PREVIOUSLY in Chasing Gnomes... [in the voice of Terence the barbarian]

The boss lady had big money problems, and she said I couldn't just kill everyone to solve things. Instead, we had to steal a ring called Hexapussy or something from a bloke called Bass. We rescued some tiny people with big magic and I got to hit bad men. Boss lady fell in a fire but she seems okay.

Then, the tiny people took us on a tiny train so we could find the Bass man. If I'm lucky, I can fight some more, and the boss lady will be happy.

AND NOW, in Chasing Gnomes...


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There's one key rule to surviving as a female mercenary leader; never go into a fight blind. Oh, and make sure you trust your team, always get paid up front - at least half - and never trust other mercenary groups. Never show fear, even when it's eating your guts like a mutated tape worm with its arse on fire... And never put your codpiece on backwards.

Okay, so there are lots of rules, but the main one is definitely the thing about not going into a fight blind.

"Uh gots ta tell ye, lass, uh dunne like that we're headin' inta this blind," said Harry, his words whipping back to me from the carriage in front despite there being no discernible air to carry them.

We plunged from a cloud into a rainbow, the gnome train conveying us smoothly through a maelstrom of pastilles and blur - at least, that's the impression I had. There's no way to reliably describe a place with no light, sound or motion, but where you can hear everything, see where you are inside your head, and feel as though you're flying faster than a hawk with chronic wind.

Somewhere, Lindon was screaming.

I opened my mouth to respond to Harry - yes, we were going in blind. Yes, it was the stupidest idea since Benchmark inherited a bakery and tried to market 'edible armour.' Yes, it was mightily annoying that he felt the need to point out the obvious. Yes-

We burst into reality, my lungs inflating suddenly, agony ripping through my chest like heartburn with intent, and I realised wherever we'd been did not, in fact, include such facilities as 'air.' I felt solid ground press onto the undersides of my feet. The sounds of insects filled my ears, a heady aroma of pine and ... poo, I think, assaulted my nostrils, and blinding light flooded my vision.

Toot toot, went the gnome train while I blinked and tried to stand from the squatting position I'd been holding on the mini carriage. I fumbled to draw my weapons, a small pit of panic bouncing around in my stomach while my back and side screamed at me and lingering burns on my neck and bum cheeks smarted with nauseating pulses of pain.

"What the?" said a voice from somewhere up ahead. "Dirt's balls! Who invited the silver-haired midget, and whose toy train is that?" Bass, I'd have known that voice anywhere. Gnome words floated in my consciousness.

We wait. You deal.

The light was fading from my eyes, affording me blurry vision. We'd been deposited in a forest clearing, near to a campfire. Horses were tethered to trees at one edge, next to bags piled in a heap with guards sleeping around them. At the other side of the clearing (downwind, thankfully - these guys were experienced camp crafters), the same Bass brother I'd fought previously was squatting over a ditch, leather trousers round his ankles. He was staring at the semi-translucent gnome train with something akin to resignation in his eyes, and one arm was braced behind and down, mid-wipe.

Guards sleep. We ensure.

Bass matched gazes with me as I hobbled towards him with weapons poised and the others behind me. He didn't move a muscle. "We meet again, little lady, or should I call you Enigma?"

I almost stopped for applause. "Yes! You definitely should. And this time, I have you at a disadvantage. You know why..." I stopped, sighing. "Are you just going to squat there with your hand up your cleft while we talk?"

"Well, I don't know." He smiled slightly, that familiar glint in his eye, and I had to admire the man's confidence. "I'm guessing my guards aren't going to wake up any time soon." He glanced at the gnome train again, parked at the edge of the clearing. "I suppose your gnome friends are seeing to that. I'd like to be more shocked for you, but this is only the second or third weirdest thing that's happened today."

"Give us Hexapussy," said Lindon from behind me. "Or I'll turn whatever leaf you're wiping with into a stinging nettle." He drew in an audible breath. "I'm just about capable of that, you know."

