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Wincing in agony, Roger bit hard on the piece of wood he had stuck between his teeth He had torn a sleeve fro, just below the knee, and knotted it about a second piece of wood Now he turned that wood, tightening the tourniquet
He nearly swoonedin and out of con-sciousness If he passed out now, he would surely bleed to death, he reoth hound was deep, the blood spurting
Finally, er, cold and claainst the earthen wall of his cell He knew this place well, a root cellar close to the town center, and knew there was only one way in or out: a trapdoor at the top of a rickety wooden ladder Roger stared at it now, lines of h The late afternoon sun, he realized, and he thought that he should try to ht
He recognized ioing anywhere this night, could hardly find the strength to pull hi at the futility of it all, he sluh, and would have remained asleep for ed open and the dawn&039;s light poured in
Roger groaned and tried to straighten himself
A powrie appeared on the ladder, followed by another, Kos-kosio Begulne hier and pulled hier teetered, butthat if he fell over, the dould just hoist hiic?" Kos-kosio Begulne asked, co hi him low, so his face was barely an inch froe of the dwarf, close enough that Kos-kosio&039;s foul breath was hot in Roger&039;s face
"Magic?" Roger replied
"Get the hounds!" Kos-kosio Begulne cried
Roger groaned again at the sound of barking
"Who uses the ic?" the powrie leader deer echoed "I know of no stones, nor of any er added, his tone frantic "I could just lie and give you a name, any name, and you would not know if I spoke truly until, or unless, you found that person But I do not know of any er, the dwarf growling low - and Roger feared that the fierce poould bite his nose off But then Kos-kosio shoved hiainst the wall and spun toward the stairs, convinced by the sier&039;s defense "Ye tie hile knot We wants to er wasn&039;t quite sure what Kos-kosio Begulne had in lee, was not proed rope and advanced on hier slumped to the floor The dwarf kicked hihly behind his back
"Nah, put the daulne com-manded yet another poho had cogoth hound on a short leash "He&039;s just a weak huh much more pain" Kos-kosio looked back frolare "I&039; to find a bit more fun with this one be-fore I let hier ot hi frole knot," as Kos-kosio Begulne had called it, proved to be a devilish twist of the rope Roger&039;s arhtly behind his back, bent at the elbow so his hands nearly touched the back of his neck The nasty cord then looped over both his shoul-ders and down the front of his body, wrapping painfully under-neath his groin and then up his back once er&039;s throat So expertly was he tied, and so tightly, that the slightest shift of his arroin, but cut off his air supply, as well
"Well, huet yer way outta this" The powrie laughed, set a torch in a wall sconce, lit it, and went to the top of the ladder, calling out to soet away!"
"Double lock?" one of the dwarves up above asked
"Double lock," the powrie on the stairs confiret one to come and taketowith this s," the other dwarf replied, and closed the heavy trapdoor with a resounding bang Roger listened carefully as chains and locks were set in place on the door He studied the powrie co ulneYou let this one keep a weapon
The powrie er "You just lie still," the dwarf instructed, and then, to accentuate the point, the nasty crea-ture kicked Roger hard in the ribs
Roger squir, the dwarftorch The wicked creature took off its crier see it clearly, as if to promise him that his blood, too, would soon enhance the hue Then the powrie put its gnarly hands behind its head and leaned against the wall, closing its eyes
Roger spent a long, long while getting his bearings He fought away the nausea and the pain, then tried to figure a way to get out of the ropes That would be the easy part, he decided, because even if he got free, even if he then took the dwarf&039;s weapon and killed the creature, where o? The cellar bulkhead was locked and chained, and he didn&039;t have to be reminded of what lay in wait atop it
Truly, the task before hier forced his down one step at a tiuards The new one gave Roger a bit of food and a drink - nearly drowning him in the process - and then took a seat in much the same place as the previous sentry
Within an hour this one, too, was snoring contentedly
Deteruest, Roger decided that the time to act was upon him One small step at a tiainst the hard wall He had to angle hith would do lance at his powrie jailor to er closed his eyes and ainst the wall, suddenly, powerfully, hitting with the front of his shoulder, the jolt driving his arht worked in a coordinatedhim ahead
He heard a loud pop as his shoulder dislocated, and waves of pain rolled through his body, nearly laying hih, and with his arh for him to slip it over the shoulder
In aon the floor, free of the rope, gasping for breath Then, after ahis shoulder the other way, popping it back in place - a useful little trick the thief had perfected over the years Again he spent a athered up the rope andpowrie
"Hey," the dwarf protested a fewbefore it, the dwarf&039;s short sword in hand "And what&039;re yeto its feet and drawing a dagger froer understood that even thus armed, the er hopped backward on his good leg, falling against the far wall; the powrie growled and charged, raising its dagger before it
As that arm came up, the dwarf realized that a rope was looped about its wrist, a short leash fastened to a root sticking fro
"What?" the powrie said, even as the loop tightened and held, pulling the dwarf&039;s ar the dwarf over to land heavily on its back
