Escape

The days passed on for some time, but life did not stay the same in Jintha'alor. The fire atop the summit stayed alight all the time and tales that the Vilebranch were even eating each other now found their way to Xainia's sensitive ears as she ran to the market each day. Every day, Xaenus would go somewhere when Xainia went to sleep and not return until the middle of the night. Upon return, he was covered in dirt and totally exhausted. Because of his late night work he ended up sleeping when he should be smithing in the middle of the day. On the whole, life was still peaceful, until the day almost three months later, when the Vilebranch's alliance with the Atal'ai would be sealed.

The sun shone red in the evening and lit up the clouds above Jintha'alor. Xainia was on her way back from the market when she saw a grand procession of trolls in masks and robes coming through the winding paths of the city. Vilebranch trolls were running ahead of the procession and clearing the way. As she was going down the path, she was in the way and one of them ran up to her.

"You be getting out da way.." The troll looked at her again. "You not Vilebranch! Eh boss, we got an intruda."

A larger troll from the runners yelled over. "I dun care. Get rid of 'er, out da way!"

Before Xainia could react, the runner butted into her with his tusks and then bit her arm hard, trying to chew a piece of it away. "Aaaaahhhh" Xainia yelped and grabbed her one of her assailant's tusks with her free arm.

Having one tusk pulled to the side obviously displeased this troll, he released his bite on her. Being frightened out of her wits, Xainia grabbed at whatever she could. Her hand landed on his other tusk and pulled the tusks in opposite directions. The runner flailed about trying to twist his head to free his tusks. As the runner grunted and tried to grab her, she kicked him in the forehead with both feet. The force from her still pulling snapped one of the long tusks off near the troll's mouth and he screamed in agony. Xainia got up quickly and ran off for home, clutching her bleeding arm.

The larger troll came up to the injured runner. "You lost a tusk?"

As the injured runner spat out some blood, he covered the broken bone with part of his sleeve that he had just ripped off.

"Eh boss! She got away! Tha intruda did this!" The attacking troll complained.

"Weaklin'" his boss insulted. Picking up the broken tusk, he belted the injured troll across the head several times. "No follow. Git tha path clear."

The attacking troll grimaced and went on to do his job; he was no match for the boss.

Xaenus saw his daughter coming down the path with a bloody arm and ran into the house to get his weapons from the small chest. Xainia ran into the house into her mothers arms and cried.

"Dere be sometin big out dere, Momma." She stifled out as Dalnuya held her.

"Wha happened… it looks like ya've been bitten." Her mother was quite shocked.

"One o da Vilebranch was makin way for a buncha trolls in masks. 'e saw I wasn' Vilebranch an he bit me." She was able to explain as her mother put some herbs on a wet cloth and bound the bite marks.

"Dun be takin' dis off." Dalnuya said as she finished tying the cloth.

Some time later, Xaenus came into the house. "It looks like dey didn' follow 'er." He went over to Xainia who was sitting against one of the walls. "You be ok?"

"Ya, Papa." She looked sad still. "I lost da wolf meat."

"It's ok, Xainia. Meat means nothin' long as you back safe." Xaenus hugged her.

In the middle of their embrace, a shrieking broke the air above Jintha'alor. Xaenus ran outside the house and looked up. Above the cityscape a great winged serpent flew towards the amphitheater at the summit. Xaenus' face filled with dread as he walked backwards into the house.

"What's it?" Dalnuya looked up from where she was sitting beside Xainia.

"It's a fear, dey are messin wit Hakkar up dere. A serpent come ta bear an egg. Jus like tha stories warn. Tha egg of Hakkar."

"We hafta use tha dig." Dalnuya spoke up.

"No… Pick tha garden clean an put it inna bag." Xaenus grabbed Xainia by her good arm and rushed out behind the house with her. "Xainia, you dis be what ah work on evra night." He slid a stone on a ledge aside to reveal a deep tunnel into the mountainside under Jintha'alor.

"Papa? Why ya show me dis?" Xainia looked up at him, weak from a mixture of missing her regular food and being bitten.

"You gonna stay 'ere an go down dis tunnel if ah don come back tonight. It's almost done, enough ta push thru."

"Why don' we all go, Papa?" Xainia looked down the tunnel.

"Dere's sumtin' I gotta do. We was gonna leave tonight, but dis… I gotta go do sumtin' bout dis." Xaenus shook his head.

Dalnuya rushed out with the pack and put it by the tunnel. "An where you goin, Xaenus?" she was very worried.

"Tha Darkspear in me can't let Hakkar come back. Ah be goin to that summit ta kill tha serpent an 'is summonah." Xaenus drew two enchanted daggers that he had fetched from the chest inside the house and looked at them both.

