(with Greg Dewey)

[Val'keth]

Breathing. Slow and regular, and quite a few sets of lungs were producing the sounds. And what the hell was that STINK, Val'keth thought, opening her eyes blearily. It was disgusting, like wet moldy... fur?

She grimaced as her eyes focused on her surroundings. It was pitch black, but she could see perfectly well, her eyes picking out details with ease. She was in some kind of large room, probably underground judging by the amount of dampness that coated the walls, and the floor, and...

Huge dogs lay around her, sprawled out on their sides. Their coats glistened in the dampness, the fur bunched into shaggy knots. Val'keth wrinkled her nose as she carefully looked around, freezing as one of the dogs growled, a low rumbling sound.

Someone sobbed, crying quietly, and Val'keth knew she was not alone. The sound had come from around the wall, telling her the room was indeed larger than the small section she could see. That meant that although there might be other women imprisoned with her, there were also likely to be even more dogs than she had first thought.

It appeared that the hounds had dragged her back to their lair, but as she carefully stretched each muscle and moved each joint, Val'keth discovered she was more or less unharmed by the experience. She ran her hands over her waist, checking her weapons before deciding how best to get out of there.

Sword. Dagger.

Two missing. Val'keth slowly got to her feet, pausing as she saw a yellow eye blink open and watch her. A glint caught her eye, and she saw her sword in the far corner, but couldn't see the dagger anywhere. She lifted a foot tentatively, and put it down fast as two dogs raised their heads and stared at her, snarling. With a sea of dog between her and the sword, she doubted she'd be able to get to it before they tore her to pieces.

The sound set off a scared whimper from one of the other women trapped down there with her. Val'keth cursed silently as another dog awoke and growled softly. All hell would break loose if the women paniced.

Which brought a question - why *were* they still alive. Earlier, the hounds had seemed intent on ripping her and Zade to death in the streets. Val'keth sank back onto the floor, and sat there to wait for an answer to present itself.

[Zade]

Zade crouched alone on the roof of a small shop, holding Val'keth's dagger out in front of her. The blade pulled gently... down and to the right.


"Yep," mumbled Zade. She had been following Val'keth's trail for almost half an hour. Most of the time she stayed on the ground, but as she grew closer to her quarry she began running into more and more hounds. She took the time to kill two of them, but when they showing up in groups of threes and fours, Zade thought it best to stick to the safety of the rooftops. She could use December's gem to take out a large number of them... but only once. And she hoped to include the Stranger himself in that number.

Zade looked down. There was a single hound sniffing around the building. Tracking her. She had to keep moving. She crept to the other side of the roof and judged the distance to the next rooftop.

Just close enough to... now what the hell is THIS!?

There was a wide alley that ran between the two buildings. Three hellhounds were just passing through... and two of them were dragging something behind them.

A woman.

Her clothes... a simple nightshirt... was bloodied and torn, but Zade could tell that the bites were superficial. Jaws and teeth that could snap human bones like dry wood had only bit down enough to subdue her.

Why?

Was she the target?

Zade was already trying to come up with a way to secure the woman when another hellhound appeared behind the first three. This one had a little girl, probably no more than seven, and was dragging her through the dirt after the others. Zade watched both women disappear around corner.

A quick check with the knife confirmed what Zade had already concluded... they were heading toward wherever Val'keth was.

Zade backed away and got a running start.... she glided silently through the

air and landed with a grunt on the next roof.

ROOOOO!!!!!

Not quiet enough. The first hound that was looking for her must have seen her. Its howl was answered by several others... one close by, and four or five others further away.

Great,

Zade peered over the edge of the roof...

RAAAAAGH!!!!

... and almost stuck her face right into the hellhound's mouth. The beast was trying to leap up onto the roof with her! The building was too low, and that hound was too big...The first leap was just a few feet short, and the second brought the creature's claws right up to the edge.

Zade ran toward the next building, the flimsly roof shook with each step.

RAAAGH!!!

The beast scrambled up onto the roof and was after her. It leapt. Zade twisted out of the way just as the beast landed to her left...

CRASH!!!

... and fell right through the roof. Zade continued her run and was on the next building in seconds. She looked behind her... nothing. And then

CRASH!

It was coming from below, and it sounded like a door being smashed open. She'd kicked open enough doors to recognize the sound. Someone screamed... a woman. Then men shouting, and more screaming. Obviously the building she was just on had been occupied, and the hound had dropped right in the middle of someone's living room.

Again, Zade peered over the edge and caught a glimpse of an elderly man's head just as it disappeared between the hellhound's jaws. The woman was running. Zade reached for her whip... she could pull the woman up to safety while the hound was distracted.

Too late.

The second hound rounded the corner and leapt onto the fleeing woman. She screamed. The hound grabbed her not-to-gently by the head and began dragging her away. And with this many hounds around, there was nothing that she could do.

Damn, thought Zade. This has got to stop. This has got to stop NOW...

[Val'keth]

As the minutes turned into hours, Val'keth grew more and more restless. It was not in her nature to sit by and wait passively, and so she ignored the growls of the hounds this time as she got to her feet. Eyes glared at her, and she glared back, trusting that whatever had prevented them from killing

her in the street would do so again.

Val'keth took a deep breath, then exploded into movement. Pandemonium erupted in the room as she leapt over the first two dogs, narrowly missing their snapping jaws. Hounds surged toward her as she landed, and she smashed her wrist into a slobbering jaw, howling with laughter as the hound recoiled, blue sparks dancing between it's fangs. She heard the screams of the frightened women echo around the room, mixing with the snarls from the hounds. With luck, they might distract some of the hounds.

One more jump, she thought as her body tensed, her eyes fixed on the point where she knew her sword was buried underneath the hairy bodies.

"KHAL A WAERR'ESS!!!" she shrieked, somersaulting over an enormous paw. It clipped her leg, claws raking her skin, and she landed in a sprawl, sliding head first toward her sword. She reached out a hand, then screamed as another hound bounded in front of her, it's jaws opening right in front of

her face.

