Under Guard
"Cadderly." The word came from a great distance, from beyond the edge of the young scholar's consciousness. "Cadderly," it came again, more insistent.
Cadderly strained to open his eyes. He recognized the voice, and he recognized the caring eyes he found himself looking into, rich brown and exotic. Still, it took him a while to remember the woman's name.
"Danica?"
"I feared you would never awaken," Danica replied. "The bruise on your lower neck is wicked indeed." Cadderly didn't doubt that; even the slightest shift of his head hurt him.
He gradually came back to consciousness. He and she were in a tent of animal skins, Cadderly's hands tightly bound behind his back and Danica's behind hers. Danica sat with Cadderly's head and shoulders gently propped on her lap. No guards were in sight, but Cadderly heard the guttural grunts of orcs and orogs outside, and that noise inevitably led him to recall the battle, and the last desperate act in which he had blasted the ogre's shoulder.
"They did not kill us?" he asked, confused. He wriggled his hands about and could feel that he still wore his feathered ring.
Danica shook her head. "They were under orders not to, I must assume strict orders," she replied. "The orc that struck you was punished by the orogs for hitting you so hard. They all feared you would die."
Cadderly considered the news for a moment, but found no solution to this puzzle. "Elbereth?" he asked, panic obvious in his voice.
Danica looked beyond the young scholar, to the back of the skin tent. With some effort, Cadderly managed to shift around for a glance as well. Elbereth, the elf prince, seemed far removed from royalty at that moment. Dirty and bloodstained, he sat with his head down, his arms tied to his knees, with one eye bruised so badly that it would not open.
He sensed the stares and looked up.
"I caused our capture," he admitted, his choked voice barely more than a whisper. "It was I they sought, an elf prince to ransom."
"You cannot know that," Danica offered, trying to comfort the distraught elf. There was little conviction in the young woman's voice Elbereth's guess seemed logical. The elf put his head back down and did not answer.
"Orogs," Cadderly muttered, trying to jog his memory. He had read several passages concerning the brutes and searched now for some answers to the situation. Had he and his companions, perhaps, been taken prisoner to become sacrifices in some horrible ritual? Were they to be the meat of an orog's dinner? Neither explanation offered much solace, and Cadderly nearly jumped upright when the flap of the tent was thrown aside.
It was no orog that walked in from the dusky light, but a man, great and tall, bronze-skinned and golden-haired. A tattoo of some strange creature was centered in his forehead, between his ice-blue, piercing eyes.
Cadderly studied him intently, thinking that the tattoo Cadderly recognized it as a remorhaz, a polar worm should tell him something.
The huge man walked over to Danica and gave a leer that sent shivers through her spine and evoked silent rage in Cadderly. Then, casually, with the slightest flick of his muscled arm, he tossed the young woman aside. With one hand and similar ease, he grabbed the front of Cadderly's tunic and hoisted the young scholar to his feet.
"White Worm," Cadderly muttered, unconsciously thinking aloud, the words brought on by the man's sheer size. He was nearly a foot taller than Cadderly's six feet, and easily a hundred pounds heavier, though there wasn't a bit of softness on his mighty frame.
The bronze-skinned giant's frown quickly became a threatening scowl aimed at Cadderly. "What do you know of the White Worm?" he demanded, his voice edged by the hint of an accent from a distant land.
It was Cadderly's turn to frown. The big man's command of the language seemed too smooth and unaccented for the young scholar's budding theory to be correct. Also, the man's clothes were richly made, of silk and other fine materials, cut as a king might wear them, or a servant of a king's court. The man seemed quite comfortable in them too comfortable, Cadderly noted, for a barbarian.
"What do you know?" the man demanded, and he lifted Cadderly from the floor again with one gigantic hand.
"The painting on your forehead," Cadderly gasped. "It is a remorhaz, a white worm, an uncommon beast, even in the northern reaches, and known not at all among the Snowflake Mountains and the Shining Plains."
The large man's scowl did not relent. He eyed Cadderly for some time, as if waiting for the young priest to elaborate on his explanation.
There came a rustle from the door, and the giant promptly lowered Cadderly to the floor. In walked a black-haired woman, a wizard, judging from the robes she wore. She reminded Cadderly somewhat of a younger Pertelope, except that her eyes were dots of amber, not hazel, and she wore her hair longer and less tended than the neatly groomed Pertelope. And while Pertelope's nose was arrow straight, the wizard's had obviously been broken and forever bent to the side.
"Welcome, dear Cadderly," the wizard said, her words drawing surprised looks from both Cadderly and Danica. Even Elbereth looked up. "Have you enjoyed your visit to Shilmista? I know Kierkan Rufo longs for home."
Danica sucked in her breath at the mention of Rufo. Cadderly turned to her, anticipating her anger and trying to diffuse it for the time being.
"Yes, I know your name, young priest of the Edificant Library," the woman continued, reveling in her superior position. "You will come to understand that I know many things."
"Then you are at an advantage," Cadderly dared to remark, "for I know nothing of you."
"Nothing?" The woman chuckled. "If you knew nothing of me, then surely you would not have come out to kill me." This time, Cadderly and Danica could not even manage to stifle gasps, their astonishment plain on their faces.
Cadderly heard Danica mutter, "Rufo."
"I do not wish to die, you must understand," the wizard said sarcastically.
Not as Barjin died, rang a voice inside Cadderly's head. He glanced around at Danica, then realized that the words had been telepathic, not audible communication. The unexpected connection to the slain priest brought a thousand questions rushing through Cadderly's thoughts. He settled them quickly, though, asking himself if someone, or something, had actually communicated with him, or if that inner voice had been his own, reasonably placing this wizard in the same conspiracy as the slain priest.
