"I need to take the prisoner and leave," the hunter began with as the woman and strange looking man came in, attempting to take control of the interrogation she knew was coming. The girl stood near the door, an arrow nocked to her bow but not drawn. The man was careful not to step into her line of fire.
"What ye need to do is tell us what dagger th' boy stabbed into our friend, and how we get it out." The dwarf's voice was harsh, his glare dark.
The hunter shook her head. "I do not know. It is nothing like the weapon he used to kill the guard on his master's house, or the boy who kept the horses." Play them gently, she thought to herself. Feed the lies to them with small spices of the truth. "Even now, his master is ill, and none can find the cause."
She looked to their eyes. They were well-guarded, but the wall of disbelief was beginning to come down.
"His magic," the girl put in, "What does it do?"
The hunter had half-expected the question. "I don't know." She pretended to hesitate. "But the whore has a way of binding people to him. It seems...unnatural."
The dwarf's eyes were almost hidden under his shaggy brows, brought together in a frown.
"And he has traveled many days with your friend," the hunter added with calculation.
A look passed between the inquisitors. Together they turned and headed back into the passageway, taking the torch with them, leaving the hunter there in the dark.
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Catti-Brie studied the man by the light of the torch. Bruenor was at the kneeling prisoner's side, ax at the ready should he try to cast some spell or activate his magic. He met her eyes, which she had not expected. Their color was a pale, sharp silver, and they seemed to stare through her without a flicker of emotion. Dried blood crusted on the side of his angular face, and his restraints kept his motions to a minimum, yet he still stared at her as if she was so distant from his life that she didn't matter.
"Do ye understand me?" she asked, making sure Alustriel's spell had taken effect on the unconscious mind. She expected stubbornness, but the man nodded at once. "I'm thinking we're going to talk a bit now, do ye understand?" Again he nodded. "If I'm takin' off the gag will ye behave?" She received a third nod.
She stepped forward, letting her foster-father threaten the prisoner while she unknotted the thick rope that kept him silenced.
The red-headed warrior stepped back, and watched as the prisoner worked his jaw, easing the muscles cramped from being too long in one position.
"What did ye do to our friend?" she asked without preamble.
No expression--no expression at all--passed over the prisoner's bloodied face. "I don't understand," he replied, his voice as empty as his eyes. The coldness of him repelled her, angered her.
"My father saw you stab him!" She shouted, the heat in her voice surprising her. "Saw you twist th' dagger!"
She meant to slap him. In her heart, she meant it to be a slap. His gaze didn't break with hers, even though he saw it coming; he must have seen it coming. And then her fist was blocking her vision of those pale silver eyes, and his head was snapping to the side. His bound hands didn't allow him to catch himself and he fell from his kneeling position to the floor with a pained grunt.
"Drizzt." The word was so soft on the prisoner's lips that for a moment Catti-Brie was not sure she had heard it. The prisoner, this "Brionne" as the woman had named him, struggled to rise, having only his feet to aid him. The flesh around his eye was already turning dark and swelling.
"Drizzt." Catti-Brie echoed. "What did ye stab him with and how do we get it out?"
The prisoner shook his dark head. "I never struck him," he protested. "I would never strike him."
Those silver eyes stared into hers, open, honest. A way of binding people to him, the soldier-woman's words echoed in her head. Unnatural. Catti-Brie frowned and blinked and looked away from those eyes.
"What is that dagger and how do we get it out?" she amended, not having the patience or energy to argue or try to sort lies from truths.
"Slaver's weapon," the young man told her. "I have heard of them, seen them, but not in use. The slaver can remove it but I know not how."
"Slaver?" Catti-Brie asked. "The woman in black?"
"She is here?" Brionne's voice dropped back to that toneless, emotionless murmur.
Catti-Brie nodded, taking in the young man's strange reactions.
"She can take it out." He said; no doubt in his voice. "You have to make her take it out."
"She says she can't," The red-head replied, sparing a glance to her foster father.
"We'll get some magic in here an' then we'll be seein' who's speakin' true and who isn't," he declared.
The young man's face looked paler in the torchlight, the blood on his face in deeper contrast. Does he fear the truth? She wondered.
Catti-Brie stepped close to the prisoner, the rope he had been gagged with in her hands. "We have to." She told him, not knowing why she felt the need to explain herself. Despair flickered in the silvery eyes, yet he opened his mouth for the rope without a word. She tied it securely behind his head, and then turned away without looking at him again. Bruenor followed her. Doubt was beginning to seep into her heart. I should not have struck him, she thought with regret.
She took the torch and went to go sit with Drizzt for a while, holding his dark hand while he lay restlessly on the makeshift bed. In the light of the torch, she bathed his sweat-streaked forehead, and spoke soft words of reassurance. It tore her heart to see him in such pain, and not be able to help in any way. It reminded her too much of when she had gone down into the Underdark to bring him home. The image of him chained to the wall of the Baenre complex would haunt her forever; her friend, beaten, bloodied, tortured, poisoned until he couldn't even recognize her for the pain.
She lowered her head, resting it on where she held one of Drizzt's hands in both of her own. "Come back to us," she whispered. "Come back to me."
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In a far-away place, the last of the hunter's men, wounded and bleeding, rode into the town of Brambleton. He pulled his mount up to the door of the King's Way Inn, and one of the gathering group of bystanders helped catch him as he almost fell off of his horse.
"A messenger..." he rasped out. "I need to send a messenger to Lord Relder at the capital."
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Nala worked the knot with her teeth. She could hear voices, though not close enough to understand the words. One of the voices was Brionne's. The sharp sound of flesh on flesh echoed to her ears. A body hitting the floor. A grunt of pain.
The rope around her wrists fell loose, and she moved to the doorway, feeling her way along in the utter blackness around her. Ahead, a partially obscured torch flickered, lighting the path of two people as they walked with determination away from her. One was the strange short man. He will not hurt you, the Fey woman had told her. She wasn't sure if she believed it.
Nala cowered back against the rough rock wall, her heart pounding with frantic rhythm in her chest. They did not see her. Smooth as a shadow, silent as a mouse, she told herself, feeling her way along the passageway. The rock floors were uneven, and she was forced to a crawling pace to keep from falling. One hand rested on the wall to her left, feeling for the hole the pair had come from, feeling for Brionne's cell.