"Are you sure Reverend Ainsley is okay where we left him?" Isabel asked her friend. That had been one of her worries when they'd last seen the cleric. But now that the raiders had struck another hamlet, the danger seemed more pressing.

"He'll be fine," said Deirdre. The lass, who was reclined in the grass beside her, didn't even open her eyes. "He's a scrappy one, the reverend. Besides, not even the worst scoundrel living would harm a traveling clergyman."

That didn't seem right to Isabel. The clergy didn't appear to have much in the way of additional protection in this land. But she wouldn't second guess Deirdre. The young woman seemed attached the Moorcroft Ainsley. If there was a true sense that he was in danger, Deirdre wouldn't take that lightly.

She asked instead, "Did you ever discover why Driss was looking for Sir Alexis?"

"His boss wants paid," Deirdre mumbled.

"That's all?"

The young woman sat up with a sigh. "Sir Alexis is a week late, and the hostler's employer is getting madder with every day. He wants his money, and only Sir Alexis can tender payment."

"It's always about money." Some things never changed, whichever world you were in.

The fighting at the hamlet, an otherwise delightful assembly of houses called East Finding, had been over for more than an hour. A number of the raiders had been killed, and a small number had been taken prisoner. After some pointed questions form Sir Constantine, the local noble, the men had admitted being fighting men for an eastern knight named Villiers.

Sir Constantine had listened carefully to all the men had to say, including their pleas for mercy, and then had promptly hanged the lot of them.

The old knight had been quite sweet about the whole thing, promising the men they would get a decent burial and word of their demise would make it back to their families. When one of the bound men demanded as he was being hoisted into a saddle that as a soldier he deserved beheading, the knight responded in a rueful tone that "soldiers deserve the blade. Villains and thieves get the rope."

He promised not to share the sorted particulars of the men's end when he notified their families.

The hanging itself was dreadful, but it said much of how Isabel slowly was growing accustomed to Albion. It was dreadful, but she didn't find it shocking or surprising. Soldiers or no, these men had raided a defenseless village. Such was the punishment in these lands.

Alas, the bandits still infested the nearby hills and woodlands, and Sir Constantine would need to muster his every available fighting man to drive them off. In the meantime, the road southward to Westport had been cut. For the time, their progress would be delayed.

Isabel felt not the least concern. Perils there may be, but Sir Alexis was with them again. And the valiant young soldier, Driss, had attached himself to them for the time.

My, the things that had gone through Isabel's mind of late. Her heady imaginings should have frightened her, especially given the ordeals she so far had endured. But they did not.

Upon emerging from the spring that she'd found with Reverend Ainsley, she had flown to the aid of the youngsters that Driss was protecting with his sword and without hesitation had gone to shelter them, with her own body if necessary. Not a whisp of fear had afflicted her then.

Not even when she'd seen, for the briefest of moments, the image of a brave knight in coal black armor fighting a gold and red dragon. It seemed ridiculous now, but that brief vision had been as real to her as anything she'd ever seen. It was as real as the visions she'd dreamt upon their path to Proxima Thule many weeks before.

She was confident she wasn't going mad. Of that she was certain. But she wasn't perfectly certain whether she'd been afflicted by some gift of prophecy or of second seeing. That all was jumbled and confusing.

Happily, Moorcroft's presence was an anchor in a storm. She'd spoken with him that very day about what she'd seen, and his words were kind and reasoned.

Some people simply are blessed with visions and signs. Those visions need not be of things yet to come. They may merely be notions and symbols of the world around them. Not everyone sees the world the same. And some folks just happened to see their dreams while still awake.

Isabel got the sense through her brief interchange with the clergyman that such visions were not a thing to be feared, but a gift to be nurtured and understood. Well, Isabel wasn't in Kansas anymore. She'd decided at several points in recent months to try and understand and embrace this world and its ways. This was just another opportunity.

"I'm not staying behind in the hamlet," Deirdre announced.

It took but a moment for Isabel to leave her reverie and rejoin their conversation. She knew to what her friend was referring.

Sir Constantine (who she'd earlier heard Alexis call a "wily old badger") had called for his hounds. The enemy didn't want to meet them in battle, so the knight decided to muster all his available men and hunt the enemy like wild game in the wilderness.

"No one knows this land like me," she'd heard the knight say. "I'll run them until they beg for the rope."

On the downside, the elderly knight had fewer than 100 fighting men at his disposal. The rest were with the army or manning the castles and strongholds of his fief. There was no telling how many raiders might be arrayed in the woods.

They soon would find out. And like Deirdre, Isabel suddenly did not wish to be left behind. That decision was only partly because Sir Alexis and the others were going on this bloody hunt. Isabel simply did not like the idea of being left behind. She'd seen much in this land and didn't want to feel like baggage.

"We'll both go, then," she told Deirdre, who by then was up and moving around. Isabel knew what her young friend was thinking, and the two moved to the packhorses to fetch something to eat.

The fires had been dowsed, the bodies disposed of, and Sir Constantine's fighting men had begun to arrive in numbers. The place was safe, and the day had begun to feel somewhat more pleasant.

Isabel's thoughts returned, as they had numerous times in recent days, to the spring at which she had wildly thrown herself three days earlier. She'd never before been so completely lost in a moment. What was it about that place? Moorcroft seemed convinced it was blessed in some way, perhaps even touched by the hand (or feet) of that Walking God of his.

Isabel didn't know. Holy quests, fabled blades, magic springs, fabulous dragons ... it all seemed too much and too little at the same time. She actually could find herself believing in everything in this land if it all weren't so damnably ephemeral.

Rummaging through the packs, she found what she was looking for, some flour, yeast, and bacon. She also found one of the several skins that they'd filled at the spring several days before. Without thinking, she laid the other things aside, opened the waterskin, placed it to her lips, and upturned it. Before Isabel knew it, the skin was completely empty, and she felt still thirsty and totally sated, both at the same time.

"Woo," she said.

"What's that?" asked Deirdre.

"Oh, nothing," she told the kid. "You know ...." She gave Deirdre a long look. "You've grown."

"What?"

"You've grown. Come closer."

When Deirdre stepped toward her, Isabel moved several times around her to assure herself that it simply wasn't the uneven ground. But no. Her young friend was decidedly taller.

Isabel was a skosh over 5' 9". Deirdre had been half a head shorter when first they'd met. The kid had grown a little in the following months, it was true; but it was obvious that in the last month she'd gone through a significant growing spurt. Deirdre now was nearly as tall as Isabel, and the younger woman's clothes weren't quite so baggy as they usually were.

"My, look at you," she said to her friend. It was such a delightful sensation to look at her now, growing up so swiftly.

"I'm the same as I always was."

"No, taller, and fuller. Almost a woman now."

"No," Deirdre insisted.

"Let's ask young Mr. Driss," said Isabel in a voice that was just above a whisper.

Deirdre let out a shriek and ran away.