bark?"

The pixie looked to her siblings. Fark nodded for her to continue.

"It's our parents, they were taken by the orcs and trolls to the Dust-mines."

"The Dust-mines?"

"Oh," Bark squealed. "It's a horrible place where they take pixies and, and..."

"And?" Artemis asked apprehensively, holding back a wince.

"They harvest all their dust," Fark said. "Day in and day out till the pixie dies."

"What? That's criminal," Artemis said.

"Pa used to say a pixie could make a good living selling a bit of dust now and again, but if you give too much too quickly, you start to lose your magic. If a pixie loses all its dust well..."

"That's horrible," Artemis said. She didn't hesitate. "Where are the mines? I'll get them back."

"There's a camp outside of Gor'bak," Fark said. Artemis could see he was the oldest of the three. "But what can one fairy do against all the orcs and trolls there?"

"I'm a Spellbinder for starters, and I'm not alone," Artemis said. "Wait here. I'll be back shortly."

***
Artemis had known several skilled bounty hunters over the years. One or two of the best had been orcs, but they were generally evil, savage folk. The Dust-mine lay an hour south of their camp in the petrified tree. They rode to the mine quickly while it was still dark.

Having left the pixies half a kilometre back, Artemis, Gladrien, Giz, Denbei, Sprig, and Horse crept up the bank to survey the Dust-miners camp from the cover of a log. Several orcs holding torches patrolled the perimeter of the camp. Most of the orcs were outfitted with simple iron weapons: axes, spears, and maces. Artemis counted eighteen on their feet, many more sleeping by fires and in the white tents. The orcs averaged six feet or one meter, eighty centimetres, in height, but most were on the heavier side; these were war orcs. Two trolls stood at the entrance to a cave at the other end of the Dust-mine camp. An orc holding a tiny cage that glowed green stopped to talk to them before heading into the cavern. The trolls were taller than the orcs by a half and twice as wide, each of them brandished large misshapen clubs.

"What do you want to do, Arty?" Giz said.

"I don't want an open fight. It's too dangerous. It looks like they're keeping the pixies in the cave. We need to get there without having all the orcs to deal with."

Gladrien nodded and confirmed, "draw them away?"

"Yes," Artemis said. She scratched her spiky blonde hair. "We're going to set those tents on fire. Giz, you, Sprig, Denbei, and Horse, can lead the orcs off while Gladrien and I go get the pixies."

"You're the boss, Arty," Giz said.

Artemis took the bow off her back and handed it to Gladrien.

"What's this?" Gladrien asked. Artemis had caught Gladrien eyeing the bow since the day they first met.

"Antheria's Bow," Artemis said proudly. "Legend has it a thousand years ago when Antheria was picked by Misteria as her avatar, Misteria gifted Antheria this bow. It can fire magic, flame, ice, acid, and lightning arrows. Think of the element when you pull back the bowstring and then release."

"I –" Gladrien stuttered. She held the bow in awe.

"Don't break it, there's only one," Artemis said. "Now light up those tents. Giz, go make a ruckus."

Giz mounted Horse and readied himself as Gladrien drew back Antheria's bow, imagining smouldering embers. Artemis drew her hand across her moonstone amulet and concentrated all her energy on the campfires. Giz, Horse, and the animals charged down the bank. The orcish sentries let loose shouts and cries of fury as they grabbed for weapons. Gladrien let flame-arrows fly, piercing through the tents and leaving smoking holes that smouldered before igniting.

"Come on, you ugly fuckers," Giz bellowed.

He drew Bella and imagined a flail with three heads. Giz swung the flail, and three spiked balls crushed the skull of an orc sentry. Denbei and Sprig took down an orc and ripped into its throat and stomach.

The tents burned as did the orcs inside. Artemis drew forth great columns of fire in her mind's eye and then spoke the incantation. All the campfires detonated outwards from her fireball spell. The orcs still rousing by the fire shrieked, engulfed in flames, and burnt to cinders.

"Let's ride," Giz said as the orcs let out another salvo of furious battle cries. Giz tapped his heels and Horse galloped. Denbei and Sprig followed close behind. An orc tried to step in their path, but Horse knocked him down. Denbei tore the dazed orc's throat open and followed the charge. The orcs tore after Giz who swung his flail again, devastating another orc's skull.

Gladrien smirked as she loosed more arrows; the tents burned. A group of five orcs exited and unburned tent, spied Artemis and Gladrien and advanced. Artemis flapped her wings, hovering above the camp, to fire unobstructed and drew her revolvers. She shot at the orcs while Gladrien loosed magic arrows. One orc after another fell with either a hole between the eyes or the fletch of a sparkling magic arrow sticking out.

Many orcs perished in the fires, those that remained chased Giz and the animals through the fields. Giz turned Horse, imagining spear instead of flail and raced towards the orcs as his Virtuoso weapon morphed. Giz speared one, then another, while the animals pounced on the prone orcs and crushed skulls and throats in their maws. They leapt away as more orcs neared them to chase after Giz who rounded to repeat his charge.

Artemis and Gladrien snuck into the camp. The fires raged, and the scent of charred orc wafted. Artemis pinched her nose as they headed towards the cave. The trolls had fled at the sight of the exploding campfires. There is one thing trolls fear above all: fire. Unless they were beheaded, their hearts removed or set ablaze a troll's magic blood would ensure they rose anew. Artemis cast a light spell above their heads as they entered the cave. Gladrien held the bow onehanded as she drew her curved blade and Artemis readied both revolvers.

The ground sloped down sharply, and before long they were deep below ground. They heard a sound reminiscent of breaking twigs and Artemis extinguished the light.

They crept forward in the dark, stepping cautiously in case there were traps. Ahead, they spied an orange glow and snuck towards it, keeping flush against the stone and sand walls of the tunnel.

"Whaatrre yu doing 'ere," a Troll's voice echoed down the earthen passage.

"Dey've attacked us we gots to tell Chief Zug, sirrr," another troll stammered. Artemis crept closer and spied around the corner.

She could make out three trolls and four orcs. Torches hung in sconces around the room, with a cooking fire in one corner, next to a stack of miniature cages. Artemis inspected the cages but found them empty. She signalled for Gladrien to get ready. Artemis darted out from around the wall and blasted the orcs with her revolvers. All four were dead before they could taste the dirt. She trained her revolvers on two of the trolls, the ones that held clubs, while she stared down the third. He was taller by a foot than the others and wore a large apron stained with blood and muck.

"Where are the pixies?"

"Hoor arr you?"

Artemis shot each of the trolls in their right feet. They jumped up and down, holding their bloody feet and howling.

"Tell me where the pixies are," Artemis growled.

The trolls ceased hopping as their wounds closed.

"Shouldn'ta dun dat," the aproned troll said, picking up a large frying pan and hurling it at Artemis. She spun out the way and returned fire at the trolls. Knees, head, heart. The bullets cut through troll flesh and sunk into the cave walls behind. The trolls stumbled and advanced on her. One fell, but the other swung his club in a warding way, pushing Artemis back into the tunnel. Gladrien snuck behind the advancing troll and cut his hamstrings. He joined the other on the floor.

"Himhimhim," the aproned troll bellowed. He grabbed two pots by their handles and lunged at Gladrien, scoffing indignantly.

Artemis kept firing at the two on the floor. She had to kill the trolls and burn or behead them to prevent them from rising again. She drew her hand across her moonstone amulet readying some diamond dust catalyst. Gladrien parried the two pots and brought her blade across the chest of the aproned troll. The blade cut deeply into troll flesh and severed the straps of the apron. The troll shrieked as blood gushed and he smashed down with the pots, but Gladrien was quicker on her feet. She stepped to the side, evading the pots, as Artemis finished her incantation and released a wave of fire.

The flame blast ignited the dead trolls ensuring they would not return. Gladrien's sidestep was followed with a backward upthrust of her blade. The curved blade burst through the middle of the troll's chest. It spluttered and coughed black blood. Gladrien twirled, seized the hilt of her sword, placed one boot on the small of the troll's back, and pulled her blade free. The troll dropped to its knees, and Gladrien gripped it by its greasy hair as she thrust her sword into the dirt. Hauling as hard as she could, the troll fell to its back. Gladrien seized a torch from the wall sconce and shoved it into through the hole in the troll's chest. It screamed as it ignited, but soon the blaring ceased, and the smell of charred troll fat filled the small alcove.

"Hmm," Artemis said with a whine, holding her nose. "Not bad."

Gladrien curtseyed mockingly and retrieved her blade. "Come on, we haven't the time to waste."

Artemis and Gladrien ran down the cave path that led away from the alcove. Several minutes later, they reached the end. A large torch-lit room with rows of simple wooden tables, alchemist beakers, burners, and stacks of cages stretched out before them. Artemis scanned the cages and saw the green lights of the moth-like-pixies. She noticed too, at the end of the room, three more trolls, five orcs, and two other shadowy figures.

"Hold," Gladrien whispered. "Allow me."

Gladrien closed her eyes and concentrated. She spoke an incantation while she meditated on the forest and her god, Elhandriel. Artemis watched as pearlescent vines grew out the ground and seized the orcs and trolls. The two figures, however, were far too agile. One floated up out of reach of the vines and Artemis took note of each. The flying one was a fairy, male, with jet black hair, chainmail, and two short swords. A warrior of some kind. The other figure, a robed gnome, with white hair, belts of potions around his waist, and a spellbook floating next to him. The gnome batted the vines away with a flick of his wrist, insusceptible to such elementary spells.

