The street made one final bend, and Jack rounded it to find Rose standing in front of the small form of Madeleine, and the last gnoll between him and them, slowly closing in on the two girls. The left sleeve of Rose's tunic was missing, and her arm was visibly gashed open, the blood dripping onto the street stones.

The gnoll standing between Jack and the two girls turned at the sudden arrival of a new target, and, seeing Jack was armed, turned and snarled at him, brandishing the oversized cleaver it held in its left hand.

"Rose, you two okay?" Jack called out to the girls.

"We're fine," Rose called back.

"Better now." Madeleine added dryly. Rose turned and gave her sibling a dirty look

Before Jack could reply to the two of them, the gnoll charged at him, hurling into a flurry of blows so rapid and savage that it was all he could do to keep them from landing on him. He tried to focus to turn the tables, but he just couldn't get his physical or mental balance long enough to shift into that frame of mind.

A particularly savage swing threatened to split him from head to toe, and he threw his axe blade up to deflect it. The cleaver's edge impacted with the axe blade with such intensity that it threw Jack stumbling backwards it knocked away his guard, leaving him wide open for a follow-up.

Powerless to get his defenses back up in time, Jack watched with a sense of icy horror as the gnoll wound up for a killing blow. Jack closed his eyes. If this was gonna be it, he didn't want to see it coming.

He heard the cleaver sing through the air. He heard a wet crack, and felt something heavy knock him flying sideways.

He had expected the cleaver to feel cold and hard, and the blow to cause him immense agony. But what he felt was none of those things. Was he in shock? He'd heard that when people are mortally wounded, their brain hides the suffering and makes it all go away. Was that happening to him now? Was he going to die?

He suddenly felt himself slam into the hard stone of the street, his arm and shoulder taking the brunt of the blow as the side of his head smacked one of the stones, causing his head to explode into the worst headache he could ever remember having. Not only that, but the entire left side of his body was burning hot.

Jack's eyes jerked open. He found himself staring directly into Madeleine's face, which sat only a few inches from his.

Reacting with a mixture of startledness and pain, he pushed the girl off of him suddenly and tried to push himself to his feet.

"Ow! Hey, what was that for?" Madeleine protested angrily, rubbing the newly developed sore spot on her rear end from its impact with the street stones.

Jack glanced in the direction the Gnoll had been only a moment before to find Rose standing over the crumpled heap of the Gnoll's body. Jack could see even at a cursory glance that the creature's head was definitely not designed to be sitting at the angle it was currently sitting. Rose reached down and grabbed one of the gnoll's arms and proceeded to wipe some form of dark sticky liquid off of her shin with it.

She noticed Jack's puzzled expression.

"Apparently managed to rupture one of the vessels in his throat when I kicked him, and he spat blood all over me," She said, dropping the gnoll's limb unceremoniously.

"Well done providing the gap in your defense like that. It gave me the moment I needed to catch him off guard. Oh, and good job on the knockdown, Maddie. That was perfectly timed." She said, turning from Jack to Madeleine as she spoke.

"You're welcome, by the way." Madeleine said, looking at Jack with irritation.

Jack looked at Madeleine sheepishly.

"Yeah, uh, thanks, Maddy." He said, scratching the back of his head. She said nothing, but glowered at him, still continuing to rub her backside as she turned away and walked back over towards the dead body of the gnoll.

Jack turned to the older sister, who was brushing dirt and debris off the front of her cream-colored tunic, which was now spattered with blood and stained brown and yellow in patches that had Jack wondering to himself if they were caused by what he assumed.

Rose shifted her head from side to side, causing her neck to crack loudly, and stretched her shoulders back, before dropping her arms and sighing in relief. While she did this, Madeleine walked over the the gnoll's corpse, and rifled through its armor and the pouches on its belt. After a moment's digging, she pulled out a small pouch made of rough leather from one of the gnoll's belt pockets, and walked over to Jack.

"Here", she said, offering it up to him. Jack gingerly took the pouch from her hand, and undid the drawstring to peer inside. A couple dozen coins of various size and color gleamed up at him. He looked back down at the ember sprite.

"Hey, thanks", he said, look the bag to her and back.

"Always check for loot." Madeleine said simply. She looked up at him for a moment longer, before turning and walking back over to Rose, who had finished stretching and turned back to Jack.

"Well, that's all of them", she said.

"Almost all of them. We've still got Eleanor's big baddie to deal with." Jack said.

"She's easily the strongest of the three of us," Rose said, shrugging non-chalantly as she led the way back the way they came. "She probably already has him dealt with by now."

As if on cue, a faint explosion detonated in the distance, causing the buildings next to them to cast stark shadows as the direction of the town square brightened significantly.

"Maybe not." Madeleine said dryly, turning and looking in the direction of the square.

Another explosion immediately followed the first, its flash followed only seconds later by a deafening roar that caused the three of them to slap their hands over their ears in pain. The ground with such intensity that it nearly threw Jack off his feet, and glass and debris showered down on them from the buildings and windows above. After the second burst, the light and noise faded, leaving the three of them in relative silence.

"What the HELL was THAT?" Jack said, lowering his hands from his ears.

"Not Ellie. Unless she's learned something new." Madeleine said, her face taking on an intensity Jack hadn't seen from her previously. "Her fire's blue."

Jack felt his pulse pound in his chest, and suddenly found himself having horrible visions of Eleanor being blown to pieces. Without another word, he turned and ran back the way he'd just come.

"Wha- hey! Wait up!", Rose called after him, but he was already rounding the corner to the larger thoroughfare, leaping over a bloody corpse as he went. He stumbled for multiple steps and nearly lost his footing as another loud explosion rocked the ground beneath him and set his ears ringing. Then another loud smashing sound like a rock being thrown through glass. Then more silence.

"Cmon Ellie! Please be okay!" Jack thought as he leapt over another furred gnoll corpse, and ran to the right of the charred rut in the cobblestones his fire spell had left only a few minutes before.