Ethan and Sera peered over the rocky hilltop into the valley below. Almost a dozen crawners swarmed over a dying animal, fighting over the right to give the killing blow. It looked like a deer, but it was difficult to see from a distance of over 100 yards with the setting sun still visible over the opposite rise, blinding anyone who tried to look west.

“We can kill them all,” Ethan said, a hunger in his eyes.

Sera looked at him with concern. They could just as easily walk around the creatures or wait till they were through with the animal. “Is that the blacksmith talking or the assassin?” she asked.

“Huh,” Ethan turned to look at her and then realized what he had said. Her eyes accused him, and he recanted. “You’re right. We should avoid conflict.”

Sera held his gaze a while longer, concerned by how much of the assassin’s passion might have infected him. “Yes, but,” she added, “the meat would be nice.” Their rations of bread and dried meat would last another couple of days, but they shouldn't turn it down if they could access fresh venison. Neither of them had any skill at hunting, nor did they have a bow.

The crawners didn’t have any bows either, but they were excellent at throwing rocks, using their unequally proportioned upper bodies to hurl stones with deadly force. They were pack hunters who encircled their prey and closed in on it slowly with rocks and clubs at the ready. When the target animal finally reacted to their presence, it was forced to run toward one of them. Usually, two of the crawners had an opportunity to hit the animal with a rock or club, and that’s what looked like had happened this time. Now, they were fighting over who got credit and thus could deliver the killing blow.

Sera thought if they could spook the creatures and get them to scatter, she and Ethan could get the deer and drag it away, but she didn’t know how two humans were supposed to scare ten crawners.

The remaining creatures moved about anxiously, crawling around on their massive upper arms and relatively small legs. They grew anxious at the continued dispute and wanted to get on with their meal. Sera studied their awkward movements with interest. She had only seen fleeting glances of the creatures as they had scattered in the trees from whatever traveling party she had been in. They didn’t often fight humans, and would never attack a troupe of four or more, so caravans were usually safe as they moved along the trails north of Garashire.

The crawners never seemed to walk anywhere. They could stand upright, the tallest of the group below, measuring almost four and a half feet, but when they moved, they either crawled on all fours or ran clumsily on their small but quick hind legs. And when they reached a slope or patch of rocks, they could explode in movement, galloping on their hands and feet. Their strong arms would vault off a rock or log, sending them flying upright through the air until they landed on their small legs. They would then take a few quick steps as their over-balanced upper bodies started to fall forward until their arms launched them up again. This odd combination of crawling and running had given crawners their name.

“So, you do what to attack them, or you don’t?” Ethan asked.

“I think I do,” Sera replied, “but I want to get the meat. It sounded like you were hungry for blood.”

Ethan accepted the rebuke, denying nothing. “How do you want to do this?”

Sera didn’t think they could scare them off immediately, but after Ethan cut several of them down, she figured the rest would scatter. She wondered why Ethan was giving her the responsibility of organizing the attack. Neither of them had any real battle experience. His devotion to her must be intense.

Either way, it didn’t matter. Before they could say another word, they heard a twig snap behind them. They both quickly turned around, and the setting sun behind them cast a spotlight on four more crawners standing 30 feet away that had crawled up behind them. This was the closest Sera had ever been to one before, and she grimaced at their lumpy gray skin and scrunched-up faces. Sharp teeth protruded at weird angles behind their thin lips, and their red eyes made them look almost demonic.

“Uh oh,” the biggest one said, displaying its complete grasp of the common tongue. The four launched into action, their strong arms vaulting them half the distance before their legs carried them the last few feet.

The two humans were quick with their weapons, though Sera only had time to unhook her buckler. Ethan stepped forward to the left and swung his mighty long sword at the two on his side, dealing a massive wound to each before either could get in striking distance. Sera stepped to her right at the last second, forcing her attackers to angle toward her, one cutting off the other. She then swung her shield across her body, from right to left, deflecting the shoulder charge of the lead attacker so that it more completely cut off its friend, and the two went tumbling.

