by Bibby, James
But the problem was that, although he needed to talk about this, he was finding it impossible. There was a wall of silence between them and Ronan had no idea how to go about breaking it. Warriors traditionally have a great deal of difficulty in putting a coherent sentence together, especially when it involves expressing emotions. And while Ronan had a greater facility with words than most of his brethren, he still felt restricted by the macho nature of his calling. Warriors just don't say things like, "Listen, guy, over the past few days I've really come to value your friendship. We've faced a few dangers together and you've come to mean a lot to me. I love you, guy, so just trust me, and everything will be cool!" Not unless they want to get a Reputation. And so Ronan fretted, and wondered what to do.
It was probably just as well that Ronan didn't try to express his feelings. If he had done, Tarl would probably only have taken it the wrong way. He had heard about some of the things guys do in prison to help pass the time. Anyway, he was quite happy sulking and making up dirty limericks. He had just started on another particularly filthy one (about a young dwarf from Malvenis), when the door of the cell flew open and several elf soldiers marched in. Ignoring Tarl, they hauled Ronan roughly to his feet, bound his hands again, and marched him out through the door and off down the corridor. Tarl leapt up and tried to follow but the guard on the door stopped him.
"Hey," yelled Tarl after the retreating elves. "What about me? I want to come too!"
"No, you don't," said the guard, gently but firmly restraining him. "Believe me, you really don't."
Tarl felt a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Why not?" he asked. "Where are they taking him?"
The guard looked a little embarrassed. "Well, it's the king," he replied. "He's announced a new edict. Humans are now a Proscribed Race. And your friend is being taken up to the King's Banquet, where he will be tried and sentenced as the representative of all men."
"But he'll be alright, won't he? I mean, elven justice and all that..."
"He's a member of a Proscribed Race," repeated the guard, shaking his head doubtfully. "That means he has no rights, no entitlement to justice. This hasn't happened since the last Orc Wars. Any captured orcs used to be..." He stopped, and looked very uncomfortable.
"Used to be what?"
"Thrown unarmed into the pit of wolves!" The guard couldn't meet Tarl's shocked gaze. "I'm sorry!" he said sympathetically, and then shut the door, leaving Tarl alone in the cell.
The elf soldiers marched Ronan purposefully along a short corridor, up some stairs, along another corridor, round a corner.... and stopped dead. Their passage was barred by a new brick wall - and quite a shoddy-looking wall, at that. The sort of wall that might have been thrown together by a fairly crappy bricklayer who was in an extremely bad mood because he had just lost his entire weeks wages to a couple of plasterers in a game of Cydorian Sweat. The captain of the soldiers kicked at it angrily, and threw a glance that could have killed at Ronan. They marched back down the corridor, up some more stairs, through a door, and down a passage that ended at another door. The captain flung this open, and found himself teetering on the brink of a hundred-foot drop straight down into the moat. Whatever bit of the castle had been here previously had now disappeared. With a snarl, he managed to haul himself back and slammed the door behind him.
"I hope they tear you to shreds," he snapped at Ronan, before leading them all back along the passage and down another spiral staircase. This one led into a long room with exquisite oak panelling on the walls and an elegantly vaulted ceiling. It would have been quite beautiful if someone hadn't painted the panelling lime-green and stippled the ceiling. The captain stared around in horror. This was obviously the first time he had seen this particular piece of re-decoration. He walked across to one of the new metal torch-holders that had been fixed slightly crookedly to the wall, and tried to straighten it. It came away in his hand. Cursing, he flung it at Ronan, then marched across the room and tugged at the door on the far side. It swung open to reveal a doorway that had been bricked up even more shoddily than the first passageway. Through the bricks it was possible to hear the sounds of distant revelry.
The elf captain began to tremble slightly, and his complexion turned from a healthy golden-brown tan to a choleric puce colour. He pointed a shaking finger at Ronan and for a moment his lips moved soundlessly. When he did manage to speak it was with a suppressed fury that made Ronan's blood run cold.
