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The locals don't much like the looks of the three of us and I can't blame them. We're a pretty unlikely group but their business is serving travelers and we're far too small to be a band of raiders. They let us in.

The layout is pretty much the same as every other oasis caravan stop on Athas. The caravansary is huge and dominates the village. It's surrounded by outbuildings which are workshops and storage for all the supplies and goods a caravan might need. Weapons, armour, new wheels, axles, food, and so on. The farmers have their houses inside the wall and their fields outside. Right now there are six kank pulled wagons pulled up in front of the cavansary and two men tending to the animals. The bugs seem to be in good shape and the handlers are stroking their antenna as they decouple them from the wagons. Another two are on guard. They're armed with spears and cudgels. They stare at us was we walk by.

I lead the way and walk inside, pausing in the doorway for a moment and then entering the common room. It's big, of course, to accommodate large caravans. There’s stairs leading up the rooms on the second story and a balcony that winds around the top of the tap room. Tools and tack are hanging from the wall behind the proprietor at the bar and a girl with the same blond hair as the woman behind the bar is carrying clay mugs of broy. It's half empty at the moment and all eyes turn towards us as we enter. It isn't because of me. When people are feeling generous they call me "striking" or "handsome" but not "beautiful". My brother says that I would be good looking if it wasn't for the fact that I'm such a mean bitch and he's probably right. The reason they're all looking at us isn't because they've never seen a woman in a inix hide hauberk, it's because seeing an elf and a thri-kreen travel together is as about as crazy as it gets on Athas.

Math looks like just about every other elven rover you've ever seen. Bronze skin, skinny, pointed ears, and strange eyes wearing a light tunic and breeches under a cloak that makes a good dust mantle. The bone headed spear he's carrying is deadly, but isn't anything special. It's a typical elf weapon, making good use of their long reach, speed, and ability to give ground. Not so good indoors, of course but it can still kill you dead before you can draw your weapon.

Cha'dat was another story. You don’t see many thri-kreen in most parts of Athas and a lot of the mantis folk put other intelligent races on the menu. Elves at the top, of course. She’s just a little taller than me, although her thorax makes her longer. She was wearing a shirt of crodlu scales over her tan exoskeleton. Kreen aren’t really built to wear armour and the shirt is held in place by the leather straps that also hold her flint axes and the thri-kreen crystalline throwing wedges called chatkchas. Her mandibles clicked together as she walked in.

I can see Leonis. He's wearing enough sulfur yellow silk that he could mistaken for a high ranking templar of Urik. He was fat too, but there was some muscle under that fat. His eyes were narrow and beady and glared out from over the dark beard that hid his jowls. There was a very decorative boy and a half dozen heard eyed warriors around him. They wore mekillot hide armour and carried obsidian knives and cudgels along with an individual assortment of lethal weaponry.

I walked up to his table. "Leonis Tyse," I said. It wasn't a question. He was looking at me like I was a piece of meat. I let that pass. He was a piece of shit slaver after all and you can’t expect any better from them.
His guards put their hands on their weapons and stood. Piece of shit slavers accumulated enemies and, to be fair, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to kill him. “I want to purchase a slave.”

He squinted at me. “You have someone specific in mind.”

“No, I track slave caravans across the Tablelands for sport,” I replied.

“Funny girl. Very well. What does your friend, brother, lover, or whatever look like?”

He was going to jack up the price, of course, but my choices sucked. He had a lot of men and they knew their business. The locals would side with him and waiting for him to get to market and then buying Jokan’s freedom wasn’t going to work either. “Mul. Almost as tall as the elf. Male. Trefoil tattoo on his right shoulder. Scars.”

“The one with the House Rumadi slave tattoo across his back?” Leonis laughed. “You think I didn’t notice? Girl you aren’t as clever as you think you are. Briocan Rumadi will pay a fortune, not a large fortune but a fortune nonetheless, to get an escaped gladiator back.

“Do you happen to have a small fortune? I don’t think so. If you did you would have more than two pieces of desert rabble covering your back. How did you get an elf and a thri-kreen to work together anyway?”

“I’ll trade you the secret for Jokan.”

“That’s your man’s name eh? No, I thank I’ll pass. I prefer . . . more tangible currency. There are no shortages of misfortunes under the sun girl. Your man just happens to have suffered one. Cut your losses and move on. Don’t tell me you don’t know this.”

“I have something to trade as well as coin,” I say through gritted teeth.

“What?” he snickers. “A night with you? Three nights? A year? With you lying under me like a dead thing and plotting to murder me the whole time? Girl, you’re not that good looking in the first place and I can tell just by looking at you that you need to be broken first.”

“Not a night,” I hiss.

“Yourself? He’ll fetch a much better price. Not interested.”

I draw my sword and place it on the table. The wrapped bone hilt and guard are fairly mundane but the blade isn’t. It’s triangular, thirty two inches long, and formed from obsidian as black as night shot through with a branching vein of crimson. Blood obsidian. The air around it the blade shimmers like a heat mirage. “This.”

