overseer he saw along the way. He could hear the confused lowing of the rothe as they scattered out into the open cavern beyond the pasture enclosures, trampling this way and that in the gloom somewhere beyond his sight. How much trouble that might cause the drow and their thrice-cursed overseers, Jack couldn’t say, but at the very least perhaps he’d done something to shake the dark elves’ confidence in their mastery of all they surveyed. It occurred to him that perhaps he might have been wiser to consider carefully the combination of impersonation and misdirection that would provide the best opportunity for him to make his escape, but then he abandoned the idea with a shrug. He was an improviser, not a planner. Didn’t they say perfect was the enemy of good enough?
He circled through the lakeside pastures, ordering slaves to set fire to the feed-cribs so that they could be purged of an imaginary rothe plague. It proved more difficult to convince the field-laborers to actually burn the troughs and granaries, but once he seized a torch and struck a light himself to provide an example, the rest of the field hands quickly followed suit. Then Jack headed toward the bunkhouses and cribs surrounding Malmor’s hut, near the entrance to the paddocks. Despite his bold actions elsewhere, Jack proceeded more carefully here, because there was an excellent chance he would run into Malmor himself, and Malmor, at least, would know that Jack was not him. He circled around the great mushroom-cribs where much of the rothe fodder was stored, and peered around the corner at the hovel where the bugbear slept. There was Malmor, standing just in front of his little bunkhouse, his face twisted in fury as he listened to half a dozen field-slaves and overseers all gabbling on at once about the rothe escaping from the paddocks.
“Hmm, now what?” Jack wondered. He heard a soft jingle of mail and arms behind him, then the soft sibilance of dark elves speaking among themselves. He quickly stole to the other end of the crib. A patrol of dark elf guards was hurrying down the road from the castle, no doubt coming to find out what in the world was going on in their fields.
Sudden inspiration struck Jack, and he acted upon it at once. He dashed back to the yard-facing edge of the mushroom-crib, picked up a stone, and hurled it at Malmor and his knot of overseers. It was a poor throw, missing the bugbear by several feet, but it did clip a nearby orc behind his right ear. The orc howled and fell; Jack shouted, “Hey, fathead!” and ducked back around the corner before Malmor and his henchmen could get a good look at him. Then he rushed to the other corner, scooped up a rothe patty, and leaped out in full view of the oncoming drow patrol.
“Malmor!” the drow-sergeant-as it happened, it was the warrior Varys-shouted. “What is the meaning of this? The rothe are escaping!”
“Stupid dark elves!” Jack retorted. “Catch your own rothe, your own rothe!” Then he flung the patty at Varys. It was a long throw, a good fifteen yards or more, but this time Jack’s aim was unerring. The lump of dung sailed spinning through the air and struck Varys on his mailed shoulder as he vainly tried to duck out of the way; the dung splattered with great effect. The dark elves gaped in astonishment, stunned by the sudden suicidal defiance from their lackey. Jack capered and flung another dung patty at the dark elves, then ducked back around the corner just in time as one or more of the dark elves fired their hand-crossbows at him.
From the yard-facing corner Jack heard the sudden rush of footsteps coming to meet him. “My work here is done,” he decided. He released his magical guise with a word of dismissal, and scrambled up the side of the crib. He threw himself into the foul-smelling mushroom feed just as Malmor and his overseers rounded one corner in furious pursuit, while Varys and the dark elves he led stormed around the other with murder in their eyes.
“Masters,” Malmor simpered at once. “What is-”
“Malmor,” the dung-splattered Varys snarled. “Oh, you will wish for a quick death before I am through with you. Kill the rest, but make sure the bugbear lives!”
The drow fell upon their slaves with merciless efficiency, blades flashing and crossbows singing. Two or three of the overseers went down at once beneath the murderous assault, while others threw themselves to the ground in terror or scattered to the four winds, thinking of nothing but getting away from the furious warriors. Malmor fell to his knees, cringing. “Malmor does not know what he has done, what he has done,” he wailed. “Please, masters, do not be angry, do not-” His groveling was cut off by the whistling impact of Varys’s stinging-rod, quickly joined by several more as the dark elves set about beating the bugbear as thoroughly and viciously as anybody had ever been beaten before.
