Stump

Surprising everyone, the beast made to lunge at Elowen then leapt in a shower of powdery snow. It had been shamming. It's wounded leg was incapacitating, but not to the point where it was no longer dangerous.

Elowen raised her shield and stumbled aside in surprise, but the beast only feinted at her. It landed awkwardly next to Stump and swung a large deadly hand.

The powerful blow and raking claws sent the small Goblin cartwheeling through the air in a shower of blood. He landed on the thick snow and continued tumbling under it, leaving a hump in the virgin snow for several yards until he came to a sudden stop.

With a shriek of anguish, Elowen dove forward, rolled on her shield, landed on her feet and quick as a striking snake, stabbed the magic dagger through the werewolf's palm and then ripped it to the side, cutting through three of the metacarpal bones and severing tendons and sending a fan-shaped spray of hot blood steaming on the snow.

Again, it shrieked in agony, raising its head to the sky, its mouth opened wide and its one eye flaring wide.

Its breath caught in its throat as Gebrim's spear "thocked" deep into its mighty breast.

Elowen leapt forward and shoved the dagger under its chin, through the roof of its mouth and deep into its brain. She shoved and twisted, shoved and twisted, trying to sink more of the dagger into the beast's brain. There was no need... her initial plunge had done the job.

A sudden heave from the monster's death throes sent Elowen flying to land on her back on the soft snow with several rents in the front of her coat from the creature's ripping claws, none of which penetrated to her skin.

Gebrim strode forward and watched the creature quickly shift back to a man.

Rainald lay lifeless and twisted in death, his body was slashed, hacked and burned, his unfocused eye stared into the distance and Gebrim watched as it clouded over and froze in the eye socket.

The beast was dead.

Gebrim rushed to check on Elowen. She lay gasping like a landed fish. The beast had knocked the air from her lungs and she was gasping for breath, but she was alive and had avoided the beast's curse.

Eyes rolling wildly in panic and dread, she jumped to her feet and ran for the lump in the snow where Stump had come to a sudden stop.

She and Gebrim frantically dug through the snow and found him face down.

Elowen turned him over and cried out in anguish again. His large bulging eyes stared lifeless at the sky. His chest was a mess of shredded flesh and broken bones.

Gebrim watched as the beautiful warrior woman lifted the old Goblin's broken body to her breast and sobbed silently, her body shaking in paroxysms of grief.

Stepping away to leave her to her sorrow, Gebrim heard a woman cry for help from inside the broken down house. He found the "prisoner" crouching and shivering beside a pile of half devoured bodies but hesitated setting her loose. Did she bear the curse? Would she also turn to a beast and ravage the town?

Elowen picked up Stump's small broken body and with tears streaming down her face, slowly walked back to town.

He kept the woman in chains and walked ahead of Elowen, asking the "prisoner" questions along the way.

Holding the chains in his hand, Gebrim rushed ahead to bring word of the beast's death to the townspeople.

The woman's name was Bryn. She'd been wrongly accused of witchcraft in the village where she'd lived and was jailed. Rainald was a sergeant of the guard and was sent to test her and administer the king's justice if necessary. The moment he saw her, he decided to use her as his scapegoat.

There really wasn't much else to the story. As they'd traveled to the big city, they stopped in towns along the way and Rainald would make it look like Bryn had escaped. He'd kill and devour people and then blame it on her after "recapturing" her. He did it over and over again.

After hearing her story and her insistence that Rainald hadn't cursed her, Gebrim decided she was no threat. He got the smith to remove the shackles and Bryn was free for the first time in months, no longer the beast's prisoner.

Eventually the townspeople made their way back to their homes. They thanked Gebrim and watched Elowen disappear into the inn, bearing the old Goblin's body cradled in her arms. They tried to express their sympathy, but she was oblivious to everything around her.

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Three months later, in mid spring, Elowen left her cabin and strode down the main road into town. It was spring, the sky was a pale washed out blue and the rutted road was slushy with icy mud. Winter had released its icy grip and the world was starting to come to life. Birds chirped and flitted through the air around her and faint traces of green showed in the forest.

She bore a bulging pack and wore a long dark cloak that covered her from neck to ankle. It was covered with mud up to the knees.

As she topped a rise, the same one she and Stump had topped when they discovered the bandits, she saw Mathie and Jolar's farm. The woman was in front of the house carrying a pail half filled with corn to a muttering clucking chicken coop. The woman's tight bodice revealed a swelling belly. The farmers were expecting their fourth child.

Elowen called out and the dark-haired woman set the pail down and rushed to meet her, children trailing behind.

Mathie could see grief in the young woman's delicate-featured face. They'd all heard the story and she knew more than most what the old Goblin had meant to her.

She smiled and led her to the house, chattering away.

It was warm inside and she moved to take her guest's cloak.

Elowen raised a hand to stop her. She stood looking down at the tired careworn face. She was pretty but a farmer's life was not easy, and it showed.

Finally, she swept her cloak off and Mathie saw that the warrior woman's belly was swollen in pregnancy. It was hard to tell how far along she was because she was so tall.

No one would ever really know, but Elowen had conceived the first time she and Stump had sex.

Now he was gone and it'd be up to her to raise his child, a half human, half Goblin child.

--The End--

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