He spared a glance for it, feigning disinterest. "What am I? A weapon smith? I have all the weapons I need. It's a pretty enough sword but I have no use for it and I'm not in the business of selling such things. No deal."

This was bullshit, of course. He knew that the sword was blood obsidian and enchanted and thus worth a fortune. It had cost me enough. Even if he had to sit on it for a year he would make more money selling Widowmaker for half the money she was worth than for selling a slave twice as valuable as Jokan. He was just trying to bargain for more money.

The problem is that Cha'dat isn't good at interpreting the social intricacies and rituals that make up civilized behavior in the Tablelands. She knows her pack and hunting and that's about it. The rest she relies on us to interpret for her and she just heard a "no" to giving back her packmate. I realized that about two seconds after receiving the telepathic signal that meant she was going to attack and right after she had reared to her full height with a flint axe in each one of her four hands. In other words, too bloody damn late to calm things down and keep the shit from being thrown into the cooking pot.

Leonis's boys and girls were standing up and grabbing weapons and there was Widowmaker, lying right on the table in the middle of them. I dropped to the floor, breaking my fall with my palms and rolled to the side. The motion was pretty much automatic and allowed me to focus on attacking.

There is a technique that the Sediq School of the Way calls The Hammer of Despite. It is known by a number of other schools and practitioners as Ego Whip and it's a technique I'm very, very good at. Most adepts can only strike one mind at a time with it. I hammered the everyone at the table. Then Cha'dat arrived.

Thri-kreen are very, very fast. Just about elf fast, not that you'll ever get an elf other than Math to admit it. Leonis was shacking his head, but still on his feet. Two of his guards had their weapons raised in a defensive posture. The other four were in another world, an internal world as their minds had been flooded with an overwhelming tide of hate and contempt. I said I was good at it.

Cha'dat buried one hatchet in a guard's face and opened another's throat. Blood spilled everywhere as the remaining guards shook off the daze but they were a touch slow. Cha'dat let gravity help her free her stuck hatchet while putting two more into his chest and a third into his left bicep. He went down, although the cuts on his chest might not be too deep because of his armour. I reached out with the Way and Widowmaker skittered across the table and flew into my hand.

Cha'dat was facing off three against one while the rest of the tap room decided to snooze. One by one they collapsed on the floor, on tables, and on the bar. Math was on the job. The locals would back the slavers in a heartbeat and killing them wouldn't win us any favors. What a fucking mess.

One of the guard's tagged Cha'dat with a flint axe, half severing her lower left arm. Shit. Then there was the tell tale inaudible roar of the Way and she flew head over heels across the room. She bounced off the wall, but landed on her feet. Blood of the Dragon, Leonis would be a teke. I was never that good it. That's why I use a sword.

I lunged and ran Widowmaker through a guard's chest and through his spine. She's a sweet, sweet blade and cut's flesh like it isn't there and barely notices bone. It's two on one but I fill the mind of the woman on the left with pain and then it's one on one. Widowmaker makes short work of his club and then spills his guts on the floor. That leaves me, Math, and Leonis.

"Back," said Math in elvish and I back the fuck off because I have an idea what's coming. A whip of violet lightning lashes from his hands and splinters off a teke shield that Leonis has managed to raise. Math strikes again and hits with a sound like a dozen ringing chimes. I can feel the shield coming apart.

The woman has gotten back on her feet and has a dirty look in her eye and an obsidian tipped spear in her hand. She lunges with the intent of puncturing me and I give ground. In my mind I can hear the rushing wind feel of the Way and that tembofucker Leonis cuts my legs out from me with a telekinetic pulse. I fall on my ass and I'm easy meat for the ugly blond bitch with the spear when Math changes things up by wrapping the lightning whip around her torso. The sickly sweet stench of burning flesh fills my nostrils as Math discharges what's left of the whip's force into her and makes her a very ugly corpse.

Cha'dat tries charging again and gets slapped aside by and invisible hand. Another teke hand closes on Math's throat but that leaves Leonis a little busy and I unleash the Chord of Dissonance. In my mind there's a sound like a thousand panes of glass breaking during a wind storm and Leonis's teke shield and strangler hand drops as I scramble every aspect of the Way within reach of my mind. It gives me a moment and that's all I need. I hit him so hard I put a third of Widowmaker's length into the wall.

It takes a moment for my body to realize that we've won and I take a ragged breath. I put my boot on the fat man's chest and pull my sword out. I get a little messy but that's life as usual. I strip his purse a moment after the body hits the ground.

"Packmates," Cha'dat says. Everything half comes out as clicks when she physically speaks so she can be hard to understand. "Bipeds gather outside."

Math takes a peak out the door. "Lots of trouble."

I take a look outside. A dozen or so of the locals have weapons in their hands and are looking this way, as are the slavers. A groan from behind me tells me that the ones Math put down are waking up. "Okay, secure the place and get ready for our next move."

"Which is?" Math replies.

"Mathedron, I'll let you know when I think of it."

Great so far! btw where can I find your free federation stuff?

Morningstar wrote:Great so far! btw where can I find your free federation stuff?

I see you've already found Deathwalker. The other two are

Rebirth

and

Facing Evil