by Joe Solmo

After an almost completely sleepless night I started awake to a beam of light hitting me in the face. Apparently the sun was rising. Most of the night I heard Myder muttering about the limbs out in the town square between sobs. He was really having a hard time with it. We were all shocked at the carnage out there, and I dreaded looking now, in the morning sun, but we were soldiers, he have all seen our share of limbs not attached, hell even caused a few ourselves. It was why Dead-Eye and I went for the crossbows, it was a less gruesome death then hacking limbs, plus we didn’t have to exert as much energy, which is major plus.

Drejnin spent most of the night staring out one of the large windows on the front of the Inn. Whether he was looking over the carnage, or just staring into the night sky I couldn’t say for sure. Why these creatures ran ahead of us and slaughtered this town, then left before we arrived we also had no idea, and I think that was what was really bothering Myder, the fact that we may have had something to do with the deaths of so many, he felt responsible. Having a conscious can be a real bitch, I hear.

I stretched my cramped muscles from laying on the hard floor and walked over to Serius. The dontu was helping the brothers clear some of the broken furniture from the staircase leading to the upstairs. It’s the most organized I have seen the brothers since I met them. Unless you count when someone outside their circle insults one of them.

“What’s going on over here?” I asked the group.

“Exploring,” came the reply, from Sreg with a grin.  That bastard always looked like he was up to something. They cleared the last table from the bottom of the stairs and with an eager look, the brothers started up without another word. Having nothing else to do, I fell in line behind Serius as they ascended the worn and rickety wooden steps.

At the top of the stairs Skrat cast some kind of spell lighting the entire hall in a white light and we took in the sight. More blood, so much blood smeared the walls and floor of the about twenty-foot hall. There was a smear of blood, as if one of the bodies was dragged down the hall to the last room on the left.  The brothers and I exchanged glances and drew weapons as we slowly crept down the blood hall. Maybe those monsters were waiting in here?

Serius moved to the front before we arrived at the door, although I’m not sure how he maneuvered around the big man, Moose. It was hard enough to see around the big guy. The hall was about four feet wide and so was he. Maybe the Dontu used his shifting ability.

Zeeg was right behind Serius in his plate armor, which was surprisingly quiet as we approached the frame. He must oil the shit out of it regularly. We could see that the door was open and the light gave off a red glow inside, as if the windows were tinted glass, like in a church or temple. At least I hoped that was the reason for the glow. If the brothers wanted to explore then I say let them. I was really only here because I didn’t have anything else to do. I leaned against the wall, trying not to get blood all over me as I waited for them to enter the room and let me know if it was safe or not. I mean someone has to go back downstairs and tell the others if it was something bad. I am a team player, and volunteered for that job.

Serius and Moose exchanged glances, and letting out a breath the Dontu disappeared into the crimson room. I waited for a scream, or something, but there was silence. Moose darted his head into the opening of the doorway after a few seconds and peered inside.

“What do you see?” Zeeg asked his biggest brother.

The large man pulled his head back around towards us but before he could explain, Serius came walking out of the room backwards. He held a finger to his lip telling us to be quiet and motioned us back down the hall. We crept slowly back to the the top of the stairs, waiting for the dontu to explain.

“There are two of those creatures in there sleeping. The slaughter must have tired them out. I almost stepped on the first one before my eyes adjusted. I think they ate whomever they dragged in there. There was blood everywhere, covering the walls, windows, everything. I almost stepped on the one just to the left of the door. I think this calls for stealth,” the Dontu explained once we were back at the relative safety of the staircase.

“I will go with you,” Sreg said handing his bow to Zeeg and drawing a short sword from his leather belt. Together the two of them crept along the hallway back towards the red room with the sleeping creatures. The rest of us craned our necks to hear what was happening when they entered the room at the end of the hall. At first there was no noise at all, and I was starting to get inpatient with the lack of progress, but then my mood changed.

“OH SHIT!” I heard Serius’s voice, and it was followed a second later by his body hitting the door of the room across the hall with a loud crack. We all headed towards the room, drawing the weapons we had put away, as Sreg came running out without his sword.

“They weren’t sleeping they were playing with us,” the woodsman said with a look of fear on his face. I watched as at first a large paw, then the rest of the huge body emerged from that doorway like the womb of hell puking up a nightmare.

With a primal scream, Moose charged the monsters, realizing too late there wasn’t enough room in the hall to swing that mighty hammer of his. He dropped it halfway down the hall, but didn’t slow down. Either he is the bravest son of a bitch I have ever met, or the stupidest, I decided I would make up my mind if we lived through this.