Sera turned toward the pair and found the time to draw her slender blade. They both had small clubs in their hands, and she waited for the top creature to climb off its “friend” and come toward her. Sir Gerhold had trained her well. Being petite and only a little taller than the monsters she faced, she couldn’t just overwhelm them with her strength but had to be strategic. She kept the buckler secured on her left arm low, inviting a swing from the short club. She knew if she offered the block too soon, the creature would swing to avoid it and possibly knock it from her arm.

Instead, the crawner swung at her open shoulder. Sera raised her buckler at the last moment, catching the attack in the center, and then stepped forward as she swept her shield and the attack to the left. Her sword came forward in the same practiced maneuver and skewered the defenseless creature in the chest. The young woman didn’t revel in her first-ever kill but continued with the momentum of her shield to turn to the left and crouched slightly behind it, anticipating an attack from the second crawner.

When none came, she lowered her buckler and saw that Ethan had stepped over and finished the creature before it rose. They nodded to each other, neither taking the time to offer praise. Sera noticed that her partner was using his sword, not the enchanted one. They hadn’t talked much about it, but Sera felt if he used the Elemental blade more, he might take on additional passions and desires from his foes. Being infected with the will of a crawner – or three of them – would be problematic. Crawners weren’t human, so the Elemental was not designed to interact with them, but they were similar enough that it wasn’t worth the risk.

Sera knew for them to escape this ambush, Ethan would have to kill more than three of them, and she wouldn’t get off so easy with only one. Knowing that the crawners in the valley would have overheard their fight, the two humans sprinted back to the top of the rise again.

As expected, all ten beasts were now awkwardly sprinting and vaulting up the side of the uneven terrain. It appeared awkward to Sera at first, but she quickly saw that while it looked as if their tiny legs had no chance to support their top-heavy bodies and were moments away from toppling forward, they always fell right before a rock and used that boulder to launch themselves a dozen feet into the air and up the slope.

Ethan stepped forward in front of Sera with his blade raised. She understood the need he had to protect her, but, as good as he was, there was no way he would be able to take on all ten at once. Luckily, some of the creatures were faster than others, and two made it to the top first. They were airborne before the pair and had picked up rocks in their ascent. Ethan turned his face away at the last moment and lifted his right arm to shield his vulnerable head. The stones hit him in the arm and ribs right before the two creatures collided with him. His blade was out of position, and he had no defense as the heavy crawners took him off his feet and back down the slope the humans had just climbed.

Sera had stepped to the left when she saw the rocks aimed at them and continued to run to the south along the top of the hill as the remaining eight crawners finished their climb. Half of the slower ones saw her veer off to one side and angled their ascent at the last second, but the rest launched themselves up and over the crest and down after Ethan.

The two lead crawners also had rocks in their hands, but they had to land first and turn toward Sera before throwing, stealing much of their momentum. Her buckler wasn’t large, but neither was she, and she had practiced her defensive crouch many times. The first rock flew over her head as she dropped to her knee, and the second ricocheted hard off her round shield. She watched the shadow of the approaching beast on the ground to her right and timed her next move perfectly.

Once again, she swept her buckler out wide, deflecting any incoming attack and leveraging her right arm forward into a perfect thrust. The lead crawner had no chance and was impaled through the heart. But its momentum kept the body moving forward, sliding to the hilt of her weapon and ripping it from her grasp as the heavy body fell to the right down the backside of the hill.

The next crawner in line smiled at the weaponless woman and showed no caution as it continued forward, swinging its club in from her right and away from the shield, which was wide. Sera quickly stopped her body’s rotation, took a step to her left to dodge the attack, and swung her shield arm back in hard. The buckler was flat, parallel to the ground, and the metal disk struck the off-balanced attacker hard in the side of the head. A loud crack echoed off the distant hillside, and Sera was confident it wasn’t her buckler. Ethan and crafted it, after all.

