Chapter 13 Chapter 12 Under the Guard

"Cadderly." The words came from afar, as if outside the young scholar's consciousness, "Cadlier." The voice came again, with a stronger tone. Cadderly managed to keep his eyes open.He recognized the voice, and he recognized the brown, exotic, concerned eyes staring at him.Still, it took him a while to remember the woman's name. "Danica?" "I'm afraid you won't wake up," Danica replied. "The bruise under your neck is really bad." Cadderly had no doubts about that; his head ached even if he moved it lightly. Terrible. He gradually regained consciousness.They were in a tent made of animal hides, Cadderly's hands were bound tightly behind his back, and so was Danica.Danica sat up, resting Cadderly's head and shoulders gently in her lap.There were no guards guarding them as far as he could see, but Cadderly heard the grunts of the orcs and urks outside, and the sound inevitably reminded him of the previous battle, and his last desperate moment. The blow blasted the shoulder of an ogre.

"Didn't they kill us?" he asked, rather confused.He tried to twist his hand and could feel himself still wearing the feathered ring. Danica shook her head. "They were ordered not to do that, I guess—and very harsh orders," she replied. "The orc that knocked you down was punished by the Uruk for hitting you too hard. They were all terrified." You will die." Cadderly thought about the news for a while, but could not find an answer to the mystery. "Where's Abereth?" he asked, uneasiness evident in his voice. Danica looked past the young scholar to the back of the hide tent.Cadderly struggled for a moment, trying to look in the same direction.Abeles, the elven prince, seemed to have greatly lost the dignity of the royal family at that moment.His body was dirty and bloodstained, he sat with his head down, his hands bound to his knees, and one eye was so badly bruised that he couldn't even open it.

He felt the gaze upon himself, and raised his eyes. "I got everyone caught," he admitted, his voice barely more than a whisper. "They're looking for me, an elf prince they can negotiate with." "You're not sure about that," Danica said, trying to comfort the very upset elf.There wasn't much confidence in the woman's voice - Aberez's guess seemed quite reasonable.The elf dropped his head again, and made no reply. "Ulks." Cadderly spat out the words, trying to jog his memory.He had read some books about these monsters, and now he wanted to find some information that could explain the current situation.Had he and his companions been captured as sacrifices in some terrible ritual?Or is it to be eaten as meat on an orc's dinner table?Neither explanation offered much comfort, and Cadderly nearly sat up when the tent's entrance cover was raised.

It was not an orc who walked in from the dim light, but a human.He was tall, with bronze skin and blond hair.In the center of his forehead, between two ice-blue, piercing eyes, was a tattoo of some kind of creature. Cadderly studied him intently, thinking that the tattoo - Cadderly recognized it as a centipede, a worm that lived in the polar regions - could tell something. The gigantic man walked up to Danica and gave her a lewd sideways look that sent a shudder down her spine while Cadderly felt a deep rage.Then, easily, with a flick of his muscular arm, he tossed the young woman aside.Then with equal ease, grabbing Cadderly by the front of Cadderly's skirt with one hand, he picked up the young scholar.

"White Zerg." Cadderly spat out the words, blurting out unconsciously.The words were elicited purely by the man's stature: he was almost a full foot taller than the six-foot Cadderly, weighed at least a hundred pounds, and there was not an iota of flab on his muscular frame. The bronze-skinned giant's frown quickly turned into a menacing scowl at Cadderly. "What do you know about the White Zerg?" he demanded, his voice tinged with a distant land. This time it was Cadderly's turn to frown.According to the assumptions he had just made, the language used by the huge man to ask questions should not be so fluent and without accent.At the same time, the quality of the man's clothes is also very good, made of silk and other delicate fabrics, and the tailoring seems to be worn by the king or the court servants.The man seemed very accustomed to wearing them—too accustomed, Cadderly noticed, for a barbarian.

