Dragons of Spring Dawning - Margaret Weis [136]
Berem did indeed seem to have gone mad. Oblivious to pain, he flung himself at the iron bars, trying to break them open. When this didn’t work, he grasped the bars in his hands and started to wrench them apart.
“I’m coming, Jasla!” he screamed. “Don’t leave! Forgive—”
The jailor, his pig eyes wide in alarm, ran over to the stairs and began shouting up them.
“He’s calling the guards!” Caramon grunted. “We’ve got to get Berem calmed down. Tika—”
But the girl was already by Berem’s side. Holding onto his shoulder, she pleaded with him to stop. At first the berserk man paid no attention to her, roughly shaking her off him. But Tika petted and stroked and soothed until eventually it seemed Berem might listen. He quit attempting to force the cell door open and stood still, his hands clenching the bars. The beard had fallen to the floor, his face was covered with sweat, and he was bleeding from a cut where he had rammed the bars with his head.
There was a rattling sound near the front of the dungeon as two draconians came dashing down the stairs at the jailor’s call. Their curved swords drawn and ready, they advanced down the narrow corridor, the jailor at their heels. Swiftly Tas grabbed the beard and stuffed it into one of his pouches, hoping they wouldn’t remember that Berem had come in with whiskers.
Tika, still stroking Berem soothingly, babbled about anything that came into her head. Berem did not appear to be listening, but at least he appeared quiet once more. Breathing heavily, he stared with glazed eyes into the empty cell across from them. Tas could see muscles in the man’s arm twitch spasmodically.
“What is the meaning of this?” Caramon shouted as the draconians came up to the cell door. “You’ve locked me in here with a raving beast! He tried to kill me! I demand you get me out of here!”
Tasslehoff, watching Caramon closely, saw the big warrior’s right hand make a small quick gesture toward the guard. Recognizing the signal, Tas tensed, ready for action. He saw Tika tense, too. One hobgoblin and two guards.… They’d faced worse odds.
The draconians looked at the jailor, who hesitated. Tas could guess what was going through the creature’s thick mind. If this big officer was a personal friend of the Dark Lady, she would certainly not look kindly on a jailor who allowed one of her close friends to be murdered in his prison cell.
“I’ll get the keys,” the jailor muttered, waddling back down the corridor.
The draconians began to talk together in their own language, apparently exchanging rude comments about the hobgoblin. Caramon flashed a look at Tika and Tas, making a quick gesture of heads banging together. Tas, fumbling in one of his pouches, closed his hand over his little knife. (They had searched his pouches, but—in an effort to be helpful—Tas kept switching his pouches around until the confused guards, after their fourth search of the same pouch, gave up. Caramon had insisted the kender be allowed to keep his pouches, since there were items the Dark Lady wanted to examine. Unless, of course, the guards wanted to be responsible …) Tika kept patting Berem, her hypnotic voice bringing a measure of peace back to his fevered, staring blue eyes.
The jailor had just grabbed the keys from the wall and was starting to walk back down the corridor again when a voice from the bottom of the stairs stopped him.
“What do you want?” the jailor snarled, irritated and startled at the sight of the cloaked figure appearing suddenly, without warning.
“I am Gakhan,” said the voice.
Hushing immediately at the sight of the newcomer, the draconians drew themselves up in respect, while the hobgoblin turned a sickly green color, the keys clinking together in his flabby hand. Two more guards clattered down the stairs. At a gesture from the cloaked figure, they came to stand beside him.
Walking past the quaking hobgoblin, the figure drew closer to the cell door. Now Tas could see the figure clearly. It was another draconian, dressed in armor with a dark cape thrown over its face. The kender