by Gil Hough
CHAPTER 3
THE RAVEN TOWER
Rodregas stepped into the master’s bedroom for the first time in his twenty years of service in Raven Tower. He was unarmed; unarmored and needed to get as far away from Raven Keep as he could before someone noticed that he was not a sorcerer. He had spent too much time on the road without money, and he was not going to repeat the experience if he could help it.
He needed money. Money would buy him what he needed to start his new life. Unfortunately, Ravenhurr had not been interested in material wealth, and what money he did have, he tended to spend on materials needed for his magical ceremonies; still there should be something that he could use.
The bedroom was not large but this floor also held Ravenhurr’s study and a water closet. The far wall held a four-poster bed covered by a richly colored duvet. To the left of the bed was the door to the water closet and to the left of that a wardrobe. Along the connecting wall the fireplace calmly burned. To the right of the fireplace was a dresser with a small mirror and at the foot of the bed was an ornamental trunk that matched the wardrobe. On first glance there was nothing of much value except for perhaps the candleholder on the dresser. It looked like silver, inset with semi-precious stones.
First, he went to the dresser and started dumping clothes on the ground. He was hoping to find some hidden wealth, stashed in the drawers. He ended up with a pile of clothes. Some were fancy, but none would be of much use on the road and none were worth selling. Next, Rodregas went to the wardrobe, which was engraved with the shape of trees and made of a sweet smelling wood. It was much more likely to hold something of value.
He opened the doors to see brightly colored robes, and there on the left was a suit of chain mail. Rodregas could feel his smile. Armor! He reached in and pulled it out. The chain mail was light and seemed to flow around his fingers; the links seemed to be made of silver and he recognized it as Mithril.
Ravenhurr had a suit of Mithril chain; he could feel his heart start to beat in excitement. Mithril, a rare magical metal that was stronger than steel but much less heavy and made one of the best light armors. AElves, who are not physically as strong as other people, loved the metal. Rodregas held it up to himself and then, as excited as he had become, his heart sank as he realized that the suit was both too short and much too slim for him to wear. While there were straps to adjust it, his new body was very large and he would never wear the beautiful armor.
He threw the armor on the bed. It might not work for him to wear, but he could get a good amount of money selling such fancy armor. It was the first item of real worth that he had found.
On a shelf above it was another small pile of the silver chain. When he pulled it up he saw that it was a helmet, a solid Mithril skullcap with sides of chain mail designed to be connected at the bottom. He reached up and pulled it on his head, but even his head was too large for the AElfin style Mithril armor. It quickly joined the suit of armor and the candleholder on the bed.
On the bottom shelf he found a nice pair of boots, not of AElven make. Attached were matching grieves, armor designed to protect the lower leg., and a pair of armored gauntlets to compete the set. All ended up on the bed. Nothing else of interest was in the wardrobe. Though the two fanciest robes both heavily embroidered and of Western Silk, also went to the bed.
Next, he went to the trunk which was made of High Cedar wood and which matched the large wardrobe, but was much more portable. Unfortunately, the only items of use in it were several blankets of good quality wool. The remaining contents consisted of drawings, pictures and other personal items.
Rodregas dumped the trunk contents on the floor, sandwiched the armor in the blankets and loaded up the trunk. How he was going to cart the trunk out of the tower he did not yet know. He went to the door and listened; it seemed to be getting quieter. It was the middle of the night and the stir from the ceremony seemed to have subsided, but it was only hours until dawn when everyone would be heading out to celebrate the new ‘birth’ of Ravenhurr. Not a true celebration for most; as their lord and master, ‘he’ was more feared than loved. Rodregas locked the door to prevent a surprise. He should have done that before; it was sloppy of him not to take such a simple precaution.
Asking Captain Poir to send up Adapt Korin had been totally unplanned. He had been dreaming of killing Korin for all the 18 years that he had served in the tower. The Sorcerer Ravenhurr had been an immoral monster that used those around him for his own selfish desires. But Adapt Korin was of a more casual evil; he never passed up the opportunity to hurt those around him, physically or emotionally.
Ravenhurr had existed in the same body for the full eighteen years of Rodregas’ service, and was hundreds of years old. In all his years serving in the tower Ravenhurr had only tried to hold the ceremony three times, each time abandoning the attempt due to the lack of a celestial animal. A celestial animal was extremely rare, but required as part of the ceremony for Ravenhurr’s next step up in power.