"Good luck," said Bass. "I haven't felt anything back there for years. Daddy's punishments were ... inventive."

Harry stomped his feet - there's no mistaking the sound of dwarven toe caps. "Can uh jus' brain this little pissant, Roz? Uh canny listen te anymoor o' this shite."

"Bad choice of words, my friend," I said quietly. There was something I didn't like about Bass' smile.

"I don't have her," said the crime boss, shrugging with one arm. "The powers that be have taken possession. My only role now is as a decoy." He indicated the gnome train. "You know they had something too, right, until it was confiscated? The Dragon Dance isn't easy. There are several pieces to the puzzle."

I closed my eyes momentarily to block out the confusion. What was his play? When I opened them again, his smile had gone, and the friendly glint was made of steel. I made a show of squeezing my hands on the grips of my dirks. "It doesn't matter what you say. I need to be sure. Now, are you going to finish up and let us tie you to a tree, or do I have to-"

Bass flung his engaged hand forward, hurling a terrifying missile at my face. I threw myself to the side at the same time as he rolled, yanking his leggings up as he moved. Behind me, I heard Lindon screaming again as a wet slapping noise echoed round the clearing.

I stumbled to my feet, pain spearing through the burns on my neck and posterior, and fire flaring in the wound in my side. I was not in a good state to be fighting. Bass launched towards me, sword sliding into his hand, and between one breath and the next, we were toe to toe, him stabbing. I crossed both dirks to block his strike and angle his blade down, leaning in to headbutt him, but he swayed back and disengaged.

He danced from one foot to the other briefly, glancing behind me at the others. A sensible foe would surrender or run, but this guy was about as stable as a rusty bridge with a god complex. He wasn't about to surrender. I moved forward - time to end this. As my front foot started to take my weight, he dropped and twisted, spinning and flicking out a leg, crashing it into mine. My world went topsy turvy, feet flying up and shoulders crunching into the floor. As my ol' dad would have put it, I went arse over tit in the dust.

For a few moments, the world went into slow motion. I looked up to see a demonic grin, a rictus of hopeless insanity, framed by a halo of firelight. Above it, two hands clasped the hilt of a sword overhead, and they were already starting to swing down. Bass had me - I'd gone in blind, unprepared to fight, and sealed Enigma's fate forever. To put it another way, I was boned.

That was when something magical happened. From the side of my vision, a sheet of glinting metal hove into view, blocking the moon's glow, heading towards the vision of my death. I had a moment to admire just how literally barbarians took the term 'broadsword' and even enough time to wonder what was going through Bass's mind right now.

Then the world snapped back into full speed.

Metal rent flesh and bone with a vomit-inducing schink. Bass's sword danced away through the air, firelight glinting in startling flashes as it twirled, his hands still clinging to the hilt, leaving twin ribbons of blood in their wake. He dropped to his knees beside me, staring in disbelief at the spurting stumps where his hands used to be. I rolled away before he thought of stabbing me in the eye with a wrist bone ... Wait a minute, that means I just thought of that.

An eerie howl swept through the clearing and it took me a moment to realise it was coming from Bass. He was there, on his knees, tapping his stumps together as globules of dribble escaped his bottom lip, mingling with the blood mess below. He look up, straight at me, and burst into agonised laughter, coughing, spluttering and giggling.

There was an unpleasant sensation pressing down on my diaphragm - I think it might have been sympathy. Still holding Bass's gaze, I quietly said, "Terence."

With that word and an economical swing, the Broadsword of Bashing came down, cleaving Bass' head in two from above.

*****

A search of the clearing netted absolutely nothing. Whatever Bass might have meant by 'the powers that be,' he was right that Hexapussy was gone. I asked the gnomes what their torturers had been after, and only got the response that it was a priceless gnome artefact, now lost. We checked the sleeping guards had enough rations for a few days (we're not monsters) and, at the urging of the silver-haired gnome queen, perched ourselves once more on the tiny train.

With a puff and a lurching of the stomach, we were on our way home.

And this time, I remembered to take a deep breath first.