“I know that you want to take flight, Wind-rider,” said Arghen as he beckoned her to move with us to the next cage, “but I ask that you exercise patience just a little while longer and stay with me.”
I half-smiled as I noted he said ‘me’, and not ‘us’. The next cage held the cat-creature I had seen earlier. He was sturdy and covered in fur that had the colors and markings of a bobcat. His face and head was somehow a mixture of Elf and mountain lion, and he wore brown leather pants on his thick, upright cat-shaped legs with a hole cut through the seat for his tail. The scowl that I saw on his face and in his green cat-pupiled eyes did not clear up as our group, plus the Wind-rider, came to his barred door. Arghen went to work on the lock.
The Wind-rider said to the three of us, “Thank you, thank you! Where are my manners? My name is Auraus. He is Ragar,” she said as she pointed to the mountain-cat-elf. “Have you been sent by my company, the Grey Riders? Unfortunately, I do not know where Dusk is. He is probably locked up somewhere in the keep. Is the rest of your party nearby? Or are the Grey Riders themselves here?”
Jason and I shared a confused looked as Arghen looked up in surprise from where he’d just opened the cage.
“Umm, rest of the party?” I asked.
“I think you’ve got us confused with someone else, my lady—I mean, Auraus,” said Jason, recovering.
Ragar came out and stretched hugely, and I saw that his hands were something between a true hand and a paw as he flexed.
The Wind-rider lost the smile she’d had on her face. “You mean there are only three of you? And that you are not help sent to us by the Grey Riders or by their advance?”
Arghen replied, “We are not, my lady. I am sorry.”
The mountain-cat-elf asked with a suspicious growl, “Then how did you know to come here?”
I replied, “I was directed by Caelestis.”
Auraus turned and looked at me in happy astonishment. “Caelestis? My Goddess sent you to rescue us?”
She pulled out a symbol on a necklace chain from under her clothes that was twin to my own, and I goggled at it.
The Mountain-cat-elf looked closer at Jason, and, suspicion changing to curiosity in his green cat eyes, asked him, “Say, are you …?”
Arghen cut across what was threatening to become a couple of lengthy conversations. “My lady Auraus, Lise, and everyone, this should be continued up on the mountainside after all have been freed.”
He urged us in the direction of the next occupied cage by gently placing a hand in the small of the Wind-rider’s back and gently guiding her along.
Though she walked with the Under-elf, Auraus said with anguish, “But all cannot be freed right now! I told you, Dusk is not here! He is locked up somewhere inside the keep and we have to free him, too!”
Jason said roughly, “Now wait a minute! Freeing you is quite enough, Wind-rider! Look, I’m sorry about your amigo and all, but it would be suicide to storm a keep to look for him with our numbers. We wouldn’t even know where to start! Plus, there are probably lots of well armed guards and magic-casting weirdoes who would try and stop us and make prisoners of us all, or worse!”
Arghen looked torn between Auraus’s distress and Jason’s assessment, but he only said, “Let us finish with this task first, and then we can decide what should happen after that.”
“At the very least, I should do my Priestess duties for the fallen,” she said, stopping.
Jason and I were getting annoyed that she wasn’t cooperating, and I was about to tell her off when Arghen said, “My lady, as a Champion of Quiris, I will attend to that matter myself.”
The Wind-rider looked unhappy, but she only nodded as I told both her and Ragar where to meet up with the others freed prisoners. The mountain-cat-elf took Auraus’s arm and walked away with her into the darkness, threading a path through the rapidly emptying cages towards the promised escape.
CHAPTER 22
When the last prisoner had been freed and sent on her way, Arghen, Jason and I went quickly about and gathered up the slain guards. Arghen did a quick Rite of the Dead for them over Jason’s objections about taking the time to do it. When I stood firm with Arghen, Jason subsided and stalked away until the Under-elf was done.