Teeth latched onto one ankle, digging in deep and halting her slide. Her leg hurt like hell, but the hound in front slammed its mouth down on empty air. Val'keth could see the tip of her sword, just out of reach of her fingers. Shrill shrieks and crying still came from the women, and she shouted as she kicked backwards, trying to free her leg from the vice-like jaws of the hound.

"RUN!!!" she yelled, hoping the women would make a break for the door. "GET OUT OF HERE!!!"

She was being pulled backwards, away from her sword. Val'keth suddenly curled onto her side, smashing the hound clamped on her ankle in the mouth. She felt it's nose squash under the force of her blow, heard its growling increase, then slammed her other fist into the side of its mouth.

The hound yelped, and Val'keth ripped her ankle out, scrambling to her feet. Another hound leapt for her, and she ducked, running on all fours, desperate to get to her sword.

"Ooomph!" Val'keth exlaimed, as what felt like a ton of dead weight slid down her back. One hand snatched her sword up from the floor as her legs buckled under the hairy mass of dog, twisting as she fell, and she slamming the blade into the dog's snarling head. Blood fountained up the wall as her sword cut through skin, muscle, and finally bone. Val'keth kicked the twitching body off her legs, and backflipped away from three drooling mouths. She crashed hard into something, and went tumbling backwards in a shower of splintered wood out into the open.

Hounds poured out after her, and she sprinted up the steps into a fenced in courtyard, desperate to put as much distance between them and her as possible. Luck didn't appear to be shining on her tonight, she thought as the dogs snarled and snapped at her heels - I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,

I'm gonna die...

[Zade]

"End of the line," mumbled Zade. Val'keth's dagger had led her further out of town than she had planned, and now she lay atop the last building tall enough to provide any sort of protection. A little more than a hundred yards away was a large, flat structure surrounded by about a dozen fenced-off areas.

The Montfort Kennels.

Val'keth was inside, but Zade didn't need the dagger to tell her that. The entire area was crawling with Hellhounds. The large, foul-smelling beasts were dragging women into the kennel in an almost constant procession. Most of the women were unconscious. All were injured, but not seriously. And there were no men at all. The dogs were retrieving the women of Montfort and bringing them here.

Zade counted fifteen new arrivals in about twenty minutes. Fifteen hounds... and as soon as one left, another one arrived to drop of its burden. There were four more patrolling the outside of the kennel, and three sniffing around the base of the building were she was. They knew she was there... they were just searching for a way up.

And there was no telling how many there were running the streets, looking

for more women.

Zade watched for a minute longer, and then the dogs below her began making loud howling noises... summoning their demonic brethren. Two hounds by the kennel began trotting in her direction.

"Great..."

Suddenly, someone burst out of the kennel's main door. At first Zade thought it was the Stranger...

too small... wait... it looks like... The Elf!

About six more hounds emerged from the kennel's main building and ran after Val'keth. They were gaining fast.

Zade fingered the pouch at her side. he weight of December's frost gem reassured her... if she could only get enough of those hounds together, she could swing the odds drastically in her... their favor. Maybe even enough to rescue the other women. And if the Stranger happened to show up, she'd

test his power against that of her employer... Zade's money was on December.

Quite a few hounds were now converging on Val'keth...

"Okay, here GOES!"

Zade stood and backed away from the edge of the roof. Then she took a running start and leapt as far as she could. Zade sailed over the backs of the two approaching hounds. She curled into a ball, rolled to her feet, and started running towards the kennel.

[Val'keth]

The door burst open as Val'keth ran through and into a large open area. A tall fence loomed, surrounding her - a pen for the hounds, it would seem. She ran as fast as she could toward the fence, feeling the hot breath of the pursuing hounds right behind.

Suddenly a dark shape sailed over the fence, and Val'keth twisted to one side as it landed and Zade came up, running toward her and the kennel.

"Zaaaade!" she shouted, breaking into a smile. She never thought she'd be pleased to see the human, but the sight of her dagger in Zade's hand had her positively beaming. The smile didn't last long though, as the dogs closed in upon her, snarling.

"Throw me the dagger," she yelled across at Zade, hacking at the first hound with her sword and dancing back from its snapping jaws.

[Zade]

Zade tossed the dagger to Val'keth. It had served its purpose, and she had no further use for it now.

As soon as the dagger left her fingers, she turned and joined the elf in attacking the two nearest hounds. Her axe came down and cleaved beast's head from its neck. But the others were dangerously close.

"No time to explain," yelled Zade. "But we need to gather these things in as tight a group as we can. I can take 'em out... but it's a one shot deal! And we need to get these women out of here!"

Suddenly, Zade saw something out of the corner of her eye... and it was wasn't a hound...

[Clussh]

"hhhHHHRRROOHHsssssss!" The crackling roar-hiss of the medicine demoness filled the air while her long reptilian tail twitched back and forth as she ran at the head of a pack of hell-hounds. The familiar spike-tip of her tail had recently blossomed with steel, a double-bladed halberd head with a top spike. She had inserted its short haft into her hollow tail spike and now held it using the muscles within. No doubt she had picked it up on the street from the body of some husband or protector who had failed to secure his wife or girlfriend against the hounds.

[Lovvorn]

"Wait for MEE!" said Lovvorn. He bobbed up and down in mid air like a multi-colored bouy in rough seas. He followed behind Clussh as she approached the kennel.

The gentle breeze... which reeked of brimstone... ruffled his hair and robe as he looked down at the action. Lovvorn attempted to swat some of the hounds away with his staff, but for some strange reason they were ignoring him completly.

"They appear to be focused on the ladies... not that I blame them."