"Pick him up!" he hissed to the elf soldiers. "Pick up that klatting human and break this wall down!"
Ronan found himself grabbed by many hands and lifted into the air. As they swung him back horizontally, the realisation of what they were about to do hit him, and he braced himself. The elves swung him forward like a living battering ram and his head smashed into the bricks blocking the doorway. Luckily, these had been put together so badly (and using such poor quality cement) that his head and shoulders burst through at the first attempt, and he was only semi-stunned. Kicking aside the debris, his guards dragged him through into the Great Hall and flung him to the floor. He lay there for a moment, shaking his aching head to clear it and looking round.
It was a vast place, over a hundred feet in length and packed with elves. Trestle tables ran the length of the room, and at one end, a larger table covered in an ornate cloth was raised on a dais. At this sat King Albran, his wife, Queen Silvana, and their family. All were laughing and feasting except for the king, who sat glowering in the midst of the frivolity. There was little sign of the ravages of the builders, save for a door twenty foot above ground level in the middle of one wall, and several buckets scattered around the floor to catch drips from a roof that now leaked quite badly. The strangest aspect of the scene was the fact that there must have been a couple of hundred rabbits in the room as well, skipping round the floor, hopping along tables, and stealing food. The elves seemed virtually unaware of them.
As Ronan was led into the room, an elven minstrel strummed his lute and began to sing. He was thin and weedy, with a strange haircut, and his whining voice was almost drowned in the general hubbub. Ronan was brought into the centre of the room to stand, arms bound, before the king, and the hum of conversation died away until the minstrel's voice was the only sound. He appeared to be singing about vegetables.
Albran flashed him an unpleasant look, then stood up and turned his attention to Ronan. But before he could say anything, Ronan spoke.
"Noble king," he said, "I came here in good faith, to seek your help. I am Ronan, Vanquisher of Evil, and I am on a quest to bring vengeance to Nekros the Black, adherent of the Five Great Demons, and slayer of my father. I seek only your advice and knowledge. I have learnt of the indignity you have suffered at the hands of uncouth builders and churlish guests, which I deeply regret, but as you know, it was none of my doing...."
“Nevertheless,” interrupted the king, “you are a mortal man, and it was your race that did these things." He glared again at the minstrel, who was warbling about how vegetables were his friends, and about how awful people were for eating them when they could be growing free in the sunlit glades of the forest, with their roots running barefoot through the fragrant soil. The king lifted a browsing rabbit out of a large bowl of mashed turnips. "Oh, shut up, Morrisey!" he muttered impatiently, and flung the bowl at the minstrel. It bounced off his head with a resounding clang and the waif-like elf fell senseless to the floor. The king turned back to Ronan.
"You are the representative of your race. You must accept the allotted fate on their behalf." Suddenly, he raised his voice and appealed to the assembled elves. "How do you find this man?"
"Guilty!" yelled a young elf who was seated at the top table. From his facial resemblance to the king, Ronan though he was probably one of his sons. His cry was taken up by elves all over the room.
"Guilty!" they yelled, a trifle uncertainly. "Guilty!"
Ronan studied their faces. Some were genuinely angry, like their king, but many seemed embarrassed and shame
-faced. Still, it rather looked as though what the king wanted, he would get. Ronan sighed, and stared down at the floor. "Oh-oh!" he thought. He'd just noticed that he was standing on a large trap-door.
The king was surveying his people with a satisfied smile. "And what is the fate reserved for a guilty member of a proscribed race?" he asked them.
"The Pit of Wolves!" came the answering cry. "Cast him into the Pit of Wolves!"
The elves were beginning to get a little worked up now. Ronan didn't like this one bit. With an anxious look at the trap-door, he tested his bonds, but they were secure. He glanced sideways, to the guards who stood on either side, spears at the ready.
