“There are humans here, Rohan! And the Fae--what are they doing with them? Why are they bound? Are they prisoners? Slaves? Sacrifices?” Serxio asked as he brought shaking hands up to his chin.
Rohan had idly spoken about there being humans in the Empire after the Wall came up, but he hadn’t exactly considered what life would be like for them here. The books he’d read about the Fae had always warned him that they made deals with humans and other species. These deals would be in the form of service in exchange for untold riches or spells. But the way they were phrased tricked the person taking the deal in some way, making it so that their service never ended, or the treasure was cursed, or the spell blew back on them.
The Fae were said to prey on others’ weaknesses: selfishness, greed, gluttony, cruelty, and more. His uncle had explained this when telling him why his parents hadn’t outlawed such deals. Basically, the people who entered into them did so for bad purposes and got their just rewards. But seeing those wide, hunted eyes in the humans that were bound together, being led into the forest for who knew what, it didn’t matter if these people had done something evil to get here. Rohan had to rescue them.
“Oh, this isn’t good!” Serxio rubbed his hands together as he glanced between the entrance to the village and the retreating backs of the other Fae. “There are still two Battle Mages at the entrance while the other two have continued on with the procession!”
Rohan gritted his teeth. Potentially he could take down two Battle Mages. Potentially. If he was successful, they could get inside the village and find a healer. But fighting with the Fae would cause a commotion. Yet it wouldn’t be just two Battle Mages he had to face, but the whole village. And what if that caused the other Battle Mages to come running back? That potential win would turn into a definite failure. The irony to top it all off would be if there wasn’t even a healer in the village. If he died here there would be no help for Finn at all. And then there was the fact that bound humans were being taken into the forest. He doubted that they would be coming back.
“Why did this village have to have Battle Mages?” Serxio hissed. “Of all the villages in all of the Fae empire--
“We’re going to follow the procession,” Rohan interrupted.
There was a pause and Serxio asked softly, “But the healer…”
“I’m not giving up on Finn, but there’s no getting into the village right now. And we need to know what they are doing to those humans,” Rohan said and started after the procession.
“Maybe we’ll find that helping one is helping the other. The Fae do look rather healer-ish, don’t they? The ones in purple and gold, I mean,” Serxio said as he hustled after Rohan.
“Perhaps. I think they look rather like priests of some sort,” Rohan stated as they kept within the shelter of the forest’s thick underbrush and followed along the path after the procession. “My understanding is that the Fae have holidays at the changing of the seasons. Winter is leaving, and Spring has come. I think--and I’m guessing here--but maybe whatever they’re doing has something to do with that.”
“How can you tell that the seasons are changing?” Serxio muttered as he pulled off sticky leaves that clung to his worn cloak. “I mean can you even imagine if there were more life here than there already is? If this isn’t even spring?”
Rohan could, and he wouldn’t have wanted to be here then.
“Did you hear that?” Serxio gripped his shoulder.
There had been a cracking somewhere to their right. Rohan’s gaze had already swung in that direction, but he saw nothing. The same undergrowth that kept them out of sight kept whatever was making that noise invisible too.
“Keep moving. I don’t want to lose sight of the procession,” Rohan said and picked up the pace again.
Soon they reached a clearing where there was a single white standing stone about ten-feet tall situated in the exact center. The four humans were lined up around the stone. The chains around their ankles and wrists were now connected to metal rings that were pounded into the pillar. The humans’ faces were as white as snow. Tears streaked cheeks and dripped off of their chins. One of them was shaking so badly that their chains made a jingling sound. Another fell to their knees, dragging the others nearly down with them.
“Please, please, please,” a woman with large brown eyes begged in the Fae tongue. “I swear I didn’t poison anyone! It was a mistake. I used the milsa berries in the soup! I swear!”
A man with a shock of black hair cried also in Fae, “I was framed! I didn’t steal! I would never do that!”
The man down on his knees wept, and though he might have been trying to say something, all that came out were burbling cries.
The woman who was shaking like a leaf pleaded through chattering teeth, “I admit to hurting the child. He teased me endlessly. It was just a few smacks! That’s all! I don’t deserve this punishment! Besides, I’m all skin and bones. No flesh on me. No flesh! Choose another! Please!”
Flesh and bones? What does that matter? Rohan wondered with a chill corkscrewing down his spine.
The humans’ cries and protestations were ignored. The three Fae in the purple and gold robes faced the back of the clearing with the pillar between them and the thick foliage. They weren’t looking at the humans but at the forest itself. Their aspect was one of fear and reverence. Rohan realized that there weren’t just the overgrown mushrooms, sticky leaves and massive tree trunks behind the pillar but strands of a thick, gray substance that looped around the trunks and branches, making this area of the forest even darker than the rest. Rohan frowned. Those strands looked familiar, but they couldn’t be what he was thinking.
The priestly Fae lifted their hands to the sky in unison and green globes that burned like witchfire left their palms and streaked up into the night sky before curving downwards and landing in the dark woods where the gray strands were.
Almost as if they are trying to signal something, Rohan thought uneasily.
If he had expected some ceremony he would have been sorely disappointed as the priestly Fae and the Battle Mages quickly turned and fled back down the path, leaving the humans tied to the pillar. Rohan’s frown grew deeper as he waited to see if anything would emerge from the forest, but nothing did. The Fae had left the humans alone and this gave Rohan and Serxio a chance to save them. It was almost too good to be true.
“Come on, Serxio! This is our moment!” Rohan called as he burst out of the foliage and into the clearing.
The humans were still crying and pleading for their lives. It was the man on his knees who saw them first. His mouth gaped open like a fish’s. He opened and closed it, but no words came out. The woman whose chains had shaken with her fear let out a gasp of shock. The other two froze and they cried at the sight of him and Serxio.
“Who are you?”
“Where did you come from?”
“Can you break the bonds?”
“Oh, by the gods, you have weapons!”
All of these statements and questions flew fast and furious at them.
“We can help you. I’ll explain everything else later,” Rohan told them, which quieted them down.
“Rohan, these bonds are metal!” Serxio held up one woman’s hands that lifted up her nearest neighbor’s as well. He pulled on it with all his might, bracing one foot on the ground and the other against the pillar itself, but the metal didn’t give an inch. “It’s impossible to break them!”