[Clussh]

The demoness' tail and body stretched parallel with the ground in the manner of a velociraptor running full out. She ran just out of reach of a pack of the unusual hell hounds, all of them male. The pace was quite brisk, well above human running speed. Her original dog was now cooling his paws in the air, for the demoness had him stashed in a sturdy building, his furry back stuck to the wall with surgical glue so that neither his paws nor his jaws could get any purchase. Clussh had decided he would make an interesting study later.

As she had drawn closer to the source of the hell-hound traffic, she had had progressively more trouble with the increasing numbers of male hounds. If they passed too close to her, they invariably got ideas and followed. Clussh had modified a broken halberd she'd found in the street to her own use by wearing the broken haft end smooth on brick and stone walls on the trip following the dog traffic to the Montfort Kennels, but she had learned not to use the weapon or get in fights.

Earlier the demoness found out the hard way that, for her, fights could be dangerous. She had made the mistake of trying to take out a few hounds shortly after finishing her tail-axe, just to test the new weapon's balance. She had not realized just how many of the hounds there were. New arrivals could turn a good fight into an embarrassing slime-fest in short order. After just one such experience, Clussh had decided she had better skip the gang scenes until she had a little better idea of what was going on. She trusted the predictable, if inconvenient, motives of the male hounds a good deal more than the more sinister motives of whomever had sent the dogs into the streets of Montfort to collect women in the first place. The demoness had seen enough dogs doing their master's bidding on the way to the kennels to figure out that every woman in Montfort and anyone who tried to protect them was in danger, though the doctor from Dis still did not know who was behind it or why.

As she drew towards the kennels she spotted Zade and a drow who looked somewhat familiar. No doubt she was also a customer of the PanDemonica. The two humanoids were fighting a pack of dogs, but the odds looked long. Clussh cursed the null zone that clung to her. Demonic telepathy would have been so handy in this situation. She could easily have asked Zade if she knew who was behind the dogs. As it was, the demoness would have to run very near the woman and ask her by voice.

[Lovvorn]

Clussh was leading a group of hounds towards someone who looked suspisciously like Zade.

And who is that other lovely specimen with her? Hmm...

A sudden burst of howling disturbed the burgeoning fantasy.

"Oh, these things simply MUST be quiet... I can hardly hear my self think!"

The mage began to descend towards the women...

[Val'keth]

The dogs pressed in close to Zade and Val'keth, and it was all the slim elf could do with sword and dagger to keep the snapping jaws at bay. As another one lunged toward her, she spun, twisting around and using the momentum to bring her sword down in one mighty swing. The hound's head rolled to one side, severed from the rest of the body. Blood fountained from its neck as the body ran past her before collapsing in a heap. More baying howls echoed around them, but what was this - some sort of LIZARD creature was running toward them, leading another pack of dogs behind.

"ZADE!" Val'keth shouted, her bracer clanging against the jaws of yet another snarling hound.

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS IS THAT!"

[Zade]

Zade sliced open the belly of one hound as it leapt for her. She knew it wouldn't stop the thing, but the quickly kicked it out of the way and spun to behead another. She heard Val'keth's shout, but was too busy to explain the medical demoness to the elf. Besides, if Clussh was half as tough as she looked, then maybe they stood a chance...

[Clussh]

Clussh grinned, perhaps a little multi-dog traffic accident would buy the two women a few free hacks.

As she approached the pair and their pack of foe-hounds, the demoness made a loud inquiry, "D'you know who's behind these mutts?" At the last second before colliding with a hell hound on the edge of Zade's pack of enemies, the demoness leapt and soared, her axe-tail severing the head of one of the dogs as she landed on the other side of Zade's foe-pack. The demoness doctor slowed and looked over her shoulder grinning as her pack of males collided with the other hounds.

[Lovvorn]

"Ohhh!!!" Lovvorn shot back skyward as two teams of hounds collided beneath him. There was a mad scramble of chaos for several seconds as the hounds sorted themselves out. Some began fighting amongst themselves, but they quickly returned to the task at hand. One group took off after Clussh while the others resumed their attack on Zade and the elf.

Lovvorn pointed at one of the larger beasts and the hound rose into the air. Its shaggy paws waved frantically as it tried to find firmament... but there was none. Lovvorn moved his hand in wide sweeping motions, and the hound followed... suspended by the colorful man's magic.

"Let's see...."

Lovvorn sent the hound hurtling repeatedly into the pack of attacking dogs, using it as a living bludgeon to bash and batter its brothers. He smiled at the snapping of canine bones as he knocked them around like toys.

"This is FUN!"

[Zade]

WHOOSH!

Zade's bloody axe sliced the air before it...

KA-CHUNK! Thud...

WHOOSH!... Thud...

The brief respite provided by Clussh had allowed her to get her bearings. She had to get inside the kennel. Get to the women. And then get out.

She got a running start, but heard something coming up on her left...

WHOOSH! KRACK! Thud...

She spun...

WHOOSH!

A hound sailed over her head and collided violently with another one just to her right.

What the hell is that above us? Lovvorn!?!?

Distracted, Zade didn't see what was coming behind her...

[Val'keth]

Val'keth whirled as she saw another dog leap for Zade's back, meeting it mid air with her sword and driving it off to the side. The women were still cowering inside, no doubt, and Val'keth snorted as she looked at the doorway. A sea of snarling fur stood between them and the women.

Unless...

Val'keth slammed her blades into another dog, then leapt into the air, and cleared her mind of all except the absolute need to remain airborne. She fixed her eyes on the doorway, and slowly glided across, dodging the hounds that snapped at her feet from below. She dipped precariously toward them more than once, and cursed the weakness of her abilities for the second time that evening.

[Lovvorn]

As the elf floated up towards him, Lovvorn released his pet hellhound... which was now just a lump of hard, bruised muscle covered with a few strips of fur. The thing hit the ground and rolled to a stop. It got up... already beginning to regenerate.

Lovvorn was trying to think of a clever and amusing way to kill it when he

saw Val-keth.

