<strong>Thane</strong><br/><br/>The crone smiled slightly, then broadly.  "You will need only two.  More would simply get in the way, and more would likely be impossible to conceal and sow panic in yourranks besides.  Your miners will need strong nerve to work with even one at a time."  She raised a hand, the younger woman stepped to her side at once.  "This one will accompany you back to your camp.  I will take it poorly if she is harmed in any way.  But you will need her to bind and control the beasts, and such  beasts will do grave damage if released too soon."  Her eyes dropped to a scattering of what looked like twigs on a low stone table.  "There is one among the defenders, a key leader in their defense.  You will need her alive."  She paused, and her smile became much less pleasant.  "Alive, but not unharmed.  And there are hints, strong hints, that you already know of the officer about whom I speak."<br/><br/>The cadence of her speech, her use of words all told him this was an educated woman and hardly a common woods-witch.<br/><br/>"I am an old woman, and I tire easily.  The child will attend me, and I rest much better when left alone.  Your God favors you, Thane.  But be careful, the Gods may touch and twist the lives of individual men, but their vision of survivable harm can be a mite extreme, let us say."<br/><br/>And she left for a back room.  No puff of smoke, no blurring and vanishing image, just the rather mundane sight of an old woman settling in for a mid day nap.