The Happy Few

Chapter 7

The open door was the first sign to Ari that something had gone awry. It was the only sign he needed. When he darted into the room, he found that it was ransacked and empty, as he had suspected it would be. He checked the bag he had left with the humans and cursed when he saw that the dagger had been taken as well.

Ari turned on his heel and fled the room, in a desperate rush to find the two humans and the artifact. He had misjudged the danger of the town. He had thought that they would be safe during the day, had thought that the humans would be safe so long as they stayed together. He had been wrong, horribly wrong. More than the dagger, he had to find Kir to make sure he wasn’t dead and find Emery and make sure he wasn’t a sex slave sold to some foreign pervert. Finding clues would be difficult; for all he knew, everyone in town was involved in the business and had reason to stay mum about the kidnapping. As he ran from the inn, Ari hoped that there was one decent person in the town who could aid him and point him in the right direction.

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Assess the situation; that was the rule they taught the soldiers in the militia when they were compromised in missions and battles. If he wanted to survive unscathed, Emery knew he would have to use his training and cunning. His limbs had been bound and his mouth gagged to prevent him from crying out for help and to make sure he wasn’t able to run or grab something to defend himself with. The man who had roped his wrists together shoved him towards a corner of the room then hoisted his arms above his head and attached his tied wrists to a hook that dangled from the ceiling. Emery grumbled to himself about the position that left his midsection prone, but there was little he could do to extradite himself.

He looked around the room, trying to gain his bearings. He had been too preoccupied with worry and fear when they had been taken that he had not thought to try and make a note of where they were being held. The building’s interior yielded little help; it could have been a warehouse or an abandoned store or any number of secretive places. That did not inspire much hope in him; how was Ari to find them if they were secreted away? Emery sniffed the air. He thought he scented salt and fish. They must be by the water then, in the back of a fishery perhaps.

A new sound reached his ears, drowning out the rough voices of the men who had grabbed him. Kir. Of course he could count on the whiney thief to be making a racket, but for once he appreciated the young man’s shrill voice. He didn’t feel completely alone. Across the room, two men were grappling with Kir, him being slightly more of an obstacle than Emery. The men shoved Kir into a barred cage, laughing heartily as they slammed the door on the thief’s useless threats.

The men sauntered off, muttering to themselves about the plans they had for their new inventory. Kir watched them, glaring heatedly at their backs, then turned to look in the corner where Emery was. They caught eyes. For the first time since he had known the surly boy soldier, Kir saw fear in his brown eyes.

“Hey, don’t worry,” he called across the room, “Imma get us out of here! An’ Ari will be here any second!”

His words did not relieve the knot of worry that was bound tightly in the boy’s stomach. When Kir saw the look, he frowned. It wasn’t like Emery to surrender to a challenge. Granted, this challenge was much more daunting than traversing a desert to find an ancient artifact, but they had more at stake that moment. Their lives were at stake and that prompted Kir to take action. With his hands bound above his head as they were, Emery would not be much help.

“Just keep watch fer me,” the young man said, slipping a hand up his sleeve, “If you see those jerks comin’, make some noise, ‘kay?”

The boy did not understand what the thief was doing, but he nodded. He scanned the room, watching the doors for any movement that hinted at someone entering. As he kept watch, the boy wondered what he could do to escape. The rope cut into his wrists painfully, but when he tugged at the binding, it stayed firm. There was no hope of wriggling free or disentangling himself from the hook. He cursed mentally, unleashing a torrent of searing cusses through the gag before a scraping sound caught his attention. The words died in Emery’s throat and he turned his attention to the cage that held Kir. The thief had his hands extended through the bars, fiddling with the lock.

Kir had pulled from his sleeve a small satchel that he kept strapped to his upper arm. Part of his job required him to pick locks and the satchel had all the tools he needed to pick any lock, be it the lock on a door, a music box, or a large lock on a cage. It was difficult this time though, since he could not see the lock or where he placed his tools.

Kir struggled with the lock for several long minutes when Emery started to make noise. He quickly pushed away from the door of the cage, hiding his small tool satchel back up his sleeve. A door to his right swung open with a loud squeal of un-oiled hinges and a large man strode in. Kir didn’t like the look of the man; he was tall and broad, body rippling with muscle. He had a mane of tangled black hair and eyes that glittered with malicious intent. The man cast a glance at the thief, grinned, then walked past to where Emery dangled helplessly.

“Hey!” Kir yelled, moving to the front of the cage and wrapping his fingers around the bars. “What’re you gonna do with us?”