"Hello there!" said Lovvorn. He floated down to the elf's level and hovered besider her. She seemed to be having hard time keeping aloft, so Lovvorn levitated her as well.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on? Is this game free to play, or do I owe someone for all the fun I've been having?"

Before she could answer, a particularly large hound got a running start and sailed straight towards her.

"Go away! SHOO!"

Lovvorn waved his hand and the hound vanished. Actually, only its HEAD vanished, the rest simply fell to the ground and sprayed copious amounts of brimstone-laced blood all over its surroundings.

[Val'keth]

As a garishly dressed figure drifted down beside her, Val'keth swung her sword around, stopping just short of slicing him in two.

"What's going on?"

Val'keth laughed coldly, pointing to the hounds that milled around below them.

"THAT'S what's going on. And what's YOUR connection to the stranger..." she snarled at him, the tip of her sword dancing menacingly between the two of them. Before he could answer, however, Zade interrupted from below.

[Zade]

Zade spun out of the way just in time to keep the headless hound's body from landing on her head.

"LOVVORN! THERE ARE WOMEN INSIDE THE KENNEL! HELP CLUSSH DISTRACT THESE THINGS WHILE WE RESCUE THEM!"

"Women inside?" said Lovvorn. "Are they pretty? Perhaps you should allow ME to-"

"DISTRACT THE DAMNED HOUNDS AND COVER THE DOOR!"

WOOSH... KA-THUNK! Thud...

"Well, since you put it that way..."

---

[Meanwhile... somewhere else...]

"...You are not the one..."

The Stranger dropped Veria Fram and casually shoved her into a brick wall. Her skull... and most of her other bones... snapped like twigs when she collided. The Stranger immediatly turned to the next one.

As he scanned Samantha Greatsmith's mind, two hellhounds dragged yet another a woman out of a house just down the street. They joined another pair of hounds, each carrying one of a set of twins... both female.

Things were going much, much better now.

After using the remainder of his potion at the kennel, the Stranger had accompanied one team of hounds into the streets while the others went about their work. By now every female near the kennel had been taken. In an hour or two, every woman on that side of the town would be waiting for him. If he failed to find the target on his own by then, then she would certainly be among those at the kennel.

The Stranger finished with Samantha Greatsmith and was about to drive her into the ground like a nail when he felt a familiar jolt...

A hellhound had died.

It was not completely unexpected. In fact, quite a few had died in the commercial district not long ago. A few more near the Colluseum. But this one was at the kennel.

As was the one that died immediatly after it.

And the next.

And the next.

And the next.

The Stranger tossed the woman aside and closed his eyes. He focused on a single hound and looked through it's eyes.

Anger welled up inside him....

Those women. The elf and the dark-skinned human... they were THERE, slaughtering his hounds and releasing the prisoners!

The Stranger summoned every hound in the area and sent them hurrying toward the kennel. He gave them a mental impression of the human and the elf. It would take a few moments for the reinforcements to arrive, but when they did they would tear the intruders apart.

The Stranger was about to resume his search, but when another three hellhounds died in rapid succession, he turned and began walking towards the Montfort Kennel.

[Clussh]

It was only a few moments before the first male dogs broke out of the traffic snarl and started after the demoness once again, their tongues hanging out as their nostrils worked overtime. Clussh used the moment to jump up on a building and get a look around the kennel. She needed to find a place to ditch the hounds and saw just the thing, a long, stone-lined pit used for dog fights and bear-baiting. The demoness jumped down and marked her scent on the ground to make the dogs pause to take a sniff before taking flight.

[Val'keth]

She glanced back at the robed man who still hovered beside her. Was this jumble of clashing colours the mage that Zade had refused to tell her about?

"Lovvorn? You know Zade?" Val'keth shook her head, grinning. She realised her levitation no longer threatened to release her into the mass of hairy beasts below, bolstered no doubt by this mage.

"Get me over to the door," she said, pointing it out. "You *can* distract the hounds as well at the same time, I take it?" Val'keth added, poising herself for the drop to the ground.

[Lovvorn]

"But of course! I am well known for my skills at distracting! Among other things..."

Lovvorn lowered the elf toward the door.

"Come along, Zade," he called. "I don't think it's quite safe for a woman of your beauty to be out among the dogs..."

[Zade]

"Ungh!" Zade grunted loudly as the grabbed one of the smaller beasts and threw it into the path of two others. One hound leapt over the squirming missile...

KA-CHUNK!

Zade's axe vanished into the beast's skull. She didn't have time to finish it off. Zade yanked her axe free and ran for the door.

[Val'keth]

Her mind ticked through the possibilities on dealing with the women inside.

Zade's idea of rescuing the pathetic wingeing creatures wasn't the first thing that occurred to her, but she reasoned they might be grateful enough to cough up some valuables - especially if threatened with the dogs again.

[Lovvorn]

Both women vanished inside the building, and Lovvorn immediatly dropped to the ground in front of the door. He took his staff and began scratching a large rune into the dirt.

RAAAAAGGGH!!!!

A large hound charged him, and there were four more right behind it. Lovvorn hurriedly finished the spell and flew up into the air. The first hound leapt for the opening, passing right over the rune that Lovvorn had

left behind.

FOOOM!!!

The hound burst into flame. The magical fire seared it to the bone, releasing a thick cloud of billowing brimstone.

"HAHAHAHA!" Lovvorn laughed. He was sweating profusely, clearly strained from all the levitation and spellcasting, but he was also having the most fun he'd had in weeks. The other hounds stopped their charge and backed away. One approached again, sniffing the rune with caution. The hound got a bit too close...

PFFFT!!!

And it's nose vanished in a puff of smoke.

Lovvorn helped the maimed creature along by magically shoving it into the rune.

FA-FOOOOM!

"Come along..." shouted Lovvorn as he began pushing the reluctant hounds into the deadly ward. "Get in there! Plenty of room for everyone..."

