"Let's get going! We're burning daylight!"

Albain was in front of the group leading them to where Lielay was taken hostage by the vile orcs. Each elf wore armor and wielded a weapon for protection. Albain lowered himself to the uneven ground and searched for any sign of where Lielay fell. He rubbed his hand over the ground and felt for the dip where Lielay's armor rammed into it. Finding the place, Albain straightened up and brushed his front off. "She was last seen here," he pointed, "now split up in groups of four and start looking." Albain, Joshua, and another elf with curly black hair named Sawn Shroomfoot set off down a path by the abandoned orc camp.

*****

An orc came down the stairs and stopped in front of Lielay and Danny's cell. Sleeping soundly on the uncomfortable rock slab, that was called a bed, Lielay's chest rose and fell peacefully. Danny leaned against the wall and watched as the disgusting orc scratched its flaky head in confusion. "What do you want?" Danny sneered at the orc.

The orc pointed to Lielay. Then behind it the huge orc came with the wood elf translator. The giant orc started to talk to the elf fast. After a few minutes the elf spoke. "Lord Vic'Nance would like to have her immediately brought up. Wake her up...now." Danny just stared. "Now, elf, or else Rocky," the huge orc puffed out his chest, "will come in there."

"All right, all right. Hold on." Danny didn't want that thing to come in. He walked over to where Lielay slept and gently shook her awake. She stirred, sat up, and opened her eyes. Staring at the orcs, she grimaced.

"What are those things doing here." she pointed to them.

"Lielay, The Lord wants you up there." Danny choked.

The cell door opened and the smaller orc came in and wobbled over to Lielay. Danny was pushed aside forcefully as Lielay was grabbed by the wrist, pulled out of the cell, and pushed up the stairs. The cell door shut and locked. Danny was alone again.

Lielay was led back up the stairs, through the doors, and back into the throne room. Lord Vic'Nance was still sitting on his throne. He smiled when Lielay entered. He clapped his hands together and another servant brought a tray of two goblets and a bowl of figs.

"Step up here Lielay Liltreehuggr." Lord Vic'Nance said as he waved her up. Lielay walked up to the throne and stood in front of the lord. He motioned Lielay to sit in the chair next to him. Sitting in a tall ladder- back chair, Lielay folded her hands and began to think of a spell to chant.

*****

Albain, Joshua, and Sawn walked in the direction of Lord Vic'Nance's fort, slowly. They looked in bushes, behind trees, and rocks for any sign of Lielay. They haven't run into any orcs...yet.

"I'm tired of walking in all this armor. Shouldn't we have found a sign by now?" Sawn sat on the ground and removed his helmet, and wiped off the sweat on his forehead.

"We don't have time to rest. We haven't found any sign of Lielay because we aren't looking hard enough. She's still alive; I can feel it." Joshua was acting like Albain.

"Just what I would say." Albain showed a weak smile.

Sawn sighed and stood up. He picked up his helmet and started to jog after the other two since they seemed to have forgotten about him. Not too far ahead and veering to the left was Lord Vic'Nance's fort, but the three had no idea of its presence.

*****

Back in the fort where Lielay was held prisoner, Lord Vic'Nance was trying to converse with her, but all she did was sigh and turn her head. "Lielay. Your quarters shall be below mine and you shall become my maid. Whenever I call for you, you shall come." Lielay groaned and looked at the wall aimlessly. "Are you even listening to me? Maybe you should go back down into that cell of yours for some more time." Lielay jumped at the sound of going back to the cell where Danny resided. Lord Vic'Nance saw this and laughed. "So you want to go back. Who is in that cell with you? Answer me!" She said nothing.

The translator elf stepped forward and bowed. "M'lord, a male prisoner shared the same cell with her. His name is," he peered at a scroll, "Danny Oakfeller. It seems those two know each other." He stepped back and the lord turned to Lielay and smiled. Lord Vic'Nance rubbed his hands together evilly.

"We won't be sending you down there anymore." He smiled.

"What! Why not!" Lielay blurted out.

"Oh, so you do know him. How?"

"He.. I.. We.."

"If you don't answer me I'll have him executed!"

"OK, OK! I'll tell, Danny Oakfeller is my.my husband."

"Oh, how interesting. Now I know not to send you down there anymore." Lielay fell back into the chair and held in her tears. She was praying to Tunare that she would protect Danny, Albain, Caleb, and Joshua. "Rocky, take her to her quarters." Lord Vic'Nance said lazily.

Rocky the orc grabbed Lielay and pulled her through the doors again. Instead of going down stairs he led her up the stairs. Lielay's quarters where to the right on the second to the top floor. Rocky opened the tall gilded door and pushed her inside, he then slammed the door shut and locked it. Lielay heard him walk away.

"Curses!" she yelled out loud.