Whether this second crawner was dead or not, as the limp form tumbled to her right and down the slope, Sera didn’t know, but she didn’t think she would have to worry about it for a while. The last two creatures approached her more cautiously. Though they were not great thinkers, they could easily tell the difference between the diminutive Sera and Ethan’s massive bulk, and they had assumed she would be the easier target. Still, she had handily taken down two of them already.

During the slight reprieve, Sera cautioned a glance down the back of the hill to where Ethan had tumbled. She saw him standing and swinging his massive sword. Cries of several crawners came to her ears, so she hoped he was handling his own. Before her, one of the creatures held another club, while the other had a rusty-looking short sword. She didn’t think they could fashion their own weapons, but she guessed that north of Garashire, there was a crawner admiring a new sword it had stolen from the dead assassin.

They were well over 20 miles from those woods now, and this was not that sword, but she could understand how this crawner could have also picked the body of a corpse. Hopefully, hers would not be the next body they raided.

The one with the sword looked like the leader and motioned for the other crawner to attack first. Sera crouched again with her buckler in front of her, inviting an attack from above. The crawner obliged, swinging its weapon down in an overhead bash. Sera angled her shield at the last second, bracing for the blow as she reached into her boot with her right hand. Her left arm buckled under the impact, but she held, and her right snaked out with the dagger she had taken from the assassin, striking up into the crawner’s chest. Her aim wasn’t accurate due to the blow she had just taken, and she missed the heart. It was still painful, and the crawner howled in pain, dropping the club but lashing out into Sera’s right shoulder with its left fist. She cried out in pain and lost her balance, falling to the left and into the valley.

The young woman stopped her tumble after only a dozen feet by crashing into a large rock and cried out in pain again as pins and needles shot through her left shoulder. From over the crest in front of her, she could also hear Ethan cry out. It didn’t sound like a cry of pain, but she couldn’t worry about it as the critically wounded crawner still had some fight left. It stumbled in front of the leader and came after her in the now-familiar awkward running style. Once again, it looked like the crawner would tip forward at any moment, and Sera saw that it was timed to coincide with when the attacker closed on her.

Her numb left arm was not strong enough to hold the shield up as an effective barrier, but Sera did manage to turn it, so one edge was pressed firmly against the rock behind her. The crawner crashed into the opposite edge of the round disk, stopping cold. The rounded metal wasn’t sharp enough to dig into the creature’s chest, but the desperate female fighter still held her dagger, and after three more quick stabs into the bulky upper body in front of her, all the fight left the creature, and it slumped to the side.

Sera tried to sigh in relief, but as the crawner fell away, the smiling leader filled the space. Sera thought she could parry a few blows from this fighter since it didn’t have the reckless momentum of the other attackers, but she didn’t get the chance. Ethan came behind the crawner leader, charging over the hilltop and rushing toward her. The doomed creature never even got a chance to lift a weapon as Ethan attacked from behind and cleaved the tiny head from its broad shoulders.

Sera breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to fight another of the monsters, but she also saw that Ethan had only shouldered his way through the last of the crawners, and one of them had turned to follow. The attacker had a knife that glinted in the disappearing sunlight, and Sera found the strength to push with her feet off the stationary rock behind her and extended her right arm like a thrown spear. She flew beside Ethan, whose forward momentum had not allowed him to turn around yet, and managed to stab the charging crawner in the knee. The creature cried out in pain as its attack against the back of Ethan’s leg failed.

Instead, the much bigger fighter stopped his forward momentum and turned to chop down at the helpless creature. Two more of the crawners popped their heads over the hilltop, but after one look at the carnage before them and the giant man with a bloody sword and a look of pure terror in his eyes, they ran back down and out of sight. Ethan started to give chase, but Sera put a restraining hand on his leg as she got to her knees.

“Enough,” she said. “They won’t come back.”

Instantly the enraged young man dropped his battle rage and took a deep breath. “Are you okay?” He asked, genuine concern in his voice.

