“...fifty-seven,” McKenzie finished counting. Fifty seven poisoned ballista bolts equated, as long as he didn’t miss, to fifty seven dead trolls. They bulged-out the sides of his equally stolen ammo bag.

“Makes sense they’d want some troll-effective killware, right?” He remarked to Danandra, who had for some reason decided to follow him on his peregrination around the citadel’s towers as he gathered ammunition.

She just shrugged at him, unable to understand.

“Why aren’t you down there?” He asked – by way of pointing down into the citadel’s courtyard, where a scene of organisational chaos was underway. Drows, elves and the few humans along for the ride were boarding the smaller airship. This was being (barely) overseen by Shaveen, Briztaz, Leni and a few drows who seemed to now be in authority. There were some drow prisoners – they had been bound and their bracelets removed, to keep them from doing anything except heading for the Obelisk if they did break free - but it looked like the actual hardcore true believers had been very much in the minority.

Not that there wasn’t a lot of distrustful looks being shot back and forth between the elves and the drows down there, and it was a fairly good bet that anything Shaveen and her friends didn’t steal, the drows would be taking. On the whole, though, what McKenzie could see below was a scene of relief and hope. Families had been reunited. Old hatreds had, for the moment at least, been put to one side.

Danandra rolled her eyes in response. “It’s a bit emotional for me.”

“I’m guessing that was ‘people being happy, ew’,” McKenzie laughed, putting the heavy bag of bolts down and leaning on the tower’s battlements. “I admire you, Danna, I really do. Your commitment to not liking people, to the point of actively avoiding them when they’re at their best, is truly inspiring.”

McKenzie had liberated a bracelet from a fallen drow, and handed back his necklace, so that was all he said on the subject.

“Anyway, it’s kinda good that you can’t understand right now, ‘cos this is an apology in advance. I’m knocking this mission up a gear. Stealth mode is officially switched off. I’m gonna go and fire this lot off into any troll that gets between me and the fucking Obelisk,” McKenzie said, looking towards the aforementioned monument in the middle distance. At top running-jumping-avoid-hitting-buildings speed, he could be there in just a few minutes, he thought.

Danandra said something in, he assumed, elvish. If that was even a language.

“You’ve done enough,” McKenzie told her. “Leni too – seems really weird to say this out loud but I actually don’t want her dead any more. I’m not saying we’re suddenly besties, I just can’t dredge up the instinctive hatred I had for her when she was, y’know…” McKenzie held his arms up in the air and made a growling noise, in what was a pretty terrible impression of a troll.

Danandra shot him a quizzical look.

“Which I know, even without your fucking necklace, probably communicates mixed messages about my basic character. Big and green and ugly is bad, small and blonde and pretty is good, that’s fucked up and I know it,” McKenzie said. “But, y’know, they’re monsters too, I’m not all about appearances.”

“Remarkable,” Danandra said. “Even when you know nobody can understand you, you have to talk. Somewhere out there, McKenzie, is an Obelisk that induces people not to obedience but verbal diarrhea, and you are very much a victim.”

“Anyway,” McKenzie said, picking up his bag again, and moving to the side of the wall facing the Obelisk. “This is goodbye. If things go well, I’ll see you in, I dunno, about an hour maybe? If the shit hits the fan, I...won’t.”

And with that, he jumped off the wall.

Danandra rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers.

In a swish of darkness, McKenzie landed on the wall exactly where he’d jumped from..

“Hunh,” he said, and did it again - as did Danandra. McKenzie’s boots once more clumped down onto the tower where he’d been standing. The results of experiment number three were also equally predictable.

McKenzie bent ready to jump for a fourth time.

“Oh for the gods’ sakes, McKenzie,” Danandra told him. “I can do this all day, you know.”

“Is it you doing this?” McKenzie demanded.

“You’re not going alone, and that’s final,” Danandra glowered at him. “You’re my friend, and I will not let you face all those trolls on your own.

“I’m not taking you, and that’s final,” McKenzie said, not precisely in reply. “You’re a mate, and I don’t want to get you killed.”