FOOM!

FOOOOOM!

FOOOM!

"HAHA!! WHA-HOOO!!!"

FOOOM!

[Clussh]

She made sure both of the openings to the pit were open, then circled between the kennel buildings picking up as many of the male hounds as she could find before running into the pit, sprinting across with a great burst of speed and hitting the door control. A metal plate slid down in time to stop the lead hound. The demoness leapt and accelerated around the edge of the pit loosing the other door to seal the exit.

"Chchch, balls for brains," the doctor from Dis hissed at the hounds.

The medicine demoness snatched the double-bladed halberd from her tail spike and secured it to her equipment belt. She pulled a heavy iron crossbow bolt from a quiver on her belt and slipped it into her tail spike.

"Time to stick some iron in the fire," she said, lowering her torso to run back to where the deliciously fat mage was floating around tossing spells at the bitches. Clussh jumped to the roof of a nearby building and took advantage of the distraction the mage was providing. She paused a second waiting for a good shot. Accuracy was essential. A sound not unlike Zade's favorite weapon ripped the air as the demoness launched an iron bolt with a deft whip-snap of her long reptilian tail. "Gotcha!" The surgeon said as she sunk a bolt through the brain stem of one of the bitches. As long as the barbed bolt staid in the dog's skull, the canine would be unable to regenerate that essential area of its brain, and without it, the dog could not regulate its physiological processes, nor could messages from the higher brain effectively reach its body.

The demoness began launching one shot after another, pausing for the sake of accuracy. She was only willing to spend 8 of the twelve bolts she carried, and even given her practiced accuracy, there were bound to be a few bad shots, but unlike many of her kind, the surgeon's grasp of tactics dictated that any opportunity to rapidly inflict kills without receiving any wounds should be taken advantage of.

[Zade]

It was dark in the kennel, but Zade could see well despite the dim light. She knelt by the first woman she came too. The woman was unconscious, but she quickly awoke when Zade started shaking her.

"AAA-"

"SHHH!!! Get up. Wake the others. We're getting out of here. Anyone who can't run stays here."

"But-"

"Do it."

The woman scrambled off into a corner of the room, where Zade heard her talking to someone else. Zade crept back into the hallway to check on the door. True to his word, Lovvorn was distracting the hounds. He looked tired, though.

Gods, I hope I don't have to drag HIS ass out of here... and I wonder what the doctor's up to?

[Clussh]

Doctor Clussh flickered her membranous ears after launching the eighth iron bolt, "Khh, five out of eight's not too bad for brain stems." Clussh splayed the tip of her tail spike open and reinserted the double-bladed halberd head's truncated haft, then leapt to the ground. On her way down she unfolded her vitriol fangs and prepared a little surprise for a couple of the remaining dogs. Her impressive muscles rippled in the moonlight as she advanced on the canines, moving in from their downwind side so that her scent would not reach them prematurely.

True to their programming, a couple of the dogs advanced on the medicine demoness, wishing to drag her into the building with the other women. "CSsssssssss!" Clussh hissed as her fangs shot jets of black pigment laced with surgical glue and a solvent right into the dogs' eyes. The demoness executed a flip to the left, landing deftly on her feet. One of the dogs had been quick enough to blink before its corneas were died black, but that did not really matter. The solvent, similar to DMSO, would pull the ink right through the dog's eyelids dyeing its corneas black just the same. The other dog blinked just after the pigment hit. Neither dog was able to open its eyes once the virulent glue did its work.

[Val'keth]

"Why are we even bothering to rescue them?" Val'keth asked Zade when she reappeared, a little non-plussed by the heroic idea.

"Surely it would be easier to leave them to the stranger - after all, he might be a little upset about ME disappearing, but I would imagine he will be VERY upset to find all his other women gone too!"

[Zade]

"That's the idea," said Zade. She kicked another woman awake and then returned to the hallway. "We've distracted him enough to hurt him twice already, if we make him mad enough he'll make more mistakes..."

Someone started screaming in the rear of the building, and Zade hurried off to shut the woman up. Although her explanation to Val'keth made sense, she didn't believe them herself. She doubted the elf would understand compassion for women who couldn't fend for themselves. A man would have no excuse, but men tended to keep their women helpless, which made them easy pickings for creatures like the Stranger. Zade hated that... and there was nothing she could do about it except help as many of these women as she could.

Some weren't going to make it. A lot of them would be unable to run, and at the rate Lovvorn was tiring himself out he wouldn't be able to teleport them all away. Hopefully December's gem would buy them enough time.

---

[Clussh]

Her presence, announced by her hiss, drew a fresh pack of dogs, jaws snapping, as they ran at the demoness. Roaring loudly, the doctor from Dis locked jaws with the bitch in front of her, and snap-kicked the lower jaw off the dog to her left with a bone-shattering out and downward motion of the scythe-claws on her foot. A third dog that latched on to her right leg got the axe as the demoness' halberd blade-wielding tail flashed through the air. Unfortunately, a forth canine that had lunged for the demoness' muscular rump just a bit too rapidly, caught the axe-blade in its shoulder rather than is neck after the blade had decapitated the dog beside it. The massive dog recoiled. Its body nearly cut in half at the shoulder, it wrenched the halberd blade from the doctor's tail spike. A few scales and a spatter of her ichor were also withdrawn from her rump as it drew back.

---

[Val'keth]

Val'keth glanced around, smiling at the fun Lovvorn seemed to be having with the dogs at the doorway. The smell of vaporising flesh and fur hung thick in the air, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust, sidling up to the mage.

"Er, Lovvorn?" she asked carefully. "You work with Zade?"

[Lovvorn]

"Ahhh," said Lovvorn as he hovered by the door. "If you can call spending time amid such beauty work, then yes."

At the sight of Val'keth, two hounds immediatly forgot about the floating mage and leapt for her.

F-FOOOM!

