Alliances

Chapter 4

Kerian awoke in pain. Her arms were tightly bound behind her, and she lay on her side in a noisome, rickety cart. The cart had barred sides and a wooden roof and was traveling along a heavily rutted road. Every bump caused her head to throb unmercifully.

Since her capture, she had been beaten and starved. The ogre-goblin gang she’d found in the forest had sold her to a large party of humans. The going rate for a female elf was twenty-five steel. The goblins sold her for only ten. Despite beatings from the ogre, she had managed to kill another goblin and assault all the rest. She had become a liability they were only too eager to be rid of.

The human slavers didn’t question the low price; they assumed they were putting one over on the ignorant goblins. That feeling did not last. She was put in chains immediately. The instant one of the humans passed too close as the small group of slaves trudged along, Kerian cold-cocked him with a length of chain. Rather than beat her, the humans simply stopped feeding her. For three days she received no crust of bread, no drop of water. Nor would her fellow slaves share their meager rations. The penalty for helping a prisoner evade punishment was the loss of a finger, a toe, or an eye. The other captives were all Qualinesti. Floggings and starvation they could endure, but mutilation filled them with dread.

The human slavers sold her to a large band of mercenaries escorting several hundred captive elves to the slave market they called Samustal. During the exchange, she slipped her bonds and tried to run. Starvation and dehydration were her undoing. Recaptured, she was given over to the “trouble” cart. Its half-ogre driver beat her, tied her hand and foot, and flung her in a cage with other recalcitrant prisoners.

Hungry, thirsty, and in pain, she was in no way cowed.

“Someone’s going to pay,” she groaned as soon as she regained consciousness.

“Tell it to the driver,” said a deep, gloomy voice. “Orkosham are such good listeners.”

She hauled herself upright. Crowded into the wooden cage with her were three male elves and one dwarf. All were bound as she was. The dwarf had spoken.

“What did you call him?”

“Orkosham. Ogre-men. That’s what the goblins call them. Mercenary captains like them because they’re stronger than humans and work for less pay.”

She rested her forehead on her knees, willing her abused skull not to split in two. Something touched her bare foot and she looked up. One of the elves had pushed a covered bucket to her. Using his teeth, he lifted the cover by its rope handle, set it aside, then took the curved end of the metal dipper in his mouth. As he held it steady, she drank tepid water from the cup on the other end.

When she was done, the elf covered the bucket again and pushed it to one side. Kerian thanked him. Grimly, he replied, “Don’t be grateful. It’s no mercy to live like this.”

His sympathetic expression was reflected on the faces of the others. Even the dour dwarf was regarding her with pity.

“Who are you?” she said.

“We were free. Now we are slaves,” the elf answered. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. “I can smell the slave market already.”

She too could smell it. They were approaching from the east, and the wind carried the odors of wood smoke, open privies, and unwashed bodies. Kerian put her face to the wooden bars and peered ahead.

Like most Qualinesti towns, Bianost had been built to be, as much as possible, a natural part of the forest. With characteristic finesse, the elves shaped the living trees into homes and shops, and natural clearings were planted with the flowers and fruit trees for which the town became famous. Bianost apples and figs were renowned throughout Ansalon, and the honey collected from enormous hives on the perimeter of the orchards made the most potent mead in a thousand miles.

The floral glory of Bianost was gone. In its place squatted Samustal, a fetid settlement named for Captain Samuval and ruled by Lord Olin Man-Daleth.

Dusk had come, made darker still by the pall of smoke overhead. Fed by several large bonfires and thinner columns rising from innumerable cook fires and street torches, the wood smoke acted like a shield, holding in the odors of rotting garbage, open latrines, and hordes of unwashed inhabitants. The structures lovingly shaped from living trees by generations of Qualinesti were twisted and gnarled, bark black and peeling. A stockade of dressed timbers encircled the heart of the town. Outside that twelve-foot fence was a patchwork assortment of tents, huts, and lean-tos. The invaders had felled many trees to construct additional structures, but the new buildings showed signs of hasty workmanship: timbers poorly joined, walls leaning, roofs canted.