He was ignored. The man walked to Emery, eyeing him like a man might do to a horse he was planning on buying. His lips twitched into a smirk that the soldier did not like at all. He liked even less when the man reached out and touched his cheek. Emery immediately recoiled, jerking away from the touch. He knew he was being assessed for how much he could cost on the black market and the knowledge made him indignant. His reaction only made the man laugh.

“Soft skin, fair hair and skin, pretty face; I imagine you’ll sell nicely.”

The boy tried to say something, but the words were lost behind the gag.

“Hey! What’re you gonna do with me?”

The man turned to look at Kir then turned back to Emery. “I could care less what happens to you. Perhaps they’ll sell you. Perhaps they’ll just kill you for your organs.”

A small tremor of dread shot up the young man’s spine. He had no doubt that the men who had taken them would follow through on any plan they had and he rather liked where his organs were. A desperate cry escaped him and he prayed vehemently that Ari would find them soon. He muttered every prayer he know, which were very few, and grit his teeth against the sweeping terror that was threatening his composure.

His reverie was broken by Emery’s gasp and strangled cry. When he looked up, Kir swallowed a groan of despair. The man had a hand threaded in the boy’s hair, fingers tugging harshly at the thick locks, bending Emery’s head backwards. What bothered Kir more was the hand that had slipped between the boy’s legs.

“Quit it! Yer hurtin’ him!”

His cries went unheeded. When the man pulled his hand away from the soldier’s body, Kir was relieved; he thought the man was done and would hopefully leave the boy alone. He was mistaken though. The man’s hand slipped into Emery’s pants and an indignant, shocked squeal wrenched itself from the boy’s mouth, discernable past the gag. There was an amused chuckle from the man and Kir gripped the bars as hard as he could. There was no time, he decided. He could not afford to wait until the man had left before breaking out his tools and picking the lock. If he let things go any further, he was unsure what would happen to Emery.

As he was reaching up his sleeve to retrieve the satchel, another man entered and, upon seeing what the other was up to, laughed heartily. Kir cursed his luck; with another man in the room, it would be difficult to work unnoticed. He shook his head; it couldn’t be helped. The men bantered back and forth, making snide and crude comments about their most recent prize. While their backs were turned, the thief was busy fiddling with his tools, doing his best to lift the inner latch in the lock.

A cry from the doorway warned him that a third man was entering and Kir quickly hid the tools. He watched helplessly then as the men pulled Emery from the hook and began to carry him from the room. They locked eyes as the men passed and Kir communicated his sorrow through the glance.

Emery worked his tongue over the gag relentlessly and managed to get the thing out of his mouth. “Just so you know,” he cried out, “I don’t hate you that much!”

The gag was quickly shoved back in his mouth and they exited the room. Kir was left alone, dumbfounded by the boy’s statement, and suddenly very scared of what would happen to the soldier. He worked on the lock with more fervor than ever. In the other part of the building, he could hear men yelling back and forth, laughing maliciously. Twenty frantic minutes later, the lock finally gave way and Kir pushed the cage open.

His heart thud in his chest like a hammer; adrenaline was pumping through his veins and he could hear his heartbeat thud in his head like the beat of a drum. Kir took a deep breath, looking at the door where the men had left, listening to the voices behind it, and thinking about what he should do. Four men had taken them from the inn and two dozen more had been waiting in the building when they arrived. With luck, some of the men had gone, but Kir could tell that there were still a good many on the other side of the door. He could not fight them, not alone. He would need Ari and the man’s strength and skill.

Reluctantly, he turned from the door and ran to the back of the room, searching for a way out. He found a small window with its glass broken and slipped through the hole. He hated himself for turning and running, for leaving Emery in the hands of those perverted men, but he knew that if he had tried to follow on his own, he would have died quickly. Each step he took away from the building hammered a nail of guilt into his heart, but the thief kept running.

“If I want to see Emery again, I have to find help!” He told himself, desperately trying to find his way to the inn where he hoped the elf would be waiting.

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He was dumped unceremoniously onto a low-lying cot. Emery struggled to sit up, wanting any small bit of leverage he could get. The two men that had carried him exchanged words with their leader and then left the room. The man preened over him again, as he had when the boy was dangling helplessly on the hook.

“Pretty.” He said again, leaning forward to pluck a stray hair from the soldier’s head.

Emery winced and pushed himself across the bed, as far away as he could get. His movement brought a smile to the man’s dirty face.

“You have a bit of spunk to you, unlike the rest. Scared little rabbits. I think I’ll have fun with you.” He leaned over, ignoring how the boy flinched, and pulled the gag from his mouth.