Jack wormed his way over the top of the stored fodder and slipped out the other side of the crib. No one was close by, although he could see dark elves beating their overseers or chasing after fleeing ones here and there. He quickly stole his way across to Malmor’s shelter and ducked inside. The time had come to make his bid for freedom, even if he didn’t know exactly how it might fall out, and nothing he heard or saw from the dark elves outside dissuaded him. It was shaping up to be a very unpleasant time in the rothe fields for the indefinite future; clearly it was time to go.
Jack quickly ransacked Malmor’s possessions, looking for anything that might be useful in a trek through the Underdark. He found a trunk of better clothing than he was now wearing, no doubt taken from past prisoners who’d fallen into the bugbear’s power, and a pair of leather boots that couldn’t have come close to fitting on Malmor’s feet. He changed into the clean clothes, choosing the darkest colors he could find, donned the boots, and threw a battered old cloak around his shoulders for good measure. There was a good store of food in the form of rothe jerky, rothe cheese, and dried mushrooms of a somewhat more palatable variety than the fodder they fed to the livestock; Jack took as much as he could carry easily. He discarded a stinking wineskin filled with some sour vintage suitable only for a bugbear’s palate, but salvaged two more waterskins that were reasonably clean. Finally, he found a well-worn old short sword of drow make, and a good knife.
He risked a quick glance from the doorway of the hovel. More dark elf warriors were on their way, hurrying to the paddocks from all sides. Slaves milled around in terror, groveled for their lives, or ran here and there out in the pastures, trying to corral bleating rothe. “Confusion prevails,” Jack observed. “I should be on my way.”
He sidled around the hovel until he reached the side facing away from the paddocks, and loped off into the gloom of the great cavern, doing his best to stay out of sight. Behind him, shouts of terror, cries of pain, and the thundering hoofbeats and bleating of hundreds of panicking rothe filled the air. He reached the cover of the treelike fungi across the road from the pastures, and paused to survey his handiwork for a moment.
“I regret that I am no longer able to remain in management of Lady Dresimil’s pastures,” Jack said aloud, addressing the shadow of the drow castle ahead. “It is unfortunate that my departure leaves the property in no small disorder, but I am electing to pursue new opportunities elsewhere. Oh, and I expect you will need to replace Malmor as well, as he has proven unreliable.”
He hurried up the path leading toward the castle kitchens, keeping an eye open for drow soldiers coming the other way.
Two times Jack heard the jingle of mail in the gloom and hurriedly ducked off the path, hiding behind the great boles of tree-sized fungi dotting the cavern floor as dark elf patrols rushed down from the castle to quell the disturbances in the paddocks below. When he reached the door leading to the kitchens, he paused briefly to consider his options. A bold plan executed with confidence would be best, he decided. Jack brought the spell of disguise to mind again; he had already taxed his reserves of mystic strength, but he couldn’t imagine a way to proceed without employing another spell. This time he crafted for himself the lean, fine-boned, ebony-skinned features of a dark elf, dressing himself in illusory mail and a long, dark cape. Whether Varys would be flattered by the imitation or not Jack couldn’t say, but the guard-sergeant was the dark elf whose appearance he was most familiar with, and he judged that Varys would do for what he had in mind.
Squaring his shoulders and fixing his face in a contemptuous sneer, Jack sauntered up the path the remaining distance and strode into the kitchens as if he owned the place. Kitchen-slaves stopped their work and backed out his way, bowing and scraping. No other dark elves were in sight, but Jack was counting on that-he hadn’t seen any drow in the kitchens on any of his previous visits. He permitted himself a small sigh of relief at finding his expectations confirmed, because if any fellow drow had addressed him in their native language he wouldn’t have understood a word of it. With redoubled confidence Jack marched into the center of the bustling space, then turned in a slow, deliberate circle, studying each servant and slave in the room carefully.
The half-orc kitchen overseer Grelda approached carefully. “How can I help you, master?” she inquired with the mildest tone she could manage.
“Lord Jaeren requires a subject for a certain arcane experiment,” Jack replied. “Female, human, preferably young and healthy. Show me all slaves who meet that description.”
“This is a highly unusual request, master-” the kitchen-mistress began.
