The Last Satyr: The Two Paths Part 2

Captain Ulrich of East Prison lamented his fate. Lolth would execute him for losing a second prisoner, for certain. Her fury would know no bounds.

Since the orcs had taken over East Prison, there had not once been a single escape. For over a dozen years, Lolth had entrusted them to guard the satyr keeper because of this record. Now, two prisoners had escaped in as many weeks. He was doomed not once but twice over.

There was nothing that could save him now. He drank wine before in celebration. Now he drank it in misery.

Krull motioned for him to come take notice of something happening outside. A clamber of marching swords and bows were raised there with much cursing and swearing. A troop of orc guards had arrived at the prison gates.

“We have prisoners!” their leader called.

“What? Again?” thundered Ulrich in surprise. “Open da gates!”

He got up to see the new prisoners, expecting human men of the Rim Riders. His first surprise was when they marched a satyr “goat boy” in. It was the same satyr that had released Graybeard!

What was this?!

But his second shock was when they brought in the beautiful black drider, too.

“You!” he declared as she passed. “I’ve seen ya before, too!”

Her red eyes cast him a fiery glance.

“Here's your orders,” the orc leader showed him. “Do na' fail like you did last time! You got us all in trouble!”

Waved in his face were written orders from the commander of the city.

“Someone gave ya this?” asked Ulrich, taking it.

“Sure! Da' same drow what give us the prisoners!”

Ulrich shrugged. If Commander Elisha had ordered the prisoners to be placed under his care, there was no need to inform her of anything. It surprised him she would trust the drider to him after he had already lost two prisoners. Yet no drow likes to deal with drider prisoners. They not only offended them, but their darts had little or no effect on them, whereas orc arrows did. It made sense they gave her to him and the satyr boy was of no consequence as far as being a prisoner of importance.

“Chain the drider,” he instructed. “And put that boy in a cell where he can na' dig his way out or anyone else digs their way in!”

“Why donn'a we just eat that sata?” asked his favorite ranking guard, Krull. “Surely! They don't need him?”

“Just do as I say.”

East Prison had dealt with drider prisoners before and reserved the center of the inner dismal prison yard especially for them. There were eight iron rings set in the stone floor there, each carefully positioned to allow for a drider’s legs to be chained to them. The orcs now set about chaining the beautiful drider’s limbs to them. Although her elfish hands were left unchained, they could not reach the pins that held the chains in place around her much longer legs. No drider had ever escaped from East Prison or ever would.

“She’s a big 'un,” reported Krull to Ulrich. “Maybe we ought ta double the chains?”

“Yes. Do so,” the orc captain agreed. “Let’s take no chances wit dese'. I’m not lettin’ these two escape!”

The boy sat in his pitch-black cell and felt his way around it. He found stone walls on the back and both sides, with iron bars across the front. The vertical bars of the jail door were set close together to keep the prisoner from reaching a hand through to try and slip the deadbolt handle open from the other side. A few equally well-positioned cross bars further guaranteed he would not touch the deadbolt with even a finger. It was pretty much as Amien had told him.

There would be no rescue force of friends coming this time. The boy and Leradien were on their own to get themselves out, as well as to get his keeper Sar out. But the boy was a natural-born thief and thieves know their way around locks.

The first step was to locate Sar. In the dark, the boy was unable to see him, but Leradien could and, with her fairy fire, she now illuminated a cell on the opposite side of the courtyard from his for him to see. Though the cell bars glowed, he saw no one inside the cell. That was to be expected. Keepers are immune to magic and so Sar could not be illuminated, but his cell could be and so the boy memorized which one he was in and how to find him.

Leradien next cast her fairy lights. With a controlled flick of her hands, she lit up first her chains so that he might see the pins in place to hold them, and then redirected her lights to his cell so that he could see his own surroundings by her dancing lights.

The boy studied the cell door by her magic, which, owing to her black blood, was quite strong. The door was well illuminated, and it was the most obvious way out. Yet there was no way to reach through it to get to the deadbolt to unlock it and his cell was empty of anything, not even a bed, from which to fashion any tools.