*****

Albain, Joshua, and Sawn were cornered in by five orcs. The orcs smiled because they thought that they had won the battle already. Albain smiled too, he looked at every orc then looked at Joshua and Sawn and winked.

Albain raised his hand pretending to yawn, but mana started gaining in his palm. The orcs stared in awe at the sparkling lights. The spell shot out of his hand and hit the orcs full blast. They all were enveloped in flames and fell to the ground screaming in agony.

Joshua ran forward and impaled a fiery orc into a nearby tree. The orc hollered and reached to grasp Joshua's wrist. The flames that jumped off of the orc's hand burned Joshua's arm severely. Seeing that Joshua was injured by the way he attacked, Sawn extended his sword as far as his arm could stretch and quickly sliced an orc's head off. Two burning orcs remained. They howled in pain, loudly; to loud. The three wood elves heard a sound like a small stampede a few moments later.

"What's that?" Sawn asked as he looked around.

"I have no idea." Joshua said as he too looked.

They looked forward and saw a large group of orcs galloping towards them. The three were still blocked in by the burning orcs, plus if they ran they wouldn't have gotten very far because of their weighted armor. They braced themselves for the blow of the orcs.

The orcs surrounded the three and began closing in. The three dropped their weapons and began to pray to Tunare. The orcs stopped and saw them praying. It took their slow minds a minute to figure out what they were doing. Each elf was captured and led by four orcs.

*****

Still in his cell, Danny paced back and forth thinking of a plan to escape the prison and save Lielay. The prisoner in the cell across from Danny's watched him with interest. Danny saw the elf staring at him. "What!" Danny barked at him.

"Nothing, just think it's funny you got something you wanted for five years and then you lose it right away." Danny was confused at first about what he said but then he figured it out, that the man was talking about Lielay.

*****

Lielay pounded on the door, shouting and cursing for them to let her out. She went to the window on the other side of the room and looked down. She let out a small scream when she saw how far up she was. There would be no way down unless she wanted to risk her life by climbing down by windowsills or the cracks in the stonewall.

*****

The orcs led Albain, Joshua, and Sawn through the gates of the fortress and through the big front doors. Their armor clanked loudly as they were pushed in and out of rooms. Finally they entered what seemed like a throne room, Lord Vic'Nance still sat on his throne, and he rarely left it.

"Now what do you want." The lord sneered to the orcs.

"More prisoners." The translator spoke.

"More, I just got one yesterday. If they are all males throw them in some cells down in the dungeon." Lord Vic'Nance didn't even bother to watch them leave. He was already motioning one of his "pretties" to sit on his lap.

Joshua, Albain, and Sawn at first tried to struggle, but the orcs around them poked them with swords or daggers. They were pushed down the same stairs Lielay was pushed down the day before. They entered the prison and one orc opened the cell from across Danny's and threw Sawn in there. Danny's cell opened and Albain and Joshua were shoved in there. The orcs left laughing and Joshua looked over across at Sawn. Albain's eyes were on Danny. He poked Joshua and he too turned around and stared.

"What are you staring at?" Danny said coldly.

"I guess our new cell-mate." Joshua said semi-cheerily.

"Hey! I'm still over here!" Sawn shouted.

"Your fine so shut-up." Albain yelled back.

"Fine then." Sawn turned around and started conversation with the elf in the cell with him.

"There are only two beds in this cell. Tunare curse it, if I'm going to stay in here I get my own bed!" Albain pointed out.

Rocky and another orc came down the stairs again a minute or so later and looked into the cells. Rocky too noticed that there were three in a cell instead of two. He opened the door and grabbed Joshua who was the closest. Joshua was pushed into the cell next to Sawn's.

"Great, now I'm stuck in a cell with this guy." Albain told Sawn.

Danny grabbed Albain and flung him around. He glared at Albain with a burning fire blazing in his eyes. "If you gotta problem with me, tell it to me not to your buddies. I don't tolerate anything. I've been stuck in this cell for five years!"

Danny threw Albain to the floor and stocked off towards his bed. He sat down and Albain stood up. Albain glared at Danny and started to take off his heavy armor. He stood in his under clothes. "Well, who are you so I can at least call you by your name." Albain asked.

"It's Danny. Yours?" Danny replied.

"The Great Albain Tinderblade, you may have heard of me before." Danny said nothing. "OK, maybe you haven't. May I ask of your last name too?" Albain raised an eyebrow.

"If you must. Oakfeller."

Oakfeller. It knocked Albain flat on the ground again. This was Lielay's husband, which means Lielay was still legally married and she was committed to another man. Albain couldn't breath. Joshua tried to see what was happening but only saw Albain on the ground.

"Albain what happened?" Joshua said through the bars of his cell.

"This. this is Danny Oakfeller!"

"What! You mean the Oakfeller Lielay was married too!?"

"How do you know my wife?"

"How do I know her? I'm her brother, Joshua Liltreehuggr. Remember me?" Joshua tried to make himself visible.