"Allow us to collect the pixies," Artemis shouted across the room. "And I won't kill you were you stand."

The gnome laughed as his spell-book cracked open. He glanced at it before firing a bolt of lightning at Artemis. Artemis drew her hand across her amulet and created a barrier. The lighting bounced off the barrier and returned at the gnome who cast a similar spell. Caught between two magic shields, the lightning bolt went awry and deflected into a mud wall where it fizzled.

The male fairy sped towards Artemis and Gladrien. Artemis nodded at Gladrien and indicated to the orcs; Gladrien pulled back Antheria's bowstring and imagined an inferno. She loosed fire arrows, felling snared orcs and trolls while she leapt and danced over tables. Gladrien spun between balls of ice cast by the gnome and returned fire arrows. Artemis didn't have long to marvel at the speed of Gladrien's shots as the fairy tried to barrel through her barrier.

Artemis held the barrier as the opposing fairy drew his swords and slashed through her magic blockade. Raising a revolver, she shot at the fairy. It tried to block, but the bullet pierced a wing. The fairy glanced at the hole in his wing and seethed. He cut through the barrier in two ireful chops and met Artemis on the other side. Artemis flapped her wings and sped around the room, dodging sword swipes and firing back at her nimble foe. At the same time, Gladrien pranced over tabletops, destroying the extraction equipment and downing orcs and trolls. They shrieked as her arrows pierced them, burning with arcane fire. Gladrien dodged a volley of snowballs thrown by the gnomish wizard, then fired magic arrows, killing the last two orcs. She returned fire at his spellbook, but the gnome batted the projectiles away; one deflected, ending up in a troll's throat. The troll's head ignited, and it fell, dead before it hit the ground.

"GUUUHH," a troll, larger than the others, with a black rag tied around his face and over one eye screamed. "Chieftain Zug ill drink fam yyr skull."

Zug broke free of the magic vines, flourished a giant battle-axe, and lunged at Gladrien. She bounced back as the axe crashed through the table upon which she stood. Gladrien was lifted by the force of the axe swing. She landed on the shaft of the battle axe, ran up it, and leapt onto Chieftain Zug's shoulder where she fired two flame arrows into the back of his neck. A ball of ice struck her back, and she fell to the ground, rolling between Zug's stamping feet.

Above, Artemis darted between sword swipes and fired back, when she could, at the evasive fairy. He spun and dragged his swords through the air, becoming a whirlwind of blades. She released a volley of shots, but his swords deflected her bullets. Artemis turned to see the gnome casting a spell at Gladrien. She trained her revolver on him and fired twice. One bullet pierced the spell book, the other cut through the gnome's hand. Artemis avoided the opposing fairy's swords, attempting to fire on the last troll breaking free of the vine entanglements. The troll fell while Gladrien rolled under the tables, avoiding Zug's furious stomps. Zug wrenched his axe free and was after Gladrien. Artemis landed next to the gnome, seized him, and held a revolver to his head.

"Enough," she cried. "I'll waste him if anyone takes another step."

Gladrien stood on the other side of the table and drew back the bow, imagining fire, she shot the downed troll, igniting it, then aimed at the fairy. He was bleeding from the stomach; one of Artemis' bullets had found their mark. Zug glared menacingly at Gladrien.

"Our master will not be pleased if we allow you to escape," the fairy said.

"Who is your master?" Artemis asked as she pressed the hot barrel of her revolver into the gnome's temple. He yelped as it singed the side of his head. "Who is your master?" Artemis repeated as she pulled back the hammer.

"They call her the Earthbender," the fairy said, landing close to Gladrien. "Let my associate go." He made as though he were putting his swords down but swiped up at Gladrien. The blades cut through Gladrien's leather armour and left two slashes, one in her stomach, and one on her arm. She cried out and dropped Antheria's bow.

"No," Artemis yelled as she kicked the gnome forward. She fired her revolvers. One shot pierced the gnome's back while the other hit the fairy dead centre. Artemis fired on the fairy, more bullets cutting through him as he feebly tried to raise his swords. Gladrien stumbled and Zug charged her. The gnome quaffed a potion turning invisible as the fairy swordsman's eyes rolled back and he collapsed, blood streaming from holes in his chest. Artemis fired at Zug who shrugged the bullets off, and Gladrien rolled out the way of Zug's downswing.

"I have him," Gladrien said as she clutched her stomach and drew her curved blade. "Kill the wizard."

Artemis scanned the room, looking for shimmers, anything that would give away the injured mage's position. Suddenly yellow missiles shot out in an arc towards her. She dodged between them and they flew into the compressed earth wall behind her. Artemis fired back but hit nothing. She flew across the room, holstered her revolvers, and drew her demon bone whip. She cracked it, and the fall ignited. More missiles came at her from the middle of the room. She dodged, but one struck her thigh, scowling as the magic singed her leg and left a bright red burn.

Artemis lashed in arcs, trying to catch the invisible enemy as Gladrien sidestepped Zug's downswings while clutching her stomach. She couldn't hope to deflect Zug's giant axe. She evaded and then thrust her blade, piercing Zug's side. She withdrew the sword as the troll swiped at her, batting her down with his heavy clawed mitts. Zug followed up with another swipe, but Gladrien raised her blade tip, and the troll impaled his own hand. He shrieked again and ripped his hand back, cutting it in half. The troll chief attempted to lift the giant axe one-handed, but it was stuck in the ground. Still on the floor, Gladrien lashed out and sunk her sword into Zug's thigh. The troll screamed and took a knee. He squeezed the two halves of his hand together, hoping his regenerative blood would begin to heal the wound. Gladrien crawled away, trying to hold her own laceration closed.

Artemis waited for more missiles to be fired at her. She held the whip and readied some catalyst. She twirled in the air, briefly seeing Zug kneeling and shaking his damaged hand with an elven blade sticking out his thigh. The missiles came from nearby. Artemis sped forward, moving between them, and released a wave of flame. The gnomish wizards' robes caught alight, and Artemis could see the trace of fire in the air as the wizard screamed. Artemis lashed at the smoking figure. Blood splashed out from the flames, and the burning wizard fell. Artemis landed and cracked the whip down mightily several times. The screaming ceased, and the invisibility potion wore off. The gnome lay unmoving with several deep grooves cut into him and his robes still smoking.

Gladrien grabbed Antheria's bow and fired desperately at Zug. Two, three, four arrows pierced his chest. Gladrien wobbled and fired again, her rage growing. Soon, ten flaming arrows stuck out of his chest and face. Gladrien closed the gap, and with a mighty heave, she lifted Zug's great axe and brought it down on his head. She split the troll in two down to its waist, and then the flames caught over his whole body, turning him to charcoal.

Gladrien dropped to her knees and held her hands over her torn stomach, reciting the words of a healing spell. It was an elementary one, but some of the wound knitted together and the bleeding lessened. Artemis flipped the gnome over and reached into his potion belt. She found two simple healing potions and tossed them to Gladrien who quaffed them gratefully.

"Get us out," came the cries of some pixies who had watched the fight in awe.

Artemis flew to the cages and ripped the doors off. The pixies, some twenty, flew out. A few circled around Artemis' thigh casting their own minor healing spells while others flew to Gladrien to do the same. Both Artemis and Gladrien felt invigorated as if they had just had a good night's rest rather than a deadly battle.

"Thank you, stranger," a female pixie said. "How can we ever repay you?'

"It's not necessary. I'm looking for the parents of Fark, Bark, and Lark."

A single pixie flew up to Artemis' face and hovered there. "Where are my children?"

"They're safe," Artemis said. "They sent me here."

"My brave little ones," the pixie said. "Just like their father."

Artemis scanned the pixies, the majority were female, and the few males were either very young or very old.

"I take it their father isn't here," Artemis said.

"Dark, the children's father fought the troll chief when they tried to take us," a young male pixie said. "If it wasn't for him, they would have taken twice as many of us."

"What happened?" Artemis asked.

"He battled the troll and even blinded him, completely incinerated the bastard's eye so it couldn't grow back. But Zug caught him, crushed him, and ate him."

Fark, Bark, and Lark's mother sobbed. Artemis gave her condolences to the pixies. After looting the gnome, fairy, and Zug for useful magic items, she and the now healed Gladrien, led the pixies out of the cave.

Giz reclined in the middle of the dust miner's camp, amidst a sea of dead orcs. Sprig and Denbei ripped at orc corpses while the gnome giggled to himself, his nose caked in green dust. Lark, Bark, and Fark swirled around his head releasing floating dust showers which Giz tried to catch in a flask. They laughed at the gnome, crying with joy.

"Arty, look at them. They're sharing their dust with me."

"He killed so many orcs," Lark said. "He's a hero."

Artemis regarded the stoned gnome and shook her head. The pixies thanked Artemis and Gladrien, and then, despite Artemis' protests, helped to fill Giz's flask with pixie dust.

"What will you do now?" Artemis said to the pixies.

"We'll take our home back now that the dust-mine is no more."

The pixies bid them farewell as they flew away towards their toadstool homes. The heroes made camp and took a well-deserved rest amid the smoking ruin of the Dust-mine.

***
"We're lost," Giz said hopelessly and rested his forehead against Horse's mane. They had hoped to follow clues, a path of destruction left by Vlad, or at least a slew of crimes, but since Ethir almost no one had seen him, and those that had were not likely to speak of it. They were heading through another forest, having crossed the open plains, but with no clear destination. Giz dismounted from Horse, held up the magical map and looked it over. "You said Vlad was heading west, Gladrien, but there's nothing here."