“Fuck you.” Emery spat, “If you think I’m going to lie down and take whatever you have in mind, you’d best think again.”

“Think whatever you like, child. You’ll be tied down anyway. It won’t matter what you believe.”

When the man reached for him again, Emery laced his fingers together and slammed his fist into the man’s side. He tried to scramble from the bed, but the man recovered quickly, delivering a blow of his own to the boy’s gut and tossing him back onto the mattress.

“Bad form.” The man grumbled, hand lingering on his aching side.

It gave the soldier a bit of satisfaction to know that he had brought pain to his enemy. His joy was short lived though. The men were called back in and instructed to rearrange Emery to the man’s liking; limbs tied securely to the posts on the bed. Again, he did his best to stave the men off, but he was no match to their numbers and strength. As he was pawed and the rope tightened around his flesh to the point that he bled, Emery prayed that Kir somehow managed to get out of his cage and was coming to help him.

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The sun had set long before Kir wriggled out of the window of the building that had temporarily been his prison. He had looked at the building carefully, finding any markings or unique traits that he would be able to identify it with when he returned with assistance. Once he had burned the building into his memory, he ran from the scene.

His memory of the trip to the building was hazy; he had been more than a little frightened at the time and paying attention to his surroundings had been the last thing on his mind. As he ran, Kir desperately tried to remember anything he had seen. A vague image of a statue and a dock flitted across his memory, but nothing around him seemed similar to the memory, nor did it feel familiar. Perhaps he had run in the wrong direction. The idea made him despair.

The young man paused in his running. He panted heavily, eyes darting around him, looking warily at the people walking past. No one looked trustworthy. No one would help him. Tears began to sting at the thief’s eyes, but he stubbornly pushed them away and began to run once more. Finally, after what seemed like hours of running to him, he came across a site that was familiar.

Excitement flood through Kir at the sight of the restaurant that he knew was near their inn. He darted towards the bright lights of the establishment then rounded the corner that would take him back to the inn. Thoughts ran through his head about what he would tell Ari, how he would explain the mess he had been in, and what they ought to do to help Emery. He shuddered at the thought of what the elf would do to him once he learned that their young companion had been taken. Ari had given him the task of watching after the boy and he had failed miserably. Anything that happened to the boy was on his shoulders.

The thief was so wrapped up in worry that he was not paying attention to his surroundings. He crashed into someone and the collision sent him tumbling to the ground.

“Ow” the young man groaned, rubbing at his back. He looked at whom he had run into. “Oh thank god! This must be fate! Ari!”

Kir immediately jumped to his feet and wrapped his arms around the elf’s thick waist.

Ari stood still, having barely stumbled from the impact of the human’s body. He touched the thief’s shoulders, giving them a comforting pat, then pushed Kir away so that he could look him in the eyes. “What happened?”

The human paled. He swallowed. “They took Emery. They broke into the room and grabbed us both. I got away, but they had already taken Emery somewhere. I couldn’t follow ‘em. There were too many. I woulda died. I got away so that I could find you and—” His words hitched in his throat. Kir scrubbed angrily at his eyes, then leaned forward to embrace the man again.

The elf put a hand on his head. He held onto Ari for some time, drawing comfort from the bulk and solidity of the man. Kir swore he could feel Ari’s strength through his skin, warm and tingling against his own flesh. When he was better composed, the thief stepped back and took a breath.

“We were in some kinda empty warehouse by the water. I think Emery’s still there. I hope he is.” He bit his lip.

Ari nodded. “Take me to where you were being held.”

“But…will we be enough? Can we handle ‘em all ourselves? There were at least thirty I think.”

The man had already started moving in the direction that Kir had come. “I’m an elf,” he said in a stern tone, “I can take on thirty human men and not even sweat.”

That was a damned lie and Kir knew it, but he smiled regardless. He respected Ari’s strength and courage and at that moment, he respected more than anything the dedication and concern the man showed towards his friends.

As Kir trotted along beside him, Ari pondered what had happened to the other human. He knew very well that if they did not find Emery that night, it was likely they would never see the boy again. As glad as he was that he had found Kir sound, he was plagued with dread about the fate of the boy. He could not afford to show his joy at reuniting with the thief. There was also the matter of the missing artifact that he had to worry about, but at that moment, Ari worried over the welfare of his companions more than anything. They would worry about the artifact when they were all safe and far from that wretched town.

END

This shorter chapter thing seems to be working. Anyway, I want to thank the lovely reviewers. You have no idea how happy reviews make me. I feel all happy inside and get motivated to write more. I love hearing how you like the story and the characters and your reactions. Many thanks.