In the night an alarm bell rang. Tazo woke up disoriented in the unfamiliar room. She staggered outside to find warriors with half-donned armor shouting at a bone-spider that had wandered near. She had no weapon or wand ready.

Urika, bleary-eyed, had a hammer in hand. He hurried to join the defenders and she followed his example, followed by Kotta and a miserable looking Polestar. The village headman arrived a bit later, asking the Smith, "Time to test your magic rail?"

"What's that beast doing?"

"Wandering, sometimes scuttling closer. Third time it's happened with this type alone. We can provoke it or just sleep without knowing whether it'll rush in and kill us."

"Up to you if you're willing to fight it. I suggest placing the rail, then trying to lure the beast close."

The men carrying the heavy iron rod set it down across their path. Tazo joined the Mage in activating it as a carrier of magic. Which gave them a new problem: keeping someone touching it and concentrating, in the face of the monster that was heading toward the group again. "We might not have planned this well."

The Mage frowned but crouched beside the bar, saying, "I'll keep it going. Hang back and watch the effect."

The trickle of life-aspect Mana ran through the metal and into the air and ground at the far end. It was hard to concentrate on that while the bony thing lurched closer on its many legs.

Tazo shivered but stood her ground behind the rod. Several warriors placed themselves to guard the Mage. Then their few archers opened fire with blunt-tipped arrows, impacting the bones for minor harm.

It clattered, making little noise, and lunged. Looked like it was going to hit the warriors only, which would defeat the purpose of the experiment. Tazo conjured a tiny dart of fire, barely stable without the usual thrown sawdust, and flung it outward. The bolt struck and drew attention. The fighting men harried it with clubs and hammers, but the scuttling thing decided to run straight at her. She squeaked in fear and backpedaled, hopping where most people would've tripped.

The unholy thing hit the charged iron rod and recoiled as though caught in a net. It snarled. Tazo saw a flash of green-white waft up like flames and sink into its bony body. She gathered Mana between her hands again and let out another shaky fire burst that passed through the barrier without interference and probably hit for another point or two. "It works!" she called out.

The fighters said, "Good enough. Now kill it!" They circled around and used the improvised wall to get the beast from the side and behind, battering it until its legs snapped one by one. It went down swinging, gashing one man along the chest and another on the arm, and cracking the shield of another. Finally the tormented thing threw itself at the Mage doing the ongoing spell, dropping its full weight of splintered bones at her.

One man saw it coming and leaped to intercept it, a moment too late. The monster crashed down on the Mage before she could react either. Buried under thrashing bones she cried out and Tazo's attempt to shove it with a force spell fizzled. The warriors heaved and slammed the creature onto its back and killed it at last.

Their Mage had been beaten unconscious, her clothes shredded and bloodied by thrashing limbs. One leg was at a nasty angle. Tazo crouched beside her, saying, "How bad?"

One of the team shuddered. "Somewhere in her last few points. Permanent scar territory. You're our best healer right now."

Her ears lay back and she went to work at the fallen woman's side, weaving a medical spell. "Any support casters?"

Two of the group had practice at that. She felt their presence as she gathered Mana and tried to not just force it into the patient but understand what she was doing with it. The assistants gave her more control over how the magic found open wounds and kept the blood from escaping, giving the body more time to rally its own defenses. Maybe the process was the same basic thing as the repulsion spell in the sense of it manipulating a living thing instead of an undead one. In fact, the tale she'd heard from Kotta about a famous battle mentioned a barrier against "any living or any dead". So this technique might well be the way it worked. Or in reverse? She wasn't sure. Her theory speculation helped distract her from the churning in her stomach at the sight of all that blood, that broken leg. You had to be badly hurt to get an injury like that!

"She'll live," Tazo said, starting to relax at last. "Thanks be to the gods for healing."

Prayer wasn't the first thing she'd thought of, and the fact made her uneasy in hindsight.

They carried the Mage back home and had a weary, subdued little celebration before crawling back into bed. The prize tonight had been knowledge, proof that Urika's strange plan could work. As the group broke up, Tazo got Polestar's attention.

The Centaur stood taller than most Humans and seemed eager to stay on the fringes of any gathering, as though uncertain of himself. She knew why. "You were dropped into a bad situation, weren't you?"

He looked aside, flicking his thin brush of a tail. "Got told I wouldn't be in immediate danger. But there's a difference between safety right now, and a good and happy life. The old me had neighbors and friends who looked out for him and I didn't know who they were. I left them behind and it'd be nice to tell them I'm all right. The Kobolds out that way are mostly decent people."

She knew little about the western lands, and vaguely pictured them eternally shrouded in stormclouds. "I don't understand the gods' goal in all this. Shouldn't they have put all of their chosen ones into the River Kingdom, so that it's this land that gets all of the new ideas?"

The Centaur gave a mighty yawn. "We have a saying back there -- the place I'm from, I mean -- that 'God works in mysterious ways'. Seems like an excuse, sometimes, but the fact is that your kingdom's got what, three out of four travelers."

Tazo's tail flicked. Something was odd in his phrasing, but she was too tired to think of it. "Yes, you should tell whatever you have for family, in the west I mean, that you're alive and well."