"Oi! Stop the cart, I got ta take a leak!" Baren bellowed from the behind the cage they were hauling. Dagni groaned but stopped the horses pulling the cart. He hoped Baren would be quick, the constant sobbing from the cage's inhabitants had begun to wear on his nerves. "Hurry up ye git!" Girin shouted, also striking the cage with his mace in an attempt to quell the constant whimpering from the fresh slaves. Baren simply muttered something before disappearing into the fog.
"Got a dragon bladder that one." Girin remarked after several minutes of waiting for Baren. "Aye, he drinks like one as-" Dagni began but was suddenly interrupted by a shrill scream that set both dwarves on edge. "What in Morghesa's tits was that?!" Dagni spat while frenetically looking around. "Stay here." Girin said, climbing down from the cart and motioning for Dagni to stay put. He saw Girin wander off into the woods, followed shortly by a shout and a loud crash.
"Damnation." Dagni muttered quickly climbing down and shuffling after Baren. A childlike laughter had started to eminate from Girin's direction. Dagni swore as he called after Girin in a low voice. The laughter had started to echo all around him now and he broke into a sprint towards the woods ahead. Suddenly he tripped, he braced himself for impact but it didn't come when expected. Indeed, it took far longer than he expected and he landed in a hole several feet deep with a bone crunching crash, together with the unconscious body of Girin.
Tristan Von Leytal peered over the hole at the dwarf spewing profanities. "That went better than expected but as predicted." he thought, adjusting a pair of round spectacles. He decided to leave them down there. If they were lucky someone would come and fish them out, if not, well there was probably some good karmic reason for it. He strolled in the direction of their cart filled with prisoners. Tristan didn't really look the part of the hero, being rather bookish, pale, and with a mop of brown hair. Not the kind of heroic figure they would write songs about. Still, he had a legacy to live up to.
His grandfather had been a great hero who had tried to stop the rise of the evil regime currently in power. Sadly he was thwarted in his decisive moment. Their family had suffered dogged persecution for attempting to foil Morghesa but his grandfather's books had contained a wealth of arcane knowledge his family had used to survive. Nowadays Tristan was happy to follow in his grandfather's footsteps, foiling the queen and assisting what villagers he could.
He approached the cage filled with captives, surprised that a scrawny man with a big hat had returned instead of their dwarven captors. "Y'all don't need to worry. I'm gonna set you loose." Tristan said airily. He furrowed his brows as he looked at the lock. Not too difficult, a simple design. He pulled out a crystalline orb and recited the words for an unlocking spell. A loud bang emanated through his head. "Strange..." he thought. "I hadn't finished casting yet." He looked up to see the blurry horrified faces of the prisoners before his vision was swallowed by a sea of black.
---
The first thing Tristan felt was pain. Primarily in his head but then also in his ribs, probably from dwarven retribution. When he came to, he noted that he was bound, gagged, and had now joined his intended rescueés in the cage he was unlocking. He looked around and saw that he had missed a dwarf, with the other two dwarves now retrieved from the hole he had created glaring daggers at him. "Should have known dwarves always come in odd numbers." he thought to himself. He concluded with a final mumbled "Bugger." before slipping back into unconsciousness.
No comments:
Post a Comment