The hunter was not a woman given to retrospection, or regrets. In this instance, however, she was beginning to question her wisdom. As she had fallen through the faltering doorway, a beautiful fey woman had raised her hand, spoken a few words in some arcane language, and ever muscle in the hunter's body had frozen hard as marble.
The hunter watched, as the dark-skinned fey was tended to, his friends desperately trying to separate her dagger from him. Every time it was touched he would scream, as if his soul was being torn to shreds. They wouldn't be getting it to come out that easy, she knew.
While they were distracted she watched them; the way only one of them seemed to have any concern for the slaves at all, and the frantic way they tended the fey. The strange short man had struck Brionne. She tried to puzzle that out, attempting to see the situation from their eyes. They had treated him as an enemy.
Plans began to form in her head, options, and alternatives. When the fey woman gave up on helping the dark one, and came over to stand before the spell-held hunter, she was ready.
With a wave of her hand, the sorceress released her. The sudden relaxing of her muscles left her stumbling for balance, but she soon re-gathered her composure, and bowed with all of her military precision to the fey woman.
"My apologies for this intrusion," the hunter began, but the fey stopped her with a gesture. For a moment the blonde woman seemed to concentrate, and softly she did speak. Her fingers worked a small intricate pattern. When her eyes refocused, she nodded to the hunter.
"Please, begin again." The woman's voice was clear, and she spoke the language of the Empire as a native of its capital. The hunter blinked but refused to be startled.
"My apologies for this intrusion," she repeated, "And for arriving too late to save your friend from the deceiver's dagger. I am charged by my master to recapture and return for punishment the slave and murderer known as Brionne."
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Brionne woke to pain and cold and darkness. It took him a long time to realize he was awake, and that his eyes were open, and there was nothing to see at all. His head hurt with an intensity that made it hard to think, much less move. He lay there on his side; slowly letting his other senses awaken.
Water dripped, far away. The surface beneath him was rough, like stone, and cold in a way that leeched the heat from his body through the light fabric of his clothing.
His fingers moved, and he felt rough rope binding his wrists, but his hands weren't close together, nor were they stretched apart. He squirmed a little, trying to figure it out. The bite of his bindings around his elbows and across his back solved the puzzle. His elbows were contained by a rope behind his back. His wrists held by one in front of his stomach. Clever, but by far one of the more humane ways he had been bound in his lifetime.
He tried to sit up, and felt the bile rising in his throat. With a twinge of panic he realized that he had been gagged by another length of thick rope, and if he vomited he might well drown. He forced himself to lie back on the cold ground, waiting alone in the darkness for his world to stop spinning.
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Catti-brie put her hand over Alustriel's as the Lady of Silverymoon stepped into her flaming chariot.
"Come back. Soon. He needs ye." Her blue eyes were red, her cheeks streaked with tears. The dagger would not come out, and Drizzt seemed to be weakening with every hour that passed. He had not been lucid since he came through the portal. He responded to them with feeble movements or soft whimpers. If the dagger was touched, he would scream. It broke her heart to hear it.
"I know," Alustriel murmured. "I will return as swiftly as I can. I need to search the libraries, and find some knowledge of this strange magic." She gathered the reins in her hand.
"Be cautious, Catti-Brie," she warned, "Question the three prisoners and get what information you can. The spell I cast upon them will let them understand you for hours now, but I would not trust them yet. The boy still carries a powerful magic on himself, and I know not what it can do, or how he would activate it."
Their eyes met one last time in farewell, and then the Lady of Silverymoon took to the air in her magical chariot, and Catti-brie was left alone outside the cave they had made their makeshift camp in.
Trying to decide which to speak with first, she walked past the Dwarven guard and headed back down into the caves. For the lack of doors, each of the prisoners had been tied, and the ropes attached to pitons Bruenor pounded into cracks in the stone. It wasn't as secure as she would like, but it was the best they could do at this place, and Drizzt was in no shape to be moved.
The military woman had accepted the inconvenience with no comment. The younger had panicked and tried to claw Bruenor's eyes out until Alustriel had spoken to her. Catti-brie still wished she knew what the elf had told her, but the girl quieted and let her wrists be bound. The man had been unconscious, and of course couldn't protest at all.
The sound of soft sobs caught her attention, and she went to the younger of the women first, deciding to begin with the one they had most reason to trust (she had tried to keep Drizzt out of the enemy's hands, even if the enemy had been Bruenor), and the least reason to fear.
The girl was sitting in a corner of the makeshift cell, one of the little side caves off of the main corridor. At the glare of Catti-Brie's torch, her eyes went wide and she cowered back against the wall.
"It's okay, I won't hurt ye," Catti-Brie said, trying to be soothing. "You understand me?" the girl nodded. "Can ye tell me what happened out there?" The girl shook her head.
Trying to bite back her frustration, the red-head shook her head. "Can ye tell me anything?" The girl hesitated then shut her eyes, shaking her head.
"You talk at all?" Again, the girl shook her head.
Useless, Catti-Brie thought, trying to squelch the pity she felt for the terrified woman. With a sigh, she went down the passageway to get Bruenor's assistance in talking with the other two.
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Brionne pushed his body into a sitting position, struggling to not be sick. The effort left him breathless, but upright. In his exertions he had discovered that the rope behind his back was attached to the wall somehow, and would not budge, or at least it would take more than his current pathetic strength to remove it. No matter though, he thought, I doubt I could be going anywhere even if I was free.
He tried to gather his thoughts. He remembered pain and....Drizzt. The nausea returned. Drizzt with a slaver's dagger in his side. Drizzt's scream as Brionne bit back on his own collar-created pain and tried to pull it out. Nala crying. His worst fears had come to pass. They had been taken.
Footsteps sounded, scuffing on the stone floor. They sounded distant but approaching, and the flickering light of a torch gave him an outline of the doorway. He schooled his expression into one of proud indifference. He would not let them see his weakness, his fear or his anguish for the pain of his friends. Knowledge was power, and the less his captors knew of his feelings, the safer they all were.
The torchlight passed his doorway, outlining the proud posture of a woman and a strange stocky figure of a man. He repressed a shudder, and had a feeling that he was out of his depth here.