The Scrolls of Skava

The Ruby Keep - Part 2

     Reaching the other side of the drawbridge, the road passed through a long tunnel through the castle’s outer wall and under a number of rooms and corridors before opening out into a large courtyard a hundred yards across. The ground they were now standing on seemed to consist of powdered ruby that crunched like gravel under their feet, and there were a number of doors and other openings in the four walls around them.

     “Which door shall we take?” asked Dennis, looking nervously from one to another as if expecting a horde of ogres to come charging out at them at any moment.

     They looked around thoughtfully, but suddenly Diana frowned and put a hand to her head. “I feel strange,” she said. “I think...” Her eyes closed and she collapsed to the ground with a soft sigh.

     Shaun stared in horror, but he was also feeling strange. Light headed, as if he'd stood up too fast. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

     Thomas began to speak, but then he reached urgently for his spell components, desperate to cast a defensive spell. Waves of dizziness were sweeping over him, though, and he found to his alarm that he couldn't remember any of the words. His eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed beside the cleric.

     Teasel and Dennis were the next to fall, and Naomi staggered over to Shaun to cling onto his arm, a look of panic on her face. The soldier was unable to offer any support, though, as he also found himself fighting wave after wave of dizziness, and a moment later he also lost consciousness. He and Naomi fell together and landed in a tangled heap, her head on his arm.

     Arroc was the last to fall. He looked around in horror at his companions, lying unconscious on the ground, and felt waves of dizziness beating upon his head. His strong trog constitution had allowed him to last longer than the others, but he knew he only had a few moments before he too succumbed. Unless he could fool them somehow. He let himself fall to the ground, therefore, and pretended to be unconscious while summoning all his willpower in an attempt to stay awake.

     It worked. A moment later the dizziness passed and he heard the crunching footsteps of a number of people walking across the crushed ruby gravel towards them. “Okay, what have we got here?” a man’s voice asked.

     “Four humans,” said another man, and Arroc resisted the impulse to open his eyes a slit to try to see him. Their one chance lay in his lying perfectly still. “A nome, a throwback trog and a felisian.”

     Throwback trog? thought Arroc in confusion. What’s a throwback? Have I been insulted?

     It was the last teamster mentioned that concerned the first speaker, though. “A felisian?” he exclaimed. “What’s a felisian doing here on Tharia?”

     “A spy perhaps,” replied the other. “Or a scout. Who cares? This is the one we’re interested in. The wizard. Give me a hand.”

     There was the sound of grunting and straining, and Arroc imagined Thomas being picked up and slung across the speaker’s shoulders. Then there came the sound of footsteps leading away.

     “Take the others to the waiting room,” the first speaker then said, and Arroc felt himself being picked up and slung across someone’s shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He heard the others also being picked up, and then they were carried across the courtyard to one of the keep’s entrances.

     Now that they were moving, Arroc dared to open his eyes a slit. Behind him he saw Dennis being carried by a man dressed entirely in red, with the design of the two legless dragons sewn above the left breast of his tunic and a ruby held in the middle of his forehead by a metal headband. Behind him, at the back of the procession, Naomi was being carried by another man dressed identically. The soles of her feet showed up brightly in contrast to her dark skin, and her tiger skin had ridden up her back as she was picked up, giving the trog a fine view of her glossy black buttocks.