Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [115]
One of his mercenaries broke free of the small battle and saluted his commander. "We have captured an elf. A female."
Well, that was something. "Bring her in," Gorlist ordered.
Three of his soldiers dragged in a tall faerie elf. Even bound and gagged, form half shrouded with the remnants of a canvas sack, she put up an impressive struggle.
Gorlist strode forward and seized a handful of her disheveled black hair. He jerked her head back and noted the distinctive light streak that framed one side of her face. With a start of dark pleasure, Gorlist recognized this elf. It was she whom he had fought on the deck of his lost ship!
With his free hand he fingered the silver braid. "Clever, that little shapeshifting trick. What would this braid become if I ripped the entire thing from your scalp?"
The elf spat a mouthful of blood at his boots. "Try it and see," she invited.
"Another time," the drow said coldly. "At present, I am more interested to learn why I see you in Skullport when fighting Liriel Baenre there and find you in Rashemen near the village of her pet human."
She sneered and started to work up another wad of spittle. Gorlist backhanded her hard, sending her head snapping to one side.
"Bring the irons," he commanded.
The elf spat out a jagged shard of tooth and laughed in his face. "I counted almost a hundred dark elves in and about these warrens, and I am one alone. Am I not bound tightly enough for you?" she snarled, holding out her bound wrists.
Gorlist nodded to Chiss. The young drow bared his teeth in a fierce smile and set to work. He snapped iron manacles on the faerie elf's wrists. Deftly climbing the stone wall, he threaded the attached chain through hoops embedded high overhead.
Gorlist nodded to his cohorts.
Two drow pulled swords and slashed away the ropes binding their captive. As she lunged at them, Chiss yanked the chains back, pulling her arms out wide and stopping her charge.
Gorlist strode around her, eyeing the marks that drow swords had left in leather and flesh. The female's toes barely touched the ground, and the angle of her arms suggested that they had been pulled from the shoulder sockets, yet her green-gold gaze remained steady and implacable.
"Cut off her armor and garments," he told the two drow. "Don't be too dainty about it."
His soldiers went about their work with obvious pleasure. Gorlist picked up a length of severed rope and knotted it. He handed this to one of the drow and a vial of salt to the other.
"Enjoy," he said as he settled down to watch. He smirked at the elf woman. "I certainly intend to."
The torture went on longer than Gorlist would have thought possible. In time, pleasure became tedium, but nothing they inflicted upon the faerie elf induced her to speak.
"Get Brindlor," he said at last.
One of the drow-a young female who had been born to Nis-styre's first mercenaries-went in search of the deathsinger. They returned shortly. Brindlor sent a quick look of distaste at the faerie elf that had nothing to do with her condition and little to do with the color of her skin.
"Merdrith is not here. You know more magic than any of us. Strip her secrets from her mind," Gorlist demanded.
The deathsinger sniffed. "Small wonder she did not talk. Didn't you know that iron draws the life force from some faerie creatures as a rag soaks blood from a wound? Perhaps this elf is one such creature. Cut her down."
Reluctantly Chiss lowered the chains and snapped off the manacles. What happened next took them all by surprise.
There was no spellcasting, no slow metamorphosis, no warning at all. One moment a battered elf woman lay at their feet, the next, a large black wolf regarded them with gold-green eyes. Her lip curled back in a snarl, her hind feet tamped down, and she leaped.
Chiss went down under her before he could draw a weapon. The wolfs teeth sank into his shoulder, and the massive head gave a savage shake. Then she was up, dodging this way and that as she evaded