For the next part of the plan, the three of us filled the cages closest to the guard positions with the slain sentries. The other cages for which we had no bodies had their pallets bunched up instead, with extra pallets being drafted from empty cages to help with the trick. We finished our grisly task with plenty of time before the midnight round of guards was scheduled to come, and we retreated to the ropes at the canyon’s lip. Climbing up the ropes was a bit tricky, but I managed it with help from Arghen below me and from the knots we’d tied into them before letting them down.
When we reached the brush blind on the lip of the canyon, we saw that all of the prisoners lay in quiet on the ground on the pine needles and dirt, huddled together for warmth. Seeing them all together made me realize just how many of them there were to get to safety. I counted again and confirmed that there were sixteen of them. I was surprised, because I didn’t think we’d miscounted the original cage numbers. In any event, including our original three we were now talking about trying to sneak nineteen people through the guard lines to freedom. I shook my head, not liking the odds. Then I realized something wasn’t right. The golden-haired Wind-rider was missing. But before I became too alarmed she leapt softly to the ground from the tree above the brush screen. She startled me and Jason into half-drawing our swords, but I saw out of the corner of my eye that Arghen did not react and seemed not surprised at all. Auraus settled to the ground and spread her wings over as many as she could. Ragar, being furred, declined and separated himself from the group slightly. I blew out a silent sigh—we had been right with the first count after all. I grimaced as I kneeled with Arghen and Jason in front of the small gathering.
In the darkness I could see Auraus shifting as someone struck a spark on something, and a tiny fire was soon burning from a few small twigs on a bare patch of ground. By its light I could see the Wind-rider had curved her wings to block any light shining towards the keep despite the fact we were already behind the blind. Whispers of astonishment rose again from the rescued at our appearances.
Arghen said in a soft, authoritative voice, “Quiet, please. There is no need for alarm at either my companions or myself. First, let me introduce ourselves: I am Arghen, a Champion of Quiris. My companions are Lise, who was sent here by Caelestis, and Jason, a comrade-in-arms. And yes they are Human, and yes, I am an Under-elf, but that does not matter. What does matter is that we do not have much time. Soon the guards will change and we will find out the hard way whether our ruse was successful or not. I do not believe it will be, since the incoming guards will be expecting to see outgoing ones, but they will likely delay to investigate what happened. It is for this reason that we must all slip away now.”
The whispers died away, and Auraus commented, “We can buy some time, perhaps.”
Arghen arched a white eyebrow at her. “How, my lady?”
“Could we take the uniforms and have some of the ex-prisoners wear them to pose as guards? Then one of two things could happen: the supposed guards could take up their stations and wait for the next shift to come and ‘relieve’ them, and then each ex-captive would try to kill his or her replacement. Or, the supposed guards could let the shift change take place and then file into the Keep without incident and begin looking for Dusk under false pretenses.”
I was surprised, and wondered if that could work. I looked at the Under-elf for confirmation.
He paused to think about her plan, and then shook his head. “It is too dangerous, my lady. I cannot allow it.”
“That is all right, Champion of Quiris. I will not ask you or your companions to help any further then,” she replied.
Arghen looked blank, as if he couldn’t quite process what he’d just been told.
I saw an amused look on Jason�
��s bronzed face as the Wind-rider continued, “You three have done much despite the handicaps you must have faced in getting to this point, Champion Arghen. But I am determined to free Dusk before I am quit of this place, despite my desire to fly far and fast away from here.”
Her small smile was sad as she looked at the speechless Under-elf.
“Why do you want to put yourself back into danger for this Dusk?” Jason asked her, curious.
“Because he is a captive now, where I am not. Because I could never leave anyone that I knew was here unwillingly. Because he is from my home settlement of Treestall. And because he is my—friend, and companion in the Grey Riders, our bandit-raiding band,” she replied.
I caught the slight hesitation over the word ‘friend’, and wondered if she really meant it that way or as something more.
“Not to mention that he is also the son of Quiris,” put in the brown-haired Surface-elf that had thought Auraus would fly away when freed.