In contrast, his assistant, the Adapt Korin, had been going though bodies constantly. Worse, he seemed to take great delight in letting people know what fate awaited them. Rape and torture of the victims were common occurrences with Korin. And Rodregas had dreamed of killing him almost from the start.
Rodregas had hated Ravenhurr and knew that his Master could have stopped his assistant’s actions with a word. Ravenhurr had been simply too powerful for Rodregas to dream of destroying. He was stronger, faster, and smarter than him to the point where even dreams of fighting him had never crossed his mind until this past week. However, his assistant Korin had only been an Immortalist for a few decades; his victims and his power were still purely mortal.
Rodregas had known that in a fair fight he could kill him. Korin was no warrior, and his actions spoke of cowardice when Korin hurt those who had no chance in a fight against him. Rodregas had been trying to get him alone, where he could kill him without blame, for years.
Rodregas went over and reached down to grab the bottom of the heavily made bed, and almost fell over when the bed lifted far more easily than expected. The sound of wood screeched as weight switched to the back legs of the bed and then moved at his awkward action, and the top of the columns smashed against the plaster ceiling. Rodregas carefully lowered the bed back down; as the bed settled back to the floor he was covered by a light dusting of plaster from the damaged ceiling.
Was Rodregas really that strong? Or was the bed just lighter than it looked? He went back over to the trunk and lifted it up; it to went up too easily and felt strangely light. Next he went over the dresser. Rodregas had known that the physical essence of the celestial lion was in his body and that all of his physical attributes would be improved, but the strength of the Immortalist was not common knowledge; you just heard that they were long lived and never got sick. They used magic against their foes not swords, and they seldom got involved in physical struggles.
Of course Rodregas had known that in The Immortal Guard of the Guild the most loyal and powerful of their officers were given enhanced bodies, but he thought their power lay in their magical sigils. His new body was very large and very muscular, and much stronger than he would have guessed.
Rodregas lifted his right arm and curled it into a tight muscle. He felt the biceps with his free hand. The texture under the skin felt like bundles of large, powerful cables. He felt his face break into a smile; he had seen this face smile when it had been a prisoner.
The smile the prisoner had worn was a very open charming smile. The smile he felt on his face now had little resemblance to the one he remembered seeing, though without looking in the mirror he had no way of knowing for sure. “Come on up, Korin. I have a surprise for you,” Rodregas whispered under his breath.
He went around the room one final time poking around for anything else of note and, finding nothing, went over to the door to the water closet. Inside he first tested out the plumbing, finding the experience both new and familiar.
He also had a chance to examine his own plumbing, and was pleased with the results; his new body was large and powerfully built even in places that most people would not see.
The only thing of use in the water closet was a shaving kit which Rodregas added to the trunk. Next he went to the study door only to find it locked. He looked for a key but there was nothing. He guessed that it was locked by magic and required a magic word or incantation to open the lock. He pushed and pulled on the door, but it was solidly made and there was nothing to get a good hold of to test his new strength.
He looked around for something to use as a pry bar; next to the fireplace was a poker. He grabbed it and forced it into the crack were a normal door would have its catch. He got it wedged in good but then stopped and went over to the outside door and opening it, listened for anyone nearby before going back inside the room. He carefully closed the door behind him; the sound of him breaking down the study door would ring loud in the predawn silence, but his need for money was too great.
What he had found would be worth some good coin but finding a trader that would give him its worth would take time. He needed to find silver and gold. Rodregas muffled the door with a blanket the best he could and then with a violent shove and twist of the fireplace poker, shattered open the study door. He held his breath. Everything was silent. He listened but heard no signs of approaching guards. They had probably heard something but none would question the master, or at least the person they thought was the master.
He pulled his way in through the shattered remainder of the door; in the middle of the room was a large round table with several books and papers spread out on it. Next to the open windows was a very nice desk with a very comfortable looking chair; next to the fireplace were several larger overstuffed and even more comfortable looking chairs. There were not as many books as Rodregas had thought there would be; only one wall was covered in shelves and miscellaneous piles of scrolls and other items. Next to the desk there was a fancy set of shelves with glass covers to protect them.
