Chapter 16
No hope
Now it came down to it, Sheila regretted not waking the others.
Stumbling to the ground, the Thief sat and watched for a few minutes, catching her breath and wondering what her next move should be.
She had been walking for hours, and she had gone much, much further than she had intended to go, and now she was completely alone and faced with an encampment of a small army of strange, vicious-looking Orcs.
Her mind was filled with questions, the most urgent of which was what were these creatures doing here!
The most obvious possibility was that they were sent by Venger to search for the Six of them, or what was left of the Six, anyway. But that didn’t seem to be quite right. They weren’t hunting, they hadn’t even posted any guards.
They were going somewhere. And since she could see heavy armour, and long, bright spears and swords, it seemed reasonable to guess that they were going to war!
But there was no war around here. Not at the moment, anyway.
Her heart sank at the thought, and she knew that she should go and warn the others. That was what she should do, and that would have been what she would have done without hesitation but for one thing: The Thief was absolutely certain that Uni was somewhere in or near the camp. And now she had come so far, she wasn’t going to leave without Uni.
She didn’t want to go in there, even with the protection of the Cloak. Once again she wished that she had woken Hank or Bobby, and she hadn’t rushed off. It was too late to change her mind. The noise in her head, the pleading bleats were insistent, and she couldn’t abandon her search for Uni now she was so close.
The Unicorn was in pain, and lost and miserable. There was no question of abandoning her. Besides, there was no guarantee that she would be able to find these Orcs again if she left now.
She had to take her chances.
Sheila crept as close as she dared, and her fear increased with every movement, watching the Orcs all the time, trying to see any easy openings. At first she had thought these creatures were Orcs, but now she came closer she realised that she’d been wrong. They were similar, they smelt just as bad as well, but the were taller and broader, and looked altogether more vicious. They were huddled together in small groups, all talking together in a strange, guttural language. Sheila didn’t understand what they were saying, but it didn’t sound good!
Her fear for the Unicorn grew sharply. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it quickly!
Not waiting any longer, she moved forward again, taking great care to stay close to the sides of the encampment. The Orc-things were only resting for the moment, they hadn’t made any attempt to make a proper camp. It was clear that they were not going to be in the one place for long and her resolve grew. She had to find Uni and she had to do it as fast as she could.
She still had no idea what to do, but she moved right up to the first group of the creatures. They didn’t see her and just kept on talking and grunting at each other.
Her confidence grew a little stronger. She walked forward, as quietly as she could. It didn’t make a great deal of difference, there was too much noise for her to be heard.
But she didn’t take any chances. No matter what the urgency, she had to be careful. Getting caught was not part of her plan!
She picked her way slowly through the encampment, avoiding any points where there were large clusters of the Orc-things or a lot of movement.
It took her longer than she had anticipated, but fortunately her luck held and no one noticed her.
She was almost three quarters of the way round when something ahead attracted her attention. Though she didn’t think that Uni was anywhere that way, her curiosity got the better of her and she edged forward to see what was going on.
What she saw made her blood run cold and her skin crawl.
There was a young boy, maybe the same age as her with dark brown hair. His face was bloodied by a broken nose, and the front of his shirt was torn and red with blood too. He was being held down to the ground by the Orc-things, who were laughing and pointing at him in a very unpleasant way. There was something so disgusting and twisted about the way those Orc-creatures were looking down at the boy that she was almost sick. She shuddered.
The bleating in her head had seemed to get more intense, but she couldn’t turn aside now she had seen him. She couldn’t leave the boy at the mercy of those horrible, cruel Orcs.
She couldn’t turn aside.
Then one of them picked up a crude, wooden stick, and stepped towards the boy, and Sheila darted forward, not really thinking about what she was doing before she did it.
= = =
Hank waited in silence, a thunderous scowl on his face, not turning round. He stood near the entrance of the Seer’s Fortress, staring out to the valley beyond, waiting as the other two searched.
He was furious. He was more angry than he had ever been before in his life.
This was a stupid waste of time! This was the most ridiculous idea he’d ever heard of! Going back to the Fortress was the stupidest idea Presto had ever had, in a long line of stupid ideas!
He was furious at the Magician. He understood that Presto meant what he had said, and it had been a long, long time since Presto had been so sure of anything.
It felt childish to have disagreed and to have had such and argument, but when Presto had pulled some sort of map out of the Hat and had announced he was going back with or without them, Hank had been forced to agree. Letting Presto go off on his own, back to the Seer’s Fortress no less, was stupid. Presto was still ill, he wouldn’t last more than ten minutes on his own!
He had tried to delay them as much as possible, but for all his stalling, Presto had eventually called his bluff and gone marching off through the countryside on his own.
He had been forced to go back to the Fortress and leave the Thief out there, alone. And she hated being alone.
He looked out over the bare landscape, thinking about her. Sheila. Hank longed to see her again. How could he bear being apart, knowing she was in danger? He had been forced to choose between Presto and Sheila, and since he didn’t know where the Thief had gone, or how to find her, he had been forced to leave her behind.
