The elven girl, already scared out of her wits somehow managed to blanch at the question put to her. If her hands hadn't been shackled behind her back and her fingers woven together with leather thong she'd have probably been wringing them. A dozen lies slipped through her mind as she considered any of the near half dozen identities she'd crafted through the years. However, most of those alternates were decidedly less than useful in the current circumstance and would not serve.

"My name is Assallya," she answered, nervously licking dried and cracked lips, "I may have been- involved in the murder of one of your vassals your majesty. It wasn't intentional. I was supposed to distract the man with a slap and tickle, hence my attire, while my fellows robbed his abode but- things went awry. They killed him."

Okay, that was a lie -partially. The whole truth was that she had indeed killed him but nobody told her that the man was a perverse sadist. Her comrades in crime had basically set her up to be brutally murdered to satisfy his lordship's lusts in what would have been a lovely distraction while they raided the villein's tax collections. As a result she'd had no choice but to kill him before he killed her. Then his lordship's guards got involved and everything went downhill from there. There may have been some illusions cast, and some enchantments uttered, and maybe some guards fighting amongst themselves as a result. It had been an ugly affair but as far as she was concerned it was her comrades that had made it necessary that the lord be killed and thus their fault, not hers.

"However!" she added quickly, eager to put a positive spin on that horrible half-truth, "I did scry his lordship's manor and I could do so again for you, only instead for this escaped girl. I am, from what your man says, the only one who has seen the face of this escaped woman and thus I can help find her."

That last little bit sent a small surge of hope bounding through the dancing girl's chest. She might somehow get through this with her hide intact, by the nine hells, she might even be able to luck out and carve a ladyship out of this debacle.

Dane had been too focused on trying to keep the horse from running forward and hadn't even seen Edwin coming until the shield slammed into him. The spearman cursed his own stupidity as his back smacked the snow covered ground and the carriage surged ahead.

He abandoned the spear immediately, knowing it would be of little use to him now. Instead, he grabbed a handful of snow and threw it toward Edwin's eyes while trying to roll the younger man off of him.

"Hey..hey." Edwin yelled at getting snow thrown into his face. The man under him rolled and knocked Edwin off of him. It took him a minute or two to get his arm untangled from the shield and back onto his feet. Edwin drew his sword as he wiped snow from his eyes. Looking around Edwin saw that he was alone. He was the only guardsman around. He told Dane, "You go that way. I'm going this way!" Then he broke and ran away into the forest.

---

Kan fought and was now tired. Many of the guards saw there was no point in continuing to fight against Kan. The wagon was gone and they had no leadership. At first the guards ran off in one's and two's. Soon enough all of the guards ran off. They had no more fight in them and no desire to continue fighting for the Dark Lord. The fled into the forest.

Kan sat heavily on the ground. He was surrounded by dead guards. His battleaxe, armor and face were bloody. He looked up as he saw Rook and Thaliar approaching. he stood up as quickly as he could, but it wasn't very graceful. He gave the two of them a tired smile. "I'm glad you're safe, Lady. The plan worked good, yes?" He leaned heavily on his battleaxe as he staff of the axe rested on the ground.

Dane had recovered his breath by now and sprinted after the fleeing Edwin, trying to catch the younger man before he could disappear along with the others. A prisoner may be able to provide them some much needed intelligence on Octa's manpower. Not wanting to be lured too far from Kan, Dane dove at Edwin's waist when they'd gone only a few steps from the road, trying to tackle him to the ground.

---

"Captain Zula was captured and excecuted not many moons ago. We still haven't found a new base of operations, and I'm afraid we don't have much time to spare in that effort frankly. But what we had time for was..." Thaliar sighed briefly. "...a vote. And I was chosen as the new Captain...There's no more to say about that, other than the other factions don't look upon my promotion with joy."

Ian Zula was dead... Rook sagged a little heavier onto the elf as she took in the news, feeling a numbness that had nothing to do with the cold. It hardly seemed possible. She'd served under the ranger Captain from before there even was a Revolt, back when their biggest problem had been a band of goblins harassing merchant caravans. It was Zula that convinced her and many others too that fighting against Lord Octa's reign was not only the right thing to do, but there was hope of actually winning.

