In the sunless cavern made of hemlock branches Kovak could barely register shapes and a sense of depth around him. The space was too cramped by overhanging branches for him to draw his sword. The thick, tangled roots that formed the floor of this space made fast maneuvering impossible.

  He had touched the mind of the resident troll but its menacing presence, like the wretched stench it gave off, seemed to be everywhere, all around the wolf rather than in one particular location. The wolf had stopped moving, and he calmed himself as much as possible by centering on his own breathing.

  He began slowly to move once more in the direction he had been travelling. He hoped he was maintaining his original direction anyway.

  The wolf strained his ears for any sound of movement. Trolls were known to be impossibly silent, probably an effect of dark magic. Still, it was a living creature, so it must need to breathe.

  Kovak focused on experiencing the world around him through his sense of hearing. He allowed himself to feel the psychic centers just below his ears, which some mystics used for clairaudience or to enhance their natural hearing.

  The wolf had only previously worked with these centers as a meditative practice. Such work was part of the long preparation a Faolchu warrior or mystic underwent in the years ahead of their becoming. The purpose of such rigorous training was of course to develop proper technique and concentration so that when a wolf “became” or matured into his or her psychic potential he or she would already possess the skill sets needed to deploy the new abilities.

  As Kovak let his awareness fall gently onto his psychic hearing centers, he was almost startled by the wave of new sounds he became aware of. He could hear his own heart beating clearly, even heard blood flowing through the major arteries in his body. The sounds of gurgling and moving tissue must have been his own internal organs carrying out their normal processes.

  The wolf realized the new sensory information distracted him from the moment and let it go. He continued to creep forward one agonizingly slow step at a time.

  It had now been nearly ten seconds since he first became aware of the troll’s mind in this cavern of ancient hemlock foliage. His muscles tensed and his mind wanted to race, for an attack he could neither see nor hear seemed logically imminent.

  Focusing on his breath the wolf centered his mind and released the excessive tension from his body. He continued moving, trying to ignore the stench and listening intently. once again.

  He heard the moisture in the overlapping hemlock branches seeping slowly across the semi-rotted wood, heard water in the mossy soil below squeeze its way through damp particles of earth. The sound of ultra tiny insects buzzing about in the cramped space or creeping across the nearby, massive tree trunks.

  The forest outside sounded like a wave of indistinct rumbling and squealing. He reckoned this oddity to be the faint background noise of the woodland’s rustling leaves, scampering creatures, singing birds and insects all muffled by the tons of foliage overhead and amplified many times over.

  One sound stood out harshly over the background droning; a constant and semi-rhythmic buzzing sound. The wolf intuitively understood this to be the wings of his fairy pursuers as they hovered about the hemlock grove; they obviously knew about the troll, else they would have ventured in after him by now.

  Kovak’s blood ran cold. Finally he heard it; the rasping and rapid breath of the troll he’d sensed before. The sound was scarcely audible even to his psychically enhanced hearing.

  The breathing came from ahead of the wolf and offset to the left. In his mind’s eye Kovak briefly saw the form of the troll, obscured by the heavy darkness of the place, on the opposite side of the great hemlock trunk just to his left.

  As the question of whether or not the troll knew the wolf was in its lair began to form in Kovak’s mind, he heard the wretched creature spring into motion. With alarming speed the troll scamper-sprinted around the curvature of the trunk and collided with the wolf.

  He had no time to process the blinding attack. In the same instant he recognized the creature’s movement it was upon him, crashing into his breastplate and nearly toppling him in the process.

  Two rows of long, needle-sharp teeth sank into the meat of Kovak’s left thigh. The wolf let out a yelp and slammed his fist into the troll’s skull; the formidable, short punch knocked the monster to the ground but it immediately sprang back up.

  The thing grabbed with both clawed hands but smashed its fingers onto the wolf’s breastplate, breaking a few talons with the force of its motion. The squeal-scrape of claws across metal ran painfully up Kovak’s spine as he grabbed a handful of matted hair and a fist-sized area of the troll’s head.

  It snarled and flailed violently as the wolf extended his arm to keep the thing off his chest. Kovak realized the troll was much smaller than him, perhaps five feet tall, though it had an inordinately large head for something that size.

  The previous troll he’d fought had been a cave troll. An immense creature larger than he with rock-like scales and an unbelievably large maw full of fangs.

  Is this one a young troll? If so where is the mother?

