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The grey stallion galloped further up the gravelled road and up the hill, stronger and faster than before now that he had fed and rested.
Aya clutched Villid’s back and watched the fields flitting by as Acotas galloped up the hill. Her thoughts wavered back to the humans and how they had been so eager to get their hands on the scrolls. The bag of gold coins that bumped against her hip as they rode was heavy and full; the documents hadn’t been cheap. And they had been stolen, after all – the humans she and Villid had ambushed in the forest had been thieves.
And that’s when the thought occurred to her. “Villid,” she said softly. He grunted in response.
“Those documents we let go must have been important,” she said. “Why would thieves steal scrolls with stories on them?”
It took a moment for Villid to digest this unpleasant information when he finally said, “It doesn’t really matter right now. Let’s concentrate on finding Millnock.”

The small village rose through the hills rather unexpectedly; Aya and Villid didn’t notice it until they were almost on top of it. The path became a muddy track that led between two small fields where several small ponies grazed. A tall stone wall stood before them, enclosing the village. Smoke rose
from the tops of houses on the other side of the wall. A single guard stood before the wooden door separating them from the town. He wore dark green, chainmail armour and held a spear, which lay limp in his hand as he leant against the wall beside him, rubbing his hand over his bearded face and gazing at the horses with half-closed eyes. As Aya and Villid approached him, though, he jumped back to attention, looked them up and down, and frowned.
“Welcome to Millnock, village in the name of Lord Cornelius,” he sighed, as if he had said it a hundred times. “Name and business?”
“Villid and Aya,” said Villid, sliding off Acotas. “We have come to stay here a few nights.”
“What are you, travellers, monks?” said the guard sharply, his eyes flicking from Villid’s face to the bags and rolled up map that they had strung on the horse’s back. “Scholars?” he added curiously.
“Travellers,” Villid shrugged.
“You have a strange accent,” the guard replied.
“We’ve travelled a long way,” said Villid.
The guard frowned at Acotas for a moment, opened his mouth as if he were about to
say something, then shrugged and slumped back to his original position. “Very well,” he sighed. “It’s a five gold toll to travel through here. And the stables are here – horses aren’t permitted into the streets, it’s too crowded.”
Aya took the bag with the human gold in and unstrapped it; as she did so it suddenly slipped from her fingers and fell to the ground with a loud jingle. Coins scattered across the path and Villid hurriedly bent down to scoop them back into their bag. The guard’s eyes went wide with shock.
“M-my good sir,” he said, and knelt. “I- I didn’t realise... I thought... well, never mind what I thought... you may come through, sir and lady, of course, of course, no, no, there’s no need to pay,” the guard waved his hand at the bag of gold. “Go straight through, of course... but, my lady, I would keep your gold out of the sight of the peasants... pickpockets are common in this area, I’m afraid...”
Aya and Villid stared at each other, but said nothing. Villid tucked the gold safely into his tunic, and they led Acotas into the small field with the other horses. He looked frighteningly large compared to the small ponies, which ignored their new arrival and continued to graze.
“Be good,” Aya said affectionately, gently stroking Acotas’ velvet nose. The horse whinnied in reply as if he’d understood, and then began to sniff at the grass around him.
After Villid had unstrapped the bags from the stallion’s back, the guard opened the gate to Millnock and bowed them inside. “I’ll take good care of your horse,” he said generously, almost impaling himself as he bent lower. “Please enjoy your stay.”
“What just happened?” Aya whispered as they began to walk.
“Humans,” Villid said quietly, “admire gold before all else. He must have seen the bag and thought we were high-ranking of some sort.”
Millnock seemed to be a busy sort of place. The buildings were nothing like what either of them were used to; thatched roofs and square windows made up most of the houses, and a large windmill towered over the narrow street. Humans of all ages filtered round each other, going about their business, children running barefoot round people’s knees and the adults hurrying silently, heads bent. Villid was at least a head taller than any of the human men; they glanced at him nervously as they passed and muttered quietly to each other. Aya stayed behind Villid, clutching the back of his cloak and hugging the bags to her chest.
Aya was about to ask where they were going when Villid turned sharply left and entered a dark, busy inn, where a torrent of laughter and chattering hit them and a strong smell of ale filled their noses. The air was dark and humid; Aya risked a glance and saw large, roughly-carved tables with six or seven human men at each of them, laughing loudly and clunking their glasses together, which were full of golden, fizzing liquid.
A few of the humans glanced at Villid as he passed them; he was several inches taller than them and at least twice as wide; a few even scraped their chairs away from him as he approached them, shifting closer to their companions before talking loudly again. Villid swept towards the bar.
