"Vil! Look out!" the woman screamed.

The warning came too late. Vil was drawing back his sword for another swing when the elemental slashed its glittering claws across the man's head. Martine heard the sound of tearing flesh, and Vil's head snapped back. His muscles rubbery, the former paladin staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ice, the long sword dropping from his grasp and skittering across the ice. Blood streamed from a long gash in his helm and the shredded flesh of his cheek. The slash had laid his jaw open to teeth and bone, so that when he tried to scream, the cries only made gurgling noises with no mouth to shape them. Nonetheless the warrior lunged for the elemental, desperately hugging the freezing creature in his grasp.

Martine groped for Vil's sword, the only weapon close at hand. As she searched futilely, afraid to take her eyes off the fiend, the creature shaped its tiny mouth in a mockery of a smile. Sparkling fire formed into a ball between Vreesar's fingertips even as Vil tried in vain to pull the creature down.

"Let go, Vil!" Martine shouted, helpless to stop the fiend. "It endz, human," Vreesar snarled. With a sudden jab, it shoved the frozen ball down Vil's breastplate and hurled the man aside. Vil's torn face barely had a chance to register confused surprise before he was pitched agonizingly against an icy upthrust. A repercussive roar filled the air. Metal shrieked as Vil's breastplate burst in bloody ruptures, blasted by the ice-splintered explosion it contained. The man heaved with a single twitch, then flopped, his shattered body barely contained by the twisted metal shell.

"Vil!" Martine screamed again. Tears blinded her eyes. She scrambled forward, anguish giving her strength. The swirling snow kicked up by the blast uncovered a glint of metal, and her hand settled on the cool steel of Vil's sword.

Using the weapon like a cane, Martine heaved unsteadily to her feet. Rage fought with tears as she faced the fiend. Martine wanted to vent her hatred of the creature more than she had ever wanted to strike out at anything in all the world. Stumbling over the snow, the Harper pulled her arm back to thrust. The elemental was distracted by its own wound, a clean split in its hardened shell, so Martine managed to get close enough to hear its heaving gasps and smell the murderer's freezing aura

She wanted to see its eyes, to see if there would be fear in them. She hoped the elemental would be afraid, afraid of its own death.

"Vreesar," she whispered.

The fiend looked up, and their eyes met, its orbs tiny and almost hidden behind an icy fringe. The elenwaW thrust its hand forward, already crackling with energy,: but mar

. tine knew that trick and batted it away with a fast swat Before the creature could recover, the Harper slammed her sword forward, throwing all her weight behind it. The sword tip skidded and then found a gap where the hip met the torso and sliced inward. The creature reeled back, and Martine, still staring eye to eye, fell forward with it. They hit the ground with a bone-breaking impact that threw the Harper to the side. Vreesar's magical ice ball slipped from its grasp and rolled down the slope.

Crackle-booom!

The blast's shock wave stunned Martine, and the ice needles tore at her back, but her prone position saved her from the worst of the blast. Vreesar's knee hit her in the gut, and she flipped away to land painfully in a jagged bed of hard ice.

As both struggled to their feet, Krote's tawny form flashed past the Harper. Martine thought the gnoll was lunging to attack, but instead the shaman dove at a patch of snow. When he emerged, Word-Maker held Jazrac's stone in his paw. The gnoll panted clouds of steam as he savored the power in his grasp.

Vreesar froze, torn between the stone and the threat of Martine's sword. It couldn't turn on the shaman without exposing itself to the ranger. Its wounds, leaking a clear fluid, were testimony to the effectiveness of its attackers.

Even with both hands wrapped around the hilt, the Harper barely could hold the sword. The ground seemed to tilt and roll as she tried to shake off the reverberations pounding inside her head. Every gulp of breath lanced her with fiery pain.

Greedy eyes coveted the artifact. "Shaman," Vreesar droned soothingly, "I will make you chieftain-chieftain of all the tribez of the north. My brotherz will be your army. Give me the stone and we will destroy the humanz and the little onez." The elemental slowly held out its hand, waiting to receive Krote's gift.

The shaman crouched. His eyes were filled with feral light as he looked from human to monster: His jaw hung open, salivating like a hound hunched over its kill.

"Krote, don't do it!" Martine managed to croak in desperation.

"Word-Maker, you can be chieftain."

"Your word you live by your word," she reminded him "Chieftain of the Burnt Fur," Vreesar tempted.

The wild light vanished from the shaman's eyes. "Burnt Fur all dead!" he snarled. "And you killed them. You not get stone!" With a sudden move, the gnoll tossed the cinder to Martine.

"Now you die!" Vreesar shrieked. With a halting step, it lunged toward the woman. Martine dropped her guard as

she reached out to catch the stone. Suddenly a hand pushed her aside; and Jouka's small black-spiked figure sprang between her and Vreesar. Sunlight blazed in a hundred sparks off the steel points on Jouka's outspread arms. Before the charging elemental could evade him, the gnome seized the monster's legs in his porcupine embrace, triggering a series of cracks as the spikes drove through the fiend's shell. Vreesar kicked its leg frantically, trying to throw the little warrior off, but the gnome clung like a burr, all the time banging his spiked face mask against the elemental's thigh. Cold white ichor streamed down the featureless curves of the gnome's helm.

Forgotten by Vreesar, Krote rose up behind the elemental. Almost as tall as the monster, the gaunt gnoll seized the fiend's shoulders and twisted its body backward. The air rang with the beast's alarmed shriek. Its long arms flailed as it tried to reach the tormentor at its back. Claws raked Krote's arms, slicing his wrapping until it dangled in bloody strips, and the gnoll's face writhed with pain, but still he clung to the creature.

"Now, human!" the Word-Maker roared. Releasing-one hand, he grabbed Vreesar's jagged brow, ignoring the needlelike points, and stretched its head back. "Kill it!"

Though the world still spun, Martine staggered forward and raised her sword with both arms till it pointed down like a spike. Vreesar's little eyes widened in fear. "Nooo!° the shrill voice pleaded.

Martine slammed her sword point first into the fiend's exposed throat.

When the monster finally stopped thrashing, Martine left Krote, left Jouka, left her sword, and stumbled to where Vil lay. She knelt beside the man, knowing already all hope was lost. He sagged against the canted ice, eye half closed and dull, his head turned so that she could not see his shredded face. Blood trickled from his mouth and became lost in theblack and gray of his beard. More soaked through the rents in his armor, the steel bloated out by the blast. When she raised his arms to fold them over his chest, his limbs flopped with the impossible limpness that only death brings.

There was no breath, no last words of farewell, no chance for one last speech as in the tales of the bards. There was only his body, still warm, but lost forever.

"Good-bye, Vil," she murmured, saying what he could not hear.

Behind her, Krote stood silent, ignoring the streams of blood that trickled from his arms while Jouka undid the dark-spiked mask that hid his face. Krote turned to face him, and in another place and time, the two might have traded blows, but now Jouka only kept a wary distance, perhaps finally deciding that this one gnoll deserved to live.