The Changelings (War of the Fae: Book 1) (37 page)

Now we were all going to be prisoners of war.
 
On the bright side though, they weren't eating us.
 
Not yet anyway.

The guys put down their weapons and submitted themselves to our captors.
 
Tony tried to fight a little and one of them smacked him so hard he went down, unconscious.
 
I saw him there on the ground not moving and I couldn't help but cry out.
 
The orc that had been holding me cuffed me on the side of the head, making my ears ring.

"Why you sonofa ..."
 

It hit me again, only harder this time.
 
I went down on one knee.
 

Spike shouted, "Stop talking, Jayne!"
 
He ducked when one of the orcs came over to shut him up and took a hit to the shoulder.
 

The orc behind me pushed me, signaling me to get up and start walking.
 
I stood my ground.
 
I wanted to walk with my friends.
 
I tried to run over to them, awkwardly because my hands were tied behind my back, but I didn't make it far.
 
One of the orcs tripped me and I went down on my face.
 
My mouth was instantly filled with forest muck.
 
I was trying to spit it out when I saw a pair of leathery, disgusting orc feet in my face.
 
The last thing I saw before the lights went out was that leathery foot drawing back to kick me in the head.

I slowly came to, initially only hearing grunts and shuffling sounds, then eventually able to open my eyes, finding myself in a clearing, still inside the Dark Forest.
 
I was tied to a tree, or rather, I was hung from a tree.
 
The vines that had secured my hands behind me had been replaced by vines that bound my wrists in front of me.
 
These vine handcuffs were then attached to another vine dangling from a tree branch above me.
 
I had just enough play to sit with my hands suspended at about shoulder-height.
 
I guess I should have been grateful that they moved my hands to the front of my body or that they didn't hang me from the tree, but I wasn't grateful at all.
 
I was pissed.

The trees here were green, but only newly so.
 
I could tell by all the black and gray leaves on the ground that the trees had recently morphed into the beauties they were now.
 
I wondered how many orcs currently made up the enemy forces – probably a lot.
 
I was seriously regretting the rejuvenating of the forest at that moment.

In the center of the clearing was a fire.
 
Something was roasting over it – it smelled like bacon.
 
My eyes were still a little fuzzy, but if I squinted, I could see a little better.
 
The thing hanging over the hot wood coals didn't look like a pig, or even a deer.
 
It looked like ... like ...
holy shit, they're roasting a dwarf
.
 
A large branch had been jammed down his throat and out his back end.
 
An orc stood to one side, turning the speared dwarf from time to time, like a pig on a spit.
 
I turned my head immediately, thoroughly repulsed by the sight, trying not to barf.

I looked around the camp in a panic, the fear rising up in my throat.
 
I was pretty sure we were going to be the next few orc meals.
 
Nearby I could see Tony and Finn, tied up like I was.
 
Finn was closest.
 
He had blood under his nose like someone had popped him one.
 
I saw him looking at me and I got ready to yell out to him, but the look on his face stopped me.
 
His eyes were bugging out and his lips set in a thin line.
 
He shook his head very slightly, side to side.
 
He was telling me to shut the hell up.
 
I did faintly recall the orcs didn't like it much when we talked.
 
Maybe that's why Finn had a bloody nose.

I mouthed the words,
"Where are Spike and Chase?"

I followed Finn's eyes across the camp.
 
They were on the other side of the fire from us.
 
I had to look past the roasting dwarf to see them.
 
They were also tied up, both looking at the ground.
 
Chase had some bruising around his face.
 
Spike had a cut on his cheek that had bled down to his chin.
 
I guess none of them had gone quietly.

I could see Tony on the other side of Finn.
 
He was either sleeping or still unconscious.
 
If he'd been unconscious this whole time – and I wasn't sure how long it had been, but at least an hour – he could be seriously hurt.
 

Silently I asked Finn about Tony,
"Is Tony okay?"

I tried to read Finn's lips, but it looked like he said,
'They like him again.'

Like him?
 
Then realization dawned.
 
He hadn't said
'like'
, he said,
'hit'
.
 

Fuck.
 
I sent up a silent prayer to the universe that Tony didn't have a concussion – or worse.

The orcs were scattered around the camp.
 
Occasionally a new one would wander in from farther out in the forest – my guess was they were newly-freed ones, formed from the goo released by the trees.
 
They grunted and growled at each other.
 
The biggest one, the one Chase had cut on the hand at the beginning of our battle, seemed to be in charge.
 
Yeah, that's just perfect ... I had released the leader with that first Ancient tree.
 
Fucking brilliant.

No matter where I looked, my attention was repeatedly drawn back to the fire in the middle.
 
My brain entered into an otherworldly level of panic.
 
A real human being ... dwarf being ... was roasting over a fire.
 
My friends and I were tied up and sure to be next.
 
Would they kill us first before they stuck the branch down our throats and out our ass cracks?
 
Or would the branch do the work?
 
Would we still be a little alive when we went over the fire like rotisserie chickens?
 
My mind wouldn't let it go.
 
The panic was real and overwhelming.
 
I started to whimper, unable to stop myself.

The nearest orc came over to me and smashed me in the head with its fist.
 
Some of the spittle from its mouth swung out in an arc and landed on my arm, leaving a burn mark as it slid off.
 