It stood high with shelves of dusty bottles on display behind. A curvaceous, red-haired human woman stood behind the bar with her fist on the hip of her slightly ragged dress. She looked up at Villid with an eyebrow raised.
“Afternoon,” she said; she had no front teeth. “What can I do for you, sir?” she glanced at Aya. “And madam,” she nodded.
“Two...” Villid’s eyes swept the shelves behind the woman’s bonnet. “Of those,” he pointed towards an odd lavender-coloured bottle, furthest on the right. The wench poured them two huge tankard glasses. “Southern ale,” she commented, thrusting the glasses to Villid and Aya. “Anything else? More drinks? Food? A bed for the night?”
“Bed, please,” said Villid, glad she had suggested it first.
“Five gold for two beds,” she said lazily.
Villid rooted round in the bag and pulled out five gold coins. He slammed them on the table and the wench pushed a dusty scroll towards him, telling him to sign with the feathered quill she was holding. He took it and signed his name in small, squared letters of Tyran script. The woman frowned as she watched him.
“Maajin, sir?” she suddenly bellowed over her shoulder, towards the dusty door behind her. It opened almost instantly with a loud creak, and a young man with an eye patch appeared. Glaring at them through his visible eye, he limped to the space behind the bar, next to the woman
who had summoned him. His dark, steel-grey hair was thick and brushed back, and he wore a dark brown cloak that tied round him and held together with silver buckles. The woman pulled him away and whispered something to him, glancing nervously at the scroll and Villid’s large hand, which was still clutching the feathered quill. Villid and Aya stared at each other. Then the young man laughed loudly and turned to face them.
“Anyone is welcome here at the Underbelly Inn,” he boomed; his voice was deep and commanding. When he smiled he looked decades older; deep lines formed around his ocean-blue eyes. “Hally here will show you to your room.”
The woman hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. She beckoned them to another door on the left and they followed her through. She trotted quickly, her bonnet bouncing on her head. Every few seconds she would glance back at Villid, then at Aya, give a nervous cough, and turn to keep walking.
She led them up some creaking stairs; they led to a hallway, where she stopped in front of the second door to the left.
“Enjoy your stay.”
she said shortly, opening it. The room was plain and simple; two narrow beds sat against either wall, with a woven rug in between them covering most of the cracked floorboards, and a window with a blue vase of slightly drooped flowers. She gave a stiff bow and backed out of the room, closing the door swiftly behind them.
Aya exhaled and removed her hood, feeling sick with nerves. They could still hear the buzz of talk downstairs. Villid collapsed the bags onto the floor and sat down on his bed, at a loss of what to say and do. Aya watched him, feeling a mixture of relief and odd pity.
The bed was unusual to Aya - Elves usually slept in hammocks, with the exception of the Seer, whose bed was large with pillows and thick duvets. She took off the thick cloak, which had stuck to her body all day in the humid weather. Villid found he was watching her, and looked away quickly. He could no longer deny to himself how much he enjoyed being with her. But he would rather trade in his best axe than tell her how he felt.
They didn’t speak for several minutes. Aya wished they still had the scrolls with the pictures – she enjoyed looking at them and imagining what sort of stories had been written with them.
“Tomorrow,” Villid said.
Aya looked at him, the question in her look.
“Your Elf Seer,” he explained. “We will go to this shrine of yours tomorrow, and find her. We’ve stalled long enough.”

It was the middle of the night when Aya woke with a start, moonlight pouring in through the window and creating a pale glow on the rug. She wasn’t sure what had woken her – perhaps a nightmare. She glanced at Villid, who was slumbering quietly, his bare back to her, his body slowly
heaving up and down with each breath.
She gazed at him as he slept, her tiredness disappearing as each second ticked by. All was quiet downstairs now – it must be the early hours of the morning.
Aya sat up. She considered waking him, but she couldn’t think of a reason to. Before she knew it, she had slid off the bed and onto the floorboards. She had taken her clothes off before sleeping, and her naked body felt free and unrestricted. Moonlight beamed through the window, illuminating her milky-white skin in the darkness. She sighed deeply, and glanced down at Villid, who slept on, unaware that Aya was watching him, drinking in his tall, muscular form, wondering to herself what these new feelings were.
No Elf man had ever appealed to her in this way. Feelings were stirring inside her that she had never felt before, excitement was building in her chest and a pleasant, tingling sensation ran down her thighs. It no longer mattered to her what Villid was, or where he had come from.
