[h1]Northern Macahroix[/h1]

	In the Region of Cherbourg in the northern valleys was a fire. The morning sun was rising high up over the mountain peaks, painting the sky in purples and pinks. Orange citrus burned through the long cloud-ropes as they burned to life in trim of gold. In the fire light, the hunched visage of a beast - much resembling a dog - with thick gnarled hands and heavy cracked knuckles leaned over a frying pan, onions sauteing in a thick pool of melted butter. The dog beast wore a cap of leather, and a heavy vest of beaten linen and wool. With long curled claws he held a wooden spoon, stirring the onions so they do not burn. Their aromatic sweetness filled the still morning air, so quiet that the sound of their sizzling rumbled like a thunder storm rolling through the valley. A peaceful stream flowed nearby, and a knight stood at its banks with sword at his hip as he urinated into the flowing stream, his long slick black hair shining in the growing light as it fell about his shoulders and back. Across from the dog beast, a pale orange Equestrian sat on his haunches, polishing with the curious dexterity that his race often seemed to possess the knight's sword braced against a raised foreleg. His blonde mane soft and dim in the morning air.

	Finishing, the knight washed his hands in the running water of the stream and returned to the fire, tightening his belt around his hips and squatting down as the dog-beast finished stirring the onions. With a grunt the creature signaled the onions were done and produced a loaf of bread. The knight, withdrawing a knife from a strap along his chest cut into the bread as the pan was laid to rest in the sand and gravel of the river bank. The slices of bread were handed out, and the party dipped each their slice into the onion and butter broth and took breakfast from it, unspeaking as they did so.

	The knight, seated there had his face shone in the firelight, sharp and piercing. He had a strong jaw, a handsome and striking chin which grew a trim and well groomed goatee about his thin lips and clefted chin. Even without light his eyes seemed to grow under thin low eyebrows. His skin was tanned, a man from the southern coasts. He had wandered north as all young scions tend to do in search of adventure in departments and diocese far from their own home to chase some adventure and occasionally flee from local parlements if they attracted the wrong kind of attention. Or nearly declare war on other kingdoms in their own boldness and causing great consternation among the realms. They thought of themselves as poets and troubadours, artists with the sword and the lance and dancers with their fingers and their tongues. In their boredom they all left their gardens in their budding youths before their manhood blossomed and they returned to familiar soil to bloom and take roots among the vineyards and orchards of their family estates.

	Thought it may be that this knight was at this point of his life too old for this now. He had never entirely grown comfortable with the halls of his family estate. At home, his father brooded over how his son had inherited the old family spirit from the dark days of the past. Had they not settled for generations as minders of the land? Why then would their son take off like a pirate, and worse taking it on almost as a profession?

	The bread was finished, and the pan scrubbed down with sand. The sun not was over the horizon and the sky becoming blue and pleasant. The mountains shining with the quicksilver of day, bathed in mist and wind blown snow as the world was heated under the golden sun. And with its rising, the day's mission was on. The camp was rolled up, bags packed, and clay thrown on the fire to douse the embers and the party of three went on up the waters, following a thin track barely visible in the ferns and bushes that hugged the river bank. The branches of great oaks hung over the stream, thick and black, their leaves rustling softly in the breeze and casting down emerald light as their lips shone with shimmering dew. Birches and beeches stood in stands among twisting bushes of mistletoe and poison berry. In the shadows red, blue, and pale-orange mushrooms grew as somewhere off in the near distance something lay dead and rotting.

	They walked for some short amount of time, the path swerving suddenly between some rocks to the east and up the bank away from the stream. They followed it. Leaving the flood plane of the small stream the forest began to open up. Clear of where winter floods would have swept to cleanse the banks was where the tallest trees grew, their canopies hiding from the floor their sunlight, which was now bare save for leaves and a few enduring shrubs. From here the path seemed to disappear among the leaf litter. But here and there up the gentle slope of the hill hints of it could be seen in upturned soil. The group followed it to its end, where it came to a soggy mossy hole in the side of the hill. Roots from over head trees raced down along the rocks, revealing the cave that lay there, its floor beaded with mud and sand and conspicuously clean of debris.

	“I wonder if they will be home again today.” the knight said, striding forward, clutching the pummel of his sword. He stood confidently before the cave, wearing a thin smile.

	“We are not going to stake it out again for another day, are we?” asked the Equinite, annoyed.

	“Yes we are, Goldenblood.” said the knight, addressing his equine companion, “A thief lives here. I'm not just walking back with the goods. I have justice here to serve.”

