Mika and Katlin turned without a word and walked back to the tents on the hill. There was little they could do now. The two needed a few minutes to rest before they would be good company for the humans. Levy turned to Slias. "We need to work on the release spell for the other two now."
"No, my boy, we don't. That spell can't be done until morning."
Levy started to speak and then after a moment he realized that the priest was right. It would be best to work the spell in the morning. It would take a lot of energy and the dangers were less during the light of day. They followed the others to camp. It was time for food and rest.
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Karleen had set up a pot with soup while she had been tending to Mika. The soup was ready to be eaten and she dug out some bread to go with it. The party ate in silence. Each sunk deep in their own thoughts about the day. As they finished up Mika and Katlin returned to the fire and sat down on the ground. Mika reached out for the bowl Karleen held out. "Levy, Slias, I know that you have been working on a way to release my sister. Can it be done?"
The priest and the mage looked at each other. Levy spoke up. "It can be done but it will be difficult. I have never before dealt with this type of trap spell."
"Nor have I," added Slias. "The snakemen rarely leave their country and never any of their mages."
"How much time do you need?"
"I believe that working together Levy and myself could bring down the spell in a short time." Slias paused. "There is one thing, Mika, we will need your help here."
Mika looked surprised. "My help? I'm no mage or priest. How can I be of help."
"During my study of the spell I found that there is a message link inside. A message for you."
Mika looked surprised. A message. How could that be? His sister was a bard but he didn't think they could do such a thing. "How?"
Levy responded. "There is a little known power of the bards. When the bard knows that they are dying they can imprint a message to those they love in something near them as they die. It looks as if your sister found a way as she died to imprint a message in the spell trapping her spirit. The only way to free her and your brother-in-law would be with you in the spell loop."
"All right, if you say so. You are the magic expert in the group. When do you want to start?"
"In the morning." And before Mika could object. "Its best to do these things during daylight. The type of spell we will be working tends to attract things if done at night." Mika subsided back into thought. He knew what type of things Levy was referring to. He had come across the night dwellers himself many times. Best not to attract their attention.
"All right. We should probably make sure to get a lot of sleep tonight. What's the watch
schedule?"
Talen spoke up. "You, Slias and Levy are out of it tonight. Samis, Meryl, Katlin and I can take care of it. Just get some sleep." Turning to the others, "that's two hour shifts. Shouldn't be any problem."
The party broke up and set up their various tents. Katlin walked over to Mika's tent and
scratched for entry. When he said enter she lifted the tent flap. "Mika, I'd like to talk with you."
"Fine, sit down." Mika answered.
"We need to make plans for after tomorrow."
Mika sat staring into space. After a moment he spoke quietly. "I know that, Katlin, but right now all I can think of is my sister and her husband. I can feel their souls from here."
"I too can feel their pain, my friend. Tomorrow we will see them freed from their prison and onto their proper resting place. But your niece is still alive and out there somewhere. We must think of a way to find her."
With a sigh Mika agreed. The child was all he had left of his favorite sister. A child he had never met but knew so much about. She would look like her mother had when their own mother had died. Small and slender with lots of silver hair. Silvershine's letters had told of how the girl had inherited her mother's hair and stature but her father could be seen in the girl's eyes. She was too young to be out among the humans. She would look very young to them. An elven girl of fifteen would look to the humans to be a child of seven or eight. Soon though she would hit puberty and her apparent age would nearly match her physical age. In fact it could have happened anytime since this village was destroyed. He didn't want to think of what had happened to the girl since then. What little he knew about Samuel Elvenbane boded badly. His sister had once been in the hands of the creature's father. If it hadn't been for Stoneblade she would have died there.
"We need to find out where Elvenbane has gone. Where he is we will find my niece."
"That may be true, but what if he had decided to sell her?"
Mika didn't want to think of that. There were many cities along the inland sea who dealt in slavery. He knew that elven slaves where very popular in many places. Many races preferred to have slaves of those they considered better than themselves. The city elves outside his home mountains tended to think that they were better than the other races. Hell, he admitted to himself, many of his own people held the same belief. That was one of the reasons his sister had left Mer'Beryl. "We will find her. That much I can assure you of. I will not stop looking for her as long as I live."
Katlin was glad to see the intensity he put in his words. The first few hours after finding out about losing his sister had been bad. He needed something to keep him from the deep melancholy he had suffered from when his sisters died all those years ago. "Good, then I will leave you to your rest. Good dreaming my friend."
"Good night to you, Katlin." As she lowered the tent flap she heard. "Thank you my friend."
"You're welcome."
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In the morning each of the party members found that they had little sleep. They had all been thinking of the two poor spirits locked in stasis in the village. They silently gathered around the camp fire and ate a quick breakfast. As one they lay down their bowls and walked down into the village.