She took a few steadying breaths until she thought she could trust herself to talk without crying. "I might know of a place we could use..."

But then Kan came into view through the snow, bloodied but alive and she broke away from the elf, limped the few extra steps to her friend and hugged him as best she could with her still-shackled hands. "It did, Kan. Thank you for coming for me."

"The incident at Baron Gorim's keep," Agael recounted, referring to the murder in which the elven girl was involved. "That was a dreadful affair to be sure." The killing one of Lord Octa's vassals was unprecedented and surely unforgivable. Agael fully expected the dark lord to lay his hand upon Assallya and devour her life essence at that very moment. But something stayed the master's hand. Agael had a suspicion that it might have been desperation.

"So it was," Lord Octa dismissed, keeping his glassy white eyes fixed upon Assallya. "Gorim will be replaced easily enough. But as for this... revolt," Lord Octa's incorporeal voice boomed through the Court once more, galvanizing the undead souls hanging from the ceiling to shift and moan. "I shall not tolerate it."

"You shall accompany the Dread Knight Vatikar, and assist him in searching for this missing prisoner. For I suspect that wherever she is, the remainder of the insurrectionists will be found there as well."

"Sir Vatikar?" Agael asked. "Far be it from me to question your judgement, majesty. But do you trust him with such a quest? After what happened last time?"

"Vatikar knows full well that were it not for his prowess on the battlefield, he would have joined the Court in Zula's place. He knows the gravity of his error, and he is sufficiently motivated. He will bring me this missing prisoner and those who have stolen her from me. And unlike Zula, they shall come to me alive."

"Send the rest of this lot to the dungeons. I will consume their life essence at a more appropriate time. But escort the elf and see that she is fitted adequately for this quest." With that, the two dread knights parted ways - one dragged the shackled prisoners to the dungeons, and the other took Assallya back out of the Court.

"When you inform Vatikar as to my orders," Lord Octa said to his robed lackey when the prisoners were well out of earshot. "Tell him that once he has located my missing prisoner, he may dispose of the she-elf however he sees fit."

"As you wish, your majesty. I have no doubt he will relish such an opportunity."

"So he may," Lord Octa agreed. "What is important is that the elf must not be allowed to live at the end of this. A crime against my vassals is a crime against me, and I shall tolerate no crime."

Kaden Tobler's grand plans to air his grievances to Lord Octa about his mistreatment died when the first drunken prisoner had fallen victim to... to... Kaden wasn't even sure what exactly it was, only that he certainly didn't want that to happen to him.

He opened his mouth multiple times during Octa's questioning of the elf, wanting to point out that he was a noble and that he had committed no crime. But interrupting this maniac didn't seem like the wisest idea and each time Kaden lost his nerve and remained silent.

"...consume their life essence at a more appropriate time..." The horror of that idea prompted the young lord to finally find some nerve as they were being led away to the dungeons. He twisted in the dread knight's grasp, looking back. "This is a mistake!" he cried, his dry mouth and throat causing his voice to crack. "I am Lord Tobler's son, sent here to serve you until my 21st birthday! I've done nothing wrong!"

Edwin threw up his arms as he fell on his face. His short short bounced out of his reach. Finding that he couldn't crawl away, Edwin rolled onto his back and tried to kick at Dane. "Let me go. Why are you still fighting? It's over. Just let me go."

---

Kan hugged Rook. He was very protective of her. He feared he would never see her again. Rook has taken care of Kan more than once. She was able to protect him and keep him put of trouble. Kan's way of protecting rook was much more direct.

He hugged Rook back. He lifted her light frame into his arms and gave her a affectionate hug. After carefully setting her back on her feet, he knelt at her feet. He pulled out his lucky lock picking tool. He licked it once for luck then started working to unlock Root's shackles. After a few moments, he smiled as he heard the click of the lock opening.

"This is far from over, kid," Dane said through gritted teeth as he grappled with Edwin in the snow, using his weight to keep the young man from squirming out of his grasp, but that also left him unable to start binding his hands without first letting go.