	Goldenblood rolled his eyes. The dog-beast made no comment, and in fact began to shuffle off along the hill side. This rose no alarm in the knight, who knew it was only to the previously agreed upon and posted site to watch and wait, provide backup if need be. He took the extra sword from the Equinite as he went, it looked as though it were a butter knife in his large clawed hands, and the knight went into the darkness of the cave.

	In the damp of the cave the air hung with a moist mildew smell. It smelled of decay, of roots, and wet earth. The air hung still, which made hearing in the distance the repressed snap of dying embers all the clearer. The knight knew that here there was no stealth, and he walked openly with his hand on his sword as he went, letting rocks slide under his boots as he went. Any possible sound he might make would echo to the ends of the cave and back out like a horn, and it was not that deep a cavern. At the far end the chamber was lit by a dull red glow, the ashes of a small fire glowing softly against wet rocks as the earth around the cave salivated and sweated. Lit faintly against the wall, like a shadow play the shapes of looted trinkets and garbage sat pressed against the walls. Villages' worth of looted baubles set aside for some unknown use. Here the form of a wine press, there a butter churn, and perhaps a few small tin plates and bells; who knew.

	There was in the corner the knight knew a small alcove between a bolder and the wall that he could sit in darkness. There he would go and wait. He took his sword off his hip as he did, and planting the tip in the dirt he sat on moist stone with hands wrapped over the cross-guard and waited. He waited for some time, not counting the time. He knew he had to be patient, and he knew how to be that patient. He strung in his mind a incoherent sort of song, a melody of fantasy and memory that went in all directions at once to distract him from the slow fade in darkness. This would be just like sneaking out of the wine cellar well after dark, with a peasant girl in tow. Except this time: it would not be him. He felt his chest ache with the memory of love's first adventure. Though it was hardly love, it was raw passion. He was growing into the first spark of youth, no longer a boy but not quiet a man and he had discovered an impressionable young peasant girl a few years older than he but with as little experience all the same. She had, he thought at the time, great breasts; but now in his matured years he knew they were nothing but poorly risen loaves of bread. There was in the world much warmer, tender cakes to be had.

	While he day dreamed for some time he was bolted awake from his meditation by a sound, far sooner than he would have hoped, but in reality after a good long while. He opened his eyes to find that in the dim light they had adjusted to the darkness and the walls were hung with a silk screen of light blue light from outside, and coming into the cave an indiscernible shape was lumbering through. He watched its shadow on the wall as it drew closer. Taking shape as it came in close, familiar. He could not make out the details of the being as it approached the place of the fire and bent over it. It fumbled something in its paws, not quiet sure of how the work them as it tried to bring something to light. He could hear it curse, whatever it was, in a dry foreign voice. With punchy movements, the shade finally lit a spark, and something in the pit came to light. Eagerly the subject put more fuel on the fire, building it up over time until it breathed itself to life and threw up embers against the high rock ceiling. And the creature became clear.

	Body naked, there was the dog-beast that was the knight's servant. Not at all bothered, the knight deftly wrapped his hand around the hilt of the sword and rising it in the air cracked it down on the stone floor of the cave like the foot of the staff. The muted crack of the metal tip of the sheath bounced off the rock and was enough to draw the attention of the dog-beast who turned and shrieked in surprised horror at the human rising in the corner of its cave. “Mr. Wolf.” the knight said, rising to his full height, “I thought you were on watch.”

	The dog-beast, the Mr. Wolf only starred at him through wide eyes as the knight walked between him and the exit of the cave. Was it the light, or a magic in the creature's eyes that cast a faint blue from the back of the sharp pupils?

	He, Mr. Wolf staggered for a minute, stuttering and trying to find a voice. The knight found this particularly funny, which made the creature only stutter some more before it flew itself on the ground in prostration and began crying before pleading in a high howling voice, much like a puppy, “I sorry, master. I very sorry!”

	The knight threw out a dismissive hand, “How many times have I told you, you are to address me by rank and title! Rodri, the Comte-Prince D'Aquiea!”

	“Yes, yes: der Aquiea! Der Aquiea!” bellowed Mr Wolf, rising to his feet. “You still forgive me though, yes?” he said, nervously.

	“Yes, this time.” Rodri D'Aquiea said, seeming to relax some in the light. He took a moment to scan the cave, half-heartedly looking at the various goods. All of which stolen from farms, and appearing as such. Here a hoe, there a scythe, a rocking chair, a sheep's carcass. To a man such as himself: garbage.

	“Then- then we can leave?” Mr Wolf said.