Gladrien and Artemis dismounted from their animal companions and stretched. Gladrien went to Giz and gestured for the map. After passing it to the warden, he grumbled under his breath about 'taking an elf's time.'

"There's plenty here. Look," Gladrien said, beckoning Artemis over. Denbei and Sprig chased one another around and through an unimpressed Horse's legs; the unicorn tried to stay still despite the two predatory cats' jostling.

"See," Gladrien said, pointing at the map. "There's a fairy grove up here, and down here a gnomish settlement. If Vlad changed his direction north-east, he would head towards the mountains of Firag'Dun and the dwarven kingdoms. Now, we need only ask ourselves if we were a bloodthirsty savage dark elf intent on mayhem and murder where would we go?"

"Those fairies are Moon Tribe. Vlad wouldn't be able to take on that many sorcerers and Spellbinders at once, he would avoid them," Artemis said knowingly.

"The dwarven clans are massive. One battalion of defenders would cut him down; half his spells would be ineffective given their warded entrances," Gladrien said.

"Well," Giz said. "He isn't going to Nitix. There's nothing there except for pompous fucking assholes and their dumb Mithrin's Gauntlet. Stupid fucking dungeon for stupid fucking adventurers."

"Yes," Gladrien agreed. "I once guarded a Nitix caravan that would bring weapons to the arena. They are not pleasant taskmasters."

"There's still so much we don't know about you," Artemis said to Gladrien.

"My dear Artemis, I've seen our world rotate around the twin suns nearly a hundred and ninety-nine times; it would take half as long to tell you everything."

Gladrien smiled fondly at the fairy and the gnome.

"Know this, Vlad the Iconoclast threatens more than just the folk of this world. Samandra received a vision the night of Vlad's attack on Ethir. In it, she saw a group of heroes including an elf, a gnome, and a fairy stand against the Iconoclast when the world seemed lost. She believes you are that fairy, Artemis and you that gnome, Giz. Whatever happens, it is as it is meant to be. She sent Stender and me to find you. I had my doubts when we first met, but from the short time we've travelled together, I now see what she saw: pure valour and courage."

Artemis and Giz listened carefully; they both had questions.

Chiefly: "Why wait so long to tell us this?" Giz asked.

"Samandra told me not to say anything. At first, she believed that Stender was the elf she saw in the vision, but then she changed her mind. I do not know why."

"So, you're the elf Samandra believes stands with us against Vlad," Artemis said. She added, "in her vision, I mean."

Gladrien shook her head. "I don't know, she didn't say. There were apparently more heroes than just those three, but their faces were obscured."

"This sounds like bullshit," Giz said and crossed his arms. "Who sent this convenient vision? Huh?"

"Samandra believes it was Elhandriel or perhaps another god. She does not know."

Artemis nodded slowly. "I need a moment."

"Absolute BS. Gods don't give a flying-fuck about this world," Giz muttered. He checked his pixie dust and tipped a cap full out. "I mean honestly..."

Artemis flapped her wings and flew above the trees. She disappeared over the canopy leaving the other two to argue over the gods.

Artemis travelled for a few minutes and came to a tall tree with gnarled branches on which she landed. She closed her eyes, sighed, and tried to summon the courage. She opened them again and crossed her arms. _I don't want to,_ she thought. She debated with herself back and forth and eventually closed her eyes.

She began to pray out loud. "Hey, uh, Misteria. How're you doing? How've you been?" Artemis said. She opened her eyes and sighed. Then banged her fists on the tree branch. "Okay, okay, okay," Artemis said, closing her eyes again.

"Here we go. Noble and generous Misteria, goddess of the Fey-folk and binder of magic. You are worthy of all Fey praise and devotion. Please ignore my failings and..."

Artemis cleared her throat and searched for the words.

"Please ignore my failings and trespasses. I have not prayed to you in a long time and have enjoyed a life of hedonism and excess since I left your service. Drinking, drugging, fucki..., er, a life without chastity and virtue, but I am still a loyal servant, and I abide by your teachings. I help the weak and the sick and stand up for the small just as you do..."

Artemis stopped.

"Fuck this," she said. She scrunched her eyes and squeezed her fists.

"You know what Misteria? Screw you, you cold, heartless bitch. I'm not sorry! I had fun and killed a lot of bad fuckers, and I'd put them all in the ground again. Maybe some of the contracts Giz and I took were borderline, and maybe some folk got hurt, but we've done real good, for real folk. I saved Denbei. I saved someone. Unlike you, you absent and mercurial, so-called god. If I had your powers, I would have protected the fairies when the bigger folk attacked them. I would have protected my dad when he went to kill Vlad like you fucking should have."

Artemis realized she was screaming, but she didn't care.

"HE always believed in you. ALWAYS. He went to kill Vlad because he thought that's what you wanted. You let my mom get killed by him too. You... fucking... suck!"

Artemis sobbed. She wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I'm glad I was excommunicated from the Spellbinders. At least I don't have to follow a complete asshole anymore." Artemis huffed and hastily wiped her eyes. "I don't know why I'm asking but show me where Vlad is going so that I can clean up the mess you and the other gods should have."

Artemis opened her eyes and looked out at the forest and treetops stretching out before her. She flapped her wings and flew up from the tree, then scanned further than the wood. In the distance, she could make out a group of gigantic trees, hundreds of meters tall; the Moon Fairy grove.

She inspected the mountains and saw the borders of the dwarven kingdom that extended on through the seemingly endless ranges. Artemis spun around and saw the gnomish city of Nitix to the south-west. She had never been but her father, and Giz, when he wasn't spitting venom about the gnomish clans, had spoken of the grand dungeon games watched by thousands. Adventurers came from all over the realm to compete in the hopes of winning a grand prize. It was said that the games were invented by Mithrin, the gnomish god, and he would pick his next avatar from the gnomes who managed to run the gauntlet and make it out alive. No gnome had made it through the gauntlet in two generations, though many had tried.

Artemis flew back to the others. Gladrien regarded her curiously.

"Where do you want to go, Arty?" Giz asked. Artemis shrugged, still full of emotion.

"Somewhere with beer and leprechaun weed," Artemis said dejectedly.

"Well, all three locations have that," Gladrien said.

"Which is closest?"

"Nitix by a hair," Giz said. "But don't you want to see the fairies instead? Might be nice to see some of your own folk again, hey, Arty?"

Artemis shook her head vehemently. "I could think of nothing worse."

"Nitix it is then," Gladrien said. "Let's hope someone there has a lead on Vlad."

***
Artemis, Giz, Gladrien and their animals reached Nitix by the following afternoon. They walked next to their animals, to give them time to recover, having ridden hard the whole day. When they reached the city gates, set into impenetrable grey stone walls, they found them barred. Four gnomish sentries huddled together and watched their approach disinterestedly from the ramparts before turning their backs on them.

"Hey short-shits," Giz bellowed from the ground. "Open the gates, my friends and I have drinking to do."

One gnomish sentry peered down at them. "Go away."

"What?" Giz projected back. "Open these gates before I ram this staff up your ass."

"No," another gnome squeaked. "Go away! The taverns are closed. Everyone's at the arena, so go away."

Gladrien sat, cross-legged, next to Sprig, while Giz jogged up to the gate. He pulled Bella from his back and imagined a hammer, before proceeding to bash away at the reinforced gate.

"Open the gate. Open this fucking gate. I've been riding all day."

The gnomish sentries ignored Giz.

"Too much dust," Gladrien said to Artemis. "No wonder he's so short with everyone all the time, no pun intended. He's just wired."

Artemis chuckled. "I'm going to take a look at what those gnomes are up to."

Artemis flew to the gnomes. She hovered behind them and saw that all four were bent over a seeing stone watching something. The rectangular glass stone filled with fluffy cloud as it attuned to the address of whatever it displayed.

"What you got there?" she asked.

The gnomes started, and the one holding the stone nearly dropped it.

"Mithrin!" they screeched.

"What are you doing up here?" the one said as he raised his spear and pointed it at Artemis.

She batted it aside lazily and yawned. "Why won't you let us in?"

"Because we're busy watching the game. I can't believe how far he's gotten!"

"Hmm," Artemis said. "Let me see."

She flew forward and shoved in between the gnomes to get a look at the seeing stone. In it she saw a hooded figure all in black, leaping gracefully between spinning blades on totems. The figure rolled beneath a fire turret spitting jets of flame. It emerged on the other end where it used kinetic magic to crush two Clockwork automatons into a wall at the end of a trap room.

The automatons crumpled as the announcer spoke. "Once again he clears this level of the gauntlet without a scratch. We're witnessing a truly great competitor," the voice of the gnomish announcer squeaked excitedly.

"He is good," Artemis said.

"I know," one of the gnomes said. "No one's made it to the bottom since the Nitix clan upgraded the dungeon. Supposedly Mithrin himself came to grand-daddy Nitix and told him to fix up the dungeon because it wasn't enough of a challenge."

"Who cares?" another noted. "There's a hundred thousand denarii worth of gold and jewels in the treasure room at the end of the last level."

"That's not all," the one who had brandished his spear at Artemis said, "also, Mithrin's slippers. The gnome that makes it to the bottom is said to inherit some of Mithrin's powers."

