They spoke for a little while longer, chatting about this and that, and Thomas began to get a pleasant buzz from his third glass of ale. He looked out the window at the stars, and saw that the constellation of the crossed swords was rising above the thatched rooftops of the buildings opposite. “It’s getting late,” he said with a slightly slurred voice. “We ought to be getting back soon.”

     “Aye, afore we ‘ave to carry you home,” said the farmer with a grin. “One more glass’d just about finish ye, I reckon.”

     “Nonsense,” declared Arroc indignantly. “We trogs know how ter hold our drink.” He rose to his feet and swayed unsteadily.

     “Aye, but ye be not a proper trog, be ye?” replied the farmer, nudging the man next to him playfully.

     Arroc glared at him. “What d’ye mean, no a proper trog?” he demanded.

     Something in the tone of his voice made Thomas look up in alarm. The trog normally spoke with only a faint accent to betray his homeland, but all of a sudden his accent had gotten a lot stronger. He’d noticed the same thing with Angus and Douglas, two other trogs he’d known, and with them it had signaled a rising anger, warning those to whom they were speaking that they were on dangerous ground.

     The farmers had been drinking heavily as well, though, and didn’t notice the change in the trog’s voice. “Well, we know what trogs look like," he said. "Proper, pureblooded trogs. You’re a half breed, aren’t you? Half human.”

     He turned to his companion to share the joke, but froze as a deep, angry growl rose from the trog’s throat. It slowly began to dawn on the human that maybe he’d said something wrong, but seemed totally unable to stop his mouth from running on. “I mean, no meaning any offence, but look at ye. Ye’ve got some human blood in yer or I’m a goblin.”

     Arroc roared and leapt to his feet. He reached behind himself to pull the massive scimitar from its scabbard across his back. Everyone else, farmers and teamsters alike, could only stare in astonishment, wondering what he was going to do with it. He’s surely not going to use it in here, is he? thought Thomas in alarm. He wouldn’t!

     He would, though. He raised it above his head and with a cry of rage brought it crashing down on the beerstained, oaken table, its massive weight smashing it to pieces. Then he raised it again and advanced on the terrified farmers.

     “He’s gone berserk!” someone cried. “Call the guards!”

     The scimitar whistled through the air, missing the farmer’s head by mere inches, and smashed into the oakbeamed wall, embedding itself deeply into a six inch timber. As the trog pulled it loose the massive beam shuddered and almost snapped like a rotten twig, making the whole building shake to its foundations.

     Arroc roared in fury again, looking around for the cowering farmers, and Shaun and Dennis jumped on him, trying to hold him down. The trog shrugged them off with scarcely an effort, sending them across the floor to land in a puddle of spilled beer. Gods! thought Thomas in astonishment. He's so strong! It had looked like like two children trying to hold down a gorilla!

     “Ma moother ne’er disgraced he’sel wi’ a human!” he roared, smashing chairs and tables all around him. “Ne’er! She ne’er betrayed ma father, an’ anyone who says she did is a dirty, lyin’ boggrel!”

     The tavern’s customers rushed out of the door in a panic, and Thomas gasped in horror when he saw the barman reach under the bar to produce a loaded crossbow.

     He hurriedly cast his shield spell, struggling to control his slurred voice to say the magic words properly, and jumped between the trog and the barman, not realising until he got there that he had no idea whether the spell was working. “Hold it right there!” shouted the barman, aiming the crossbow squarely at the trog’s chest, but Arroc just roared in even greater fury and lunged forward, shoving the wizard aside and sending him sprawling. He raised his scimitar, and the barman pulled the trigger.

     The bolt went wide, and Thomas felt a breeze as it whistled inches away from his cheek. Then there was a crash as the huge scimitar smashed the bar into kindling and the barman fled through a door into a back room, shouting for the town guard as he went. The trog immediately forgot about him and turned to see the farmer who’d called him a half breed trying to climb out through a window. He charged over to him, throwing off Shaun and Dennis as they tried to stop him. He dropped the scimitar, which hit the ground with a heavy thud, and grabbed the farmer’s legs, yanking him back and throwing him down onto the floor.

     Arroc fell down on the farmer’s chest and grabbed the collar of his woollen shirt. “A’ya got summat ter say ter me?” he screamed, thumping his head against the floorboards. “A’ya?" The farmer shook his head wildly, his eyes staring in panic. “A’ya callin’ ma moother a whoore? A’ya?” He thumped the farmer’s head a few more times on the floor, ignoring his whimpering pleas for mercy.

     Sounds of running feet and clanking armour came from outside, and Shaun yelled into the trog’s ear to get his attention. “The town guard! The guard’s coming! Come on!”