He went over to the glass enclosed shelves; the books looked richly made but old. Books of sorcery would sell very well indeed. The glass covers were locked, so again he muffled the sound with the blanket and forced the cabinet doors open. With each cabinet door the glass broke. He tried to open the cabinet doors without breaking the glass. But, whatever magic locks were in force were just too secure. So, he had to use brute strength to shatter the doors one by one.
Several of the books fell during his struggles with the cabinet. Rodregas reached down and grabbed a couple of them, and then dropped them right back to the ground in shock as evil licked his hand. He shook the feeling off his hand and went back to the water closet and washed it in the water basin. Of course he knew there was nothing physically on his hand, but he also knew that water was a natural purifier and disrupted many magical influences. What he had felt was simply disgusting. Why would a book, no matter what its contents, have such a feel to it?
He walked back to the book and got down on the ground. Without actually touching it, Rodregas slowly ran his fingertips along the binder of the book. While the feeling was not as strong as when he had held it, clearly the feeling of what could only be described as evil emanated from the book. Was this feeling truly coming from the book or was this some new ability of his new body to sense the nature of the book’s contents?
Rodregas got up and walked over to the bookshelf. He closed his eyes and, trying not to touch, lightly ran his hands close to the row of books. Quickly he realized that with some books he felt nothing. Other books seemed to buzz with energy but gave off no bad feelings. Still others had a bad odor of decay or foulness that made him want to cover his nose and pull away. In truth there was no smell, but simply a feeling.
Rodregas made a quick decision to trust this new ability and to take action. He had the impression that these foul books were of the most evil soul-stealing magic of the Immortalists. He opened up the fireplace and started to chuck all the evil books into the fire with the poker. The ones from which magic radiated he placed into the trunk; true books of magic would sell nicely. The process of sorting the books and then getting them to burn took several hours and he started to feel how long it had been since his new body had slept.
The sound of the tower was changing, the first sounds of the kitchen crew getting ready for the morning. Still he kept at it, though there seemed to be nothing else of wealth in the room. He was determined to see the evil books burn. They held the secrets to the Immortalist art and other dark magic. Leaving them would only lead to another person rising in Ravenhurr’s place. Several of the foulest books seemed to refuse to burn but the flames eventually consumed all, just as they had consumed Ravenhurr.
Finally, the last of the dark books of magic were burned, and the few remaining books that felt of magic but lacked the evil stench of the others were packed in the trunk. Only six volumes had been free of the stench, while over forty were burned. The sun was now streaming into the room and he was feeling the lack of sleep. He decided that it would take a while for the keep to empty out as everyone went into town to ‘celebrate’ Ravenhurr’s new birthday, and he stretched out on the big four-poster bed. He had thought that he would struggle to sleep, but instead immediately found deep sleep. In what felt like only a few minutes later, he struggled from deep within his dreams to the sound of a polite knock on the door. He looked around for a second, confused by his surroundings until memories returned.
The sunlight through the windows was now indirect so he guessed it to be mid or even late afternoon. Again came the polite knock; no one would dare such persistence without direct orders from Ravenhurr. It had to be Adapt Korin. He nearly leaped off the bed and looked for a sword but of course there was none.
He stepped in front of the bedroom door as he quickly did his best to close the broken study door. He quietly unlocked it and stepped back and said simply, “Enter,” and waited for the Adapt to come inside. Korin came into the room with a relaxed step that showed him to be much more comfortable than Rodregas was.
Korin was a good looking man. It was always weird with him. He changed bodies so often that you always felt like you were meeting someone new, but it was not long before you realized that it was Korin. He wore a slim male body that was well-built, not much over 20 years old, with blue eyes and blond hair.
Rodregas was not sure what to say to him so he stood there simply looking. He was the Master and it would not be surprising for Ravenhurr to keep him waiting for a few minutes. Korin waited patiently, seemingly at ease with what Rodregas would assume to be strange behavior by Master Ravenhurr.
“Are you ready to leave and celebrate my new birth?” Rodregas asked him.
Adept Korin nodded politely and said, “Yes, Master, the gods favor your desire to imitate their celestial glory.”
Rodregas nodded back in acknowledgement and said, “And have you found any new bodies who you would like to… take?”