  The wolf staggered back over the rough surface of bulging roots beneath his feet. Keeping the troll at arm’s length as if to use it as a shield to deflect an angry mother troll.

  His leg burned and hollered from the bite. More than a score of deep puncture wounds felt like fire had been poured into them.

  The troll in the wolf’s grasp vanished suddenly. Kovak staggered faster with the sudden loss of the monster’s counterbalancing weight and crashed to the ground.

  As he clamored to his feet he heard the troll snarl behind him. He felt the considerable force of the thing’s bite clamp down on his tail.

  Yelping again Kovak instinctively spun one-hundred and eighty degrees but the troll whipped around behind him, its teeth firmly fastened into his tail.

  The wolf spun back the opposite direction but still the troll stayed to his rear because his tail remained in its mouth. It clamped down some more and Kovak felt certain it would tear half of his tail away.

  He sprang backwards in the direction he believed the massive tree trunk to be, protruding his buttocks. The wolf smashed tail-end first into the trunk, crushing the troll between himself and the tree in the process.

  The thing groaned and fell to the ground but then vanished again. Kovak brought a heavy stomp down but struck only a thick, twisted root where the troll had been a second before.

  Hoarse, rapid laughter emerged from the darkness behind the wolf.

  He felt the troll’s breath on his neck and without thinking hopped to his right – he felt the troll lung past his evasive maneuver - and dropped his head and shoulders straight down into a roll.

  Kovak banged his head on a fat, contorted root as he entered the roll. The uneven root-filled earth was not kind to the wolf as he tumbled across its surface and recovered into a half-kneel; he’d smashed his right forearm and the knuckles on his left hand during the roll.

  He had also drawn his fighting knife in the process and now held it in his right hand in front of him, the tapered point of its slightly curved blade extended to catch any charging trolls.

  The wolf slowly walked backwards on his knees. He hoped he was moving in the right direction – towards the perimeter of the hemlock foliage.

  He heard a drop of water smack onto a root thirty or see feet to his right.

  The sound of a small creature, likely a mouse, moving along the roots nearby caught his ear.

  He could clearly hear buzzing fairy wings and the voices of several fairies beyond the wall of dank, rotting foliage.

  The Mother of Thorns and Sororess Shezaheza faced one another and circled continually to their left as they uttered the words of their incantation. Kovak did not understand a single word of the ancient fay language but a deep emptiness in his chest grew in response to their chanting.

  In his mind he saw a looming darkness in the future waiting to devour him. Uncertain of exactly what the darkness represented, the wolf shook the image from his mind and returned his attention to the present.

  “He’s too big.” said the other fairy with Briden and Protozoa, speaking softly and glancing over his shoulder towards the matron and sororess engaged in their rite.. “He’ll kill the troll and make it out of there.”

  “You’re a fool Medgizin!” Briden replied. “Rukaloke will eat the wolf; two gold shillings!”

  “He can’t eat him!” a female fairy chirped in. “We need him for the matron’s oblation.”

  “We need the wolf to help us cheer for mother?” another fairy asked incredulously. “I don’t know about all that but I’ll wager two shillings on Rukaloke as well.”

  “Idiot.” said the female fairy. “Not ovation, oblation; a burned sacrifice for the Dark One Below!”

  The group of fairies laughed.

  “What do you think they’re doing right now?” Protozoa pointed to the queen and Shezaheza.

  The female shrugged.

  “They are dedicating the loser of the battle in there,” Protozoa pointed to the hemlocks. “To the Dark One. So you see, it no longer matters if the wolf lives or dies.”

  “That is incorrect,” said Zap.

  He and Zimb hovered nearby, between the queen and sororess and the warriors.

  “She would…” the bird-wing fairy began, but stopped himself at the gasps of his fellow fairies.

  Immediately he corrected himself: “I mean the matron, mother, Her Radiance,” The fairy quickly rattled the titles off in an effort to compensate for his severe blunder.

  Common pronouns absolutely could not be applied to the matron of the clan.

  “Would prefer the wolf alive so he may be killed in the ring.” Zap finished his thought.

  Zimb looked on his fellow herald in disgust. “Fool. You endanger us both, for you know it is my duty to kill you for such blasphemy!”

  Zap backed away from Zimb, touching the hilt of his dagger.

  “We heard nothing!” Protozoa whisper-shouted. “Neither of you needs to die at this time.”

