I step forward and sweep his legs out from under him with my foot. He hits the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him for a moment. While he’s stunned, I use his dagger to cut a few strips from the sleeves of his robes. He gets the idea and tries to hold his hands still while I wrap the cuffs with the silk material.
I inspect his wrists by turning them all around as far as the cuffs will allow. “These are just minor burns, barely even first degree. You'll be fine.” I also get a chance to see the inside of his wrists. Just like us, he has one red tat and a blue one on the opposite side like those who use magic.
He glares at me with hatred in his eyes. “Do not touch me again, filthy human.”
“Fine with me, Elf. But you're no good to us if you're burning to death from a pair of bracelets,” I say as I stare him in the eye. “Are you a slave also?”
He looks away at first before answering, “The tattoos? Those are more of a term of employment. Look, I'm no good to you for ransom, for I have no rich patrons. I cannot go back to Lord Dullahan's Fiefdom. They will treat me as a traitor or torture me as an incompetent leader. So, I fail to see my worth to you. You may as well just let me go.”
“Nah, we may have a better use for you. It seems we are in need of a guide for the next month or so, and who better than a local?” I say.
“And I suppose there will be some kind of monetary recompense for my services?”
“Well, we can promise the Gnoll won't eat you… for now.”
“No, you cannot,” Thirax says, smiling and showing off his wicked fangs.
The pale elf goes even paler for a moment but soon recovers his composer. “Spare me the theatrics. You obviously need me; otherwise, you would not be here. And seeing as how I recently find myself short of employment and… housing, I accept your offer,” he finishes with a sense of wounded pride.
“Great! The handcuffs stay on though,” Olivia says brightly. “So, what do we call you?”
“You may refer to me as 'Master Magus,'” he says, raising his chin.
“How about something less… pompous?” I ask with a grin.
“My given name is Acri Grainleaf, Master Magus—”
“Acri it is! That’s Thirax and Olivia, and I'm Caleb. But… you can refer to us as Sir, Ma'am, and Sir. You are our prisoner after all.”
While I'm talking, Olivia is frisking him and tossing small items into a pile on the ground, including a second dagger.
“Hey now, my own mother gave those to me!” the elf complains.
“Your mother gave you a set of lock picks?” Olivia asks with amused interest.
“Why not? She had an extra set.”
“Thirax, would you gather Acri's possessions and keep them secure?” Olivia asks, and Thirax complies, dumping them all into his belt pouch.
“Well, Acri, you can't go back to your old friends, so where to now? I suggest somewhere far from here and safe for all of us,” I say, leaning on some choice words to make my point. “And just to be clear, anything bad happens to any one of us, the same will happen to you. Also, any hint of you trying to cast a spell will go not go well. Understand?”
“The iron on his wrists should interfere with his spell casting. But to be sure, I could break his fingers,” says Thirax in a very casual way.
Acri ignores the Gnoll and looks at me. “Your subtly needs a lot of work. I am not as dense as you seem to be, and I understand the situation far better than you. I do have some… distant family a few miles from here, living up in the hills. They are rather… unsophisticated, but I believe you all would get along just fine,” he states the last bit with a sneer.
“Great. We have to make a quick stop for provisions before we go. Then you can take us to your kinfolk.”
“Are they some of the Wild Fey that Thorn warned us about?” Olivia asks to no one specific.
“Unrefined sure, but pretty boring if truth be told. I don’t know what you’ve been told or what standard you’d use to judge them against,” Acri says with a disdainful look at our dirty and disheveled gear.
30
Thanks to Thirax's nose and sense of direction, we make it to the MRE cache in under an hour. We spend about another hour just watching, looking for any sign of a trap or at least a guard or two.
Nothing. I take another ten minutes or so and belly crawl my way to the rickety lean-to. A final glance back at where I left the others shows no alarm or anything. They're all hidden in the dense trees and grasses, so not seeing them is a good thing. Using all the stealth I can muster (not a lot), I duck around the corner and inside the ramshackle lean-to.
It’s pretty dark inside, so I risk clicking on my penlight. I almost laugh out loud in surprised joy when I see a pile of US Army issue rucksacks, the big kind the troops use for extended forays. I guess this is how they transported most of the food stock. All the better for us. My original plan was to take a few now and come back for more later, but this changes things for the better.
The goblins don't strike me as accurate stock boys, so I figure they won't even notice if a bunch of these go missing. I grab four of the olive-colored drab bags and move them next to the stacks of food packages. I notice a little more good luck when I move the bags. Underneath are a few small tarps and a roll of heavy twine. I stuff these into a bag and proceed