"What do you know?" the man demanded, before lifting Cadderly off the ground with one giant hand again. "The picture on your forehead," Cadderly replied, panting. "It was a centipede monster, a white worm, an extraordinary beast, not common even in the northern borders. It has never appeared in the Snowflake Mountains or the Glorious Plains." The huge man's scowl did not ease at all.He looked at Cadderly for a moment, as if waiting for some more explanation from the young priest. There was a commotion from the door, and the giant immediately lowered Cadderly to the ground.In came a dark-haired woman who, judging by the robes she was wearing, was a magician.Cadderly somehow felt that she was a bit like a younger version of Pertelope, except her eyes were amber instead of hazel, and her hair was longer and messy, unlike Pertelope's always Be well groomed.Also, Pertelope's nose was as straight as an arrow, but the magician's had apparently been broken once, and was permanently lopsided.

"Welcome, Cadderly dear," the magician said, and her words brought surprise to both Cadderly and Danica's faces, and even Abereth looked up. "Did you enjoy your trip to Simista? I know Zirkan Rufo would love to go home." Danica gasps when she mentions Rufo.Cadderly turned to her, knowing she would be angry, but trying to calm her down for a while. "Yes, I know your name, young priest from the Moezhi Library," the woman continued, showing that she was gaining the upper hand. "You will find out that I know many things." "Then you have the upper hand," Cadderly said boldly, "because I know nothing about you."

"Don't know anything?" the woman chuckled. "If you didn't know anything about me, you wouldn't want to come and kill me." This time, Cadderly and Danica couldn't even hide their dismay. He took a deep breath, because the surprise was clearly shown on their faces. Cadderly heard Danica say two words, "Rufo." "I don't want to die, you must understand." The magician said sarcastically. Don't want to die like Barjin, a voice echoed in Cadderly's head.He turned to look at Danica and realized that the words were telepathic, not audible.Comparing the slain priest, countless questions arose in Cadderly's mind.But he quickly suppressed them, and instead asked himself whether someone, or something, was really speaking to him, or if the voice was his own, justifiably linking the magician to the one who had been killed. The priestly associations are in the same conspiracy.

Cadderly studied the wizard carefully, from head to toe.Her clothes were extremely unremarkable, not as ornately decorated as Ba Jin's priestly robes at that time.The young scholar tried to turn his neck to get a better look at the ring on the magician's finger.She wears three rings, one of which seems to indicate class. The magician smiled at him, made him look her in the eyes, and deliberately put his hands in his pockets. "Always so curious," she murmured, but loud enough for Cadderly to hear, "Like that guy." The way she mentioned the other person surprised Cadderly.

"Yes, young priest," the woman continued, "you will be a very valuable source." Cadderly wanted to spit on her feet - he knew his dwarf friend Ivan would not hesitate to do so - but he couldn't muster the courage.Although the hostile look on his face shows how he feels. The contemptuous expression on the magician's face turned to despair as he withdrew his hand from his pocket.She held something in her hand, and from Cadderly's point of view, it looked terrible. Dorigen aimed Cadderly's deadly crossbow at Danica, its trigger pulled and loaded with an explosive round.Cadderly couldn't breathe, and it felt like minutes had passed.