That question seemed to surprise him, but Korin smiled and said, “No, Master. I have been too busy working on my studies.”
Korin now looked at him with a surprised expression and an eyebrow slightly raised. Rodregas wondered if he had said something wrong. While he had seen the two interact for some years, he really did not know what was appropriate for him to say in such a circumstance.
Rodregas knew that he did not have the skills for pretending he was a powerful Immortalist sorcerer, so he said, “How many people have you killed during the past year Korin? And how many others have you raped or tortured?” he asked, trying to keep a calm voice.
Now Korin looked very surprised and he started looking around. Rodregas saw that Korin noticed the study door, though he was working hard to not show it.
“How many?” Rodregas repeated his question.
“I am not sure,” Korin said. “For us to truly become divine we must of course develop our skills.”
As Korin an
swered the question he took a step back. Rodregas quickly stepped forward and pushed him hard against the wall. Korin hit with a hard smack and slid to the ground, hurt, but not badly.
Rodregas slammed the door closed and relocked it. Then he quickly reached down and covered Korin’s mouth, pulled him up, and slipped behind him.
Rodregas saw Korin’s bulging eyes as he tried to get a better look at his captor. Korin struggled but not as if his life depended on it. He was probably confused. The image of the day that Rodregas had started to hate him came back.
A family of AElves had been taken prisoner; they were just common AElves with no real magic. Korin was interested in the father, a good-looking man. The wife was equally beautiful and they had a slim child named Jorin. Rodregas had taken Jorin under his wing. He had only been working at Raven Keep for a little over a year at the time and was still learning the names of the prisoners.
Rodregas had thought that Jorin was a good lad, well behaved and bright, and his eyes were eager for signs of hope. Rodregas brought him extra food and words of reassurance. Ravenhurr had no need for him nor his mother, and he had seen other prisoners who were not of use set free. Rodregas had thought that Jorin would also be set free.
Two months went by and Rodregas had developed a strong fondness for the boy; a few of the guards made jokes that Rodregas had a new pet. Rodregas was used to the rough humor of soldiers and let such jokes roll off.
The night came when the father was taken for the ceremony. Rodregas was on guard duty when Korin came down in his new body. The poor lad had stared at the man who had been his father, saying nothing, but tears ran down his cheeks.
The apprentice Immortalist had then proceeded to rape the mother. The Adapt was rough and the act was violent and Korin, in his new body, clearly enjoyed the violence more than the sex. After he had finished with the mother, he had the guards release the boy who had run over to his sobbing bleeding mother.
In a fatherly gesture Korin had kissed the boy on the cheek and, wrapping his hands around the boy’s head in a slow loving gesture, made a quick yank and broke Join’s neck. The next day the guards released the young AElfin widow. Rodregas had helped drag her beyond the gates. She lay there not moving, limp though alive; she was dead in every way that mattered. Rodregas went back into the keep without looking back; he never knew what had happened to her after that.
After dreaming every night about killing him, Rodregas now had Korin in his grip. It was time to end Korin’s vile pestilence on the world. Rodregas got behind him with his right hand covering his mouth, and with his left took a firm grip on the top of his head.
Rodregas leaned over to his ear and whispered “You probably don’t remember, but you killed a boy named Jorin by snapping his neck, and payback is a bitch.”
Snapping a grown man’s neck is quite hard. Rodregas had never done it; he had learned that there were better ways to kill a man than trying to break his spine with bare hands. But with the memory of Korin breaking Jorin’s neck, adrenaline pounded in his new arms. This was justice long overdue.
With a quick movement of his arms and the haunting memory of the sounds of crunching and popping from all those years ago, he twisted Korin’s head nearly all the way around. Rodregas held his body as it spasmed wildly for a moment. Then the Adapt went still and limp; and Rodregas dropped him to the floor.
Korin’s’ body hit the floor and started to empty itself. “Gods,” he thought and asked out loud to no one, “What did he eat this morning?” He grabbed the body and dragged it into the water closet and dropped it into the small bronze tub.
Rodregas started to leave and then saw Korin’s purse; the Adapt was dressed for travel and Rodregas had yet to find even a single coin in the Master’s chambers. He reached down and took the purse off his belt. Rodregas opened it to find only a few silvers. He knew Korin should have more. He opened his shirt and, as he suspected, another purse hung from his neck. It was of flat leather and inside it were twelve pieces of silver and a small book.
