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The Solitary Arrow - by Mack the Knife
   Part One
   The light was failing.  Harlan ran through the dense underbrush,
ignoring the small scrapes and cuts the foliage was inflicting on him.  He
had to catch that wolf.  He had hit it, and it was bleeding.  The duke had
offered a mark of silver for each wolf pelt delivered to his summer manor.
   The wolves had been a problem of late, raiding livestock and even
growing bold enough to threaten the occasional isolated farmstead.  The
Duke Marsfeld had taken action, placing a rich bounty on their pelts.  It
worked.  Hundreds of wolves had died so far, and now they were becoming
hard to find.  Harlan made his living hunting these woods, and he had made
more than his share of the duke's moneys.
   Harlan was not an evil man, or even a bad one.  He was a realist, and he
knew that the bounty would soon end, and his living would diminish to the
level it was before, but for now, he was growing comfortable on the silver
that flowed to him.
   It was a clean shot, through the chest.  Yet this wolf failed to die
properly.  It had loped off into the trees and Harlan pursued.  He cursed
the thick brambles he had to plow through to follow the blood, he cursed
the sun for dropping behind the foothills to the north, and he cursed his
own bad luck.  One gazing upon Harlan would see that he was a young man,
not yet twenty-five summers of age.  He was strong and healthy.  Some of
the girls in Tressald, his home, liked to say that we was knit well. 
Several had made it clear that they would happily accept invitations to his
small home outside town.  His long blonde hair was bound with a rawhide
strap into a pony tail, and his face was kept clean-shaven, as his mother
had taught him to.  He possessed keen eyes, matched by their piercing blue
shade.
   Through another bramble he barreled.  Ripping a fairly deep gash in his
thigh.  He saw the wolf leap behind a large tree ahead.  "I have you now,
you son of a bitch." He muttered and poured the last of his strength to his
legs.  His linen breeches protected his legs against the majority of the
cuts the brambles would have given him, but not all.  His upper body fared
better.  The deerskin jerkin protected far better.  His face, however, bore
numerous little scratches, and a couple of deeper marks left by the passing
branches.
   Harlan never took those maids up on their generous offers, though, he
didn't much like the local girls in Tressald.  They struck him as, well,
rather limited in outlook.  They seemed to aspire no higher than to simply
get married, squeeze out children, and grow old.  This was not to say that
Harlan knew not a woman in his bed.  He had bedded a few, but never local
girls.  Last spring, he had taken a girl to his bed from Uldara, the
greatest city in Haldmoor, and the seat of the king.  She had been in
Tressald visiting with a aunt for a few weeks.  They had a short, torrid,
and, blessedly, unfruitful, relationship.  Mirana still sent him occasional
letters, and he would write back to her when he found the time and money to
hire a scribe to write one for him.
   He sprinted around the tree, seeing another bramble before him.  He
shielded his face with his arms and tore through it and into a clearing. 
He looked about, in the near darkness he saw little now, and was afraid he
would loose the trail.  He saw the wolf now, standing still on the far side
of the clearing, under some low branches.  It almost hid the beast.  No
wonder he did not fell the best with the first shot.  This wolf was
massive, at least ten hands tall at the shoulder and covered in a lustrous
silver fur that almost gleamed even in the shadows it lurked now in.
   Harlan's bow was up almost instantly, and an arrow knocked.  He would
kill it this time.  He pulled back the catgut, straining the arms of the
powerful recurved bow.  The bow creaked a little, reminding him that he
needed to oil the wood soon.  His aim was dead-on.  Then he started, just
as he loosed the arrow.
   There was a girl there, beside the wolf.  She was mostly obscured by his
massive haunches, but she was there, and that caused him to twitch as the
arrow left the knock on its deadly trajectory.  He missed the wolf, and
mercifully, the girl.  That was when he heard the scream.  The girl was
yelling at him, screaming in an incomprehensible language.  Her tone left
no doubt, though, she was upset.
   Harlan stood stunned as the girl murmured something to the wolf who
loped off, apparently uninjured after all, and into the woods.  She was
fully revealed now.  And coming toward him with angry intent in her large
golden eyes.