"So, he'll get the power to play dumb pranks on unsuspecting gnomes and drink himself silly? Don't need Mithrin's powers to do that..."

"Mithrin does more than that, you blasphemous little halfwit..."

Artemis focussed back on the screen blocking out the gnomes yammering.

The announcer said: "Vlad's coming up to the fifth level..."

Artemis froze. Her gaze transfixed on the seeing stone. "Did he just say 'Vlad'?"

One gnome nodded and turned back to the seeing stone. Artemis felt her stomach do a backflip. She grabbed the gnome and shook him by the shoulders.

"Vlad the Iconoclast is in the Nitix dungeon right now?"

The gnome nodded, afraid, and surprised by the strength of Artemis' grip.

"The Iconoclast?" Artemis repeated and shook the gnome so forcefully his teeth rattled.

"Yes! Jeez! Mithrin's sake, fey-lady. Let me go."

Artemis released the gnome. "Open the gate right now," she said.

"Make us!"

Artemis drew her revolver and pointed at the seeing stone. "Unless you want to miss the greatest gauntlet run you've ever seen, I'd open the gate right now. Or don't and you can hear about it."

Three gnomes hurried to the wheel and began cranking.

"Vlad's good, but I don't know about the greatest –"

Artemis shook her head. "I wasn't talking about Vlad."

She turned and flew back to Giz and Gladrien. _I'm going to run the gauntlet._

***
Artemis stood at the entrance of the storied dungeon. She had paid for her, Giz, and Gladrien. Their animal companions didn't count with only folk competitors charged entry, and Horse was stabled outside the arena. Giz had pulled the half-orc stable-hand down to his eye level and threatened to shove Bella halfway up the stablehand's ass if anything happened to Horse. The stable hand had nodded vigorously insisting he would guard Horse with his life. Giz had released the stable-hand, and they had made their way to the entrance of the dungeon.

They heard the forceful squeaks of the announcer's magically projected voice. "The Iconoclast must be stumped. He's stopped at the rhyme room on level six. I would have thought a dark elf wizard of several hundred years would breeze through such a challenge. What's this? Vlad's even closing his eyes? Must have been harder than it looked to get through the challenge on level five. Never fear folks there's one thing you'll never be able to say about the games of Nitix, and that's that they're boring. I mean, er, cast your eyes to your seeing stones. We have a group of new competitors."

Artemis, Giz, and Gladrien looked up at the glass stone that levitated above them. They could see their own reflections as well as a small image of the pink-haired gnomish announcer in one corner. He wore a silver suit, white make-up, and a red shirt with frilled collar and cuffs. His lips had been painted bright red, and he jumped around excitedly on the border of the seeing stone as he talked.

"On the first level, find a late entry to today's competition, but fortuitous for us given the Iconoclast's sudden bout of narcolepsy. Feast your eyes on the new challengers. Meet Gladrien, a sexy forest elf who could put an arrow between your eyes at a hundred paces. Never mind the arrow she's just put through my heart or the one I've got –"

The stone ceased transmitting audio. Gladrien frowned as the announcer tittered. A magical stone zoomed forward to get a close up on Gladrien, and she batted it away.

"Grrr," the announcer purred. "Gladrien enters with a pet dire panther, Sprig. Cunning and deadly you don't want to meet that panther behind a Halfling tavern in the dead of night, trust me! Moving on, we have Gizholomew Anderclark!"

Giz's eyes went wide as they said his full name.

"Yes, Giz, we know who you are. No Anderclark was going to sneak into this arena without the mighty Nitix clan knowing. Ha, despite your questionable heritage you've still been allowed entry, though I have no idea why."

"Fuck you, you little shit," a red-eyed and red-nosed Giz shouted. "I'll climb up to the tower and..."

Giz had been muted. The seeing stone projected the image of Giz's screaming mouth agape with spit flying.

"Some of that clan Anderclark class, ladies and gentlemen," the announcer said. "Giz enters alone wielding one of those pretentious Anderclark Virtuoso Weapons. However, considering he has yet to achieve the rank of Ace-Adapt Weapon's Master, we wonder how he convinced grand-daddy Anderclark to part with one of the Virtuosos. Time will tell if he's learnt how to use it."

Giz ended his screaming rant, and the announcer continued:

"Next, we have Giz's bounty hunter partner and an exceptional competitor. We've never had a fairy Spellbinder compete in the Dungeon games. Coming in at one point two meters and a hundred and twenty pounds of pure sexual charisma meet Artemis the Fey. Artemis enjoys long delves in dungeons, blowing you away with a volley of magic bullets, or letting her tiger animal companion, Denbei, tear you to pieces. Put your hands together for Team Art."

The crowd roared, and claps resounded above them.

"Challengers, are you ready?"

Artemis nodded resolutely.

"Open the gates," the announcer cried. "Challengers! Try not to die!"

The gate rose quickly revealing a doorway that led on to a massive coliseum. In the stands were thousands of screaming folk. Artemis stepped out on to the sands. There was a solid red line that demarcated the start of the gauntlet. The rest of the team stepped forward and stood at her side. One hundred twenty meters ahead, across the width of the arena, a blue line marked the end of the first level.

"It's simple, competitors. You have one objective: make it to the blue line, and you're safe. Once you cross, you are no longer in the fight and must wait for your teammates to join."

Gates at the sides of the arena opened. From behind each stepped an anthropoid figure made of cogs and gears.

"Clockworks," Giz said. "Piece of cake."

In the centre of the arena, ten poles rose out of the ground. Clockworks jogged forward from the gates and leapt on to the poles. They drew rifles from their backs and aimed at Team Art.

"You always speak too soon, gnome," Gladrien said as she drew her bow.

The Clockworks filed into the arena until more than fifty stood between Team Art and the blue line."

"I got this," Artemis said as she drew her revolvers. She flapped her wings and flew straight at the snipers. Artemis banked in the air, to avoid the incoming shots and returned fire. Her bullets tore into the snipers knocking them off the still rising pillars and dropping them to the sand where they smashed to pieces. Artemis fired with abandon, vanquishing a pair of snipers every few seconds. The bullets pierced the metal and brass snipers but damaging them was not Artemis' intention. They recoiled from the force of the shots, which knocked them from their precarious perches.

"It seems Artemis is not a connoisseur of the Nitix dungeon," the announcer said jovially. "She need only hit the button at the base of the pillar to deactivate both it and its sentry."

Artemis ignored the announcer as she fired another volley at the last Clockwork sniper; it fell to the ground in a shower of cogs.

Gladrien stepped over the red line and fired magical arrows at the melee Clockworks congregating around the sniper nests. They charged her, but Sprig and Denbei blocked, tackling the pursuing Clockworks and ripping their heads from their bodies with a spray of oil. Giz surged forward and drew Bella, imagining a war-hammer. He swung the hammer, shattering a Clockwork's chest as though it were eggshell. It turned its sword, which Giz ducked and followed up with a devastating hammer blow to the head.

Gladrien was gaining ground each second and Giz drafted in behind her, covering her back as she downed Clockworks and the animals ripped the metal enemies apart. They had covered half the length of the arena when Artemis flew over and landed next to Giz. She drew her whip and cracked it at the Clockworks. Lashing one at the neck, the oil coursing through the creature ignited. It exploded with a loud bang.

"That's fun," Artemis said, "like fireworks at Misteria's Night festivals."

Gladrien glanced at the burning hunk of Clockwork and turned her mind's eye to fire. She fired flaming arrows instead of magic ones. Each time a fire arrow pierced beneath a Clockwork chin, the Clockwork heads exploded and sailed up off their bodies. Moving in formation, they downed most of the Clockworks before they reached the other side. When Giz and Artemis backed over the line the remaining Clockworks deactivated; their arms and heads hung lifelessly.

"Team Art has completed the first level. Step through the door, challengers, on to level two."

The team strode through the iron gate at the end of the arena, taking the spiral staircase to the next room.

A long rectangular room that appeared to be tiled in giant grey plates lay before them. In the walls were large rectangular slots. On the floor were pressure plates and every few meters stood totems with nozzles.

"It's a trap room," Gladrien said.

"This will be a piece of cake," Artemis said. She spread her wings to their full span.

"Agreed. Why don't you fly Giz over and the animals and I will be along shortly?"

"No one's carrying me," Giz said. He strode forward confidently, his second step depressed one of the pressure plates. The totem in front of him began to spin and spit fire as rotating sawblades shot out of the two slots nearest him. Giz rolled under the flamethrower and the blades. He depressed another plate, and the next totem began to spin.

"Ah for Misteria's sake, Giz," Artemis said exasperatedly. She hovered above the trapped plates and grabbed Giz underneath his arms. She dragged the gnome, kicking and shouting, above the trap room. As they passed each slot, more sawblades appeared. Artemis flew down the centre of the trap room above the flame totems and deposited Giz at the end.

"Why are you trying to embarrass me in front of these Nitix clowns? I could have made it," Giz said with a huff.

"Yes, and how would Gladrien, Denbei, and Sprig have done?"

"Just fine from the looks of it," Giz said.

Artemis looked up to see the animals pouncing and Gladrien darting across the benign tiles on the floor. They came to the edge of the room in one piece, although Sprig had singed her tail on the final flamethrower totem.

"They've passed easily," the announcer said. "And with none of the style of the previous contestant. Perhaps the next room will have a little bit more entertainment value."

