Once More, Unto the Breach

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 5

"What the hell do you mean by she's gone to kill him?!"
Kalie demanded by smashing her fist against the small table
she was standing behind.

Fox sighed. "Exactly what I said. Oria stole my Matrix chip
and went to assassinate Krege."

She sighed, sinking down into a chair, sitting sideways to
allow her tail some access. "What is this Matrix chip
anyway?"

"A very fancy disguise using small force shields to produce
an effect shape of the local population."

Kalie perked up. "I think I've seen one before, Page had it
when we first met. Sort of an explosion of light."

Fox smiled. "Yep, and with the shielding a lot more accurate
then Ken's magiced images that we used before."

I scoffed. "My current one's are by far less obvious then
they used to be."

Kalie shook her head. "That's is all nice, but we're
drifting from the point of this discussion. That being what
we are actually going to *do* about this?"

"We can't tell Draz," Fox stated, stepping away from the
wall where he had been leaning. "He would want her hunted
down and killed. I think Thrysten might understand, but I
don't want to push our luck there."

"And if she does kill him it will make sure there is the war
we all want to avoid." I stated. "We have to find her before
she tries to do anything."

"Finding her will be easy." Fox said with a frown, rubbing
his forehead with one hand.

"What part makes it easy?" Kalie asked. "That fact that she
doesn't stick out at all, or that she could be there all
ready killing him as we speak."

Fox walked over to stand in front of the room's fireplace,
still rubbing his head. "Because she can't get there very
fast. Her world has nothing like a horse, or even the
concept of riding an animal. So unless you taught her Kalie,
she's going to be walking, meaning she won't be there till
morning. Second, this is the first time she has chooses to
assassinate someone, she's going to take a lot of working
trying to convince herself to do it. Finally, even with the
Matrix she will be easy to stop. She's going to want to stay
close to Krege, and I'm going to be talking to the man
tomorrow. She'll be the guard or soldier or whatever that
isn't shocked when they see me."

Kalie hissed a bit. "Ken, what do you think of this mess."

I shook my head, pulling my wings around myself. "I think
this is the best we're going to be able to do. With whatever
Thrysten has planed I suspect we will have a better chance
at it. Still though Fox's way of finding Oriana is tenuous
at best."

Fox turned to look at me. "I don't suppose you have a better
idea." He snapped.

I nodded. "Do you have any of Oriana's fur?"

He started to protest, then paused. Slowly he started
digging though his jacket pockets, he then reached up and
felt around the collar of his jacket. He let out a small
'ah-ha' and pulled lose a small clump of golden-tan fur.

I walked over and plucked it from his fingers and started to
dig into my satchel. "I can make a small spell to show you
the direction she's in. A floating arrow that only you can
see."

He nodded. "Good idea."

I pulled the second table over in front of me, then pulling
out a few ingredients started to work them in a wood bowl. A
little of the fur, and a few added spices. Along with some
spell base (a thin white paste I keep pre-made) and some
energies on my part it was done.

Actually, it wasn't done, it was a small white, furry lump,
the size of a pebble.

I plucked it out of the bowl and gave it to Fox. He took it
from me and looked at it in distaste. "I swallow it, right?"

"Just say tre'talon."

He raised an eyebrow. "Tre'talon?" He asked, invoking the
spell. The pellet puffed into smoke and Fox stumbled back.

Waving his hand in front of his face he smiled a bit.
"Interesting spell, this should make it a lot easier to find
her."

"It will get darker the closer you get to her. When it's
black she'll be just a tail lengths away."

Fox nodded, and rubbed his neck. "Ok... now that we have
that taken care of," He turned to Kalie. "I would like one
of your guns."

She blushed, looking down a bit. "Oh Fox, you don't think I
would have brought any do you?" She asked, trying to sound
innocent.

He crossed his arms. "At least three."

She nodded, reaching behind herself and removing a gun that
was hidden under the cloth and in the fur at the top of her
tail. She reluctantly handed it over to Fox.

He took it, and gave it a once over before secreting it some
place in his jacket. "Clips?"

She handed him two spares, which he stuffed into the pocket
of his jacket. "Right now, what else can we do here?"

"Sleep," was my suggestion.

Fox sighed, "You guys can do that."

"Still not sleeping?"

He shook his head, then winched. "No." He said then started
to rub his forehead.

"What's wrong?" Kalie asked, interrupting me as I was about
to say something else. "You've been rubbing your head sense
Oriana vanished."

He frowned. "I've been fighting an headache sense we got
here, it's gotten worse all night."

I frowned myself, tapping one clawfinger against my side.
Fox got headaches a lot, it was part of who he was, but if
he had a one that started when we arrived back here, that
could mean the spell I had put on him before was starting to
break down.

I stepped over to him. "I think I can help on both counts
tonight."

He looked up at me. "Oh? How exactly can you?"

I closed my eyes halfway and concentrated. It was a very
familiar spell I was doing. I had done it on myself so many
times I didn't need the simple adds to help me control it, I
was able to shape the magic purely in my mind. As I shaped
it I let it flow into Fox, wrapping him in it's power.

He could feel it, the look on the face told me that. He
opened his mouth to protest, and yawned. Slowly then, taking
only a few seconds, he fell into my arms, sound asleep.

"Will that last till morning?" Kalie asked.

I nodded, lowering him to one of the pads on the floor. "It
will last until I break it. He needs a full sleep, very
badly."

She nodded, walking over to her own pad, which was on the
other side of the room. "Then I suggest we follow him for
the night."