   It dawned upon him that this was an elf maiden.  He had never seen an
elf, but he knew that this was one.  He had heard from the minstrels in
Tressald that they were beautiful, and she was.  She stood, perhaps, to his
chest, and was very slender, almost waifish.  Her head was crowned with a
head full of dark auburn hair, pulled back like his own into a pony tail,
where it flared out into a virtual mane behind her head.  Her clothes were
finely woven, and very form-fitting.
   He was unused to seeing a girl of any race quite so revealed.  Her tunic
was low cut and sleeveless, showing her slender arms and the lean muscles
on them.  Likewise her skirt was short, barely enough to preserve modesty,
displaying her long, rather slim legs, and ending with soft boots that
reached near her knees.  A blade hung from her hip, and a bow was strapped
across her back, not a massive recurve like his, but a slender thing of
ornate shape and design.
   Harlan was so busy studying the girl that he failed to even realize she
was still yelling at him, and approaching quickly.  Her wrists flashed as
she gesticulated at him, she was wearing two finely wrought bracers, each
made of intricate tracery in silver.  Once he noticed that she was still
yelling, he also began to register that she was no longer incomprehensible,
but was now speaking his tongue.
   "You stupid callous man!" She yelled, her voice beautiful, despite her
obvious anger.  "Have your kind not slain enough of them yet?" She said
rhetorically, he was sure.  She was only five feet from him now, looking up
at him with eyes full of disdain and anger.  "Certainly, they were a
problem two years ago, when their numbers were too great, but now they are
almost all gone!" She waved her arms around some more.  "Stop hunting
them!"
   He stood there, staring blankly at the lovely, but very upset maiden
before him.  "You helped it?" he asked.
   She stopped yelling.  Then said.  "Of course I helped it.  It was
wounded, by your hand!" She threw an arrow at the ground between my feet,
it stuck there, quivering.  "If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not." She eyed my
quiver, staring at my arrows, which matched the one between my feet.
   He noticed that she was wounded, too.  Her arm had a deep cut on it, and
there was a crudely applied bandage on her thigh, blood seeped from beneath
the bandage.
   "You're hurt."He said.  "Did the beast wound you?" He stood his bow
against the tree trunk and began to remove his pack.
   "No.  He did not harm me, he wouldn't harm me." She said, still quite
agitated.  "You humans are so quick to kill what you don't understand." She
said.  "Which is quite a lot in many cases."
   Harlan opened the pack and removed a small leather roll.  "Sit on that
rock, I will tend your wounds." He said, plainly.  Harlan was a man of few
words, and he tended to be very direct.
   She stopped talking altogether, her golden eyes regarding the huge
human. "You would tend my wounds?" She asked him, quieter now.  "Even after
I just yelled at you and cost you a bounty?"
   "I would." He said.  Opening the leather roll and revealing the various
items within.  "If you will sit."
   The elf looked at him for a long moment, then sat upon the indicated
stone.  Harlan knelt before her and gently peeled back the bandage on her
leg.  "This wound is deep." He said, stating something that she probably
already knew.  "I will try to close it.  My name is Harlan, by the way." he
pulled a curved needle from his leather kit, and tried to thread it with a
very fine string.
   "I am Hyandai." The elf said, watching him thread the needle for a
moment before giggling and taking the needle and thread from him.  She
threaded it instantly with her deft, delicate fingers, then handed it back
to him.
   He nodded and looked at the wound.  "Unless I can use Burosweed on the
wound, this will hurt immensely." He looked up to her eyes expectantly.
   She didn't seem to like the idea of immense pain.  "Burosweed will work
on elves." Hyandai said.
   Harlan put the threaded needle down a moment and picked up a small flask
and poured some of the contents on the wound.  The elf gasped in pain as
the liquid fell onto and into the wound.  It burned intensely, but then
numbed quickly.  A few seconds later, all sensations of pain receded from
her thigh.
   "How is it you heal the wolf, but not yourself?" He asked her as he
started stitching up the open cut.  As he sewed, he noticed how soft and
smooth the skin was, and how fair.  He touched it delicately, and probably
more than absolutely necessary for the performance of his task.
   She watched his hands with interest.  "It does not work in such a way."
She said.  "The magic can only be used for others, not oneself." Her accent
was interesting, and she clipped the words off precisely.
   "Magic?" Harlan asked.  "You can heal with magic?" He was a bit wide
eyed.  He knew that elves were magical beings, but never thought much of
it.