Rodregas tentatively touched the book and it buzzed slightly of magic. It held no foulness so he tossed it into the trunk. He added the coin purses to the robe he was wearing. He still needed more hard money and some decent clothes.
Rodregas looked out the window to see a few people leaving the keep grounds, and a few still hanging around the yard. He knew he could not leave without everyone seeing him. He searched the rest of the study in the daylight. He found nothing of real use until he pulled a drawer completely out of the desk and found a false back to the drawer. He found it was holding a purple silk purse containing eight pieces of gold and two of silver. Now he had the money he needed to be on the run. After forcing himself to wait until the last visible person left the main gate, Rodregas grabbed the trunk and went to the stairs.
He listened quietly, and hearing nothing, he set the trunk down and quietly walked down the stairs. The next floor housed the laboratory. The door was locked and he did not want to break it down until he was sure everyone had left.
The next floor down was the main floor; He stepped out to the main hall and listened. He heard nothing but his stomach rumble; he was very hungry and knew that he should eat. He was already in the main hall; the room to the right was the kitchen.
He stepped into the kitchen but then came to a sudden stop. Standing next to one of the sinks was a very old, very dirty kitchen drudge slowly peeling a potato. She looked up at him in surprise, and with a hint of fear. Rodregas raised his hand up in a peaceful motion. She probably had nowhere else to go.
He ignored her and went to the cabinets and the cold box. He got out cheese and bread, found some fruit and had a good simple meal. He would need to pack as much food as possible for his journey. The old kitchen drudge was still peeling the same potato when he left the kitchen.
Freshly fed and feeling better for it, Rodregas went across the main hall and entered the door opposite the kitchen into the barracks section of the keep. The place was about as messy as he had ever seen it; the normal tidiness demanded by Captain Poir had apparently been put aside in excitement over the chance to take some time off for the celebration.
His personal bunk and trunk were a mess. His good blanket was missing, as was his spare pair of boots and most of his other belongings. Clearly, the rest of the guards had thought him dead and made free with his stuff.
Rodregas reached into the trunk but all that was left in there were a few bits of trash, a few candle stubs, some scraps of paper and a bit of cloth. He reached down and picked up the small piece of cloth and held it up. He stared for some time at the design sewn into it, and then stuck it into his outer purse. He had a strong urge to clean up his bunk and leave the area in the order it deserved, but that would be too big of a hint of what had happened. So, he was careful to leave it as it was; the longer they thought he was Ravenhurr the better.
He then walked past the rest of the wooden cots of the barracks to the back where the captain’s room was. The captain’s room, unlike the outer barracks, was spotless and in perfect order. He searched through the captain’s pair of trunks and found some clothes that fit him, though tightly.
The captain had been a big man but not as large as Rodregas now was. Still the soft linen shirt of light brown, which he knew had been loose on the captain, was much more comfortable than the wizard robe he had been wearing. Unfortunately none of the pants would fit. Poir, though a large man, had skinny legs.
Rodregas felt ridiculous wearing only a linen shirt and his coin purses as he stepped to the armory door.
The door was built of massive slabs of iron oak. Rodregas reached up and pulled the emergency key from the crack at the right of the door. Due to his status as a senior sergeant, he knew where the key was kept. Once the door was open, he stepped inside. Immediately, his eyes went to a long side bench where several new pieces of armor were piled up. These would be some of the more recent pieces not yet sor
ted or sold off for not being of use to the guard. Captain Poir had a tendency to leave some of the better equipment there for long periods, just in case they might prove useful at a later date.
Most of the armor was average civilian crap, but he quickly found several large pieces of leather scale armor that were his size. From the good fit he surmised that it had been the property of the original owner of his new body. The armor was braided leather with steel scales attached; he quickly tried it on and found it to be a perfect fit. It was probably custom made and was solid, if unspectacular, quality armor.
The braided, lacquered leather reinforced with the steel scales provided decent protection for most fights. This style of armor was vulnerable to a highly skilled swordsman. But for someone wanting some protection from the dangers of the road, it was better than most civilian armor. There were matching pants and even boots. He quickly dressed and felt much better once armored. He had spent most of his adult life in armor; he just could not relax when he wore only clothes.