Sreg reclaimed his bow and fired three arrows into the first one before his brother reached it. He could fire some quick arrows when he wanted too. At least with that hallway so small we only had to fight one at a time. The massive frame of Moose slammed into the beast with such force it was partially lifted off the ground. The largest of the brothers wrapped his massive arms around the creature and began to squeeze it in a bear hug. I secretly hoped that the beast’s eyes would pop out of its head, which was trying desperately to bite into the large man grasping it, but it’s neck couldn’t turn that way, Moose was lucky, good, maybe now he could have that nickname and I could go back to being just Marsh.

Skrat was mumbling some words, which I assumed was a magical chant, while Zeeg rushed forward trying to reach around his brother with his polished sword, poking and jabbing at any part of the creature that was exposed. Black blood started to pool at his feet from his efforts.  Everyone was earning their pay, except me. Oh wait, we weren’t getting paid for this shit, I had nearly forgotten.

All of a sudden in a quick blur, a large black panther exploded out of the doorway that Serius had fallen through, and leaped onto the back of the creature clawing and biting at exposed flesh. So, I guess Serius was okay after all. The added weight from the panther, and the pool of blood underneath began to affect Moose and he looked unstable.

“What the hell is going on up here?” came Dead-Eye’s slurred voice from behind me. How is he still drunk, he was sleeping it off when we came up here. I turned to see him along with Drejnin and the Dwarf with weapons drawn. Both Drejnin and the dwarf, Weebly tried to get involved in the melee but there just wasn’t enough room for them. They settled for keeping Moose upright. Skrat finally finished his incantation and the doorway to the red room became a beaded curtain of fire, successfully keeping the other creature in the room, real handy. I heard the creature howl in frustration at not being able to get to us.

The first creature took quite a while to die, it must have extra reserves of balls, I thought, even with over half a dozen arrows, real and the new magic ones, from Sreg’s bow, it wasn’t slowing down. Everyone stabbed it while Moose never lost his grip. The strength of the large man was very impressive, and I was also impressed he didn’t go down in the pool of black blood that slicked the floor, even with the other’s help.

Eventually, to finish the goddamn thing off, we stuffed its head into the fire door that Skrat had created while Serius, making his left arm into a blade severed it from the body of the creature in a mighty swing. That was us, monster killers for hire, currently unemployed but honing our skills. I wonder how long until retirement.

It came time now to dispose of the other creature still in the room of carnage. Skrat dropped his spell and Moose was the first one through the door, I think he was eager to tangle with the creature. Now I’m leaning towards stupid. We all crammed our way in behind him to give him some support, but there was no creature, and the room didn’t have such a red hue anymore. Looking around the cause was obvious. The creature had jumped out the window to escape the room.

All of a sudden I was flat on my face as the dominoes of people in the room tumbled one by one, the thing had hit us from behind. What the hell were Hall and Myder doing downstairs, playing doorman?

I heard a scream but couldn’t be sure who it was in the chaos as everyone scrambled trying to regain their footing. Serius must have changed back into the panther again because it soared over my head and hit the creature in the face making it retreat back into the hall giving us a few more seconds to regroup.

The panther changed before my eyes, growing larger, hairier. Soon it wasn’t a panther at all but the biggest bear I had ever seen, not that I have seen a lot of them. With mighty swipes, it was keeping the unholy beast at bay, buying us time. He forced it back into the room opposite this one and we followed now ready to fight.

I could see the pure hatred the creature had for us in its black eyes. Saliva dripped from its large teeth, teeth that were just waiting for a chance to dig straight into us. Sreg fired off two of his magic arrows at the beast pushing it back towards the opposite wall. It roared, challenging us, well them. I have been pretty much useless this entire fight.

Moose and Serius were approaching it now from either side, the creatures back was now to the opposite wall in the room. Drejnin and the dwarf were closing in on the creature from the front, everything was getting tense. Two more steps and they would be within striking range. Moose flexed his fingers, readying them for another bear hug I guessed, but then what would Serius do? I mean since he was an actual bear at the moment.

I never found out what the plan was, a second later, as Drejnin and the dwarf got closer, the beast looked up at them and snarled in a hideous, raspy voice, “She comes now, Dreymorian,” and it jumped over the dwarf’s head before any of us could react. It didn’t land on the ground, it leapt into one corner and when it hit the shadows there it just disappeared. I thought a “what the hell” was in order and I delivered. See I did help. I could be comic relief or something.