	Rodri did not quiet move. Even as Mr Wolf shambled forward. He even stepped in his way, blocking him.

	“Do you perhaps remember the name of the judge diocese for our county? I seem to have trouble remembering it. He was such a good friend of my father's: and I'm looking around here for a gift for him. Do you perhaps know the name I can address it to?”

	To this question, which should have been known to Mr Wolf: there was no answer. He stepped backward, variously and nervously rubbing his sides, his leg. Looking left and right, anything to avoid eye-contact as he thought. Rodri told himself he could hear his heart racing in his chest. And perhaps in the silence of that chamber he could. Intuition guided his hands as he clasped the sword and scabbard and prepared to draw. The two's eyes finally met and Rodri said, smiling, “I know you can't play my good and faithful friend. He is not as dumb as you. Stop acting, changeling and draw.”

	The changeling's transformed face turned up in a snarl at him. So it could no longer escape, and he must prepare to fight. “Mein pleasure!” he declared and lunged. No more was he pretending to move as the sand dog outside, but as a bear or mountain lion would throw itself, using all the strength this animal form could allow to throw him at Rodri. The knight, swift on his feat stepped aside and took the changeling from beneath its arms and moved with his momentum to throw it back into the cave, where it crashed into a pile of garbage and loot. A clattering storm filled the cave as the weight of the body brought down a landslide of assorted light furniture, chests, pots, and pans. With his sword drawn known, the knight threw aside the scabbard and stood at the ready, blade pointed outward from his beside his hip.

	“Come! Turn into something with hands and strike me with whatever you have!” he shouted, laughing. The excitement of the battle that had begun throwing up fast into hysterical joy.

	He watched the pile move as things were pushed out of the way. Emerging from the pile was his own form, naked but hermaphroditic. It held in its hands the handle to some destroyed tool it had pulled out while freeing itself. The changeling threw itself forward, making short chaotic thrusts with the broken handle, looking for nothing more than a way out of the cave. Something Rodri was not willing to give. He parried every thrust from the old pole, before finally cutting it in two with an easy turn of the blade. His opponent's weapon broken he opened his arms, “You can not seriously be done!” he taunted, “Lay into me!”

	“Stop your teasing.” hissed the changeling, his voice quickly taking on something more of Rodri's tone and accent. Raising one of the pieces over his head he threw it at the night who simply stepped out of its way. The second half followed and he caught it. “Fetch!” Rodri cheered, throwing it back at his naked double. It caught it between the eyes and he fell backward with a dull “oof” and landed on his back, blood stream down his face.

	But, he rose. Staggering to his feet, he found an ax and made another charge. The counter parry Rodri delivered cut clean as though through cheese and what fell to the ground was not a pair of hands holding an ax, but a set of black chitinous hooves followed by the ax. The changeling stumbled forward, screaming in its own language. The trauma disrupting the magic it held itself together with until it was nothing but a struggling and shocked bug-like creature. Its piercing blue eyes wide in pain as it looked down at its own sheered front legs.

	The battle ended, Rodri stepped towards it and rose his sword high over its head, and brought it down, decapitating it. It let out a final pleading scream as the blade came down. Perhaps it was the final fear, or an effort to deliver a last condemnation. Rodri did not quiet care. It was in the end another killing, and so often did it end in this way.

[hr]

	Rodri stepped out into the light of day again. A blood soaked bag in one hand and in the other slung under his shoulder a small box in another. His sword was back in its scabbard, and it was again around his hip. He whistled as he came out, satisfied and his mind at peace having finished the fight. His companions came over in a rush. “That took the two of you long enough!” Goldenblood protested.

	“Well, I lived, and the stolen goods are ours.” Rodri said, cracking a smile. He looked over at Mr Wolf, the real one, who stood looking at the head in the bag.

	“He pretended to be you.” Rodri said to him.

	“Was it at the least a good actor?” Mr Wolf said, in a low rumbling voice.

	“Not at all.” Rodri said proudly, handing over the bag, “I think we should take this with us at the least. We can at least say we've gotten the stolen property back as well as caught the thief. Going the extra mile will be a few extra coin for us.”

	The sand dog took the bag, grimacing disgustedly at it as he did. “What else was there?”

	“An entire village's worth of property. We'll let them know.” Rodri said, dusting the side of his pants now he was free of the bag. Waving a hand high in the air he called his companions on to follow them. The birds sung peaceably in the air, as though nothing had transpired. On their way down Rodri asked, “By the way, did you see him- it enter the cave?”

	“No. We watched a rabbit go in. I suppose it was the rabbit.” Mr Wolf said, gravely.