Questions plagued him. And why had she left? Where had she gone? Why had she abandoned him? Was it because he’d hurt her? Or she didn’t love him as he loved her and she could tell him? That didn’t seem likely, but he had no other explanation for her sudden disappearance.
And what was going to happen when she returned to their camp to find that they had gone! What was she going to think then!
He didn’t like thinking about that possibility.
There was a crunching noise from behind him, but Hank didn’t bother to turn around. He knew what it was: the Barbarian was “opening” doors again.
And that was something else he didn’t want to think about; what the Seer was going to say when she returned to her Fortress to find that most of it had been smashed into small pieces.
It had been shut up and locked tight when they arrived. But that didn’t stop them, not this time. Bobby, for once begin cooperative, smashed a gaping hole in the gate and in they had gone.
‘Hank!’ that was Bobby calling at the top of his voice, but the Ranger had no inclination to move quite yet. He was so angry that he wanted time alone to cool off.
‘Hank!’ cried Bobby again, but this time something in the tone of the Barbarian’s call made Hank turn around. Something had happened.
As he looked at the tall, dark tower of the Fortress, panic suddenly gripped Hank’s chest and he started to run.
As he approached the doorway, he could hear crying. The panic grew stronger, smothering his fears. Why would anyone be crying? Who? He burst through the door of the tower and headed for the stairs, following the sound. Up, and round the spiral stairs he ran, forcing himself faster.
The crying grew louder.
At last he burst through a broken door to a small room.
Presto knelt on the floor. He was crying; great, heart-wrenching sobs that seemed to come from his very soul. Bobby stood there next to the Magician, looking down at the objects in front of them with a blank, emotionless expression that Hank liked even less that the crying.
As Hank looked down to what they were looking at, a terrible overwhelming feeling of guilt making it difficult to breathe: The torn red cape, the muddy blue chain mail, and the yellow breastplate, dirty and dented, were sitting there on the floor.
He stared at them in shock.
There was only one implication.
Eric had been here. He must have been here when they had visited. He was here all along. They’d been tricked by the Seer, and they’d fallen for it totally. The black hole where Hank’s heart used to be grew deeper.
They’d missed him. They were too late.
= = =
Orcs!
God, how he hated Orcs! The whole place stank of Orc!
One of them struck him again, and the three of them laughed. Somehow these seemed bigger, and nastier and more vile than he remembered. And that Captain seemed to have an axe to grind.
It had watched him as he’d been brought down to a cell, almost leering at him. It had taken great pleasure in striking him whenever it had got the opportunity, and it was clearly enjoying tormenting him.
He had spent a short while in a cell, maybe a couple of days, before the Captain and his trusted henchmen had pulled him out. They had a nervous, furtive look about them, and Eric had the idea that whatever they were doing, they were not supposed to be doing it.
He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.
The three Orcs dragged him into the guard-room of the dungeons and dumped him on the floor.
The Captain stood by the door, sneering at Eric.
For once, Eric didn’t sneer back. He hurt, he was cold and hungry, he was scared; all things that would have normally made him very condescending back. But though he was many things, he wasn’t stupid. He knew better than to aggravate an already angry Orc; especially one that had taken a personal dislike to him.
It stepped forward, grabbing him by his neck with a cruching grip.
‘You lot!’ it hissed. ‘You fuckin’ children! I fuckin’ hate ya!’
Eric couldn’t ask why, as he could barely draw enough breath to breath.
‘Runnin’ all over the fuckin’ Realm chasin’ ya! And ya always managed to get away, didn’t ya!’ It smiled, revealing its tusks. ‘But not this time.’
Eric stared at it in fear, willing himself to stop shaking.
‘Strip ‘im!’ bellowed the Captain with a crude laugh. Eric’s heart virtually stopped as the implication hit him.
Oh shit.
‘But Master won’t be…’ said another one.
‘He’s not goin’ t’know! Not if we’re quick! Strip ‘im!’
Oh shit.oh shit oh shit oh shit shit shitshit. Shit.
There was a moment of stillness.
He knew they couldn’t kill him, Venger would have them vaporised in an instantly.
But that was his only advantage. The door was shut, and it was three again one and he had virtually no way out.
Eric moved first.
He fought with every ounce of strength he had left, he kicked and clawed and bit anything that came within striking distance. The Orcs had not been prepared for such ferocity, and it was clear that though they knew what they wanted, they had to be careful. They could have killed him any number of times over, but they didn’t dare.
He was tiring quickly, much too quickly for his liking, but he still fought on.
Then something heavy crashed across the back of his knees and Eric buckled to the floor. He knew that it was over.
One of the guards pinned him to the ground, forcing the air out of his chest.
‘Keep ‘im from stugglin’!’ growled the Captain.
‘Ya sure?’
‘Do it!’
Eric tried to move once more, but there was a sudden swish from behind his head, and everything went blissfully black.
= = =