Cadderly looked the wizard over, up and down. Her dress was unremarkable enough, certainly not as ornamented as Barjin's clerical robes had been. The young scholar strained his neck, trying to get a better view of the wizard's rings. She wore three, and one of them appeared to hold an insignia.
The wizard smiled at him, drawing his eyes to hers, then pointedly slipped her hands into her pockets.
"Always curious," she mumbled, but loud enough so that Cadderly could hear. "So similar to that other one."
The way she spoke that reference surprised Cadderly.
"Yes, young priest," the woman continued, "you will prove a valuable well of information."
Cadderly wanted to spit on her foot he knew that his dwarven friend Ivan would have without a second thought but he couldn't muster the courage. His sour expression revealed his feelings, though.
That disdainful, uncompromising expression gave way to despair when the wizard took her hand back out of her deep pocket. She held something, something terrible by Cadderly's estimation.
Dorigen leveled Cadderly's deadly crossbow, cocked and loaded with an explosive dart, at Danica. Cadderly didn't breathe for what seemed like minutes.
"You will do as I command you," the wizard said, glaring at Cadderly, her visage suddenly icy and removed. "Say it!"
Cadderly couldn't say anything past the lump in his throat.
"Say it!" the wizard cried, jerking the crossbow Danica's way. For a split second, Cadderly thought she had pulled the trigger, and he nearly fainted away.
"I will do as you command!" he cried desperately as soon as he realized that the bow hadn't fired.
"No!" Danica shouted at him.
"A well of information," the wizard said again, her lips turning up in a comfortable smile. She turned to her bronze-skinned soldier. "Take him."
Stubborn Danica was up in a second, cutting between Cadderly and the huge man. She tugged at her ropes, but was unable to get her hands free and settled instead for kicking at the large man.
His agility and quick reactions surprised the young woman. He was down in a crouch even as Danica's foot flew up, and he caught her leg cleanly. A subtle twist of his powerful arms sent Danica off balance, gritting her teeth in pain. The huge man tossed her aside, again with no more than a casual flick of his hands.
"Enough!" the wizard commanded. "Do not kill her." She gave Cadderly an awful smile. "Fear not young priest, I will not kill those who allow me to control you like a marionette! Ah, to have my prize, and an elf prince thrown into the package by sheer chance! Yes, I know of you, too, Elbereth, and do not doubt that you shall be reunited with your people soon. You are much too dangerous a prisoner for me to keep." Dorigen snickered again. "Or at least, your head will soon be reunited with your father."
Her words renewed Elbereth's futile struggling with his tight bonds. The wizard laughed aloud, mocking him. "Take him!" she said again to the warrior, indicating Cadderly.
The huge man grabbed Cadderly quickly, before Danica could react, and wrapped him in a tight headlock, the great man's other hand waving ready in case the fiery woman decided to come back for more.
"Stay back!" Cadderly called out meekly, and Danica did, for she saw that the warrior could snap Cadderly's neck with ease.
"Stay back," the huge man echoed. "Come only when you are summoned." The manner in which he spoke, through a lascivious grin, renewed the shivers along the young woman's spine.
Behind the huge man, the wizard frowned, and Danica was quick to understand the jealousy behind that look.
At the wizard's snapping command, two orogs took up positions inside the tent as she and her giant lackey departed with Cadderly in tow.
The camp itself struck Cadderly as out of place, as wrong, from the moment he was half-dragged, half-carried outside. Even in the fading daylight he could see that beautiful Shilmista had been scarred and torn, with trees that had lived a hundred years ripped down and broken apart. It was an odd feeling for the young scholar, something he hadn't expected. He himself had used firewood back at the Edificant Library, had plucked a flower from the roadside to give to Danica without a second thought. But there was a majesty about Shilmista that Cadderly had never known, a raw and natural beauty that even the print of a boot seemed to mar.
Watching filthy orogs and orcs milling about the forest pained Cadderly's heart profoundly.
He recognized many of the creatures, mostly from wounds such as the profound limp one ogre exhibited and the heavy bandage on its shoulder. The monster noticed Cadderly, too, and its scowl promised death if the thing ever got its hands on the young scholar.
The wizard's tent was on the far side of the camp. While on the outside it seemed a normal skin canopy, the inside revealed that this wizard enjoyed her niceties. Plush cloth covered the one table and the four chairs around it; the bed was thick and soft no blanket on the ground for this woman; and a silver serving set was perched upon a cart off to the side.
The bronze giant roughly placed Cadderly in one of the chairs.
"You may leave us, Tiennek," the wizard said, taking a seat opposite the young scholar.
Tiennek didn't seem overly pleased by that idea. He scowled at Cadderly and made no move toward the flap.
"Oh, be gone!" his mistress scolded, waving her hand.
"Do you believe I cannot protect myself from the likes of this one?"
Tiennek bent close to Cadderly and issued a threatening growl, then bowed low to his lady and departed.
Cadderly shifted in his seat, letting the wizard know that his bindings were uncomfortable. Now was the time for him to take command, he decided, to let his enemy understand that he was not some coward she could do with as she pleased. Cadderly wasn't certain he could hold up that facade, especially not with Danica and Elbereth's lives hanging so tenuously before him. But that facade, he realized, might be the only thing that kept them all alive.
The wizard considered him for a long while, then muttered some words under her breath. Cadderly felt the ties about his wrists being undone, and soon his aching arms were free.
His first thoughts centered on his feathered ring. If he could manage to get the cat's claw out and stick the wizard . . .
Cadderly dismissed that notion. He didn't even know if the drow sleep poison was still active. If he made his attempt and failed, he did not doubt that the wizard would punish him severely or, more likely, punish his helpless friends.
"He is cultured beyond what one would expect from a barbarian," the young scholar said, thinking to catch the wizard off her guard.