by Philip Smith
Was it a cheap shot? Absolutely.
Did she care? Not at all.
“Lesson one in being a ‘damsel,’ just so you know, Dinendale,” Paige said with a mirthless smile, squatting over the prostrate elf. “Regardless of his stature, there is always one shot that will equalize any man.”
“Come on, Dinendale!” Jesnake called.
Dinendale rolled over, moaning woefully. “It’s… so… peaceful down here, though…” the elf wheezed through clenched teeth, curled up in a pathetic looking heap in the dirt.
The others couldn’t stop laughing, despite their best efforts; even Broadside was bellowing beneath his pile of blankets. Paige offered a hand to Dinendale, who took it with a grunt as she helped him hobble over to his blanket. He sat down and closed his eyes. Paige turned to go to her own bedroll, the others slapping her on the back.
“You feeling up for some rabbit there, Dinendale?” Duelmaster chuckled. The elf glared at the dryad from across the fire ring.
“Lost my appetite,” he muttered.
“Sorry we don’t have any crow to offer you,” Robert snickered, “although you seem to have had your fill of that tonight.”
The boys continued to tease Dinendale as the shadows grew longer and eventually melted into the darkness. Night awaited the two moons to rise up from their slumber beyond the horizon. Paige chose that time to take a seat next to the dark elf as he lay back and took it easy for a bit. She felt a bit guilty for injuring him, even if she still felt he’d deserved every inch of bruising and skinned knuckles for his chauvinistic attitude. The guilt won over her good nature eventually, though, and she sat next to him and held her hand out as if she was expecting him to place a coin in it. He looked at it in confusion.
“Can I help you?” he asked, bewildered.
“Your hand, give it here,” she demanded. He placed his hand in hers, his chocolate eyes searching her face for a clue. His hand was rough and calloused but gentle in her own. She had skinned his knuckles enough to cause a few to bleed slightly, so she began taking a bandage out of her pack to wrap around the slight wound.
“Completely unnecessary,” Dinendale interjected, but Paige ignored him. She knew it was barely a scratch but it was more about the gesture than anything else. They were quiet for a long time as she gently wrapped the cloth and tied it snug.
“Thank you, princess,” he whispered. “I believe I owe you an apology.”
She gave him a half-smile. “Safe to assume you learned your lesson?” she asked.
The elf chuckled. “I’d say so. But you didn’t have to fight that dirty to prove your point.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Yes!” Robert cheered from across the campfire. Paige turned in time to see him slap Duelmaster on the back.
“What?” Dinendale asked.
“Come on! That’s two for two on the apologies count!” Duelmaster spat in disgust. Paige’s cheeks flushed and her brow furrowed in annoyance as the dryad tossed a laughing Robert a single gold coin. Robert gave her a teasing, smug look that irritated her, but she rolled her eyes and ignored him rather than picking yet another fight. Dinendale stretched back on his pallet.
“Don’t let it get to you, Paige,” he said, then continued to Robert: “Speaking from experience, if you know what's good for you, mate, you’ll not jab this little bobcat.”
“Oh, I’m not too worried about it.” The hermit smirked as he threw his hood up, laying back on his own bedroll.
“He’s the only person more arrogant than you, Dinendale,” Jesnake chuckled.
“It’s not arrogance if you know you’re the better fighter,” Robert snapped. “Which, I am, by the way.”
Dinendale grabbed his sword.
“Well, we may just have to see about—”
He stopped speaking mid-sentence; his head snapped backwards, eyes staring wide and unseeing.
“Din?” Paige asked, concerned. The elf didn’t blink. His stiff body, suddenly limp, collapsed onto his bedroll.
“Dinendale!” cried Jesnake, leaping nimbly to his feet. He ran over to the dark elf’s side, but just as he reached the ashen-faced warrior, he fell face first into the dirt himself, plowing a furrow in the dirt with his teeth. Paige heard Broadside cry out as he toppled off his perch on a stump.
“What in the name of—” Robert shouted, grabbing his spear and whirling about.
Paige jumped up and reached for her hairpin, but just as her fingers curled around the silver head, she felt something like a sharp bee sting stick her behind her left ear. Her head began to feel light and airy even as she swatted at the pain. She slumped forward, falling onto the leaf-covered earth as darkness enveloped her. The last things she heard were Robert’s shouts and the sounding of a horn echoing in the distance.
Chapter 8
“Ghaulgra Din”
As Paige came to, she smelled the pungent smoke of a wood fire. Opening her groggy eyes, she saw nothing but foggy black shapes that faded in and out, swirling about her. She attempted to stand but found herself bound at the ankles, her arms tied around a large timber. She’d been stripped from her leather armor, and she could no longer feel her hairpin in her braid. Fortunately for her, whoever had taken those items hadn’t found the scroll; it was still tightly wrapped around her inner thigh. For that, she was grateful. Her necklace, as best as she could tell, was also still around her neck, which surprised her, since she would have expected thieves to search for jewelry and gold first. Her pants were torn along her left leg, but apart from that, she was unscathed. Taking a moment to focus in the dim light, she attempted to study her surroundings as the shapes slowly settled.
