Don Bassingthwaite - The Grieving Tree

Singe picked up a pebble and flicked it at Robrand. There was a tiny flash of light and the pebble dropped to the ground without touching the old man. Chain scowled. “Deneith!” he spat in digust.

“Don’t feel bad,” Robrand told him. “I’ve been outwitting marksmen longer than you’ve been alive. If it means anything, you’ve got a steady hand.”

Ashi gave the old man a puzzled look. “You used your dragonmark to protect yourself?”

Robrand nodded.

The hunter tilted her head. “Why not just use it to protect Geth?”

“He was safe enough.” Robrand waved his hand dismissively. “It’s exactly what I told Chain-if he killed Geth, he had nothing left to bargain with. But by using my mark on myself, I was able to surprise him and free all of you. Sometimes shielding yourself is the best way to shield someone else.” He gestured for Ashi and Natrac to get Chain on his feet. “Bring him along. Tzaryan’s going to want to have a word with him. I don’t think he’ll be bothering you again.”

Dandra winced and Geth knew she was remembering Bava’s story of the Tharashk prospectors who had run afoul of the lord of Tzaryan Keep. “Is that necessary? Maybe there’s something less drastic.”

Robrand shook his head. “Tzaryan takes his authority very seriously, Dandra. No one crosses him and gets away with it.”

Chain went pale, struggling and cursing as Ashi and Natrac hauled him to his feet. The hunter and the half-orc didn’t look any happier at escorting him to an unpleasant fate. Geth saw Dandra glance at Singe with a beseeching look in her eyes, but Singe just gave her a slight shake of his head. Geth understood the wizard’s dilemma: there wasn’t much use arguing with Robrand once the old man had decided on something.

He was half-surprised himself that Robrand had bothered to rescue him from Chain at all.

At the gates of Tzaryan Keep, a call from Robrand brought ogres racing down the broad stairs to take charge of Chain. The ogres were far less gentle than Natrac and Ashi. They put an end to Chain’s struggles with a quick slap to the back of his head and a couple of brutal twists on his arms. The big man looked small and maybe even forlorn in their grasp. Geth felt a twinge of pity for him. He wouldn’t have wanted to be in his place.

They all followed up the canyon of the stairs to the upper levels of the keep, then through halls Geth didn’t recognize until they came to the head of another flight of stairs plunging back down into the keep’s innards. Unlike the broad stairs that led up from the gate, these were steep, plunging sharply down. The oversize steps-built for the feet of ogres-made navigating them difficult. Geth noticed that Dandra gave up trying to walk and let herself skim above the steps, sliding down them like a child on a smooth hill, supported by her psionic power.

There was no natural light at all in the depths of the keep. Orc slaves summoned by Robrand carried torches ahead and behind. The flickering light made the stairs especially treacherous, but without them, Geth knew, he would have been as night-blind as a human. Only Orshok and Natrac, with their orc-blood ability to see even in absolute darkness, seemed comfortable, though Natrac once again reacted with ill-concealed disgust to the presence of Tzaryan’s slaves.

When the first flight of stairs ended, they passed along a hallway that was thick with the stench of ogre bodies and echoed with the sounds of rough leisure.

“The troops’ barracks are that way,” Robrand explained, gesturing off into the darkness. He turned in another direction, and they descended another steep flight of stairs before stopping in a second hallway that smelled even worse than the first. Geth’s nose wrinkled at a mixture of hot coals, damp stone, and stale waste.

Robrand stopped at a thick wooden door and pulled it open. “This will do,” he said. “Put him in here until Tzaryan decides his punishment.”

The ogres brought Chain forward and muscled him through the door. The best bounty hunter in Zarash’ak looked substantially more frightened than he had chained in the hold of Lightning on Water . He ran at the door as the ogres forced it closed.

“Help me!” he shouted. “Don’t let them-”

The door closed in his face and the ogres dropped a heavy bar into place across it. Singe looked to Robrand. “I don’t like him, but do you think you can get Tzaryan to release him without doing anything too permanent?”

In the light of the torches, Robrand looked older than he was and even more harsh. “I’ll try.” He gestured and the two ogres retreated up the stairs.

Nearly a dozen paces farther along the corridor, a brazier full of hot coals stood beside another door. An older ogre with stringy gray hair tended it, stirring the coals with a heavy poker. The hilts of several knives protruded from the brazier, their blades buried inside it. A hobgoblin sword and other gear-Ekhaas’s presumably-lay in the shadows nearby. The ogre looked up as Robrand and the others approached. His nose was missing, lending a strangely flat quality to his voice when he spoke. “As you orders, General. Waits for you.”

“Well done, Lor. Leave us for now.”

The ogre looked disappointed. “Leaves?”

“Tzaryan’s guests will speak with the prisoner first. I’ll summon you back when they’re finished.”

The old ogre’s scarred face fell, but he pushed past Geth and the others and headed for the stairs. Geth choked and held his breath as the ogre passed-the smell of smoke and burned flesh clung to him. Dandra closed her eyes for a moment and looked away.

Robrand strode past the brazier and up to the door. “Singe,” he said. “Help me.” Between the two of them, they lifted the bar that lay across the door and dropped it to one side. Robrand stepped back. “She’s all yours for as long as you need,” he said. “She’s gagged right now-you’ll want to take that off, but be careful of her spells.” He turned to go.

“You’re not staying?” asked Dandra.

“You don’t need me and I have to tell Tzaryan about Chain,” he said. “Come find me in the upper levels when you’re finished. You remember how to find your way back?”

Dandra and Singe both nodded. Robrand gestured for two of the orc slaves to leave their torches behind in brackets on the walls, then left with the other slaves lighting his way.

Singe drew a deep breath and turned to the door. “Let’s see what Ekhaas can tell us about Taruuzh Kraat.” He tugged the door open.

The cell beyond was possibly the first cramped space that Geth could remember seeing in Tzaryan Keep. A single ogre would have been squeezed tight in the cell; two creatures of human size could have stood close within it. Ekhaas crouched against one wall, chained to it by a collar around her neck. Her hands were bound and her mouth, as Robrand had said, gagged. She still wore her studded armor, though her hair was no longer so severely drawn back. Singe glanced at Dandra, then stepped into the cell alone while the rest of them watched from the doorway.

Above the gag, Ekhaas’s eyes were bright and hard. Her wolflike ears stood straight. “I’m going to take the gag off,” Singe told her. “Bite me or try to cast a spell and it goes back on.” He reached behind the hobgoblin’s head. The gag fell.

Ekhaas didn’t move except to lick her lips, working saliva around her mouth. There was a bucket of water close to the brazier Lor had left behind. Geth grabbed it and cautiously scooped some liquid into his mouth. It was stale, but clean. “Singe,” he said, passing the bucket into the cell. The wizard took it and offered it to Ekhaas. She only regarded it with disdain.

“I won’t take water from someone who intends to defile Taruuzh Kraat,” she said, the cedar-smoke voice that Geth remembered rough and cracking.