important, he ran through the citadel of Neversfall toward the only other potential source of information that might assist him. The night was warm, and sweat streamed down his face as he made his way toward the building that held the prisoners. Two of the Chondathan guards stood outside the structure, conversing quietly, their casual stance an insult to anyone who had ever served in a legitimate military unit. Taennen slowed his pace to model confidence without concern. He nodded to each guard in turn and reached for the door.
When the guards stepped together, shoulders touching in the middle to block his entry, Taennen said, 'I'm to further interrogate the prisoners.'
'No one's to see them,' the shorter Chondathan said, his compatriot nodding his agreement.
Taennen allowed his anger to ride across his face. He would not be denied access to his own prisoners by a Chondathan. He placed his hand on the hilt of his khopesh and leaned in close to the man who had spoken. Before he could speak, both guards had drawn their weapons and were snapping at him in their native tongue. Seeing the shorter man's daggers and the other's long sword waving in his face, Taennen took two steps back, raising his empty hand into the air.
'No one sees them,' the Chondathan repeated.
Taennen's eyes narrowed as he said, 'We'll see.'
The guards traded looks and a few foreign words before facing him again, the previous speaker saying, 'Do as you will.'
Taennen eyed each man and walked south of the building, turning past the next structure. He quickened his pace but tried to keep his step light as he went around the back of the quarters to come up behind the jail. Stretching his body, standing on the tips of his toes, Taennen tried to reach the narrow windows in the wall to no avail.
Summoning every lesson on stealth he had ever learned, Taennen lowered himself to the dirt and slid under the building, through the trench in the ground. He pushed on the stone floor above him, checking for loose slabs, but found none.
Slipping his khopesh from his belt, Taennen made his way toward the front of the jail. He reached the front corner of the building, took a deep breath, and began to move into view of the guards, ready to charge and catch them unaware. He felt certain he could get past the guards, although perhaps not without seriously harming them.
As he put his plan into motion, shouts emanated from the central courtyard in the strange Chondathan tongue.
The two guards, mere paces from him, acknowledged the calls and ran toward the source of the commotion. Taennen did not pause to wonder what the trouble was. A gift was a gift, his father had always said.
Taennen darted to the door. The fetid smell of the place had not improved since his last visit, and his nose burned with the acidic taint of waste. Some small corner in the back of his mind made note to reprimand the guards for not having followed his earlier orders to improve conditions for the formians.
'Guk!' Taennen whispered.
No response came and Taennen blinked, his eyes adjusting to dim light. Before him, standing in the very spot where he had last seen the creature, the large formian turned his head toward Taennen, his head cocked to one side. Taennen stepped in close and pulled off the creature's gag and blindfold, his nose a mere handspan from the formians clattering mouth appendages, even though the bars separated them. The strange, hardened flesh that covered Guk's body glistened in the torchlight, seeming radiant when compared to its dull appearance in the open sunlight of the battlefield where they had originally met.
'It was the dwarf, Marlke, you saw go into the tower,' Taennen said with no hint of a question in his tone.
'Yes,' Guk said.
The formians utter lack of an attempt to bluff, to strengthen his bargaining position, caused Taennen to step away from the creature. The otherworldly nature of the formian had never been so apparent, and Taennen suddenly felt ill-equipped to relate to Guk on even the most basic level. He stammered for a moment before gathering his wits and stepping forward again to stand face to face with the formian.
'The dwarf is dead,' Taennen said. 'Did you see anyone else go into the tower? Did you see anyone else talking with the dwarf?'
'No,' Guk said. His antennae twitched as if considering a puzzle or some other curiosity.
'Your freedom… do you still want that?' Taennen asked.
Guk offered a simple nod, displaying no emotion.
Taennen felt a wave of relief, finally getting something positive from the strange captive. Though the thought of dangling freedom before a prisoner made his stomach roil, Taennen had no other bargaining chips.
'When we found you, where had you come from?'
'The trees,' Guk said.
'The forest? Aerilpar?' Taennen asked.
Guk agreed and said, 'The forest provided many workers.'
'You were searching the forest for slaves before we encountered you?' the young durir asked.
'We retrieved many workers from there,' Guk answered, and for the first time, Taennen thought he might have detected something in the formian's tone: irritation.
'How long were you there? How much of the forest did you see?' he asked.
Guk paused a moment, his mandibles clacking, before replying, 'Almost two of your tendays we stayed there, keeping to the western edge and middle.'
'In that time, did you see any other men-humans like us-anywhere? Any camps or signs of them? Any fires in the night?' Taennen asked, knowing that the beast clans who inhabited the forest would live much deeper in the woods than Guk would have traveled.
'No.'
Taennen's pleasure at having been correct was quickly replaced by the void that comes from disproving the only available assumption. He had nothing to go on, no possibilities to investigate. His insight while staring at the forest from the tower had been correct. As he had scanned the trees he saw no smoke, no firelight. None of the patrols had reported even seeing a used firepit. That told him the bandits were not coming from the forest.
'In all the One… where are they coming from?' he said to himself.
'If you find these others, you will release us,' Guk said.
Taennen's looked up at the formians dark, empty eyes. 'You know where they are,' he stated, having no doubt about the assertion.
'Yes.'
Only Adeenya's disciplined mind kept her pace slow and quiet. Making noise would attract the guards, and that could not happen. She slipped across the courtyard on the balls of her feet. Two Chondathan soldiers, their torches cutting through the dark, scanned the area. To the north, near a cluster of quarters, more soldiers scurried about. It would be the same all over the citadel, she knew.
Adeenya wondered what might have happened had she stayed in her prison and taken Jhoqo's words to heart. What were his plans for her? But mostly, she wondered if he could have convinced her. His words had begun to pierce her will-she had found some value in them, and that frightened her.
She tried to shake the doubt from her mind to focus on the task before her-staying alive and staying free. She needed to reach her own troops, to somehow communicate with them. She wondered if any of them had swallowed Jhoqo's rhetoric. She had no doubt the Chondathans were working with Jhoqo, but she was uncertain of the Maquar. While Jhoqo no longer fit into that organization's belief system, by her estimation, perhaps some of his soldiers still did.
Her first step would be to attempt contact with her own troops, so she turned toward their barracks on the far side of the citadel. She did not relish such a challenge and found great relief when she realized that some of her soldiers might be guarding the wall for the night duty. Only one more small building stood between her and the wall, and the shadows there were easier to hide in. Lucha was hidden by thick clouds, and Adeenya prayed that they would linger long enough to cover her.
The stairs leading to the walkway were less than half a bowshot away. Stealth was not her strength, but Adeenya had hope for the first time since her capture. Staying crouched, she prepared to make a dash for the