He could vaguely hear the voices of Kan, Rook, and Thaliar. "Kan! Some help here!" he called out.

"You tell us what we need to know, maybe you'll get to keep breathin' for awhile," Dane said darkly.

The sudden weight that Thaliar felt from Rook didn't catch him off-guard really, though it did take him a solid second to prop her back up again. He knew why she suddenly felt so heavy, for she was sad. It was an interesting concept, the feeling of sadness, one that many elves looked upon with a curious fascination. To many elves, emotion was something that happened to those too caught up in the present and past, and not the future. But to Thaliar, it had become natural after being surrounded by humans so often. Not that he felt it himself all too often, only that one time...

Kan was alive, bloodied and tired, but still alive. The elf smiled back to the massive shape of a man, hidden underneath so many layers of armour that he could have posed as a guard for Lord Octa himself. Rook hurried over to him and hugged him, another sign of emotion, but a good one. Happiness, joy, friendship. That made him smile too. It was a pleasent sight in contrast to what had just befallen this little patch of woods.

And then there was another voice, somewhere in the distance. Thaliar's pointed ears caught it loud and clear, and made the elf turn towards it. It was Dane, another Companion of The Wood Guards, politely asking Kan for help with. Well, polite wasn't exactly what it was, but it was something. "Go ahead, I'll help Rook. "

The elven girl's heart stuck in her throat at Lord Octa's first words and then soared as he completed his next. The thought of not being rendered into dust was a massive relief. Shaking visibly she nodded and curtsied.

"His majesty is...," she whispered, then decided against her own words, figuring it better she simply slip away. Instead she simply added the assurance, "I shall not fail."

Dismissed she followed the Lord's personal guard, slipping quietly away and considered the options. She would have preferred being escourted by the Lord's chamberlain. He seemed more talkative and she could have used whatever information she might glean. Still, at least she hadn't been slain. There was every possibility she might even be able to spin this into a ladyship of her own if she played her cards right. Just as much possibility that she'd only postponed her punishment. It was difficult to say. After all, Lord Octa's minions regularly played against one another. They just did so via cat's paws and thus didn't contest quite so overtly.

Her next question was: Who was this Vatikar? What sort of man or thing was he? Could she win him over? How loyal was he? She certainly hoped he would be amenable.

Edwin beat against Dane with his fists. He used his elbows and anything else he could to fight against Dane. "Just get the hell off of me." He gave and received some punches. He would do anything to get away. He knew what the rebels did to guards they captured and wanted no part of it.

---

Kan looked at Rook to receive her permission before leaving her say and running towards Dane's cries. "I'm coming, Dane! Help is on the way!" Kan ran through the forest guided by Dane's calling. He ran ducking under branches and jumping over logs. He knew his friend needed his help and he was going to help him

---

Edwin saw the large, bloody man enter the clearing with a wild look in his eyes. Edwin let out a moan of fear. "Who is he? I'll tell you anything...just keep him away from me. Don't let him eat me!"

Kamri danced lightly out of the way as Kan ran past her pulling a sleeve over her arm and wiping the blood from her lips before stepping out into the roadway where Rook and Thaliar still stood.

"Sorry I'm late boss," she said deep green eyes meeting the elfs. "Got caught by a few of the rear guard and had a tussle and then well.. I got hungry."
She grinned wolfishly accentuating her sharp features and baring slightly pointed teeth. These were the tale tale features of werebeasts specifically of the wolf variety.

Her eyes then found Rook standing in the snow linen shirt soaked through. "Looks like you didn't really need my help, good to see you Rook even if you do look half frozen." Kamri dropped the pack she was carrying and started to rummage through it her thick curly black hair falling over her face.

"Good thing I borrowed some supplies from our friends right?" She straightened tossing the tresses back over her shoulder and holding out a thick grey cloak, "I think you'll feel better with this dear. And if anyone is hurt I have some salves and some bandages."

"I'll be alright. Go." Rook reassured Kan and watched him disappear into the blowing snow.