Sera knew then that the cry she had heard from him was not pain but concern for her. She had screamed when she had taken the punch from the crawner and then when she had collided with the rock, and he had responded, leaving enemies to rush to her protection. It was nice to know that his passion for her exceeded the assassin’s influence over his desire to kill his enemies, but it had almost cost him. A quick look over the young man didn’t show any severe wounds. He had probably received bruises from rocks and clubs, but the crawners didn’t have many serious weapons, and they had been lucky to escape with minor bumps and scrapes. Though if the last crawner had successfully stabbed Ethan in the back of the leg, he might not have been able to walk for a while.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” Sera said as she accepted Ethan’s offered hand to rise. She winced as her left arm straightened. The feeling was returning to her fingers, and after a quick check, she was happy to find that it wasn’t dislocated, but it would be sore tomorrow. “You can’t do that again.”

“We’ve already been over how I am too dumb to control my passion,” Ethan replied evenly, giving no indication that he took offense at the statement or even disagreed with her assessment. “You don’t need to bring it up all the time. It’s not going to change.”

Sera winced at the gentle counter and the pain in her back as she tried to stretch. “How are you?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Fine,” Ethan replied, though she could detect a slight hitch in his step. He had probably strained an injury from last night and collected a few new ones. She would need to work on him regardless, but they had other things to attend to first. “Let’s get that deer before anyone else comes for it.”

Sera looked around at the carnage and nodded. Scavengers would be here soon as the crawner blood was everywhere. She didn’t want to be around when they did.

The howl of a bloodhound sounded in the night, and Ethan threw another log into the fire. The dreaded beasts feared flame, so they would not approach you even if you only had embers burning. He had carried the remains of the bloody deer almost half a mile away from their camp, wanting to chance nothing. The howl received a few similar responses, and it sounded like the beasts had found the dead crawners a couple of miles to the east. Ethan hoped they would be content with the dozen bodies scattered across the hillside and not come looking for more, though the deer would probably satisfy the bloodhounds more than the small scavenging creatures.

As Ethan took another bite of the venison, he was happy they had come upon the animal. Though it lacked the spices and seasoning he was used to back home, after a strenuous day, he had a hunger that the meal filled perfectly. He was already four mouthfuls in when he looked over at Sera. Her head was bowed, her meat untouched. He assumed she had been like that since she had distributed the portions from the roasting stick where the rest of the venison still hung over the fire.

Ethan slowed his chewing, and after swallowing his current bite, he stayed motionless, sitting against a large rock until she finished and lifted her head. Despite his better judgment, he allowed his old self to take a swipe at her. “You should thank the crawners, not your Savior.”

Sera gave him a sour look. “He is not MY Savior; he is THE Savior. And I would be slower to blaspheme if I were you. You will need the Savior’s protection for where we are headed.”

Ethan bowed his head sincerely. “I’m sorry.” Surprisingly, Sera gave the apology a sterner look than his previous comment. He ignored it for now. “Where are we headed? I mean, who will we meet? Who are we running from? You told me what I have, or, at least, what everyone thinks it is, but I don’t even know who we are up against.”

“You mean other than crawners and bloodhounds?” Sera offered before finally taking a bite of venison. Ethan let her chew slowly for a while, realizing that she was thinking through her answers. “The Supplanter wants the Elementals,” she said finally. “You know who the Supplanter is?”

Ethan didn’t really. Everyone tossed around the words supplanter and supplicant as curse words, but they mostly didn’t understand what they were saying. A supplanter, in the slang, was someone who thought themselves better than anyone else, but no one really thought much of him. A supplicant was a worthless kiss-up who only hung around influential people for what they might get from them. The more Ethan thought about it, and the more he dwelt on his disregard of religion, he was willing to bet the vane use of the words wasn’t that far from the truth.

When Ethan didn’t respond, and after several more bites of food, Sera continued. “Many Supplanters have risen over the generations, promising they will become a god and lead their people into paradise and fulfillment. None have been successful, yet the faith doesn’t die. Man has an instinctual superiority complex, and accepting help from a divine being who looks down on them rubs them the wrong way. I fear that when word gets out to the general public that the Elementals are real and that man can possess them, it will draw even more people to the Supplanter’s side.”