He jumped off the wall again.

Danandra snapped her fingers, but this time teleported him another wall’s height into the sky, let him fall past her, and then snapped her fingers again as he neared the ground – then repeated the process.

“You!” He said, on his way past the first time.

Second: “Are!”

Third: “Such!”

Fourth: “A!”

Fifth: “Fucking!”

Sixth: “Stubborn!”

Danandra snapped her fingers one last time and landed McKenzie on the tower once more.

“Cow!” McKenzie finished.

They glared at each other. Danandra won.

“Fine,” McKenzie said, finally.

“Danandra!” Leni called up and waved. “Something you should look at down here!”

Danandra sighed. “I suppose we should go and see what she wants,” she said.

- o O o -

Leni regarded the fallen troll. Everyone else had given him a wide berth, presumably in case he proved to be not quite as dead as he looked.

“Well hello beautiful,” a voice suddenly said.

Leni didn’t hesitate, her sword flashed down and separated the troll’s head from his shoulders.

“Holy shit!” The same voice exclaimed – it was a man’s voice, although she couldn’t place the accent: it was also decidedly on the flirty side. “Okay, now I’m in love. Marry me.”

Leni looked around. Danandra and McKenzie were still up on the battlements, gathering ammo for his ballista. Everyone else was either on, or in the process of getting onto, the drow airship. “This isn’t funny, whoever this is.”

“Down here, gorgeous,” the voice hinted.

Leni looked down – there was nothing there but the dead troll, now accessorised with a small pool of blood slowly leaking out where she’d decapitated him post-mortem.

“Little bit to the left,” the voice said.

The troll’s huge bow lay on the floor, atop his huge dead hand. It was taller than she was, made of black metal, and decorated with sharp spikes and little metal skulls.

“Bullseye,” the voice told her. “Hi there. The late unlamented Bellicus here once told another troll she could have me when she pried me from his cold, dead fingers: lucky you, no prying required, although I don’t think he’s cold yet. Now pick me up and let’s go have some fun!”

Leni might have been recently transformed, but she hadn’t been born yesterday.

“That’s a no from me, I’m afraid,” Leni said. “I’ve already come as close as I ever want to having my soul sucked out of my body.”

“I am shocked, I tell you, shocked,” the bow (it seemed a fairly safe assumption to Leni) said. “My good name has been impugned. I am not that sort of magical weapon. I am a gentleman, and would never stoop to such low behaviour as soul-sucking, life-force draining or possession, especially someone as wonderfully attractive as you.”

“Danandra!” Leni called up and waved. “Something you should look at down here!”

“I want you to know I’m okay with this,” the bow said. “You have to be careful on first dates, I’m totally fine with you bringing a girlfriend along to make sure you’re safe, but honestly, sweetheart, I’m one of the good ones, I swear.”

Danandra, with McKenzie tagging along behind burdened with ballista and bolts, descended the nearest set of stairs and approached.

“Oh great, him,” the bow said. “He got lucky – and he cheated. And as for his choice of weapon? Those ballistae are cheap, and ugly. I have class. Refinement.”

“You’re literally covered in metal spikes and skulls,” Leni said, despite her intention to not be drawn into a possibly dangerous conversation with a magical artefact of unknown powers.

The bow sighed. “Yeah, I know. Not my choice, and not permanent. Just pick me up – you know when people say ‘I can change, I swear!’ Well in my case it’s not just desperation, I really mean it.”

Danandra and McKenzie had reached them. “What is it?” she asked.

“Magic bow,” Leni said. “Wants me to pick it up. It’s a bit bloody over-familiar, too.”

“Hmm,” Danandra said, looking at it. “It talks?”

“Yes, he does,” the bow said, with some asperity.

“Fucking hell that bow just said something!” McKenzie exclaimed.

“Ugh, what language is mister arrowproof here speaking?” The bow asked.

“None of your business,” Danandra replied.

“Wow, someone got off the wrong side of her broomstick this morning,” the bow told her.

