"Oi, Zelgadiss! What do you think you're doing?"

Zelgadiss was rudely awakened to a blow to the head. "Nani?!" He struggled to a sitting position and rubbed his head gingerly. "Why?"

Lina narrowed her eyes as she stared down at him. "You think you can take advantage of me in my sleep? You have another thing coming!" Her voice came out in a growl.

Zelgadiss gasped at her with wide eyes. "Take advantage of you? What the hell are you talking about? I never did-"

Lina scowled and replied accusingly. "Don't play innocent with me! I awoke to find you with your arms around me, Zel!"

Zelgadiss muttered under his breath about how he knew this would happen sooner or later. "I went to sleep and never tried anything, Lina Inverse!" He growled back at her, a blush slightly covering his face. "Don't flatter yourself!"

Lina sighed in relief, but then snapped her head up at him and took immediate offense to the last words that fell from his mouth. "Don't flatter myself? What are you saying? I'm not pretty; that I'm just what Gourry says I am...underdeveloped little girl?" She rose to her knees and stared Zelgadiss down, as he was sitting lower than her. "Is that what you are saying?"

Zelgadiss cringed and shook his head desperately. "I didn't say it." He certainly didn't think that was true. Underdeveloped? No, just not as developed as some women. Then he stopped the thought process right there. "Lina, why are we arguing?"

Lina sat back, huffing. "I don't know; I'm sorry Zelgadiss, I know you are a trustworthy person. I'm sorry."

Zelgadiss sighed. "It's okay, why don't...we..." Suddenly his words fell dead as he noticed a band of rugged men numbering about fifteen, in desert garb, faces covered. They were over hundred yards away, but he could clearly see that they were armed with swords and rifles, and Ceiphied knew what else. They rode leisurely upon sturdy horses, which moved through the harsh terrain of the foot of the mountains with ease and precision, but the foremost man dismounted and led his horse forward, in the direction of the two foreigners.

Lina watched Zelgadiss' features tense as his gaze turned from her to something from behind. "Zelgadiss...what?"

Zelgadiss pulled Lina down to the ground with him and half-dragged her along to a large group of boulders. 'Damn,' he thought. 'I believe we've been noticed, and somehow I don't think it's a welcoming party..."

Lina moved very close to Zelgadiss as they waited breathlessly for the men to arrive. She whispered frantically in his ear. "Zelgadiss, who do you think they are? They don't look like they've come to greet us..."

Zelgadiss nodded and whispered back. "It seems like they might be a group of raiders or even guards of the province we are nearing. Whoever they are, they can't have known of our presence until now. No, wait, the campfire." He mentally slapped himself for missing something so obvious. The chimera wrapped his arms tightly around the young woman, vowing that the men wouldn't lay a finger on her.

"Zel, what do we do? We don't have our strength back, we can't use magic and all we can rely on is the hope they will pass us by without notice." She murmured and began to panic. "If they are superior swordsmen...we won't have a chance. I wish Gourry were here."

He shushed her. "Be quiet, they might have seen us, but then again, they may not..." Yes it would be handy if the swordsman were with them now.

They waited, barely breathing, for the long, stifling minutes to crawl by. Lina's mind was burning and she felt she would pass out from the stress. This wasn't fair, she never liked to back out of a situation before she knew what it was. Zelgadiss pricked his sensitive ears up at the sound of the approaching men. There language was foreign to his ears. But they way they were talking seemed to be casual, he hoped. Then perhaps they had a chance to avoid a confrontation after all.

If Zelgadiss could have understood them, he would have heard something along the line of this:

"Emir, you saw the tracks, they are not made by human feet. They are too deep, not even a heavy-set man could have made those."

"We can not make hasty assumptions." Emir, a man in his late thirties with slightly graying hair and beard, eyes like dark pools, and tough, weather beaten darkly tanned flesh, dismounted and bent to the sandy earth, examining the deep imprints once more.

"Strange indeed, but he might have been carrying something of great weight."

"Remember what Mundhir raved on about seeing before sunrise? A stone creature?"

Emir laughed. "Mundhir is never sober."

The second man replied. "He was last night..."

Emir suddenly stopped. "Akil, did you see something move up ahead just now?"

Akil paused then shook his head.

Emir focused his keen eyes once more on the rocky range ahead and thought he saw movement between an area of boulders, but it could have been the heat, obstructing the view. "I believe we may have found the trespasser; now let us see if he be man or beast...make not a sound." Emir unsheathed his sickle sword, which glistened blindingly in the dazzling morning sunlight and moved ahead, leaving his horse behind. The other men dismounted and drew their own weapons.

By now, Zelgadiss had unsheathed his own sword and covered his face with mask and hood. He crouched ready to attack, if anything of a negative nature should arise from an encounter with these persons. Lina's hand strayed to the hilt of her own small sword, breathing lightly. The increasing heat was making her dizzy and beads of sweat came trickling down her face and back of her neck until she felt like she was swimming in her skin. Zelgadiss was hardly in a better circumstance, he felt like shedding his stone skin. The heat was so much more concentrated on the boulders that surrounded them.

