An Escaped Slave

She sat huddled in the tent without lute. Around her lay snoring dwarves, the noise drowning everything else in the night sky. She was afraid that they would drive her away as the elves had, or even kill her. Falco had been so sure that the elves would shelter them but they refused to even take them into the lands. She didnt remember what had happened properly except begging but she knew something bad had happened.

What if they attacked her?

The fear clouded her mind, seeped into every fibre. He had been right. There was no place for her anywhere. He had told her. Falco was mistaken, no one would take them in. Shadowdale was the only place the halfbreed could work and he, Sergent Utterminis, the only one who could protect her.

If she returned would he take her back? But how could she spit in the face of Falco?

She waited for the dawn to come and the dwarfs to wake. She was ready to run if they attacked her.

They did seem to sleep a very long time. All she knew of them was that they fought a lot with axes and drank a lot and worked hard.

She cried silently remembering the hostile faces at the way into the City of Song. All her life she had heard of it and the stories of it being refounded. A few people had even gone from her village to help. She knew now that she would never see it . There was no shelter with her mother's kin.

The dwarves snored on. How come they had had no sentries? She crawled out of the tent exhausted and always afraid. The night was endless. Where was Falco?

Should she go back? Was Bane really the way? Was it her place to be ruled, as Sergeant Utterminis said? A slave but protected and with a place to live. Only she hadn't known that was her place and she'd fought it. Perhaps he had been kind to her, in his own way.

But her people didn't live as slaves. They lived free and spoke to each other as equals. But then, they were not dhaerow descended.

The night wore on and she shivered in the cold pre-dawn. She missed Falco. She wished a dwarf would wake up and then she'd know, either she'd be safe for now or running again or - or dead at their hands.

She couldn't take any more. All that was left was to wait for the final blows. Her Kin hated her, she'd always known after the smallest years that she was unwanted, but she had never realised how bad it really was till she left home. The Zhentarim, the beatings, the prison, the cruelty to others.

In the kind heart and poetry of Falco she had gained a frightened hope, but he had promised her the Kin would help and he had been mistaken. He talked of refuge with Dhaerow even. Dhaerow? they were fiends incarnate. He said not, but he had been wrong before. Then while waiting for the dwarves to waken she had been haunted by a crazed thing, a red headed woman who changed shape, stalked her, whispered to her, grabbed her, followed her, hunted her, left her unable to run, unable to escape, lost near a building Falco had said was guarded and dangerous. After that she had wandered unknowing where her feet led her and cowering from danger, for what else could she do? Arrows and kind words, all were the same now near enough.

Maya Silverlock hears about this incident from a witness and sighs, rubbing her temples tiredly "Maiden bless that girl, and keep her safe," she says, "I just hope we can find her again before it gets worse."

She wandered. When she saw other figures she slipped away. Some strange twisted men had shot at her near a green misted tower and she had run. Another had spoken to her kindly but she had hidden. When she uncurled there had been a potion of invisibility left at her side and she was alone, to her relief.

She was hungry now, she had been running for days and she couldn't find Falco. Even if she did, he wanted to give her to the Dhaerow. But he was kind, he wouldn't do that. But the Dhaerow were evil. Why would he give her to them? She rubbed her eyes til they were sore. She had no more tears left.

She wandered lost more and more hungry. At least she could drink from streams but she was growing weak. Grass and leaves, beetles and worms and spiders could not fill her belly and she had no tools for hunting.

At last she recognised the lands she was in again. The outline of the armoured figures patrolling the roads. She shrunk back. To go back? No. Yes. No. Weakness sapped all strenth and she began to weep a little. She could travel home, but it was too far and she didn't know the way well and she would never make it now. They would not welcome her anyway. Their slightly ashamed dismay if she returned would cut her.

She fumbled out the potion of invisibility and drank it, pushed herself to walk alongside the road and into the central shadowdale. There, she found a dark corner out of the way and sank down. A woman found her, spoke to her. She kept her head down. The woman promised to send a letter to Sergeant Utterminis. All she could do now was wait.

The hours passed in the tranquillity of utter exhaustion. It was an unexpected good thing, her weakness. A kindly blanket against the fear of what would happen next.

