“Yeah, I guess they would be. I am trying to figure this out and I can’t do that with a lot of distractions.”

  “I’ll leave you alone then.”

  “No wait.” Tic’s tone was urgent. “Do you think that you could fit through that hole?” Tic asked and Nigel looked up at the large smoke hole in the ceiling.

  “It looks easy enough, what do you need me to do?”

  “I need bodies, Nigel, one of each if possible.”

  “I can get you a goblin and a muridai, but trolls and giants are too big.”

  “What about a part of one?”

  “A troll would be manageable, but I don’t think that I could carry even the arm of a giant.”

  “What about the head?”

  “No, too big and too heavy.”

  “Oh,” Tic said and looked back at the floor.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out,” Nigel said as he started to fit the silver extensions over his talons. “What did you do to these now?” Nigel asked as he looked at the stirrup contraption that bound around his ankle with thick straps.

  “Oh, I put a stirrup shoe on it, it should allow you to land on any surface without cutting your feet and give you better traction.”

  “You’re an obsessive little human, aren’t you?”

  “What can I say, my whole life has been kind of focused on footwear.” Tic had noticed before that his feet were quite different than a human’s or even an elf’s. He had three very long thick toes, two extending out the front where he slipped replicas of his actual claws over his talons bringing them to a sharp metallic point with serrated edges on the underside. The hind toe, or finger, or…Tic didn’t really know what to call it, was thicker and longer than the other two and seemed to have an extra joint in it like an elbow or a knee. Upon this he slipped a talon cover that was like the front but then continued up over the top of the appendage with a curved razor-sharp edge, almost a blade, but not that pronounced. Tic had no doubts that the aerial had suddenly become ten times more lethal.

  “I should go get my sword, but then might have problems bringing back what you need.”

  “You have a sword?” Tic said in surprise, never having seen the bird man carry a weapon.

  “Of course, a sword and several daggers. I hid them in your apartment before you woke up that first night, I didn’t think it would go over well having one of me armed in your apartment while you all slept.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “Very well then, don’t wait up,” Nigel said and leaped out of the hole in the ceiling that was close to ten feet off the caverns floor of his birthplace where Tic had rooted himself. Sigh.

  * * *

  Nigel dipped his wings to glide in a broad arc around the outside of northern most entrance. He hadn’t flown outdoors like this in three years, having been trapped with the princess. It was in truth more than three hundred years due to the time lapse between reality and the tomb. Out in the fresh air soaring as he had in his youth catching up drafts and cross currents, he had to admit that it felt more like three hundred years rather than just three. Oh man, he missed this.

  He spied a lone goblin creeping toward the ridge on the northwest face of the main gate. Nigel didn’t know if it was actually sneaking or not, but they were creepy little buggers so creeping it was. He really didn’t have much problem picking targets as they were wandering around fearlessly, knowing that there was no enemy outside the House that wasn’t under their dominion. He struck fast and hard, keeping the shadow of his approach to the back of the halfman, and in one quick motion snatched the creature up while snapping its neck. It was just as easy as when he grabbed the muridai earlier, since none of them expected an attack from above.

  “Look out below” he shouted into the hole before dropping the corpse in where Tic could do whatever he was planning on doing to it. Nigel really didn’t care what he did. He had no love for the halfmen or the muridai and he had no love for elves, dwarfs, or humans for that matter, but Tic, Tic was different. Tic helped him out by enabling his escape from that hellish time warped prison. He then offered him a place to stay without asking any questions or speculative looks. He was just a man…a kid really, who took the world as it came and adapted to whatever was happening. Nigel couldn’t help but admire him, but more importantly, he actually liked the unassuming little human, if it was possible for a supreme being to like a human.

  He began a spiral looking for, hopefully, a smaller than average troll while spinning in slow wide circles, searching the ground. Everything looked different from up here and it took years of looking from this perspective to be able to pick things out so far below. Nigel had been doing it for a lifetime. In his day they rarely ever touched down on the earth let alone live there. The sky was safety; to fly through the air was soothing, comforting even, and above all else, to own the sky was power and when Nigel’s wings filled with air, he owned the sky…he was the power.

  He pulled his wings in and dropped at a speed where a human wouldn’t be able to take a breath and plunged his silver tipped talons into the back and shoulders of a pterodac, severing the connection from its brain to its body. He dropped the corpse as if it had never existed, only to spin and rake his talons upwards to disembowel another. He was so much faster and more powerful than the lizard-like flyers that he actually composed a song to run in his head that he hummed while hopping from leather wing to leather wing. A senseless ditty that enamored the obvious incredibleness of himself, it was easy to be an ego maniac from a thousand feet up and when one’s species is supreme. The lizards had an incredible wing span that slowed the flight of their short squat bodies supporting an over-sized, oblong head. Every feature upon the creature was exaggerated in creation, a massive beak being the proof by being so heavy the skull evolved upward to compensate the weight. Nigel doubted they would be able to seriously hurt him even if he was swarmed. They were awkward, clumsy…an abomination to creation itself, he hated them.

  Trolls and goblin screamed obscenities while he continually dropped more of the leathery corpses upon them. Oh yeah, he needed to bring his sword next time.