“After it!” Dead-Eye screamed and promptly dove straight into the wall in the corner, stupid drunk. We really should have seen that coming, especially me. I helped the bastard to his feet.

With that settled, we opened the other doors to make sure there wasn’t any more sleeping monsters in the Inn before heading downstairs. In each room, the brothers searched for coins and valuables, which I thought was smart thinking. Dead-Eye, while clutching his head, helped them search and I’m sure kept a few things in the process, but then again who was I to tell him he couldn’t. I just wanted to go down stairs and get the hell out of this cursed town, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen right away.

She was the epitome of mmm hmmm. She was dressed in as little hunting leathers as I could have imagined in my wildest dreams, just two straps covered up all the best parts, and she was eight feet tall. Did I mention she was eight feet tall, more to love? I’m really not that shallow, it’s what inside that counts, and what is inside those straps I’m counting as a ten, or maybe even an eleven.

Her face snarled into a mask of hate as her eyes fell on Drejnin. Her hand held a large black bow, similar in design to Sreg’s. She raised the bow, drew an arrow that she pointed at him. “Long time, Husband,” she said in a husky, sensual voice that made my heart skip a beat, maybe two, I forgot how to count for a minute.  I wish Dead-Eye was here to see this, he was probably passed out upstairs after searching all the rooms for valuables, it was tough work. 

I turned towards Drejnin. “Buddy, you got some explaining to do,” I said as she loosed the arrow. Everything happened so fast I wasn’t sure I processed everything in my mind until five minutes after everyone stopped moving. Well that might be an exaggeration, but still, it was a tense few seconds.

Serius caught the arrow in mid-flight in his left thigh, successfully protecting his Lord, Drejnin, who pulled his great sword out and charged the femme fatal. With fluid motion, she dropped the bow to the ground and unsheathed two wicked looking short swords, with black blades with fire runes running up and down them, like dancing death. An acrid smell rose from those blades that must have been caused by the faint green smoke that emitted from them.

Serius hit the floor at the same time that Drejnin brought down his sword on the woman with an intense look on his face, she met his blade with hers, blocking his blow. With a quick spin, he tried to take him out at the waist but the Dreymorian was too fast for her. I watched as all this happened in the span of five or so seconds.

Once I got my brain wrapped around what just happened I raced over to Serius and tried to pull the arrow from his leg, but it burned me when I touched it. “Hall! We need help over here!” I yelled looking around for the medic, but when my eyes finally found him I let out a gasp. He was crouched over Myder in the corner, whom was not looking good.  He also had an arrow protruding from him, and Hall was trying to get it out.

“Hold him down, damnit!” the medic said wrapping his hands with an old bar towel found in the debris of the room. “The damn thing burned my hand,” he finished as he gave the arrow a tug.

“I got burned too, Serius is over there with another arrow,” I said pointing to where the Dontu was, but he didn’t need our help. I watched as he turned his leg into some kind of liquid form and the arrow fell from it and hit the floor, then his leg solidified once again. It was astounding to watch.  He saw us and came over after making sure Drejnin didn’t need his help at the moment.

The Dreymorian was holding his own with the beautiful Huntress that must have been Skittessa. By this time, the brothers had returned from their plunder run with the dwarf, who froze in place when he took in our guest locked in melee with Drejnin. Instantly Moose charged the woman without thought of safety. Zeeg and Skrat came over to us and helped us get the arrow out of Myder.

“It hurts like hell,” the medic’s assistant said wincing in pain.

“Ya, that’s probably the poison working through your system,” Serius said kind of matter of fact.

“You think so?” I asked with an incredulous look on my face. “What are we gonna do Hall?” I asked, concerned over Myder. The dontu went to help his master after my insult.

“Without knowing what kind of poison, I am not sure I can do much for him,” Hall said sadly.

“I can help,” Skrat said and sat on the floor with his legs crossed. He placed a hand on the leg of Myder a few inches from the wound and closed his eyes.

I turned my attention back to the fight and saw that the large creature had returned to defend his lady, Serius was in the process of dodging one of its blows as I watched Drejnin place a nice strike into the side of them woman, she was bleeding now, but so was he. If those blades were poisoned like the arrows, we might never get out here alive. I didn’t want to be a limb pile, I really didn’t want that for me.

“Who are you?” Drejnin demanded of the woman as he blocked another of her furious blows. She was relentless, which I guess could be expected since she was supposed to be a goddess after all.