The team passed through the gate and took the spiral staircase down to the next level. When they entered the room at the end of the stairs, they saw three open trunks and a large black iron gate.

"Contestants, please deposit your weapons, potions, and other magical items in the chests you see before you. You will find donor weapons in the next arena."

Giz stared at the magical stone. "Give you my Bella? Are you off your fucking rocker?"

"Not at all, Gizholomew. Your items will be transported to the end of this level, and you may collect them should you survive. Please keep the profanity to a minimum as the Nitix Dungeon is a family show."

Giz fumed but placed Bella, his potions, and his ring in the trunk. Artemis removed her revolvers, whip, two short swords, diamond dust catalyst, and potion belt placing them in the chest. Gladrien followed their lead, but when Artemis stepped up to the door, it remained sealed.

The door spoke back in a deep and displeased voice: "You still possess a magical item."

Artemis touched the taaffeite catalyst vial inside her giant-skin duster. She removed it and placed it carefully inside the trunk.

"Thank you," the door said lightly and raised itself.

They stepped through onto an arena of sand, like the first, although this time there was a roof and not the open air and crowd stands of the first level. Gates on the side of the arena opened, and larger Clockworks shuffled through. Most were two and a half meters tall and wielded much heavier weapons: great-axes, great-swords, glaives, and heavy spears. Artemis counted ten in total.

In the middle of the arena, a weapon rack, filled with every weapon imaginable, rose. Artemis saw many bladed weapons but only a few maces, clubs, and other bashing weapons.

"These are automatons and that rack there is a trick," she said studying their adversaries. "The automaton armour is much thicker than the Clockworks; they want us to go for the shinier weapons but trust me clubs and maces are what get us through this."

"Fought these things before?" Gladrien asked.

"A mud golem once. We slashed away at it for what felt like an age before my father left and returned with a club and smashed it to pieces."

Gladrien and Giz nodded. They sprinted for the rack as Artemis shot forward aided by her wings. She reached the rack and grabbed two simple maces, each one made of steel, and then flew towards the closest automaton. The automaton swung its glaive in a downward arc. Artemis rolled out the way and brought the two maces crashing together on its head as it tried to lift the glaive. The automaton shuddered as its skull collapsed and stood motionless, its hands wrapped around the haft of the glaive.

"Yes," Giz said as he reached the weapon rack.

He lifted a war-hammer and sprinted towards an automaton. Giz dodged its axe swing and then smashed the automaton's knees. Gladrien took a ring of throwing hammers and a mace, which she hung from a loop on her belt. Sprig and Denbei charged around the arena trying to get the automatons to chase them.

Gladrien made short work of two automatons, crushing their skulls with the throwing hammers. But she soon ran short of throwing weapons and had to face one in close combat. Giz knocked the automaton's legs off all the way to the hips, shortening it enough so he could reach its head. He didn't worry about the arms, they couldn't leverage enough force to lift the great axe now. He was working up to its head when another automaton loomed over him. Giz heard the creaking of joints and rolled out the way, as the automaton brought its great sword down cleaving its shortened ally in two.

Giz brought his hammer down on the automaton's arms, still trying to wrest the great sword from the body of its fellow. The automaton fell backwards, flailing its stumpy arms. Giz stepped casually onto its chest and smashed the automaton's skull, causing a shower of oil and cogs to spill over the sand. Giz heard the cries of praise coming through the seeing stone and posed with his hammer above his head.

"What a move," the announcer said. "Not bad for an Anderclark."

Gladrien smashed at an automaton's knees, but her mace lacked the heft for a clean break. She waited for the creature to take a downswing and then ran up the haft of its axe. She leapt onto its shoulders and swung away at its head. With its skull crushed the creature fell impotently onto the sand. Artemis stood at the end of the arena yawning. She had easily smashed the heads of the other four automatons with flying passes; Denbei and Sprig were waiting with her.

They proceeded through the gates, collected their gear, and took the stairs to the next room, buoyed by the cheers of the crowd relayed through the seeing stones.

The next room was a trap room, similar in style to the first. An additional layer of challenge came from the walls that smashed together in a timed sequence. Artemis counted out the timing, conferred with Gladrien, and all five made it across.

"Well done," the announcer said. His image faded on the glass stone that trailed Team Art. "Just a moment. It seems Vlad the Iconoclast has woken from his nap. He's heading to the seventh room."

The fifth room of the arena held a single large enemy. A six-meter-high Clockwork golem. Heavily armoured plates covered its entire round body. Connected to the cylindrical torso were six large segmented legs with sharpened points that jutted out of the Clockwork golem. The golem had two red crystal eyes and a grinding woodchipper-like mouth set into the trunk of its body. It skittered across the sand, the exhausts running along its body expelling swirls of smoke.

"This'll be easy," Artemis said.

She drew her hand across her moonstone amulet and focused. Moments later she flung out a fireball. The ball shot across the arena and hit the golem; it exploded as it collided with the golem releasing a wave of flame that enveloped it. When the fire dissipated, the golem stamped its feet and released a furious vent of smoke.

"I think you just pissed it off," Giz said studying the undamaged plating.

Gladrien hopped across the sand and engaged the golem. She imagined corrosion and entropy as she drew Antheria's bow. She shot a volley of acid arrows into the side of the golem. The plating began to warp and melt.

"Acid works," she yelled back as the golem gave a mechanical growl akin to the grinding of gears. One of its pointed legs, attached to a chain connecting it to the golem's torso, flew like a torpedo at Gladrien. Gladrien fell straight back as the tree trunk thick leg shot through the air where she had been a moment ago. The leg-spear arced into the sand, and the golem retracted the chain quickly. It dragged back along the sand, bouncing over sand rises until the spear was winched back into place. Gladrien had long since stood up and was circling the golem. She continued to fire acid arrows into the reinforced plating while Artemis observed from the air.

Artemis landed on top of it and tried to fire into its head. Her bullet ricocheted, and she quickly holstered her pistols. Artemis remembered her elementary acid spell. She began to cast it, but the golem jumped, violently dislodging her.

"Giz, try to get the golem to use that spearing attack on you. I know what to do."

Artemis cast the acid spell just above the golem, and a small splash of acid fell onto its armour plating. Gladrien avoided another follow-up attack from the golem. It shot a second leg out at her like a javelin. She dodged it easily and drew her bow. She fired into the socket that the rattling chain originated from, jubilant as the acid ate through the chain. The golem rotated on its remaining legs suddenly, and Gladrien was caught and lifted by the chain. Like a child releasing a toy folk soldier from a rubber strap, she sailed twenty meters over the sand and landed face first in a dune. Sprig sprinted to her and dug frantically while Denbei ran interference.

"Oh no," the announcer cried. "My beautiful elf is in trouble. Somebody, please help her."

The golem rushed forward as it retracted the leg-spear. Its sharp feet allowed it to dig into the sand and leverage its skittering jumps. Giz tried to draw its ire, and the golem shot a spear at him even as it moved towards Gladrien. Giz leapt out the way and was caught in the same chain spin as Gladrien. The chain bent and flexed like an elastic band and propelled Giz over the arena. He screamed with fright as the sand rushed to meet him. Thinking quickly, he drew Bella as he rocketed and imagined a great shield. Giz landed with a thud and went sliding over the sand riding the shield like a sled.

"Hey," Artemis yelled in front of the golem's woodchipper mouth and glinting red eyes. It expelled a great vent of smoke and surged forward, trying to knock the hovering fairy out of the air.

Artemis buzzed in front of the golem and cast wildly, beckoning forth acid from the ether that coated the golem's eyes and grinding mouth. The golem only seemed to grow more enraged and rushed Artemis, giving Sprig the time to dig Gladrien out. The acid bit into the creature's eyes. It staggered and was still, resting on the rapidly corroding legs. Suddenly it hopped nearly as high as the arena ceiling, raising all its legs at once. It spun and shot all six leg-spears out together. Then several things happened quickly.

The spears sailed through the air, and the golem wound up to spin as it fell back to the sand. The chain damaged by Gladrien's acid arrows broke as the spinning motion occurred, launching a leg projectile with a chain dragging behind. Denbei narrowly avoided the leg-spear but the chain wrapped around him and dragged him along the sand at incredible speed. The leg-spear thudded into an arena wall with Denbei caught in a chain binding. Gladrien, freed by Sprig, fired acid arrows into the open leg-spear sockets. She timed her jumps to leap over the chains and shoot corrosive arrows into the sockets when the chains passed beneath her. Artemis, caught in one of the chains, whistled around the arena, close to losing her breakfast. She turned and grabbed onto it instead, folding her wings, and locking an arm around the chain rotating about the golem like the second hand of a demonic clock. She cast acid at the chain link with her free hand. After several rotations, that chain broke, then another. Gladrien leapt over the trailing chain while Artemis flew above the spinning golem, trying to track it as it disappeared behind a curtain of sand cloud.

The golem retracted the three spears it had left and tried to stand. The golem staggered and fell back down, dragging itself along the arena. Giz surged forward with Bella. He held the staff out, its thin point rushing to meet the golem. He closed his eyes and brought forth the image of a tilting knight, transforming the Virtuoso weapon into a steel-tipped lance. Giz's aim was true, the lance piercing the golem through a damaged leg socket. The golem shuddered and released plumes of smoke and steam before crashing to the sand. Giz hung from the lance and proudly pumped one fist as the crowd went wild.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," the announcer cried.

"Giz Golem's-bane," Giz said. "Giz Golem's-bane."