“If people thought the Elementals were metaphorical before, then how was the Supplanter supposed to obtain them?”

Sera paused, wondering how Ethan could have grown up not knowing this. Though, there were probably many things he knew about stone and metal that were utterly foreign to her. “Sex,” she finally replied, getting the confused reaction she was expecting. “Female supplicants spend all their time cultivating power in a specific element. If you are a mind disciple, you read everything you can and study mathematics and science. If you are spirit or life disciple, you will spend hours meditating on your source of life and the life around you. Some of these women are capable of amazing feats or abilities, but in the end, they are treated as consorts for the Supplanter, who believes that by sleeping with them, he can absorb their power. No one person has enough time to study all four elements, and even those who spend their entire lives on only one never reach even half of the power that we expect all humans had before the fall.”

“But,” Ethan said, continuing the obvious path, “If you have dozens of women around you and can absorb power from them, you could reach that pinnacle.”

Sera nodded. “That is the theory.”

“Does it work?”

Sera chuckled. “Is the human race renewed? Has any supplanter ever brought fulfillment?”

“But how is that even supposed to work?” Ethan asked. “I mean, how is he supposed to bring fulfillment to the human race?”

“Through his offspring,” Sera replied. “With no shortage of female supplicants ready to join his harem to aid his rise to power, one man can father many children.”

“Sounds like a rough job.”

Sera frowned at his immature response. “His children are supposed to contain his pure essence and the power of the Elementals.”

“Even though their mothers don’t have his power?”

“Their religion says that the Supplanter will be able to pass on enough of his power through the act of conception to the mother to make sure the children are pure. How much of this power the mother retains after birth is unknown, but many Supplanters have said their wives will be made whole as well.”

“I’m sure they have no ulterior motives for saying that.”

Despite the sarcastic nature of the comment, Sera agreed with Ethan on that point. They both shared resentment toward the Supplanter religion. “Whether they believe it or not, it is enough of a promise that both men and women flock to the religion.”

“And what of Sir Gerhold’s order?” Ethan continued his line of questioning, happy to get some answers.

“They want to keep the Elementals pure and unused until the arrival of the Savior, and it sounds like they are willing to do anything to make that happen. Frankly, I don’t think that is possible anymore. Word will get out now that the Elementals are real, and I don’t know how they expect to hide them. I guess they could send them across the White Sea, but those are heathen lands, and almost every prophecy I have seen says the Savior will return here in the northlands.”

“And what does your faith say? Does your temple disagree with the paladins?”

Sera paused, thinking about how to answer. “I belong to the Temple of the Divine Savior. We are a faith that is devoted to the return of the Savior. We have, up to this point, believed that the Elementals would be revealed upon the return of the Savior.”

“Does this mean you were wrong?”

Sera didn’t detect any malice in the question. “I don’t know. The Order of the Elementals has taken an active mode of obedience toward the Savior. We are more passive in the adherence of our faith.”

“Meaning you sit around and wait.”

“We prepare,” Sera corrected.

“To show that you are worthy for his return?”

“To show we are ready.”

Ethan chuckled. “Subtle difference.”

“But important,” Sera concluded the back and forth. “Many in my temple will refuse to believe that the Elementals have been released in the world before the Savior’s return. They will insist that it is a trick, using elixirs or enchantments to make it look like the Elementals. But others will not see any problem with this revelation. It doesn’t change that the Savior will return, and he will possess the Elemental power. Maybe the Supplanter will obtain all four of the Elementals-”

“Over my dead body.”

“Quite likely,” Sera interjected. “And then the Savior will come and obliterate him, showing us that man isn’t capable of saving himself, and that divine intervention is necessary. I don’t know. I haven’t had time to meditate on it, and I left all my scriptures back home. I didn’t think I would need them for sword practice.”

Ethan chewed on his last bite of meat slowly. “So those are the three factions we are stuck between?”