Both vanished in a spray of cinders. Another hound jumped up and managed to grab the edge of Lovvorn's robe, ripping off a good portion of it.

"SHOO!"

Lovvorn pointed at the dog and cast a spell. The dog floated up into the air. It's legs scrambled wildly to find purchase, but of course there was none. The mage waved his hand and the hound continued to rise... up... up into the night sky where it quickly disappeared from sight.

"I wonder how high he'll go?" Lovvorn mused. Then he turned back to Val'keth. "Anyway, what was I saying?"

---

[Clussh]

Ichor oozed from t he medicine demo ness' lower jaw as the lead dog bit down on it, but a greater flow gushed from the dog after muscles bulged along the demoness neck as she arched it, snapping the dogs upper jaw. Her hand, clad in the metal guard, followed through pushing the dog's broken jaw back and twisting it around so the teeth pointed towards the canine's rump. With her mouth thus freed, the doctor quickly spat a glob of surgical glue onto the dog's head and stuck the broken jaw down while her demon teeth sought another target. A new canine lunged for the doctor's throat but was stopped short as the demoness' capacious mouth locked around its head. There was a sickening crunch as the dog's skull gave way. "Brain food," the demoness remarked through her nose as the contents of the dog's crushed skull squirted out.

Thinking the demoness was disarmed to the rear, two dogs lunged in, one on each flank. Sssthock! The doctor's tail spike entered one dog's right eye, her tail pulsed, pulled out and dodged the jaws of the other dog as her foot lashed out sending the dog tumbling and bloody into the air. It landed in a heap, regenerating rapidly. A third dog's teeth slid across the doctor's tough scales and hide as it tried to get purchase on her slippery side. Before the dog could get a grip, Clussh jumped over a blind dog and came down snarling. As she traded jaw blocks with a dog closer to the building's door, the doctor grabbed a foreleg in each metal-guarded hand and wrenched the dogs legs out and up over its head, breaking the sockets. Forcing its jaws into the dirt with leverage on its legs, the demoness spat a glob of glue and stuck backs of the dog's legs together over its head, before flipping right. Her move, jerked her leg out of the closing jaws of another dog.

---

[Zade]

"Come on!" Zade called softly to the fifteen or so women behind her. They ran down the dark hall towards Val'keth, who appeared to be guarding the door.

[Val'keth]

She eyed the scaley creature still running around outside. It was causing mayhem with the dogs, and doing a pretty good job of dispatching them too. Val'keth winced as she watched it squirt jets of black liquid toward the dogs, then smiled as she saw the effect it had.

Very useful, she thought, must see if I can procure some of that.

"And what is that - lizard - thing out there..."

"You mean the doctor?" said Lovvorn. "She's-"

[Zade]

"No time for introductions. Looks like she got the hounds distracted, we need to make a run before the Stranger shows up."

"What Stranger?" said Lovvorn as he dismissed the barrier in front of the door.

--

[Clussh]

For a second Clussh went unmolested. The dog with its broken jaw, glued to the top of its head with the teeth facing south had healed, but wrongly. The dog with it's front legs over its head was also healing rapidly, but with the limbs held in the wrong place, the regeneration would hardly be a blessing. The dog with the tail-spike injected demon larva dining on its brain was twitching and convulsing on the ground. One of the dogs that had attacked the demoness lacked a head, and another had a crushed head that lacked brains. Clussh looked at the blood-soaked scene and the gruesome "surgery" she had performed on two of the regenerating monsters, "Now that's art," she said.

---

[Val'keth]

Val'keth tightened her grip on both sword and dagger, readying them as Lovvorn dismissed the wards in front of the doorway.

"Psionicist, master of these dogs," she replied to Lovvorn's question about the stranger.

Val'keth saw the look of concern in Zade's eyes - apparently for the mage, and silently sighed as she saw the women huddled behind her in the corridor. They would slow them down considerably, and probably too much to outrun the dogs for long.

The lizard creature - the female of the species from what Lovvorn and Zade had said - had dispatched the dogs within the compound. Twisted remains were scattered over the whole area, and Val'keth decided that to wait any longer would be pure foolishness.

"Come on," she whispered, her dark eyes glinting in the moonlight. "To the

fence..."

Val'keth's white hair rippled in the wind as she ran for the fence, glancing around and expecting the stranger to appear at any moment. With one leap, she clung halfway up the high fence, then looked down and growled in frustration. Of course, whilst she could easily climb up and over, the women would have no such skills. She looked left and right from her vantage point, trying to find a gate they could get the women through.

[Zade]

Zade led the women as quickly and quietly as she could. Getting out would be a problem. Zade had just hopped the numerous fences and gates that stood between them and the nearest shelter, but most of the women were too injured or just plain frail to follow that course.

As she stopped to shove the stragglers forward, Lovvorn dropped to the ground beside her.

The mage winced as he put weight on his leg. He was sweating rather profusely from his exertions earlier.

"Just the man I wanted to see," said Zade.

"Oh, really!" Lovvorn clapped his pudgy hands together and gave Zade a lavacious look. Actually, his eyes were locked at the area about a foot below Zade's face.

"Can you get these women out of here?"

Lovvorn's lusty smile twitched as he licked his lips.

"Lovvorn? The women?"

"What women? OHH!!!" He looked at the women.

"One or two of them certainly" he said. "But to get us all I'd have to use a portal, and I'm afraid I'm a bit too tired from all the excitement."

"What about these gates and fences... Can you blow them?"

"I'm sure I can do a little something..."

Lovvorn hobbled over to the nearest fence... a tall barrier of thick wood. He took his staff and drew a symbol on the ground, then he charged it with a small amount of energy and hobbled away.

"...three...two...one..."

BOOM!

The fence... and a good portion of the ground... was not a smoking crater large enough for several people to walk through."

"Unfortunatly that probably drew the attention of any hounds still in the area," said Zade.