A line of tall poles stretched fifteen feet to the peak of the slanted roof, which was thatched with deep, golden-coloured hay. The walls were made of the thickest bark she’d ever seen. Along each wall were shelves filled with furs and baskets. Near her feet, the embers of a fire glowed, emitting the only light to speak of inside. She appeared to be imprisoned in a longhouse. As far as Paige could tell, she was the only breathing thing there; she could not see any of the others with her and worried for their sakes.
During the next couple hours, Paige nodded off periodically, overcome with a residual headache from whatever stung her in the forest. At times she tried to muster the breath to shout, but she was too groggy, and her throat was so swollen that all she could manage was a squeak. As she was about to doze off again, the door opened. She squinted into the sunlight. A cloaked silhouette blocked the door frame for a moment before the door swung closed. Paige had to blink to clear her eyes, but when they focused, the figure was standing before her, his head concealed by a green cloak.
“Robert? Dinendale? Duelmaster?” she whispered. The figure shook his head.
“Nofayne Alatawaigh. Nofay en elfhien nofay dryadah. Se midhien, augh cara,” the man said in Elvish. Paige’s foggy brain slowly translated it to say, No, Pretty One, I am neither elf-kind nor tree-man. I am man and a friend.
She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Ef cara, wahyne me prisough en hempa?” If you are a friend, why am I caged in rope?
The man lifted his cloak, revealing a head of grimy, shoulder-length blond hair with a single stripe of silver running down the center of his scalp. His eyes were shaped similarly to her own, but the color, if it could be called that, was the strangest she had ever seen. They were clear as the diamonds in her mother’s earrings—unique, to say the least. The colors of nearby objects reflected in the man’s eyes; when he looked at her, his eyes reflected the light gold of her hair. When he glanced slightly over his shoulder they turned the same dark green as his cloak. Paige shuddered.
He whispered, “Me nofayne prisough en hempa son cara.” I am not he who has captured your friends.
She forced out in broken Elvish, “Nofay en midheintodh?” Don’t you speak the tongue of men?
He nodded but said nothing, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid someone might see him. He briefly looked like he was abou
t to answer, but a sound at the entrance of the lodge stopped him. Before the unseen people could enter, he dashed over to Paige’s side.
“Take heart, princess,” he whispered, foregoing the Elvish. “You have friends, even in this dark place.”
Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone. Paige tried to see if he had merely stepped into the shadows so quickly that she’d missed him, but the activity at the other end of the room drew her attention away. A couple of figures entered and began lumbering toward her.
Two men had entered the dwelling, but they weren’t at all like the one that had so swiftly vanished. They had large, muscular chests, and muscles rippled beneath their freckled, nutmeg-colored skin. Their braided auburn hair trailed down their backs; they wore white linen pants covered with furs for warmth in the brisk autumn morning. Their baggy shirts the colors of autumn leaves were topped by leather vests with thick deer hair. Soft-soled leather shoes wrapped and protected their feet as they plodded along on the cold, hard earthen floor.
One of the men stopped and began yanking at the knot to untie her. Before the rope was fully off, they each took one of her arms, restraining her so she couldn’t run. Paige tried to fight back, but whatever poultice they had used to capture her had left her more exhausted than she’d initially thought. In fact, the two men nearly carried her to the door. The taller of the two murmured something to the other as he drew back the curtain door. With a sharp blast of warm sunlight, they were in the bright outdoors.
Paige shut her eyes in the harsh, blinding light. When she did open them at last, she was astonished to see a large, thriving village. Ten longhouses, like the one that had held Paige captive, stood before her in the large enclosure. A tall stockade fence made of countless sharpened stakes encircled the little community, providing a barrier between them and the surrounding mountains. The single gate seemed to be at the east end of the little village, but it was high noon and hard for her to get her bearings from the sun in such a blinded state. There were paths made in the deep red clay, packed hard as stone. Sporadically placed tents surrounded the huts with open areas between the dwellings. Paige guessed these to be shops, not unlike the marketplace of her beloved yet lost Kapernaum.
The people, as a whole, were of a darker complexion than Paige had seen before, with warm brown skin and chestnut eyes accenting their wavy red-brown locks and dark freckles. The people wore sparse bits of armour, looking as if they had been collected from opposing tribes or clans they’d defeated. The women wore long, white leather dresses, many of which were adorned by vibrant beads and embroidery in elaborate designs of dragons, flowers, and rivers. Paige noticed they were all directing intense stares her way, an even mixture of profound awe and utter contempt. Just like her own home, she imagined this place must be very isolated out here in the Wild, and she must have looked as strange to them as they did to her.
As the princess stumbled on between the two men, heading for the center of the village, the talking on the roadside hushed to a low whisper. She could not hear them, but it was obvious they were all talking about her. With each step her feet ached. Her body felt limp like a dying fish pulled from water.