“Would you like to be reduced to a molten pile of slag and a few wisps of ash?” Danandra asked, holding a sparking hand out towards the bow.

“...and I’m sure you’re having a stressful day and are very understandably short of patience,” the bow finished smoothly. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, learned mage.”

Danandra snorted, and glared at the bow: or at least glared a little harder than her usual background glare – then held up her fingers as if framing a potential photograph. The rectangle thus formed glowed a green colour.

“Powerful, without a doubt,” she said, as she examined the bow through her fingers.

“Well naturally,” the bow said, in a preening tone.

“Reasonably ancient – centuries, not millenia,” Danandra added.

“I’ll have you know I don’t look a day over 517,” the bow insisted.

“No obvious curses or magical traps,” Danandra said.

“See? I told you I wasn’t that sort of fellow,” the bow pointed out triumphantly.

“And someone’s soul woven into it,” Danandra concluded. “The magic used was black indeed, but the end product...I would say harmless enough.”

“Pfft!” The bow scoffed. “I’ll have you know I’m deadly.”

“Possibly, if an enemy can be irritated to death by pointless prattle,” Danandra said, then pulled her hands apart. The green screen vanished in a puff of leaf-coloured mist.

“Is she always this gracious?” The bow asked Leni.

Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, Leni thought. Out loud, she said: “Behave yourself.”

“Yes ma’am,” the bow said. “Anything for you, sweetheart – including, of course, the standard service of arrows fired with flawless accuracy, all targets guaranteed destroyed.”

“He’s still standing,” Leni pointed to McKenzie.

“Eventually,” the bow added.

“Enough of this,” Danandra reached into her robes and removed the necklace that McKenzie had been sporting until very recently. She laid it across the bow.

“What is that? What are you doing?”

“Name?” Danandra asked.

“I don’t have to tell anyone except my mistress my na- Sir Gerius Ansel at your service, learned mage, wait what?” The bow replied.

“Wow, those work on magical objects as well as people?” Leni asked, surprised.

“Anything with a brain or a soul,” Danandra said. “There’s a soul here – the jury is still out on the brain part.”

“Hmph,” Sir Gerius humphed.

“How did you end up in a bow, Sir Gerius?” Leni asked.

“Now there lies a sad, tragic tale of forbidden love, romantic rivalry and dark deeds. Many years ago I-” Gerius began.

Danandra extended her sparking hand again. “The short but accurate version,” she hinted.

“Eek! Slept around a lot back in the day, and this one time, well, how was I supposed to know she was a necromancer’s wife? I mean you see a girl dressed all in black, doesn’t smile a lot, generally grimdark sort of vibe to her, I suppose you could have argued that was warning enough because-”

“Think very carefully about whether you wish to continue this sentence,” said the black-clad, unsmiling, generally grimdark-vibed Danandra.

“Um, no, sorry,” Gerius said, immediately abandoning it. “Anyway, next thing I know I’m literally an actual magic weapon. I always used to brag about how I never missed with a bow, so one supposes he was going for poetic justice of some sort when he cursed me, because now I really don’t ever miss. If the first arrow doesn’t do the trick, then the next one gets a bit deadlier until the job is done or my master is dead, as has happened in this case, for which thank you, strange invulnerable gibberish-talking man, because after being owned by him for a few years I now really, really hate trolls!”

“Hmm – unaffected by the Obelisk,” Danandra mused. “So: what’s the catch?”

“Isn’t being trapped inside a bow for eternity, being forced to kill whomsoever my master should point me at, bad enough?” Gerius asked.

“The catch for the user, fool,” Danandra clarified.

“Oh! Sorry. There isn’t one, I swear. I’m the one being punished, not my master, which I’m really hoping will be your beautiful blonde friend because who wouldn’t want their string drawn back by her every day? Argh! I’m so sorry! And also not you because you are a very scary lady and I’m worried you might make me kill people who don’t deserve it! Wait I didn’t mean that, except I did!” Gerius nearly squeaked at the end of his answer.

Danandra laughed and picked her necklace back up. “No offence taken, bow, ‘ruthless and terrifying’ is my favourite look.”