So now he studied how the door had been built. There was a small empty space between the top of the door and the top crossbar above. It existed to allow the door to be raised high enough for its door pins to clear the pinholes in the knuckle hinges on the side of the cell door. Once the door pins aligned with the knuckle pinholes, the builders had dropped the door pins down into the knuckles and the door was now hinged so it could swing and shut. It was dead bolted in place with a cross bar. It was due to the distance the door dropped down into the pinholes that caused the gap to open between the top of the door and the cell top jamb above it.

Recognizing how the door had been installed, he knew now how to get out, and he nodded to Leradien. Her fairy lights went out and, a moment later, she began to softly sing, a prearranged signal between them that the orc guards were watching.

Captain Ulrich watched the prison yard from within the keep. Torch sconces lined the walls, their dim flames casting eerie, flickering shadows that whispered secrets of despair. He had seen the drider cast her fairy fire at Sar’s cell and then her fairy lights around herself, illuminating her chains first, and then the satyr boy’s cell second.

“Those two are up ta something,” he said to Krull. “She’s using her drow lights ta show the boy his surroundings.”

“Lotta good it will do him.”

“I tell ya, I don’t trust ’em!”

“You want I should have 'em whipped or killed?”

“Neither. Our orders are they not to be harmed in any way.”

“Then that means Lolth must want them for herself,” noted Krull. “Bad luck for them!”

“Which means they’re not for eating,” said Ulrich as he mused over that. “Do ya think there is some way I can turn this ta my favor?”

“None that I can see,” answered Krull. “We didn’t capture them. There’ll be no reward for us from them stinking drow!”

“If we orcs didn’a capture them,” wondered Ulrich. “Why then did a troop of orc guards deliver them here instead of ta the stinking drow?”

“I dunno know,” said the other orc. “So it must have been us orcs what done it. That orc contingent what brought them are all guards at the East Gate. I recognized them. You want I should go ask them how they got them?”

“Yes. Do so.”

“You know you’ll have one less pair of eyes on these two if I leave,” warned Krull.

“Go ahead! I’ll keep an eye on them. They can’t escape,” said Captain Ulrich, “but I can tell they’re up to something and I don’a trust them not to be planning something. When have you ever known a drider to sing?”

“Yeah!” The other sneered. “That is a queer thing! Maybe she sings in misery? Though I’ve never seen one look like her before, either. Could be she’s different.”

“Pretty voice, though,” growled Ulrich. “All right! Go see what ya can learn from the East Gate.”

He and the guard turned towards the ominous outer gates and Ulrich ordered them unlocked by the sentries. He noticed the drider’s singing had stopped.

When Leradien stopped singing to signal that the guards were gone, the boy put his hands to the cell door and, being quite strong, lifted up on it. The door moved upwards on its hinge pins until it hit the crossbar above, at which point the already short hinge pins came out of their iron pinholes. By pulling the backside of the door towards him, the hinge pins no longer aligned with their eyelet holes and the back of the door came free. When he dropped it back down again, it was completely off its hinges.

Leradien began to sing again.

The boy froze, holding the door upright in the door frame so that it didn’t fall and still looked to be closed.

Ulrich returned now to keep a watch on these two while the other guard was gone. Something was very suspicious about them. What they were doing was deliberate. The drider girl was singing again and the goat boy was standing at his cell door and holding his hands to it. Perhaps he was listening to the song. If so, Ulrich didn’t care. But if these two were up to something and he caught them, he might just be a hero?

If so, he would have a long watch. It would be an hour for Krull to reach the East Gate and another hour to return.

Leradien continued to sing, and the boy continued to hold the door in place. Time slowly ticked by as Leradien still sang. It was over an hour before she stopped. Finally, it was safe for the boy to pull the backside of the door away from its hinge knuckles on the jamb to clear it of the door frame and then slide it sideways away from the lock until the locked deadbolt finally pulled free on the other side. The cell door was now completely removed.