"The Pit of Wolves!" repeated the king, gleefully. The chant was taken up on all sides of the room, and the elves began to beat rhythmically on the tables with their fists. Ronan could sense the anger and expectation mounting. This was serious! He'd stand no chance against a pack of wolves with his hands tied. If he went for the guard on the left, who was trading glances with that elf maiden at the nearest table... he'd get his spear, and he could use that with bound hands. But to get out alive he was going to have to get a hostage... maybe the king's son... Klat! The king had his hands on that lever! Better do something quickly...
But before he could act Queen Silvana rose and lifted one hand commandingly. Silence fell upon the hall as the elves looked to their queen expectantly, and Ronan watched her in awe. Like all elf women, she was tall and slender, with golden hair and eyes, and she seemed to radiate an aura of beauty and vitality. On her face, however, was the resigned look of a woman who realises only too well that her husband is acting like a complete prat.
"You cannot throw him to the wolves," she said.
"Of course I can!" blustered her husband. "I can do anything I like! I'm the king!"
"You cannot throw him to the wolves," continued Silvana, patiently, "because we haven't got any wolves. They all died years ago."
"What? They can't have! I distinctly remember throwing all those orcs to them, oh, three or four years back..."
"That was fifty years ago."
"Good grief! Was it?" The king rounded on his principal adviser, who was stood behind his chair. "Why haven't they been replaced with stock from the wild?"
"You know damn well why!" said the queen. Her patience was beginning to wear a little thin. She started to mimic her husband. "What can I do to help my people, you said. How can I make their lives safer, you said. I know, you said, I'll get rid of all the dangerous animals. All the lenkats, the wolves, the bears, the alaxls. That will make the forest safe for my people, you said. But you didn't stop there. Oh, no! You had to hunt down every single predatory animal for miles around. Foxes, hawks, wild cats, everything! It will be safe for my people's flocks, you said. I warned you! I told you what would happen if you started messing around with the ecological balance, but no, you had to go ahead.
"And now look at the result. There's been a population explosion of rabbits, deer and squirrels, because there's nothing left to keep their numbers down. All the forest trees are dying, because the herds of starving deer and the mobs of emaciated squirrels have stripped away every leaf and every last piece of bark that they can reach. And what about us? We have to import fruit and vegetables from vast distances, and why?" She paused and looked down in disgust at a sweet-looking rabbit that had lolloped along the table and was helping itself to the remnants on her plate. "Because the hordes of ravening rabbits eat everything that we try to grow.
"But that's not enough for you, oh no! Not content with wiping out half the species of the forest, now you want to start on any visitors we're lucky enough to get. Well, I for one have HAD ENOUGH!"
With that she stormed out of the door behind their table. The king was left blinking after her. There was a short silence, broken only by foot shuffling and the odd embarrassed cough. The king turned to his adviser.
"Is that true?" he asked. "Not even one wolf?"
"I'm afraid not, sire."
"But isn't there a law or something about keeping the King's Wolf-pit stocked? I'm sure there is... how does it go? Blah, blah, blah... shall be replaced with the most savage creatures that can be found, blah, blah, blah..."
"That's right, sire, and we have done so," said the adviser.
The king brightened instantly. "Oh, good!" he said. "What with?"
"A stoat, sire."
"A stoat," said the king, sadly.
"Yes, sire."
"Just the one?"
"It's all we could find, sire."
"Oh, well, it will have to do." Albran turned back, and surveyed his expectant people. "Throw him to... the stoat!" he yelled.
The elves took up the cry, but rather half-heartedly, as though well aware that this punishment lacked a certain something. "The stoat!" they yelled. "Throw him to the stoat!"
Without warning, the trap-door under Ronan's feet gave way and he hurtled downwards into the blackness below. He landed awkwardly on a stone-flagged floor, and lay there, winded, straining his eyes to see in the darkness. There was a very faint hissing sound, which raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and his arm muscles bulged as he fought to free himself from his bonds, to no avail.
After a while, his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. He struggled into a sitting position and looked round. He was in a stone cell about twenty feet square, with a door of iron bars set into one wall. Beyond this, a dank passage stretched away to a corner around which a faint glimmer of light showed. In one corner of the cell was a little pile of straw and there, on the straw, was the stoat.
