that now. It would be nice to be useful, instead of sitting on the sidelines all the time." He gave her a brief bow and then ran off to where Myr was fighting.
Aralorn smiled and stretched wearily. Tired as she was, it had felt good to work out with a sword rather than a mop - if was almost as good as playing at staff.
The exercise had made her hot and itchy, so she wandered over to the creek. It took her a while, but she found a place deep enough to wash in with a large, flat rock that she could kneel on and avoid the worst of the mud. She ducked her head under the water, its icy temperature welcome on her overheated skin.
As she was coming up for air she heard a newly familiar voice say, "See, I told'ya she had a funny-looking sword. Look, the handle's made out of metal."
Aralorn took her time wiping her face on her sleeve and smoothing her dripping hair away from her face. Stan is and his silent but grinning companion, Tobin, stood observing her. She hid a smile when she recognized Stanis's solemn-faced, feet-apart, hands-behind-his-back pose. Myr did that when he was thinking.
"Have you killed anyone'?" Stanis's voice was filled with gruesome interest.
She nodded, rolling up the long sleeves of the innkeeper's son's tunic.
"You're not supposed to fight with swords that don't have wooden handles." The silent Tobin at last had spoken.
"Yeah," said Stanis. "If you kill a magician, his magic will kill you."
She nodded again. "I only wound magicians with my sword. When I kill magicians, I always use my knife."
"Oh," said Tobin, apparently satisfied with her answer.
They were silent for a moment; then Stanis said, "Tobin wanted to know if you would tell us about killing someone."
Aralorn nodded and sat cross-legged on the grass, far enough away from the stream so that the ground was relatively dry. Far be it from her to give up the chance to tell stories.
That was where Wolf found her. Her audience had grown to include most of the camp. He walked quietly closer until he could hear what she was saying.
"... so we snuck past the dragon's nose a second time. We had to be careful to avoid the puddles of poison that dripped from the old beast's fangs as it slept.
"Dragons' ears are very acute - so acute that we all were holding our breath when we neared it. We would have made it if Wikker hadn't dropped one of the bejeweled, golden goblets. He dropped it right on the fiend's glistening muzzle ...."
"What happened'?" asked a hushed voice from the crowd.
Aralorn smiled mysteriously and said, "It ate us, of course."
There was a short silence, then a sheepish laugh as they realized that she'd been telling them a tall tale from the beginning. Wolf was close enough to hear Stanis's disgruntled, "That's not how it should have ended. You're supposed to kill the dragon."
Aralorn laughed and ruffled the boy's hair. "There is another ending to the story. I'll tell you it later. Now, though, I think that I hear someone calling us for lunch."
* * *
AFTER LUNCH THE WOLF TOUCHED ARALORN ON THE SHOULDER and motioned for her to follow him. They slipped quietly out of camp and scaled one side of the valley. Once on the top they followed a faint trail through the trees that led to a cliff honeycombed with caves.
Wolf chose one of the dark entrances and lit the way through the tunnels with his staff. Aralorn hadn't noticed that he was carrying the staff while they were walking, but she supposed that it was just part of being a mysterious mage.
"Wolf, these caves would make a much better winter shelter than the tents. Why aren't you using them?"
Wolf motioned her to a small branch and halted her with one hand on her arm. He tilted the staff slightly, until she realized that directly in front of them was a dark hole. "I don't know how far down that one goes, but there are some holes that seem almost bottomless. If there were no children, you might risk it, but it's too difficult to keep them from wandering. We are storing a lot of the supplies in a few caves near the surface, and I drew up a map for Myr of a section that is pretty isolated from the main cave system. If it becomes necessary to move the camp into the caves, we can. But