The three rounded what looked to be a smithy of some kind, and Paige saw a new building, unlike the longhouses all around it. It was a square building built out of huge stone blocks fitted seamlessly together by master masons long ago. They entered through the carved oak doorway and were once again in the same bleak light.
After her eyes adjusted once more to the dark light, Paige found about fifty men lined up against the wall, some sitting, some standing, each adorned in great fur robes made of mountain buffalo and brown bears. Hard expressions and fierce patterns of white paint adorned their faces, which amplified their accusatory gazes.
The room itself was empty of any objects, save for a single throne made of a large maple stump still rooted in the ground. Along the base of the trunk, Paige could see entwined dragons and demons of various shapes and expressions carved into the wood. A wrinkled old man occupied the chair, wisdom and years of hard ruling etched into the lines of his face. He was covered by a white bear skin robe, the only brightness amidst the abundance of brown and black in the room. He alone had no paint on his bearded face. Atop his hoary hair he wore a crown of gilded silver, which, on closer inspection, proved to be a chain of prancing silver horses. In his left hand, he held a bleached white staff with a single ruby set on the knobby top.
The leader extended the staff towards the men carrying Paige, summoning them. Before the throne, stripped of armor and weapons, with their hands bound behind their backs, were the Brotherhood.
The two guards made their way to the throne, throwing Paige down beside Dinendale and tying her hands behind her back. Amidst the murmuring of those surrounding them, she sat up, glaring at the men as they bowed to the man on the throne. Paige looked at the Brotherhood. Instead of their habitual garb, they all wore sleeveless shirts and baggy pants made of coarse, homespun fabric. At least they had let her keep her own clothes. Though the situation looked bleak, all the Brothers had a look of proud defiance on their faces.
“What took you so long?” whispered Dinendale.
“What do you think? I stopped to pick flowers,” Paige shot back.
“Silence!” shouted a man standing next to the throne. He was tall and skinny, with his hair knotted into a scalp-lock that draped down his back. Aside from a scruffy beard, the lock of hair seemed to be the only hair on his thin frame. He wore a scarlet blanket over his bare chest, which was riddled with innumerable scars. Since his pants only came to his knees, his knobby legs were bare, painted with white and blue symbols. His hooked nose draped over his curled lip like a bird’s beak and a gnarled pair of leathery ears held enormous studs of green wood. A cane reed in the crook of one arm looked like a suitable weapon for someone of his frame.
“Where are we?” Paige whispered to Dinendale.
“This is the earl’s—”
The ugly man with the cane swung the reed at Dinendale’s face with such force that the elf was flung off his knees and onto his back with a resounding crack. A streak of blood formed along his high cheekbone.
“Are your ears made of stone, creature? I said silence! You will obey Locamnen of the Heralde Clan!”
Dinendale struggled up, staring at the man in defiance. The self-proclaimed Locamnen turned to the white-robed man whom Paige assumed must be the earl.
“Great Earl Khaftamen, before whom all men…and elves…bow down,” he said disdainfully, pointing at Dinendale. “I present to you the murderers of Yarvidt of Clan Heralde, Son of Larne the Red. We found them in the forest by the border stream, trying to make good their escape!”
“We told you!” growled Robert through his teeth, lips tight in rage. “We have no idea what you’re talking about!”
The knobby spokesman hooked his reed cane under Robert’s chin, jerking it up forcefully to look his prisoner in the eyes. Locamnen scowled, baring his yellowed teeth at the look of hatred burning in Robert’s gaze.
“That’s what any murderer would say,” he sniffed. Robert glared even harder. The earl, called Khaftamen, straightened in his throne. His hair cascaded down his shoulders like silver waterfalls on a mountainside. He examined each of the prisoners with his piercing black eyes as if expecting their confessions. When his stare landed on Paige, she saw his gaze soften. She searched his face and wondered if he perhaps held reservations about Locamnen’s accusation.
“Where is your proof?” Paige blurted out. The furious spokesman strode over to her, pausing for a moment, scrutinizing her with his narrowed eyes. His gaze made her uncomfortable, and she looked to the old chief, who returned her gaze with a somber expression.
“I concur. I demand you present the charges, false as they are!” Broadside bellowed. The crowd seemed to find the short creature amusing, because they all began to snicker until Khaftamen raised his hand high to demand silence.
“Three days ago,” t
he earl said in a grave, soft voice, “a young boy called Yarvidt, son of Larne the Red, went out for a walk with his dog. He never came back, but the next day we found the dog dragging himself back to camp, nearly gutted.”
Paige felt an ache in her heart beginning to form. The earl stood slowly, stepped down, and began pacing in front of his prisoners.
“Throughout the night, we searched for him. We didn’t find him until the next morning, an insensible, bleeding mess from the innumerable gashes along his body. Despite the best efforts of our healer, he died yesterday. But before he passed from this world, he was able to tell us who had attacked him. He described men that were heavily armed and travelling off the mountain road.”
Duelmaster spat, anger flashing in his grey eyes like lightning in a thunderstorm. “We only just arrived in these lands—”