"You will do as I order," the wizard said, glaring at Cadderly, her face suddenly cold and distant. "Do as I say!" Cadderly couldn't get any words out of his choked throat. "Say it!" cried the wizard, twisting the crossbow in Danica's direction.For a split second, Cadderly thought she pulled the trigger, and nearly passed out. As soon as he knew the crossbow hadn't fired, he cried out in despair, "I'll do as you command!" "No!" Danica yelled at him. "Source of information," said the magician again, her lips curled into a comfortable smile.She turned to her bronze-skinned soldier, "Take him away." Immediately, the stubborn Danica jumped up, rushing between Cadderly and the huge man.She tugged at her own rope, but couldn't free her hands from their bindings, so she kicked the huge man with her feet. His agility and quick reflexes startled the woman.When Danica kicked, he crouched down and grabbed her foot cleanly.The slight twist of his powerful arms sent Danica off balance, her teeth clenched in pain.Again the huge man just flicked her aside with one easy wave. "Enough!" ordered the magician. "Don't kill her." She gave Cadderly a terrible smile. "Don't be afraid, young priest, I won't kill them, because they will let me kill you." Manipulate like a puppet. Ha, come to my end. And a prince of elves that just happened to fall into my hands! Yes, I know you too, Abereth. Do not doubt that you will soon be with your son It is too dangerous for me to have you as a prisoner." Dorigen snickered again, "or at least, your head will meet your father soon." Her words made Aberes struggle again in vain with the ropes that bound him.The magician laughed, mocking him. "Take him away!" she said to the warrior again, pointing at Cadderly. The gigantic man quickly grabbed Cadderly before Danica could react, and clamped his head tightly with one arm, the other raised, ready in case the enraged The woman decided to come back for more beatings. "Stand back!" Cadderly called resignedly, and Danica did, knowing that the warrior could easily snap Cadderly's neck. "Stand back," the huge man said too, "and come back when you're called." He spoke with a lewd smile that once again sent shivers down the young woman's spine. Behind the gigantic man, the wizard frowned, and Danica quickly understood the jealousy behind the look. The wizard snapped an order, and the two Uruks took their positions inside the tent while she and her huge servant dragged Cadderly away. Once Cadderly was half-dragged and half-carried outside, he felt that this entire camp should not be here at all, it was a misplaced thing.Even in the fading light he could see beautiful Simista torn and bruised.Trees that had lived for hundreds of years were felled and chopped into pieces.It was an eerie feeling for the young scholar, something he hadn't expected.When he was in the Mengzhi Library, he also used firewood himself, and picked flowers from the side of the road for Danica, without hesitation at all.But Simista had a majesty unknown to Cadderly, a raw and natural beauty that made even a footprint seem like a stain. Watching the filthy orcs and orcs scurrying about in the forest broke Cadderly's heart deeply.He recognized many of them by their wounds—like the limping ogre with the thickly bandaged shoulders.The monster had also noticed Cadderly, and the scowl on its face showed that if the young scholar fell into its hands, he would be dead. The wizard's tent is at the far end of the camp.From the outside it looks like an ordinary animal skin tent, but inside it shows that this magician is very particular.A table and four chairs around it were covered in luxurious velvet, the bed was thick and soft—the woman didn't like blankets on the floor; in the car. The bronze giant rudely placed Cadderly on one of the chairs. "Tenek, you can go now," said the magician, and she took a chair opposite the young scholar. Tenek didn't seem to like the idea very much. He glared at Cadderly angrily, and didn't move toward the tent exit. "Oh, let's go!" scolded his mistress, shaking her hand, "do you think I can't defend myself from this kid?" Tenek bent close to Cadderly, let out a threatening growl, then bowed low to his mistress, and left. Cadderly squirmed in his seat, letting the magician know that he was uncomfortable being bound.He decided that now was the time for him to issue some orders, to show his enemy that he was not some coward who would let her have her way.Cadderly wasn't sure he could keep up the façade, especially when Danica's and Abereth's lives were at stake.But he learned that this appearance may be the only way to keep them all alive. The magician looked at him for a long time, and then whispered a few words angrily.Cadderly felt the restraints loosen his wrists, and his aching arm was free. His first thoughts centered on his feathered ring.If I could figure out a way to get the cat's claws out and stab the magician— Cadderly dismissed the thought.He didn't even know if the sleep medicine made by the dark elves was still effective.If he tried and failed, no doubt the wizard would punish him severely—or, more likely, punish his helpless friends. "For a savage, he is surprisingly civilized," said the young scholar, trying to put the magician down. The wizard's chuckle teased him. "Quite reasoning, as I expected," she said, more to