Revelations

Ant plots an escape and Jevon meets the Losasidhe spy.

12.

Revelations

 

They sat in the dark hold of the airship, the ropes that had bound them close at hand so they could slip back into them if their captors reappeared.

Jevon was a nervous wreck, fearing the worst when Hobnail’s Losasidhe spy was revealed to them.   Most likely he would see through Ant’s disguise and then she would be killed and possibly him as well.

Yet though hours had passed, Ant had not formulated any sort of plan and was cross and short with him when he would periodically ask her what she had in mind.

As the time passed, he grew more frustrated and finally he decided he could wait no longer on the Changeling girl.    Jumping to his feet, he felt around in the dark until he found the ladder leading upwards to the trapdoor.

Halfway up the ladder, Ant called out to him, sounding mildly annoyed.

“What are you doing, Jevon?”

“We’re running out of time, Ant, I’m trying to buy us more time by wizard-locking the trapdoor.”

“For God’s sake, Jevon!    Get down and stop fretting!   I have a plan!”

“When were you going to share it, Ant?”

“I wasn’t.”

“What?”

Ant sighed in frustration, “Alright; just come down and I’ll explain it.”

Jevon complied and was just stepping off the stairs when he was suddenly flung backwards onto the floor.

“Hey, what-“  Jevon felt someone on top of him, “Ant…”

*Trust me, Jevon, there is no time!   They are coming!*

Before he could answer, he felt a prick on his neck, then, a moment later, another stab.   It wasn’t a weapon that had poked him, but felt like something like a fingernail.   But the pricks were enough to draw blood.

“What are you doing?”  He asked, but she slapped him with such force that he hit his head against the side of the hold.   Stars danced around his head, his ears rang and he was too stunned to move.     Over the ringing of his ears he heard the trapdoor unlock and swing open.

Ant pulled his head back, exposing his neck, and she leaned over it as light flooded into the dark hold from the torches of those descending the ladder.

As he looked up at Ant, he was horrified at what he saw.

She was pale whitish grey in color, different than her natural appearance.   Her hair was a dead white color, but it was her eyes and lips that drew him in.   Her eyes were glowing red and her lips were blood red.     Upon seeing him looking at her, she bared her teeth and hissed.

Shouts came from the ladder as apparently those coming down also saw her.    Ant leaped up with a snarl and charged toward the ladder as if intent of threatening them.

Those on the ladder now were frantically climbing upward to escape the enraged creature below.    Jevon just watched in disbelief as Ant jumped up to grab the lowest man (a pirate guard) on the ladder and pull him off.   He screamed as he fell the five feet to the floor, yet Ant hung on to the ladder and went after the next one.

But fear had motivated the others to quicken their pace up the ladder and they fled onto the deck in sheer panic.    Ant climbed quickly after them, plunging through the trapdoor with the terrible growl of a hungry predator.

*Stay there; I’ll be back for you.*   Ant sent to him telepathically.    *Tell them a vampire attacked you.   Say the Losasidhe girl was carried off while you both slept.    They’ll think the vampire killed her and came back for you.   Your neck wounds will verify this.*

*But why?*  Jevon thought, knowing she’d hear it.

*I scanned Hobnail’s mind �" his greatest fear was a vampire woman who his family encountered years ago when the Necromancer’s Guild attempted to invade the Dwarven Kingdom.   I knew he’d react with fear and so I spent the last several hours morphing into how he remembered the vampire.   I’m on the deck now and I will hide before they regroup and come searching for me.   You need to play along, Jevon.    Do you understand?*

*Not entirely, but I’ll do my best.*

*Good, I must hide for now.*

He did not sense her mind any more and so he laid back and groaned weakly as he heard the pirate stirring that Ant had tossed off the ladder.

The man sat up, and then saw Jevon with twin puncture wounds in his neck that appeared to him as a vampire’s bite.  The pirate’s eyes widened in horror and he shrank back away from him.

“Help!   Help me!    There’s another one down here!   Help!”

“I’m no vampire!”   Jevon replied, sitting up with his hand on his neck.

“She bit you �" that means you’re one too!   Or else you’ll turn into one!”

“She didn’t drink any of my blood; she just stabbed me with her… fangs.”

“You stay away from me!”

“I’m not dead �" I’m as alive as you are!”  He sat up and rubbed his neck, trying to wipe off the blood.