Lovvorn smiled and continued to stare unblinking at Zade's breasts.

"I'm sorry, did you just say something?" he mumbled.

[Clussh]

While Lovvorn and the warrior-women conversed and led the captives to the fence, the medicine demoness took a few minutes to rip the eight iron bolts she'd used on the dogs out of each of their skulls and replace them in the quiver on her belt. For good measure, she decapitated each dog with her tail axe as she left its corpse behind. After finishing, she ran to the fence, her speed largely making up for the time she took retrieving her ammunition.

The demoness winked at Lovvorn as she arrived, "You look tired, babe. I can spot you if you need a few fence boards torn off or a drop of vitriol to lubricate a locked gate." Clussh sniffed the air. I'll bet you're going to need your magic for more important things, real soon."

[Val'keth]

She stared at a small dust cloud in the distance, and silently dropped from the fence. No point letting the women know what she thought was approaching, it would only panic them once again. Val'keth followed Zade and and the others, looking around warily for more dogs, her sword and dagger at the ready.

[Zade]

They progressed very quickly to the edge of the kennel. Zade felt sorry for the women they left behind, but certainly they had liberated enough of them to goad the Stranger into doing something rash.

But where WAS the Stranger? There'd been no sign of him since they arrived. With Lovvorn and the doctor here they might stand a chance of taking him out once and for all. If they could find him.

"Lovvorn," said Zade.

The mage stopped staring at her breasts long enough to look up into her face. Zade pointed up.

"Get up there and tell us what you see. I'd hate to step out of this kennel and walk straight into a trap."

"Certainly," said Lovvorn. "Although I think you'll owe me a drink after this. At LEAST a drink... hopefully several. Perhaps you can join me... and then we can retire

to my-"

"Get up there!"

Lovvorn winked and fingered one of his tatoos. He rose gently into the air.

He was about a yard above their heads when he stopped and got a curious look on his face.

"What?" said Zade.

"I hope you ladies aren't feeling too tired," said Lovvorn. "Because I see a lot of running in your future..."

AARRROOOOOOO!!!!!

[Val'keth]

The dark elf grimaced and tightened her grip on her weapons as the howl reverberated in the air.

"Zade! Are you still sure you want to rescue these women?" she asked as she saw them bunching like frightened sheep.

[Zade]

"Yes!"

Zade was almost as tired of the elf as she was of the hounds. She'd been around plenty of people who had no concept of right or wrong... but none of them had whined about it anywhere near as much as Val'keth.

They were at the every edge of the kennel's grounds. Over one more fence and they could hit the streets. Not that they would be any safer...

"Lovvorn, how many!"

"Ummmm... remember the ones we killed? Well... if each one had a brother AND a sister...and a cousin.."

Suddenly, a continuous stream of large, hairy beasts began vaulting over the fences about thirty yards away. Five... Seven... Ten... Zade didn't bother to count any more. The newly liberated women began screaming. Some ran away in random direction, but most had the sense enough to scramble over the last remaining barrier and head for the streets.

Lovvorn sailed higher into the air, and Zade followed the women over the fence. She remembered December's jewel as she touched down on the other side. All she had to do was get them close enough together at a far enough distance. That would require some maneuvering, and with all these women around...

"Lovvorn! You and the doctor find a way to keep these women safe... even if just for a few seconds!"

Zade veered off to the right, hoping some of the hounds would follow her and buy the mage some time. Unfortunately, it worked much, much better than she had hoped. About three-fourths of the hounds veered off after her, and the remainder seemed hell-bent on following Val'keth.

They were ignoring the women. Which meant these hounds must have some different orders... orders of a more personal nature. Orders that must have come from the Stranger himself.

Damn! He's HERE somewhere!

"Val! They're following us! Run TOWARDS ME! HERD them together!"

[Val'keth]

As she flipped over the fence and landed lightly on her feet, she heard Zade calling, only just audible over the snarling baying of the pursuing dogs. The hounds had split into two groups, with the majority lunging after Zade, leaving more that a couple still to follow her.

Val'keth leapt toward Zade, over the top of the first dog and felt its hot breath as it snapped at her. She rolled as she landed, her weapons tucked in close, and came up running toward Zade.

Another hound snapped at her heels, and Val'keth slashed her sword behind her. The dog yelped as the blade sliced through its nose, but didn't fall far enough behind to make the effort worth repeating.

The elf darted forward again, coming around to one side of Zade and running close to the hounds that were following the woman. They packs meshed together, and Val'keth somersaulted out of the path of yet another snarling dog.

"ZADE! I can't outrun them forever!" she shouted, sprinting off to one side. She was banking on whatever it was that had brought Zade back to the kennel, hoping that she would not abandon her to the snarling dogs. It seemed an extremely convenient means for Zade to carry out her earlier threats - and Val'keth shuddered at the thought. Perhaps this WAS the wrong moment to put her trust in a woman that had only scant hours beforehand tried several times to kill her.

[Zade]

"We don't HAVE to!"

Running as fast as she could, Zade made for the narrow alley between the nearest two buildings. If she remembered correctly it made a sharp curve behind one of the structures and then dead ended. Perfect.

She heard the slavering beasts gaining on her... snapping at her rapidly moving legs. It was only a matter of seconds before one of them landed on her back. She ran faster... and was amazed at what raw desparation could do for one's top speed. Zade never remembered running anywhere close to this fast before. But then, she'd never been chased by a horde of hungry demon-hounds before either.

Zade disappeared into the alley as nothing more than a sexy, leather-clad blur. Darkness closed in around her, but her eyesight adjusted immediatly.

[Val'keth]

Her sword rang out loudly as another snarling maw snapped at her, chipping the hound's teeth. Zade had ducked into an alley, and Val'keth followed, darting from side to side. In the total darkness of the alleyway, her eyes relaxed, a welcome change from the uncomfortable squint the surface forced on her. Zade glowed in a myriad of colours, her heat shimmering in the air, while the buildings shone in more subtle subdued shades. Val'keth glanced behind, and saw a seething mass of iridescent whites and glimmering violet as the hounds skidded around the edge of the building.