"You ain't goin up dere without me." Dalnuya lowered her head in prayer as glowing light appeared around Xaenus and he looked stronger and healthier.

"Momma, what's that?" Xainia looked surprised.

"A prayer, Xainia, ah'll teach ya someday." Dalnuya said quickly.

"You gotta stay 'ere wit Xainia." Xaenus insisted.

"We'll be comin back, so we got nothin' ta worry 'bout." Dalnuya got a mace and a book from the chest in the house.

"Ah don' like this." Xaenus still insisted and then turned to Xainia. "If we don' be back tonight, you go down dere fast. If anybody else come 'ere, you go down dere fastah!"

Xainia nodded and sat on the ledge by the tunnel watching her parents walk off into the city and towards the fire that was now always lit. Hours passed with hardly a noise, the city outside seemed empty. After falling asleep and waking back up several times, Xainia began to get very worried. Xainia had considered going down the tunnel many times already, but she didn't want her family to be left behind. Suddenly the idea entered her head.

"Ah gotta go see if dey comin." She said to herself as she climbed up on the walls with the great agility of a young one.

Each level of the city was easy to get on top of as some of the walls were covered in vines or crumbling. Xainia neared the fire at the summit and hopped down to the hillside on the other side of the wall. She could not risk staying on the wall as it seemed the entire population of the city was jammed up at the summit watching something. As Xainia peered over the wall by the amphitheater, the images she saw and moments that followed burned themselves into her mind forever with searing pain.

"Dese be tha foolish trolls dat stood in our way." A troll in a wooden mask spoke up loudly to the crowd.

Xaenus and Dalnuya were tied and heavily beaten. Near them was the corpse of the winged serpent that had come and all around them were the broken bodies of the high priests and summoners. The troll who had called out approached them.

"Not even Vilebranch, we let ya stay here an ya did dis! Ya killed our the bearah of our savior an ya killed tha only trolls who can summon it again." He pulled at the ropes that bound them. "What do ya say for yaself before ya die!"

Xainia's eyes grew wide with terror at the words that her parent's captor spoke. Her parents had to come back, they were supposed to come back.

Xaenus straightened himself up as much as he could, they had broken one of his legs and Dalnuya was unable to heal him fast enough. "Hakkar will nevah come back to dis world! Tha Darkspear tribe won' allow it! You trolls gotta lisen to me! Tha soulflayer brings death, not victory!"

Sneering, the captor hit him hard in the stomach and beckoned several trolls from the crowd. "You be payin for that!" He called the trolls up onto the altar where they were held. "Eat em! Alive!"

Xainia watched in complete terror and helplessness as the crowd cheered and more than ten Vilebranch trolls beset her parents, biting into their still living bodies. If it had not been for the number of trolls blocking her direct view, Xainia's sanity might have been totally shattered. She was only able to see the blood flying and the trolls walking away with hunks of flesh as the crowd closed in and despite their best efforts to die strong, her parents screamed in pain. Holding the sides of her head trying to shake the images from it, Xainia suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream that broke the cheering of the crowd.

"Ey! Deres anothah one up dere!" One of the trolls yelled as several axes flew into the wall below her and to the sides of her.

Realizing that she was next, Xainia ran with all the speed she could muster back towards home, the images had left her as her mind burned with the pure adrenaline that only terror like this could create. The crowd of Vilebranch trolls at the top of the amphitheater tried to follow her, but the crowd was so dense that she easily outran them. She jumped down into the alcove her house was in and grabbed the satchel that her mother had prepared. Jumping into the tunnel she strained at the rock to the side of it, her injured arm beginning to bleed again, but eventually she blocked most of the hole with the stone slab. Scrabbling with dirt in the tunnel, she blocked up the remainder of the hole and stopped, breathing heavily and sobbing uncontrollably. She stifled her sorrow in fear again as voices came from outside.

"Dis is whar tha Darkspear lived." A voice, that of the merchant who had seemed tolerant of them before, spoke.

"Fin da little one! Loot tha house! I want mah dessert!" The voice of her parents' executioner joined in with the yells of a crowd that had come to the quiet alcove in which she had spent these fifteen years.

In fear once again, she scampered down the tunnel. Her father's hard work had made it sizeable enough for her to get down it, but it was pitch dark and she had to simply crawl as fast as she could hoping to find the end. Each time she hit a wall, it simply seemed that the tunnel turned sharply and continued. Eventually she hit the end of the tunnel and began clawing at it despite the re-opened wound on her arm. As Xaenus had predicted, she soon fell straight through the end of it onto hard rock below and lost consciousness.