“Except she’s not, underneath she’s loyal and brave and she looks after her friends, and I wish that included me,” Leni said.

Danandra glowered at her.

Leni shrugged. “You’re the one who insisted I wear a truth charm. I won’t apologise for how I see you.”

Even McKenzie could recognise the tension in the air after that.

“The bow won’t harm you,” Danandra said, after a while, then turned to McKenzie and loudly said “you – should – never – touch – this” very slowly, with accompanying gestures.

“Yes, thank you, I get it. Magic item, I’d probs explode it, or me, or both. Fine,” McKenzie replied with ill grace.

Danandra turned away, and stalked off towards the drow airship. Leni sighed, and reached out an arm towards the bow.

“Beautiful lady,” Gerius said. “Now my heart and soul is laid bare before you. Please, I beg of you, take me and use me.”

“Okay, I was about to, and then you turned very creepy indeed,” Leni replied, dropping her hand. “Tone down the over-familiarity and the double entendres, there, Sir Gerius, or you’re staying right where you are.”

“I’ll be good I promise!” The bow squeaked.

“Jesus H Christ I can’t understand a word that thing’s saying and I already want to snap it in two,” McKenzie observed – with a snapping gesture to make his meaning clear. “Seriously, any excuse. That thing shot me in the bollocks with an exploding arrow. I take shit like that very personally.”

“Okay, please don’t let him break me, beautiful lady, um, I mean, um, noble mistress!”

“The name’s Leni,” Leni said. “Use it instead of being really inappropiate, and I won’t let him hurt you.”

“Got it, Leni,” Gerius agreed.

“Okay – then we have a deal,” she reached down, then hesitated. “Not that I think I can even hold you, you’re taller than I am. Maybe if I hold you sort of sideways...”

“Not that I’m equally capable in any number of positions, but that won’t be a problem,” Gerius assured her. “I’m very flexible.”

Leni drew her hand back again. “Did you really sleep with a necromancer’s wife? Because I just can’t see how you’d get very far with lines like that. Remember what we literally just said about over-familiarity and being really inappropiate?”

“Okay, I have an issue, I admit,” the bow said. “I’ll work on it.”

“Shit, Leni, either pick the thing up or don’t,” McKenzie said.

“Seriously: what is he saying?” Gerius asked.

“We don’t know, there’s this whole big thing right now and I don’t want to get into it to be honest,” Leni answered.

She made her decision, reached down, and picked up the bow. She had to hold it horizontally, it literally dwarfed her.

“Hah, looks more like that bow should fire you rather than the other way round,” McKenzie said, and laughed.

“Okay...hmm...let me see,” the bow said.

Then, with a flash, the huge bow transformed from an inelegant metallic monster into a beautiful wooden flatbow. The colour of the wood faded from a rich dark brown in the belly of the bow to a shining yellow on the back, and the string was pure gold. It was the perfect length for the diminutive sort-of-elf.

Leni yelped and dropped the bow, but no sooner had it hit the ground than it sprang back into her hand. McKenzie also swore as he saw the troll’s body jerk, but it was no resurrection: the quiver, now a finely-worked leather tube stocked with a dozen arrows, pulled itself out from underneath and flew to Leni’s back.

“There’s, that’s better,” Gerius said.

The bow was inlaid with some characters in an ornate font – although Leni couldn’t read whatever language it was well enough to decipher them.

“What does that say?” she asked.

“No idea,” Gerius replied. “Not how it works, I’m afraid, Leni. Is it not in elvish?”

“I don’t know...I’m not a real elf,” she admitted, unable to stop herself. “Until a few weeks ago I was a troll.”

“Oh great,” Gerius sighed. “I sure can pick ‘em. Another troll.”

“It’s not like that!” Leni protested. “It’s, um, complicated. Look, you said you really hated trolls? We’re about to head into Trollheim and kill a lot of them in order to redeem myself, because, wait: it’s a quest! You were a knight, you must be all about the quests, right?”

