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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 1980695" data-attributes="member: 18280">Eighteenth Game (Part One)The group passed beyond the longstones into a rocky, sloping land, which gave way to forest all around.  Nift looked about nervously as he passed the stones, afraid that the Green Knight might be hiding behind the stones.  He was not.  They passed safely beyond, still following the path.  Clumps of small trees – poplar and jack pine – grew amid the abundant heather to either side. The tiny flowers scented the air. It was spring where they were, and the drone of the honeybees was loud.After a short time – it seemed less than half an hour – the travellers became aware of another party approaching them, coming the opposite direction on the same path.  The other party seemed to glow with a soft greenish-yellow light in the twilight.  It was a large group, at least two dozen figures on cream-colored or black horses and many more tiny figures that flitted like living lanterns amid their party.As they drew closer yet, Firestar could see that the riders looked like very tall and slender elves – he realized that they are taller than the average human. The elven-looking people were dressed all in black and gold. The males wore doublet and hose, with rapiers hanging from their belts, while the females were dressed in fancy gowns, wasp-waisted with black-and-yellow hoop skirts that made them seem rather bell-like. Their skin was a pale hue, like new butter, and their hair was either as black as a raven's wing or as golden as honey dripping from the comb. The tiny fairies flitting about them seemed much of the same sort, though smaller. The drone of their wings made an audible buzzing, even when the riders were still one hundred yards away.By unanimous consent, the adventurers came to a halt, and waited for the wondrous company to approach.  They drew no weapons.When the faeries were a dozen yards away, it was clear that the fey party centered around a tall and regal-looking woman, whose black hair was worn up in a hive bound by a golden diadem glittering with shiny black jewels. She glanced at the adventurers blocking the path with a rather vacant stare, then went back to doting the mortal child she carried on her horse. The child could not be more than five months old, but her eyes as she glanced at the adventurers showed interest and cunning far more than one would expect from a person in her middle age.One of the males stung his horse slightly with his long spurs, coming toward the adventurers with a quick movement. He was dressed in black hose and a yellow jacket. His black hair was worn long, with a sharply pointed beard and moustaches.  Like the other faeries, he was tall and elfin, with pointed ears and a narrow waist. As he addressed the adventurers, Firestar realized that the faerie’s eyebrows swept forward into tall antennae – a feature he then realized was common among the riders and their diminutive swarm. “Make way for Queen Beatrice,” the faerie knight said. “Clear the path.”“Um,” said Desu, “would it be okay if we went to the side of the path, and you went around?”“I am Sir Humm-a-Buzz, the Queen's Champion. If you will not yield the path, select a champion from among your number, and I shall duel him for the right of way. If your champion fails, you shall leave the path. If I fail, our Rade shall disperse, yielding the path to you.”“What if we put a rope across the path?” Locke asked.  “Maybe we could hold the rope, and find the path again that way?”“I don’t think so,” said Desu.“Good Sir,” said Nift, addressing the faerie knight.  “We mean no disrespect, but we can’t leave the path….”Sir Humm-a-Buzz frowned.  “If you have no taste for honorable combat,” he said, “I shall have my warriors” – he indicated the hundreds of tiny fairies about the party – “drive you from the path. I shall grant you a moment to consider, and to choose your champion.”“I don’t think we have a choice,” said Desu.  “We cannot leave the path.  Firestar, do you think you can yet fight?”“I am sorely wounded,” Firestar replied, “but I will attempt it, if I must.”  Having taken the brunt of the Old Bone Man’s attacks, it was doubtful that he would have lasted long against the slender fey.“I can fight,” said Locke.  They used the very last of their healing magic upon him to prepare him for the battle.“Should we call upon Bryne of Lig?” someone asked, but the idea was quickly voted down.  