is holding a vial in his hand and with the slave’s help, pours the contents into his mouth. After waiting several minutes to make sure it was swallowed, he and the slave leave.
Aside from a guard posted outside, they’re left pretty much alone. Jiron works at his bindings and finally gets them undone. He doesn’t bother trying to awaken James, he realizes that aside from the fact he probably wouldn’t wake up anyway, having again overextended himself with magic, he’s likely drugged as well.
Moving close to his friend, he checks to make sure he’s still breathing and otherwise okay. Then he sits back and waits for whatever their captors plan to do next. He has a pretty good idea of the layout of the camp and sits near the edge of the tent in order to attempt to keep track of what’s going on outside.
Not more than a half hour goes by before footsteps are heard approaching the tent. The flap is pulled aside and the mage enters followed by two soldiers. Once inside, the tent flap is again allowed to close.
The mage glances from the unconscious James to Jiron and notices he’s managed to remove his bindings. One soldier pulls his sword to keep Jiron at bay while the mage approaches James.
“Don’t touch him!” warns Jiron.
The soldier with the drawn sword comes forward and strikes him across the face with his other hand. “Impertinent dog!” he says derisively.
Kneeling down near James’ head, the mage lifts one eyelid and examines his eye for a moment before closing it. Returning to his feet, he glances again to James. “So, this is the mage causing the Empire so much trouble,” he says. He looks to Jiron as if for confirmation but Jiron remains silent.
“Doesn’t seem like much,” he continues, “but you two did defeat two of the Guardians.” He stands there, gaze boring into Jiron for a moment. “Now,” he finally continues, “tell me where the Fire lies?”
“Fire?” questions Jiron. “What’s that?”
A dark expression comes over the mage as he says, “Don’t take me for a fool, you know what it is. You and he have been together almost from the beginning.”
The beginning of what? Jiron questions to himself silently. He remains quiet and defiant.
“Tell me what I want to know!” he demands with more of an edge to his voice. When Jiron is again uncooperative, he raises his hand and pain flares throughout Jiron’s body.
Back arching and muscles contracting painfully, he clenches his teeth together and fights the urge to cry out. He doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction.
As quickly as the pain began it quits. “Now, my patience is beginning to wear thin,” the mage tells him. “Tell me where it is!”
Jiron raises his head and gazes into the mage’s eyes. Sweat beads his forehead and his breath is a little ragged from the excruciating pain he just endured. Giving no indication of compliance, he stares defiantly at the mage.
Raising his hand again, the mage causes pain to once more erupt along every nerve in his body. His muscles again contract painfully, almost to the point where they’ll begin breaking the bones they’re attached to.
Try as he might, he can’t keep a small gasp of pain from escaping. After what seems like an eternity, the pain stops and he flops back to the floor, eyes closed and breath coming in ragged gasps.
“This will only get worse if you do not tell me,” warns the mage. “And let me assure you, we have as long as it takes.” He then says something to one of the soldiers in their language. The soldier promptly leaves the tent and returns shortly with a chair for the mage. Taking his seat, he gazes down at Jiron who has managed to regain some of his composure. “Shall we begin again?” he asks.
Jiron just spits at him, the spittle managing to land on the hem of his robes.
The soldier closest to him strikes him across the face and begins yelling at him in their language.
“Enough,” the mage says and the soldier stops his tirade. Looking back to the mage, he sees him motioning for the soldier to move away from Jiron, which he does.
Holding his arm out, the pain once again flares along Jiron’s already flayed nerve endings. Back arching almost to the point of snapping his spine, he gnashes his jaws together to prevent the cry of pain from being torn from him.
“Tell me,” the mage says softly. “Tell me where the Fire is hidden and this will all end.”
Through an almost insurmountable obstacle of pain, Jiron cries out, “Never!”
Unrelenting, the mage sends wave after wave of pain through Jiron’s nervous system, each worse than the one before. Suddenly, one of the guards standing near the mage bumps into the mage and breaks his concentration ending the spell.
“Clumsy oaf!” the mage screams to the man as the backlash of magic burns through him. Pushing the man away, his anger slowly turns to puzzlement as the man staggers a moment and then falls face down. Protruding from his back is the back half of an arrow.
No sooner has the soldier hit the ground than the tent flap is pulled aside and another soldier begins talking rapidly to the mage. From outside the tent screams and the clash of swords can be heard. Then the soldier at the tent flap suddenly jerks upright and falls to the ground, two arrows embedded in his back.
The mage gets to his feet, points to Jiron and James as he says a few words to the remaining guard and then hurries from the tent.
Jiron lays there, the residual pain coursing through him beginning to subside. Outside he hears explosions from magic the mage is wielding against whoever is attacking. The remaining guard is at the tent flap peering out, occasionally glancing back to make sure Jiron isn’t trying anything.
As he lays there, strength beginning to return from the torture of the mage, he looks to the soldier peering outside. While his attention is focused on the events unfolding outside the tent, Jiron tries working his muscles to be sure they’re okay. From the beating he took from the mage, he wasn’t sure if anything permanent had been done. After a few minutes he’s sure all is well, the pain must have been more in his mind than physical in nature. Things like that were mentioned in some of the old sagas he used to listen to growing up.
He feigns docility as the soldier turns to glance back toward him. Outside, the clash of arms continues as does the explosions from the mage. Men are screaming and crying battle cries. One battle cry he recognizes is that of Madoc, it must be men from there who are attacking the camp.
At first he thought it might have been Fifer and the others but then realized there would have been no way for them to reach here so fast. They have to be at least a day or two behind, coming on foot as they are.
Once the soldier makes sure that Jiron remains passive on the ground, he turns back to the events unfolding outside.
Moving slowly, Jiron quietly begins getting up off the ground. Just as he’s reached a crouched position, James lets out with a groan which draws the attention of the soldier back to the inside of the tent. Gasping at seeing Jiron there ready to attack, he hollers out for help as he draws his sword.
When James groaned, Jiron’s heart sank as the man turned to look at him there ready to pounce. Moving quickly, he grabs the chair the mage had used and barely blocks the strike of the soldier. Chips fly as the blade hacks out a section of a leg.
Not giving the man a chance for a second swing. Jiron immediately closes with him, pushing the chair toward him and running him into the side of the tent. The resulting impact brings the tent down and the man’s sword becomes entangled in the loose folds of the collapsing tent.
Jiron quickly grabs the soldier’s swordarm and rams his knee into the man’s middle. The soldier’s other fist lashes out and catches Jiron across the jaw but has little effect as he didn’t have leverage to put much power behind it.
His knee comes up and catches the soldier in the groin causing him to freeze immobile for a brief moment, which allows Jiron to elbow him across the throat, smashing his windpipe. The man begins gagging in a vain attempt to breathe but his compacted windpipe starts to swell from the blow and he soon passes out from lack of oxygen.
Taking the man’s sword, Jiron crawls through the collapsed tent until he reaches James. “James!” he whispers urgently. “Wake up!” His eyes flutter open and he mumbles something incoherently. Whatever they had given him still keeps him from functioning properly.
“Damn!” he curses as he turns onto his back and thrusts the sword upward through the tent material. Sawing with the sword, he quickly cuts a three foot slit and pokes his head out to see how the battle’s going on outside.
The men from Madoc have the numbers but the Empire’s mage is taking them out readily enough. Arrows fly