“Do you truly not remember me?” she said with a sensual smirk, as if toying with him.

“I do not,” he replied as he struck with each syllable. The fight was so fast paced, poor Moose couldn’t figure out how to get himself involved. By the time he got a chance to react to an opening it was already gone.

“A pity, we had some good times,” she said as she struck another blow to the large man, this time across his leg, he fell to one knee.

Weebly finally came out of whatever shock he was in and helped Serius with the creature, I also ran to help after realizing I haven’t been much help anywhere all day. We made the thing into a seamstress’s pincushion with everything we had, and when we ran out of weapons we used the broken furniture around the room, stabbing it with broken chair legs and fragments of tables, the son of a bitch wasn’t going to get away this time. Finally, its last breath escaped from its body and it lay still on the Inn floor.

“You will all pay for killing my pets,” Skittessa said raising one of her blades high. “Right after I finish of my dear husband,” she said. Unfortunately for her she never got to bring the blade down because the fight had finally calmed down enough for Moose to go into ass kicking mode. With a fist almost the size of a goddamn pumpkin, he connected with the goddess’s face sending her flying backwards and into the wall, where she fell still. Remind me never to go punch for punch with the big bastard.

“Oh shit now what do we do?” I asked now that we got the beautiful goddess lying unconscious on the floor. Can we get away with tying her up? I mean, she is a goddess so this is all borrowed time, right? I just know this is going to go downhill, wait what am I saying? How much farther downhill can it get? We knocked out a goddess. Well not me, really. It was all Moose. I had nothing to do with it.

“This is not good, not good at all,” Weebly said shaking his head back and forth staring at her. “We are all going to pay for this, she is going to bring us back to the shadow realm and torture us for six hundred years.

“Hell, she can’t torture Drejnin anymore, he is already married to her,” Sreg said with a smile.

“This is no joke, stop panicking and think!” I said trying to add to the conversation. There I felt useful now. It’s the little things, really.

“Let’s just slit her throat and get it over with,” the dontu suggested.

“Is her throat even slittable?” I asked. No one had an answer. Hall asked if slittable was a word, I told him to ask my ass and mooned him. Cheeky bastard. I looked around for all the laughs and smiled from my joke, then got disappointed.

“Won’t know till me we try!” Serius replied to my earlier question.

“You know, we could get Skrat to cast a spell on some food, then we make her eat it and boom she explodes!” Sreg chimed in.

“That’s sounds way more complicated than it needs to be,” Serius said. “Can’t he just make her explode without feeding her?”

“No one is exploding anyone!” I said. “Last thing we need is goddess parts all over the place, we need to try to fix this situation. You think if we killed her the other gods wouldn’t come looking for us? It would be hard for them to be all powerful if some mortals could kill them. Their image would be shot,” I finished.

“They would have to make us gods then!” Sreg said.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Skrat responded.

“We need leverage over her. Something that she won’t jeopardize,” Weebly said, finally, someone making sense. “That is how you deal with gods, you have to have something to bargain with. All our eyes turned to Drejnin at this point, but he didn’t seem to notice, must be lost in thought as he stared down at her.

I was leaning towards doing the whole tie her up thing; at least that could buy us some time to think in case she wakes up. After all she is a goddess, who knows how long that punch is going to make her nap.

Weebly was pacing back and forth thinking and mumbling to himself about something, so I looked around for some rope. It wasn’t hard to locate, Hall had some in his pack. I was bringing it back to the guys when the dwarf shouted out.

“In the stories about her, she does have a husband,” Weebly said looking at Drejnin. He is supposed to be a large devil prince. In the stories, they never mentioned his name, but said he was a great warrior with hair as black as midnight on a moonless night,” he continued in a whisper to me and Sreg nodding quickly to the Dreymorian who still seemed lost in himself in the corner.

“Just tie her up, damnit,” Sreg said nodding at the rope I had found. I guess he was thinking along the same lines as me. We bound her hands behind her back, and then tied up her feet so she couldn’t run, we hoped. Drejnin didn’t say a word or tried to explain anything, he just stared at the goddess with a blank expression. I think he was broken.

“This is bad,” Weebly said again staring at Skittessa lying on her side. I noticed that the rest of the guys were staring at her in a different way, so I threw an old tablecloth found in the wreckage over her, which got me a lot of groans and dirty looks. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be the nice guy. In fact, I can’t think of one time it did pay.