The pirate calmed down some and after a few minutes he went over to the ladder and hurriedly climbed out of the hold.     Soon he returned with a group, including Hobnail and a tall handsome elven man that Jevon recognized.    It was Deryck Memphellic.

Jevon remembered Ant’s words and he just sat there as if weak and unsure of what had happened to him.

The pirates came over to him and one of them held up a mirror to him and seemed very relieved to see Jevon’s reflection in its surface.

“He’s no vampire, Cap’n,”   the pirate said to Hobnail, who was noticably pale and continued to stand a distance away from him.

“What happened down here?”   The pirate chief commanded.

Jevon shook his head slowly, “I don’t know... we were asleep and I don’t know how long I had been out, but suddenly I felt someone ripping off the ropes around my hands and feet.   When I opened my eyes I found that... that thing glaring at me with those red eyes.”  

He shivered as if it was too much for him to relive.

“Go on; what’d she do to ye?”

“I couldn’t move �" it was like her eyes paralyzed me.    I couldn’t look away and she opened her mouth.   Her teeth were sharp and blood covered!   She leaned in and had just stabbed my neck with her fangs when you guys opened the trap door.    I guess you know the rest.   Hey... where is Syl?”

“Who?”   Hobnail asked.

“Syl Botanus!   The Losasidhe girl!”  Jevon looked around wildly, “Her ropes are there!   Yesh preserve me!   The vampire!”

One of the pirates went over to examine the ropes and then knelt down to look at something on the wooden floor.

“Captain; there are drops of blood here!”

Hobnail swallowed uncomfortably, shaking his head, “She probably fed on the Losasidhe girl first.”

“Then where’s her body?”   Lord Deryck asked, staring curiously at Jevon.

His words seemed to ease the pirate’s fear, his brows lowered and he looked suspiciously at Jevon.

“Did ye know that Losasidhe girl well?”

“No, not really,”   Jevon’s mind raced, trying to work out something to explain it, “In fact, she did seem a bit odd when we were waiting on the docking platform.”

“How?”   Hobnail asked.

“It was almost like she was in pain or something, and she kept squinting though it was an overcast day.    Do you think she was the vampire?”

“Vampires’ can’t come out in the sunlight,”   One of the guards said.

“But if the day is cloudy, they don’t burn up.   They’re weak and it hurts them, but they can do it,”   Hobnail answered, a far-away look in his eyes as if remembering of an encounter from long ago.

“She didn’t talk much while we were waiting on the airship,”  Jevon said, building on his story, “In fact, she didn’t talk to me at all after you kidnapped us.”

“Well, she bit you, didn’t she?”   Deryck asked, looking skeptical.

“She just pricked me with her fangs �" when she heard the trapdoor, she stopped.

“How convenient,”  Deryck responded with a sneer, “Just before I had a chance to take a look at her.   I don’t know who this Syl Botanus was, but she was not the daughter of Symorden.”

“Ye are sure?”   Hobnail asked him.

“Absolutely!   Symorden’s wife just had their first child.    This girl was an impostor.   Yet she said she was a Bitter Dreg and I doubt they would recruit a vampire.”

Hobnail turned to Jevon, “What about that, boy?”

Jevon shrugged, “Maybe they didn’t know either.   Or the vampire could have killed the real Syl and took her identity.”

“Vampire’s are shape-shifters, but I’ve not heard of them changing their forms to look like other people,”   Deryck said, coming over to look closely at Jevon’s wounds, “She didn’t bite you very deep, Jevon, did she?”

“I was just lucky.”

“Were you, now?     I suspect you may know more than you are admitting, but it is no matter for right now.    The ‘vampire’ is still roaming around somewhere on this ship.”

“She might have changed into a bat and flown off,”   Jevon answered.

“She certainly had a chance when she got out on deck, but we just saw her running toward the quarterdeck, and then she disappeared in the dark.    That doesn’t sound like a vampire to me.”

“Lord Deryck, why are you doing this?   How could you betray your king?”   Jevon said, hoping to change the subject to keep the Losasidhe traitor’s sharp mind from thinking about Ant’s ruse.

