“You’d best give up now,” the wannabe crusader said, menace in his voice.

“I’m good, thanks” Len replied, panting slightly as she recovered from dodging his blow.

“Suit yourself,” he sprang at her again, lightning fast.

His fists fell on her like jackhammers, forcing her back and scoring several painful blows even as she dodged and blocked the worst of them. This was different than her earlier fights. While the trolls had both been powerful, neither of them had anywhere near the speed that this man was demonstrating. It was everything she could do just to keep anything vital from getting damaged, and he didn’t seem to be slowing down.

After what felt like hours, she did see an opportunity as he swung a little wide of her center. Snaking her hand out, she wrapped it around his wrist and neatly flipped him onto his back. The force of the landing sent dirt flying, but didn’t seem to faze him much. Realizing the danger too late, she could only yelp in shock as he twisted his arm in her grip to latch onto her wrist and send her flying away from him. Luck was on her side, and she managed to land inches away from a particularly jagged rock, instead of on top of it.

“You think I enjoy this? Just give up.”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” she pushed herself back to her feet. She was gonna feel that fall in the morning, but she didn’t think anything was broken.

“Why are you making this so hard? Just give up. I promise I won’t kill you.”

“How nice, the guy who showed up out of nowhere and attacked me is promising not to kill me when he kidnaps me. Truly, you are the height of gentlemanly conduct.”

“Don’t you dare mock me!”

“Yeah, see that’s the thing. I’m not really a fan of guys who lose their cool the instant a woman dares to insult them. Had quite enough of that over the years, thank you very much. I sure as fuck ain’t gonna let some asshole with a faint glow get me to back down. So c’mon, let’s get on with it. Stop wasting my time.”

He obliged without any more delay, charging at her with terrifying speed. She got her guard up in time, pushing back as he struck to lessen the blow. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but she kept herself upright. Planting her right foot, she hooked her left leg behind his right and pulled it forward, breaking his stance. She drove the palms of her hands into his chest and forced him to the ground.

Straddled atop him, she began raining blows down on his head and torso, he was tough, but seemed unsure what to do in this position and it cost him. Several of the punches drew blood both from his face and her knuckles as she continued to batter him, After she was satisfied that she’d done enough damage, she climbed off of him and took a moment to breath. He lay there, limp as a doll. She hadn’t really meant to do that much to him, but he’d really pissed her off. Shrugging, she turned to go see where that shitty goblin had run off to. It was a major miscalculation.

An arm clamped down around her neck, not quite tight enough to cut off circulation, but too tight for her to escape it now that it was locked in place. Somehow, he’d already recovered from the beating or hadn’t taken as much damage as she’d thought and was now starting to drag her away. Her body already taxed, she couldn’t break the hold and was starting to feel real panic set in until, as suddenly as it had appeared, the arm dropped from around her neck.

Gasping for air, Len whirled to see what had happened. Her attacker was lying prone on the ground with a trio of goblins standing over him. Blood oozed from a crack in his head where they’d put one of the branches they’d been gathering to good use. After taking another moment to gather herself, she walked over to them.

“Thanks,” she said simply.

“Eh, I was gonna leave you, but ‘Moe’ here insisted we at least try and help you out.”

“Oh please, you were the one who came running to us. Don’t pretend you weren’t worried too. So… is he dead?”

Len looked at the wound, determined it wasn’t bleeding in a particularly worrying fashion, then checked his pulse. Strong enough, given the fight he’d just been through.

“Eh, he’ll probably live. So, what exactly IS the protocol for dealing with human trespassers?”

“I say we eat him,” offered Larry.

“We are not eating him,” put in Curly.

“How ‘bout we just kill him and get on with our day? The sword will probably fetch some silver. Better than we’ve made so far, at least.”

“Eh, pass on the killing for the moment. I want to know how he did that thing with his hands.”

“Thing?”

“Yeah, he did some sort of magic drawing thing in the air and then became an absolute beast of an enemy. Damn near killed me.”

“I’ve heard that some of these crusader types can use magic to enhance themselves,” said Curly. “Never actually seen it but it’s supposed to be pretty powerful.”

“Interesting. I look forward to making him teach it to me.”

“You’re gonna make a human teach you magic,” Moe said dubiously.

“Sure, not like he has much choice in the manner at this point. He causes too much trouble and Larry might get his wish.”

Larry smiled at that. It wasn’t a nice smile.

“Well, I guess the thing to do is get him back to town and lock him up at Kila’s.”

“You think she’s gonna go for that?”

“Oh sure, she loves me.”

* * * * *

“Absolutely not,” said Kila when they arrived with the still unconscious human. “I mean, I’ll take the sword, but you’re not keeping a human here. I do not need that kind of headache.”

“Oh c’mon, you know you’re interested in seeing what kind of fun we can have with him,” said Len with a twinkle in her eyes.

“What are you plotting?” Kila’s lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Look, he did some cool magic thing and I want to learn it from him.”

“And you think the best play here is to keep him at my forge while doing that? I mean, I’m game for a lot, Len, but some hair-brained scheme to learn magic… given what we know, seems like a less than great idea.”

“I need an edge,” said Len, dropping a bit of the cheeriness she found herself adopting around her orc friend. “I’ve got a little less than three weeks to prepare for the fight of my life and as things stand, I don’t think I have a chance. This could give it to me.”

“Whole lot of room for it to go wrong,” Kila pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s why I’ve got you backing me up, what could go wrong with you by my side?”

Kila laughed at that and pulled her for a warm (if painful, thanks to the developing bruises) hug.