"Woooooooo!"

	The cry of exultation reverberated through the long vertical tunnel,

startling the frogs on the marshy surface.  The flaming tip of a torch 

showed itself over the entrance to the hole, followed by the handle, a hand, 

and finally the person carrying the torch.  "Yeah!" he cried, thrusting a 

triumphant fist into the air.  Mud flew forth from the force of the gesture.  

He began to wipe the grime off of his armor, revealing the bright red metal 

beneath.

	"Shhh!" came a fierce whisper from the hole.  A second figure in 

smudged white robes emerged.  She looked around quickly with a worried 

expression on her face before addressing the man again.  "Are you trying to 

alert every creeping thing in the swamp to our presence?" she fumed.

	"Relax," soothed the man following closely behind her, "there's 

nothing to worry about.  We made it through that cave, didn't we?  What 

could there be up here that's worse than down there?" he asked in a joking 

tone as he straightened the black belt around his pants.

	"For one thing--" she started, but was interrupted by a throaty, 

guttural laugh.

	"Haw!  Lookit here, brothers.  Unprotected humans!"  An ogre emerged 

from the shadows of a forest fifty paces off.

	Sensing what was about to happen, the white mage put a restraining 

hand on the armored man's shoulder.  "Don't."

	He broke free, advancing on the ogre.  It was at least three times 

his size, and equally as thick around.  Its muscles seemed to be crying out 

to reside in an even larger body that could hold them.  

	"Are you saying that I can't take care of myself?" he asked the ogre 

in a tone of barely contained anger, drawing his sword.  "It so happens here 

that I have a sword that's supposed to be particularly effective on your 

kind.  So you might want to bother someone else."

	"That a threat, runt?" the monster retorted.  "Lessee your sword in 

action, eh!"  He turned to the other three ogres who were following the 

first from their hiding places in the dark woods.  "Easy gold, boys!  Meat, 

too!"  The quartet of monsters loomed menacingly over the adventurers, who 

suddenly felt very uneasy.  They grimly went into fighting positions to 

prepare for the battle.

	The first ogre acted with unexpected speed, slamming its huge 

hamfist into the head of the woman in white.  A sickening crunch was heard 

as her skull caved in.  The other three monsters laughed as the fallen mage's 

companions gaped in shock.  Still chuckling, the four ogres moved quickly to 

surround the two men.  The fighter and the martial artist backed up until 

they felt their backs pressing against each other.  Still the ogres moved in 

closer.  

	The red-garbed fighter charged, attempting to issue a battle cry but 

only succeeding in making a choked sob as he slashed into an ogre's flesh.  

The creature's skin was remarkably resistant to the metal, only a thin slice 

showed for the knight's efforts.  The fighter gasped in shock.  He'd been 

assured by the merchant that this sword would cleave an ogre in two at one 

stroke.  

	The ogre laughed again.  "I seen that sword, whelp.  Lotsa meat 

comes through here with that sword saying they can kill us with it.  None 

did it yet."  He grinned toothily and punched the fighter in the chest, 

lifting the human up into the air and against a tree.  The fighter coughed, 

blood dribbling from his mouth.  

	"Heal potion...," he requested weakly.  The other man rifled quickly 

through their pack to find one of the vials.  After going through the whole 

bag, he answered.

	 "There aren't any," he called dully.  And their healer was dead.  

The karate man watched as the ogre finished smashing the fighter to a pulp.  

He was on his own now.

	No, he suddenly remembered.  Not quite on his own.  Dodging the blows 

of the four ogres, he made his way toward the hole that they'd emerged from.  

He bent down wildly and cried into the open maw of the cave.  "HEY!  GET UP 

HERE!  HEL--"  He got no further before he was picked up by the neck and 

killed with a simple twist.

	The ogres guffawed over how easy their kills had been.  The leader 

stooped over the bag that the black belted-man had gone through.  He pawed 

through it clumsily and smiled when he discovered the gold inside.  He began 

to shovel it into his pockets, but was interrupted by a loud bang.  He 

turned to see the head of one of his cohorts' heads on fire.  The ogre was 

making horrible bellowing screams and clutching at his head in futile 

attempts to smother the blaze.  The leader quickly decided that discretion 

would be the better part of valor, and quickly fled after scooping up one 

last handful of gold.

	Timidly, cautiously, a hand showed itself over the edge of the hole.  