They somehow knew that they would need aid a third time from that one, and that the aid they would need would be more dire than that which they needed now.Sir Humm-a-Buzz dismounted, and his squire led his horse back to the faerie Rade.  Queen Beatrice's eyes no longer seemed so vacant – she looked on with interest, as did the changeling child at her breast.  Sir Humm-a-Buzz swished the air a few times with his rapier, limbering his arm. “Lay on then,” he said, “'til one of us falls, or is dead, or cries mercy upon the other. Prepare for my sting!”As Locke and Sir Humm-a-Buzz fought, Nift quickly checked the strings on his guitar and began to play.  Almost instantly, a swarm of tiny, angry faeries surrounded him, flitting about with miniscule rapiers drawn.“What?  I just…” he started.  Then, realizing that they knew he hoped to inspire Locke with his playing, he allowed his fingers to falter on the strings.  Locke and Sir Humm-a-Buzz exchanged taps with their sword.  Sir Humm-a-Buzz’s blade was slender in comparison to Locke’s weapon, but the faerie knight was quick.  Locke drew first blood, but Locke was bloodied more often as the rapier stung him again and again.  At one point, Sir Humm-a-Buzz unfolded transparent, wasp-like wings as he leapt back to avoid Locke’s cut.  The fey turned side-stepped another cut and stabbed Locke again.Locke stumbled back, tired and hurt.  He was bleeding from a score of wounds.“Enough,” he said.Queen Beatrice clapped her hands lightly.  The droning buzz of the flying fey quieted almost immediately. “Well fought,” she said in a voice like warm honey. “We are amused. Yet time tarries not, and the first stars have appeared in the sky. We must away.”“Wait a minute!  Is there some way that we could…” Desu began.“Have you no honor?” Sir Humm-a-Buzz said angrily.  “Your champion has lost.  Cede the path, or I shall have my warriors sweep you from it.”Sullenly, the group surrendered the path.  As they stepped off it, they expected to be whisked away, separated in Faerieland.  Perhaps lost forever.But it was not so.  Looking back the way they came, they could see that the mountain of the Old Bone Man was gone.  Where it had been there was now a low, rocky hill, treeless but for a single large, leafless oak at its crown. The path went back, seemingly to the hill, which was surmounted by a henge of dark shadows standing out against the darkening sky.  For the sky was indeed darkening, and the stars were winking into sight. The long twilight was over.Sir Humm-a-Buzz called for his horse. He mounted, and then inclined his head toward Locke. "Well fought," he said. The faeries tapped spurs and made their way along the path toward the two longstones, which now seemed weathered and bent, no longer the proud stones they appeared in Faerieland.  As the riders passed between the stones, they faded out like old paint, until at last they vanished completely.The company spoke briefly, and then decided to continue travelling along the path to the north.  Soon it became clear that both Gork and Nift were in trouble.  Gork was racked with chills, and he was coughing cold phlegm from his lungs.  “It is the staff,” Desu declared.  “The one we got from the House of Bone!  I will not touch it!”Nift’s affliction was different, for he had eaten Faerie fruits, and now he suffered their loss.  He recalled how he had eaten fruits plucked from that twilight land where summer ripens at all hours.  He began to pine and pine away; he would eat no mortal food but sought Faerie fruits by night and day.  Finding them no more, he dwindled and grew grey.For four days they travelled northward.  Gork grew colder and weaker.  Pines and evergreens began to dominate the forest.  Nift refused to eat.  At one point, they spotted what must surely have been a sabre-toothed tiger crouched beside the trail ahead.  Desu tried to befriend it, but it growled and ran off instead.Frightened for Gork, they tried to summon Bryne of Lig.  When he did not come, they reasoned that he would only respond if they were in Faerieland.  They would have to travel back to the place where Locke had fought Sir Humm-a-Buzz.“What about me?” asked Nift.  “I fear I am dying also.  I ate and ate my fill, and yet my mouth waters still; you cannot think what apples my teeth have met in, pellucid grapes without one seed, and sugar-sweet their sap.”“But you are not dying yet,” Desu returned.  “If we do not save Gork soon, he will be beyond our ability to save at all.”</blockquote>

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