   She reached down to a gash on his arm, and touched it gently.  There was
a brief feeling of warmth there, and when he looked down, the wound was
gone.  When he gaped back up at her, she giggled again.  The sound of it
was like a crystal stream flowing over river stones.  "You have never
beheld healing magic before, then?" Hyandai asked him, tilting her head a
little.  "I will tend your wounds when you have finished with mine." She
said, smiling now.
   He stitched the last knot into her long cut.  "It may scar, I'm afraid."
Harlan said to her.  "I've made the stitches as small as I could so as to
not mar your beautiful skin." He added as he put the needle aside.  He
looked closely at the wound, catching a smell alike to cinnamon from her
skin.  His other hand went above the cut and actually under her skirt
slightly.  He twisted the wound a little, checking the closure of his
stitches.  Hyandai simply watched him, and did not comment nor flinch when
his hand brushed over her undergarment.  He stood, and rotated his finger
in a circle, indicating that she should turn to present her injured arm
now.
   She turned about, and he again poured a bit of the oil on her cut.  As
before the Burosweed numbed after burning, and she gasped again.  "Sorry."
He said.  This wound was not nearly so bad, and he had it stitched shut in
under five minutes.  He checked it similarly, making sure the stitchwork
was good.  "You're binding on your leg was rather poorly applied." Harlan
said.
   "We are not so adept at the art of chirurgery as you, Harlan." She said.
"I suppose that having magical healers among us has let us neglect skills
that might perhaps be of aid from time to time." She laughed again, a full
laugh this time, not a nervous giggle.  "And I certainly am not a surgeon."
Harlan smiled gently as he packed away his thread and needle and began to
roll up the leather sheet.  He looked at her in earnest.  "Those were
weapon marks." He said to her, matter-of-factly.  "I know wounds from beast
and branch.  And those were neither."
   Her face darkened.  "My fiancee and I were traveling south of here, on
our way to the Silvershale Mountains, when we were beset by a band of
orcs." She explained.  "We were separated.  I was hurt there, and I fear
they captured Eleean."
   His face grew a bit dark, too, at the mention of orcs.  "Eleean was your
mate?" Harlan asked her.
   Hyandai nodded slowly.  "We were to be wed upon returning to our home."
She said, a tears welling in her golden eyes.  "They will kill him.  It is
their way toward our kind." he put his hand on her shoulder, and she took
it in her small hands and put her cheek to it.  And she wept.
   After a moment, she sniffed and looked up.  "I have no right to ask this
of you, Harlan, but will you help me try to free him, if he still lives?"
   He stood for a moment, thinking.  His heart was wrenched by this
elf-maid's request.  She was beyond lovely, and he wanted to do whatever it
would take to please her.  But this put his mind in a turmoil.  To rescue
her fiancee would ensure he would never be able to enjoy that beauty.  But
to not would break her heart and likewise cause her to flee him.
   "I will help you." Harlan said, plainly torn.  "It is the right thing to
do."
   She smiled through her tears.  "You will?" She said.  "We must move
quickly then, or they will transport him to their lair and he will surely
be lost."
   Harland looked down at his own wounds.  But reached for his bow.
   "Wait, I did promise to heal your wounds." She said, placing a delicate
hand on his thigh as he prepared to stand.  She stood up, and looked at
him. Her hands, feather light, touched him here and there, wherever he had
bled.  Behind them flowed a shimmering aura, and the wounds closed, and
were healed.  The large wound on his own leg took longer, and she had to
linger there for a moment, one hand on his leg and the other uncomfortably
close to his manhood.  A startling jolt of energy leapt from that thigh up
his spine.
   He tried to fight down the resulting reaction in himself.  He felt that
such a thing would be unseemly at the least, and grossly offensive at the
worst.  He failed the battle there.  His organ stiffened and started
extending downward over his thigh.  He was not a particularly large man in
that area, but her hand had been very close to begin with.  He flinched in
horror as the swelling organ slid under her small hand and lifted it form
his thigh.
   She looked up at him with wide eyes.  "I apologize, Hyandai, I promise I
tried to stop it." Harlan said, almost pleading.  As he spoke, he noticed
her hand did not draw back.
   "It is not insulting to me, Harlan, for you to grow aroused when I touch
you closely." She gave him a flick of her golden eyes.  "For I know I did
when your hand brushed between my legs." She said and looked at his wound
again, her hand still covering his erection.