     “He called ma moother a whoore!” shouted the trog furiously. “He called me moother a whoore!” He thumped the farmer’s head a few more times, but he’d slipped into merciful unconsciousness and knew nothing about it.

     “Come on!” repeated Shaun, pulling Arroc to his feet and shoving him towards the tavern’s back door. The trog struggled at first, but then he too heard the approaching guardsmen and seemed to come to his senses. “Oh mon!” he said uncertainly, as if realising for the first time what he’d done.

     “Come on!” cried Dennis urgently. He tried to pick up the great scimitar but he could scarcely lift one side of it. Arroc picked it up as though it weighed nothing, though, and the four of them fled through the door into the street.

     “Which way did we come?” asked Thomas anxiously.

     Then a dozen guardsmen armed with ironwood swords and crossbows appeared at the end of the street to their right. They paused for a moment, searching in all directions, then saw them and came charging at them, shouting for them to stay where they were.

     “That way!” said Shaun, pointing to the left, and they ran as fast as they could, the guardsmen in hot pursuit. More guardsmen appeared ahead of them, though, and they jumped over the fence into the rough ground lining the street.

     “Are we going the right way?” asked Thomas as they struggled their way across bumps and rabbit holes, risking a twisted ankle with every step.

     “Who cares?” replied Shaun. “Just run!”

     Crossbow bolts whistled past their ears, and the pack wolves crouched over as they ran, trying to make smaller targets of themselves. Dennis tripped and fell, cursing loudly as his shoulder hit a treestump, and Shaun yanked him back to his feet as the guards reached the place where they’d crossed the fence and followed them.

     “Camaron, take two men down the old mill road!” they heard someone shouting. “We’ll cut them off at the brook!”

     “They’re going to catch us!” gasped Thomas. “Maybe we ought to just give ourselves up.”

     “Never!” replied Arroc indignantly. “The trogs never surrender!”

     “Shut up you idiot!” swore Dennis angrily. “It’s your fault we’re in this mess!”

     “I was supposed ter just let him insult my mother, was I?”

     “Shut up!” repeated Dennis. He looked over his shoulder at Thomas, puffing away behind him. “You’re supposed to be a wizard! Do something!”

     “What?” demanded Thomas irritably.

     “I don’t know. Put a spell on them or something.”

     “I can’t do that! They’re just guardsmen doing their jobs. We’re the bad guys here.”

     They heard shouts coming from somewhere to their left, and behind them the whinnying of horses. “Drass! They’ve got horses!” swore Shaun.

     “They can’t ride horses over this ground,” protested Dennis, though. “Not with all these lumps and potholes. Not in the dark.”

     “Ow!” cried Thomas suddenly, tripping over something and falling heavily. “Ow! Drass! Brambles! I’ve fallen into a drassing bramble patch.”

     “Well get up quick,” said Shaun. “They’re catching us up.”

     “No, wait. I’ve got an idea. The centre of this bush is all dead twigs. We can hide in here until they go away.”

     “You’re crazy!” exclaimed Dennis, but the shouting voices were all around them now, and they could hear the horses galloping past somewhere to their right. “All right. It’s our only chance.”

     They wriggled their way into the centre of the mass of brambles, trying not to cry out as the thorns cut every inch of exposed skin. Shaun swore as he tore the sleeve of his jacket and Dennis shushed him up as a trio of guardsmen came running past. They froze in place, Thomas not even daring to remove a thorny branch that was clinging to the back of his hand by half a dozen needle sharp thorns. They held their breaths as the guardsmen searched the ground all around them, calling out to each other and waving torches to illuminate the darkness, and Thomas blessed the fact that it was a cloudy night, so dark that you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face. If it had been a typical Tharian night, lit by moons, comets and the red sun, the guards would have seen them easily and it would all have been over.

     Gradually, though, the noises diminished as the guards moved further from the town, and the four of them emerged painfully. “We’ve lost them,” said Dennis jubilantly. “Quick, back that way."

     They made their way cautiously back to the town where, hopefully, the guards wouldn’t think to look for them.

     The commotion had brought people out into the street, curious to see what all the fuss was about, so the teamsters were careful to keep out of sight as they crossed the rough ground to where the road left the small town. “That’s the road we came in on,” said the wizard excitedly. “If we can get on it, I can find the way back to the carpets.”

     “Good,” said Shaun. “Come on then.”