When the wolfish figure emerged from almost the same spot a few moments later, Rook's eyes widened in surprise and recognition. It had been months since she'd last seen the werebeast, both off on separate missions under Zula's direction. "Kamri," she greeted, "It is good to see you too." She glanced uneasily at the remnants of blood still around Kamri's mouth. Once upon a time, they might not have been allies, but desperate times had forced the Wood Guard to accept help where they could find it.

"That helps, thank you," she said gratefully, pulling the wool cloak tightly around herself, shackles now dangling from only one wrist.

"How far do we have to travel tonight?" she asked, looking from Kamri to Thaliar. With their base of operations gone, she assumed they had a temporary camp set up somewhere. "If it's not far this can wait until we're somewhere safer," she pulled back the torn fabric around the calf of her right leg to reveal soiled and bloodied bandages, probably a few days past due to be changed.

---

"Ain't that one you gotta worry about eatin' you," Dane said, grimacing from where Edwin's fist had managed to connect with his cheek.

"Get that rope from his belt, Kan. We'll bring him back and see what Thaliar wants ta do with 'im."

With Kan now there to help restrain the captive, they quickly had Edwin stripped of weapons and valuables and had his hands bound tightly behind his back. "And no need to be callin' for your friends to come help ya," Dane said, gagging him with a thick strip of cloth tied behind the neck.

"I've done nothing wrong!"

The young prince's lamentations echoed through the Court of the Dead, but fell on deaf, or rather, unsympathetic ears. Unmoved, Lord Octa merely cocked an eyebrow as the dread knight dragged him and the others to the dungeon.

"Do you know anything about this?" Asked the dark lord of his bald-headed servant.

"Yes," Agael reported. "Lord Keledan Tobler of the Heathermarches did in fact offer his heir as a token of submission to your majesty. It is customary among the minor lords to the east to grant their heirs until their coming-of-age to other lords in order to curry favor and solidify alliances. Lord Tobler certainly wishes to align himself with your majesty, and given the location of his realm it is easy to see why."

Little wonder indeed why Lord Tobler would want friendly terms with the dark lord. Though it had been a full generation since Lord Octa had assembled his hosts to conquer neighboring lands, the surrounding kingdoms and realms feared nothing more than the dark lord rebuilding his former power and beginning another wave of inexorable conquest. Those realms to the immediate east of Lord Octa's dominion, in the Heathermarches on the eastern slopes of the Felmurg Mountains, would be among the closest and most accessible victims of Lord Octa's renewed wrath. Lord Tobler's would be the first lands to be invaded if the dark lord ever crossed the Felmurg Mountains.

"Go and speak with this prince after you have debriefed Vatikar. Perhaps the Tobler boy will also be of more use to me alive," Lord Octa ordered, resuming his seat upon the black throne.

"As you wish, your majesty," Agael said, bowing low once more before excusing himself from the Court of the Dead. Carefully, Agael hid his eagerness to leave the Court and the immediate presence of Lord Octa.

---

In the lower reaches of Lord Octa's keep, hammers rang against hot steel and bellows breathed life into roaring forges. Perpetually smoky and hot, the keep's armory was nearly as infernal as any brimstone-ringed pit of the nine hells. The assistants of the dark lord's veteran smiths barked through the cacophonous din, carrying out the orders of their taskmasters. Though they were diligent in their work for fear of receiving a horsewhipping for shirking their responsibilities, the smithhands could not help but gawk as one of the dark lord's dread knights escorted a scantily-clad elven girl through the armory. Outsiders were a rare sight in this place, and the voluptuous elf was the most beautiful thing these soot-caked laborers had seen in a long time indeed.

Heavy bootfalls sounded through the armory, now unusually quiet for the brief pause from the laborers watching instead of working. The sound of these chainmail-reinforced boots immediately galvanized the laborers back to their duties, and the chorus of labor resumed again to the armory. Through the churning smoke of the forges, a hulking figure approached Assallya and her escort. The clinking of chainmail was heard with every swaggering step. The orange light of the forge fires flickered against the armor plates of the approaching figure's cuirass and pauldrons. Seated in between the pauldrons on wide shoulders was a blocky, scar-pocked face of a man who had earned such marks by emerging triumphant from many horrific battles. A tattered and filthy cape of black silk was chained to his pauldrons and draped down to his ankles. At his side was the bald headed servant Assallya had seen before.