Falco returned to the camp of Clan Ironhouse to find her missing. The dwarves said that another maiden and her had been playing some chasing game and had ran out of camp. Somehow Falco thought there was more to the story. At first he ran north thinking she wouldnt go anywhere close to shadowdale. But he as he ran and ran with all his might he . . felt more and more lost himself.

He started to look for a tracker. Lucky he found an elven maiden he knew sister of the twins. She was a druid and after few words she was happy to aid him. They went back to Rimwood and followed the track . . it lead here and there . . two times they lost the trail. But someone was guiding them for they would always find the trail again.

They ended gazing upon Daggerhills, a dangerous place. Falco asked the druid to take a message to Sherne to see if Myth Drannor could send out a search party.

Then he waited as the trail got colder . . .

The girl had returned and stayed with her. Sergeant Utterminis was nowhere to be found. Her courage somehow remained with the girl around. The lethargy of her body was matched by clarity of mind as sheer hunger made her see her actions more clearly. She regretted coming back already but the choice was made. She had little strength of body or mind now to move. She thought of Falco, of what he must have thought when he found her gone. He must think her dead.

She wished so much that he had been right and the Kin had let them in. She longed for the City of Song, so near and so far when they had stood at the boatman and somehow everything had hazed out.

Another man found her. He was calm, kindly. Sergeant Utterminis still wasn't here. The old human shared bread, tea, an apple and cheese and each bite tasted better than anything she had ever eaten in her life before. He gave her a cup and she was glad when he returned so she could give it back because she wouldn't be able to after Sergeant Utterminis came.

Living came down to the here and now, the lapping of the water by the pond and the green grass. Waiting.

She was back in her cell. It was stripped now, the Sword-hand standard sleeping roll gone for the grimy lice-ridden prisoner one. She'd have to just reverie on the wooden floor, it was better than lice. She missed the little luxuries she had earned, the chair, the sleeping roll, the little arrangements of pebbles that she'd brought in. Most of all she missed her lute and her drum but she believed he'd give them back. Her cell felt like ... a sanctuary.

He had taken her back. He had not killed her. He'd punished her, but far lighter than he might have done. The flogging in the street had not lasted so long, and he had given her a bottle of gin afterwards for the pain. He had fed her and promised her protection from the many people she knew now that wanted to see her kind dead. She had decided; where she had grown up had been a haven of sorts, one she had not appreciated because of their dislike of her, but she had been safe and she'd known her mother held an reluctant affection for her. She hadn't known that that was a heaven compared to what lay outside.

Here she was well treated now, a lot of the time. She had something he found useful and he put time in and effort to train her. He even praised her from time to time before she ran. He protected her while she was useful and she knew now that no one else would. She wouldn't have lasted much longer on the outside. He had told her she needed to know her place, and it had been true.

She hoped that Falco would not hate her even though he had talked of giving her to Dhaerow, she was sure he'd meant well, he hadn't known how bad they were, just like neither of them had believed how much the Kin would hate them. But she had made her choice.

The choice was never hers to make, however, not if she held any hope for some semblance of a normal life.

He'd found the girl hungry and curled up in a ball. He dragged her back by the wrist. He flogged her in the street, her cries punctuated by the sound of breaking flesh.

The girl had already learned her lesson; he'd seen that in her sunken crimson eyes when he'd found her. The cruelties of the world of which he'd warned had now come true for her, and she wouldn't dare to step out from his shadow again.

But punishment was due, and even the self-preserving actions of an otherwise favored servant had to be seen as having their consequences.

The girl was, however, useful, and capable of obedience. Even the lowliest of mongrels had their place when they proved themselves capable, and so he'd stopped short of doing her permanent harm beyond a scarred back.

This time.

He had toyed with a notion in his mind, considering it a while before deciding to stay his hand. Should she ever stray from him again, he would arrange for her sale to new masters, ones she hated and feared more than even he.

But this, he wouldn't tell her; it is much better to show these things than to speak of them, after all. The town and the roads leading to it were well-patrolled; someone must have helped her, and when he learned who, he would find them new masters of their own: the Drow.