Another hand popped up, and the two pulled themselves up to the top.  A 

head appeared under a large straw hat, then the body clad in blue-black 

robes.  Hands, head, and torso belonged to a mage, a student of the black 

arts.  One who found himself to be in undreamt-of horror as he gazed around 

the clearing at his three dead friends.  



				The Oddsmaker

				by Nich Maragos



	This couldn't be happening.  He rushed over to check the fighter's 

face, covered in blood.  Praying that he'd find something, he put his ear to 

the man's heart and listened.  Nothing at all.  He repeated the process on 

the man in the light blue shirt, then, hoping against hope, pressed a shaking 

head to the woman in the stained white robes.

	Nothing.  He sat there for a long time, wondering what to do.  He 

himself was unarmed, didn't even know how to use a weapon.  Every time he 

tried, he cut himself rather badly.  He glanced at the girl again.  And he 

certainly couldn't afford that, not with their healer dead.  His ability to 

defend himself was just as pitiful.  When the four fought together, he would 

usually stay in the back and cast spells from a safe distance while the 

two brawny men bore the brunt of the attacks.  Now, the real warriors were 

dead.  And he was drained of his magical power.  He was so tired that he 

couldn't even cast a first-level fire spell.  He'd used up all of his power 

on the enemies inside the cave, never thinking that he'd be in a situation 

like this.

	What was there to do?  He couldn't fight off enemies.  He wasn't 

athletic enough to run away from a fight, though if he stayed he'd most 

certainly be killed.  And above all, he couldn't stay where he was.  Night 

was falling, and he was far from the nearest village.  If he was near a 

village, it would be simple.  All he'd have to do would be to bring the 

bodies to the town's shaman, and they could be revived.  But...he looked out 

into the forest, through which nothing was visible...it was a long journey 

back.  

	A necessary journey, though.  There was nothing other to do but 

stay here and die, and that wasn't an option.  He looked around.  There was, 

however, still the problem of the bodies.  As good as the shaman was, he 

couldn't raise the dead when the dead weren't present to be raised.  He 

sat on a log and stared at the bodies, trying to make himself think of a 

solution.  None came.  In frustration, he rose to his feet and began to 

pace.  The leaves crunched rhythmically under his feet as he walked around 

the corpses, who were by now beginning to emit a faint odor.  

	Then, there was a distinct snap.

	He froze.  The snapping continued.  Frightened, he dropped to his 

stomach and crawled to the log, hiding in its shadow.  The snapping grew 

louder and louder, then stopped.  A shadow fell over the already dim 

clearing.  It was large, and it was thick.  His eyes widened and he held his 

breath, silently pleading that the creature go away without discovering him.  

At last, the snapping sounds resumed in the other direction.  He stayed in 

his position, not daring to move until he heard no trace of the interloper.  

When he got back up, he resolved to try to walk a little more quietly.

	He looked back at where the noise had come from.  Whatever it was, 

it had disappeared into the forest without a trace.  But there...hanging 

from a tree in his direct line of sight, was a long slender vine.  

Cautiously, quietly, he moved toward the edge of the clearing.  He pulled at 

the vine to dislodge it from the tree.  He tugged harder, his feeble strength 

not being enough to pull it free easily.  It ripped from its base suddenly, 

causing him to fall on his back into a pile of leaves.  He got up and 

grumbled as he walked back to the clearing.  

	Flies were descending on the bodies.  Horrified, he ran forward and 

waved his hand around, shooing them.  It was a losing battle; if he drove 

flies from a perch on one spot of a corpse, they'd simply alight on another.  

And if they were made to fly from there, they'd go back to their original 

position.  He tried to hold back frustrated tears, realized there was no one 

to see him, then let go.  

	How could he ever have deluded himself into thinking he could do 

this?  Was he really going to be so naive as to think he wouldn't meet with 

any resistance while getting them back to Elfland?  The ravages of time were 

already showing, first in the smell and now the flies.  Soon they would 

begin to really decompose.  And if he met up with wolves...he might have to 

run to save himself.  To run, he'd have to leave them behind.  And the wolves 

might...

	He stopped the thought there, unable to admit to himself the likely 

outcome of the journey.  Forcing the thought out of his mind, he dried his 

eyes and started to put his plan into motion.

	The vine was slender, but its resilience while he pulled it told him 

that it would make a good substitute for a rope.  Deciding that tying it 

around their necks would be too gruesome and possibly damaging, he looped 

the ropes around their bodies under their arms.  When all of them were tied 

together, he gave a tentative tug.  The three bodies moved in unison across 

the forest floor.  As the moon rose, he began to drag them toward town.  