  Looking to the other fairies alongside him he reiterated. “We heard nothing; isn’t that right?”

  “Nothing at all.” said Briden.

  “Was someone talking just now?” asked Medgizin. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

  Zimb’s expression softened. He nodded to Protozoa.

  Zap also relaxed and nodded. He would have thanked Protozoa but didn’t want any more attention on himself in that moment.

  “Zap is right about the wolf,” said Zimb. “If he escapes the troll you must try to take him alive.”

  “We have plenty of arrows dipped in Nightshade, Lilly of the Valley, and Hekelius Root.” said another female fairy who wore a winged helm. “One good hit should knock even a creature the wolf’s size out cold.”

  “Then you better improve your aim Sulaye.” Yet another fairy teased. “If you even get another chance. I have two gold shillings on the troll over the wolf.”

  Kovak allowed himself to hear whatever was there to be heard. He did not settle his attention on any one thing.

  He could hear the troll breathing again. He heard the almost imperceptible sound of its footfalls as it stalked him step for step.

  The pure malice of the troll’s mind unsettled the wolf. He did not fear evil, but neither did he understand a mind fully committed to the harming of others and the sewing of strife and sorrow as high ideals.

  Come on then you fiend. Kovak said into the troll’s mind.

  He noted the monster flinched, as if alarmed by either the intrusion or the realization that its foe had that ability. Rukaloke did not oblige the wolf’s invitation; instead of charging then and there it continued to stalk

  Kovak continued the slow creep backwards. He became aware of something else in the troll’s mind; something akin to anxiety.

  It did not want him to veer over to his right as he retreated. Kovak sensed this clearly.

  As it happened he had no intention of moving in that direction. Until he saw the first dots of sunlight entering the foliage cavern from exactly that direction.

  He almost broke into a run for the light, and would have if not for the fairies awaiting him outside. The wolf could feel the fairy queen at the edge of his awareness and quickly pushed her away.

  How long has she been there watching my every move, assessing my every thought?

  Something brittle cracked under Kovak’s weight as he shifted his course towards the little points of sunlight, which he estimated to be fifty yards away. The troll snarled as the wolf changed his heading.

  Kovak raised onto the balls of his feet. The bite wound in his leg screamed as he did this. In a low three-point posture he continued backwards, keeping the knife extended in front of him.

  He heard the troll whisper something in a language he didn’t know. The wolf judged by the troll’s inflections it had uttered some kind of magic spell.

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  Then came the tell-tale jingling and chimes Kovak always heard when charming or beguiling magic were being enacted. He felt dark tendrils reach from the ether towards his mind, but the shoots of magical energy slipped from his aura, unable to take hold.

  As the magic fizzled he heard the words “Change direction and move left.”

  This thing really does not want me to enter the area to my right. The wolf noted. He wondered why and, as if on instinct, plunged his intention into the troll’s mind like a great anchor cast into the deep sea.

  The monster snarled and flailed in an effort to cast the intruder from its mind. Kovak saw a rock outcropping, long ago buried under the overgrown hemlocks.

  The limestone mound concealed a large cave entrance that led into a wide cavern filled with bones. Among the bones were coins and jewelry and the bags and packs of travelers the troll had fed upon.

  Of course. Every monster lair must have a caché of treasure , reasoned the wolf.

  All at once the darkness came alive with creaking and sliding sounds. For a second the wolf thought he heard the bodies of several large snakes slithering swiftly towards him from all sides.

  Scarcely had he registered the awful thought when the first of the vines grabbed his ankles. Another latched on and wound up his right leg.

  The troll lunged, promptly impaling itself on the wolf’s extended knife. The thing hissed and tore across Kovak’s face with one set of claws as the wolf twisted the knife – the blade already six inches into the troll’s midsection – and thrusted forward

  A particularly large vine seized the wolf’s right forearm and pulled it downward. He let go of the knife and focused on tearing the vine from its roots. Other vines spiraled around and up the wolf’s torso.

  Kovak felt blood seeping from the freshly dug claw wounds along his snout and across the left side of his face. He lunged with his neck from the shoulders and snapped only air in his jaws as he tried to bite the elusive troll.

  The wolf was instantly relieved that his bite had missed. It had been a reflex-action; he had no interest in biting this rancid creature which he assumed would be toxic.