“What do you know about loyalty?”   Deryck replied angrily, poking his finger in Jevon’s chest, “I have watched King Eiolmoel lose his focus and warm to the humans and other races!  Yet I remained faithful and true to my king!   I deserved his daughter as a wife!   She was mine!   Yet he allowed that worthless mixed blood elf take her as a wife!    It was the final straw, so when Gelden contacted me on behalf of Hobnail, I agreed to spy for them.    Eiolmoel does not deserve to remain as king.   I want to see Muld dead as well �" with him out of the way…”   

“You think Syndi will turn to you?   You are an idiot!    She’s bonded to Muld by Aleiryid!   If you kill Muld, then she’ll simply die!”

Deryck grabbed Jevon by the front of his shirt and pulled him up close to him.   

“Well then, if that is the case, LET HER DIE!!”  He flung him backwards, down onto his butt and stormed off, rushing up the ladder topside.

Hobnail and the pirates just chuckled and the pirate captain finally nudged Jevon with his boot.

“He doesn’t like you, elf!    I don’t know if ye are lying about the vampire, but we’ll see when we capture her.    If she is what you claim she is, then she just may come and finish rippin’ your neck out.   So ye best not make any plans of leaving this hold, ‘cause she’s out there and is probably hungry for blood.”

As he told Jevon this, Hobnail’s hands subconsciously tightened their grasp on a sword he was holding.

“But we’ll get her, I promise you that!    We’ll leave ye unbound down here, so ye can defend yourself to some degree if the damned witch comes down here to suck on your blood.   If I were you, I’d stay quiet and pray we get to her before she gets to you.    Ye still are my hostage for Muld, but ye had best watch out, lad, for I can abduct the Halfling or that Goblin, if I have to.   Ye aren’t as valuable as ye think, so watch yourself.”

Hobnail turned to his men, “Come on, lads, let’s find that vampire and put a stake through her black heart.”

The pirates fell in behind him and started up the ladder without another word to him.

* Ant, did you hear any of that? * Jevon thought, hoping she would hear his thoughts, but if she did, the Changeling girl didn’t answer.

“This isn’t going good at all,”  He said to himself as he leaned against the side of the hold to try to formulate an escape plan in case Ant’s plan failed.

 

***

 

Muld knew they had captured Syndi before he ever saw her.   They had taken him to a secluded elven village and tied him to a post in the center of a hut, placing a gag in his mouth to keep him from trying a spell.   He didn’t know what they wanted, but clearly they had plans for him.     He heard his fiancée struggling and then (after they apparently removed a gag from her mouth upon entering the camp) shouting loudly at them.

He tried to free himself, but he was bound too tightly and all he could do was listen as they took her off to another hut.

 

For several hours he heard nothing else and then night fell.     Muld was nodding off, about an hour after dark, when the leather flap of the hut’s door was flung open and Calarom came inside, with two guards.   As the guards removed the gag from his mouth, the druid chanted a spell.

“We have your mate,”  The druid said, through the magic of the ‘Understand Languages’ spell that he had just cast.

“What have you done with her?”   Muld asked anxiously.

“She is bound in another hut, but has not been harmed.”

“Let her go,” 

“I think not.    Not until you have helped me.”

“Helped you do what?”

“You have lived amongst the humans such as those soldiers who are invading our island.    You know how they think and what they will try to do.   You will tell us of their plans and how to defeat them.”

Muld looked at the druid with disbelief, “I’m not a soldier; I don’t know what their strategies are!”

Calarom crossed his arms across his chest, “You are not stupid, mixed-blood.    That is obvious.   I think you can provide us with some information that can help us.    Guess as best as you can, but know that I expect your best effort.   Your lady’s continued safety depends on this.”

 

Muld closed his eyes for a moment, carefully thinking of what to say.

“Those soldiers that you have encountered so far were not the best ones that they will send,”   He said after opening his eyes, “We overheard them talking about more soldiers arriving in a few days, and these soldiers will be more experienced.”

Calarom nodded with a frown, “We expected that much.   Tell me about their strength and strategies.”

Muld briefly outlined what he knew about the structure of the Imperial legions and then tried his best to figure out what they would do next.

“With their Auxiliary Legion destroyed by your people, they will try to overwhelm you with sheer numbers.    They will come at you from multiple sides with very disciplined and determined soldiers that will be very well armed and equipped for a long drawn out war.”

“How many men?”   Calarom demanded.

“Thousands of men and they will send more and more if they are needed.    The Southern Empire is heavily populated and they have a vast army.”

“So how do we counter them?”