"What about you Tinderblade?"

"I've saved her life a couple of times plus I explore with her."

"You travel with my wife.alone! For how long have you been with her?" Danny glared.

"For more then a week by now." Albain pondered.

*****

Back up in her room, Lielay was throwing chairs and other objects around the room. The floor was covered in broken vases, water, pieces of flowers, and whatever else was in the room. Oh, how Lielay wished she had a bat wing for her levitation spell. She was extremely angry. Then it hit her, the perfect idea. She had just leaned a new spell, snare, from Albain where she could use it the next time someone came into her room.

"Perfect!" Lielay shouted. She sat down calmly on the bed and then waited for someone to come. She sat for ten minutes before deciding to make a huge noise that would reach someone's ears no matter where they were. She started throwing the remaining vases and other breakable things out the window and against the floor. "Now I have to wait again." She smiled to herself.

This time someone did come. An orc from outside opened the door a few minutes later and stared at the mess Lielay had made. He looked at Lielay and frowned, she smirked. Out of nowhere a spell shot out from her hand and the orc had roots climbing up its body. Lielay ran over, took the sword from the orc, and killed it. "Pathetic fool." Lielay muttered and ran out the room.

*****

After spending a good hour in the prison Albain, Joshua, Sawn, and Danny began talking about how to hatch a plan for their escape. They had one idea about jumping the orc that holds the keys, they talked about some other ideas, but jumping the orc was their best plan.

"Next time it comes down here, we'll do it." Danny said to everyone in the prison, which wasn't much because the lord took all the females to be his "pretties", he killed off men that disrespected him, and receiving new prisoners was an infrequent occurrence around his fort.

*****

Lielay was careful about turning down corridors, watching for any orcs or rebel elves. She still held the bloody sword in her hands from her past kill. She already had made it down two flights of stairs without any confrontation.

"So far so good." She whispered.

She looked down the stairs and saw nothing; she ran down them and stopped at the corner. Peering around, she saw a small orc fumbling with his belt; it seemed to be falling off. The orc walked and tried to fix its belt at the same time.

"Yoo-hoo." Lielay called.

The orc looked up and saw nothing in view. It started to hobble in Lielay's direction, it past where she stood. Lielay went behind it and stabbed it in the back until it died. Racing down the next flight of stairs, Lielay wasn't looking where she ran until she hit the orc that held the keys to the prison. The orc drew its sword and challenged Lielay to a duel.

"OK, but your going to lose." Lielay sighed and held her sword up. "I don't even need to use my magic on your demented orcs."

The orc jabbed the sword towards her, it didn't know how to fight. Lielay laughed and sliced the orc's leg. It held its leg and started to back away from her. Lielay felt sorry for it so she made its death swift and mostly painless.

"Thanks for the keys." Lielay said as she took them. Down one last flight of stairs she went into the prison. She heard a voice then everything was silent. She moved slowly to the cells. Her sword was still up, covered with the blood of all the orcs.

"Now!" came a voice from the cell to her left. Four arms shot out and grabbed her. She was pulled into the cell with such force that it knocked her unconscious. The sword fell loudly to the floor.

"We got it!" Joshua said happily.

"No, we didn't. We got Lie." Albain said horrified. Everyone then stared at the body crumbled in front of the cell. Albain and Danny's eyes were wide open, frozen with horror. Joshua was at his cell door, so was Sawn and the other elf.

"So that's the druid we're supposed to rescue." Sawn's voice broke the silence.

"Is.is...did we kill her?" Danny's voice said shakily.

Albain reached for the keys and opened the cell door. He ran over and freed all the other elves, which was only five others. Three of those five graciously thanked Albain and bolted up the stairs. Joshua and his cellmate remained. Danny was kneeling down beside Lielay. Joshua joined him. Sawn was at the stairs watching for anything. Albain rushed over to Lielay's side.

"Lie, Lie?" Are you dead?" Albain thought of the sarnak. He was waiting for her reply, nothing.

"Is she was dead how would she answer?" Danny snapped.

"It's an inside joke." Albain snapped back.

Danny started shaking Lielay and asked Joshua to pour some water over her face. After a minute Lielay's eyelids began to move. Her eyes opened and she stared up at both Danny and Albain.

"Lie, you are alive!" Albain's eyes watered.

"I thought I lost you again." Danny said softly.

"You two jumped me. How could you? I can't believe you." She smiled, jokingly. Danny hugged her and finally let go. She stood up and turned to everyone in the room. "Having a party, are we?"

"Sorta." Joshua said behind her.

Albain embraced Lielay and kissed her. Danny steamed when Albain did that; he pulled Lielay away from him. Joshua then came over and hugged her; Danny let them since they were related.

"Enough of that. We gotta get out of here before those orcs come back." Sawn said and headed up the stairs.