The cart was passing through the outer edges of the shanty town ringing Samustal. If she was going to do something, Kerian knew she must try it now, before they entered the stockade.

“We have to get out of here,” she said in a low voice.

“Wonderful idea,” the dwarf snorted. “We’ve fared so well thus far.”

“If we all work together—”

“We’ll all die together. Listen to me, woman. I tried to fight back. All I got for my troubles was a cracked skull, a broken rib, and a dead brother.” His face twisted. “It’s hopeless.”

Pointedly, he turned his back on her. She looked to the three elves. They avoided her gaze.

“Listen to me! It’s not hopeless!”

Kerian had been working at the ropes that bound her wrists and finally had succeeded in loosening them. Lying on her back, she drew her legs up and worked her wrists under her hips until they were in front of her. Her small success did not impress her fellow captives.

Fine. She would do it herself. Decades ago she had been forced into servitude by Qualinesti elves who thought they were improving the lot of a barbaric Kagonesti. No matter how benign the intentions or how kind the master, slavery was slavery, and the Lioness would not go quietly to such a fate.

She began to yell, kicking the wall of the cart behind the driver’s seat with both feet. The cart abruptly halted. A goblin came to the side of the cage, yelling at the prisoners to be still. She heaped insults on him until the goblin foolishly shoved his spear through the bars at her. She took hold of the shaft with both hands and jerked. The goblin’s face hit the wooden bars, and Kerian was on him instantly. She encircled his neck with her bound wrists, dropped to the floor, and planted her feet against his back. Pulling with her arms and pushing with her feet, she snapped his neck.

Kerian recovered the goblin’s spear. The sharp head made quick work of the ropes tying the cage door closed. In seconds she was out the door and sprinting for the horse yoked to the cart. Despite their earlier lack of enthusiasm, her fellow captives scrambled out of the cage after her and took off in all directions.

Shouts rose, but Kerian wasted no time looking back. She cut the horse’s tether with the spearhead and thumped heels against the animal’s sides. It sprang forward—

—and immediately went down. She tried to jump free but her weakened body finally had had too much. She fell heavily on her side. The horse was struggling, neighing shrilly, and Kerian saw a fine cord wrapping its rear fetlocks. Each end of the cord was finished by a wooden ball larger than her fist.

Three goblins arrived and aimed their swords at her throat. Behind them came the half-ogre. It had thrown the odd weapon, which whipped around the horse’s legs, bringing it down.

Turning its attentions to Kerian, the creature gave her a back-handed slap that split her cheek and blackened her eye. “No more trouble,” the half-ogre commanded.

She was hauled to her feet, arms tied behind her back, this time at both wrists and elbows. Her ankles were hobbled with rawhide cord, allowing just enough movement so she could shuffle along. On the ground nearby lay the body of one elf, killed trying to escape; the other two had succeeded in getting away. The dwarf, slower than the Qualinesti, had been recaptured.

Two goblins carried Kerian back to the cage and tossed her inside. The door was secured, and soon they were rumbling on their way again. Panting and furious, Kerian cursed her failure, fully expecting her glum companion to join her. He did not. Instead, impressed by her deeds, the dwarf asked, “Who are you, woman?”

She glared at him through one good eye and one beginning to swell shut. “A free elf,” she snapped. “And I will be no one’s slave!”

She closed her eyes, rested her throbbing head on the filthy floor, and pondered her next move.

The dwarf regarded her in silence, a thoughtful expression on his face.

The captives were taken to a large cage outside the former town hall of Bianost. It was one of many similar cages sprawled in the city square, adjacent to the auction block. Before being tossed inside, Kerian and the dwarf were registered with the auction master, a rail-thin human with a hairless dome of a head and a pewter patch over his left eye. His displeasure at having his dinner delayed by the half-ogre’s late arrival was lessened by the sight of Kerian. Young female elves were becoming harder and harder to find. Appreciation gleamed in his good eye.

