In the middle of the sylvan glen, Lily knelt in line with the rest of the prisoners. The young female was tall for a pixie, nearly seven inches tall, with the usual slender body, long graceful arms and legs, and small, but perky bust. Her light pink hair was cut in a short, but thick scraggly mass, ringing her round, freckle dappled face. At her back was a pair of beautiful wings, long and narrow, like a dragonflies’. Today, along with the rest of the pixies of the forest, she’d traded her usual dress of flower petals for the tree-bark armor and an acorn cap helmet.

For as long as any of the faeries of the forest could remember, a whole two summers ago, the pixies of the trees had been bitter enemies with the gnomes of the forest floor. So when word came that a large war parties of the short, squat fey, dressed for battle in their crimson, conical helmets, had been sited making camp above ground in the glen, the word had gone out, calling the pixies to war.

Earlier that morning, they had launched their attack, dropping suddenly out of the cover of the tree branches, thorn spears and mistletoe wands in hand. As in previous battles, the pixies advantages over their enemies were their wings and their magic, allowing them to fly overhead, throwing down spells to entrance or bewitch or befuddle their enemies before descending on isolated pockets to overwhelm them, taking to the skies again when their foes rallied. The gnomes could only cluster tight, to avoid being picked off, throwing spidersilk nets and lassos hoping to snare an unwary pixie and drag her down out of the sky.

But while the pixies had wings and magic, the gnomes had always been the cleverest of the forest denizens, natural tinkerers, toiling away in their underground tunnels. And this time, they had devised something new. When Lily and her fellow squadron of pixies had dived in for their attack, dodging the usual nets and lassos, the gnomes had suddenly unveiled something new.

It was an odd contraption, at the back was a large set of bellows, worked by half a dozen stout gnomes. The air they pumped ran through several straws to a nozzle, lifted and aimed by two more gnomes. As the pixies swooped in, putting some gnomes to sleep and enchanting others to think they were frogs or squirrels or the like, the nozzle was aimed ahead of them and the other given. Out of it spurted a spray of sticky tree sap, splattering across the leading pixies. With their delicate wings suddenly weighed down, they could no longer fly and tumbled, helplessly, to the ground.

The sneak attack was devastating. In the first pass, nearly a dozen pixies were knocked from the sky. Lily and the rest turned and launched another attack, hoping to give their stricken friends a chance to recover and escape, but the machine sprayed again, knocking still more from the ground. Lily was among them.

Those pixies who could then turned and fled, rising higher into the air, out of range of the awful sap-thrower. But for those already hit, there was no chance of escape. Before Lily could pick herself up from the ground where she’d tumbled, a pair of burly gnomes were already on her, grabbing the slight pixie in their strong grasp and dragging her over to kneel in line with the rest of the pixies taken prisoner.

After a few more minutes had passed, it was apparent the rest of the pixies had admitted defeat and gone home. Lily and the rest hung their heads as around them, the gnomes cheered their victory. She wondered what they would do with her and the others. In previous battles, the pixies had always let their beaten foes go, after playing all manner of tricks on them of course. But from the looks the gnomes were giving her and the other captives, she didn’t think they intended to let them go anytime soon.

“Have to find some way to escape.” She thought, some cheer returning at this thought. It was almost like a game. The gnomes had already taken her thorn dagger, but she still had her magic and once she’d gotten off this sap, she’d be able to fly again.

She was distracted from her plans by activity to one side, down along the line of captives. Several gnomes were going down the line, doing something with the helpless pixies. A second later, a large gnome stepped in front of Lily. He regarded her with a cruel look. At the same time, another came behind her, grabbing hold of her hands. She felt him start to wrap thread around her wrists, binding her hands.

Meanwhile, the first held something up in front of her. It was a ring of dull, black, open on one side, hinged on the other. For a second, Lily wondered what it could possibly be. Then, as he slipped the collar around her neck, she felt an uncomfortable prickle run through her skin at the first contact, followed by a wave of disorientation that washed over her. It was a collar of cold iron!

Cold iron was the bane of all the fairies of the forest. It sapped her strength and made any sort of magic impossible. Having less then other races, the Gnomes weren’t as affected by the stuff as other fey. But while they could smith in copper and gold and other metals, they’d never had the knowledge of forging cold iron. Only the humans who lived beyond the forest did and when a lost traveler brought some here the fairies were always careful to dispose of it. Had the gnomes figured it out for themselves? Or worse, had they gotten some through trade with the humans?

Instantly, Lily realized what it meant for her. With a collar of cold iron around her neck, she’d never be able to cast magic, and once she and the other captives were taken underground to the gnome’s kingdom, their wings would be useless in the narrow tunnels. Escape had just gone from a fun game to an impossibility.

Once the collar was locked on tight, the gnomes dragged Lily to her feet. The pixie stumbled on swaying legs. Though she worst of the initial effects of the cold iron had passed, it still left her weak. She wondered if she would ever get used to it. Ignoring her plight, the gnome in front of her drew a short copper dagger. It made short work of her tree bark corselet and skirt. The broken pieces fell to the forest floor around her feet, leaving the pixie’s slender body completely bared.

Satisfied with their handiwork, the gnomes moved on to the next frightened pixie girl, binding her hands, collaring and stripping her naked. Another set then came by, dragging a large spool of thread. It was run through a ring set in each collar, tethering the pixies into a long coffle. When the last of the prisoners had been prepared, the gnomes barked orders. Helpless, the pixies could only trudge after their captors, heads hung low in misery. At the edge of the glen lay a large stump. Inside it’s hollow was the mouth of a tunnel, guarded by more armored gnomes.

“Listen well, pixies!” One of them called, as the line of captives shuffled past. “You are now slaves of the gnome king! Serve him well and he may grant you your freedom one day. Resist and you will never see the sun again!” As she was dragged down into the tunnels, Lily sobbed, cursing the ring of cold iron around her neck that had reduced her from a proud pixie to a slave of the gnomes...