  He struggled against the dozen vines that now entangled and crisscrossed his body. He yanked yard and broke a strand holding his left arm but it was immediately replaced by two more. Each arm and both legs were entwined and being pulled in opposite directions, making it nearly impossible to find a point of leverage.

  A few feet away he heard the troll grunting and struggling. Next he heard his knife clatter onto the floor of branch-sized roots that spiraled and tangled underfoot. He knew trolls healed quickly, almost immediately, through whatever dark magic sustained the foul beings; he had little time before the monster attacked again.

  Kocak strained his muscles, uprooting a vine that held his left leg. With all his strength he pulled his arms together in front of him, ripping more vines from the ground.

  The small victories were quickly undone as more vines rushed in to replace the broken ones. Each time the wolf yanked a vine from its roots others took its place. He couldn’t keep up, and within another moment he was pulled taught by the arms and legs in four directions.

  The vines continued to pull and stretch the wolf’s limbs. His shoulders felt as if they might dislocate if this continued. Kovak thought of the times he’d seen criminals drawn and quartered by horses. He tensed his muscles in resistance, but this worsened his plight making it easier for the vines to stretch him further.

  First one hip, then the other popped painfully. The wolf understood that within only a few more seconds all four of the joints connecting his limbs to his body would be pulled apart, broken, after which the vines would probably tear his limbs from his torso.

  “Kovak.” said the calm voice of B’keul from many worlds away.

  Teacher. I am defeated. The wolf in the troll’s lair conceded, sending the message into his mentor’s mind.

  “No!” Barked the teacher. “You are quickened. Do you not realize the troll controls these vines with its magic?”

  Kovak had not understood this. Perhaps he thought some sort of plant creature shared this darkness with the troll. The vines had attacked so suddenly; something so strange and unexpected confused the wolf. He had only reacted to the immediate threat without making an effort to understand.

  “The mind is already swift enough to understand almost instantly.” Spoke the Eshj Eshja. “One quickened may even appear to bend time with the speed of his thoughts.”

  Kovak understood. The entire interaction with his mentor in the psychic space took less than a second of material time, and now the wolf had the knowledge he needed to escape the vines.

  He became singularly aware of the troll’s mind. He saw the thing directing the vines in their attack, and further saw its next action forming within it; it would pounce upon its trapped enemy to deal the finishing blow.

  No. Kovak projected Gr’tchum gri, the subtle smashing fist into the center of the troll’s head; it grunted and collapsed.

  The vines loosened their grip, allowing the wolf to tear several from the earth. The reprieve lasted only briefly before the vines began to attack again.

  This time the wolf moved more quickly. Tearing with his hands, yanking vines up forcefully with his legs, even tearing them asunder with his teeth. In short order most of the vines had been uprooted, and the remnants were too few to pose a real threat.

  Kovak understood that magic does not rely fully on the user’s mind. While knocking the troll out briefly disrupted its connection to its work, magical forces had already been unleashed, and those unseen agents continued their assigned work even when their conjurer was incapacitated.

  For the first time since entering the hemlock cavern the wolf relaxed and gathered himself. He shifted his intentions to a spot between and slightly above his eyes, activating his mind’s eye, or third eye.

  Through this mind’s eye he reached out into the dark space and saw what his physical eyes could not perceive through the impenetrable darkness. Immediately he realized the darkness in the center of the space was unnatural, magically induced by its resident.

  While engaging his third eye Kovak could see perfectly, as if there were no hemlock branches overhead and the sun touched everything in the cave.

  He saw the troll laid out before him, twitching slightly. A strange looking creature with a pointy chin and long, pointy ears, with a beard and mane that nearly covered its whole body.

  Next to the troll lay the wolf’s fighting knife. The blade was broken off about halfway up.

  He could see the cave to his right and the piles of treasure within it. Beyond that he saw a tunnel, large enough to accommodate him, that led away from the lair; he quickly followed the tunnel with his mind and found it empty, leading to a surface cave about half a mile to the west.

  The wolf shifted his awareness to the fairies outside. They had gathered into a single spot, looking intently at the hemlocks. Their queen hovered above them, also scrutinizing the grove.

  “I can’t see either.” said one of the fairies. “Some unknown force prevents me from looking within.”

  “Patience my children.” said the Mother of Thorns. “I sense the troll yet lives.”

  Kovak understood the queen intended to wake the troll. Quickly he entered the cave, pausing briefly to survey the scattered coins, jewelry, and miscellany. It seemed foolish to leave empty-handed, yet foolish as well to risk encountering the troll once more.

