* X *
The prisoner had provided them with a lot more information, but listening to him for so long had quickly become tiresome. They had managed to gather the locations and probable identities of several powerful enemies from the prisoner though. The Red Hand had spread out over an alarmingly wide distance. They also now had an idea of timescale; the main invasion force were not due at Skull Gorge for another ten days, meaning that they hadn't yet reached Day One according to Koth's map. They had also, if the prisoner was to be believed, an idea of the scale of the invasion. It did not look promising.
When they had got all that they could from him, they stopped questioning the prisoner. He pleaded for freedom, but they'd never let that happen.
"We'll take ya wiv us," Buttercup announced, attempting to sound reassuring. The Prisoner didn't take it that way. Elantar was going to advocate dropping him into Skull Gorge, but didn't fancy disagreeing with Buttercup so openly. She might just try finishing him off in the night.
They left Arden, Coralyn, Boshley and Taran to watch over the prisoner while the rest of them went to look at the bridge. It was an imposing structure. When they left Vraath Keep that morning, they'd planned to look into ways of bringing it down. Looking at the huge stone edifice now, that seemed laughable. Buttercup, undaunted, took a swing at one of the flagstones. A very small piece of rock flicked off. She shrugged, and re-sheathed her sword. Simple brute strength wouldn't get the job done.
"Any helpful spells?" Elantar asked Taldir and Gravak. They both shook their heads. Elantar walked out onto the bridge. She paced around for a couple of minutes, and returned to where Buttercup had swung her sword at the floor. She could barely see the damage that the Barbarian had inflicted. She looked up again to see Buttercup pushing at the side wall, to no avail.
Taldir stood thoughtfully, staring across the chasm. He glanced over at Elantar.
"Look for a weak spot," he commanded, using Elvish. Gravak looked around quizzically.
"A weak spot? On this?" Elantar scoffed. She stayed with his choice of language, curious as to why Taldir might want to hide their discussion.
"It's an old bridge…" the Wizard stated, "and inferior Dwarven craftsmanship. There'll be a weak point…" he insisted. Taldir began to walk back and forth across the bridge, staring intently at the floor. Elantar wasn't sure where to even begin.
"I don't know anything about construction…" she declared.
"You're an intelligent girl…" he started. "Well… relatively," he added with a grin, and a side-long glance at Buttercup.
Elantar frowned, and pretended to look for an elusive weakness in the bridge's structure. It stubbornly remained as sturdy-looking as ever. She thought about it for a few minutes, and walked around to get a side-on view of the bridge. She had no special training in construction, and knew nothing of its theory, but she made an educated guess that the arches were providing strength to the structure. They certainly wouldn't be easy to build, and from what she knew of Dwarves, she'd expect them to make things for functionality rather than aesthetics. The bridge obviously wasn't a single piece of stone… Logically, it'd be weakest somewhere that different pieces were joined together. The largest separate sections were…
"The towers," she said aloud. She returned to the nearest tower, and crouched to examine the blocks that had been laid together here.
Elantar ran her hand over the flagstones, and the smaller bricks that made up the structure. She took out a dagger, and poked between some of the spaces. One of the bricks was loose, and she exposed it by removing the dirt from around its edge, and managed to lever it out, followed quickly by another four. The loose bricks were hiding a long and heavy looking block that seemed to hold the main bridge structure onto the tower. It had a significant crack in it. She levered out more bricks, and exposed the crack in its entirety.
"Buttercup!" she called. The Barbarian approached, and was followed by Taldir and Gravak, who had both still been looking over the bridge.
"See this crack?" Elantar asked. Buttercup nodded, and seemed to know what to do without any further instruction.
"Good find…" Taldir nodded. Buttercup pulled out her Greatsword and swung it with force at the weak spot. A spray of stone leapt into the air, and the crack deepened. Buttercup grinned, and made to take another swing.
"Hold on!" Elantar demanded. "Your rope…" she added, holding out a hand. Buttercup frowned, but handed it over.
"You're standing on the bridge still," Elantar pointed out. She tied one end of the rope around Buttercup's waist, and handed the coil to Gravak. He nodded, and tied it off against a tree, bracing it in between.
"Pity…" Taldir said, using the Elvish tongue again. "I wanted to see if she'd notice." Elantar shook her head, and motioned for Buttercup to continue.