True to her word, Kerian did not go tamely into captivity. She fought the goblins who carried her, kicking one in the stomach and the other in the face. The half-ogre did not intervene. The creature seemed pleased by her spirit, laughing uproariously with every hurt she inflicted on the frustrated goblins.

A dozen unfortunates were crowded into the holding cage, a low-ceilinged wooden box only fifteen feet on a side. The furious goblins didn’t bother untying Kerian. She was simply dumped unceremoniously into the muck on the cage floor. The dwarf was shoved in after her and the door closed and barred.

“Why do you keep fighting them?” he asked. “What does it get you?”

“Satisfaction.” She twitched her bound arms. “Can you get me out of these?”

He obliged, working patiently on the tough knots. She kept twisting and turning, studying their prison. “Hold still,” the dwarf grumbled.

When she was free of the cords, she jumped up and prowled around the holding box, minutely examining the walls, ceiling, and floor.

“What are you looking for?” one of the other prisoners asked.

“A way out.”

“There isn’t any.”

“There’s always a way out. The trick is finding it.”

The elf didn’t bother responding, but the dwarf asked mildly, “Do you really believe that?”

She looked over one shoulder at him. “I do.”

Kerian moved her arms, carefully working out the stiffness. “I’ve been captured before. All that’s required for escape is persistence.” A faint smile touched her bruised face. “And a little luck.”

The elves scoffed at her bold words. They were local farmers, traders, and fishers, thoroughly intimidated by the slavers.

The dwarf related Kerian’s escape attempt on the road into Samustal, how she had dispatched the goblin guard and allowed two of their fellow prisoners to get away. None of the elves commented, but his words affected them. When Kerian began to question them for useful information, they answered readily enough. They also shared the last of their bread and water.

The only guards they had seen were goblins and humans, who periodically brought additional captives or took some away. Kerian was pleased to hear the half-ogres didn’t come there. Once a day the door opened and food and water was put inside by one guard while two others kept swords leveled at the captives. The next such delivery should occur within the hour, welcome news to Kerian’s nearly empty stomach.

She put the time to good use. Without revealing her identity, she worked to energize the dispirited captives. Her resolve, her commitment to finding a way out, as well as the dwarf’s own account of her previous success, began to rouse them from their passivity. By the time the guards returned, Kerian’s plan was in place.

A thump on the door and a shouted command to move back heralded the guards’ arrival.

The dwarf yelled, “I think she’s dead! You killed the elf woman!”

A bearded human face appeared in the small window. Kerian lay on the floor just inside the door, her arms bound (very loosely) behind her.

“A trick,” scoffed the human.

“I’m telling you, she’s dead. She keeled over a few minutes ago. I don’t think she’s eaten in weeks.”

The human was unconvinced but wavering. The dwarf added, “Fine. I don’t care. But when Olin learns you let valuable property die…” Thick shoulders rose in a shrug.

The human conferred with his compatriots outside. He still wasn’t completely convinced, but a female elf, however bad-tempered, was the most saleable item of a sad lot. Lord Olin would be furious at the waste.

“The rest of you, get back from the door,” he ordered.

The captives complied, shuffling as far back as the tight confines allowed. The door opened slowly. Two guards held swords leveled at the captives. The third advanced cautiously. He took hold of Kerian’s arm and hauled her out the door. Eye closed, head lolling, she allowed herself to be dragged like a sack across the rough planking. When she cleared the door, it slammed shut again.

The captives heard a muttered exchange, the tromp o booted feet on the cobblestones, then silence. They exchanged outraged looks.

“She lied to us!” hissed one. “She got herself out and left us here!”

In their preoccupation with the female prisoner, the guards had forgotten to leave food and water. The elves cursed the lack cursed their own stupidity for believing the lies, and cursed the dwarf for making them believe.

“What are you waiting for?”

Thirteen pairs of eyes went wide at the sight of the Lioness’s face in the small window. In moments the captives were out of the wooden box, staring in astonishment at two human guards lying unconscious (or dead?) in the shadowed lee of the cage. Kerian’s face bore several new cuts, and a gash on one arm bled freely, but she held a bloody sword in one hand and a ring of keys in the other.