Rodregas then looked around; the keep armory was pretty basic with casks of arrows and spears, and some of the older used short swords and bows on the wall. There were only two truly powerful weapons like those used by a member of the Immortal Guards – the soldiers that enforced the rule of the Immortalist Guild of the Celestial Path who ruled all the Eastern Kingdoms and neither of these weapons were kept in the armory.
He looked over to the short swords laying on one of the tables and picked two of them up; they felt a little weird. The swords were too light and the balance seemed off as he took a few practice strokes. There was a large two-handed great sword, a weapon that was difficult to handle if you were not very strong, and its sheath matched the armor he now wore. Rodregas picked it up and took a few swings and found that it was not as clumsy as he thought it would be. It was of average make, and he did not like such large swords. The weight provided a lot of momentum and power for a strike, but if you missed it was hard to recover and very easy to leave yourself wide open for a counter strike from your opponent.
It looked like the guards had gone to celebrate “his” birthday by taking most of the better armor and weapons with them. Rodregas grabbed a shield as well, and a barrel of the best looking arrows and carried them to the front entrance.
There was probably money in the purser’s office, but he knew that the door, as well as the room was rigged with poison needles and other traps, both mundane and magical. Rodregas had the impression that Ravenhurr had spent most of his wealth of late on the Dire Cats. After Rodregas’ recent generosity, he did not want to take the risk of dying for a nearly empty treasure box.
He looked out of the entrance, over to the gate and up to the top of the wall where a small tower provided cover. There, one of the few guards left should be watching the front gate. Also kept in the tower were two of the nicest weapons Rodregas had ever seen: a pair of recurve bows of Wood Nymph created black yew. There was no way they would have been taken. There were standing orders to kill anyone who tried to remove them. Rodregas was not a very good bowman, but he was definitely going to try to bring them with him.
He peeked out of the main doors and looked around the open keep. The stables were to the left and the gate was to the right. The courtyard was not large. He could not see anyone, but he knew there would be at least two guards left: one at the gate and one in the watchtower over the gate.
In front of the stable was a large bony horse, dappled in brown and white. Rodregas thought her name was Tory or Torin, he could not remember which. She was an older horse, in her early twenties, and was known for her mild manor. She was saddled and ready to go, evidently she was Korin’s planned mount.
Rodregas took a deep breath and calmly walked out of the keep and over to the stables. It was not large, ordinarily holding only about a dozen horses. He looked around to find that it was emptied out, except for the two carriage horses. They must have been left in case Ravenhurr wished to travel, which would be unlikely with all his guards and servants scattered over the town, but good servants did not take their master’s transport from him.
In the open central area, he saw both the small carriage and the supply wagon that Ravenhurr used for traveling and carry supplies back and forth to the keep. He looked at it and smiled. With the carriage horses and wagon he could strip a lot of useful items out of the keep.
He went next door to the smith’s and started gathering up tools, and loading them up into the smith’s travel trunk. The nicest tools were in a cabinet, and with a grunt (it was heavy even for him) he picked it up and loaded it into the cart, along with some other useful implements.
He would need to carry as much food as possible as well. He quickly went back into the main keep and wrapped up the mattress from Captain Poir’s bunk and started carrying barrels of flour and other foodstuffs to his pile next to the front entrance. The drudge stared at him with a strange look but did not question his actions.
He then realized that he should go up and check out the laboratory for anything else of value, and check out the dungeon to make sure all the prisoners had been freed. He had brought a proper crow bar from his visit to the smith’s and made short work of the laboratory door. The room had several large circles in the floor and tables and shelves along the side. The shelves held bones and bowls of strange fluids and other items whose uses he could not imagine.
Anything that felt foul he threw into the fireplace, after getting a good flame going. Several books and strange containers ended up in the fire, though he did find two books that felt of magic that he kept. He also found a small statue of a strange green mechanical frog that had that magic tingle to it. He could not imagine its use; it appeared a simple toy, but he put it in his pile to take.
There was a heavy oak cabinet in the corner which he forced open. Inside were large pottery containers, which he had seen before. They held some of the magic powders used to make the circles that were so important to many of the most powerful of the Immortalist’s spells.