Sera shook her head, chewing and swallowing one of her last bites before answering. “No, there is a fourth. There are the perfecters. Those who follow the Supplanter and those who follow the Divine Savior both believe one thing is true: human beings have fallen and need to be restored. We differ significantly on how that restoration will occur and by whom, but we both think it needs to happen.

“The perfecters think humans have not fallen but are constantly on the rise. They believe that we were once like delvers or throzens, or maybe even crawners. Over the generations, we have evolved into our current state of advanced civilization, and we will continue to mature and develop until we reach the pinnacle.”

“Do they want the Elementals?”

Sera shrugged. “They don’t have a place for them in their religion, but if they are real and can be used to accelerate man’s rise to an elevated state of being, I’m sure they will try.”

“And what role do they play in this conflict?”

“Sir Gerhold believes that there is a traitor in his order who leaked the location of the Elementals. While that is probably true, I doubt this traitor is a supplicant. Typically, people who leave the divine faith become perfectors first. It is a big leap to believe that man needs a Divine Savior and then think that man can save himself. It is an easier step to think that man doesn’t need a savior at all and that we are simply on a slow climb upward.”

Sera took a long drink from her canteen. “But I don’t know; maybe the perfecters have no part to play in this.”

“How do we know that it is the Supplanter who organized this move against the Elementals? Maybe it is the perfecters?”

Sera shook her head as she swallowed another bite and took a drink. “Though they reject the divine, perfecters act righteously for the most part. Their end goal is the elevation of man, and they pursue it through noble means. The supplicants are willing to do anything to bring the Supplanter to power and believe the end justifies the means. If someone hired assassins to steal the Elementals, it was almost surely the Supplanter and his followers.”

Ethan nodded at the information, impressed by her knowledge on the subject and grateful that she was with him. As he stared at the young woman across the fire, he was taken by more than her knowledge and poise. For the first time in a while, he appreciated how beautiful and brave she was, her features lit by the flames. Here she was, out in the wild, volunteering to join a group of assassins, all because her faith required it of her. Ethan was forced into this position. He wondered if he would have wanted to go on this quest if the roles had been reversed. “What do you want to happen?”

Sera was surprised by the question. With all the things that had happened to her over the last two days, she hadn’t had time to think about it. Instead of taking the time now, she found the easy way out. “I want you to sleep. You haven’t healed properly from yesterday’s injuries, and you’ve collected a few more.”

Ethan protested but, for several reasons, found himself helplessly following her direction. After finding a comfortable spot next to the fire, he lay down and allowed the young woman to open his shirt, roll up his pants, and work on his wounds.

Sera didn’t only use her physic training, and under her healing touch, Ethan was asleep within minutes. When she was finished, Sera took a moment to regard the partially dressed man resting comfortably before her. She didn’t have an augmented passion, but she could still feel the strong tug of her heart toward her companion. She had always been attracted to him physically and admired his work ethic, but now she saw his heart, and not just because the Elemental consumed it.

She could tell he still didn’t believe in the theologies that swarmed around him. How could he? Four different groups were in play, and they all disagreed with each other. How could he say which was right? But he trusted Sera to guide him along the right path, and his care and trust for her were genuine. She thought it had been stupid of him to risk himself for her at the end of the crawner fight, but it had also warmed her heart to watch him do it.

Sera tried to shut out any ideas of romance for the moment. They didn’t have time for that. Instead, she covered Ethan back up as best she could to ward him against the night’s chill and then spent almost half an hour in deep prayer and meditation, feeling the healing powers flow from the Savior, through her hands, and into the young man beside her. She was still adjusting to this type of healing but knew from her studies it was possible. Most of what she had read said that someone at her level of experience shouldn’t have access to the type of dramatic healing she seemed capable of producing, but she credited her physic training as giving her unique access to the workings of the human body, and that helped guide her prayers to be more effective. She also didn’t know if Ethan’s ability to operate even while injured was the result of her healing powers or if the drive that he got from the Elemental allowed him to push past pain that would have kept anyone else in bed.

When she was finished, Sera shivered at the sound of the bloodhounds baying into the night again, added another log to the fire, and tried to get some sleep for herself.