It wasn't a quick task. Buttercup hacked at the bridge for almost half an hour, but somehow didn't grow impatient. The prisoner could see what was going on, and had worked out their intentions. He laughed at first, but when Buttercup didn't stop swinging her sword, and with more and more stone being loosened, he soon quietened down. When the bridge eventually collapsed, he was deathly silent.
Gravak and Boshley helped Buttercup back out of the ravine after catching her with the rope. She grinned triumphantly, and accepted the applause of the party.
It had been a long day, and it was good to finally stop for the night. They camped within bow shot of Skull Gorge, but had retreated a little into the woods. This was the first time they'd needed to set a night watch since Eldarion left, and this bought its own problems. Most of the party needed at least eight hours rest if they were to be fully refreshed and able to fight the next day, but Elantar was now the only one who could get by on four. They would have to stop for at least twelve hours now if they were going to keep effective watch, which would make setting out early the next morning a problem. Elantar, along with Gravak, Coralyn and Taran all went to sleep as soon as they could. The rest would stay awake until Elantar awoke to take watch on her own.
The darkness was particularly deep tonight. There was a half-moon up, but significant cloud cover. Elantar, since waking to take watch, had been looking for light at the far side of the Gorge for a few hours now. There had been no sign of anyone from this distance, but she'd remembered about twenty minutes ago that Hobgoblins could see in the dark, and probably wouldn't bother carrying torches. Now she was willing the sun to rise quicker so that she could make sure.
"Any movement in the night?" It was Gravak, who'd woken first. She heard someone stirring, but had hoped it would be Taran who rose first. She hadn't properly had an opportunity to get an update from him on the research he was carrying out for her.
"Nothing…" she answered. She looked around at him. "How's your night vision?"
"Pretty good…" he answered. She explained her fear that Hobgoblins could have retaken the far side without light, and handed him the spyglass.
"Nobody there…" he confirmed after looking for a minute or so. She didn't take this as definite confirmation, but it helped her to feel a little more at ease.
He sat down with her, wearing just a simple fur tunic. Elantar wouldn't have felt comfortable sleeping without her armour, but Gravak's was far too heavy to get any decent rest in. Boshley had to remove his to sleep too. She paused awkwardly. There was something that Elantar had been wondering about the Cleric for a couple of days now, but she wasn't quite sure how to bring it up with any subtlety.
"Do you have a problem with snakes?" she finally asked bluntly. Gravak looked around with an uncomfortable look about him.
"My home…" he responded slowly. When Elantar didn't react, he eventually continued. "Tontor was an ancient city; remote and isolated deep in the jungle quite a way south of Elsir Vale. There were a number of Half-Orcs there, and several other races too, all living peacefully amongst one another.
"Our stepped-stone temple walls showed carved images of various humanoids fighting serpent-like monsters; this was presumably part of our forgotten histories, as nobody alive knew what these monsters were, or had ever seen anything like it." Elantar found this a little strange at first, but imagined there must have been more to come. Gravak wouldn't hold irrational hatred of snakes because of some old pictures. After a short pause, he continued.
"As I'd said, we lived at peace, and the natural predators that filled the jungle meant that we had never feared any outsiders. We were protected, and self-sufficient… If we did need to leave the city, we had ways of subduing the beasts that protected us.
"One night, we were attacked without warning. It was, apparently, the same serpent-beasts from the carvings but bought to life. Their numbers seemed endless… and they ranged from humanoids with snake-like features, right up to huge, unstoppable serpents. They used powerful magic to smash the walls, and flooded in, killing the population indiscriminately. Some tried to escape the city, but were cut down… None got away alive.
"I stood among those that fought back, but we didn't stand a chance against the overwhelming force that we faced. I was eventually separated from my allies, and backed into one of the temples where, seriously wounded, I prepared to make a final stand.
"I still remember it clearly…" Gravak closed his eyes and paused for a few seconds before continuing. "A huge serpent made a snap at me, and I somehow cracked its skull open with my mace. At first, I thought I'd overbalanced with my swing, but it turned out that the floor had collapsed beneath me as I struck its head. I fell, amongst the loose stone of the temple into darkness… I must have fallen over a hundred feet… I braced myself for impact, expecting to eventually hit the bottom, but I was not at all prepared to hit water. I think I passed out for a few minutes then… I wasn't wearing the armour that I have now, so mercifully, I floated to the surface.