“Recently, they had a religious movement against magic that left most of the empire suspicious of wizards... or druids.   They fear magic and even their legionnaires will be scared to some degree.   They probably won’t bring magic-users against you, so I would advise to prepare as many of your spell casters as you can and have them positioned all around your island.     Perhaps magic can make-up what you lack in numbers.”

Calarom seemed pleased with Muld’s advice, though he tried to look cold and stoic.   

“I shall discuss your words with my people and consider them.    For now you and your woman will remain bound, but you safe.     Someone will bring you food in a short time and feed it to you.”

Muld’s heart sank when he realized that his hands would remain bound while he ate.     But he nodded and rested against the post as the men left, praying that Syndi was unharmed and trying desperately to think of a plan of escape.

***

 

She had struggled and fought for hours and was completely exhausted.   Syndi, firmly tied to the poll in the middle of the hut, leaned forward, miserable and unable to sleep much while she was so tightly bound.

She had half-way dosed off into an almost delirious dream when she felt a pair of hands on her shoulder.   She tried to cry out, but they had tightly gagged her, so she just made a hoarse groan as her eyes popped open.

In front of her was a long lizard’s snout and some familiar brown eyes.    The Lizard-woman put a finger to her mouth to signal her to be quiet.  

Syndi nodded and the Lizard-woman used her teeth to chew through the cords binding the Losasidhe girl.

Very soon she was free and Syndi took the Lizard-woman’s hands in her own and thanked her.

“I don’t know how you managed to sneak in here, but I am very grateful,”  She told her in a whisper.

“Do you know where Muld is being held?”

The reptilian woman nodded.

“Is he close by?”

The Lizard-woman slowly shook her head, pointing to the west.

“On the other side of this village?”   Syndi asked, and the woman nodded.

“Great,”  Syndi sighed, “We’ve got to get him, okay?”

The Lizard-woman, touched Syndi’s arm to get her attention, then knelt down and scooped up a bit of dust from the floor of the hut.   Curious, Syndi watched her as she cupped the dust in her hands and made a series of soft sounds that seemed to be a mixture of cricket chirps and the croaking of a large bullfrog.   Thankfully, the sounds did not seem out of place in the night and no elven guard was alerted

Then, abruptly, the woman stopped making the sounds and threw the dust into the air over her and Syndi’s heads.

It fell slowly, almost like snow and suddenly Syndi could not see the Lizard-woman or even her own hands in front of her.

“An invisibility spell!”  Syndi exclaimed a bit louder than she had intended, but she was amazed to learn that the pregnant Lizard-woman was a spell-caster.

An unseen hand felt for her and finding her forearm took hold of it gently.   A moment later, the Losasidhe princess was being led slowly out of the hut into the open common area of the village, where a handful of primitive elves mulled around close to several camp fires.

The Lizard-woman moved as silently as an elf and they cautiously crept across the open area without anyone sensing they were there.

 

At the other end of the village there was a hut slightly separated from the others without windows.    In front of the hut, two elves stood guard, armed with bows and swords.    There was no way to slip by them into the hut without their awareness.

Syndi was trying to think of a spell that she knew that could neutralize them temporarily, when Muld’s voice called out from inside the hut.

“Hey!   Anyone out there?   Hey!”

The guards immediately pulled the flap covering the doorway aside and rushed inside.    Syndi and the Lizard-woman hurried forward and slipped in behind the guards without them noticing.

The two elves did not understand Muld’s language, and he was struggling to get them to understand that his tied-up arms were cramping from extended immobility.   Syndi was surprised that he hadn’t been gagged.

“I need to move around; can’t you understand?   Go get Calarom!”   He was saying, before blinking in surprise upon seeing two large ceramic storage jars by the doorway seem to suddenly rise up into the air, over the heads of the guards.

With great force they crashed down onto the heads of the two guards from behind, sending both men to the floor.

Syndi and the Lizard-woman appeared as soon as the jars impacted, the invisibility spell broken.

“What in the world are you doing here?”   He said to them in a whisper, but without waiting for an explanation, he added, “Cut me free quickly; someone might have heard them fall.”

Syndi grabbed up one of the guard’s swords and quickly cut his cords while the reptilian woman monitored the door.

“I thought you would be gagged,”  Syndi said as she cut his ropes.