It was too hard to resist, he was asleep and oblivious to her feelings. She crept towards his bed. Her fingers reached out and touched his shoulder. It was warm, soft and inviting. She perched gingerly on the edge of his bed and watched him as he slept. The light shone on his back, where every muscle was defined and strong. She saw two large scars, one on his shoulder blade, and another near his hip. His arms were folded in front of him – those strong,
muscular arms that had saved her life so many times.
The thoughts that she had forced to the back of her mind were racing through her head again. How she wanted to lie in those arms, touch him, whisper things to him... Aya could feel her heart punching against her chest, and her whole body was shivering with excitement…

It was some time later in the night when a loud bang from downstairs jolted Aya and Villid awake; Aya was back in her own bed, tangled in her bedclothes and dressed in her tunic again. Had she been dreaming?
They heard a loud scuffling from downstairs; Villid crept out of bed, pressing his finger to his lips. Aya nodded quietly, and slid out of bed. She reached for the black tunic and pulled it quickly over her head.
“You!” bellowed a deep voice from downstairs, followed by a panicked scream from a woman. “Where are they, human?”
Fear gripped Villid as he made his way to the door and edged it open. The moonlight from the window poured into the hallway, and candles burned low in the corridor.
“Who?” the woman cried. Villid turned and peered downstairs, and his stomach turned over in fear. Two huge Tyran warriors who he recognised by sight stood at the otherwise empty bar, one holding the woman roughly by her front and glaring at her. One of them, a tall
Tyran with long, scraggly blond
hair and a large scar on his neck nodded towards the scroll on the counter. The Tyran holding the woman glanced at it too, and his snarl turned into a smirk.
“So he is here,” he said. The woman looked terrified. “The second room on the left,” she stammered without
invitation.
They heard the Tyran throw the woman to the ground with a muffled thud and Villid turned to Aya; she saw the panic in his eyes. Before they could decide what to do the Tyrans were at the doorway, weapons unsheathed. Their huge, muscular frames looked prominent in the moonlight, terrifying and silent. Villid backed away, blood drumming in his head. His weapons were beside the bed, if only he could reach them…
“Six-one-twenty-seven,” said the blond
Tyran, stepping into the room slowly, gripping his large, blood-stained axe in his dirty hand. His ripped tunic revealed the gleaming scarred number on his chest – four thousand, seven hundred and forty-two. So other tribes were also looking for him.
“There’s quite a price on your head,” the Tyran said. “And I thought you could go no lower – first disobeying orders, killing the Seer, now hiding in a human village?”
“You’ve been fed lies,” Villid raged. “Shade killed the Seer in that tower, not me.”
“Not that it’s a great loss,” said the Tyran. “The Seer was senile, in his old age. Perhaps you did him a favour. But the law is the law, and if Shade wants your head,” the Tyran gave an evil smile, “so be it.”
“The Seer wasn’t senile,” snarled Villid. Rage bubbled inside him. “Shade is corrupt. He killed him because he tried to-”
“Silence,” the Tyran said. “You will pay for your... who is this?”
He had just spotted Aya, who backed against the wall, her heart punching against her chest and shivering in fright. The Tyrans both stared at her in surprise.
“An E
lf!” they exclaimed. The blond
Tyran threw back his head and laughed. “Not only are you attacking your tribe, you are babysitting
Elves! Tell me, woman...” he turned to Aya. “How does it feel to know your race has been destroyed?”
Villid scrabbled on the floor for his axe; he grabbed the handle and jumped to his feet. He swung it towards the Tyran’s neck but the soldier blocked it with his own weapon; Villid thrust his fist into his gut and he gasped and fell back, winded. Then their blades met, metal on metal, and sparks erupted from the weapons. Villid recognised the Tyran now – he had been hailed champion of the Arena last winter. His teeth gritted as they battled; this Tyran had incomparable strength.
As the soldiers battled on one side of the room, Aya started to panic – she had no weapon. Her bow and arrows had rolled away somewhere under a bed. The other Tyran grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor. Pain exploded in her head as it hit the ground and she tried to sit up, gasping and shaking.
“Hello, pretty,” he hissed, pinning her down. His hair was short and scruffy, his sharp eyes boring into her as his
heavy body lay on her, holding her to the ground. She tried to push him off, but he was too strong.
“Don’t struggle,” he seethed, and tugged at Aya’s tunic. There was a tearing sound as the Tyran ran his rough hand up her waist...
“Villid!” Aya screamed.