[Zade]

She rounded the corner at full speed, and avoided slamming into the wall by mere inches. The dead end loomed ahead of her... a wall of rotted wooden planks held together with chicken-wire. She could probably go straight through it much more easily than she could scale the rickety structure. But she had no intention of doing either.

The hounds poured into the alley after her. Their howling and barking was made a dozen times louder by the echoes in the narrow space.

When Zade reached the wall, December's ice gem was already in her hand. She skidded to a halt and turned to face the approaching beasts.

It was a living wave of bloody teeth, matted fur and knarled, knotted muscle. The stench of brimstone was so strong she could almost SEE it. More hounds rounded the corner, bringing up the rear just as the first few got within leaping distance.

"Hold on, elf!" Shouted Zade.

Zade drew her arm back and threw the sparkling blue gem right into the midst of them. It vanished into the snarling tangle of hounds. Zade thought she heard the delicate gem shatter, but it was only her imagination. She could never have heard such a feint sound over the howling of her pursuers.

[Val'keth]

Val'keth leapt and clung to the side of the building, frantically clawing her way upwards and out of the way of the hounds. The hounds rushed up the alleyway toward Zade, and she watched as Zade threw something into the middle of the throng.

"Zaaaade!" she yelled, certain that the woman was about to be devoured by the hellhounds.

[Zade]

But the gem DID shatter.

And Zade smiled as December's magic burst forth...

There was a sound like a thunderclap, and then

wwwWWWWWWWWOOOOOSSSH!!!!

A bitter storm rose up before them. Tornado force winds grabbed the largest of hounds and slung them around the small alley like newborn kittens. And the winds were not alone... they were joined by a relentless assault of unnatural cold. For Val'keth and Zade it was as if they were suddenly submerged in the coldest of arctic seas. But for the hounds it was much, much colder.

[Val'keth]

As the wind whipped her white hair around, Val'keth watched a darkness edged with dark blue spreading through the pack. She scrambled higher on the wall as the cold sucked the colour from the street and building, the temperature of the stone under her fingers plummetting. The white heat that had shimmered from the hounds had vanished, replaced with a chill coldness - the colour far deeper than Val'keth had ever seen before. Surely the hounds couldn't survive such terrible coldness.

[Zade]

Most froze in place instantly, and when the winds grabbed them they shattered like glass figurines. Hounds further away tried to run, but the winds literally sucked them into the whirlwind of frozen fury.

Zade felt herself being dragged into the tumult herself. Not only were they too close, but the cold was sapping her strength with more effieciency than any mage's spell. The air itself was so thick and cold that it was almost unbreathable. Zade felt the moisture in her sinuses crystalize painfully with each laboured breath. She turned away from the storm to keep from losing both her eyes to the cold.

And then it was over.

Eerie silence descended on them as the wind died and the cold abated. Zade breathed a sigh of relief, which billowed around her in a white cloud. She turned, and saw the results of her employers magic.

Shards and fragments of hellhounds were everywhere. Limbs, torsos and heads were strewn about like the workshop of some mad ice-sculptor. Everything was frozen. Even the ground and the walls were covered in a thick layer of fresh ice.

[Val'keth]

The trembling elf clung desperately to the wall, unable to feel her hands, let alone the slender fingers that held her to the stone, buried as they were under a layer of frosty ice. Cold radiated up from the street, the world below turned into a frozen wonderland of gruesome slaughter. The ice crackled, shattering suddenly as her fingers slipped free and she tumbled toward the street.

[Zade]

Zade paused to crunch a few more frozen hounds and then quickly jogged back to where Lovvorn and the doctor were trying to usher the hysterical women out of harm's way.

"Did I detect a chill in the air?" Lovvorn winked at Zade.

"Yes... and the Stranger is short about two dozen hounds."

"I wonder how many he has? Shall I have a look around?"

Zade eyed the haggard-looking women, who were eyeing her with suspicion even though she had just rescued them. Lovvorn was perhaps their best bet against the Stranger, yet he was obviously tired and there was still the matter of these women.

"Help the doctor. Get the women away from here as quickly as possible, then find me."

"I shall follow the scent of beauty in the air!" said Lovvorn. "Although it MAY lead me to this fair little elf here instead..."

Lovvorn flashed a lavascious smile at Val'keth. Zade knew that Lovvorn would have no problem finding her, like all of December's people, she carried a special coin that the mage could use to locate her anywhere in the city. But there was no need to let the elf know that.

"Be quick about it."

Zade turned to Val'keth.

"We need to make ourselves scarce as well... but not so scarce that we don't see the Stranger when he arrives. We need to keep an eye on him, and this is one place he's SURE to show up eventually."

[Val'keth]

As Val'keth caught up to Zade and the others, she heard the last part of the conversation and grinned back at Lovvorn, her eyes sparkling. "Fair little elf?" She laughed, shaking with mirth. "You are only the second of your race that have opened their eyes and seen me without prejudice."

Lovvorn's comment had improved the nights outlook a hundredfold for her. She smiled at him, and winked before turning back to Zade.

"How scarce would you like," she said, a playful glint in her eyes.

[Clussh]

"I think we need to lead the women to a warded building until we're sure all these mutts have been pounded. Do you think the women will fit in the Dragon's Inn? Or should I open the Coliseum and let the gladiators, 'entertain,' them," Clussh winked. Some of the wounded ones in the building might be salvageable. I could come back with a wagon."

[Lovvorn]

"No time for all that running back and forth. I can levitate the few that can't walk. Ta-ta, Zade... and perhaps I'll see YOU later, my dear..."

Lovvorn winked at Val-keth and began helping Clussh gather the women.

[To Be Continued]