Slias, Levy and Mika climbed the scaffold and stood just at the edge of the globe of energy containing the two corpses. Levy and Slias each took one of Mika's hands and as one they started their chants. Mika standing in the middle felt surrounded in sound. Somehow the two separate chants melded together into a whole. He could feel the power flowing from his friends into his body. He held tight to the power. He knew that he had to push it out once they reached the end of their chants. Any moment now. The two came to the end of their chants much more quickly than he thought they would. They opened their eyes and nodded to him. He concentrated and imagined the power as a key and himself reaching out and unlocking the globe around his family. With a flash the globe of power expanded to included Mika.
The others were alarmed at first but with a wave from Levy they stepped back. "Its all right. He's in no danger."
Katlin spoke up. "What do you mean, Levy? No danger. The globe has enclosed him."
"No, it hasn't. What you see is the spirits of his family giving him the message they left for him." Slias turned and walked down the stairs. "There is no longer a trap spell about them, look carefully."
Katlin and the others looked up. It was true. The glow had left the bodies of the two elves and had surrounded Mika. It was a different color now. When it had been around the bodies it was a dull grey color and now the glow was a silvery color. They could also see the changes in the corpses. Where they had been held in stasis before, their final agony written plainly on their features, they had been released. The chains holding them to the stakes let go and the bodies came to rest gently on a clean floor. The pooled blood disappeared. Katlin and Karleen walked up the stairs and around Mika to the bodies. They placed the bodies' limbs into more restful looking positions. They carefully arranged the hair of each over the open wounds on their necks. Katlin looked down on the elf maid she remembered as a child. Tears fell upon the forehead of her lost friend.
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Inside the globe of power Mika was facing two beings that he had no idea he would ever talk to again. Silvershine and Stoneblade looked strong and healthy. Just as they had on his last visit, all those long years ago.
"Hello my brother. My eyes see with joy."
"As do mine my sweet sister."
"How we have missed you, my friend. And how we wish that we had better times to be with you."
Mika reached forward to grasp his brother-in-laws arm. His hand met the solid flesh of an arm full of muscle. He looked down and sighed. "I am sorry I couldn't come earlier. I might have been able to save you if I had been here."
Silvershine reached out to brush his hair from his eyes. Mika felt her gentle fingers brush his brow. "Do not blame yourself. You had your own life to live and even if you had been here you would have just died with us."
"Brother, our time is limited. We can only stay long enough to tell you of our child." Stoneblade said, always one to come to the point. "She is in grave danger."
"I know. She is in the hands of Samuel Elvenbane."
"Yes, she is, at the moment."
"At the moment?"
Silvershine spoke next. "She is being taken to the slave markets in Greymer as we speak. She will be sold, along with the six other young women of this village."
"Then I will meet the bastard on the road to Greymer and take her from him along with his life."
"That may be harder than you think my brother. Samuel has with him a very strong and sneaky
mage. The one who trapped us here."
"I know, a snakeman. Levy and Slias discovered that as they were looking for a way to break the spell you were under. I'm confident that they can stop him. I promise I will get her back."
"That is all we could wish. Take her home Mika. She will need special care after being with that beast for such a long time."
"I promise that I will take care of her just as if she was my own child."
"We know that you would, my friend. Just promise us that you will be careful. Samuel is a viscous killer. He would think nothing of staking you out over an anthill in the sun."
"I will be on guard."
Stoneblade looked out toward a glow that was coming nearer. "Our time is almost done. Mika I promise you that we will watch you from the other side. Tell our daughter that we love her." He embraced his friend and slowly faded from view. Mika turned to his sister.
"Good-bye my brother. Know that I love you. Be careful. Don't join us too soon."
"I promise." He held on tightly to her. He didn't want to let go. But as she raised her lips to place a kiss on his check she faded from view. The last thing he heard before the globe dissolved was a faint, "I love you."
As the glow receded Mika sagged to his knees, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. His sister and brother-in-law were free. Their spirits winging to the elven afterlife. In their passing they had given him the best information they could about their only child's whereabouts. Karleen placed an arm around him and helped him to his feet. He looked up and spoke. "I know where she is." The others understood. He looked down at the empty shells of his family. "I will keep my promise."
With a solemn silence the two bodies were gathered up and laid together in one grave in the remains of their home. The simple ceremony of last night was repeated with the others adding short speeches from their memories of the two buried there. Afterwards they gathered their belongings and rode away toward the road to Greymer.
******************
CHAPTER THREE
On to Market
Greyfox's days after her parents death were a maze of pain and blood. She rarely understood what was being done around her. She remained locked inside her mind, reliving the final moments of her parents lives. After a year of her total lack of response to what ever was done to her Samuel Elvenbane decided she was not worth the energy of keeping. He ordered her fellow elves to clean her up for sale. Under the grime and neglect she was still a beautiful young creature. In the time that she had been with him she had reached puberty. Her breasts and hips had swelled.
Once washed her hair gleamed like the moon and combed out it came to the tops of her calves. Her skin had only taken a very slight glow in all the time she had spent in the sun. There was a disturbing lack of conscious thought in her eyes. Those who remembered her as a vivacious girl were saddened at that loss. She had looked to follow her mother's footsteps as a bard but now it was anyone's guess at what she would become. The horror of what had happened seemed to have snapped her mind.
