R. Salvatore - The Bear

Mind and body joined. Mind over body when necessary.

Wahloon did not feel the pain, not the whip gashes in his back, not the bruises on his face, not the cuts along his hands and wrists, not the strain of hanging suspended from the floor. He allowed his shoulder muscles to stretch and twist appropriately so that they did not resist the weight.

He tried several times to writhe and squirm his wrists out of the bracerlike shackles, but to no avail. He had no footing, no balance with which to manipulate the items. He needed something to stand on.

Torchlight stung his eyes and alerted him of movement. One of Bannagran's troglodytes entered the chamber, a hunched and twisted man, bearded and filthy, with two twisted yellow and green teeth and only one good eye. He was a diminutive fellow, hunched and round, his broken form accentuated by a sleeveless woolen sack he wore from neck to knees. He carried a plate of food, rotten and maggot-ridden. Even that meager and wretched meal wasn't for Wahloon, though, but for the gaoler, who grinned evilly as he dipped his greasy fingers into it and shoveled a writhing mass into his mouth.

"Oh, but are ye hungry, smelly one?" he asked.

Wahloon's response came in the form of a kick, weak and pathetic, but effective enough to clip the plate and upend its contents into the gaoler's face.

Wahloon groaned and let his legs fall limp, seeming weak from agony and hunger.

The gaoler howled in rage and stepped forward to pummel the helpless man, who was not so helpless after all.

Up snapped Wahloon's legs, around the troglodyte's neck. The warrior locked his ankles together. Suddenly strong, Wahloon twisted his hips over one way, then back the other and the flailing gaoler turned with him, lurching side to side. The troglodyte tried to yell out, but it came forth as a gurgle. He slapped and pinched at the warrior's legs, but Wahloon felt no pain. He tried to bite at the legs, but Wahloon had his shin under the man's chin and would not allow him to squirm free at all.

Wahloon flipped right over, crossing the chains, so that he was facing the wall, and bent hard at the waist, pulling the gaoler forward and down beneath him. To the troglodyte's surprise, the prisoner then released him, planted his feet on the back of the hunched man's shoulders, and snapped his lower body forward, ramming the gaoler into the stone wall.

The gaoler caught himself enough to avoid splitting his bald head wide open, though he was bleeding badly. As Wahloon shoved away from him, he tried to scurry to the side, but before he had gone a stride, in came the warrior's bare foot, knifing hard against his throat and slamming him again against the wall. Now he was gurgling and lurching, and Wahloon swung level before him and began pumping his legs, knees rising to smash the troglodyte in the face repeatedly.

He went down to his knees, and Wahloon let himself twist back the other way. He used the momentum of that swing to bring his legs up and over, inverting in a hanging roll and straightening with all his strength and speed as he came around so that he double-stomped the kneeling gaoler's shoulder and head, throwing the man facedown to the floor.

He groaned and tried to rise once, but just once, before he fell flat and hard and lay still, making little mewling and gasping noises.

Wahloon flipped back the other way and stood atop him, finally releasing the pressure from his weary shoulders. He stomped hard on the back of the man's head a couple of times to ensure that he wouldn't roll away, and then he used his newfound leverage to begin his work on the shackles-not a difficult task for one who had trained in the ways of Hou-lei.

He thought for a moment of donning the gaoler's bug-ridden wool smock but grimaced in disgust and shook his head. Besides, he understood the pathetic martial prowess of the sentries in the area. If they recognized him, they would quake in terror, and that would only make killing them more pleasurable. "The days are dark," Cormack lamented back at Chapel Pryd.

"There is no sunrise," Reandu agreed.

"Come with us, brother," said Cormack. "To St. Mere Abelle. We will follow the will of Blessed Abelle, protected by high and thick walls King Yeslnik cannot breach."

"The army of Vanguard will arrive presently, if they have not already, and you would surrender to your despair?" Bransen said from across the room, where he sat on the sill of an open window that faced Castle Pryd.

"Ethelbert will not come forth," said Cormack. "Indeed, after his assassins assailed me and Milkeila outside of Pryd, I am not sure that I want him to leave his city! And you witnessed the response of Bannagran."

"I thought that the meeting went better than I could have hoped."

All three in the room turned curious stares Bransen's way.

"Dame Gwydre was not taken prisoner," Bransen explained. "Nor was she turned away. Nor did she back down from Bannagran's snarl-indeed, her bark was louder than his own, and made him take notice."

"Did you expect that Laird Bannagran would have imprisoned her?" Milkeila asked.

"It was a possibility."

"And still you brought her here?" Cormack asked and scolded.

"I don't deny the desperation of our situation. I know about Ethelbert, though I wonder if he was aware that the assassins hunted you. I do not believe he has as tight a leash on Affwin Wi as he believes."

"We're talking about Bannagran and Dame Gwydre and your decision to bring her from the safety of St. Mere Abelle," said Cormack.

"She brought herself out from behind the walls, first to sweep aside Laird Panlamaris and his catapults and then to march east to meet with the Vanguard flotilla. I merely persuaded her to come to Pryd Town to meet this general whose aid she so coveted. And, as I said, I think it went quite well… better than I had hoped."

"He refused her," Cormack reminded.

"And she is in his castle, as his guest," said Bransen. "Did you not see it?"

"See it?"

"Dame Gwydre intrigued him," Master Reandu explained. "Her wit, her courage, her presence." He nodded at Bransen. "Yes, her words cut the man deeply, else he would have sent her away, at best."

"Intrigued him," Bransen repeated, returning Reandu's nod. "At the very least, Dame Gwydre's blunt words have given Bannagran pause and made him less comfortable with his role as the foolish Yeslnik's foolish pawn."

"He'll not likely turn traitor," said Cormack.

"Not now, perhaps," said Bransen. "Some seeds take time to grow."

"And in that time, Yeslnik will conquer the world."

"No," Bransen said, smiling serenely. He moved from the window to regard the others, to make sure he had their complete attention. "King Yeslnik will govern only where his armies remain."

"He will push Laird Ethelbert into the sea, surely," Cormack argued.

"And I hope that the man cannot swim," Bransen replied. "I've no doubt that King Yeslnik's armies are beyond our power to battle, but we have a weapon that he does not." He paused to watch the curious trio lean forward with anticipation. "We have the spirit-walking brothers," Bransen explained. "We will know where Yeslnik's armies are and where they are marching. And so let him chase us futilely the length and breadth of Honce. Whenever his armies conquer a holding and then depart, we will walk in behind them and bid the people to hold hope. And if ever his armies leave open a flank or send out lesser forces, we will meet them and crush them. And all the time, St. Mere Abelle will remain undaunted and unconquered, a beacon of hope against King Yeslnik. Time will work against him as his warriors grow ever wearier with their endless marching and as his general Bannagran continues to realize that the man is a fool and continues to mull the words and promises of Dame Gwydre."