The crowd began to chant.

"Giz Golem's-bane."

"Giz Golem's-bane."

"Giz Golem's-bane."

Giz roared with laughter as Artemis shot him a cheerful smile.

"I took out two of the legs," Gladrien huffed.

"Ah-ha," Giz said as he reimagined Bella into a half staff and she retracted from the vanquished golem's smoking body. "But I killed it."

"Team Art is ready to advance to the sixth level. Let's see what Vlad's up to."

The seeing stones at either end of the arena switched from Team Art to the hooded dark elf.

"He's made it to the ninth level. Impressive! If he hadn't stopped for a break, we would have seen a record time."

The team made their way down to the sixth level. It was a straight corridor, marble sheeting covered every surface, including the roof, and a fountain lay at the centre of the room. As they approached the fountain, the surface of the water rippled and rose, forming a face.

"Greetings, challengers," the watery visage gurgled as its voice echoed about the tiled room.

"Greetings," Artemis returned.

"We have tested your brawn, your cunning, as well as your agility, but this trial requires your intellect. You must answer three riddles correctly to pass."

Without further ceremony, the visage of water scrunched up into a pensive face.

"Wisest of teachers,

Ficklest of friends,

Often, I'm required to make amends,

My passage, the vain, deeply offends.

What am I?"

Giz shrugged and glanced at Artemis. She rested her mouth against her fist, but Gladrien said, "time. Time teaches us many things, is a friend to no one because it treats everyone the same, helps folk to forgive and offends the vain most of all because they hate ageing."

"Ha," the watery visage laughed. "Indeed. Well, riddle me this."

"I've started wars and ended them too,

Cause partners to kill and..."

"Love," Gladrien said evenly.

"Er..." the water-visage said. "Correct. Although it is rude to interrupt." The fountain paused, then the disembodied water broke apart into droplets and reformed into a bearded face. Rivulets of moisture dripped while it said in a deep voice like a rolling river, "let's see how clever you really are then."

"On my way out of the dwarven god's realm, I met a fellow priest on pilgrimage. A war-cleric of Torgoth, who had five sons.

Each son had five wives and five daughters, the five daughters each had five sons who were married to five wives.

How many pilgrims were there?"

Giz counted on his fingers. "Can you repeat the question?" he asked anxiously.

"Very well," the fountain said.

"There's no need," Gladrien said. She glanced at Artemis, who mouthed the word to her.

"The answer is one," Gladrien said. "You said the war-priest of Torgoth had five sons and so on, not that anyone travelled with the priest."

"Indeed, proceed," the watery visage said without feeling as it showered down and dissolved into the pool. The gate at the end of the corridor opened, and Team Art proceeded to the next room.

It was a trap room like the one before, but in addition to crushing walls were four totems with sharpshooter Clockworks. Artemis flew along the corridor, hitting the buttons at the base of the totems and deactivating the Clockworks before fetching Giz and carrying him to the end.

"Well that's effective," the announcer said. "Boring but effective."

Gladrien and the animals made it through to the end of the trap room without much trouble.

The next room was a standard arena filled with a mix of Clockworks and larger automatons. The room had weapons in racks on the walls, and Team Art had to leave behind their equipment. They dispatched the gnomish dungeon's machines without too much trouble even with the handicap, and made their way down to the ninth level.

They found themselves in a long rectangular room, a fountain at its centre. A watery visage appeared before them, summoned by the magics of the room.

"Come forth, challengers. One by one if you please. I have a question I would ask you."

Artemis stepped forward, away from the others.

"Tell me, what is your greatest fear, quietly now, this is a private affair."

Artemis scoffed, "I have no fear."

The watery visage regarded her carefully.

"The second time I have heard that answer today, but the first time that it rings true. To know oneself is the greatest gift that can ever be bestowed, and worth far more than the kingly treasures that await at the end of this dungeon. Being afraid of nothing is, perhaps, the thing one should be afraid of most of all. Proceed."

Artemis and Denbei made their way to the end of the room. She turned back and watched as Gladrien approached the fountain. She couldn't hear Gladrien's answer, but a moment later, a bolt of lightning shot out from the waters, striking Gladrien's forehead. The warden crumpled, falling over herself, and Artemis immediately ran to her aid but found a magical barrier thwarted her return.

"Lie," she heard the fountain shout, its voice echoing. Gladrien stood slowly and leaned in again. She whispered something to the fountain. It spoke back, quietly, but then told her to "proceed," loudly. Gladrien made her way over to Artemis, holding her head in her hands, appearing shaken.

"That wasn't pleasant," Gladrien said.

"What happened?"

"I gave an untruthful answer, and so the fountain showed me my greatest fear."

"How?"

"I don't know," Gladrien said. "That wasn't really lightning. How long was I out?"

"A moment," Artemis said.

"Really? It felt like hours." Gladrien bent down to stroke Sprig.

They both watched Giz stride to the fountain. A few moments later, the fountain said, "proceed."

"Haha," Giz said. "You might know all those riddles, but you've still got a lot to learn, eh, Glad?"

"What's your greatest fear?" Gladrien asked Giz.

"None of your damn business," Giz said hastily.

"Very well," Gladrien said. "Artemis, care to share?"

"I will," Artemis said, "but you'll be disappointed."

"I'd still like to know. As they say, 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours,'" Gladrien said, still trying to compose herself.

"Very well," Artemis said. "I'm afraid of nothing. The wise old fountain thinks I should be afraid of a lack of fear. It's probably right."

Gladrien frowned. "A deal's a deal. Fine, I'm afraid of Vlad becoming even more powerful and doing to all the elves what he did to Ethir."

"That's reasonable," Artemis said.

Gladrien shook her head. "The fountain showed me that future. The world dark and dead, and elvenkind enslaved, crushed beneath the heels of a million dark elves. We must make it through this next challenge and kill Vlad. It is imperative."

Artemis nodded, proceeding to the next room. She looked over her shoulder and saw Giz and Gladrien whispering at the top of the stairs. She lingered, intrigued, but after spying Giz's embarrassed wince quickly descended to the bottom of the stairs where she was confronted by a large iron gate.

"It's losing her," Giz said quietly, once Artemis was out of earshot. "Going back to being alone in this world without my best friend."

Gladrien put a hand on Giz's shoulder. "I've never met a fairy or any folk braver than her," Gladrien smiled. "I understand, Giz Golem's-bane. You know your own mind better than I know my own. Come, we've got a battle to win."

When the others joined Artemis, the gate opened, and they walked onto a sandy arena three times the size of any before.

Three Clockwork golems burst from the sand. They were identical to the one the team had fought on the fifth level. Artemis, Giz, and Gladrien exchanged worried glances. What was even more concerning was the presence of Vladimir the Iconoclast. The dark elf sat cross-legged, levitating, behind the blue line at the end of the arena. He had not gone down the stairs to the treasure room but waited, facing the golem's backs and Team Art.

"What's he doing?" Giz asked.

"Could be waiting for us," Artemis said. "Maybe he thinks we'll be weak after this fight."

Gladrien pressed her knuckles into her furrowed brow. "What do you want to do, Artemis?"

Artemis tapped the taaffeite catalyst stored in her giant-skin duster.

"I'll take the golems out," Artemis said confidently. "Just draw them together."

Artemis took the vial of taaffeite dust out of the compartment and held it in her left hand. She felt the energy flowing from the catalyst up her arm. The warmth grew until it felt scolding.

"Go," Artemis said with a pained expression.

The taaffeite vial grew hotter still, burning her hand even though the catalyst was still contained. Artemis crossed the starting line of the arena as Gladrien and Giz leapt to action with the animals flanking.

All three golems engaged them, and Gladrien danced between the chained spears launched at her. She dodged projectiles and the golem's spinning spears until she stood at the centre of all three. Gladrien fired acid arrows, taking care to remain in the middle of all three golems. Without warning, all three fired a leg-spear; the projectiles pierced into the other golems and locked them together as they tried to withdraw them. The winching wind up of the chains drew the golems closer together.

Artemis imagined her simple cantrip of acid, but her mind was filled with images of hundreds of splashes of acid rolling out over the arena. She couldn't even comprehend the mechanics of such a spell, but the more she concentrated, the more the element grew in her mind. She thumbed the lid of the catalyst. Gladrien swung on one of the chains and launched herself to another, using it as a tightrope. The closest golem fired a spear at her; Gladrien stopped suddenly, swinging her arms for balance, as it flew past and crashed in the sand a hundred meters away.

"Move!" Giz shouted to Gladrien. He stared wide-eyed at Artemis, her teeth clenched, veins popping in her forehead, as she began to glow.

Artemis screamed, "RUN." The catalyst shone purple as it swirled about her hand. Purple light emanated from each mote of taaffeite dust. The intensity of the spell only grew, and Gladrien, Giz, the animals, and even Vlad were blinded by the radiance. They closed their eyes and ran away from the golems towards the arena walls.

If they could have seen Artemis, they would have witnessed the fairy rise unaided by her wings, as the catalyst encased her in scrawling purple symbols that shone a bright violet light.