     He led the way along the strip of rough ground between the town and the farmland, hopeful that this mad escapade would soon be over. They were beginning to relax, thinking they'd escaped, when they saw six guardsmen walking back along the road towards them. They were sauntering casually, clearly no longer looking for the pack wolves. Thomas guessed that, having lost the out of towners in the scrubland, they’d decided to give up looking for them and go home. After all, the wizard could imagine them thinking, they hadn’t really done anything too bad except break a few bits of furniture and give a really nasty headache to a farmer who was renowned for his big mouth. The guardsmen were probably half ready to believe that the whole thing had been the farmer’s fault in the first place, that he’d said or done the wrong thing and sent the out of towners into a fury. If they’d caught the pack wolves, they’d probably have just thrown them into the cells for a few days to teach them a lesson and make them pay for the damage to the town. As it was, though, they’d go home, go back to bed, put up a few wanted posters the next day and forget the whole thing.

     The last thing they'd have been expecting, therefore, was to see the four fugitives strolling along the field of rough ground as happy as anything and chatting to each other as they made their way towards the road. In the darkness, they might have taken them to be a small group of townspeople out enjoying the night air, but there was no mistaking the trog. Head and shoulders shorter than the others but with a massively powerful chest, even though taller and thinner than was usual for his race. One of the guardsmen pointed and shouted, and then they all raised their weapons and ran.

     The teamsters jumped in alarm and turned to run, but Thomas stood his ground and reached for his spell components. He’d had enough of running and hiding. He was dirty, bleeding from a hundred scratches and tired. All he wanted was to get back to their campsite and curl up in his sleeping blankets. As soon as the guardsmen were within range, therefore, he allowed the sand to trickle through his fingers and chanted the magic words.

     The sleep spell got five of them, sending them into spell induced unconsciousness, but the inherently unpredictable nature of magic meant that the sixth escaped. He felt a moment of wooziness, but then it passed while, besides him, his comrades fell to the ground and lay still. He stared at them in horror, then stared at the wizard, still standing his ground in front of him. “What?” he gasped in shock, his eyes wide and his face white with horror. “You’ve killed them!”

     “No,” replied Thomas, backing away. “They’re just...”

     “Murderer!” screamed the guard. He fitted an arrow to his crossbow, pulled it back and cocked it in one easy, practised movement. “You’ll pay for their deaths!” He aimed the bolt squarely at the wizard’s chest and pulled the trigger.

     “No!” cried Shaun in horror as the bolt flew, but it was deflected by a barrier of magical energy standing in front of the wizard. Apparently the shield spell had worked after all. The guardsman stared in disbelief, dropped the crossbow and ran screaming. “Help! Help! Murder! Help!”

     “Drass!” swore Shaun. “Now it’s really stirred with a stick! Come on, let’s get out of here!”

     They started running, and soon heard the sounds of pursuit behind them again. Thomas led the way, praying that he remembered the way and that he’d be able to see the landmarks in the darkness. Was that the same haystack they’d passed on the way? Was that the same hedge? If so, then that barn up ahead ought to be the one the women were camped in. If not, their gooses were cooked. Thomas prayed desperately and they ran harder.

     The guardsmen were just a couple of hundred yards behind them when they burst in through the big double doors, making the women sit up in alarm, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. “What in the name of the Gods...” began Diana.

     “Quick, unroll the carpets!” shouted Shaun, grabbing one and spreading it out on the ground. “Quick!”

     “What’s going on?” asked Naomi in astonishment.

     “We gotta get outta here,” said Dennis, unrolling the other carpet and piling their possessions onto it as fast as possible. “Now!”

     Diana started to say something, but then they heard the sound of the approaching guardsmen and she decided to let it wait, for the time being. She shot them a look of pure venom as they gathered up their backpacks and sleeping blankets, though, a look that said that she’d known something like this was going to happen and that as soon as they were safe she was going to tear a strip off them. For the time being, though, she’d picked up their sense of urgency and devoted all her efforts to their getaway attempt. They didn’t attempt to pack their belongings, there was no time for that. They simply piled everything in the middle of the carpets, jumped on after it, and gave the commands for the carpets to fly.

     The guardsmen were spreading out to surround the barn, confident that they had the fugitives trapped, when the carpets shot out like bats from a barnfire, skimming just over the heads of the nearest guardsmen and making them throw themselves to the ground in alarm. One or two had the presence of mind to shoot their crossbows, though, and one of the bolts tore through the fabric of the carpet inches away from Thomas’s knee. There was a crackle and a spark of released magic from the ragged hole and the carpet lurched in its flight, but then it leveled off and continued gaining height, urged on by the frantic wizard and his two passengers.

     Then they were safe, though. They breathed a sigh of relief as the lights of the town dwindled in the distance behind them, and then the men collapsed in fits of helpless laughter. It was several minutes before they managed to regain control of themselves, and Shaun wiped the tears from his eyes to find Diana glaring at him furiously.

     “All right,” she said acidly. “Now are you going to tell me what in the Name of all the Gods that was about?”

     This sent the soldier into fresh hysterics, however, and it was several more minutes before he could get himself into a fit state to answer.