I'm not sure if the nausea I felt was from the beat down, the bar-b-que, or the drool.

When he hit me, it spun me around so I was facing outside the clearing.
 
At least I don't have to look at that poor dwarf anymore
.
 
But I also couldn't see Tony or the others either.
 
I forced myself to do some deep breathing, to keep the panic from rising up again.

Just then, a movement out in the trees caught my eye.
 
Someone was there, and it wasn't an orc.
 
The size and coloring wasn't right.
 
I squinted to see if I could figure out who or what it was.
 
The flickering light from the fire made it difficult to see what was beyond our circle of trees.

Then I saw a movement nearby, just beyond the tree I was dangling from.
 
The figure slowly and cautiously crept closer.
 
It moved close enough now that I could see its features in the light of the fire.

Jared!
 
My eyes nearly fell out of my head.
 
Jared is here!
 
My heart soared.
 
I didn't give a flying fuck if he was in league with Dardennes at this point.
 
He couldn't possibly be on Team Orc.
 
I'm pretty sure no one was in with these barbarians, seeing as how they'd eat a dwarf and all.
 
Probably their smell discouraged friendships, too.

Jared put his finger to his lips, signaling me to be quiet.
 
I slowly turned and got Finn's attention, jerking my head slightly towards the tree I was attached to so he'd look back.
 
He looked at me in confusion, not understanding what I was trying to tell him.
 
I took the heel of my shoe and slowly wrote J-A-R-E-D on the forest floor in front of me.
 
As soon as he read it, I kicked the dirt around to erase it.
 
I was pretty sure these grunting orcs couldn't read, but just in case ...

I turned to look at Jared again, getting up on my knees to ease the numbness in my hands.
 
Finn turned too, also looking at Jared.
 
Jared held up Becky's knife and pantomimed cutting the vines around our hands.
 

I nodded my head in happy agreement.
 
Get me the fuck out of this nightmare.
 
He must have been behind us, following our trail.
 
I remembered Chase dropping the knife in the leaves during our earlier battle.

Jared was trying to give us his plan, charades style.
 
It was more than frustrating.
 
I thought what he was saying was that he was going to go around and release all of us quietly and then all at once we would get up and run.
 
Sounded like a plan to me, or at least the beginnings of a plan.
 
The question was, where were we supposed to run?
 
I kept mouthing,
"Where?"
to him, but he wasn't getting it.
 

It soon became clear to me.
 
This plan wasn't going to work.
 
I plopped down on my butt, resigned to the fact that we had a half-assed plan that barely had even a miniscule chance of being successful.
 
I started to shift my body, aware that my butt bone was now resting on something hard, lumpy, and very uncomfortable.
 
But just before I shifted, I felt something.
 
A tingle.

A tingle in my butt?
 
Suddenly, I realized what it was.
 
The Green.
 
I was sitting on a root that had grown up above the surface of the ground.

I used the toe of my left shoe to push the shoe and sock off my right.
 
I scooted over so my bare foot could touch the root.
 
Now I could feel the connection much stronger.
 
My clothes had been dulling the sensation.
 
The connection was difficult enough to make here, in this dark place.
 

I sent out a tentative request, the beginning of a link, just with this tree.
 
The Green was there.
 
It was new, fresh, and just starting to awaken – but it was there.

Finn was looking at me, frowning, wondering what the hell I was doing.
 
He must have seen the smile on my face, because he smiled a little back at me.
 
He probably thought I was happy about Jared – or that I had finally cracked under the pressure.
 

Things were looking up.
 
We had Jared with a knife and I had a connection to The Green.
 
Now I just had to figure out how to use this connection to our advantage.
 
I thought it might be worthwhile to try a little experiment.
 
I didn't bother trying to mime this to Jared.
 
He wasn't aware of my little secret yet, and explaining my connection to The Green with charades?
 
Impossible.

I connected into The Green using the link I had at my foot.
 
I imagined a vine grabbing the foot of an orc off to my left, with the plan to trip it.
 
I didn't see the vine, but less than a minute later an orc got up from the group sitting near Chase and started walking to the edge of the trees.
 
It got two steps and then went down – face plant style.
 
Victim of a vine tripping.
 
Bummer for the orc because its face plant at that particular spot put it partially into the fire.
 
It jerked back, roaring, its black skin bubbling and smoking where it had touched the flames.
 

The stench that rose up from that bar-b-qued orc was even worse than their natural body odor.
 
I could see why they weren't cannibals.
 
Double yuck
.
 
My eyes watered at the awfulness.
 
I even saw Chase and Spike get repulsed looks on their faces, and Chase didn't usually react to that kind of thing.

The burned orc got up, looking around to see what had caused it to trip, but the vine had long since disappeared back into the forest.
 
The only thing there, several paces away, was Chase.
 
The orc took one look at him and roared.
 
Spike cringed at the sight and sound, but Chase sat stoically.
 
He was one bad motherfucker, that Chase.

The orc turned sideways while it was roaring, and I could see its mouth in profile.
 
There was spittle dripping from its gnarled, pointed teeth and drool sliding down its chin.
 
Boy was it pissed!
 
And now, since I had once again done a very bad job of considering the consequences of my actions, it was pissed at Chase.
 
Even though there's no way Chase could have done it, the orc was going to blame and punish Chase for tripping it.