Artemis rose higher in the air, buoyed by the power of the catalyst. The symbols vibrated violently and then exploded outward, sending taaffeite dust cascading over the arena. Her whole body was ignited in a purple flame. Artemis blinked, and her eyes shone green, like two great eldritch lighthouses, for the acid spell in her mind. She hovered, willing the spell to heel until she was on the edge of passing out. With a great cry, she released the spell. She shot backwards across the arena, crashing into a wall and sliding to the ground as the arcane energy of the catalyst left her body and swirled around the golems. The energy corporealized a river of acid. It flowed around the golems, a vortex of magic washing over them. They were dissolved in moments as the acid formed a whirlpool that sucked in the sand. The rocks and sand sank towards the pool of acid, ancient stone turning to liquid and smoke as the vortex intensified.

Vlad, who had watched the entire event with interest, had a look of horror on his face.

"End the spell, foolish girl," he screamed from across the arena. Artemis was barely on the edge of consciousness, but she heard a voice coming from all around her.

"End it, end it, end it," Vlad said, projecting his voice towards her. His words echoed in Artemis' mind.

Each second more of the arena was swallowed up. Gladrien, Giz, Denbei, and Sprig were all caught in the invisible force that threatened to drag them down towards the acid pool.

"End it, Spellbinder. Take back your catalyst," Vlad screamed. "End it, or it will destroy us all."

Artemis slapped herself awake and stood slowly. "I don't know how," she said.

"Fool, fool, fool," Vlad's voice echoed. "Imagine all that power flowing back into the vial. Look at it."

Artemis opened her hand and looked at the vial. It was empty.

"Taaffeite is unlike other binder catalysts – all of the catalyst is employed at once gradually using the catalyst until the spell ends or the catalyst is completely drained. That's what gives it its unmatched power. Now recall your catalyst before the gnome dies."

Artemis looked up from the vial to the vortex. Giz was inches away from being enveloped in the spinning river of acid. Artemis held out her hand and imagined all the acid flowing back through it into the vial. She glowed purple again and felt fire overtake her body. The vortex stopped suddenly and reversed. The force component of the spell began to push all the sand and rock back out in a torrent. Giz and the others went flying as the acid pool dematerialized, and purple motes of catalyst floated back. Artemis felt a wave of energy hit her hand. The power poured through her extended arm, filled her chest, and then was deposited back into the vial. Artemis hung her head as the last of the invisible energy surged through her body, and the spell ended.

Giz bolted to her and tried to shake her awake. He poured a healing potion down her gullet, but it did nothing.

"She's not injured," Vlad said, still projecting his voice through the barrier. "Just overexerted. Warden, do you know any rejuvenating spells?"

Gladrien nodded slowly. She had her bow trained on Vlad, but he was behind the Nitix barrier. She gripped Antheria's bow and ran to Artemis to cast the spell. She said the incantation and Artemis sat up slowly, still dazed.

"Take your time," came Vlad's disembodied voice. "I wait for you on the next level."

Gladrien turned back, but Vlad was gone.

"I –" Artemis said weakly. "Whew, I'm exhausted."

"You iced three golems like it was nothing," Giz said. "How'd you manage that?"

"The taaffeite," Artemis said.

She held up the catalyst. _Roughly ninth-tenths full._ _How?_ She wondered. _That spell was more powerful than any I've ever cast. I thought for sure most of it was used up._

Gladrien cast another spell of rejuvenation, but her magic was far weaker than a priest or druid's. Artemis thanked her and stood unassisted, although she palmed her forehead and leant against Denbei.

"You want to rest a bit before we go after him?" Giz asked.

"No," Artemis said squeezing the vial of taaffeite and grimacing as though she held molten metal. "We're taking him now."

She moved swiftly across the sand of the arena, too unsteady for flight. Gladrien charged ahead with Sprig and crossed the barrier before Artemis. She drew the bow and imagined the arcane, materializing a magic arrow.

"He isn't here," Gladrien said, checking the stairwell cautiously.

"Must be further in," Giz said. "What's the plan?"

"I'm going to incinerate him," Artemis said.

Gladrien inspected Artemis' eyes. They glowed a faint orange as sigils formed on the back of her hand, clutching the catalyst. "You sure you're strong enough?"

Artemis shot her a dirty look then hurtled down the stairwell. The others followed but stopped abruptly behind Artemis. Vlad sat cross-legged, levitating in the middle of a long corridor filled with heavy stone chests. Vlad hadn't touched the gold. He was, as he said, waiting for them.

"I trust you aren't too tired?" Vlad said dryly.

"Vladimir the Iconoclast, Scourge of Old Ethrandiel, Ruin of Ethir, murderer, thief, magic mount-rustler, and disturber of the folk's peace. I have here a warrant for your arrest. You can come quietly or dead, the choice is yours." Artemis said as her eyes filled with fire. She had already begun to glow purple, but she understood the catalyst a little more and could keep the power under her control for now.

"So melodramatic," Vlad said. "Tell me, do all you bounty hunters have to learn that line and then write a little test or something?"

"Actually," Giz said. "Kind of."

Vlad laughed. "Well there's a third option," Vlad said, seemingly unperturbed by Artemis drawing on the power of the taaffeite catalyst.

Gladrien pulled her bow to full draw. "Don't listen to him, he lies!" She loosed the arrow, and Vlad stopped it immediately. It hung in the air and fizzled.

"Ah," Vlad yawned. "Now the third option as I was saying –"

Artemis brought her hands together, and a beam of fire as wide as the corridor shot out. The entire room was bathed in vicious fiery magic. Gladrien and Giz retreated up the stairwell away from the unbearable heat with Denbei and Sprig in tow. They saw Artemis rise off the ground, her hands pressed together as she channelled a considerable ray of fire down the corridor. The light was so bright they couldn't turn towards it, let alone see Vlad.

Artemis glowed purple as the taaffeite symbols circled her skin. She was soaked with sweat that quickly evaporated from the inferno. The fire died down, and Giz and Gladrien turned to see Artemis slowly lower to the ground. Ending the spell, Artemis withdrew the catalyst. The magic fire had melted much of the stone corridor, and it now glowed a dull orange like forged steel. The warded treasure chests had suffered minimal damage. Artemis' jaw dropped; Vlad was still levitating in the same position.

"Was that all you had?" Vlad asked, appearing behind them at the top of the stairs. He flung his hand out, and waves of kinetic energy floored them all.

"To me," he said, and the taaffeite catalyst shot out of Artemis' grip. A wave of sonic magic washed over them and intensified as Artemis, Giz, and Gladrien tried to cover their ears. "This is much too dangerous."

Vlad's reflection, floating in the treasure room, dissipated as he stepped between the restrained bounty hunters. Artemis yelped as the sonic waves battered her body and blood poured out of her ears.

"Now as I was saying," Vlad said after inspecting each of them to ensure they were no longer threats. "My third option, Spellbinder. Your little gnomish friend there puts on Mithrin's slippers, and then he and I have a real go of it. I'll even give you back your little vial of spell dust after."

"Don't listen to him," Gladrien said. "He wants to kill the avatars."

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk," Vlad said, clicking his tongue reproachfully. "Why would you go and say something like that?"

Vlad released Gladrien from his kinetic spell, and she stood, quickly readying Antheria's bow. She fired an arrow, but it hung in the air mere inches before her. The elf fired again and again, but every arrow hung, suspended for a few moments before dissipating. She drew her curved blade and charged Vlad. Without turning around, he snapped his fingers and held out his hand. A ball of black energy flew forth, hitting Gladrien squarely in the chest; her entire being dissipated. Artemis and Giz looked up in horror. They tried to scream but couldn't hear themselves over the sonic waves crashing against them.

"You can do as I say or die like that tragically stupid elf," Vlad mocked. "The choice is yours."

Artemis nodded slowly. Vlad released the spell and Artemis and Giz held their heads. They could still hear the ringing of the sonic spell as they wiped their bleeding ears. Artemis looked at the pile of leather armour, leggings, elven blade, and the bow of Antheria where Gladrien had stood. She could see Denbei, limping towards them but Sprig was nowhere to be seen. She had died along with the master she was soul-bonded to.

"What did you do to Gladrien?" Artemis grimaced.

"Oh, the elf? I destroyed her body. She's quite dead. No coming back from that."

"No," Artemis cried as she hobbled towards Vlad. Denbei ran to her and put himself between the dark elf and Artemis. Denbei growled low, ready to lunge, but Vlad just looked at him strangely.

Vlad lowered on to his haunches to look Denbei in the eyes, "be a good little pup and stay there. No need for any more unnecessary deaths."

Vlad summoned a small black, and grey portal then threw the taaffeite through. "Some magics are not worth the costs," he said. "Still, if the gnome does as he's told you can have it back."

Vlad drew Giz towards him with another wordless spell. He grabbed Giz by the back of the neck, lifting Giz as though he weighed nothing.

"Now, Spellbinder, wait there for my business with the gnome to conclude," Vlad said. "No desperate attempts at heroism or I'll disintegrate this gnome as well. Move, gnome."

"I'm going," Giz said. "Look, you don't have to do this. Let Arty go, and I'll do whatever you want."

Vlad did not deign to use his words. He pushed Giz forward. Giz, barely maintaining his balance, stumbled and yelped as he burnt his hands on the molten walls of the treasure room.

"You're welcome to all the gold, Spellbinder," Vlad mocked. "I only came for one thing. Yes, gnome, right to the end."

Vlad watched as Giz moved gingerly down the corridor. The red-hot rock started to burn through the soles of Giz's shoes, and he had to hop as his boots smoked.

"Open that chest," Vlad said interestedly.

Giz made it to the chest and found the floor in front of it cool; protected by the warding. Giz opened the lid slowly and looked inside.