herself than to Cadderly.Her tone made Cadderly pause again. "I mean, the mark on his forehead," Cadderly stammered, trying to regain his composure. "Tenek belongs to the White Zerg, a barbaric tribe that lives in the dark of the Great Glacier." "Really?" said the wizard cheerfully, leaning forward in his chair, as if trying to hear Cadderly's startling insight. Cadderly knew it was pointless to go on. The magician fell back into the chair comfortably, "You are right, young priest." She said sincerely, "I can't think of it. Few people in this area recognize the centipede monster, let alone associate it with a symbol that has never been seen. Over the strange savage tribes south of the Galana Mountains. I flatter you as you flatter me." Cadderly's eyebrows were raised curiously. "Tenek's behavior is indeed very out of line," the wizard explained, "and far from what one would expect from a savage warrior of the White Zerg." "You taught him that culture," Cadderly added. "It is necessary if he is to serve me properly," the magician explained. This relaxed conversation allowed Cadderly to feel comfortable asking a perceptive question, "Has he properly served his mistress...?" "Dorigen," said the magician, "I am Dorigen Kay Ramon." "From?" The mocking chuckle returned. "Yeah, you're curious," she said, her excitement rising. "I have been with someone who is too similar to you for too long, and your words can no longer confuse me." She immediately calmed down and brought the conversation back to a relaxed atmosphere. "Too much has happened in too little time, and Cadderly Poe—" Dorigen paused and then smiled, seeing his reaction.Dorigen learned that the young priest really didn't know his parentage, or even his father's name. "Forgive me," continued Dorigen, "because I'm afraid I don't know your last name." Cadderly slumped back in his chair, knowing Dorigen was lying to him.What did the syllable that the magician just uttered represent?he guessed.Does Dorigen know who his parents are?Cade made up his mind not to play this game with the magician again.Because doing so would put Dorigen in a more advantageous position, and neither he nor his friends could afford the consequences. "I'm Cadderly of Caladon," he replied curtly. "That's it." "Really?" Dorigen said teasingly, and Cadderly was trying very hard to hide his interest. A hearty laugh from Dorigen broke the ensuing silence. "Let me answer some of your questions, young priest," she said, and tapped her shoulder, or more correctly, some invisible thing perched on her shoulder. The imp, Druzil, lost his invisibility. So they are related!Cadderly knew this fact because he recognized the imp who had poisoned Pikel in the catacombs of the Moezhi Library.Undoubtedly, Ba Jin came from the same place as this magician.Cadderly understood then what the silent message he had heard earlier in the other tent was.He immediately looked at Dorigen's slender hand and the marked ring on it, which he now finally knew what it meant.A variant of Talona's sacred symbol, the symbol of the bottle on the trident soon became the code name for disaster throughout the region. "See you again, young priest," said the imp in his rough voice.Druzil's forked tongue flicked between its pointed yellow teeth like a lizard's, and then, like an ogre staring at a piece of roast lamb, it grinned wickedly at Cadderly, "I Think, are you doing well?" Cadderly didn't even blink his eyes, refusing to show weakness to it. "So you also recovered from the blow that flew into the wall?" he replied calmly. Druzil growled and disappeared. Dorigen smiled again. "Very good." She praised Cadderly. "Druciel is not usually dismissed so easily." Cadderly still didn't blink.He felt a force trying to get inside him, and he knew the connection was coming from the imp. "Let it in," Dorigen instructed, "it challenges you. Are you afraid to know who is stronger?" Cadderly didn't understand what this meant, but, in order not to show weakness, he still closed his eyes and lowered his mental defenses. He heard Dorigen whispering a spell, and Druzil snickered, and felt the force of a magical spell resting on him.His mind became a physical blackness, as if he had been mentally transported to a hollow place.Then a light, a brilliant and flickering body of light appeared in the distance, drifting toward Cadderly. As the light approached, his mind looked at it curiously, not understanding the danger.And then it came, became part of his thoughts, and started burning him like a fire, a thousand explosions in his head, a thousand searing pains. Cadderly twisted his face, rolled in his chair, and opened his eyes.Through a puff of black smoke he saw the magician and the laughing imp sitting on her shoulder.The pain intensified; Cadderly cried out, terrified that he would pass out—or die, and he almost wished he could. He closed his eyes again, trying to focus and find a way to ease the pain. "Push it away," came a distant voice that Cadderly recognized came from Dorigen, "use your willpower, young priest, and push the flame away." Cadderly heard her and understood her words, but it was difficult for him to concentrate in the pain.He took a deep breath and punched the table in front of him, determined to distract himself from the flaming fireball. Yet it continued to burn.He heard Druzil's snicker. Cadderly