   Harlan's mouth hung agape for a moment, before he realized that it was
doing so, and he closed it.  He just watched the lovely woman who knelt
before him.
   She finally moved her hand, sliding it gently over the open wound.  The
gash closed as the hand crossed over it, leaving new, pink skin where it
had just rejoined.  She smiled as she stood back up.  "Your wound is
healed, Harlan, and you are apparently quite healthy otherwise." She
glanced down at his still swollen pole, slightly tenting the cloth of his
pants.
   He stood up, and looked at his thigh, where the wound had been.  "That
is astounding." He said, impressed.  "I do not know how well we can do by
dark." He looked up at the almost black sky.  "We should camp for the
night, and seek out your fiancee in the morning."
   She nodded.  "I agree.  Orcs are less comfortable in daylight, as well,
giving us an advantage to balance against their numbers."
   "Agreed." Harlan began clearing a small spot for a little fire.  While
the fire caught and kindled under his expert hands, the elf maiden looked
on, again with interest.  "Don't tell me elves also make their fires with
magic, and don't normally know how to make one with flint and steel?"
   She shook her head.  "No, it is done such in our lands, as well." She
gave Harlan a small smile.  "I only note the care you take when setting
your fire." She said, standing nearer to the fire.  "I was lead to believe
humans cared little for protecting nature from his actions." "Not all us
humans are cut from the same cloth." Harlan said, staring at her eyes. 
They seemed to be gathering the light from the fire and sending it out at
him as twin golden beams of pure radiance.
   She giggled, sending a tingle down his spine.  "I am discovering that,
good Harlan." She giggled again.  "Did you know you name means `The Wide
South' in our tongue?  It is what we call the plains to the south of your
kingdom."
   Harlan grinned at that.  "I did not know that." He replied.  "In this
land, that place is called `Sutmarch.'"
   She nodded at that.  "Not quiet as nice a name, in my opinion." She
said.
   He grinned at that compliment.  "I'm glad you think so." He said, then
he asked, "What does your name mean, it's pretty, but I hear most elven
names mean something." She paused for a moment, then said "Small Blade."
She looked down a little.
   Harlan couldn't help but smile a bit.  "Small Blade?" He said.  "Rather
unassuming name, isn't it?"
   She looked back up.  "The translation isn't precise.  We do not have
much contact with men, Harlan." She seemed a touch defensive of it, so he
stopped smiling, not wishing to offend her.  She drew forth her sword.  It
was elegant and slender, like herself.  "This is also called such, a
Hyandai, by our folk." She held it out, handle first, toward him.
   He took it.  It was incredibly light.  He touched the blade, and it was
incredibly sharp, he managed to not cut himself, and held the handle back
to her.  "Far to fine a blade for my clumsy hands." Harlan said.  She
accepted it and resheathed the blade.  "That is called a rapier by my
people." He said.
   Hyandai smiled at that.  "That is a good name, very dangerous sounding."
She nodded.  "But I will continue to use Hyandai, I think." She gave a
quick nod, like she was confirming something within and then looked at him.
   "Well," He said, "If we are to seek for Eleean at the first light, we
should bed down." He cast his blanket onto the ground, and laid upon it. 
Suddenly, it dawned upon him that she had no such items, no pack, and no
equipment.  Just her weapons.  He jumped up.  "Um.  Please, you sleep
wrapped in my blanket." He walked to the nearest tree, and laid against it.
   She watched after him for a moment.  Walking around the fire to the
blanket.  She delicately sat upon it.  "I do not know, Harlan, you need the
blanket, also." She looked up at the stars overhead.  "It will be a chill
night soon."
   "I'll be okay, Rapier." He said smiling, causing her to smile.  "I have
a jacket, which is far more than you're wearing, not that I mind."
   She looked down at her bare legs, "I have heard human women cover from
head to toe in many layers of cloth." She said, touching the flesh of her
leg.  "We do not share this desire to be hidden in plain sight." She sat up
straight, and her face took on an imperious look.  "Now, Harlen, come, you
will lie next to me, and we will both be warm.  Enough of this human
sentiment." Her facade broke badly, and she grinned.  "I promise I will not
ravish you."
   Harlen stood up and walked over to the blanket.  "It's small for two."
He observed as she scooted to just off center.