Villid had wrestled the b
lond
Tyran to the ground; he glanced towards Aya, and his enemy hit him hard with his elbow, pushed himself to his feet and snarled at Villid. Villid moved back and felt for his sword – with both weapons he was stronger. Aya fought against the Tyran on top of her, his stale breath on her cheek, his left hand around her neck whilst he pulled at her clothes, which ripped as they slid from her skin.
“You’re mine, little Elf,” he whispered in her ear.
Villid found his sword handle and brought the weapon forward, catching the blade on his enemy’s arm. A deep gash appeared there and he yelled in pain; Villid grabbed his biceps and butted him with his skull. There was a loud crunch and the Tyran fell backwards to the floor.
“Aya!” he yelled, and buried his axe into the dark-haired Tyran’s back. He gave a strangled groan and collapsed onto her body, his grip strengthening on Aya’s neck, vice-like; she struggled to breathe, pinned down, unable to move. She felt herself choke, her eyesight fading, his hairy body shaking violently on her as he gurgled, the axe buried deep in his back.
The blond Tyran was on his feet again, screaming in anger as his axe slashed through the air, blood gushing from his broken nose. Villid stepped back to dodge, and suddenly felt the Tyran’s blade tip rip through his skin. Pain tore at his chest and for a moment he stood still – everything was moving in slow motion, and the gleam in his enemy’s eyes was triumphant as he swung the axe once more... this was it, he had lost…
The blond Tyran’s mouth was wide open in a victorious roar; Villid felt his knees give way, sharp pain throbbing at his chest, as the warrior in front of him raised his axe for the final blow. Villid could not believe he had been defeated so easily. He tasted blood at the back of his throat. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment…
Then, as if waking him from a dream, bright green flames erupted from nowhere. The Tyran’s eyes widened in shock as a trail of thick, green light exploded from the doorway; it flew around the room, the head taking the shape of a glaring dragon. It spread and wrapped around the Tyran, who screamed in agony as the flames engulfed him, before he collapsed onto the floor, his skin blackened and burned, his hair gone, and his weapon charred to dust.
The green light faded and Villid whipped round. “Aya?” he said breathlessly. “Aya!” he hauled the body of the dark-haired Tyran off her and Aya gasped and choked. She sat up, coughing, crying from pain and shock. She clutched at Villid, who pulled her to him and wrapped her tunic around her. “Are you all right?” he whispered, but all she
could do was sob uncontrollably.
“He... he tried to...” she whispered.
“I know,” Villid held Aya close to him, filled with rage at the Tyran, who lay dead on the floor, his grotesque face contorted in pain.
Villid gently let go of Aya and picked up his axe. With a swift motion, he beheaded the dark-haired Tyran, grunting in satisfaction as his head rolled away into a dark corner.
He turned to face Aya, wiping sweat from his brow, and surprised himself slightly – he was so relieved she wasn’t harmed. Pain throbbed in his chest and he clutched at his torn tunic, but the injury wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. He pressed the material to his skin, stemming the pinpricks of blood.
Aya glanced at the charred body of the blond
Tyran. “I saw the light,” she said. “What was that?”
Villid knelt beside the blackened body. The flames had completely burnt him; he was hardly recognisable, and at Villid’s touch, he fell apart like dust.
Footsteps. Villid jumped to his feet and snatched up his sword and axe again. But there was no Tyran at the doorway – it was the young man with the eye patch from behind the counter. “You’re in danger,” he said breathlessly, lowering his arms – it was he who had cast the spell.
“You’re a mage,” whispered Aya.
“I am,” said the mage. “But never mind that now. You
have to get out of here. There are more Tyrans – at least twenty, right outside this inn.”
Villid scrambled to his feet. “Help us,” he pleaded. The words sprang to his lips before he could stop them.
The mage nodded, and beckoned them out of the room. “Follow me,” he whispered, and as he spoke they heard another loud bang from downstairs.
Aya and Villid grabbed the bags of food and coins. Aya reached under her bed and snatched up her bow and arrows. Then they followed the young man as quietly as possible down the darkened corridor. They heard murmuring voices from the lower levels of the inn.
A ladder lay at the end of the corridor, leading to the upper floors. Villid pushed Aya onto the rungs, where she climbed, exhausted, almost slipping in haste. Villid followed her, scrambling on the wooden rings and edging through the hole above. The mage followed them to the top, and when they had reached the next floor, he whispered something; the ladder pulled itself up and the hole they had crawled through closed.
“Thank you,” said Aya breathlessly as they crouched on the dusty floor. “How can we…”
The man pressed a finger to his lips as they heard heavy footsteps thunder upstairs to the floor below. The three of them sat deathly still.