searched for meditation techniques in his mind, trying to shut out that light, little by little, in ways that shut out the physical world. It's not going away, Druzil snickered again. Anger replaced the vacuum created by meditation and destroyed the peace of mind the young scholar had worked so hard to create.The light became his enemy; he convinced himself that it would find Danica after it consumed him. "No!" Cadderly growled.Suddenly the sphere of light moved away, running out of the void into which he had fallen.It swayed for a long time, then slipped out of Cadderly's mind.The pain was gone, and so was Druzil's snickering. Cadderly saw that there was a hole behind the black hole his mind had become, and he knew intuitively that it belonged to the imp, that it was bringing pain upon him.His anger remained undiminished; the flickering orb of light moved to another void. "Enough," he heard Druzil yell, and Dorigen just smiled. Cadderly forced the sphere of light into Druzil's mind.The imp screamed, and that only brought Cadderly closer.He won't soften; he'll let the fire burn in Druzil's head until it burns the imp down to nothing! It ended abruptly, however, and Cadderly found himself sitting across the table from Dorigen and Druzil, the imp wobbling and threatening to kill the young scholar with its bulbous eyes. "Great!" cried Dorigen, clapping her hands. "You're strong enough to beat Druzil, because he's mastered the game. Maybe even better than your—" She paused, and threw Giving Cadderly a teasing look, "It'll be good with you by my side." The young scholar was again uncompromising. "I don't serve Talona," he said aloud, and this time it was Dorigen's turn to try to hide her surprise. "I won't, no matter what the cost." do it." "We'll see." Dorigen said after a moment, "Tenek!" The savage was at Cadderly's side in a flash, pulling his arms behind his back and retying his hands so tightly that the ropes were caught in his wrists.The young scholar was lifted into the air and taken away abruptly. After the barbarian threw Cadderly back into his tent, he struggled to sit up.Tenek gave Danica another lewd look before leaving. "What happened?" Danica asked after the barbarian left.She shuffled over to Cadderly and leaned her head toward him. Cadderly was still stunned, and there were too many questions running through his mind to answer right away. Danica shot Alberez a concerned look. "I'm so uneducated," the woman lamented. Cadderly looked at her in disbelief. "The cessation of bodily functions," Danica explained. "If I could get to that point, it would make my heartbeat so slow that it could barely be heard—" Cadderly continued to stare at her with that expression. "But I can't help it," Danica said, lowering her eyes. "That's beyond my reach." Her words echoed ominously through the group of prisoners, sounding like a death knell.Cadderly let his head hang, too. "I'm going to kill that magician," Cadderly heard the elf swear. "And I'll kill her tall minion," Danica added, determination returning to her voice.However, the thought didn't make Cadderly feel better, as he gained a new understanding of Tenek. "He's from the White Zerg," Cadderly said, turning to Danica. She shrugged; she didn't understand what the words meant. "It was a savage tribe of the north," Cadderly explained, "fierce, living in harsh conditions - surviving. And if I'm not mistaken, Tenek - that's his name - —it's Kura-Weenser, the elite fighter." Danica looked at him curiously, and he knew she still didn't quite understand what he was saying. "Be in fear of him," Cadderly said gravely, "and don't underestimate his prowess. Kura-Weinser." He said again, closing his eyes and replaying what he had read about the White Zerg. , "In order to get the tattoo on his forehead, Tenek must kill a polar insect and a centipede monster with only one hand. He is an elite fighter in a warrior tribe." Cadderly's expression of pure fear Any words would make Danica uneasy. "Be in fear of him," Cadderly said again. ※※※ "This is the camp," Ivan whispered to Pikel, "although I don't want to fight some orcs in the dark forest at night." Pikel shook his head in agreement; the dwarves were more used to the darkness of deep caverns than the starlit forests. "We can find them before dawn," Ivan said, to his brother and to himself, "Yeah, that's good. But there are too many enemies, we can't just break into them, we have to have a plan." "Ooh." Ivan glared at his skeptical brother, but his face lit up when a thought crossed his mind.He took the antler helmet off his head, fished a small mallet from a deadly deep pocket, and began chipping away the varnish that held one of the antlers in place. Pikel shook his head in fear, trying not to look. Ivan was very good at making helmets, so it took him a long time to get the paint off enough to loosen the antlers, and even then he had to fight with the base, which was firmly in place.At last he removed it, handed it to Pikel, and put the now asymmetrical helmet back on his shaggy head. "When we run, you hold it over your head and follow me," Ivan instructed. Pikel cautiously waited for Ivan to find another observation position that was farther away, but he couldn't wait, so he could only let out a "ohh" again.In an imperceptible position in the shadow of a tree behind him, Hamadin chuckled.