"What the fuck?" he said as he lifted a slipper. It was chequered pink and white with two large pink baubles hanging from the upper.

"Put them on, gnome, you must put them on," Vlad said. "Claim the prize. Become Mithrin's champion."

Giz sat on the edge of the open chest and removed his melted boots.

"This doesn't feel right," he said as he placed one slipper on his foot.

"Quickly," Vlad said. "Now the other."

Giz put on the second slipper tentatively and closed his eyes.

"Well?" Vlad said. "Have you done it? Are you the new gnomish avatar?"

"I don't feel any different," Giz said.

"Do you not feel Mithrin's power? Hear the prayers of the gnomish folk?"

Giz shook his head slowly, Vlad sighing heavily. The dark elf raised his hands, and two rays of black magic flew forth, ramming through the gnome.

Vlad struck Giz again with a single ray of black magic, and Giz shuddered and convulsed on the ground. A moment later he shimmered and then disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.

"No!" Vlad screamed as his spell shot through the cloud and hit the warded chest behind. "Mithrin, you cheated me. He's fulfilled the criteria! He must be the avatar."

Artemis did not know what had happened but with Vlad's back turned, she palmed her diamond catalyst and felt its magic fill her body.

Vlad cursed and shook his head at where Giz had been. Artemis had seen the gnome disappear behind a faint pink cloud. She didn't know what it meant, but she knew Vlad was now the only one in the room. She clapped her hands together and summoned another ray of fire. It struck Vlad in the chest and thrust him against the wall. She focussed all her energy through her hands and felt the beam grow in power. The magical fire filled the room, but suddenly Artemis was repulsed by a kinetic wave; she soared through the air and landed on the stairs. The impact reverberated through her whole body. She screamed as she tried to sit up but found she couldn't raise herself without using her hands.

Vlad ambled out of the treasure room. "Fool," Vlad said. He cast a black ray at Artemis, and she felt her spirit withering beneath it.

"I didn't want to have to kill you. I quite like Spellbinders. Wonderful little creations, I think I'll keep them as pets if they don't interfere." Vlad paused. "You look just like some Spellbinders I used to know. Do you know that?" Artemis said nothing, she could only wince beneath the draining effect of the ray. Vlad dismissed the beam and laughed. "Happenstance? I think not. So, you thought you'd track down big bad Vlad and waste him with your motley crew? How's old Raziel Ogrebreaker these days?"

"Dead," Artemis said. "You killed him."

"Did I?" Vlad laughed sardonically. "He loved Asteria far too much. It's the things we love that kill us in the end."

Artemis stared up at him defiantly. She was sure her back was broken, but she palmed the catalyst for one last attempt.

"I quite enjoyed your mother. She was, adventurous, spirited and not at all like the Spellbinders scraping for Misteria's favour," Vlad said. "Regardless, I had best find that gnome and destroy him quickly before he comes into his powers. Avatars are not to be trifled with."

Vlad turned his back on Artemis. She focussed her spell and summoned the fire ray, but Vlad knew from her glowing palm what was happening. He batted the full force of the spell aside and crushed Artemis with a yoke cantrip. Artemis screamed, her broken back pressing into the staircase beneath the unseen weight.

Denbei lunged at Vlad. The tiger's teeth sank into Vlad's arm. Vlad grimaced and batted Denbei away with a force spell. Denbei crashed into the staircase next to Artemis. Vlad focussed on Artemis and began to cast a spell – a sphere of green energy shot forth from his outstretched hand. Artemis' eyes went wide, and she watched in horror as Denbei lunged in front of the spell. It crashed into him, and the tiger glowed white, Vlad's spell burrowing against some magical barrier. A moment later the tiger blinked away in white light as Vlad's spell fizzled in the air.

"No," Artemis cried again. She couldn't move and watched as Vlad advanced on her, his arm outstretched. She closed her eyes but didn't feel the orb. She was floating through blackness but felt a kindly warmth.

Vlad shook his fists indignantly as the blue light that had shielded Artemis blinked out of existence.

"How dare you?" he screamed in the now-empty vault of the Nitix dungeon. "You'll all suffer for this! You hear me Mithrin, Misteria, Elhandriel and all the rest of you impotent godlings? Your time is coming."

Vlad composed himself and searched around the Nitix dungeon again. When he did not find any trace of Giz or Mithrin's slippers, he growled low in his throat, already preparing the strategy for his next target.

***
Artemis rushed headlong through a blackened tunnel. It felt like falling although she was moving upwards pulled along by an undeniable invisible force. She turned her head with some effort and noticed gaps in the tunnel. Outside she could see a dark night sky dotted with radiant stars. _Nowhere,_ she thought.

Artemis closed her eyes. The drawing force and alien passage through Nowhere made her feel sick to her stomach. The pressure increased, and she hurtled through the dimension tunnel for what seemed an age.

Eventually, the force decreased, and Artemis slowed until she hovered outside a blue gate covered in flowers that pulsed through a rainbow of colours. Pink, blue, green, red. The flowers emitted light like magic lamps. She flapped her wings and found them working, a little bent from Vlad's spell, but she was relieved. Landing on her feet was not an option as her legs hung uselessly beneath her. Artemis felt her eyes closing and forced them open. Even flapping her wings took extraordinary effort while she veered unsteadily through the black space before the gate. She hung in the air until the shimmering blue gates opened before her, and she flew through.

She saw a vast land stretching to the horizon. All around were vividly pulsing flowers and plants. Pixies of all colours and hues, chased one another above, flittering from clouds to plants below. She flew forward, scanning the incredible landscape until the sky above her darkened. She thought it a cloud at first, but the darkness moved with her, and the land around her was still bright. She looked up to see a monstrous fairy, several times larger than an orc, bearing down on her. Artemis tried to evade, but her exhaustion and injuries made the attempt feeble. The giant fairy intercepted her and cradled her in its arms.

"Rest now, Artemis, fallen-binder, Misteria awaits," it said. Artemis could barely hear the guardian, and she could fight the exhaustion no longer. The giant fairy flew, holding Artemis under one arm as they crossed the meadows replete with glowing flowers, white streams, and eternally bright sunshine.

***
Giz awoke suddenly and glanced at his feet. The pink chequered slippers sparkled as he took in his surroundings. He lay on a stone slab with fleshy red walls encircling the room. The walls seemed to breathe, moving closer and then further away from Giz. He felt afraid.

"Where am I?" he said, not expecting an answer.

"Chosen of Mithrin," a deep grating voice said. "You are dead."

"What? I'm alive!" Giz said, thumping his corporeal body, and trying to determine from where the voice came.

"You, Gizholomew Anderclark, are dead. You died at the hands of Veralax's Avatar, Vladimir, the Iconoclast."

"The Avatar? Vlad is an Avatar?"

"Yes, he is the chosen of the Dark Elf goddess, Veralax." The disembodied demonic voice cleared its throat. "Now, I was saying, Gizholomew Anderclark – you have died and entered my realm."

"What realm is that?" Giz said and rose from the stone slab.

"Gizholomew, you are in hell."

Giz's eyes went wide. "Hell? But, but, but I'm Mithrin's chosen, right? You said that. What about these?" Giz asked, wiggling the slippers.

"Do you think a god as powerful and wise as Mithrin would leave his boon in a dank little hole in some pissant gnomish settlement?

"Now, Gizholomew, behold," the voice said. Giz heard stamping feet like horse's hooves coming from all sides. He drew Bella and imagined a double-bladed axe. When he flourished the weapon, it puffed away in a cloud of smoke.

"Fool," the demonic voice said. "My legions are endless. You will be stripped and tortured endlessly for your insolence."

Giz pushed down the fear rising inside of him. "Oh yeah? Well, how about fuck you! I'm getting out of this hell hole and going to save my friends. Bring them on. YOU HEAR ME? I'll rip the first demon that shows its face apart."

"YES," the demonic voice said. "I like it – show me your fire, Gizholomew. Show me your passion!"

"Come on, you demonic fuckers, I'll kill you all," Giz screamed.

"Excellent, Giz. Perhaps Mithrin was not wrong after all," the demonic voice said. It cleared its throat again. The sounds of stamping hooves subsided.

"Perhaps you need not die today," the voice said.

Giz glanced all around him, trying to find the source of the voice. "What do I have to do to get out of here?"

"HMM-HMM," the demonic voice laughed. "You need only do one thing..."

***

ARTEMIS AND GIZ'S ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN BOOK 2: THE NOWHERE JUNCTION
Acknowledgements & How you can help me, Artemis, Giz, and Denbei

Thanks to Annie for listening to this. Ruivo for the awesome, incredible cover that captured even more than I had in my mind, and the great chats about our work. Orion for alpha-reads, kind words, and support. Brad for alpha-reads and the best coffee in Cape Town. Sven for the chats, the constant encouragement, and the canasta. Family, friends who have encouraged me along the way, and everyone else who helped with this novella.

Hey, thank you so much for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm a writer who writes full-time, and I'll be uploading more novels as soon as they are ready. More Artemis books will slowly become available for free in a few month intervals. For the pirates, you know what to do. I don't want money to be the reason people don't read these books (and the rest that are to come).

If you'd like to help me, the following ways, in order, are most beneficial:

  1. Leave a review.
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For reviews always be honest – it helps me become a better a writer if I know where I've made mistakes.

If you want to chat about the books, send me a note on my site.

Thank you again.

Stay safe! Be kind! I hope to see you again in Nowhere soon. 