“How—?” the dwarf began.

She shoved the keys at him, saying, “Let’s go!”

A dozen sets of keen ears allowed them to avoid detection as they wound their way around the crowded cages. Their greatest challenge was keeping excited prisoners quiet as they skulked by. Few guards were to be seen, which worried Kerian, but the lack was soon explained.

Several trestle tables had been set up near the center of the square, and the guards were enjoying a raucous meal. Fortunately, most had their backs to the row of cages. The prisoners were generally so docile, the guards had grown contemptuous and did not watch them closely.

Kerian, acting as lookout, signaled the others when it was clear for them to skirt the opening between the cage rows. Singly or in pairs, all twelve elves made their way across the naked gap, leaving Kerian and the dwarf to bring up the rear.

They found themselves in a back street littered with refuse. Still, the open air was a balm to those choked by the stench of too many goblins and humans in close proximity.

“Now what?” asked one of the elves, and the others looked to Kerian for an answer.

She itched to find an armory. But she had no idea where to go, and anyway, her band of fugitives was not made up of stalwart soldiers, so she shrugged. “We run. Quietly and carefully, we run.”

To their left, the narrow street connected with a larger avenue, better lit and, hence, not appealing. To the right, the street dead-ended at a gate. Coming from that direction was the smell of horses. A mounted escape posed its own problems, but the added speed and mobility made up for those, Kerian decided.

With the sword-wielding Lioness in the lead, the little group made for the gate.

It wasn’t long before she began to regret her decision. Two members of her little band, a pair of brothers who made their living fishing, confessed they could not ride. She told them to double up with others, but the brothers were afraid of horses, and none of the rest wanted a passenger anyway, not with Lord Olin’s cavalry likely to be on their heels. The escapees fell to arguing in loud whispers.

They were hiding behind a pile of garbage just outside the corral. Every moment they delayed brought closer the time when their absence would be discovered and a search launched. Yet all Kerian’s exhortations wouldn’t move the elves one step closer to the corral. Furious, she told the brothers to make it out of town on foot.

The corral was unguarded but for a couple of stable boys. One had just returned with their supper and they had gone into the tack shed to eat.

Crouched low, the elves entered the corral. Kerian had told them what to do. They would mount quietly. Each rider would lie low on his horse’s neck as Kerian opened the gate, then the animals would be whipped to a gallop. Riding in a body, they stood a good chance of making it to the stockade before anyone could stop them. At the stockade they’d have to trample anyone trying to bar the way. It wasn’t much of a plan, but considering what she had to work with, Kerian knew it would have to do.

They’d barely begun to mount the horses when shouts rose from a nearby street. Kerian froze, listening, and it quickly became apparent they’d been missed at last.

“Go!” she hissed. She boosted the last elf atop a horse, and rushed to the gate.

The noise in the streets had drawn the stable boys from the shed. Both stood on the other side of the gate, beer tankards in hand, their backs to Kerian. Noiselessly, she lifted the latch then headed back to the rear. Drawing a deep breath, she shouted, at the same time slapping horses’ flanks. The riders twined their fingers through the animals’ manes, and the herd surged forward. Kerian grabbed a passing horse and swung herself aboard. The lead animals hit the unlatched gate. It sprang open. The stable boys dove clear, and they were away.

Lying low on her horse’s neck, Kerian guided it left, away from the town square. Her mount was a young mare. It moved to the front of the herd, and the other animals followed. Responding to the pressure of Kerian’s legs and feet, the mare veered farther left, into the street leading down the hill to the stockade gate.

Kerian heard a scream. One of the elves had lost his balance and fallen amid the pounding hooves. There was nothing to be done for him. The horses thundered on.

The escaping elves were poor riders, and riding bareback at a gallop took its toll. Three more fell off and were trampled.

By then mounted mercenaries had appeared from the side streets. They rode alongside the escapees, twirling loops of rope. Expertly thrown, the lines dropped around the necks of the galloping horses, pulling them up short. More and more ropes were thrown, and the whirl of horses dissolved into a neighing mass of confusion.