With the Dontu’s help we managed to put her in a chair and wrapped some more rope around her, we weren’t gonna let her get away. Skrat did some flashy stuff and said the ropes weren’t necessary, his magic would hold her, but we didn’t believe him. What can a late teen or early twenties mage do against a goddess.

 It took a few minutes but eventually she woke up and glanced around at all of our pretty faces. I grinned back at her, trying to keep everything casual, you know, just in case she really was the goddess and not some crazy ex-wife of Drejnin. You can’t be too careful these days.

She tried to struggle against her bonds and Sreg panicked. He ran up to her drawing a knife and grabbing her hands he cut off a finger from each one. “I know enough of magic that I know when someone is casting a spell. Without those you won’t be casting anything!” he said. “You guys saw that right? She was trying to wiggle her fingers?” he asked now, not so sure.

“I didn’t see anything but her wiggling her little ass in the chair trying to get free,” I commented.

“I did not see any arcane signs,” Skrat said.

“Look!” Sreg said. We all looked at the bloody finger stumps left on those delicate hands, grew slowly in new fingers, raw and pink.

“Well if she wasn’t pissed off before, you have done it now,” I said to the woodsman.

Her gaze washed over each of us, one at a time, studying us, until she stopped finally on Drejnin with a look of disdain. “Let me out of here right now, husband, and these mortals don’t need to die. If I free myself under my own power I will slaughter the whole gang,” she spoke in that low husky voice. What a gal.

“Why do you address me so? I do not know you,” the Dreymorian said standing in front of her. If anyone had the courage to face her down it was Drejnin. As I glanced around the room I thought about the courage I’ve seen from everyone since we left the barracks, not that long ago. Hey where was Serius? I didn’t see him around the room. Curious.

“I am Skittessa, the Huntress, The Gods Assassin, Daughter of Lodrum and Patron to all whom dwell in the Darkness, you will release me and then I might feel chattier. I assume it is the young man over there who has cast this spell on me? Tell me young man, where did you study magic? I am not familiar with the technique,” Skittessa said.

“He learned it from the shut the hell up academy,” Sreg said drawing back his bow. That seemed like a little extreme of a response to me. I guess the brothers didn’t want to reveal that secret just yet, especially to her.

Skittessa only gave him a wicked smile that oozed seduction. I don’t know about anyone else but my trousers were getting tight. “It doesn’t matter,” she said turning her attention back to Drejnin. “Release me, and I will explain everything to you, in private,” she said promising more with her eyes.

Damn I was ready to confess anything she wanted just to have her look at me the way she was looking at him. If that son of a bitch was really married to her he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I wanted to be him, until I remembered she was either insane or a dark goddess. Well no one is perfect, right? Who am I to judge?

“Everyone was poised to attack it seemed. The tension in the place was growing by the second, I wished Dead-Eye was awake to see this shit, he would have had a nice one liner to break down the drama level easy. Even Dead-Eye was good for something. I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?

All eyes turned to Drejnin now, most wanting to know what he was going to do. Also, some looks of envy, there was no denying it. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, instead of a pin we heard Myder breathing heavy.

“Is he going to die?” I asked the goddess now that I shamefully finally remembered my friend in pain.

“Yes, he was poisoned by the Goddess of Assassination. If freed I will save him,” she said.

“She is lying,” Skrat said walking closer to her. For the youngest of our group he didn’t show any fear, it was amazing. “Myder is sweating out the last of the poison now, I took care of his injury,” the young magi said never taking his eyes off Skittessa.

“Impressive, mage, if you can undo the effects of my poison then there is more to you that I would like to learn. Maybe I will keep you around as a plaything when I am done here with my husband,” she said luring the young man closer.

“No thanks, woman are trouble, old women are especially so,” he said with a sneer and turned his back to her. Wow, where the hell did that come from?

“Can we keep the spell on her if we remove the ropes? I want to be able to transport her somewhere private,” Drejnin asked. Damn he was going to go for it after all, well he was only human, right? Well Dreymorian I guess, although I wasn’t sure of the difference.

“I can make it so that she can walk but cannot leave the confines of a room,” Skrat said, proud of the spell he had worked. “Once I had her in the spell I can manipulate it without any worry of her breaking it,” he finished.

“If I do break it you have a lot to worry about, young mage,” she said with fire behind those eyes of hers.

Skrat walked over to her and placed his hand on her head, then touched her wrists and ankles. “It is done, you can remove the ropes now,” he said and stepped back.