Arghen’s mouth opened in a rare show of astonishment. Both Jason’s and mine did, too. Most of the other freed prisoners rustled and murmured as if this were a surprise to them as well.
“Quiris’s … son?” I asked with wonder in my voice.
“Yes,” spoke up the blonde-haired Gnome who’d also tried to restrain Auraus back in the pen.
Ragar looked in astonishment at the three of them. “You said nothing of this when we were prisoners in that capture cage together!”
Auraus’s eyes flicked to the mountain-cat-elf. “I was too sick to tell you anything during that imprisonment. And it did not come up in other conversation, or at least, any conversation of which I was aware. In any event, if you will remember, Thoronis, Mereik,” Auraus’ eyes flickered first to the Surface-elf who’d spoken and then to the Gnome, “Dusk had made it clear long before that he did not want it talked about. However,” she said, turning back to the three of us with her palm over her heart, “it is true. I so swear it by the Goddess Caelestis.”
The Wind-rider’s eyes glowed just a little, as if the Goddess Herself attested to the truth of Auraus’s oath.
“But if he’s the son of a Goddess, then he can freaking use his own god-like powers and get himself out of here! In fact, he probably could have rescued you all while you were prisoners!” exploded Jason in a low tone.
“Not quite,” said Thoronis as he glanced at Auraus. “On our trip in the capture wagon here, before we met up with Ragar, we had plenty of time to exchange stories.”
Auraus quivered but said nothing.
Mereik took up the tale. “When Auraus and Dusk were caught, only a few hours later they decided to break out using her magic. They made it, but an alarm spell set by Bascom Bloodknife, the full mage in charge of the Goblins, went off. Dusk threw himself at the Goblin guards to give her a chance to fly away for help.”
I saw Arghen raise both eyebrows at Mereik’s words. I didn’t ask what was so surprising about them because just then Jason interrupted the Gnome.
“Which didn’t work out, I’m guessing?” he asked her.
“Bascom? I’ve heard that name before, haven’t I?” I asked Jason and Arghen.
Arghen nodded. “That was the name the Goblin attackers mentioned the night we met.”
“Bascom is the Miscere Ogre mage who works for Morsca,” explained Thoronis.
Ragar bared his fangs in a silent snarl at the word ‘Bascom’ while Mereik looked at Auraus.
Since the Wind-rider still said nothing, the Gnome continued with the story. “Auraus and Dusk were both quickly brought down. She was collared with a magical metal collar and, after Auraus was punished by it, she and Dusk were thrown back into the cage with us.”
The three of us looked at the wide metal collar, shining from the guttering fire, around Auraus’ throat. I must have been distracted by her wings to have missed it earlier. She half-raised a hand to it in reluctance, almost as if she were ashamed of it.
I asked, “What do you mean by ‘punished’?
The Wind-rider shuddered, but still said nothing.
“With the right activation words it causes her intense pain,” Mereik replied. “Later, Dusk prayed to his Mother, who only said that She was not going to help and that we had to stick it out.”
My ears perked up, and I had several questions I was about to ask when Auraus spoke up in a small voice. “Not quite, Mereik. The goddess Quiris actually said, ‘though this once I might have been tempted to help, I am not allowed to interfere. Caelestis has Her reasons, and I agree with them’.”
“Anyway,” Thoronis interjected, “We had thought the same thing about Dusk as you, Jason. But he then told us that his Mother had given birth to him before She ascended, which makes him just as mortal as the rest of us despite his having a heavenly Mother.”
“Besides, Auraus cannot leave here while wearing that collar,” Mereik added while waving her hand at Auraus.
“Why not?” I inquired.
“Because not only does it cause pain, it cuts her off from her connection to the magic that Caelestis grants Her Priestesses. And were someone to accidentally say the activation words, nobody here knows the words to turn it off. She would eventually die from the pain. So it needs to be taken care of before we depart.”
The golden-haired Wind-rider gave another involuntary shudder of remembrance.
“Does it have a key?” Jason asked.
“Dusk thinks so, but he said it is magically locked.” Auraus replied.