He checked the powders for magic and several came off very strong so he added them to the pile. Two came off with the foulest feel yet, even worse than the books in the studio. He could not burn them but knocked them into the middle of the room and then added a couple of the other non-magic powder containers.
In his final action before he left, he used the crow bar to shatter all the bottles, and made sure to mix the powders together. He hopes that would make them impossible to use.
After moving what he wanted to take with him to his pile at the entrance, he headed down the stairs to the dungeon. Rodregas did not want to go down there. Some of his worst memories were from his time down in the dungeon. Too many terrible deeds had occurred there, not that he had done many of them himself, but he had not been able to stop them.
He could have tried to stop the terrible things that had happened, but he had simply chosen to survive instead. He knew the depth of his lack of true courage from his years of failure to act before now. He went through the guardroom and was happy to see that Captain Poir had followed orders; there was no sign of the eight or so prisoners, including his rescued AElfin maiden.
He stared at the problem in the largest cell. There, sprawled on the floor, were the two female Dire Cats that had been used to trap the Celestial lion.
Rodregas swore that as soon as he looked at the cats, they were already looking at him straight in the eye. The large green eyes demanded something of him even as the animals lay in apparent complete relaxation, sprawled on the stone floor. He had to let them out, but how was he going to do that?
If he simply opened the door, they might tear him apart. Rodregas thought the cats may also attack the guard at the front gate on their way out. He looked around and realized that the other side of the hall had a door that opened in the same direction as the door leading to the cage. He opened it up and thought that if he opened the Dire Cats’ door, he could block them from this direction,
while keeping himself safe behind the two doors.
He knew the guards at the gate would be incredibly curious about what he had been doing, but they would not actually do anything to challenge the man they thought was the Sorcerer Ravenhurr. He also knew that he would have to get them out of the way of the Dire Cats. At least that way he could also claim the black yew recurve bows.
Rodregas walked back up the stairs and he thought that it would be a good idea to feed the beasts first, but he did not have time to grab a couple of chickens in the coop next to the kitchen. The sooner he was away from the keep the better.
As Rodregas walked up to the watchtower gates he once again wore the sorcerer’s robe that Captain Poir had fetched for him, but this time he wore it outside of his armor. He climbed the inner stairs until he stepped into the watchtower room at the top. He played it bold, walked up to the staring guard and signaled him to turn around. Then Rodregas proceeded to gag and bind him. The confused guard did not even struggle.
Next, Rodregas went to the front gate and repeated his actions with the lone guard at the gate; he then picked him up and took him to sit with his friend at the top of the gate. He made sure both were securely tied up and blindfolded and took off their weapon harnesses and kept them; their two short swords were nicer than the ones that he had taken from the armory. Both men also had purses with them that jingled with their bonus money in a promising way.
He then headed back to the dungeon, stopping at the chicken coop to let out the chickens. They quickly spread all over the yard. It would be better for the town folk who lived so close to the fort if the Dire Cats were not starving when they left. On his way into the dungeon, he left all the doors propped open so the way out would be clear, and he made sure that all the other doors were closed.
Luckily, the kitchen drudge had locked herself in the kitchen quarters. Rodregas then went back to the dungeon level and opened the opposite door and then the Dire Cats’ prison door and watched. He had expected them to either bolt for it or stay in the “safety” of their room. Instead they both casually got up and walked out, as if they were guests in a fancy inn, with all the time in the world.
As they walked out the door both cats gave him a casual glance as he held the two doors firmly closed together bracing for the weight if they threw themselves at the doors, but they just walked by and headed up the stairs. He wanted to follow, but Rodregas held himself back patiently waiting until it was safe. They might look like lions, but he knew they were smarter than any beast, and they could be setting him up. Finally after waiting what seemed like forever, but was probably only about twenty minutes, Rodregas slowly made his way back up through the keep.
When he poked his head out the entrance there was no sign of Dire Cats or chickens, but he did note a few stray feathers in the courtyard. Other than a few alarmed sounds from the chicken coop, it was surprisingly quiet. Rodregas felt a feeling of relief at the idea that the lions had eaten. Still, he double-checked the keep and the courtyard very carefully before bringing out the cart and the horses and loading up all his booty. The cart groaned with the load. After a last check for Dire Cats in front of the keep he headed out and away from both Raven Keep and Raven Town and away from his old life.
