Silence reigned in the old building, for Rory had asked her companions to be very quiet, as just maybe the baboons hadn't seen or heard them, and might pass by without bothering them.
No such luck, of course. The baboons headed straight at the building the four were in, deploying around it in almost military fashion. The doors were pushed, and the window checked, and lots of noise could be heard from the frustrated animals outside.
Rory was busy lashing a knife to end of a long stick she had found, and on Brin's questioning her, indicated he should do the same with his own knife. The elves had their bows strung, and arrows ready to loose in an instant.
Thud! Thud! came the sound of baboons landing on the roof as they jumped from the surrounding trees. Then it became clear why Rory had lashed her knife to a stick. She held it up the roof, clearing intending to stab anything that tried to get through the rusty roof iron. Brin copied her, and the elves covered the room with their bows, ready to shoot anything that breached doors or windows.
A squeaking sound preceded a skinny brown arm poking down from the left hand corner of the room. Brin stabbed it with his knife pole, and shrieking came from the owner of the arm.
From the sounds a violent fight broke out among the baboons on the roof. Rory was crouched on the floor, a humourless smile on her face.
'What are you looking so pleased for?' asked Brin, examining his knife pole to see if it is still firmly in place.
'Don't you realise what happened to the one you stabbed?' she said.
'What do you mean?' came Jessryn's soft voice.
'The stabbed one, his mates ate him', stated Rory matter of factly.
Brin chuckled, able to appreciate the irony of that, but both elves looked a little ill.
'They are cannibals?' gasped Glorfindel
'Yeah, and not only these fellas', she said
Curious looks made her go on 'It's not that many years since some of the people a bit north of here were cannibals too'.
Complete shock registered on three faces, 'it's Ok guys, they don't do it anymore'.
'Small comfort to those did consume', said Glorfindel. 'I am one of the oldest elves still dwelling in Middle Earth, and I have never heard anything so disgusting in my life!'
'Well, lots of strange things happen', said Rory comfortingly.
Suddenly a trio of large baboons who had been working on the doorway managed to push it open a bit at hinge side, where the hinges were rusty, and wood damp and soft. Glorfindel leapt forward to push it shut, but not before a smaller animal got into the room. As it leaped into the room, Jessryn shot it.
At the door, Glorfindel was bracing it with spare pieces of timber used in the roof construction lying around. A baboon's face appeared at a gap, and without thinking he attempted to push the beast back. The baboon's dog like teeth sliced into his left forearm, and the elf gave a surprised cry of pain. As he wrestled with the baboon, unable to make it let go, Brin's axe appeared, wielded by the dwarf's strong arms, and cut the baboon nearly in half. Glorfindel staggered back, blood streaming down his injured arm, forming a small pool on the ground.
'Brin, the door, Jessryn, roof', snapped Rory, as she leapt to Glorfindel side, and slapped one of the field dressings she carried on to Glorfindel's arm, bandaging it tightly. 'That's going to have to do for now, later we'll stitch and dress it properly', she told the wounded elf
'By the Valar, that beast bit my arm to the bone!' said a very cross elf.
'Yes, it did', said Rory. 'Do you want anything for the pain?'
'Later. Right now my arm is not really hurting much', he answered.
There were several more attempted break ins during the night, mostly at the door, and met by Brin's great axe. Rory was content to let him do this, and not waste her limited ammunition on anything less than a full-scale invasion. An hour or two before dawn the baboons moved on, feeling that the trouble of gaining nothing but more dead companions was not worth it, and that food might be more easily obtained elsewhere.
Glorfindel was particularly pleased for his arm was hurting fiercely by now. Rory tended his arm, Jessryn assisting her as she stitched and bandaged, finishing by giving him a dose of a strong painkiller she carried. Brin, who was feeling a little sick watching the treatment of Glorfindel's arm, though of course being a dwarf he would not admit to this, was preparing a simple meal for them.
They ate, and then Jessryn insisted that Brin and Rory rest. As a half elf, he had some of the elvish abilities, including being able to survive on little sleep. Glorfindel was nodding as a result of the medicine he'd been given and he finally reluctantly agreed to sleep to.
Kate looked deeply into Elrond's grey eyes, as she warned him to complete silence under the watchful eyes of the guards.
She fiddled about for a while, doing pointless tests like heart rate and blood pressure. When she suggested taking a blood sample, Mac and Redfern left as she drew the blood from Elrond's arm into a large syringe. He had been warned the previous day about this test, and did not move as Kate proceeded.
'Are they outside the door?' Kate asked Elrond, as she could not clearly see through the glass-topped doorway from where she stood.
'No,' he whispered in reply, 'they have gone'.
'Good!' she said nodding with satisfaction. 'I'll just fiddle about over here, and look as if I'm doing something and you can watch the door while we talk.'
Elrond nodded in agreement, and then asked the question that he had been itching to ask her, 'How do you happen to be here, Kate'?
She sighed, and began her answer, 'Five years ago my marriage broke down. My two sons were grown, and living their own lives, so I saw no reason to hang about in London, and decided to do something I had wanted to do since I started practising medicine, I joined one of the charity organizations and came here, to Kenya, to work with poor and disadvantaged native people.
For three years all went well. Then this group that call themselves the Hunter's Army raided the medical centre I was working in at the time. Most people were killed on the spot, the captives, myself included brought here. And here I have stayed, only kept alive because my skills as a doctor are so useful to them.'
'What happened to those captured with you?' he asked, feeling a chill of fear, something warned him that the answer would be unpleasant.
'They're all dead', she said giving Elrond an odd look. 'Do you know why you're here?' she asked suddenly
'I had considered the possibility that someone brought me through time to study an elf, but now I find that unlikely', he said.
Kate nodded, 'although I have no doubt there will be interest in these test results outside of this sick group of people we at the mercy of.' At Elrond's worried look, she said 'don't worry if my idea pans out, no one but you and I will know these results.'
'You still haven't told me why I'm here', he pointed out.
'Well, that's because it's very bizarre. The people who hold us run unique hunting trips', she said.
Elrond's unease had increased ten fold. It couldn't be, could it? It got the better of him, and he had to ask, 'They hunt people?' he gasped, shocked beyond anything experienced in his thousands of years of life.
Soberly Kate nodded. 'They are going to hunt ME?' he asked. Again the nod as answer. Elrond felt as if he had suddenly become boneless from the shock. He didn't really want the answer to the next question, but had to know, 'what happens, how it done?' he asked.
'You will be given a day's head start on the hunters. They will be armed with every possible weapon and tracking device known. You will unarmed, and not given anything, no food, weapons nothing, just the clothes you stand in. Your chances of survival against 12 armed men are zero'.
Elrond was thankful he seated, because he felt as if he might faint for the first time in his immortal life.