  A finely crafted dagger caught the wolf’s attention. He picked it up; the tightly wrapped leather of the hilt felt perfect in his grip.

  The brass pommel and crossguard were engraved with characters unfamiliar to the wolf. The polished, double-edged blade had nary a nick or ding upon its nearly two-foot length; it did have more runes faintly marking the centerline. Kovak sensed magic coursing through the weapon.

  Timely discovery, given the loss of my fighting knife.

  He heard the faintest rustling outside the cave and looked up to see the troll crouched as if to spring. The wolf lowered his stance, the bite on his thigh burned and now the gashes on his face joined in the silent song of pain.

  The troll snickered and flickered. Suddenly it grew threefold in size, hunched over beneath the branches and pressing up against them. It towered over the wolf.

  Kovak sheathed the dagger, noting it did not perfectly fit his old knife’s scabbard, and bolted down the tunnel on all fours. He heard the troll start to give chase but promptly get stuck in the cave mouth.

  It snarled and cursed behind him as he tore along the underground passage. Of course the troll would simply change its form again to pass through the tunnel but the wolf had enough of a head start to reach the surface cave – and thereafter the sunlight – before the troll could catch him.

  Unless it translocates again.

  The thought crossed Kovak’s mind as the hair on his neck and shoulders stiffened and straightened. In the tunnel ahead – perhaps fifty yards - suddenly appeared the newly immense troll. Its beard-mane flowed like a cloak nearly to the ground and its mouth opened wide to expose two rows of dagger-like teeth.

  Kovak lowered his head and roared; a primal battle cry of raw anger and violent intention. Pushing his muscles to their absolute limit he charged directly towards the monster.

  The troll stretched its arms out front in a catching posture and settled its weight, content to let the wolf come to it.

  Thirty feet from his opponent Kovak launched himself like an arrow towards the troll’s gaping maw and clawed hands.

  Mid-flight, he twisted his scabbard with his right hand, angling the hilt back. With a flick of his left wrist the blade broke free - steel sliding from the scabbard throat in a flash. For an instant the sword hung suspended, gleaming, as the scabbard swung with the belt at his hip.

  Kovak released the scabbard, seized the hilt, and in one seamless motion claimed the weapon from the air. He brought his left hand to the hilt as well and in the same movement arced the blade out and around into a crosscut.

  The troll timed the sailing wolf and lunged but failed to mind the seven-foot blade between its maw and the incoming warrior. Doubtless it simply had not registered the drawing of the sword. Kovak soared with his body straight and parallel to the ground. The troll would have seen only the wolf’s face and his tail trailing behind him.

  Kovak’s sword cut through one of the troll’s arms like a carving knife through a loaf of bread. The arm fell away just short of the elbow, but the blade remained extended; the wolf had arrested his swing to present the sword in a thrusting position rather than allowing it to finish its arc.

  The troll caught the wolf at the chest with its other hand, not yet aware one arm had been severed. The monster tensed its neck and jaws to deliver a brutal bite but instantly released the wolf and flailed wildly.

  Kovak crashed, spaulder first against the troll’s face. The last of his momentum almost knocked the monster off its feet as he bounced off to the side and made a stagger-step landing.

  Kovak’s sword had pierced the floor of the troll’s mouth, pinning its tongue in place and exiting behind the creature’s chin. The blade then penetrated its throat and finally emerged, covered in thick blueish goo from the thing’s back. Rukaloke did not fully comprehend this as it happened, knowing only a sharp pain and recognizing a stiff force that threw it backwards.

  It staggered back several paces, its intact arm flailing wildly. With a heavy stomp the troll ended its backward stagger and swayed deeply to the left and then the right.

  Kovak waited calmly for the monster to regain unsteady footing and stop its swaying. It clutched urgently and desperately at the hilt of his sword, seeking to pull it from the epic wound channel the thrust had made.

  Seeking only to be helpful the wolf glided in, grabbed his sword with both hands then took a full, forceful step backwards, both twisting the blade sharply and yanking it back through the troll’s chest cavity, out its throat, and finally back through the floor of its mouth. Rukaloke made a curious sound, part hiss, part moan, atop a brief string of jabbering before collapsing to its knees.

  Without hesitating the wolf retrieved the enchanted dagger, for he did not wish to swing the sword and fling troll blood all over himself. With a single deft, horizontal stroke he cleaved through the monster’s thick neck, easily passing through the vertebrae and cleanly severed the troll’s head.