   She patted the blanket again, next to her.  "It is." She agreed.  "But
you will survive, by my word."
   Gulping down his nerves, he sat next to her, their arms brushed.  He
felt the softness of her skin through his forearms.  She gripped the far
edge of the blanket and cast it over the two of them.  Reaching over him to
adjust it on his side.  Then she laid her head down.  He didn't know
exactly what to do, so he laid facing her.  Her golden eyes stood out sharp
in the darkness before his.  They were mere inches from one another, he
even got another big dose of her cinnamon scent.
   "You smell good." He said, before he could think.
   She smiled, her teeth flashing white in the dim light of the fire. 
"Thank you." She inhaled, then said "You smell like you worked hard today."
She replied.
   Harlan grinned at that, he liked this elven directness, it suited his
own manner.  "I apologize but wasn't planning on sharing my blanket
tonight. If need be, I'll bathe tomorrow."
   She giggled.  "I said you smelled like you worked hard.  I did not say I
did not find it appealing." She smiled wider.
   He decided that this was going way too well, especially for being beside
another man's, or elf's, fiancee.  "Well, then, thank you." He said.  "Good
night, Rapier." He said, closing his eyes.
   "Good night." She responded.  And closed her own eyes.
   Neither slept right off, but they both slowly drifted to their slumber.
   Morning found them pushed together, his arms over her, and her head
resting on his lower one.  Their bodies were curved like a question mark,
and they were both pressed tight to the other's body.
   Hyandai awoke first, opening her eyes at the coming sunlight.  The
little fire was out and barely smoked.  She looked over her shoulder and
down.  The man's powerful arms were around her, and held her.  Oddly, she
found that she liked the sensation of being held by such a powerful being
as a human.  She let it go on a moment longer.  Her people acted as if they
looked down on humans, generally, but they did envy some human features,
such as their incredible strength, and their ability to bear terrible
injury and still press on.  Right now, she was enjoying the feeling of the
former.
   Harlan murmured something and she felt him press into her from behind.
He was in a dream, she wondered briefly what he dreamt of.  Then she felt
his manhood pressing into her rear.  Her eyes widened a little, thinking
she might have an idea of the substance of his dream this morning.  She
thought of waking him, but didn't want to embarrass him again over his
erections.  She just let it lie, after about ten minutes, it subsided on
its own.  Then she coughed quietly, peering over her shoulder.
   His eyes slid open slowly, then popped wide.  He pulled away form her
quickly, in one fast motion.  Almost causing her to hit her head on the
ground as her `pillow' disappeared.  "I'm sorry," he stammered, "I didn't
mean to take privileges with you, Hyandai."
   She sat up and shrugged.  "You kept me warm with your body." She said,
admiring his arms again.  "I am glad for your...privileges."
   Harlan's nose was still filled with the cinnamon odor of her hair, that
he had his nose poked into when he awoke.  "Uh...okay, then.  But I wasn't
trying anything.  I swear it."
   She giggled at him.  "You were a perfect gentleman." She agreed. 
"Again, I thank you for sharing your warmth with me."
   "Yeah, well, it was no problem." He said, finally realizing he wasn't in
trouble.  "You helped keep me warm too.  Thanks." He seemed very
uncomfortable, which she found quite adorable.  Such a powerful man and he
was squirming because of her.  Her mind yelled back to her, though, that
she had a fiancée who may well be dead, or dying, or worse.  "We should
begin looking for Eleean." She said tersely.
   Harlan nodded at that, and rolled up the blanket.  He stuffed it into
his little backpack and slung the pack over his shoulders.  He hefted his
bow, and began kicking dirt over the ashes of the fire.  She retrieved her
weapons, propped against the nearby tree.  The hunter looked around "Which
way, Rapier?" He asked.  She hadn't commented on him using that name, and
he liked having a nick name for her.  It kept her a bit `buddyish' in his
mind, rather than her being a very beautiful woman whom he had just been
very close to.  A fresh smell of cinnamon wafted through his nose to remind
him, rising off his clothes.
   She pointed generally southward, and they headed off in that direction,
walking beside one another.  The forest was not terribly dense, it was only
Harlen's headlong rush that drove him through so many bushes and brambles.
Just before noon, they saw the smoke of a fire ahead.
   She stopped him with her arm.  "There they are." She said.  Hyandai
crouched low, and Harlan followed her lead.  She pointed to a pair of the
orcs approaching them slowly, sniffing the air as they plodded.
