Sam sat by the tree, the unicorn’s head in his lap, her horn resting against his ribs. “Are you sure I need to pet you to heal my rib?”

“Yes,” Linquala replied, her eyes rolling back in her head. “It won’t work otherwise.”

“Sam…” Faera said, watching the scene askance. “Are you…”

“What?”

“Have you ever…” Faera began to ask, her cheeks flushing.

“He hasn’t!” Linquala said, breathing deep and moaning in a way that an ungenerous person might describe as ‘horse-like’.

“Hasn’t what?” Sam asked, growing perturbed.

“Over five hundred years, and sixteen reincarnations! I’ve never felt anything like it!” Linquala shouted, raising her head to look at Faera. “Don’t stop,” she said, nuzzling into his lap once again. “Sometimes, very rarely, you’ll find someone who died too young in their past life, when they’re twelve or so, just before they reach that age. I always thought that was as good as it could get, but thissss!!”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked. This was starting to sound kind of suspicious. How did she know what generation he was on, anyway? In addition, the unicorn’s drool was beginning to seep through his toga.

“Don’t stop!” the unicorn whined, nudging him harder. That settled it. His rib was already healed--if it hadn’t been, he’d be writhing in agony.

“I’ll stop, unless you tell me what you’re talking about,” Sam said, hovering his hand over the unicorn’s neck.

“Noo…” Linquala moaned, and a single tear rolled from the unicorn’s huge, watering eye.

“Well?” Sam said, immune to her pleading.

“Fiine,” the unicorn whined. “Promise me you won’t stop though. Promise!”

“I promise nothing,” Sam said. “Do you want more pets or not?”

“Yeess…”

Faera ducked behind a tree, her shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter.

“Then tell me,” Sam demanded.

“It’s because you’re pure,” Linquala breathed.

“What?”

“You haven’t consummated.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, fine,” the unicorn said, jabbing his ribs with her horn. “It’s because you haven’t had sex.”

Sam’s brows shot up, but his hand went down. He continued petting the unicorn.

Once again, her eyes rolled back in her head and her massive horse tongue lolled out onto his foot. “I don’t understand…” Linquala said, moaning.

“Purity is a state of mind,” Faera said with a grin as she approached. “Sam, here, spent the last five hundred years and sixteen lifetimes following his programming.”

“My programming resents that statement.”

“That makes no sense,” Linquala said. “I mean, we do like ascetic monks, but this is just…” Her tongue escaped again. The unicorn’s eyes drifted closed and she began to snore.

Faera put her finger over her lips and crept toward the unicorn that was contentedly sawing wood under Sam’s careful ministrations, careful not to make too much noise or send a shadow over her eye. She wetted her finger, then put it in the unicorn’s ear and twisted.

Sam would have thought it terrifically funny, were it not for the horn that nearly gouged out his eye when the unicorn jerked awake.

“What the hell?” Linquala shouted. “Who’s there? What time is it?”

“Linquala, would you be willing to provide assistance? In exchange for pets?”

“In exchange for Sam, perhaps,” Linquala said, lowering her head again.

“Hey,” Sam said, frowning. “I’m not exchangeable. And don’t promise my time for whatever you want.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t pet Linquala to free my people? You agreed to help me already, so, you know, I figured you’d rather pet a unicorn than fight a dragon.”

Sam thought back to the gnashing jaws that had nearly swallowed him whole. “Maybe,” he said, petting Linquala again.

“I’m not fighting a dragon, no matter hooooow... gooood this feeeeels,” Linquala said, stretching her legs straight out as Sam began to itch behind her ears.

“Nothing that hard,” Faera said, kneeling down in front of the unicorn. “Just help us get through the forest, and Sam, here, agrees to give you half an hour of petting.”

“That’s allll?” Linquala whined, curling her legs up.

“I don’t know,” Faera said, cocking her head to the side. “Maybe if you could do more than that, we could negotiate more pets. Can you think of anything?”

“No.”

“Sam, stop petting her.”

Sam lifted his hand away from the unicorn’s velvety fur.

“No, please! Keep petting me!” Linquala tried to rub against Sam on her own, nearly goring him with her horn.

“C’mon, you gotta know something. Give us something to work with!” Faera leaned forward to snarl, playing the bad cop perfectly. Sam struggled to keep a straight face while she roughed up the insensate unicorn, grabbing ahold of her slack cheeks and tugging her around.

After a moment of this, Faera told Sam to get up to leave. When Sam’s legs shifted beneath her, Linquala finally cracked.

“Wait,” Linquala said, pressing down on Sam’s legs to hold him in place. “Wait, I just thought of something. There’s an abandoned military base about five miles from here, straight west. If you got some gear from there, it could make killing your dragon a snap. Keep petting me.”

Sam imagined hitting the dragon with a grenade launcher, rocket launcher, or even a VAMPR. Weapons like that, with the exception of grenades, were kept from the hands of the clones for fear of destruction of the facility. But Sam had the specifications of each weapon and instructions for their use in his head.

Yeah, that could work. Even a simple grenade would probably eviscerate a dragon if he could get it down the monster’s gullet.

Sam put his hand back down, and began scratching behind Linquala’s ear.