  The head rolled off to the left and the body crashed down to the right.

  Kovak quickly cleaned each of his blades, first using the troll’s own hair to remove most of the gook. He then retrieved a wineskin from his pack, pouring the alcohol across the steel of both weapons. He pulled first the dagger and then the sword through the pads of his forefinger and thumb then gave each a sharp flick to liberate the remnants of blood and wine.

  He sheathed his sword. He then used the dagger to cut away the now useless sheath from his previous knife. He made a loop with a leather cord and fastened it to his belt then used the loop to secure the new dagger between the belt and the padding beneath his breastplate, which hung midway down his pelvis.

  While focused on the matter of knives Kovak also examined his harness of throwing knives. All eight remained in place.

  The wolf took a knee and rested a moment. His muscles ached from overexertion and his recent wounds hurt like badly infected cuts and lacerations.

  He knew troll’s passed disease with their claws and teeth, or at the very least wounds they delivered festered and made the recipient ill. The fairies would soon find him in this tunnel and he was in no shape for further battle.

  He considered reaching out with his quickened mind to contact his companions. At the same time he did not want the two of them rushing to his aid.

  The three of them could possibly defeat the fairies. Their own destruction in such a fight was also a distinct possibility.

  This battle must be waged strategically, intelligently. We must marshal appropriate forces and attack with a plan.

  The wolf knew if the frog and giantess learned of his predicament they would charge to his aid without hesitation. For this reason he decided not to contact them.

  Instead, he would reach out to the druids of Naoi Dara, or Nine Oaks, the northernmost village in the Waywards and the spiritual center of the entire settlement. First he must vacate this tunnel and find a place to hide.

  He shifted his weight to stand and immediately new pain washed over his body, originating from the bite on his leg but quickly spreading outward. His face was a burning kind of numb by now, and his neck hurt and ached as if he’d slept at a poor angle. His tail hurt worst of all; a constant deep stinging that would not subside.

  Kovak swayed slightly as dizziness crept in. Running in this state was going to be a considerable challenge.

  He knew some mystics had the ability to heal themselves and others. He had never practiced such arts; even in the quickening he didn’t know where or how to begin such work.

  The potions ! He remembered four of Pidwermin’s healing potions were among the miscellany he carried for his eccentric frog companion.

  A brief nausea arose from the wolf’s stomach, then subsided. Kovak realized it could have been a side-effect of his wounds, but honestly believed it resulted from the memory of almost giving the potions back to the frog in a moment of ire.

  The relief he now felt for reconsidering that seemingly trivial decision could hardly be overstated. He even laughed.

  Daggaz Howls. I am so glad I didn’t make him reclaim his clandestinely stored belongings.

  The wolf quickly retrieved one of the potion bottles from the pack on the ground next to him. Remembering the sour taste of the last healing potion he drank, nearly two years ago, he took a small drink to start.

  Sour. Just as he recalled.

  Immediately his muscles stopped aching and the burning in his wounds lessened. The dizziness also vanished, and the bangs and bumps from his unplanned roll over rugged ground no longer throbbed.

  He took another larger drink. He shook his head to cast off the puckering effect of the sour liquid. Thus far he’d consumed about half the potion.

  The gashes on his snout and face tingled, as did the bites on his leg and tail. The tingling continued and the wolf felt the wounds themselves fade away, restored, unscarred flesh replacing them.

  All of his wounds, from minor bumps to severe lacerations and gashes, healed completely in a matter of seconds. Even his fatigued muscles felt totally renewed.

  The sadness that had set upon him was now but a strange recollection.

  He placed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to his pack. He then stuffed the pack back into his beltpouch.

  Having second thoughts about accessibility, he briefly recovered the pack, removed the half-full healing potion, placed the pack back within the magical belt pouch, then placed the healing potion into the pouch atop the pack. This way should he need healing again the potion would be easily accessible without the need to remove his entire pack.

  A light caught his attention. Looking back towards the cave entrance, a few hundred yards behind him, he could see the glow of some kind of illumination coming from the hemlock cavern.

  The fairies had entered the lair in search of him.

  Kovak turned on his heels then dropped to all fours and burst into a sprint. The healing potion not only repaired his injuries, it restored his tired body and gave him a fresh start which he did not intend to waste.