"This is Sir Vatikar," Agael introduced to Assallya. "He and his retinue will briefly outfit themselves for their quest here before leaving to find his majesty's missing prisoner. You will assist Sir Vatikar in this search by any means available to you. His majesty, however, has expressed that time of the essence. Find this prisoner quickly, the consequences of failure are more unpleasant than I care to discuss."

Vatikar looked down upon the elf with a gaze not dissimilar to that of a dog eying a hock of ham hanging just out of reach. "Let us not be waiting, then."

Fear, terror, and so many more emotions was what rang true in Thaliar's ears as the voice of Dane's captive were carried by a gush of cold, winter wind towards the duo left there. It was no questioning what was the cause of alarm; Kan. Thaliar was more than satisfied to have the brute of a man on his side, for several obvious and less obvious reasons. Intimidation was one.

The green eyes that caught the elf's dark brown however, sent a shiver down his spine, but only for a moment. It was Kamri, another Companion in their now shrunk group of rebels. The race of Werebeasts hadn't exactly been looked favourably upon by Thaliar's kin, quite the contrary. They were seen as, indeed, beasts of the night, murderers and sadists with a thirst for human blood. And he recalled for a moment the tales his mother told him about creatures like Kamri laying waste to whole villages.

Kamri however, Thaliar knew, wasn't like that. She was a Companion. Bloody and brutal, yes, but one couldn't argue that Thaliar's powers were painless either? Thaliar sent a grateful nod in her direction as she began to give Rook much needed clothing. "As long as you stop calling me Boss, Kamri; You know that Zula didn't approve of the looting all that much...Rest his spirit eternaly in Harmony." Thaliar said to the green-eyed Werebeast, before turning to Rook. "Not too far from here, you should be fine until then. It's nothing much, but it'll have to do. As soon as Dane and his friends are ready, we should get moving."

The elven girl had followed through the dimly lit fortress, moving beneath the sconces, from one pool of light to the next until they reached their destination. The bowels of the fortress were like a living thing to her, and it was preparing for war. She had never seen so many forges being bellowed, nor heard such a cacophony. It stung her pointed ears but she put aside such petty complaints less her guards see opportunity to cuff her roughly in some direction or another.

When finally the elven girl was brought before her chaperone she washed her gaze over Vatikar's figure and was suitably impressed. He was in possession of a broad set of shoulders and would make for a great protector. However, that face... It looked like the forges had regurgitated molten steel directly upon his face. Perhaps she was exaggerating, but by Sharess' sweet tits nobody was ever going to call the man handsome.

The chamberlain's following words were something of a balm to Assallya and she nodded, fully realizing what the man had said. He needn't have said anything. Assallya had already figured out that if she didn't find this escaped rebel she may as well not return.

"You would not happen to possess a pan of wrought silver?" Assallya asked of the pair, hoping that she might be able to scry out these rebels.

Failing that she was going to need to craft some sort of divining rod.

Kaden's pleas grew louder and more desperate as they gained no response from Lord Octa. "Please, my lord! My father sent me! Lord Tobler! Please! Please, I've committed no crime against you!" Panic was beginning to set in and he struggled now against the dread knight, but the armored hand clasping the chain only pulled him ahead, then down a poorly-lit claustrophobic spiral staircase.

The four shackled captives were unceremoniously herded into a dirty cell, empty save for the skeletal remnants of a long-forgotten prisoner.

"Please..." the young lordling said, quieter now, as if he could not quite believe this was happening.

When the door clanged shut, he put his back to the cold stone and slid to the floor, not looking at the other prisoners... those criminals. And especially not looking at the skeleton still shackled to the wall. He closed his eyes, burrowing his head down into his shackled hands as if he could shut out everything. When my father hears of this, he will declare war on Octa!