Toward shelter.



	He'd never noticed how illuminating the moonlight could be.  At 

first he feared that he would need a torch to see his way around the forest, 

which he didn't have, but that proved to be a false assumption.  The whole 

forest was bathed in a dim light that showed objects in detail, yet was soft 

enough as to eliminate the need to squint when looking at the sky.  It was 

pretty, he reflected.  Probably be a lot prettier if he weren't dragging the 

corpses of his three best friends behind him, a gruesome nagging voice told 

him.  He did his best to keep walking and just ignore it.

	There was a rustling sound to his left and he tensed.  A flock of 

bats burst from the close clumps of the woods, some five feet over his head.  

He started again on his way, laughing internally at himself that he should 

be scared of bats.  He stopped laughing.

	A larger rumbling sound was coming from the direction of the bats.  

It grew louder until it became a full-fledged growl.  He froze again and 

looked slowly over his left shoulder.  A dark moving patch emerged from 

between the trees.  A ray of moonlight illuminated sinewy patches of dark 

grey fur.

	The wolves had arrived.

	He ducked just in time as the first lunged at him.  A second one 

came snarling out of the woods immediately after.  Both seemed to sense his 

fear and helplessness, and took their time circling around him.  He looked 

at one, then the other, then tried to keep both in his field of vision at 

once.  As the wolves moved around him slowly but steadily, one reached down 

its head to take a bite out of the fighter.  

	He shouted and turned toward the wolf, jumping at it.  The 

opportuning wolf moved back slightly, but the one now behind the mage took 

the opportunity to press the attack.  He realized this just in time and 

jumped to the side.  The two wolves collided in midair.  

	It had been a while since he'd cast that last fire spell just before 

exiting the cave, and he was ready for more.  He spoke the words of the 

spell, causing a small fireball to appear in his cupped palm.  He made a 

throwing motion and the ball sped toward its target, growing larger and 

larger in midflight until it became a great sphere of white heat.  The 

globe connected with the wolf's fur with a hissing noise quickly followed 

by frantic yelping as the fire spread over the wolf's hide.  The wolf's 

pathetic cries echoed into the night as it ran from the site of the attack, 

followed closely by the other wolf.

	The mage slid to his knees, exhausted.  He let out a long sigh and 

fell forward on his face into sleep.



	Fortunately, the mage was not a snorer.  No other creatures that 

night noticed his presence, which meant his sleep went unmolested until the 

morning.  He woke up as sunlight streamed through the tree branches onto 

his face.  Shading his eyes from the glare, he stumbled to his feet.  The 

corpses were still there, amazingly enough.  He picked up his vine and 

put it over his shoulder again.  He was on the outskirts of the wood, but 

there was still a large stretch of plains to cross before he'd reach the 

town.  

	The load felt so heavy on his shoulder.  He let it drop for a second 

and pulled his robe partially off to check.  Sure enough, there was a long 

red mark where the "rope" had been rubbing against his clothes.  Putting the 

vine over his other shoulder, he started his walk again.  He took five 

steps, and then the load got very light.  Relief flooded through him for 

about one tenth of a second before he realized that something was wrong.  

He looked behind him to see that the vine had snapped in two.  Apparently 

it wasn't as resilient as he'd thought.  He walked back to the lashed-

together bodies to assess the damage.

	It had broken at the base of where the long section meant for 

pulling met the knot that tied the bodies together.  He took the purse that 

held the gold from the lady in white, then tore off the purse's strap.  

Muttering all the while, he tied the two broken sections together.  After 

he'd taken up the "reins" again, he took a test pull on the line.  It was 

once again secure.  

	All day long he walked the plains.  There was less danger here, 

because it was nigh impossible to be ambushed.  The monsters around Elfland 

were cowardly and preferred to attack from behind, but on the open land there 

was no real "behind."  He could roam as long and as wide as he wanted to.  

Once or twice he saw faint shapes on the horizon, but disregarded them as 

insignificant.

	Finally, triumphantly, he arrived at the gates of the city.  People 

stopped what they were doing and gaped at him as he walked through the 

streets carrying his grisly load.  Boys ran the other way at the sight of 

him, and a few people did double takes.  Everybody, without exception, 

held their nose.  He stopped for a moment to smell the air and found to his 

surprise that it did indeed smell rather pungent.  He'd been traveling with 

the corpses so long that he'd gotten used to them.  He shrugged and kept 

going.  He had come so far, and he was almost there...