“Yeah, lemme stop you there. I bought my knighthood – totally worth it, nothing impresses the maidens like ‘Sir’ in front of your name – but I have never derringed any do in all my life. My idea of a quest was successfully sneaking in and out of a married woman’s bedchamber while her husband was drunk on mead I’d slipped a few choice sleeping herbs into,” Gerius admitted.

“I’m beginning to sympathise with the necromancer,” Leni told her newly acquired weapon. “Didn’t you just say you were a legendary bowman?”

(“Okay – you can stand here and argue with Mr. Twangy if you want, I’m off,” McKenzie said, and followed Danandra.)

“I won lots of competitions, troll-elf-woman-thing, because that impressed the ladies too! I didn’t go looking for dangerous trouble with a bow and arrow! I strongly advise you to do the same: in fact, I forgive you, you are a real elf Leni, no redemptive-yet-extremely-dangerous bloodbath needed. Now let’s go somewhere else! There’s a yearly archery competition in Melindron, and I know exactly how to rig it so we can win big, I’ve done it five times now. All you have to do is-”

“Okay bye.” Leni unclipped the quiver and let the bow fall to the ground. Moments later they flew back into her hands.

“Not, I’m afraid, so easy,” Gerius told her. “It’s you and me for life, now, although I promise to be quiet during private time as long as I’m propped up in a corner with a view of proceedings.”

Leni swore. “Here are the rules. You shut up, you find a spine, you come with me and kill trolls, and most importantly you stop being a creepy weirdo. In return I won’t let the High Assassin of the Vyrinios Guild break you in two like he threatened, or Danandra burn you to a crisp like she threatened.”

“Oh shit he really is the High Assassin? I thought Bellicus had to be wrong about that,” Gerius said.

“I can understand why,” Leni allowed. “If you’re a very good boy and behave yourself, what I will do is take you to a mage I know who is a dab hand at unlikely transformations, and see about getting you de-bowified maybe.”

“Hah, you’re not the first one to promise that! It’d take the Archmage of Melindron herself to do anything about my...condition,” Gerius grumbled.

“And by an incredible stroke of good fortune, that is exactly who I’m referring to,” Leni said.

“Oh!” Gerius replied.

“And during any private time, you’ll go into a cupboard, you’ll be very quiet, and you’ll like it. Otherwise it’s the High Assassin or the scary mage for you.”

“Oh gods, what have I got myself into?” Gerius bemoaned.

Leni smiled and patted the bow as she followed McKenzie. “I ask myself that every day. Now shush.”

- o O o -

“Well, this is a bit awkward,” McKenzie told Shaveen. Everyone else but her and Briztaz (and her daughter, who now seemed permanently attached to her side) had boarded, leaving only Danandra, Leni and McKenzie. Danandra and Leni were talking with Briztaz by the main hatch, leaving Shaveen and McKenzie with each other, a little way apart.

“This is kinda awkward, babes,” Shaveen said, with a matching awkward smile.

“I mean, do we hug or what?” McKenzie asked.

“Hard to tell if I should hug you or kiss you or just not do anything at all,” Shaveen said.

McKenzie then moved his arms slightly, which made Shaveen start forward for a hug, and they did embrace. Awkwardly.

“I might be very dead in the next hour, but if not, and assuming you’ve not been put off by all the insanity, we should definitely have that dinner date in Vyrinios – though I have to admit that even without the benefit of Danandra’s punitively effective truth wotsits I can acknowledge that I bring a lot of baggage into relationships right now,” McKenzie said, into the top of her head as he held her.

“You’re a big old bundle of complications, you are McKenzie, and probably no good for me, but, gods help me: don’t get killed, because you owe me a posh dinner,” Shaveen said.

McKenzie just smiled. Shaveen’s expression became slightly pained.

“I’m really sorry I’m not coming with you,” she said. “I could lie and say ‘the people in the airship need me’, but...look, what you’re doing is insane. Just mental. I’ve raided my fair share of tombs and broken into some pretty scary places, but this...nope. Death sentence for us mere mortals – but you’re summat a bit different, innit? I get the idea you can actually do this.”