"I awoke to find that I was riding an underground river, and was being carried downstream. I was in total darkness, but could still see enough, and more of the same sort of carvings that we had in our temples taunted me from the cavern walls." Gravak glanced up, but Elantar didn't respond verbally. After a few more seconds of silence, he carried on.
"The river eventually surfaced several miles outside of the city. I lay broken on the riverbank for a couple of hours. I eventually gathered my thoughts, and a little strength… I vowed to myself at that moment that I would one day return to Tontor to cleanse it of all Serpents, and to see the city restored. Just as I did, I found my strength returning, and discovered that I was able to use some weak magic to begin healing myself. I've travelled around ever since, learning what I can about my own power, and finding out what I could about the invaders…
"They're called Yuan-Ti; a mixture of human and snake bloodlines. I…" he paused, and shook his head. "I hate them. Them, and all serpents."
"So…" Elantar braved, "when you saw the Hydra a couple of days ago…"
"I was mistaken," he shrugged. "I'm grateful that Taldir thought quickly and got us out of trouble… It shouldn't have been necessary though. I should have been more careful… I will be, in future."
There were a few more moments of silence before either of them spoke again. "What about you?" Gravak asked her. Elantar winced. Gravak had shared a lot that was clearly very personal though. "You've not mentioned anything of your home… Not even its name, I don't think." Reluctant as she was, Elantar felt that it'd be dishonourable to keep the information from him now, after what he'd shared.
"Khirin Alithenen… That's its name." The Cleric nodded slowly for a couple of seconds and then stopped abruptly.
"I've never heard of it," he stated bluntly.
"We came close to it not that long ago…" she responded. "It's a few days north of the Eisenmond Mine, amongst the northern foothills of the Giantshield mountains."
"You didn't want to visit when we were there?" he asked.
"I'm…" she began, not knowing quite how to explain it, "I can't ever go back. I'm banished."
"I'm sorry to hear that…" Gravak responded sympathetically.
"Don't be," Elantar replied, "I'm much better off out of there."
"So…" Gravak began, "one of us had our home taken from us and desperately wants it back… And the other celebrates being forced out?"
"Something like that…" she responded.
"I can't imagine feeling that way about Tontor…" he continued, "living in… Kirrin?"
"Khirin Alithenen," she answered.
"Right…" he continued. "Living there must have been particularly unpleasant. Why does anyone stay?" Elantar appraised him briefly, but judged that he was genuinely baffled.
"It's not unpleasant for everybody," she continued. "Those in power and favour have a very easy and enjoyable life."
"You were… a criminal?" Gravak asked. She shook her head in response. "Forgive me…" he added. "You mentioned being an exile?"
"Not for anything that I did," she replied.
"My parents were executed as traitors when I was very young. I never knew them."
"I'm sorry…" Gravak said sympathetically. "I can understand why you haven't told this to any of us," he added.
"It's OK…" she stated. "Taran knows a little of it; he and Eldrann have been looking for word of them amongst the information we found up north."
"You… you don't know what they did?" he asked.
"No…" she replied, and paused. "The King rules tyrannically," she continued, "I like to think that they were trying to overthrow him. Something worthwhile, at least…"
"What were their names?" Gravak asked. Elantar didn't answer. Instead, she stood and drew her swords.
"What is it?" Gravak asked, also taking his feet, and looking to the far bank.
"No… nothing like that," she answered. "These belonged to my mother and father." She held the weapons out to him, hilt-first. "I took them the night that I left, and had their names engraved on the blades in Dennovar."
"I see…" the Cleric responded. "I cannot read this script though," he added.
"Elvish runes," she replied. She took one of her swords back and pointed out the lettering on it. "Neririeth, my mother." She re-sheathed it, and took the other back from the half-Orc. "Yinneiros, my father," she explained.
"I find it strange," the Cleric continued after a brief pause, "that you could be told their names, but not their crimes."
"I wasn't ever supposed to know their names," Elantar explained. "Not even my own." The Cleric raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I was called Ilmerne, which in our tongue means 'Unwanted'. It's the name that goes with these scars," she said, pointing out the two deep gouges on her face. "Children of traitors get marked in this way, and turned out of the land when they come of age. That was only a few months ago."
