Part 31

They led Greza and the large man to their rear lines.  They were in a hurry and were pushing them hard through the ranks of their soldiers.  Her hands were tied and they had taken her weapons from her.  She still had her armor and Cestus though and that was all she needed. 

Her fellow captive was bleeding from a head wound but he appeared to be alright. 

As soon as they reached the enemy’s camp they were thrown in a car where three other captives were.  They exchanged glances and no more.  The tall man that had volunteered looked to be a veteran but she didn’t know about the other two. 

They had gone over what to do in the event of being capture.  Their first duty was to escape.  Their second duty was not to give away any important information.  There were rules to war that governed how captives were treated but the instructor had said that not ever country followed those rules.  She wondered if this country did.

The uniforms of the soldiers told her that she had been captured by Roshan.  They were a civilized country but she had seen how uncivilized civilization could be. 

Horns began to blow in the Roshan army and the camp was being packed up in a hurry. 

“Their getting out in a hurry,” one of her fellow captives whispered.

“They’re losing,” the large man said. 

“Small consolation,” another said. 

Greza watched their camp to see how it operated.  If she did escape perhaps she could relay some weakness to their army. 

Their cart began to move and a column of soldier filed in behind and in front.  For the time being she wasn’t going anywhere.        

She tried to get a glimpse of the battle but all she saw were a forest of pikes from the Roshan army that was obviously in full retreat. 

As the road grew long she settled in and thought.  She leaned up against the side of the wagon and put her feet out in front of her. 

What a hero she had turned out to be.  She had wanted to do her best so the Duke would notice her.  Now if he noticed her it would be on a list of prisoner exchange.  That would not impress him. 

This was pathetic.  She was on the back of a cart and was a prisoner.  This was only the beginning of the campaign season and perhaps it would be her last. 

“What’s going to happen to us?”  A Hobgoblin soldier asked.  Hobgoblins were like skinny, hairy Orks without the strength.  His yellow eyes darted around looking for any sign of hope. 

“Normally there’ll be a prisoner exchange,” the large man said. 

“When will that be?”  The Hobgoblin asked.

The large man shrugged. 

“Could be tomorrow, could be next year.  None of us are officers so I don’t think there’ll be a rush to free us.” 

That wasn’t sounding good.  Instead of gaining the Duke’s favor, she’d disappear into obscurity. 

The Divine Lights chose the wrong person.  She’d never find the Lost Victor in a prison. 

But she had already found him.  Deep inside she knew it was Duke Verin.  Perhaps she just had to accept that. 

Not that accepting it would do any good now. 

The large man taped her foot with his own.

“What’s your name?”  He asked.

“Greza.”

“Tarak.  You did good out there.”

“Apparently not.”

“I saw you.  You fight like a demon.”

“Modesty?”

“No.  I didn’t do well because I’m now sitting in the back of a prisoner cart.”

The Roshan army didn’t stop until after nightfall.  All around them soldiers began throwing up tents. 

They were taken to a spot by a tree where three guards with curved swords stood around them.

None of the Roshan soldiers looked happy.  They had lost today’s battle.  At least she could take some solace in that.  Her Duke had won a battle against a superior force.  Everything he did proved that he was worthy to serve. 

All her life she had served others and now that she was free she had found someone she wanted to serve more than anything else. 

But being a prisoner wasn’t helping him.  It weakened his position. 

Somewhere she had made a mistake.  She tried to think back to what she should have done differently. 

As the camp fell asleep around them it became obvious that they weren’t getting fed or taken care of. 

“Not even a stale crust of bread,” one of the captives named Delun said. 

“Its one meal.  We’ll live,” she said. 

“And what if it’s tomorrow and the next day?”  He asked.

“Then we go without.  There isn’t anything we can do about it so stop whining.  It hurts my head,” she said.  

“See how calm you are when you’re dying of hunger.”

“I’ve starved before.”

The next day they got a cup of water for breakfast and then they were back in the cart.  They rode all day while the remains of the Roshan army and their allies marched.  They weren’t in a hurry which meant they weren’t being pursued. 

That night, what she guessed to be near midnight, they came to a fortress.  It was an ancient fortress with one giant keep in the form of a circular, thick tower with a tall wall around it.  Upon entering the gates she saw that there were several smaller buildings surrounding the keep. 

The Roshan soldiers dragged them out of the cart and took them to the dungeon in the deepest part of the keep.  They each were thrown in separate cells.  Once the cell doors clanged shut they were left alone in the darkness.  At least they had freed their hands.

She didn’t know which one, but she heard one of the others crying. 

Back on Roristan Manor she had often been thrown in the cellar for punishment.  It was where they kept the ice and she’d be down there for days, shivering and starving.  Privation was nothing new to her. 

She tried to move her arms and found them painfully cramped.  She lay down in the moldy straw and tried to sleep.  There wasn’t much else to do and her thoughts were far more disturbing than comforting.  Back in Roristan she knew that punishment would end sooner rather than later.  Here she didn’t know if it’d end at all.  Duke Verin wouldn’t go out of his way to get back five low ranking soldiers. 

No help would be coming.  She had to escape or she’d be stuck down there forever.  She had a mission and she had to do it.  She had to prove herself to Duke Verin and stand by his side.

To do that she had to escape. 

They had taken away the small boot knife she kept there but had left her cestus.  They probably didn’t recognize the battle gauntlets for what they were. 

Unfortunately the cestus couldn’t help her escape.  With a knife she might have pried stones or bars loose. 

So, she did the one thing she could do; she prayed. 

Every morning the guards would come with their breakfast and slip the plate in through a slot.  She didn’t have opportunity to kill them or steal the keys.  There were no windows and only a small grate in the floor which smelled of the sewer that was below them. 

She tried and tried but she couldn’t find a way out.  She’d do sit ups and pushups to keep her body from weakening too much and she prayed to keep her spirit from weakening.

The Divine Lights gave her a mission and they’d provide a way for that mission to be accomplished.  She just had to be patient. 

They asked questions through the door with promises of better food or threats of no food.  It seemed to her that they weren’t putting great effort into questioning them.  Perhaps they thought they had nothing to gain from low ranking soldiers. Perhaps they had better things to do.  The questioning lasted three days or so; hard to tell due to no sunlight. After that she didn’t hear from them again.

After the first month of being stuck in a hole her patience was starting to weaken.  She tried to reassure the others that it would all turn out in the end; that they were being watched over. 

After the second month her reassurances were starting to sound unconvincing, even to her. 

Where was her Duke?

Why didn’t he come for them? 

He had left them there to rot because they weren’t important. 

By the end of the third months she wondered if her mind was slipping.  She had already heard the others’ life stories several times and knew them all completely.  They now knew her story except the mission by the Divine Lights.  That was something she couldn’t share with them. 

Not until she was sure her Duke was the Victor and not until he knew it himself.