McKenzie picked up on the tone. “Shav, there is no way in hell I would even let you come with me. But don’t worry – I’ve got this.”

They kissed. “Give ‘em hell, babes,” Shaveen said, smiled, and walked away.

Danandra, meanwhile, was having a slightly different farewell conversation.

“I am no manner of diplomat at all,” she said to Briztaz, “but I would be doing both our peoples a huge disservice if I didn’t, at this point, suggest that what we just narrowly averted must never come to pass again.”

“I cannot disagree with that,” Briztaz allowed. “Krizak was an extremist – his views are not popular: but neither are elves held in very high regard.”

“The situation is same with my people. The tales we tell our children are of-”

“Traitorous elves,” Briztaz said.

“Traitorous drow,” Danandra said, at the same time.

They both paused.

“If you were to put together a diplomatic mission, of some sort, and if I were able to do the same – would it be possible that they could meet in some neutral location, arbitrated by a third party?” Danandra suggested.

“Would you not incur the disapprobation of your people, by suggesting such a thing?” Briztaz asked.

“Fortunately I could not give the smallest, slightest, most fractional sliver of a slimline damn what people think about me,” Danandra answered, with a thin smile.

“This ‘third party’ would have to command a lot of respect, and we drow respect very little in the outside world,” Britaz said.

“How about the Archmage of Melindron?” Danandra asked.

"Does everyone apart from me know the Archmage? I'm beginning to feel a bit left out," Gerius the bow complained.

"Shut up," Leni told him. Everyone else ignored him – this was not his first interruption in this conversation.

“Okay, that might actually do it. You have many friends in high places, elfmage,” Briztaz allowed, raising her eyebrows and nodding. “I will speak to my elders. Perhaps something might be achieved.”

“Send word to the Archmage,” Danandra said. “This, then, is goodbye Briztaz...and you too...um...small person. You’ve been, um, very brave.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend to care about children,” Briztaz said.

“Thank the gods,” Danandra said, with evident relief.

“Goodbye very scary elf lady,” Pharoza said. “I’ll probably have nightmares about you but thank you for helping mum rescue me.”

“You’re welcome,” Danandra replied.

“We will take our leave,” Briztaz said, then paused. “I am glad our paths crossed, elfmage. Even him,” she indicated McKenzie.

“Bye Frowny-Face,” McKenzie said, having not missed that.

A few moments later, the drow airship lifted off and sped away towards, hopefully, safety.

McKenzie hefted his ballista and bag of reloads again. “Well then girls, let’s not let the grass grow. Things to do, people to see, well, one main thing to do and trolls to kill.”

“Is there any point trying to come up with some sort of plan?” Danandra asked.

“He can’t understand what we’re saying. If he could, he probably wouldn’t listen. If he listened, he probably wouldn’t understand. If he understood, he’d probably forget. If he remembered, he’d probably decide to do it his own way anyway,” Leni answered grimly. “I think at this point we’re reduced to just making the best out of whatever hare-brained last-minute bullshit anti-plan he’s about to inflict on us.”

“Gods that’s terrifying,” Danandra answered.

“Yep,” Leni agreed. “Danandra, please, teleport yourself aboard that ship while she’s still close enough.” She pointed to the swiftly receding drow airship.

Danandra shook her head.

Leni looked worried as she went on: “McKenzie’s not relenting, and for all we know he might actually be properly immortal anyway, I mean he’s fought our old boss to a standstill. I’m in this right to the end no matter what – I can’t lie right now, so you know I’m telling the truth – but I actually think this is the end, for me. This is probably a one way trip. I don’t care – but I don’t want you to get killed too.”

“Yes, and take me with you!” Gerius the bow chipped in.

“Shut up, you,” Leni told it.

(“This looks a lot like a last minute appeal to reason, so yes, both of you, please, away you go,” McKenzie said.)

Danandra turned a hard stare on him, and then the ex-troll.

“No,” she said, with quiet finality. “You’re not the only ones with scores to settle. Trolls are finished, today – and I intend to be there when they finally get what they deserve.”