Kerian slid from the mare’s back, landing in a crouch amid churning hooves. She spied the dwarf among the fallen riders and hauled him to his feet. If they could make it to the other side of the street, they might be able to vanish into the maze of dingy houses.

Something hit her leg, knocking her to the ground. She twisted around, but couldn’t free herself. The dwarf had fallen across her leg. Two arrows protruded from his back. A third pierced his neck. He was dead and she didn’t even know his name.

Hands dragged her roughly to her feet. The horses had been led away, clearing the street. Out of fourteen escaped prisoners, only Kerian and four other elves still lived. None of the others had made it to freedom. The five survivors were bound and hauled back to face Lord Olin.

The former residence of Bianost’s mayor stood opposite the town hall. Bonfires blazed on its stone steps. The number of guards in evidence made it obvious Olin Man-Daleth had taken the mansion for his own. The sandstone façade was streaked with soot, and the elegantly tall windows were crudely bricked up, leaving only narrow openings through which archers could shoot. The ornamental bronze doors were nearly concealed behind a head-high breastwork of timbers and sandbags. The entrance was guarded by no fewer than fifteen armed bandits.

Lord Olin stood on the stone steps as the recaptured prisoners were brought before him. Tall, with iron-gray hair, Olin wore full armor and a heavy dark cape to disguise his thinness. Narrow, close-set eyes and a nose crooked from having been broken and inexpertly set gave him a sinister look. The news of the escape had interrupted his dinner, putting him in a foul mood. Despite his perpetual thinness, he had a hearty appetite, and food was one of the great pleasures of his life. Those responsible for disrupting his meal would know his wrath.

He glared at the bound elves kneeling at the bottom of the stairs. The female he ignored, concentrating his attention on the four males.

“How did you get out?” he demanded.

When no answers were forthcoming, a goblin struck one of the captives, knocking the elf onto his face. Olin repeated the question.

The elves exchanged frightened looks but still said nothing. The goblin lifted its sword, ready to take the head of a random prisoner, but Olin stayed its hand. His face was very red. He stomped down the steps, halting on the last one.

“Rebellion will not be allowed!” he shouted. “I will know who your ringleaders are and deal with them!”

He gestured at two of the elves. “Bring them to the tower. Return the rest to the cages.” He swept up the stairs.

The captives were bullied and buffeted across the square toward the town hall. There they were separated, with Kerian and two elves returned to the holding cage, and the two elves chosen by Lord Olin forced into the long stairwell that led up the town hail tower.

Kerian asked her fellow captives what was in the tower. Neither would answer. They huddled in the far corner of the cage, their misery all the greater for their brief taste of freedom. Soon the three of them heard screams.

When the first echoed through the air, Kerian rushed to the door. Standing on tiptoe, she peered out the small window. Outside were three guards.

“What’s happening, savages?” she demanded.

Two guards ignored her. The third, younger than the others, ambled over, regarding her with open interest.

Another scream ripped through the air, the sound of a soul in terrible torment. Kerian pounded a fist against the door.

The young guard smiled. “Lord Olin wants to know who to blame for the escape. In the tower questions are answered quickly or not at all.”

“Leave them alone! Tell him it was me!”

“I’ll be sure to do that.” Laughing, the bandit moved away. Nothing she said mattered. None of the guards believed her.

Only the young one would even speak to her, and then only to make obscene suggestions. The distant screams continued intermittently.

Some time later, a sharp rap on the cell door jolted her awake. She didn’t know how long she’d dozed, but the young guard’s laughter brought her quickly to her feet.

“It appears you weren’t lying. They both admitted you planned the whole thing.” He shook his head, grinning appreciatively. “You’re a firebrand.”

“What has happened to them?”

“Oh, they’re dead. Believe me, they’re lucky. For you, it won’t be so quick.” She did not ask what he meant, but he volunteered the information anyway. “You’re to be executed, as a warning to other would-be rebels. Day after tomorrow.” He walked away.

Sick with guilt and helpless fury, Kerian slid to the floor.