  He knew that his aerial fighting style was an example of finesse and grace magnified by shear force. He could perform maneuvers at ease that the rest of his brethren could only dream of. His tribe said it was his dedication and training, but Nigel knew that wasn’t true, it was genetics. His was a long line of skilled warriors of the like that hasn’t been seen in over three hundred years. His skills were supreme and revered among his own people, what existed today could never withstand him.

  Well, well, well…what have we here? I never expected to see you again.

  * * *

  The frost piners had slipped into the woods over an hour ago to try to rally their people, leaving Juil alone with the dwarfs heading back to Riverhouse. She couldn’t blame them, it was probably their best plan, even with them there weren’t enough people to wage a battle or even provide a guerrilla faction against the amount of foul folk in the area. She didn’t realize that twenty minutes later, most of her dwarfs would also leave in search of allies and other entrances that might be accessible. What had once felt like a sizable fighting force had trickled down to a vulnerable size and she couldn’t help but feel she was leading them to their deaths.

  They started to filter off on their own, either succumbing to the forces around them or cut off. Some left to find their own passage into the House until there were only twelve left with her. The one benefit being that they were all mounted, so if anything did come about, they at least had the opportunity to flee.

  A familiar vision continuously occupied her mind, a bust-less head floating in the air as her mournful voice moaning the world’s laments with beautiful perfection. It had followed her, seeming to always sit in the back of her mind mimicking the events of her life with her mournful tone. Now it was stuttering yet soft, watchful, mysterious, on the verge of something more. She could feel the silence of her mind building toward the cascade of melody that she knew was coming.

  She wondered if she was being haunted by the visage, it seemed to come to her attention at the most awkward times. When she first saw the face it struck her prophetically. She didn’t know then it would begin to possess her entire life, if possess is the proper term. occupy might be a better fit. It didn’t actually take control of her or even influence her like a ghost or a spirit. She was neither ghost or sprit, nor was she human, and Juil doubted if the singer had ever been human, but she was real and she was a part of Juil now.

  The elven princess asked Nigel if he saw her in his mind too and he had looked at her as if she was insane. The disgust on his face of ever having to witness his tormentor again was so animated that she never wanted to bring it up again.

  “That place is gone, princess. Don’t ever allow yourself to be trapped there again, and forget about that soulless bitch. She taunted me with hope for three years while at the same time smashing my sanity to mush. Get her out of your head, my friend, she is not there for the good of the people…you can take that to the bank.”

  Her group had made it to the area outside the northwest gate seeing signs of foul folk, so many signs that they figured they were be right under their noses. The enemy didn’t come in a rush; they never came in a rush, but more as a slow trickle. A single arrow pierced the thigh of the dwarf next to her, pinning his leg to the pony. The pony panicked and screamed out in pain from the impact. The horse’s scream and the howl from the dwarf as his pony rose onto its hind legs caused four more fletched shafts to appear in his chest as a dozen others marked the hysterical beast sending them both to the ground where they thrashed then lay still. The forest erupted with motion, her people in chaos as a group of ten muridai and two trolls attacked the small party.

  They appeared so suddenly she only managed one poorly aimed arrow at one of the trolls before she needed to draw her blade. She saw the arrow plunge into his torso knowing it would probably kill the beast, in a week via infection, but that didn’t help her now.

  The song from the ethereal woman in the tower burst out in full sound flowing through her, and she began to flow with its rhythm, her blade swift and elegant, moving in complex weaves she hadn’t known she was capable of. Her level of thought and perception of the scene heightened to a state that was more than her, deeper…focused and…older. Much older than the simple memories of her ancestors, visions from a time before the cataclysm, before the world broke and the races split apart like scatter sparks of a super nova. This curious thought almost stopped her dumb in the middle of a particularly dangerous defense of a downward strike to her head. Whatever was within her handled it easily as her mind raced.

  What in the seven pits is a super nova? Is she taking over my thoughts now too? She couldn’t let her mind focus on anything other than the gruesome task at hand.

  She blocked, using her bow as a shield while sliding her blade down behind the collar bone of the muridai. Giving it a slight twist severing airways and blood vessels,she yanked her rapier free, spinning the blade and plunge it backwards under her armpit and into the throat of another ratman trying to stick a short sword into her back. A big swing from a troll’s ax and her horse that she had picked up in Riverhouse, dropped to the ground headless. She rolled between the legs of the massive being and tried to hamstring his left leg, but her blade was too lite. It swung his foot in a massive sweep trying to crush her, but she rolled away, managing to take his little toe in the process. The troll howled in pain causing Juil to wonder if she should have left the toe considering how much attention his antics would draw.

  More foul folk bled out from the surrounding trees.

