Chapter 4: The Cleric

Saevel and Vestele each woke to a hard poke in the side from a spear butt and they heard an orc snarl, "Jiid ord votyh jih tny ltepad yszyl!" as bowls of foul water and rotting meat were thrust through the bars.

Saevel and Vestele just looked at the bowls in disgust before sitting down in the straw and gazing out towards the plains in silence. Judging from where the sun was Saevel figured it was around mid-day. As he was starting to zone out Saevel heard soft words of magic being spoken to his left and glanced over, trying not to be obvious. He saw a female human, 5' 3" with black hair, hazel eyes, and tawny skin muttering something under her breath. She was focusing intently on the bowls of food strangely enough, and to Saevel's surprise the water and meat suddenly look as good as new.

"Vestele!" he whispered as he shook her arm gently. "Look at the food and tell me what you see!"

"I already know what I'll see Saevel," she replied in annoyance. "The water is foul and the meat…" she didn't finish her sentence as she gasped in surprise. "It's clean!"

"Then I'm not just seeing things… We have our friend over there to thank," he said, pointing at the human.

The human waved shyly before taking a drink of her own water, showing it was indeed safe to drink.

"I don't know Saevel… why should we trust her?" Vestele asked suspiciously.

"Aw common Vestele, she's just trying to be helpful. Besides, I'm so thirsty I could drink that Trackless Sea you mentioned yesterday!"

Vestele rolled her eyes before taking a careful sip from the bowl of water. To her surprise it actually tasted incredibly fresh. She gratefully gulped the rest down before reaching for the meat. Saevel was already devouring his meat and greatly enjoying it after two days without food. They both smiled at each other happily when they finished eating.

"Thank you for casting that spell friend," Saevel called out to the human. "Would you be willing to give us your name?"

"I'm Natali Chernin," she responded. "I'm a cleric from Damara, the orcs captured me when they passed though there. I'll try to cast Purify Food and Drink whenever they feed us, as long as they don't notice everything should be fine."

"Thank you for helping us, "Vestele said. "I sorry I was suspicious of you."

"Don't worry about it, I was a stranger and you didn't know me so there was no reason to trust me. I hope we can be friends now?" she asked nervously.

"Of course you are! As a cleric you can cast spells without memorizing them from a book, do you have anything that might help us escape?" Saevel asked.

"There are a few spells that come to mind but nothing that would help with this many orcs…"

Hearing all the talking, one of the orcs walked up and brutally smashed his spear butt into Saevel's stomach, knocking him down. As he fell, Saevel tried desperately not to fall on his wings but was unable to and screamed in agony when he landed on them. Vestele gasped in horror and fell to her knees, trying to see how hurt Saevel was.

"Tnot tyomn ltepad yszyl ti lnetep!" the orc snarled before walking away.

"Dear Torm… I didn't mean for him to be hurt!" Natali cried in shock as she put her hand over her mouth.

"You're a cleric! Do something!" Vestele screamed.

"I can't! I need to be able to touch him to cure him!"

Vestele pressed her face into Saevel's chest and started crying, worried that he might never wake.

This time a larger orc came over to inspect the noise and started shouting when he saw Saevel.

"Ltepad socy-bhoarl! Vargyd ysj al ij ri ely ti coltyhl dyod! Gyt msyham ar mogy ti nyos nac riv!"

Responding to their commanders call several other orcs ran to the cage Natali was in and un-locked it. They forcefully dragged her out and brought her to the door of the cage Saevel was in. After shoving her in they locked the door and went back to marching alongside the wagons.

Natali rushed to Saevel's side and dropped to her knees, placing her hand gently on his head. She started murmuring a prayer under her breath and a warm glow emerged from her fingers and sank into Saevel.

"Now we just have to wait…" she sighed as she sat down next to Saevel.

"How long do you think it will be?" Vestele asked in concern, sitting opposite Natali.

"Hopefully his wounds weren't very serious, I expect he will be awake some time in the next few hours."

"Hours! Can't you do more then that!"

"If it wasn't for me he'd be dead, remember that. I've done all I can, now we just have to be patient and wait."

"I've never been very patient…" Vestele muttered sourly.

"I thought patience was a virtue all elves were born with."

"Well I sure as hell wasn't"

"My, aren't we the grumpy one today? I thought elves were supposed to be cheerful too…"

Instead of responding Vestele shot Natali a glare filled with daggers and ignored her.

The two women sat there in an increasingly awkward silence until Saevel stirred one hour later.

"Saevel!" they exclaimed at the same time, each reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder they were sitting next to.

He opened his eyes and looked at Natali in confusion. "How did you get in here? I could have sworn you were in a different cage…"

"Apparently the orcs want you alive for some reason Saevel. When the commander saw you down he demanded that Natali heal you. When they let her in the cage I caught a glimpse of how the lock works and I think I might be able to pick it," Vestele said.

"With what? Straw?" Natali asked sarcastically.

"Exactly," Vestele replied with a smug look on her face.

Saevel glanced at the two of them in surprise. "What's with all the hostility? I thought we were friends…"

Vestele and Natali both rolled their eyes and unknowingly shared the same thought "Boys… so clueless…"

Ignoring the looks he saw on both girl's faces Saevel sat up and started inspecting his wings. He was incredibly relieved to find them completely healed and un-damaged.

"Thank you for healing me Natali," he said kindly before turning to look at Vestele. "You really think you can pick the lock? Why don't we make an escape attempt tonight then?"

"Sounds like a great idea!" she responded eagerly. "We'll need to break into the main wagon to get all our equipment as well."

"It's starting to get dark," Natali commented. "The wagons should be stopping soon. We should stop talking so we don't make the orcs suspicious."

Saevel nodded and the three of them separated, each going to their own corner, deep in their thoughts. Saevel was thinking about what they would do after they managed to escape, Vestele about how she was going to pick the lock, and Natali was praying to Torm, her god.

After a while the wagons stopped for the night and the orcs began setting up camp. Deciding it was time to start making their plans of escape the three captives huddled up in the center of the wagon.

"Apparently they don't trust the three of us together," Vestele whispered as she pointed at an orc approaching.

The orc stopped in front of the door, snarled at them, and fixed a stern gaze on them, not even blinking once.

"So much for escape…" Natali muttered angrily.

"Maybe tomorrow night," Saevel responded. "Lets all get plenty of sleep tonight in preparation."

The three of them cuddled up in the center of the wagon and piled hay on top of themselves to keep warm, winter was coming and the nights were becoming increasingly colder.

The next night, however, there was another guard and every night after that another. After a week had passed guards were still being posted every night and they were rapidly drawing closer to Thay. As they neared their destination Saevel, Vestele, and Natali all got more and more depressed as they realized they weren't going to escape.

On the day before they expected to arrive, however, something happened that made the prisoners shout for joy and the orcs scream in anger.

A/N: Heh, how's that for a cliffhanger? Sorry it took so long for this chappie to come out, I've been working on it a lot. Hopefully what the orcs are saying is obvious from the context, with Saevel unconscious neither of the girls can tell what they were saying either so I thought it worked out well. I hope your enjoying the story, more chapters will be coming soon!