Alliances

She too could smell it. They were approaching from the east, and the wind carried the odors of wood smoke, open privies, and unwashed bodies. Kerian put her face to the wooden bars and peered ahead.

Like most Qualinesti towns, Bianost had been built to be, as much as possible, a natural part of the forest. With characteristic finesse, the elves shaped the living trees into homes and shops, and natural clearings were planted with the flowers and fruit trees for which the town became famous. Bianost apples and figs were renowned throughout Ansalon, and the honey collected from enormous hives on the perimeter of the orchards made the most potent mead in a thousand miles.

The floral glory of Bianost was gone. In its place squatted Samustal, a fetid settlement named for Captain Samuval and ruled by Lord Olin Man-Daleth.

Dusk had come, made darker still by the pall of smoke overhead. Fed by several large bonfires and thinner columns rising from innumerable cook fires and street torches, the wood smoke acted like a shield, holding in the odors of rotting garbage, open latrines, and hordes of unwashed inhabitants. The structures lovingly shaped from living trees by generations of Qualinesti were twisted and gnarled, bark black and peeling. A stockade of dressed timbers encircled the heart of the town. Outside that twelve-foot fence was a patchwork assortment of tents, huts, and lean-tos. The invaders had felled many trees to construct additional structures, but the new buildings showed signs of hasty workmanship: timbers poorly joined, walls leaning, roofs canted.

The cart was passing through the outer edges of the shanty town ringing Samustal. If she was going to do something, Kerian knew she must try it now, before they entered the stockade.

“We have to get out of here,” she said in a low voice.

“Wonderful idea,” the dwarf snorted. “We’ve fared so well thus far.”

“If we all work together—”

“We’ll all die together. Listen to me, woman. I tried to fight back. All I got for my troubles was a cracked skull, a broken rib, and a dead brother.” His face twisted. “It’s hopeless.”

Pointedly, he turned his back on her. She looked to the three elves. They avoided her gaze.

“Listen to me! It’s not hopeless!”

Kerian had been working at the ropes that bound her wrists and finally had succeeded in loosening them. Lying on her back, she drew her legs up and worked her wrists under her hips until they were in front of her. Her small success did not impress her fellow captives.

Fine. She would do it herself. Decades ago she had been forced into servitude by Qualinesti elves who thought they were improving the lot of a barbaric Kagonesti. No matter how benign the intentions or how kind the master, slavery was slavery, and the Lioness would not go quietly to such a fate.

She began to yell, kicking the wall of the cart behind the driver’s seat with both feet. The cart abruptly halted. A goblin came to the side of the cage, yelling at the prisoners to be still. She heaped insults on him until the goblin foolishly shoved his spear through the bars at her. She took hold of the shaft with both hands and jerked. The goblin’s face hit the wooden bars, and Kerian was on him instantly. She encircled his neck with her bound wrists, dropped to the floor, and planted her feet against his back. Pulling with her arms and pushing with her feet, she snapped his neck.

Kerian recovered the goblin’s spear. The sharp head made quick work of the ropes tying the cage door closed. In seconds she was out the door and sprinting for the horse yoked to the cart. Despite their earlier lack of enthusiasm, her fellow captives scrambled out of the cage after her and took off in all directions.

Shouts rose, but Kerian wasted no time looking back. She cut the horse’s tether with the spearhead and thumped heels against the animal’s sides. It sprang forward—

—and immediately went down. She tried to jump free but her weakened body finally had had too much. She fell heavily on her side. The horse was struggling, neighing shrilly, and Kerian saw a fine cord wrapping its rear fetlocks. Each end of the cord was finished by a wooden ball larger than her fist.

Three goblins arrived and aimed their swords at her throat. Behind them came the half-ogre. It had thrown the odd weapon, which whipped around the horse’s legs, bringing it down.

Turning its attentions to Kerian, the creature gave her a back-handed slap that split her cheek and blackened her eye. “No more trouble,” the half-ogre commanded.

She was hauled to her feet, arms tied behind her back, this time at both wrists and elbows. Her ankles were hobbled with rawhide cord, allowing just enough movement so she could shuffle along. On the ground nearby lay the body of one elf, killed trying to escape; the other two had succeeded in getting away. The dwarf, slower than the Qualinesti, had been recaptured.