Then the men came. Zelgadiss saw the first, Emir nearing them, as he kept watch through a space in between the boulders. Noticing his sword was drawn, put Zelgadiss on his guard. He turned and whispered in Lina's ear. "No matter what they do to me, I won't let them near you." He kissed her quickly on the cheek.

Lina didn't have time to react.

Several things happened at once. As Emir came around the bend in the trail and took notice of not one but two persons crouched beside the boulders, the first, hooded and masked, sprang up and swept out his sword and stood before him, eyes glinting. Emir held his own sword before him and the sound of loading riffles came from behind as the other men took the defensive. They stood, stalemate, for what seemed like the longest time. Then as Emir analyzed his opponent; he let out a gasp. Blue skin, strange indeed, but the hair? What was that? Silvery-purple and wiry?

"Bu-ReBB! Hayca! (Good God, Monster)" The man breathed. This was a monster; he didn't need to see beneath the mask and hood to realize it.

Zelgadiss jerked his head, and the hood fell back. He didn't have to know their language to guess what the man had said. So knowing this, he pulled down his facemask and advanced, taking their startled faces as an advantage.

Akil crossed his heart in fear. "Ya settar! (Oh Protector!)" He stepped back a few feet and proceeded to load his rifle. Then he wondered, if the monster was stone, these weapons would do any good at all.

Lina moved to the side of Zelgadiss, with her own weapon drawn and struck one of her confident poses. "Listen up, fellows, you leave us alone, and we'll let you come out of this alive!"

Zelgadiss face-faulted and glared at Lina. "We can't understand a word they say, so what makes you think they understand us?"

The instant Zelgadiss dropped his guard, the men advanced in a heartbeat, and before the two could blink, they were surrounded, rifles aimed directly at their heads.

Lina glowered at her chimera friend. "Some protector you are!"

Zelgadiss gritted his teeth in frustration. "You distracted me!"

Emir barked out an order, and the man nearest to the sorceress, pushed her down on her face and searched her for hidden weapons, knee in her back. Lina was burning with anger but didn't dare move a muscle in fear of having her head blown off her shoulders. She very well would have Dragu Slaved their sorry asses if she could only cast her magic. Damn it all!

Zelgadiss reacted badly to this and moved to punch the man's face in, when he received a hard slam in the back with the weapon of another. And yet another blow to his head came swiftly.

Everything else afterward happened as if in slow motion. Zelgadiss saw the man called Emir raise a distraught Lina to her feet and bind her hands behind her as she fought in vain to struggle free. Emir shouted over to another comrade of his, who took the furious girl and dragged her away from him. Red haze filled his vision and he closed his eyes painfully. Lina crying out his name in a strangled voice, was the last thing he heard. His final, fading thought was in contemplation of how he was unable to recover from the first blow. Was he going soft? Literally? He should have...been able to...take it.

Darkness washed through his mind, and he knew no more.

Night settled in around the small party. A lively campfire was burning and men's low voices could be heard, discussing the day's events. Lina was seated a ways off from them, back to the fire, hands tied and mouth gagged. She was seething inside. Zelgadiss; they'd brutally attacked him, and then when he couldn't rise to defend himself, they'd kicked him cruelly in his unconscious state and continued to beat him until they were sure he wouldn't rise again. All this, because they saw what he was and assumed he was something from the depths of a nightmare. Hot tears ran down her cheeks and she began to choke as she tried to keep from crying too loudly.

She felt a rough hand take her by the left arm and pull her up to a sitting position. It was the leader of the men, Emir. He regarded her silently with his coal black eyes and removed the gag. Lina gulped in air, shaking. She looked away from him and bit her lip.

The man nudged her and offered her some dried meat and date-bread. Lina felt her stomach growl and in spite of her refusal to eat the enemy's food, after a few minutes she succumbed to her hunger. Emir smiled and fed her, for he refused to unbind her hands. And he was correct in refusing, because Lina would have tried to escape. The sorceress wondered about that smile he'd given her, was it a taunting smile, one of pity, or something else altogether? She couldn't tell. But in spite of the situation, she felt, now that things had settled down considerably, she could trust him enough to know he wouldn't harm her if she behaved.

The others though, she didn't feel to secure about them; not at all. Especially since they seemed to be talking quietly about her at that precise moment.

Akil was polishing his sword in the glow of the fire. "I think she's a witch, to be traveling with a demon creature..."

Another man nodded. "Yes, I think it's possible. Perhaps she is a demon herself, but in disguise. Look at her, eyes as red as hell's fire and hair to match!"

Akil looked over to Emir, fear glazing over his eyes. "Perhaps she's already cast a curse upon us? What if she's controlling my master even now? He's been attending to her every need all afternoon."

This comment received hearty laughter from the rest of the party, all but one. Mundhir remained silent and watched the redhead young woman carefully. "There is something about her, that is certain. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something different about her." He raised a camel-skin flask of fermented date beverage to his lips and drank long.

The laughter died down and soon the small camp was altogether quiet. They all considered Mundhir to be overly superstitious, but after what they'd seen earlier that morning, his comment had gripped their hearts in a swiftly growing unease. Now thoughts began to fill their heads that the demon they'd beaten was alive yet and would pursue and kill them in revenge.