It was a very old stoat, and patently unwell. It just lay there with its eyes shut, its flanks heaving, its breath coming in little hissing gasps. Occasionally it sneezed. It seemed to have no desire to try tearing Ronan limb from limb, and anyway, even at the peak of its powers and standing on tiptoe, it would only have reached up to his knee.
Ronan sighed and shook his head. He wasn't altogether sure that he shared Tarl's admiration for the legendary elven justice.
"And then he said, I don't know whether to go for the pink or the brown!" Tarl sat back with a grin on his face and waited for this punch line to take effect. There was a long pause, then the elven guard's face creased up and he started to laugh, great hiccupping guffaws that echoed around the cell.
"Pink or brown!" he chuckled. "Thash ver' ver' funny! Pink or brown!" Eventually his paroxysm of mirth died away and a look of puzzlement began to creep over his face like the tide creeping up a very steep beach. "Er...." he said, "Juss one thing. Wash thish, er, thish shnooker, when it'sh at home?" And he peered at Tarl blearily.
Tarl studied the guard's face. "The lights are on, but there's no-one at home," he thought. "One more drink ought to do it!" He raised his mug. "To snooker!" he said.
The guard raised his mug as though it weighed several hundred pounds. "To shnooker!" he replied, and drained it in one gulp. And then his eyeballs rolled back in his head, and he fell to the floor in a heap and started to snore.
Tarl smiled, mentally patting himself on the back. The guard had been quite suspicious when Tarl had invited him into the cell for a drink, but had seemed quite reassured when Tarl offered him the flagon of water. Of course, he wasn't to know that Tarl had emptied the stash of salt that he carried into the water. Tarl hadn't been sure whether this home-made brine would have the same effect on an elf as sea-water, but after the guard's first sip, he'd realised it was going to work. And now, three mugs of brine later, the guard was as drunk as a vart, and out cold.
Carefully Tarl removed the large bunch of keys from the elf's belt, undid his fetters and crept to the door. He could hear no sound outside. Ever so gently, he pulled the door open, peered out - and found himself staring at the chest of the most regal and beautiful elven lady he had ever seen. He looked up, straight into a wondrous pair of golden eyes, and quickly pasted his cheesy grin into place.
"Hi!" he said, ingratiatingly. "Care for a mug of water?"
Ronan
had spent over an hour sitting on the floor, racking his brains for some sort of idea, and had just about admitted total defeat when he realised that the glimmer of light along the corridor was getting brighter. He stood up and crossed to the bars of the door. He couldn't hear any footsteps, but that didn't mean much, as elves were remarkably light on their feet, and so he stood and waited. Whatever his immediate fate was, things really couldn't get much worse.
A sudden blaze of light dazzled his eyes and he screwed them up against the glare. An elf carrying a flaming torch had come round the corner and was approaching the cell.
"Ronan?" The voice was soft and gentle, a little worried, and seemed somehow strangely familiar. Ronan cudgelled his memory, and then as the elf slotted the torch into a wall-holder near the door and the light flooded his face, everything clicked into place.
"Yo! Vosene!" Ronan grinned at the elven hairdresser as he fumbled with a bunch of keys. "What brings you here?"
"Well, somebody had to do something!" answered the elf, a little irritably. There was a click as the key turned, and he swung open the door and drifted into the cell. "And you're obviously incapable of looking after yourself. I mean, just look at the state of your hair!"
Ronan smiled inwardly and held out his fettered hands. The elf tutted. "If you don't get to a good manicurist soon, your nails will be ruined! Ruined!" he said. Another key turned, and the chains fell to the floor.
"So what are you doing here?" Ronan asked, rubbing his wrists.
Vosene smiled proudly. "I'm Queen Silvana's personal hair stylist," he said. "Well, I had to leave Port Raid. I mean the place is just going to the absolute dogs, dear. Southrons and orcs moving in, all sorts of strange laws being passed... an elf just wasn't safe out at night. Now, you come with me. We mustn't keep our Queenie waiting. She's expecting you."