The torch a couple of feet from him burns brightly, lighting up a circle with its orange glow, the yard of the brigand camp mostly empty besides Taraborn and his hosts. The large, open space sits within old ruins South of Bree, the ancient stones piled high around them, covered in moss, grass and bird droppings. The paving of the yard is cracked, tufts of grass, weeds and flowers growing in the dirt where once upon a time intricate patterns covered the ground. In the circle of light, the grass is watered with blood, the dark red liquid staining paving stones and the wooden post jutting out of the ground.
Tight ropes around his hands, Taraborn is tied to the rough wood, splinters digging into his shirtless chest. With nothing to bite down on, he grits his teeth, awaiting the next crack of the whip against his back. His face bruised and battered, and large red welts forming on his back. Across his body, various cuts and slashes, dripping his life blood onto the ground about him. He grunts as the whip cracks across his back, his teeth biting together painfully. Escape attempt number one failed. He thinks to himself.
He had returned stolen jewels to their rightful owner, all but killing the brigands responsible and leaving one with permanent brain damage. They had not liked that at all, and turns out there was a small camp of maybe a dozen hidden away in the ruins. He could only guess one of those he had fought in the Forsaken Inn had recognised him as they waited to waylay a rich looking traveller, and decided instead to take him. With the element of surprise, they had managed to subdue him enough to bind him without any of them losing their lives. That would only last a few hours. After some torture, demanding where their jewels were, they left him beaten and bloodied in wooden cage normally used for animals with one of their own stood guard. They had not found his hidden dagger, kept inside his boot. Using it to try and kill his guard silently, he had been too slow, and the brute had let out a cry of pain. Taraborn made it maybe thirty yards before he was apprehended. His weapon taken from him, he was now in this situation, being punished for his escape attempt.
However, any soldier can tell you that when captive, it is their duty to escape. Despite being caught once, and his chances now even slimmer, Taraborn was determined to keep trying. He had taken maybe ten lashes of the whip, though he hadn’t been focussed on counting and he wasn’t sure the wielder of the whip could count that well anyway. That was when it stopped and the leader of the brigands, a grizzled older man with a large grey and black beard and wrinkled skin, puts his face close to Taraborns, his rancid breath filling the mercenaries nose.
“Try t’ kill me blokes again will ya?” He demands. Silence. The young, handsome but battered mercenary is gritting his teeth against the pain too much to answer. “Good enough fer me,” the man grunts, and unties his wrists. Dropping to the floor, Taraborn tries pushes himself up to his feet defiantly, his aching muscles struggling to hold his weight.
“Back in the cage wit’ ‘im.” A couple of brutes drag him to his cage, throwing him back in and slamming the door shut again. Chaining it shut, they sneer at their captive laughing before walking off. The ferret looking lad, barely and adult, keeps his distance. Taraborn was not however as weak as he had been making out and was busy working on another plan. Listing his potential weapons, he slowly formulates a plan. Eventually, once he had figured it out, he waits.
In the dead of night, with nothing else to think of, his mind goes to the night before. Lying in bed with Narys, promising each other not to run away from each other, to keep their promise to love each other. She would be at the party now, celebrating Taala and Eroforths marriage. It would have begun a few hours ago, she would have begun thinking he was a little late, and then she’d start worrying. Now, she’d likely have begun feeling like he was breaking his promise, that he’d run away from her. It couldn’t be farther from the truth.
A crescent moon crossed the sky, sinking towards the horizon. When the guard shift changing, the ferret lad replaced with what appeared to be a quarter troll, but with even less brains. Waiting a short while, from his position curled up on the floor he gasps for something. Just audible for troll-man to hear, but not enough to make out.
“Tha fuck you say?” Troll-man grunts at him. Another gasp in response, quieter this time. He holds his throat, looking towards his guard desperately. Troll-man gets increasingly irate, and comes towards the cage, leaning against where Taraborn is clutching the top of the bars to try and hold himself up. Pressing his ear to the cage, he continues to demand him to speak up. That is when Taraborn acts, his hands letting the boot lace held tight between them loosen, and drop over Troll-man’s head and around his neck. Placing his boots against the bars of the cage, he leans back and pushes away, wincing as the wounds on his back flare up painfully. Troll-man flails, trying to call for help, only managing to get out soft breaths of words with his airway cut off. Grimacing, Taraborn pulls with all his might, his legs pushing against the bars.
The tussle continues for a long while, the large man being able to hold his breath a long while it seemed. Eventually, he goes limp, and Taraborn reaches out the cage, searching for the key to the lock keeping him captive. Finding it, he opens the lock with a soft click and catches the chains so they don’t fall, and lays them to one side quietly.
Agony. It was what he would use to describe his feelings right now. The pain was becoming unbearable, searing across his back and through his body. Only one thought kept him going, playing over and over in his mind. Narys, her emotions matching her fiery hair. Cursing his name and his promises that he had broken only the day after making them.
Creeping from the cage, Taraborn trudges to one of the small shelters the brigands had set up. Using the ruins to their advantage, they had put wooden roofs over the stones to keep the inside dry. This on being closest to his cage he had kept an eye on it as often as he could through the night, and counted only one in there.
He was lucky, and soon after the sleeping brigand dead in his cot, neck snapped.
Taking a dagger from the table, having ignored Troll-man’s two handed club for sake of stealth, Taraborn continues out into the rest of the ruins, keeping to the shadows and behind the many stones lying down. Stalking the ruins like a shadow, Taraborn searches the huts, poking the doors open slightly and peering through before entering. The sleeping Brigands had no chance, and soon, only the sentry high up in a tower of the ruins was left alive, and Taraborn had recovered all his equipment, armour, and money. He also had a lot of extra coin pouches, and a chest of stolen money.
The sun peeking out to the East, the sky lightening, Taraborn half drags himself to the where they had tied off his steed, he straps the chest to the saddle bags, and pulls himself up, his battered body finally losing the adrenaline that had kept him going. All he wanted now was to find Narys and spend the next week in her arms.