"So… you're still young by your kind's reckoning?" he asked.
"Yes; one-hundred and eleven years," she replied.
"How did you find out your name?" Gravak asked. "It is the one your parents gave you"? She paused silently for a few seconds. She had been surprised at how liberating it felt to share this information, but she wasn't sure how much more she wanted to say.
"I had an appointed watcher; each Ilmerne had one," she finally said. "They are supposed to teach us some basic survival skills, and make sure we are obedient." She paused again, considering how much to reveal. "We do not have the same freedoms as the rest of the people. We're taught that we're barely even people at all.
"My watcher was called Celal; he was very harsh with me for the first sixty years or so. His previous charge had, by all accounts, been difficult to deal with, and he was determined that I'd be easier work.
"He softened eventually… I was a much easier task than he'd had before, and he began to take a liking to me; taught me more than he was supposed to, and wanted to see me succeed when I eventually left Khirin Alithenen. It still took a few years for him to reveal anything that he shouldn't though. Eventually, eight or nine years before I was due to leave, he told me my parents' names, and the one they'd chosen for me. I'd have my own choice of name after exile, but I was determined to be true to them.
"I was stupid… when asked about my plans for after I left, I let the name slip. They worked out that Celal had given me the information… They cut out his tongue and ejected him from the kingdom. I've hated myself for that slip up ever since."
Gravak looked sympathetically at her for a few silent seconds. "Arden… Boshley… Coralyn… You should tell them," he announced.
"No," she responded simply.
"It would help them understand. You frustrate them with how insular you are, but they'd understand if they knew your story."
"I don't need their pity!" she snapped. "Or yours… this goes no further. Understood?"
"Of course… there's no need to be angry," he growled.
"I'm sorry…" she responded. "I've never told anyone that much of it before. I may tell the rest of them one day, but it'll be when I'm ready."
Getting back to Drellin's Ferry in one day was ambitious. They had spent most of two days travelling north to get as far as Skull Gorge, but time was very much pressing. With this in mind, they reluctantly decided not to investigate the diversion that may have led to a Forest Giant settlement. They hoped that, whatever was there, it would not have a negative impact on the defence of the Elsir Vale.
They spread out all of the Red Hand weapons and armour that they could manage, loading up their mounts as well. The Red Hand Sergeant that they had taken prisoner was made to carry a heavy pack too. The load was not particularly demanding until they reached Vraath Keep, where they loaded up more equipment. They hoped that Soranna would be grateful for the efforts that they were going to…
They were long into the afternoon, and about ready to dump some of the extra gear that they were carrying when they came back to the site of their battle with the Hydra. The road had been surprisingly quiet so far, to everybody's relief. Gravak paused his horse, and stood looking at the cart partially submerged in the bog.
"Keep moving, Cleric," Taldir called back to him. "It'll be sunset soon enough."
"Hold on…" Gravak replied. "Everybody hold on!" he repeated, a little louder. Everybody stopped, dismounted, and dropped their packs to the floor. There were several sighs of relief.
Gravak dismounted too, waded out into the swamp, and touched his hand to the cart. It vibrated for a few seconds, before several cracking sounds could be heard, and the cart began to rise. A wheel that had lay discarded flew suddenly back into place, and before long, the cart was whole again.
"Throw me a rope," Gravak called. Elantar responded, quickest, opening Buttercup's pack and snatching the rope from on top of it.
"Oi!" she shouted, and grabbed at Elantar, who dodged aside, and uncoiled the rope.
"We're taking the cart with us," she explained to Buttercup.
"Oh…" she responded.
"Can you throw this end to Gravak?" Elantar asked. Buttercup nodded with understanding. She took the other end, and tied it to Gravak's horse. It looked around unhappily at her.
"You'll be happier after, I promise," she whispered to it. She dropped the saddle packs from it to help, and it stood stronger.
Within twenty minutes, they were back on the road, all carrying much lighter packs. Two of the horses were now pulling the cart, but were finding this much easier than the heavy loads they carried before. They switched the horses every couple of hours to keep them fresh; overall they were able to make much quicker time.
It was after midnight when they arrived back at Drellin's Ferry.