Elvenbane took his string of seven captives to the slave mart. The women had various skills that should bring plenty of money. The child was stunning and docile enough to go to a brothel. He would be sure to visit her every time he was in town. He still thought to get a child on her. In the year he had her she mustn't have been fertile enough to conceive. He would have his complete vengeance on her parents and disprove the curse they had thrown.
He had lost more than a few of his followers to that curse. They knew enough to be afraid of a bard's death curse. No matter how often he took the child she never conceived. As did none of the other women he kept. Before the curse he had strewn he seed far and wide and had seen the results. In the past year all of his children that he knew of had died one way or another. Well, he would just keep it up. Surely someone would catch. This time he would be sure to keep the child out of the clumsy hands of its mother. Women couldn't be trusted to do anything right. His mother had tried to make him into a eunuch. He had shown her. When his uncle had come to town when he was ten and told Samuel all about his father, he had struck his mother. Even at ten he was immensely strong. That one blow had killed his mother. He then spent years training to follow in his father's footsteps. That training had culminated in the raid last year. He had his vengeance.
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CHAPTER FOUR
TOO LATE!
Mika and his companions rode hard and fast. He pushed them long into the night and up early in the dawn. He needed to reach the road to Greymer before Samuel Elvenbane had a chance to enter the city. Once he sold Greyfox it would be next to impossible to find her. He wanted to be sure that he got his hands on the half-Orc who had killed his sister. The creature needed to be removed from the face of the kingdom. He had been raping and killing his way across the kingdoms for the last seven years. Mika just hoped that he didn't have his army with him. The seven of them could not hope to kill off an army.
After five days of dawn till dusk riding the company found themselves on the road to Greymer. There was only one road leading into the great port city. From their hiding place on a hill just outside of the city they could see anyone on the King's road. "Mika, we need to rest the horses." Katlin said as she walked up to his side.
Mika looked up. He knew he had been driving them hard. He also knew that if he hadn't they wouldn't have made it here in time to stop the beast who had his niece. "I know, Katlin. Take them back over the hill. Have Talen brush down Star for me will you?"
"Sure thing."
"Also, can you send up Levy?"
"Just a moment." She paused. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, just anxious." He reached out and grasped her arm. "Thank you for all your help, Katlin. I couldn't have made it through the last week with out you and the others."
"We know, Mika. We know." She turned and drew Star over the hill. After a few moments Levy walked up over the hill and joined Mika at its crest.
"You wanted to speak to me, Mika?"
"Do you have anyway of telling whether we have beat Elvenbane to the city?"
"I can try. Give me a moment." Levy pulled a small bowl and a flask from his satchel. Placing them on the ground he poured a small amount of water into the bowl and strew some powder over the surface. Closing his eyes he whispered a few quiet words. Opening his eyes he looked down into the bowl. In a far away voice he spoke. "The beast we are searching for is but a day away. He carries with him the child.
"
"Who else?" Mika tried to nudge more information out of the spell bound mage.
"The beast rides with six elf women in a cart and ten men at arms. They are careless, riding with their weapons unready and joking. Two of the men are drunk and have been since the beginnings of the ride. There is someone else. He is.......Aaargg!" Levy screamed and clutched his head. Mika knocked the bowl over and grabbed his young human friend. He pulled him away from the bowl and the cloud that was now pouring out of it.
"What is it? Levy, tell me what I can do!"
The young man couldn't answer. He was in a battle for his own mind. His cry brought the others boiling up the hill. Karleen came up to him and took him out of Mika's hands. "What happened?'
"That isn't important right now!" yelled Talen, "Look!"
Out of the cloud came two of the most terrifying beasts that the party had ever seen. Talen and Samis pushed ahead of their friends, drawing their swords. Mika and Katlin reached for their weapons and Meryl circled around trying to find someplace to throw his knives in. The two beasts looked like a mix of lizard and wolf. Their teeth were long and their eyes glowed a sickly green color. Without a sound they leapt toward the two humans. The battle was begun. Talen and Samis were quick but the lizard- wolves were faster. In the first moments of the battle one of the beasts had managed to bowl over Talen and the other had fastened its teeth on Samis' sword arm. Mika went to Talen's aid and Katlin to Samis'.
The creature bit down and its teeth penetrated Samis' metal armguard. With a hiss Samis tried to shake the beast off. It just bit down harder. Katlin stabbed in toward its spine but found that her sword had little effect on the beast. The sword slid in but the wound sealed up as she pulled the sword out. She tried a different stroke but this one just glanced off the scales of its neck. "Katlin," Samis hissed, "cut the head off. He was plunging his sword into the belly of the beast. It had little effect. She backed a little off and tried again. She didn't want to take off Samis' arm.
The beast that had bowled over Talen turned like a weasel and sunk its teeth into the human's neck. With a strangled gurgle, blood spurting in the air, the valiant man died. Mika screamed out a battle cry and lay about with his sword. Just as was happening with Katlin he found that his sword had little to no effect on the animal. He cut and thrust, trying to keep it from the non-combatants. It was only his speed and the fact the beast was more interested in him that gave Slias the opening he needed.