Arghen said to her, “Lady—Priestess—may I see?”
Without exposing the tiny fire to the Keep, she turned and knelt with her back to him, shifting her wings to expose the collar.
He looked at it by the light of the tiny fire. “There is a shallow, three inch rectangular-shaped hollow in the collar’s upper back portion. Your Dusk was right. It is rune-locked.”
“Rune-locked?” I asked.
“It is a magical lock with a magical key. We need to find the rune stone that goes with this collar in order to open it,” he said.
Abruptly he dropped his hands from Auraus’s collar.
The Wind-rider turned around to face him as he glanced in apology at me. “Lise, this rescue is your quest. But Auraus, I now know, is mine.” He turned back to look her directly in her grey eyes. “Your quest is now my quest, my lady. My companions may do as they will since Lise’s quest is done, but I pledge by the Goddess Quiris that I will help you to free Her son. We do not have much time to decide what to do. You mentioned down in the yard that you thought we came from your company—the Grey Riders, I believe you called them? Are they all Wind-riders? Do you know where they are?”
Auraus shook her golden head. “Our bandit raiding band is comprised of several races of beings, and I am the only Wind-rider. All I know is that our band is split: some are to the west, and some to the east. They are taking a pair of captives we had freed from a different capture wagon to the closest habitation from which they could make their respective ways home. The others not doing escort duty were supposed to alert the closest settlements to this problem.” She waved a hand at the mountains behind her. “Dusk and I were taken prisoner because we chose to stay and scout together, and I missed the signs of an ambush,” she said with a faint tone of self-disgust. “That is how we fell into Bascom’s hands.”
She, Mereik, and Thoronis all shuddered at the name while Ragar bared his fangs again.
“It looks like you have a special grudge against this hombre Bascom, amigo,” Jason said shrewdly to the mountain-cat-elf, inviting him without words to explain.
Ragar looked daggers at him but said nothing. Jason held up his hands in a placating manner and dropped the subject.
“So, no time to find your Grey Riders and bring them here,” the Under-elf mused out loud to himself. To everyone else he said, “I will not ask any to help us, but I will be grateful to one or all who choose to do so.”
A black-haired female Surface-elf spoke up. “We had already agreed to, Champ
ion, before you came up from the yard. We want to help the Priestess free her friend from Morsca’s clutches. Nobody should be left behind here, and we would have tried to do it with or without your help even before we found out he was Quiris’ son.”
Various murmurs supported her assertion.
“Morsca? I’ve heard that name before. Who is she?” I asked.
“She is the owner of this keep, and she is the Miscere Surface-elf for whom Bascom works,” the Surface-elf replied.
Jason placed a hand on Arghen’s shoulder. “Arghen, if you want my help, just say so.”
“Me, too!” I chimed in. “I don’t think my quest for Caelestis would be complete until we rescue Dusk, so we’d better make plans quick.”
Arghen stared for a brief moment, and then bowed from the neck to me and Jason.
With the time for the shift change growing perilously near as far as I could figure out from the height of the moon, I asked Jason, “What are your thoughts on the plans already mentioned? Or do you have something else?”
Jason looked pleased I had asked his opinion. “I actually like the one that has the ex-prisoners killing the guards at shift change. That would reduce the overall number of guards available to fight. Any person not involved in the actual attack can hide and come out when they’re needed. That way, the people in the keep wouldn’t know anything until dawn, and with luck we’ll be away with this Dusk person by then.”
Ragar, a low thrum of a growl underscoring his words, said, “You do realize that we will have to hunt down and kill Bascom before we go.”
“It is possible that we will probably come into contact with him, if only to retrieve the rune-lock for Auraus’s collar,” Arghen said to him calmly.
The mountain-cat-elf frowned ferociously but gave a short sharp nod.
“But it will be dangerous. Bascom is a full mage, and a skilled one at that!” objected Auraus, fear adding an underscoring to her words. “Can we not find the rune stone without crossing his path?”
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