“They were going to feed me in a few minutes, I think, otherwise I probably would have been.  Are you alright?”   He asked his fiancée, who nodded.    Muld leaned in and quickly kissed her, savoring her lips for only an instant.     Then he went over to the Lizard-woman and touched her shoulder.

“Thank you.   You risked your life to rescue us.”

“Muld, she’s a spell-caster!    She cast the Invisibility spell.”

The Lizard-woman looked back and bore her teeth rather menacingly, which Muld knew was her race’s way to smile.

“Can you cast the same spell again?”   He asked her, but before she could respond, they heard the sound of someone running toward the hut.

Syndi immediately began chanting a spell and the Lizard-woman and Muld quickly moved to each side, both of them beginning their own spells.

It happened in an instant �" the flap was flung back and Calarom charged inside, at the same moment Syndi finished her spell.   It was a Push spell; a more powerful version of the Cantrip of the same name.    Calarom was caught off-guard and was thrown through the doorway, then about fifty feet across the open court, crashing into the hut across the way.

Before the druid could recover, Muld’s Magic Missiles spell hit him with a bolt of energy and the Lizard-woman’s spell produced a thick fog much like Muld and Syndi had used earlier, concealing them from the druid and others in the village.

“Come on; let’s get out of here before they figure out what’s going on!”  Muld suggested, and the two women followed him out of the hut into the magic fog, feeling their way around the side of the hut and then to a bush hedge that surrounded the perimeter of the village

“How do we get through that �" the hedge is probably eight feet high and who knows how thick!”   Syndi asked.

Shouts were coming from all around the village.   The Lizard-woman began her chirping and croaking language and after only a few seconds, gestured at the hedge in front of them, putting her hands close together, and then stretching them out.    The hedge rustled and then separated, giving them a narrow corridor to go through.

“Yesh preserve me; you’re a druid, aren’t you?”   Muld asked the reptilian woman as they hurried through the magic portal.    She nodded, smiling her alligator like smile.

Voices called out from the back of the hut where they had entered the hedge, which told them they would soon be followed.

As soon as Muld exited the hedge into the dense forest on the other side, the Lizard-woman reversed her gesture, bringing her hands close together and closing up the passage.    A cry of alarm and pain revealed that at least one of the primitive elves had entered the magic portal after them and had been trapped in the middle when the Lizard-woman had closed her spell.

In the distance, from somewhere in the village came the loud, angry voice of Calarom, chanting something in his native language.

“That’s Calarom �" he’s casting some sort of spell!   We’ve got to get out of here!”   Muld told the two women, and the three of them began hurrying through the heavy underbrush, into the forest in the thick darkness.

“We have no idea where we’re going,”   Syndi said after a few moments of stumbling forward, “We could fall off a cliff without ever seeing it.”

“Wait a moment,”  Muld ordered and they heard him snap off a branch from a tree, then quickly chant a spell that resulted in a white ball of light glowing off the end of the branch he had pulled from the tree.

“It will only last about ten minutes, so let’s get as far away from this village as we can.”    He held the magic torch over his head and the three of them resumed pushing their way through the brush.    Each of them had their ears straining to hear expected sounds of a group of the elves coming around the hedge surrounding their village and pursuing them.

But for a few minutes, all they could hear was Calarom’s chant, growing fainter and fainter as they went deeper into the forest.

“Is he ever going to finish canting?  That must be some spell,”  Syndi commented, but a few moments after she had said this, the druid’s voice suddenly stopped.

“He either finished it, or gave up on it,”   Muld commented, but he knew in his heart that the druid had completed it, and that whatever he had cast would be aimed at them.

They didn’t have long to wait to find out.  In the distance sounded a loud horn and a moment later, the baying of large hounds filled the air.

The Lizard-woman stopped and began excitedly trying to communicate with them in her language of chirps, whistles and croaks.

“What is it?”  Syndi asked her, and then to Muld, “What is she trying to tell us?”

“I’m not sure, but I recall once hearing about a powerful druid spell that only their masters cast �" it was called ‘The Wild Hunt’.”

The Lizard-woman nodded frantically, gesturing for them to run.

“What does the spell do?”  Syndi asked as they followed the Lizard-woman crashing through the brush.

“It brings supernatural dogs and hunters after their prey.”

“And we’re the prey?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Yesh Preserve us!”  Syndi cried as the sounds of hunting dogs and large beings riding large animals seemed to come from all around them.