Limbeck wasn’t coming. He wasn’t coming to rescue her. Or join her. He was going to be …sensible.
Booted footsteps rang on the Factree floor. A voice called out, the guards snapped to attention. Jarre, hope in her heart, prepared to run. But no respectable, bespectacled leader of WUPP appeared.
It was only an elf. And he was coming from a different direction, from the front of the Factree. Jarre sighed.
Pointing to Bane and Jarre, the elf said something in elven mat Jarre didn’t understand. The guards were quick to respond. They appeared relieved, in fact.
Bane, looking more cheerful, jumped to his feet. The dog bounded up with an eager whimper. Jarre stayed where she was.
“Come on, Jarre,” the boy said, with a smile that magnanimously forgave all. “They’re taking us out of here.”
“Where?” she asked suspiciously, standing up slowly.
“To see the lord commander. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.”
Jarre wasn’t buying it. “Where’s Haplo?”
She glowered at the approaching elves, folded her arms across her chest, braced to stay put, if necessary.
“How should I know?” Bane asked, shrugging. “The last I saw of him, he was down there, about to let loose some of that magic of his. I guess it must not have worked,” he added.
Smugly, Jarre thought. “It didn’t. He was hurt. The elf threw a knife at him.”
“That’s too bad,” said Bane, blue eyes wide. “Was… um… was Limbeck with him?”
Jarre stared at the boy blankly. “Limbeck who?”
Bane flushed in anger, but before he could badger her, a guard broke up the conversation.
“Move along, Geg,” he ordered in dwarven.
Jarre didn’t want to move along. She didn’t want to see this lord commander. She didn’t want to leave without knowing what had happened to Limbeck and to Haplo. She looked defiant, was about to make a stand that would have probably earned her a blow from the guard, when it suddenly occurred to her that Limbeck might be hiding down there, waiting for exactly this opportunity. Waiting for the guards to leave so that he could make good his escape.
Meekly, she fell into step beside Bane.
Behind them, one of the elves shouted a question. The newly arrived elf answered with what sounded like an order.
Uneasy, Jarre glanced back.
Several elves were gathering around the statue.
“What are they doing?” she asked Bane fearfully.
“Guarding the opening,” said Bane, with a sly smile.
“Watch where you’re going! And keep moving, maggot,” ordered the elf. He gave Jarre a rough shove.
Jarre had no choice but to obey. She walked toward the Factree entrance. Behind her, the elves took up positions near the statue, but not too near the forbidding opening.
“Oh, Limbeck.” Jarre sighed. “Be sensible.”
CHAPTER 17
WOMBE, DREVLIN
LOW REALM
HAPLO WOKE IN PAIN, ALTERNATELY SHIVERING AND BURNING. LOOKING up, he saw the eyes of the elven captain gleam red through a shadowed dimness.
Red eyes.
The captain squatted on his haunches, long, thin-fingered elven hands hanging between bent knees. He smiled when he saw Haplo conscious, watching him.
“Greetings, master,” he said pleasantly, his tone light and bantering. “Feeling sickish, are you? Yes, I suppose so. I’ve never experienced the nerve poison, but I understand it produces some remarkably uncomfortable sensations. Don’t worry. The poison is not deadly, its effects wear off soon.”
Haplo gritted his teeth against the chill that made them rattle in his head, closed his eyes. The elf was speaking Patryn, the rune language of Haplo’s people, the language that no elf living or dead had ever spoken, could ever speak.
A hand was touching him, sliding beneath his wounded shoulder.
Haplo’s eyes flared open, he instinctively lashed out at the elf… or that was what he intended. In reality, he flopped his arm around a little. The elf smiled with a mocking compassion, clucked over Haplo like a distracted hen. Strong hands supported the injured Patryn, eased him to an upright, sitting position.
“Come, come, master. It’s not that bad,” said the captain cheerily, switching to elven. “Yes, if looks could kill, you’d have my head hanging from your trophy belt.” Red eyes glinted in amusement. “Or should I say, perhaps, a snake’s head, don’t you agree?”