When I returo Amaranth the day, I smelled smoke. When I opehe doors, my fears were firmed. I couldn’t see the fmes, because they hadn’t yet reached my tomb, but I khey were out there. The pyromancer had started a forest fire.

  None of my abilities made me any good at fighting forest fires. Xy hopefully ko create firebreaks, and she was uniquely well equipped to do so. The trolls probably didn’t want the whole forest to burn down, because that would harm their source of wood. I had to stay calm.

  Which meant finishing the job I’d started the day before. I used the dder to get up and drill high up on the mausoleum, out of reach of a on a dder. Then I installed cameras and hooked them up to the wifi. From now on, I could monitor the cameras from anywhere oh, and iomb.

  If Xy wasn’t busy, she’d respond to the sound of the drill, but she didn’t e. I wasn’t surprised. A squirrel showed up, though, and walked right up o me.

  “Nutty?” I asked.

  The squirrel hopped up and down, which I decided meant yes. Nutty even followed me baside the tomb, and stayed by me as I checked to make sure I could monitor the cameras. Now and then, he skipped away, as if hoping I would follow him, and then slowly came back. It took me a while to get the message, as I get pretty focused on a job, but I got my bag of holding and strapped it to my belt. Everything I could fit in the openi inside, including the katana, the dagger, and the weed whacker.

  And ten bottles of Jack Daniels. All part of my pn.

  I wore a short skirt and a snug top. My “extra” was discreetly tucked into my panties.

  There were a zillion things that could g with my pn, but I was ting on my ability to teleport out of danger. And if Xy wanted me helping with the fire instead, I would certainly do that.

  At first I thought Nutty was leadioward the source of the smoke. We got to the same deer trail that led to the roear the cave and followed it north. But the smoke was east of us. I silently prayed, I wasn’t sure to whom, that Xy and Gren were safe.

  Nutty guided me to the edge of the forest, so that meant I was to go ahead and try to pull off my wild idea. It was my first sight of Amaranth that wasn’t tomb or trees. It was mostly tall grass, with the occasional tree stump, and the ndscape had a gentle roll to it, not ft but not quite hills. Further north, there were the silhouettes of more pronounced curves visible against the skyline.

  Parts of the Uates had probably looked something like this once, before prairie grass gave way to crops that people could eat.

  Nutty didn’t seem to want to go any further, but he didn’t scamper off, either. I got out some trail mix and fed him some nuts. He liked the parts that Xy didn’t, but I really o start pag some unsalted nuts. The poor thing was going to have high blood pressure if I kept feeding him this way.

  I headed north. Acc to Gren I’d run into a road eventually. The tall grass wasn’t fun to walk through, especially in a short skirt. Little is my legs. Now and then, I stopped to heal myself, killing a stretch of grass around me. If I used Dimension Step, I could avoid some of the bugs but I o retain my mana. I wao be in peak dition when I got to my destination.

  I came to a wide dirt path, that had some wheel ruts in it. Not much of a road, but it had to be what Gre. I headed east from there. The long walk had made me sweaty, but at least I wasn’t wearing much, which helped. So far it all looked like the map I had in my notebook, posed under dire from Gren and Xy.

  On the road it was easier going. I saw a few farms, which I tried to avoid for now.

  I kept going until I spotted little buildings led against a hill. I stopped to take a drink of water and rub some of the sweat off me. I brushed my hair. And then I walked forward, w if I was going to do the stupidest thing of my life. I could see what Gre about the stench. Any tration of people without plumbing probably smelled a bit like that. I tried to ig.

  I had a bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand, and I swished my hips as I approached the first male troll I saw. He was nky, like the dead one, with a shock ht e hair and an even mrotesque nose. A thick gold or brass bracer covered one wrist.

  Charm Person, I thought.

  You have spent 30 mana and are now at 51/81.

  For first use of Charm Person, you earned 1 experience point, and need 859 to bee a sed level Seductress / Neancer.

  Killing and raising them is more effit.

  Charm Person used up a lot of mana. But the troll gri me. “Well hello there!” he said, eying me up and down. “Aren’t you a geous elf girl? Or are you a handsome human?”

  “Human,” I said, although I thought geous was better than handsome. “I e with a message and a gift favabar.”

  “Uh. Well,” said the troll, shuffling his feet. “There’s been a ge around here, I don’t know that they’ll much like Gavabar receiving visitors.”

  “Really?” I asked, getting closer. “Are you sure you ’t do something about that?”

  “We’d have to talk to Varek,” he told me. “He’s in charge at the moment.”

  Not Baradzem. Iing. So did that mean the pyromancer was dead, or that he was out in the woods causing trouble? There was so much I didn’t know, but what I did know was that Xy had told the squirrel to guide me to where I could get to the vilge from the west, so I seemed to be ing from the dire of the elves, rather than from the forest, which meant she wanted me to go ahead with my pn. Varek was one of the four who had takehe vilge and sidelis chief, Gren’s father.

  “Well then,” I said, “Take me to Varek, and I’ll talk to him, but my gift is strictly for the chief. If I’m not sure he’s free, I ’t share my special beer with everyone.”