He stepped outside and reset the door on its hinges and back in place behind him. By the sound of Leradien’s chains, he quickly found her. Tracing along her chains, he began to pull out their base pins, dropping the chains to the ground as quietly as possible. He found she was double-chained and so there were a lot of pins to be pulled. It was taking too much time.

Ulrich had ceased watching the new prisoners when Krull returned. He met him at the inner gates as they were being opened.

“W'at have you learned, Krull?” he asked.

“Queer things I did, captain,” answered Krull. “Twas a drow brought those two prisoners to the East Gate, along with that there letter of instruction. That’s when'a the guards at the gate brought them here.”

“You’re telling me a single, thieving drow captured that drider by itself?”

“Yes. It don’t seem right to me either but they said he had a bow.”

“A bow or a crossbow?” asked Ulrich.

“A bow,” said Krull. “Only it could hurt the drider, not no crossbow. So? What are ya thinking? Does it still seem queer to you?”

Driders were immune to drow crossbow darts. And while it made sense that a bow might be a better weapon, a single bow was also pretty useless against a drider’s demon.

“Drow don’t use bow-z,” he told the other, voicing his suspicion.

“Are you thinking its the same way that human called Amien was delivered to us at the East Gate? It does seem all too familiar.”

“They’s up to somethin’, I can tell-z ya that! And I means to find out what!”

Releasing sixteen pins was taking too much time, the boy realized. Any moment Leradien might start singing again, and what would he do then? The guards would spot him in the prison yard for sure.

“Here! Take this here letter they gave us to Commander Elisha,” Ulrich instructed Krull. “Ask her if she wrote it.”

The guard nodded, and Ulrich watched him leave. If his suspicions were proved right, the letter was a forgery. If so, at least he could finally uncover something of value and perhaps redeem his name such that Lolth might spare his life.

He now turned back to check up on the prisoners. He could afford no more escapes.

He reached the back gate and stopped short, shocked. No, not just shocked—horrified. The inner prison yard was empty. There was no drider. Its chains were all lying on the ground where it had stood. The satyr boy’s cell was also empty, although his cell door still remained locked and barred.

Ulrich heard the sound of another cell door being opened somewhere. He hurriedly unlocked the inner gate and pushed it open into the prison yard. Rushing through it and drawing his sword, he got there just in time to see Sar’s cell now empty too. Its door had been left open as a great black spider scrambled up and over the wall of the inner courtyard to escape carrying the goat boy and a bearded old man with her.

Ulrich’s rotten, jagged teeth turned to an angry snarl but then his eyes widened in fear as his mouth fell open in horror as he realized his certain fate.

Leradien had no need to tear down the massive walls of the dank, dark prison to escape. She simply used her spider abilities and ran right up the side of them, each leg moving with precision, finding invisible footholds while carrying the boy in one hand and Sar in the other. Quickly, she left its rust-covered iron bars and musty air of despair behind.

A sharp orc cry of seething fury was heard from behind her. Then it became a hopeless wail.

Once she was over the prison wall and had scrambled down the other side, as silent as air, then raced through the streets of the city. Still believing her to be Lolth, orcs fled to get out of her way. At her speed, she would reach the East Gate in a matter of minutes.

But she headed not to the East Gate and its many guards. She headed for the city walls. Again, a spider has no need for gates. She went up and over the city walls as easily as she had the walls of East Prison.

The one orc sentry she encountered on the wall never lived to tell about it.

Captain Ulrich was frantically raising the alarm to his troops, ordering the East Gate sealed and every orc to the walls. As he gave his orders, a drow woman on a steeder rode up outside. It was Commander Elisha and his guard, Krull.

“I understand you have two more prisoners here,” she said to the captain. “This letter is false! Hand them over. I do not trust you not to lose them again!”

Captain Ulrich lowered his eyes and his shoulders sagged as he accepted not only defeat but worse than defeat. He had not only lost the last two prisoners, but he had also lost Sar, the satyr’s keeper. His lips were quivering.

What could he possibly say?

He bowed his head for the inevitable sword blow as Krull smiled in watching, knowing he would be the next captain of East Prison.