   Harlan had never seen an orc alive before.  He had imagined them large,
clumsy, and slow-moving.  These two were anything but those.  They were
wiry, alert, and seemed to be possessed of uncannily quick reflexes.  Their
skin was dark gray and very rough-looking, and mottled with spots of
lighter gray and black.  Their yellow-brown teeth protruded from their
mouths, and their eyes glowed a feral red, like little fires.  Their heads
and shoulders were covered in thick, shaggy hair, and was braided here and
decorated with colorful beads.  Their armor consisted of crudely beaten
metal plates sewn to a rawhide jerkin.  One wore a well-made helm,
obviously human crafted, it looked like the helms that the Ducal Guard
wore.
   Hyandai removed the bow from her back, telling Harlan with her eyes that
he should do the same.  He followed her lead, and they both knocked arrows.
His, a thick, heavy bladed hunting barb, and hers a slim, razor-pointed
arrow with heavily twisted fletching.  When the orcs had gotten to within
thirty paces, and showed no sign of changing direction, she pointed to him
and pointed right, then pointed to herself and pointed left.  She then held
up five fingers, and dropped one at a time over intervals of time.  Harlan
looked back at his target and prepared himself.  When he knew she would be
dropping the last finger, he stood up.
   The orcs reacted instantly.  They began charging forward, and drawing a
wicked-looking scimitar from their belts.  They were very fleet of foot,
Harlan noticed as he lifted the bow into position and drew back the arrow.
The orc he was aiming at began trying to backpedal, discovering itself
bringing a sword to a bow fight.  Harlan let fly with the arrow, catching
the foul creature in the neck.  It bleated out forlornly as the arrow
ripped through its wind pipe.  The hunter was already drawing another arrow
from the quiver, when he heard Hyandai's bow sing beside me.  The arrow she
had knocked became a silver-white blur to the remaining orc's chest, and
when it hit, the orc back flipped from the impact, landing on its head and
did not move.  The orc he had shot tried to stand back up, but collapsed to
the ground again.
   His heart was beating heavily, like an oarsman's drum on a river barge.
Harlan looked over to Rapier, and she was not there, she was already
slipping forward, a small knife in her hand.  She slinked up to the bodies,
and he saw the blade flash as she slit their throats.  He crept up beside
her, keeping watch.  She stood up after wiping the blade on one orc's
tabard.  "Well done." She complemented him.  She looked at him with those
piercing golden eyes.  "Are you certain you're not part elven?" She asked
him with a glint.
   Harlan puffed out his chest and said.  "I'm totally human, m'lady." he
intoned, adopting what he thought was a heroic pose, flexing his muscular
arms comically and placing one booted foot upon the orc he had shot's back.
   Hyandai clapped and smiled for him.  "A glorious hero." She clasped her
hands together and put them against one cheek, tilted her head, and let out
a long, exaggerated amorous sigh.
   He laughed at that, and she giggled along with him.  Then his face
turned back to business.  "Well, we're close, what now?"
   "Now we try to spy on their encampment." She said, dragging one corpse
into the underbrush.  He grabbed the other and hid him beside the first. 
They both crept toward the smoke plume.  Finally they came to a sizable
bush just before a middling-sized clearing.  Looking into it they saw a
trio of large, gaudily-painted tents, and a dozen or maybe more orcs
sitting around lazing.
   Eleean was there, tied to a tree near the camp.  His body was bound at
the waist, and his arms tied around the tree behind his back.  His ankles
were likewise restrained.  Hyandai pointed to him.  "There he is." She
whispered directly into his ear, tickling it with her breath.  Eleean's
head was covered with a burlap sack.  He didn't move, near as Harlan could
tell.
   "He may already be dead." He said to Hyandai.  "But I'm game if you must
try."
   She looked downward, her eyes sad.  "I have to, I am sorry." She said.
"I will try to balance the fight as much as I can."
   He wasn't sure what she meant, but he nodded and stuck four arrows in
the ground in front of him.  He knocked a fifth.  After that, he figured,
he would be fighting with his hatchet and knife.