	A group of policemen approached him.  He stood there warily as they 

began to question him.  They said a lot of silly things about disturbing the 

peace and being a public nuisance.  He tried to explain his situation as 

best he could, but when asked to produce his proof that he was on a mission 

from the king, he found that it was missing.  Finally, they agreed to let 

him go if he promised to go straight to the shaman and not cause any more 

trouble.  He grew angry and wanted to ask them if they thought he was trying 

to cause trouble, but decided against it.  It would only keep him from the 

shaman's anyway.  He walked down the street, to the shaman's office at the 

dead end.  He pushed the door open with one hand and dragged the bodies in 

with the other.

	The shaman's eyes grew wide at the sight of him and his cargo.  

"By the crystals...," he murmured.  "What happened?"  The mage shook his 

head, indicating weariness, and asked the shaman if anything could be done.  

"Yeah," replied the shaman.  "But it gonna cost you some money, you see now?  

I can't be working for free.  Overheard and everything.  You got some money?"

	The mage closed his eyes resignedly.  He knew that the ogres had 

stolen every last cent from their purse.  He shook his head quietly to the 

shaman.

	"Sorry, man," the shaman said as he rose from his seat, "and I wish 

I could help, but I don't work for free, you see."  He went into the back 

room without another word.  The mage looked at the floor, down at his 

fallen comrades.  He wanted to apologize to them, tell them how hard he'd 

tried and how much he'd been through.  He wanted to tell them it wasn't his 

fault.  But the words, if spoken, would fall on dead ears.  

	And suddenly he was angry.  He wouldn't be cheated out of an 

opportunity to apologize.  If it was the last thing he did, he would speak 

to his friends one more and justify his actions.  Deliberately and 

purposefully he rose from his seat in the shaman's office and left; walking, 

then running, and lastly sprinting through the streets of the city like a 

man possessed.



	He cursed his earlier good fortune.  There were, of course, hardly 

any monsters or bandits out here on the open plains.  The good side was that 

he wouldn't be attacked.  The bad side was that he'd be hard-pressed to find 

something to defeat so that he could have money to pay the shaman.  He 

looked around in frustration.  Surely there would be something...

	Off in the distance he spotted two or three vague dots coming his 

way.  His heart leapt as his legs carried him off in their direction.  All 

he had to do was get their money, and then this whole ordeal would be over.  

He got closer to the small band, which wasn't as small as he originally 

thought.  Now that he was closer, he could see that there were at least 

five in the group.  He hoped it wasn't ogres, but he didn't have much choice 

in what he could attack.  

	Now they noticed him and began to run his way, as he was running 

toward them.  He counted seven of them, seven short creatures with coarse 

leather hats and cloaks.  Each carried a short, curved dagger at their side, 

which several of them were in the process of unsheathing.  Seven imps.  He 

hoped he'd be up to it.

	The first one came.  The mage let fly a feeble kick at the imp's 

stomach, which nonetheless managed to catch it off-guard.  It fell to the 

ground with a surprised squeak.  He kicked it twice more for good measure.  

This was easy.

	Two approached him at once.  He let a fire spell fly at one, and 

felt a large drain of power.  As he sluggishly defended himself against the 

second, he made a mental note not to use any more magic for this battle.  He 

finally managed to get the second one unconscious, by which time the 

remaining four all charged in at once.

	He picked up a dagger from one of the fallen imps so he wouldn't have 

to fight bare-handed.  The imps laughed and stepped back lightly as he 

swung the weapon around him in a clumsy circle.  He felt a sharp pain on his 

back from one of the creatures using their weapon more efficiently.  Angered, 

he turned and lunged at the imp who'd wounded him, his dagger finding its 

mark in the thing's belly.  He turned on the remaining three imps, slashing 

wildly at them.  The blows were still badly formed, but still powerful as 

well as fast, and each of the imps was soon brought down.  

	He opened the pouches each of the imps carried with them, crying out 

with joy as he loaded his own pockets with the money.  He'd done it.  Against 

all odds, he'd survived the forest, lived through the night, and even fought 

off a whole band of imps.  All without benefit of healing potions or spells, 

or indeed any help at all.  For the first time since leaving on the quest, 

he felt as if he belonged with the rest of his team.  These thoughts filled 

his brain and escorted him back to the town, to pay the shaman, revive his 

teammates, and tell the tale.