Kamri was used to the looks and such that she got from others and so it didn't bother her so much anymore. Especially since most of the stories of her kind were more or less true. The nature of the werebeasts were that of their animal counterparts and it was hard to resist ones nature this she knew.

"Zulu is dead." She said bitterly as Thaliar chastised her on her looting. "Besides the dead have no need for material things and as you can see by Rooks leg we do. I'm sick of rooting around in the snow only to come up with the bare minimum, and these are Octa's men do you think they would pay the same courtesies to us?"

She could feel her temper rising and she knew that she needed to calm it, so she plopped herself into the snow and began to organise the items in the pack to distract herself. It wasn't Thaliars fault she knew, she'd just been on edge ever since Zula had died.

Zula had been the first to accept her as a someone and not a something and the moment she'd heard of his death she'd lost herself. When she'd finally come to her senses she was leagues and leagues away from where she had been, naked, covered in blood, and surrounded by the remnants of half a dozen of Octas soldiers. It'd taken a while for her to come back from that but she was still angry, the bodies a few hundred yards into the woods could attest to that.

She yanked the drawstrings of her pack closed and gave the bandaged wound on Rooks leg a critical look and sniffed in deeply, she couldn't smell anything bad coming from it but she'd have to have a look underneath the bandages to be sure.

"Once we're back at camp I want you off that leg and Ill get it cleaned up."

"A pan of silver?" Agael repeated. "There are at the least a hundred such things in his majesty's possession, he will hardly miss one." That was no hyperbole. During the Usurping, Lord Octa confiscated the king's treasures in their entirety. Golden heirlooms, jewelry, fine silverware, and all varieties of priceless artifacts and trinkets were carelessly heaped together in Lord Octa's hoard, accumulating dust and cobwebs in some dark chamber of the keep. Only occasionally did the dark lord's men access the hoard to take a few handfuls of gold or silver trinkets to melt down into coins with which to pay Lord Octa's numerous men-at-arms.

"You there," Agael snapped at a smithhand shoveling coal into the base of a furnace, "go to the silver heap and fetch for this elf a silver pan." The ash-covered boy left his post without question nor hesitation, and returned shortly after with an ornate bowl from a pile of silver items brought down from the hoard to be melted down into coins in one of the armory's forges. It was large enough for about three quarts of liquid, with a rim fashioned to look like a wreath of oak leaves. The soot-covered boy handed the pan to Agael, who in turn presented it to Assallya.

"I trust this will suit your needs," he said, extending the silver pan to the elf.

Kan looks a little like his feelings were hurt. "Why did he think I would eat him? I ain't never ate anybody before. What does Octa men say about us? Are you alright Dane? I came as fast I as I could." He picked up the bound and gagged Edwin and threw him over his shoulder. He carried Edwin over his shoulder as they headed back to join Rook and the others. "Stop squirming so much. Hold still." He smacked Edwin's ass with his free hand.

Edwin couldn't believe what was happening to him. He never wanted to be part of Lord Octa's army. The 'recruiters' came to his village and took all of the men and boys from 16 years to 29 years old. They were impressed into the army. Most serving more out f fear than any loyalty to Octa. The ones who wanted to join Octa out of loyalty or some other reason had already joined the army and were serving in more elite units.

"He got me pretty good here," Dane said, rubbing his cheek where it was already beginning to darken and swell. "Nothing to worry 'bout though, I'm sure he'll make it up to us, right lad?" He patted the top of Edwin's head, as if that sealed the agreement.

When they had gone the short distance back to the others, Dane and Rook exchanged smiles and greetings, "Glad to see you back, lass."

"Missed having someone to clean up your dishes after dinner, huh?" she said teasingly, already falling back into the easy camaraderie she shared with them.

"Thaliar," Dane said, looking at the elf and indicating toward Edwin, "Want us to bring this one along?"

Rook couldn't help but feel a small surge of anger toward the bound man slung over Kan's shoulder. She knew he wasn't the leader of the crew that had injured and captured her, but in her mind that didn't relieve him of his culpability. "Or tie him to a tree without a cloak for a few days... see how he fairs," she muttered, loud enough for only the sharp-eared non-humans to hear.