A scream shattered the stillness. It was a high, helpless sound. Someone was cornered, crying out in mortal terror.

I halted Dreadnought. I listened. The woods were filled with ghost echoes. Then a damnable stillness settled.

Dreadnought huffed. His satiny back twitched.

A rustling came in the trailside trees. With it came another terrified scream.

A woman, I thought… a beautiful, helpless lady trapped in some old ruined tower… beset on all sides by blackguards… the stuff of dreams.

"Ho, Dreadnought," I called. The great stallion was already galloping toward the sound.

When I saw the woman at the tree, I thought of Shaleen. Her hair was the auburn of an autumn evening. Her teeth had the gleam of pearls. She was armoured in well-worn field plate.

And, like Shaleen, she was anything but helpless.

Ignoring me, the woman grabbed a tree in front of her and shook it. Another scream came from above.

I looked up, and saw a scaly kobold clinging there.

"You can't have your money back!" the puny creature shouted. It shook its lizard like head and angrily jangled a coin purse.

I stepped down from Dreadnought. I walked toward the woman. "Unless that purse holds a fortune in gold, you'd best let him go, Shaleen."

She cast a silent reproof my way, and shook the tree again.

In apology, I took out my battle-axe and began chopping the trunk. It shuddered with each blow and started to lean. I wiped sweat from my face and chopped again. Only when the tree crackled and fell did I look up toward the kobold.

It was gone. While I had chopped, the woman had used a snip of jerky to coax the thief down. Now, woman and monster sat side by side like old friends, eating meat and watching me sweat

I laughed and joined them.

She had lured a kobold and a man.