Travels

Slowly, Achmed became dimly aware of himself. His head pounded and he found that he was unable to move his arms or legs. Something was painfully digging into his ribs as his body was jarred over and over again. His world was spinning at first, but as his head continued to clear, he realized that he was dangling across the bow of a saddle and it was the canter of the horse under him that was jabbing the horn into his ribs.

There was a presence next to him, with a hand firmly clamped onto the rope that tied Achmed's hands behind his back. Pain laced through his head as he tried to gain a more clear perspective of his surroundings; that drug must have been very powerful.

As Achmed moved, his captor became aware that the king was now awake. Slowing the horse, the captor came to a stop and jumped down from his mount. All that Achmed was able to see of his captor were the finely tailored black leather boots that stopped in front of his dangling body.

There was silence for a moment as the captor stared at his prey, helplessly restrained before him. Achmed wanted to say something bitingly sarcastic to the man, but found that he also had a gag tied around his mouth, preventing him from uttering a word.

Finally the man broke the silence, "Well," a grating and hollow sounding voice echoed. "I finally have captured the great King of the Firbolg," he gloated. "The bastard of a Dhracian that thought he could rid the world of my kind."

Alarm rang through Achmed's mind upon hearing the last statement; without thinking, he tried to look up to get a glimpse of his captor. Unfortunately, as soon as he moved, he was swiftly rewarded with a blow to the back of his head, knocking it back down and slamming his nose into the horse's side. A thin trickle of blood ran out of his nose, marring the white coat of the horse he was still atop.

Achmed's vision clouded with starbursts and waves of dizziness once again from the blow that he was dealt. As he tried to collect himself once again, he thought over what the man had just said. It sounded as if this was a F'dor that had captured him by the way he mentioned the king's Dhracian heritage and then how he had hunted the man's own kind. But Achmed could sense no trace of F'dor from this man.

Of course, Achmed thought, I can sense nothing at all from him. It's as if he were wearing that blasted mist cloak that Ashe had worn when they first met. But it was impossible that this could be Ashe; Ashe had transformed into a dragon and dragons cannot be host to F'dor's…or can they?

A stray thought struck him as he lay across the horse, what if Ashe had been a host before Rhapsody had released him into his dragon form? Would that allow the F'dor to gain the elemental knowledge of the dragon as well?

Achmed's musings were cut short as he felt himself being suddenly hauled off of the horse by the rope that restrained his hands, and thrust to the ground, slamming his back into a large boulder and crushing his hands between his own body and the rock.

Caught off guard, he gave a sharp grunt of pain as he impacted the Earth while the cloaked figure moved in front of him, laughing. "Look at you; I can't wait to see how pathetic you are in person," The figure croaked.

Person? Achmed thought, then this wasn't the actual F'dor, this was probably a thrall that the F'dor was working through. Now things began to make sense, but still the question remained; who was this cloaked figure?

Achmed glared at the man, trying to catch some sort of glimpse of the figure beneath the cloak. Something told him that this was someone that he ought to know.

Suddenly, all the wind was knocked out of him as the man delivered a hard and swift kick to his ribs. Achmed could hear the internal crunch and grind of at least one rib being cracked.

"You still don't fear me?" The figure asked as with his kick. "Still your look defies me, even as you lie there, helpless!" The man watched for a moment as Achmed struggled to regain his breath.

When he was able to breathe once again, albeit painfully, Achmed looked up to his captor once again to see that his stance was no longer as confident and smug as it had been. The figure seemed to wavering and struggling against some unseen force.

"No!" the man suddenly shouted, though not with the same sounding voice as before. "I…won't…" The voice struggled. The sound of the voice was not as hollow sounding as it had been and the grating, almost forced sound was gone. If Achmed was to guess, this was the voice of the actual man and not the F'dor talking though him. The voice was almost familiar but he could not get a grasp on whom it belonged to.

Those three words were all that Achmed heard of that voice before the F'dor once again seemed to have control over him. Turning back to the Dhracian, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out another one of the quills that Achmed had awakened with imbedded in his neck the night before. Swiftly, the man bent down and shoved this quill Achmed's neck once again and before his knew what was happening, the world went dark once again. He knew no more for the rest of day and most of the evening.

Rhapsody was leading and making very good time, or so she thought. For a while she believed that she was closing the gap that she was able to sense between herself and Achmed, but by that night, she noticed that Achmed was moving faster and pulling further away.

How she longed to double her speed as well and press on right through the night, but the terrain was not allowing her to do so. The area which she and Omet were currently riding through was very rocky and treacherous. The horses were sure to become seriously injured if they kept on the path that night. How the man who took Achmed was able to keep moving and at such a high rate of speed was inconceivable. It would take a very well trained and gifted night vision horse to cross terrain such as this in the dark and there were very few of those around. The only ones that Rhapsody had heard of were owned by her son and Anborn, and it couldn't be either of them that had taken Achmed.

"We're going to have to stop for the night," Rhapsody informed Omet as she slowed to a stop. "This ground is impossible to travel on in this light. If there was a moon out tonight, maybe, but being a new moon…"

"Yes, I agree. Though I wish we could press on," Omet voiced as he came to a stop as well and prepared to dismount.

In silence, the two set up a hasty, sparse camp for the night. Rhapsody built a small fire and Omet laid out two blankets for them to sleep upon. Then both reached into their saddle packs and pulled out some small traveling cakes and a canteen of water each.

As Rhapsody nibbled at her cake, she found her mind drifting to ponder what may be happening to Achmed right then. She felt guilty as she drank her water and picked at her cake, knowing that he was probably not receiving either food or drink that night.

She could recall the last time that she had been captured and it had been Achmed who had raced to her rescue. She was given no food during her whole capture and only enough water to keep her alive over the many days. True, with neither her nor Achmed being either human or fully human, they did not require as much water to survive as most would. Humans were descendents of the element of water and so needed a higher concentration of water in their system to live. But all life required water, no matter what element they descended from.

A deep yearning ache to be rushing away, to hold Achmed in her arms and to be held in return, washed over her as she stared into their small fire. After a while of beating down the urge to fly after him, Omet suddenly broke her train of thought. "Rhapsody, we are going to bring him back," he said with finality and confidence.

Rhapsody looked to him and saw that he had been watching her as she had been traveling disturbing paths in her mind. Her thoughts must have been easy to read in her face and Omet wanted to reassure her and lend her some of the confidence that he carried.

"I know, Omet. I just feel so helpless right now. I can't believe that he has been taken; it's his job to rush after me when I am taken, not me for him. I just can't figure what has gone wrong here," she said shaking her head.

"I know what you mean. This goes against the grain of everything that has ever happened in the past and that anyone who knows Achmed would ever believe possible. Something more has to be going on here then meets the eye."

Rhapsody sighed before saying, "Yes, I fear that as well, but there is not much that we can do, is there? Neither of us would ever dream of just giving up on him but we have no way of knowing what we will be walking into when we get to him."

Omet nodded slowly as he turned the whole affair over and over in his mind. Nothing seemed to add up right; all that he knew was that they would bring him back safely, this much he was sure of.

The two sat together in silence for a while longer before they both went and laid down upon their blankets, staring up at the stars while they drifted off into a restless sleep.