  He looked at the bottle. “Special beer,” he repeated.

  “Strictly for the chief to decide who gets some,” I said. “And if we establish good retions, there will be more.” I gri him.

  “That sounds grand, gracious girl,” he said. “I’ll take you to Varek.”

  “If the prihinks a Gavabar is in charge here, he probably won’t send any more special beer,” I said. “But yes, take me to Varek. Where is Gavabar, anyway?”

  rince?

  The one I made up, but I couldn’t talk to Enash now. The troll goward one of the several buildings. They were mostly of wooden stru, with thatched roofs, and the wood was rotting in pces. I could see why the trolls had a pressing need for lumber. At one side of the vilge, a new building was being structed, with fresh, healthy wood. “I’m not supposed to tell you where,” he said.

  “I won’t tell,” I whispered to him, brushing a breast against his arm. I retty sure I already knew, but I didn’t think it hurt to be sure.

  “Well, that one over there,” he said. “What’s your name, beautiful, uh —”

  “Babe?” I asked, figuring he was searg for an alliterative word.

  “Beautiful babe,” he agreed.

  “My name is Abby, what’s yours?”

  “Bathor.”

  I smiled at him, while I tried to pce the name. Gren had mentioned a Bathor, but he wasn’t on the list of people who had alighemselves with Varek and Baradzem, nor on the list of likely Gavabar loyalists, which I had memorized. So he robably someone who kept his head down and avoided taking sides.

  “Well, Bathor, I’ll try to put in a good word for you and make sure you get some special beer.”

  He grinned wide, and with his yellow teeth, several of which were missing, it didn’t improve his appearahere were definitely lengths to which I was not willing to go to help Xy, but I tried to give him my best smile iurn and arched my baake the most of my chest. “Show me Varek, then, for now.”

  The rgest building in town was a big oblong structure, which Gren had told me was the great hall where the tribe diogether, and in which they had their ies when there was enough beer. The sed rgest was the chief’s hut, where Gavabar normally lived, and that was where Bathor took me. The trolls w on the new building stopped what they were doing to take a long look at me, and one of them let out a wolf whistle.

  “Awesome ass!”

  “Massive melons!”

  “Redoubtable rack!”

  Some things happen everywhere, I guessed. Although without all the alliteration. Redoubtable, indeed.

  “I’ll make sure they think you haven’t told me,” I murmured to Bathor, and they yelled out, “Do you guys know where Gavabar is? I have some special beer for him and those loyal to him!”

  One of them goward the hut Bathor had pointed out. A couple of them looked sheepish. Several of them looked frightened. But none of them gave me any answers.

  I followed Bathor into the chief’s hut.

  I reized Varek from Gren’s description. He was sitting in a big chair, and looking in charge, so I could have figured it out even if he hadn’t had bright green spiky hair, and ach. He had a bracer on each wrist, and a torc around his neck, all of which looked like they might be made of gold, with red, blue, and green uncut gemstones.

  There were two male trolls standio him, and I didn’t know who they were, but they were armed with long knives, and so was he. One had red hair, the other e. They, too, had golden jewelry, although not as much as Varek.

  I could charm him, but if I did that I’d have enough mana for two jumps, at most. And I o keep line of sight to use Dimensiohe one window looked out on the building project, and there were a lot of guys there, and probably most ones loyal to Varek and Baradzem. There was definitely a lot that could g.

  What are you doing? These guys outnumber us! Let’s run, now!

  I ignored Enash, and my own insistebeat. The guys were staring at my tits, but Varek’s eyes flicked to the bottle.

  “You go, Bathor,” he said.

  I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Would Charm Person make him fight for me, if it came to that? The way the three were looking at my body made me worolls couldn’t get it up without being stoned, but my pn involved telling them I had alcohol. I o keep aware of my escape options.

  Well, I couldn’t back out now.

  “I have some special beer, from Prince Legos of the Elves,” I said. “Which he said to deliver into the hands of Chief Gavabar himself.”

  Varek frowned. “I’m what you might call ag for the chief.” He reached out for it. “You give it to me.”

  “No,” I said, pulling it close to me. “I’m under dire to deliver it only to the Chief, and then I go back to get nine more bottles.”

  It took about half a cup of beer, acc to Gren, for a troll to get drunk. I retty sure they couldn’t imagine just how potent whiskey was by parison.

  “Well,” Varek said. “I ’t let you see the Chief, so we’re at an impasse.”

  “’t? Is he dead?”

  Varek shook his head. The two men with him were moving to my sides and slightly behihis wasn’t looking good.

  “Won’t,” Varek said. “Baradzem the jurer of bustion has decreed that the Chief be left to rest. For his own good, of course. He’s sick.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He ate too much,” Varek said, showing his yellow teeth. At least he only had one missing, but saying he was more handsome than Bathor was faint praise. The hippos in Fantasia were sexier. The two men ughed, but there was a hard tio their ughter I didn’t like at all. I wao save Dimension Step for after I’d actually gotten stuff done, but they were creeping closer, and I definitely couldn’t fight them all off. Given how aggressive they were, I didn’t even think they’d qualify for being back stabbed if I struck first.