  A mass of muridai were advancing from her front as the troll wailed in pain from its missing toe. The song flowed through her head keeping pace with the battle, the ethereal face joining with hers, fitting in behind the skin as if it was her own, she readied for the clash that would overwhelm her. Their communion was ethereal and mainly one way, one thing she did pick up was that the singer loved the thrill of battle as no one else could and she made Juil, better. A rider-less ram charged through the mass bowling over muridai knocking them aside like pins in an alley. A wretched shrill scream rent the air, attacking her backside from the forest. It was a scream of unabated rage as the troll with the severed toe was slammed face first to the ground as something heavy and white crashed into its backside, screaming a primal rage that she recognized, she had felt his presence as he made his way toward her though she didn’t know he was so close. She parried, slashed, and jabbed when another scream from above warned her of the pterodacs dropping toward her like she was a rabbit in an open field, she rolled away from the onslaught, but the flyers never struck. Then what seemed to be a vat of hot sticky fluid gushed over her, matting her hair to her face and drenching her tunic in hot rancid blood, the melee silenced.

  Frozen in place as if what had suddenly arrived commanded their undivided attention. Dyanna. She would not allow herself to be captured by the witch again, she would die fighting before she would be a slave or locked back into to that timeless lost kingdom. Surprisingly and somewhat suspiciously, the entity that she now knew was within her…agreed.

  Had she also been a prisoner? No argument sounded from within, just the gentle moaning of her sorrowful song. It almost stymied her realizing that the woman she thought of as being untouchable might well have been a victim just like her.

  The song brought her head up and she cleaned the muck from her eyes to see a vision wrapped in effortless arrogance. It held a third of the second troll’s body in its talons, literally ripped from under arm to right hip, dripping its gore onto the crumpled remains of its unmoving body which lay upon several dead pterodacs.

  “Princess, I believe your steed has arrived,” Nigel said sarcastically as he absently picked at something caught under his fingernail while hovering above her.

  “Nigel, it is really good to see you,” Juil said sincerely.

  “Of course it is, silly girl. Be grateful I spotted your horse as it led me straight to you or this day might not have ended well for you. They lost a lot of pterodacs today. Pathetic of them to think they could stand up to an aerial just out of the aerie let alone one of my stature.”

  “I have felt him coming for quite some time, he is a brother returned,” Juil said as she watched her horse across the clearing.

  The white beast finished trampling the other troll, he whinnied and rushed toward them, the bond established at birth grew stronger. She held her hand out knowing where her saddle would come into her grasp and swung into it hugging her steed around the neck. Juil had felt Ice King’s approach for many days and knew that he had felt her panic and rode hard to get here. His hoofs were bloodied from crushing the skulls of the troll as well anything else in his way. His forelegs were covered with a thick ichor that had sprayed on to his massive chest. He bowled over a party of five halfmen who had joined the fray. She slashed at the hands that clutched for her legs and arms as they tried to pull her from the saddle, and then they were clear from the mass and headed toward the gate. She shouted at a lone dwarf running in the same direction. He turned and they hooked arms, she swung him up behind her, the impact of the heavy dwarf almost dislocating her left shoulder. His ax swung down and a goblin head rolled to the ground and they were clear again, following the aerial down a path where muridai and halfmen lay already slaughtered.

  Nigel caught an updraft at the face of the cliff carrying his third of a troll with him as he rose. Juil and five remaining dwarfs, including the one who shared her steed, rode into the safety of a Riverhouse entrance. A riderless ram and two ponies followed behind but the foul folk mysteriously stopped, causing them to peer malevolently at the backs of the retreating party.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but that was pretty frightening to me. Thank you for the lift, princess,” the dwarf said as he pushed off the back of Ice King when they slowed. She patted and rubbed the neck of her friend, grateful that he was alive and healthy.

  “It was my pleasure, Master…?”

  “Wyrmglin, aye…I be the cooper in calmer times.”

  “No worthier craft could be had, Master Wyrmglin.

  “Did you see all of those dead bodies as we approached the entrance? We had some help if you know what I mean.” Wyrmglin’s gruff tone hung the question in the air as he mounted one of the shaggy ponies he appeared to be familiar with.

  “It was an aerial,” Len exclaimed.

  “Now why would an aerial be helping us? They’re nothing but pure evil, you know. They ate a lot of children back during the aerial wars,” Wyrmglin protested.

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Juil said, knowing that this whole incident put her into his debt and how that would make him even more obnoxious than he already was. “Pure evil they are not and I doubt the stories about them eating children, however, annoying? They are, or at least he, is annoying as hell.

  * * *

  “Well, that was refreshing,” Nigel said as he came back through the ceiling of the aerie. “Say, you’re going to clean up when you’re done up here right? I mean it is my childhood home after all.”

  “You’ll never even know that I was here,” Tic replied.

  “Oh, I’ll know,” he replied as his eyes scanned across the corpses lying about the space. “Are you on to some brilliant plan involving carrion or something.”

  “I don’t know, Nigel. It’s all hit or miss at this point. I’ve never fought in a war or know the first things about tactics. I figure that on a basic level it is simply about killing right? We have to kill more of them before they kill us and that brings us right back into it being a matter of mathematics. That is where I shine. You see the simple numbers are very basic, almost juvenile. The hard part is determining the x-factor, or in this case, an equalizer. There is a lot more involved in it than that and I’ll fill you in once I am sure it will work. Thanks for your help with this, not meaning to sound ungrateful, but you need a bath.”