She glancedquickly backwards to get her orientation. The edge of the streamwas only two paces away. She looked back at the wyvern as itlaunched at her. Very carefully, she watched its decent and at thelast moment she dived to the side. There were only fractions of asecond in it, but with her camouflage magic making her a difficulttarget and her sudden movement the wyvern missed.
It growled likean annoyed bear and flapped its huge wings to bring itself to ahalt on the ground. It landed awkwardly and spun around to findher.
Miranda shiftedto her cat form and was off and sprinting up the hill dartingamongst the small trees and scattered bushes. She knew it would beslower uphill for the beast with all that weight to carry and thesmall bushes and scattered trees would make it difficult tofollow.
She got to thecrest of the hill, stopped and turned beside the trunk of a largetree to see how the wyvern was progressing. It had dropped wellbehind and was snorting and puffing.
‘Ha ha.’ shethought. ‘I can easily get away from here.’
She felt asharp sting in her rear and looked around to see what had causedit. ‘Oh no.’ she thought. ‘A dart!’
She shiftedback to her Newman form and pulled it out but it was too late. Shewas getting dizzy then fell over unconscious.
Several minuteslater, Miranda regained consciousness. She was still groggy and hermouth and throat felt wrong. Her hands and legs were tightly bound.She was gagged with a leather band around her head holding a clothcrammed into her mouth. She lay on her side near the stream at thebottom of the hollow and groaned but it sounded wrong.
Looking aroundshe saw the carcass of the Wyvern with torn wings and sporting theshafts of several arrows a few paces away and next to it two largedead Elendari hunting dogs. Someone from behind her spoke to her inMudrun common.
She rolled overand saw the Huntmaster squatting, looking at her. He was dressed inblack leather with a camouflage cloak draped over his shoulder. Hewore a fancy silver hilted short sword and a quiver of arrows.There was a nicely crafted longbow and dart tube on the ground nearhis knee. He continued sorting through the contents of Miranda’sbag.
Miranda triedto speak to him but only a gurgle came out and she suddenlyrealized what was wrong. The Huntmaster chuckled and said.
‘Sorry. Youknow its standard practice with wizard and druid prisoners. Cut outtheir tongues and break their fingers. I’ll add your pretty tongueto my collection. That will make seven now.’
Miranda triedto move her fingers and pain shot through her hands. She tried toscream but it came out a hollow gurgling sound.
‘Careful, don’ttry to talk.’ he said. ‘You’ll cause your tongue stump to bleed andyou might drown in your own blood. That wouldn’t be useful toeither of us. I need you alive. That bloody wyvern killed and ateanother one of my Newman handlers.’
Then helaughed.
‘It’sunfortunate for you that you were able to kill it before I couldstop you. The boss is not going to be very happy about that. It washis favourite.’
Mirandawondered what he was talking about. She couldn’t remember killingthe wyvern. Maybe it was the poison on the dart. He knew what hewas doing as there were very few poisons that would affect her.Then she remembered the arrows in it. Damn him! He was going toblame her for its death and she couldn’t talk to defendherself.
He finishedrummaging through her bag, replaced the contents and placed her baginside his. He Nodded approvingly as if he was happy with the hisnew loot and then he set about removing his arrows from the deadwyvern. He slashed it around the head with his sword and then usinga scroll to cast a fiery magic effect that severely charred itshead and body.
‘That shoulddo.’ he muttered to himself and returned to Miranda.
‘If you’vetried to shape change you’ve already discovered you can’t. I have acharm on you to stop it. Neat trick I learnt from the oldHuntmaster before me. He had nineteen tongues in his collection butI don’t reckon they were all magic users. He told me about druidsnot needing their tongues or fingers to shape change.’
‘Anyhow, weneed to get moving. Since you’ve closed my gateway I’ll have totake you through the Southern Gateway. I’ll have to learn how touse my new portal-closing cube. I’ll bet it will open portals aswell but now is not the time to experiment with it.’
‘I’m going tocover your head with this hood and put a noose around your neckthen cut your leg bindings. If you try to run the noose will pulltight and choke you. So be a nice girl and make it easy onyourself. Do what I say. Maybe the boss will have your tonguehealed. You never know. He likes pretty girls, for a while atleast. Ha ha.’
Miranda wasbecoming panicky. Where was he taking her? He mentioned theSouthern Gateway. If he was taking her there maybe he was going totake her to Moonmist. No! If she went there Aquitain would never beable to find her. Even worse, people that ate food there lost theirmemories. Time was different there too. In one day on Moonmist fivedays passed on Mudrun.
The Huntmasterhelped her stand, and while holding her arm slipped on a ring,spoke a trigger word and they teleported to a spot near theSouthern Gateway. She was paralysed with fear how could sheescape?
Chapter 11 TacticalGames
When Chantalotand Aquitain returned to Granwell’s tower, the archwizard was stillabsent. So Aquitain asked him to inform Featherdown that he andMiranda were back at work again checking out some of the strangeproblems on Mudrun and would report back to him as soon as they hadsome firm answers.
‘You’ve changeda lot since you came here.’ said Chantalot chuckling. ‘You’restarting to sound like a serious hero type.’
‘Yes inPanmagica I used to be an easy going Newman bachelor with few realproblems. Now I’m a shape shifting Llanllean Wizard Captain with aprincess as my chosen and playing games with