I smiled. "Yes, we should," I said, dropping my satchel on
the floor and laying myself down beside Fox. We had all
moved to one of the smaller common room's in the castle,
having decided to try and stay together as much as we can,
not wanting to lose anyone else.

Kalie dropped of to sleep quickly, her light sores drifting
though the room. I still had work to do before I could rest.

I pulled Fox up against myself, and wrapped my arms around
him. I could fell the three spells of my own resonating with
my touch. Closing my eyes, I felt them with my magic, easily
finding the oldest one.

It was crude and badly formed, and was starting to break
down. I was surprised that it had lasted as long as it did.
I was also a bit amazed at how crude my own magic was.
Either way though I had to do this. Delving into the spell,
I started to rebuild and reinforce it, so that what it was
hiding would stay hidden from Fox for the rest of his life.

* * *

I was unceremoniously dumped onto a dirt floor. A pair of
paws dug into my arms and pulled me up onto my knees. There
was a few mumbled words and the sack that had been pull over
my upper body was yanked off.

Blinking I tried to clear my eyes a bit. I was in what
looked like a tent, the floor was trammeled grass, not dirt,
but felt about the same when I landed on it. On one side of
the room was two men. One was sitting in thickly padded
chair. The other was slumped down in a small chair to the
side. He looked like he might have been tied into it.

The one in the larger chair, I assumed it was the Krege that
we where going to be dealing with. He looked over me, and
frowned. "Guards, please leave."

The pair of solders who were standing next to me snapped to
attention, then left the tent. Krege stood and walked over
to stand in front of me. He bent down to look me in the
eyes. "You are not Draz's pet bird, are you?"

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Perceptive aren't you?"

He shook his head. "Well, I did tell them to bring me the
winged one, how was I suppose to know there would be
demons?" He sighed a bit, "what other atrocities will Draz
commit to keep this valley?" He said turning back to walk to
his chair, sitting down in it with flourish.

I laughed. "Demon? Hardly, you're the one with out the
wings." I fluttered mine a bit to demonstrate. "That makes
you the demon."

He raised his eyes a bit. "Really now, that is a strange
view of us. Where did you come from."

I stood up, stretching my wings out more, working on a few
small cramps that had formed while I was dragged around. "I
can with Fox, Kalie and Ken."

Krege face seamed to freeze, his ears laying flat. "Fox is
here again?"

I nodded, folding my wings down and folding the tips down
onto my chest. "I believe I just said that."

He smiled, sitting back in his chair. "That is an unexpected
pleasure. I get to remove Draz and kill Fox, this will be a
good year."

"From Fox's history I don't think he's going to be to easy
to kill."

He grinned. "He will die though."

"Why?" I snapped at him, "Because he helped take your own
capital away from you?"

Krege raised an eyebrow, sitting forward a bit. "It was not
my capital, it was Krege's here." He reached over and
smacked the wolf in the chair next to him. "I on the other
paw have a more personal grudge."

I looked at the real Krege, he was now leaning forward in
the chair, drooling a bit. The only real active part of his
body was his eyes, which were so blood shot they looked at
red as mine. He was staring at the wolf I had been talking
to with the most pure look of hate that I've seen in my
life.

"Then who are you?"

He smiled and raised his paws in front of his face. "I am
the Prime Minister of the Krege empire. But you may call me
Salden."

"And why are you on that travel throne?" I snapped at him.

He grinned, standing from this throne. "Krege is ill, as you
can see. Until he recovers I am King." He reached down and
pulled out a small bag from behind the throne. Reaching
inside he pulled out a small paper packet. "It is also time
for his medicine." He put the bag back behind the chair,
then clapped his paws.

Krege had watched him do this, and was now struggling as
much he could, which wasn't more then a few twitches. A few
seconds later a guard walked in carrying a goblet of wine.
Salden took it from him, then opening the packet he dumped
the fine powered inside into the goblet, he mixed it with
his finger while walking over to Krege, dropping the packet
on the travel throne.

He pushes Krege's head back and started to pour the wine
into his mouth, doing something to force him to swallow it.
While he was distracted doing that, I jumped over and picked
up the packet, shoving it into one of the pockets of jeans.
I decided that if Krege was so afraid of this he problem
knew what it was, and I was sure it wasn't medicine.

Salden suddenly turned around, standing less then two feet
away from me. He's face contorted, "How dare you approach
me!" He bellowed into my face, then grabbing my shirt threw
me a few feet accost the room.

"Guards! Take this... _thing_ some place and dispose of it!"
He yelled, sinking back down into the travel throne,
dropping the goblet to his side.

A pair of solders ran into the tent, one grabbed by left arm
and the other grabbed my right arm, he also wrapped an arm
around my neck. They pulled me backwards out of the tent.

"What exactly are we support to do with her?" One asked the
other.

There was a pause. "I suppose we should kill her." The other
replied.

"Do you want to kill a demon? Do you think it can actually
be done? And if we did, what would happen to us?"

The second guard growled. "If we don't kill her _we_ will be
killed!"

There was a another pause as they dragged me along. The
first guard spoke up again. "What about the pit at the edge
of camp, the one where we dump the camp waste. The wizard
said it was bottemless."

There was a laugh. "Yes, she does count as waste doesn't
she!"

Then turned sharply, pulling me in a new direction, past
more tents. After a few minutes they thinned out until there
was no more left. Finally they stopped, each one changing
there grip on my body. Then one said something I missed and
I thrown forward. I was over a deep pit, sliding down at
about a thirty degree angle and was completely smooth. The
was the last I saw of it as I landed face first, my head
smacking against the stone as I slid down, forcing me into
unconsciousness.

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This story is (c) 1997 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.