   With a mutual nod, they stood from behind the trees they were in cover
behind.  Harlen aimed his bow at the nearest orc, and fired, hitting the
orc full on in the center of his chest.  The humanoid dropped to its knees
then fell face forward into the grass.  The other orcs had yet to notice
when Hyandai spoke in a clear voice words that he had never heard, and
didn't sound like the original elven she had used to rail on him yesterday.
Several of the orcs collapsed to the ground as a blue halo enveloped their
heads.  She then picked up her bow and knocked an arrow.  Harlen was
already in the process of picking another target, when the alarm went up
among the orcs.
   They had just realized the pair were there, and already half of them
were down.  This fight was going well, or so Harlen thought.  He hit
another orc, but only in the shoulder this time.  She brought one down with
an arrow to the eye immediately after.  Harlen was reloading his bow when a
orc in clothing far more ornate and wearing a mask stepped from behind one
of the tents.  He glanced at the pair and waved a hand yelling a single
word.  Harlen's limbs locked up like he had been cast in stone.  He found
he could move his eyes, and peered over toward Hyandai.  She was frozen
solid, as well, her right hand arched over her back, halfway withdrawing an
arrow from her quiver.
   There was abject terror in her beautiful eyes.  Harlan felt a tear roll
down his own cheek.  He wept for the poor, brave elf maid, and what was
about to happen.  The orcs approached them cautiously at first, then with
more confidence as the more ornately-dressed one goaded them onward with
his voice.  Yelling something guttural at them.  The orcs laughed as they
came close, a hissing sound like a rusty bellows.  They grabbed the two,
taking their weapons, and binding their hands and feet.
   Trussed up, they picked up the hunter and the elf maid.  The orcs
trotted back to their campsite with their new prizes.  The fallen orcs were
unceremoniously thrown onto the fire to burn, and the prisoners were dumped
into one of the tents.
   Slowly, over several minutes, Harlan felt his arms unlocking, and he
could move again.  He twisted to where he could see Hyandai.  She was lying
on her side, facing him, and crying.  "I don't know what to do." He said to
her, his face filling with tears too.
   Her face grimaced.  "You are lucky, they will simply kill you." She
said. "I will not enjoy such a quick fate, I am afraid."
   Harlan winced.  "I wish I could take your place, Rapier." He said.  "I
would do so if I could."
   She shook her head.  "But you cannot." She said, her eyes squeezing
shut, forcing tears down her perfect cheeks.  She opened her eyes, and
stared deeply into his.  "You can help, perhaps." She said.  "If you would,
despite the hurt to you, then look into my eyes."
   Harlan grunted and turned toward where he had a better view of her, and
focused his eyes onto hers.  "I would." He said.  There was no doubt in his
voice.
   She nodded and returned his stare.  "Then I will help us both." He felt
something grip him, and hold his eyes.  He was falling into her eyes, he
was being drunk by them.  She began muttering something in that language he
had heard her speak outside.  Harlan felt something in his mind move, and
shift, and make room.  Then suddenly he heard Rapier's voice.  "I am mostly
here now." It said.  But she was not moving her lips.
   The voice was in his mind.  The voice was resonant and echoed by words
of another language, which was elven, he recognized.  He was hearing her
think!  She was in his mind with him.  He thought back.  "Welcome." And he
was rewarded for his effort by a giggle from her voice.
   Hyandai's body twitched, then looked at him.  "You are a nice man." She
said, and smiled.  There was very little of Hyandai in there now, even
Harlan could tell by the vacant stare and the ignorant expression.
   The voice in his head said "Let me speak through you." Harlan tried to
stop controlling his voice, and then he heard his mouth producing elven
words.  He could hear them but could not understand them.  The echo was in
elven also.  She spoke to her dumb body at length, and the body nodded from
time to time, and said something back in stilted elven.  Finally her face
took on a look of pleased expectancy.
   "What did you say to her?" He asked within his mind.  "She seems happy."
   The voice gave a very dry chuckle.  "I told her that she was about to be
made into a woman by some very nice orcs.  I said it would hurt some, but
that they really wanted to make her enjoy it." There was a pause.  "I left
so little of me in there that she is like a small and particularly gullible
child in a woman's body, she will actually probably enjoy it."
   Harlan thought about that for a moment, but then was interrupted when
hands seized upon his neck and lifted him off the floor.  Hyandai's body
was likewise dragged upward by rough, strong hands and they were both
dragged out of the tent.
   ---
  
101 - The Solitary Arrow - Part One