Roger caan its so in beside the prone creature
"What?" the dwarf bellowed again, just before the pommel of its short sword s to pull its arer pounded aith the poain, until fi-nally the stubborn dwarf lay still The man nearly fell away fro in and out of consciousness
"Nothiain, and then once ain,his head at the sheer resilience of the hardy dwarf
Now things got h the entire scenario, trying to figure every obstacle and every iteer from the dwarf&039;s hand and the belt from around its waist, and reset the rope to better secure the creature Then he et a th At the center of that trapdoor, on the inside, was a support beaer went at this first, or rather, at the wood above it, scraping a hollow area wide enough to loop the rope over the bea at their supports on either end At one point he heard the growl of the wary Craggoth hound, and had to pause for a long while before the vicious dog would quiet down
One scratch at a tier had to stop, this ti so badly he could not reain he had to wait, for the poas co back to consciousness and needed to be clunked on the head one er went back to work, and finally the boards to either side of the central sup-port were loosened
The moment was upon him; he hoped he wouldn&039;t faint away from the pain at a critical juncture
He went back to the dwarf and gatheredthe expected scenario He checked his gear one final tier, the post from the dwarf&039;s belt buckle, the leather laces from the dwarf&039;s boots, andfinally, one of those s breath and htly on each of the loosened bulkhead boards, trying to get a better feel of where the hound , or if there were any powries in the iaer realized, but he de-cided he had to take the chance In his ulne would never let hier held no illusions about his captivity: as soon as the powrie leader decided he was no longer useful, he would be tortured to death
He had already looped the rope over the bea that the hound was more to the left, he reversed the direction Down the ladder Roger went, positioning the dazed powrie at the base and to the left-hand side
Back up on the ladder, in place below the trapdoor, Roger rubbed his hands anxiously, re had to be perfect Using splinters from the worked boards, he set the noose in place just under the right-hand board Then he took up the boot in one hand and put his other hand firh the noose
A final deep breath and Roger pushed hard, partially dislodging the board, enough so he woke the hound fully and offered it an opening through which it could attack
And attack it did, jaws snapping right for the boot that Roger pushed up into its face As soon as the dog latched on, Roger, holding the other end of the boot in both hands, juh the opening, in through the noose
The snare worked perfectly, tightening about the hound as it ca&039;s neck and under one paw about the shoulder Down they went, Roger in a tu to the end of the rope length The sudden jerk lifted the powrie at the rope&039;s other end to its knees and left the hound dangling, one of its back feet just brushing the floor
The Craggoth hound bit hard on the boot, shaking its head vio-lently side to side, seeer was there in a split second, taking the opportunity to loop the leather shoelace about the creature&039;s closed jarap-ping it tightlyit off
"Bark now," he taunted, then flicked his finger against the hound&039;s nose With a last quick check on the powrie, and one led back up the ladder
All was quiet outside, but considering the pain in his leg, Roger didn&039;t think he would havehe had broken in the trapdoor He did get his hands out, though, enough to feel along the chains to the two padlocks Always pleased by his own cleverness, ser took the narrow post of the powrie&039;s buckle in hand and went to work
Nightbird waited for the signal whistle, then moved quickly and quietly up to the tree in which his se point they could see most of Caer Tinella, and Juraviel&039;s estimate of the number of er
"Do you have any idea where they would hold him?" he asked
"I said that I heard them speak of him, not that I actually saw hi, or ht, he could be dead"
Nightbird wanted to argue, but held his tongue, for he found that he could not logically disagree with Juraviel An entire day had passed - he and the elf couldn&039;t risk co Kos-kosio Begulne plenty of time to sort out the details of the disaster in the forest and to lay the blame for it at the feet of his valuable prisoner
"We should have coht was over, with still two or three hours of darkness be-fore us"
"Pony had to tend the wounded," the ranger replied
"She is not here anyway," the elf rehtbird had hoped she would accompany theic After their sword-dance that h ht
"But this is," the ranger answered, holding up the heer Lockless needs burying," the elf said dryly
The ranger didn&039;t appreciate the sarcas, except to one in an instant, and a few seconds later another whistle er even closer They held their next position for soiants filtered out of the town, heading more to the west than the north
"The fewer left in town, the better our chances," Juraviel re- his voice to a tiny whisper now that they were so close
The ranger nodded andThe next hop put theht beside a barn on the northeastern edge of town Now theybows They froze when they heard voices within the barn, so about a broken chain
"He could be in there," Juraviel said softly
The ranger didn&039;t think that a reputedly wise powrie leader would be foolish enough to put so valuable a prisoner on the out-skirts of the town, but he wanted to leave an open path out of Caer Tinella anyway, and so he gave a little tug on his bowstring and nodded toward the barn