“They are here,” said a deep angry voice. “I smell them,”
It sounded as if there were hundreds of them, their heavy feet pounding on the floorboards, searching every room, shouting to one another. They cursed loudly as they saw the dead bodies of the Tyrans, one burnt to ash, and the other headless with a butchered back.
Aya felt as if her insides had turned to lead. A sudden light from downstairs made her flinch and Villid’s warm hand closed around her arm. The young mage stared coldly at them both, his eyes shimmering in the flickering candlelight below.
There was a crack in the floorboard. Aya glanced down it, feeling more terrified with each passing second of silence.
She saw the tops of the heads of no less than four Tyrans, three men and one woman. They had all gathered in the hallway, broad-shouldered, wearing thick, black-plated armour. A fifth Tyran strode out of the bedroom, clutching bags in his hands. Villid cursed under his breath – they hadn’t grabbed all the bags in their haste.
“Human gold,” he grunted. “This might not have been Villid,”
The others all muttered in agreement. “Bulpitt’s body is burned to ash,” said the woman, whose voice was wheezy and deep, clutching a huge axe as big as a human man and shaking back her long, curly black hair over her muscular shoulder. “Unless they actually set him alight, only magic could have done that.”
“It
was
him!” snarled the tallest Tyran, who was
bearded, red-headed and strong, two crossed swords at his back.
“He wrote his signature on the scroll! No human for miles knows Tyran script!”
He strode to another bedroom door and kicked it open. “Six-one-twenty-seven!” he roared.
The woman Tyran muttered something to the others and they sniggered. “He’s not here, Wolfe,” a shorter, blond
Tyran shrugged. “Maybe it was humans who killed Bulpitt and Rogue. Or perhaps a mage – Bulpitt’s body, after all...”
“Don’t be a fool. The mages have no quarrel with the Tyrans.” Wolfe spat. He searched the room – Aya clamped her hand to her mouth, wanting to scream. “Burn it,” he hissed, and turned and strolled away. Aya and Villid heard the clamping footsteps fade away, the woman at his heels.
The remaining three Tyrans stood still for a few seconds, then nodded to each other and lumbered towards the stairs. The last Tyran pulled a lantern off the wall and threw it to the floor – it smashed instantly; flamed erupted from the floorboards and the corridor was instantly filled with smoke. It floated through the floorboards and engulfed Villid, Aya and the mage; they coughed and choked, panicking in the new found darkness.
“This way,” the mage said, and led them to the back of the attic where a small window sat. He opened it, letting out some of the smoke.
“It’s too small to fit us through!” Villid coughed.
The mage pushed them back impatiently and ran his hand over the windowsill. The window began to grow; its shape
distorting and squashing for a few moments before restoring to its original shape, big enough for even Villid to crawl through.
“Quickly!” they scrambled out of the window, where they each crawled onto the thatched roof, which sloped downwards suddenly. The roof felt warm beneath their hands – the wooden building would collapse soon.
“Climb down that part,” hissed the mage, nodding towards uneven wooden balconies that led from the roof down to the ground. They struggled down the balconies, slipping every few seconds as they escaped the burning building. Flames and smoke burst from the windows as the fire spread in the inn, and the straw and wood beneath them began to crumble.
“Hurry!” Villid shouted, and Aya jumped – the fall was higher than she had suspected and pain shot up her legs as she crumpled onto the cobbled ground. Villid landed next to her and pulled her up roughly by the arm. He looked her up and down.
“I’m all right,” Aya breathed, pain throbbing at her kneecaps.
The mage appeared beside them, and ushered them to hurry away from the burning inn. As they ran they heard it collapse, the crackling of the flames roaring into the otherwise silent night. They hurried into a small alleyway which led to the outer parts of the town. They backed against the stone wall, breathing heavily, smoke and dirt
clinging to their tunics, Aya’s heart thumping in fear.
The young mage glared through his good eye at the route they had come from. He turned to them and pushed a scroll into Aya’s hands.
“This map is newer than the one you own. Follow this path,” he whispered, and pointed a slender finger to a thick red line heading west. “It will take you to safety.”
“How did...?” Villid interrupted, but the mage waved him down impatiently.
“There’s no time,” he hissed, as shouts and footsteps could be heard behind them. “When you find the place, tell them Maajin sent you. They will help you. Go!”
He pushed them towards an old, rusted kissing gate covered in overgrown thorns. The mage nodded to them, his frowning grey eye shining knowingly in the moonlight, and marched back through the alley, his long cloak billowing behind him.