“Oh, by all the sacred fires,” Linquala said, her muscles turning to putty.

“I think that’s worth another half hour, don’t you think?” Sam said.

Faera crossed her arms with a frown. “Is there anything we should know about the base? Are its autonomous defenses still active?”

“No,” Linquala said, gasping when Sam began to massage her neck. “They rusted away two hundred years ago, and the radiation is nothing much to speak of anymore. But since the defenses are gone, some Ungrin have infested the place…”

Faera grimaced. “I can see why you didn’t list it as an option, then.”

“Is it something we can’t handle?” Sam asked, glancing up.

“I’ll help!” Linquala shouted. “I’ll help for pets!”

Faera covered her mouth with her hand, but Sam could see the smile in her eyes as she spoke. “Between the three of us, it should be less dangerous, but be prepared for a few minor cuts and stabs. Are S4M units immune to tetanus?”

“’Course, but what are Ungrin?” Sam asked, running his fingers through Linquala’s mane while she thrashed her hooves in the air.

“They’re vicious little bastards, about this tall,” Faera said, leveling her hand at her hip. “They’re small and relatively weak, but jamming sharp sticks into sensitive organs has worked since the dawn of time, so they stick with it. They’re smart enough to make some of their own tools, but mostly they just steal them from others. They breed like rabbits. A tribe can range anywhere from two to two hundred, though they tend to implode in a cannibalistic frenzy when their population gets too big.”

“Sounds pretty dangerous if they have more than six or seven,” Sam said. He knew for a fact he could triumph over a few midgets, but numbers could quickly pose a problem.

“Linquala.” Sam glanced at the drooling unicorn in his lap. “How many Ungrin are there?”

“About thirty,” Linquala said, her eyes closed. “The forest doesn’t have enough food to support more than that.”

“With Linquala’s help, thirty should be doable,” Faera said.

“I need a weapon,” Sam said, eyeing the unicorn. “Something to keep thirty little guys with spears at arm’s length. Something like a really long club.”

“You mean a staff?”

Sam searched his encyclopedic knowledge of weapons and came up dry. “What?”

Faera leaned down and handed Sam her knife, pointing at a young tree that stood exceptionally straight. “That ash there; trim its roots and branches, and you’ll have yourself a staff. It’ll be green wood, but it’ll do.”

“No,” Linquala said with a snort as Sam started to get up. “I’ll make you a staff, just keep petting me.”

“How about some armor, too?” Faera asked.

“Don’t push your luck,” Linquala said. Her horn lit up under Sam’s elbow.

Five feet away from them, a sapling sprang from the soil, growing straight up as though it were being pulled. The leaves were long, thin green tubes reminiscent of pine needles, but far longer and bending slightly upward. The sapling stretched toward the sky, pulsing upward in time with the light from Linquala’s horn.

On impulse and without warning, Sam scratched behind her ear. Linquala shuddered and let out a moan, her horn brightening. The tree added another foot in a fraction of a second, careening off at a rakish angle. That gave Sam an idea.

“Think you could make that into a shepherd’s hook?” Sam asked. “I never got a chance to use my other one.”

Linquala sighed wordlessly and the tree curled at the spot where he’d distracted her. A few minutes later, the leaves and then branches began to wither and fall away. Even the bark sloughed off, leaving a dull, dark brown wood behind. Finally, the crook fell, detaching itself from its roots in front of them.

“Won’t it be a problem if someone grabs the hook and tries to pull it out of your hands?” Faera asked.

“In a situation like that, the stronger person will make the weaker person his bitch,” Sam said, hefting his new weapon as he petted Linquala. The nine-foot crook was heavy, taking a modicum of effort to lift, and fit well in his hand. Sam tossed the crook to Faera.

She staggered, grunting under the weight and almost dropping it. “What the hell is this made of?”

“Bull-oak,” Linquala said, sounding pleased with herself at Faera’s surprise. “A friend of mine gave me some seeds a few hundred years back as part of a bet. Took me a while to figure out, but I finally got the knack of it, as you can see.”

“Damn,” Faera said, hefting it. “This thing has to weigh thirty pounds. At least.” She glanced at Sam and his unicorn. “Alright you guys, let’s get to it. I want that base cleared out before nightfall.”

“I don’t want to stop,” Linquala said petulantly.

“Look at it this way,” Sam said, patting the unicorn’s neck. “You can give yourself time to recover some before the next round.”

Linquala sighed, and lifted her head off Sam’s lap, allowing the blood to flow through his thighs again. He stood and shook the tingles out of his leg, while holding the drool-soaked part of his toga away from his skin.

“Sorry,” Linquala said. Sam had no experience reading the expressions of horses, but the unicorn avoided eye contact as she began to compose herself again.

“No problem,” Sam said, tucking the sopping material aside. “You couldn’t help it.” Faera handed Sam the crook, and he settled it over his shoulder.

“Let’s get going,” Faera said with a motion at Linquala. “Lead the way.”

Linquala nickered and set out at a trot, forcing Sam and Faera to jog to keep up. Low bushes seemed to warp around their path like the image from a fish-eye lens, and they found themselves speeding through the woods as if on level ground. The earth itself pushed against their feet, springing them forward as the trees flew by.