Everyone tensed as Drejnin walked close to her and pulled a small knife from his belt that I didn’t even know he carried. With ease the large man sliced through the roped and they fell away from the lovely figure of the goddess. When she started to rise from the chair everyone held their breath. I don’t trust mages, but we have gone over that before. The moment of truth had arrived.

If she had a trick up her sleeve, it didn’t work. No big flash of goddess power or anything, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I expected something. She walked over to the corpse of her pet and bent down on one knee, the table cloth falling off her perfect frame. I swear I saw a tear fall from her face as she held its head in her hands for a moment. Can dark goddesses feel actual feelings?

When she turned back around to face us she was all business though. She eyed Drejnin up and down like he was a piece of meat and walked lithely over to him, placing her arm in his and motioning to the stairs. I’m not sure a bloody inn room was the perfect get away spot for a recently got back together couple or not, but my guess was she would look good in any setting, and besides she had enough scenery to look out, he probably wouldn’t even notice the rooms décor. Together they walked up the stairs and soon disappeared. The rest of looked at each other thinking now what?

Sometimes I can be a genius. Sometimes I even surprise myself. I decided since we had nothing else to do, and I was curious anyway, I would sneak up stairs and listen at the door. My only concern was Serius catching me, but he seemed to have vanished. Maybe he decided to take a nap in one of the rooms like Dead-Eye did.  Oh well it will be their loss, I was going to listen in and learn about our large friend.

The rest of the guys didn’t think it was such a good idea and decided they would burn the bodies in the town square while waiting. Skrat stayed in the common room, watching over Myder, whom seemed to be doing a lot better. As I slowly made my way upstairs trying not to creak a board I heard Hall asking Skrat about his healing abilities. Weebly came with me, but he was visibly shaken by the idea of being that close in proximity to Skittessa. One step at a time we made our way to the landing, listening for clues as to which room they were in.

In the first room on the left-hand side we heard hushed whispers behind the door. With the grace of a feline I tripped and almost fell into the door, but I did catch myself before I hit the solid wood door. Placing an eye to the keyhole produced no results so I put my ear to it instead.

Drejnin sat on the stoop outside the Inn with a confused look on his rigid face. Who was this woman who claimed to be his wife? She did not look familiar, yet, there was something familiar about her. He had never heard of a Skittessa, and wondered how he could be connected to a supposed goddess from this world, unless she had followed him through the Sun Door, but then how would Weebly have known her name? There were a lot of questions on the Dreymorian’s mind and the flashing images of his past only confused him more.

Since arriving here in this place, this other world, there have been only a few visions that made any sense at all. In them he saw fire, death, torture, the place he came from was no place to live. Also in most of them, especially in the visions of conflict and war, Serius was at his side, fighting ruthlessly against strange creatures, twisted, deformed things of nightmares. In one of these visions he had seen the Dontu change into large beast to consume the first wave of attackers as they stood along the castle wall, the sky, blood red, casting a rather foreboding hue on the charging army.

Serius remembered about the same as Drejnin, at least as far as he has told. He had no reason to doubt the dontu, in every vision he has seen he was a loyal companion, or servant or maybe a little of both. There were few other faces he could make out in the visions, he saw himself casting spells while swinging his sword into the rushing enemy.

His own soldiers shouted out a war cry and charged past him, he couldn’t see any faces, only the armored backs of his legions charging the nightmarish enemy. So many unanswered questions left in the big holes in his memory, but nowhere in them was this Skittessa or her demonic hounds.

He knew the woman believed she was this goddess, and was convinced he was her husband, and apparently, her target for assassination. Once they realized he had left the building he was sure she would seek him out here, where he might get answers if she was willing to talk, and if not, one of them could meet death. He didn’t want to risk the lives of the friends he had made since arriving through the Sun Door, even Serius he didn’t want involved in this. This woman was the strongest opponent he had met as far as he could remember, and dared not risk his friend’s life.

The dontu was the only link to his past, if he was to survive this, and had any hope to figure out who he was, he needed Serius. That seemed cold-blooded and insensitive, but the memories weren’t coming back fast and he was getting frustrated at its pace. Hopefully finding this Moon Door and returning to his home world would bring back that which he had lost, his identity.

The large man stood and stretched his stiff, aching muscles. His unexplained healing abilities had just finished taking care of the wounds suffered by the woman, stitching the torn skin and tissue back together. He bent over, grasping the hilt of his sword that had lay at his side. He sheathed the sharp blade and turned his massive frame back towards the inns door.  Where was everyone? Surely, they realized he had left?

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